Someone needs to get a clue to all of the administrators within the Hillsborough County Public Schools. When there is a problem brewing, relegating and isolating the problem to one person or one department is like gluing the lid on a pressure cooker. Eventually, the whole mess is going to explode like hell. They may get away with it for years, but the fallout from this practice is costly for human resources.
In the HASA April 09 minutes, there is a recommendation that if a person speaks to the Board with a complaint, the speaker should be "referred to the appropriate level supervisor".
Someone set me straight on this, but it has been my experience that, for the most part, when someone brings a complaint to the Board, it is after they have exhausted all other avenues to address their concerns to no avail. By the time they have worked up the emotional energy to go speak to the board, they are usually at their wit's end. Why send them back to the very people that they have been dealing with already?
Since the Erwin case has been well exposed as an example of this type of narrow-minded thinking, take another look at what happened at the latest Alafia Elementary debacle. According to the information I have, both Ken Otero and Sherrie Sikes had been involved with that issue for quite some time. Both of those people, by all accounts that I know of, are fairly well respected for their administrative abilities. Why send people back to them if they can't solve the problem?
Look at what happened when "town meetings" were held. If sending this problem back to the proper supervisors was such a good idea, why did the Superintendent show up to answer questions?
What may be the elephant, or the 600 pound gorilla, in the room that no one is willing to expose, is that there are hidden agendas and covert exertions that work against common sense solutions. As an example, suppose there is an ongoing legal battle that the District is engaged in, unknown to most people. Along comes another incident that is similar to the one under litigation. To expose this new incident would be jeopardizing the liability of the ongoing case, especially if the ongoing case is dealing with alleged systemically repeated problems. Under this type of situation, the District's reaction may seem drastic to what, to all involved, is perceived as a real "isolated incident".
I have seen this several times in my limited experience. I will repeat what I have said before: When decisions at the table do not make sense, the real decision makers are not sitting at the table.
Anyone else see it that way?
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I don't understand the dilemma according to HASA. I don't know what problem they are attempting to address. Apparently, it has something to do with complaints by speakers at board meetings. What instigated it and brought it to the attention of HASA? Is it that too many people are complaining? If so, what is the threshold that indicates too many complainers?
What is the problem exactly?
The Board is for the people, voted by the people, and now they can't be burdened by their complaints? Are you kidding me?
The quicker we all realize that they ONLY care about themselves and the "ROSSAC Club," the better off we all will be.
I learned this a few years back: I know that my principal, administration, school board, and superintendent don't give a darn about me or the work I do for the kids. I am like a glorified sub in their eyes, and I can be easily replaced. Look at the decision with DROP. They only care about self-promotion and appearances. This realization helps me to say "no" to bringing all the work home, which was hurting my marriage and kids. I say "no" to favors and extras, and I don’t lose a wink of sleep at night.
The problems on the board are repeated in one way or another at every level in this county, and the kids and teachers suffer.
I think it first surfaced in HASA in December 2008.
http://www.hasaonline.com/minutes/dec08.pdf
According to the minutes, the concern was about parents "speaking in opposition to the principal of their school. One must assume that this came from the Alafia Elementary debacle.
The minutes go on to say that there was a HASA Board discussion, and there was nothing they could do to keep parents from speaking to the Board, but they were going to research it to see how they could stop it.
After reading the HASA minutes from the last few meetings, there seems to be a pervasive push and/or belief that the District does not have to listen to naysayers. This mindset seems to resist repeated statements that public comments have federal protections.
When power and authority doesn't work, "they" are stuck, so therefore, "they" exert more "power and authority".
It has also been my experience that there is a mindset of more than a few District people who have the perception that the public is part of their (District's) rank and file system.
In other words, they treat employees and parents, that raise the level of their unsolved concerns, with the same disdain, and expect parents to not be "insubordinate", when actually parents can be a lot of things to a public school employee, but insubordinate is not one of them.
There is a lot to this. Fear of exposure is one of them. Entrenched arrogance, fawned by their self embellishment and insulation from "the outside", is another.
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