I like to tell my students that my primary job as a philosophy, religion and English teacher is to irritate them. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.

I get to irritate them by making think about things that they would rather not think about. I get to ask questions, and questions are irritating, aren’t they? They force us to stay awake at night thinking of answers that could work. They force us to think. And, as anyone who has vegged out in front of the TV at the end of a long day can attest, thinking is hard, and we would rather avoid it whenever possible.

That’s why asking questions is important: because we’re mostly lazy and prefer to veg.

It’s easier when we know (or think we know) the answers; it allows us to forget about things and relax. But when we’re relaxed, we don’t learn anything. When we’re relaxed, our elected officials do things like give themselves raises while they ignore their jobs.

And so after a week of relaxing at the beach, I’m irritated again. There are just too many unanswered questions with this board and our new superintendent. (Can he still be considered new with all that he’s managed to get the board to unanimously support? I mean in three months, he’s closed one school, proposed combining four schools into two, and hired his friends from Aurora at exorbitant salaries. In short, no one can criticize him for failing to be active.)

Here’s a short list of a few unanswered questions, in no particular order:

• Why is the superintendent, with 11 months experience, making $55,000 above the minimum posted salary?
• Why is the deputy superintendent making $7,000 above the maximum posted salary?
• Why is the new CSFO making $130,000 a year (or $16,000 more than the previous CSFO)?
• Why have all three of the senior members of the central office all come from Aurora, Colorado?
• Why has the board unanimously approved 142 of 147 recommendations, most without discussion? (Only 5 have received any dissenting votes. All 147 recommendations from January through August have been approved.)
• Why is the board discussing bonuses for the Superintendent and senior staff when they have frozen everyone else’s salaries?
• Why are there different policies for hiring administrative staff and teachers where administrators get to name their own salaries, while teachers cannot be hired for more than the state-minimum?
• Why is the special education budget being cut from FY2011 to FY2012 by $7 million making up 61% of the total savings projected in the budget from FY2011 to FY2012?
• Why have 25 special education coordinators/therapists been moved out of the central office?
• Why is the only standard for success used by the board that, “we’re not being sued?”
• Why was the FY2012 budget approved before responding to public questions?
• Why does the superintendent need so many aides?

So there you go. Twelve questions that the superintendent and the board have still not even attempted to answer in the last three months. Note, I have not asked Dr. Wardynski nor the board any questions about decisions that were made before Dr. Wardynski began in July. (People are often suggesting to me that I should just give him time. After all, he’s only been here a few month.) These are the decisions that Dr. Wardynski is responsible for. I am not holding him accountable for decisions that were made before he began. All of these occurred on his watch.

Dr. Wardynski and the board are responsible for these decisions, but they’re not answering these questions.

So, why do I keep asking them? I keep asking these questions because I care about the future of our school system, and if these decisions are any indication, it would seem that the leadership of our school system does not.

If they cared, they would spend money on students rather than the central office. If they cared, they would share the cuts needed to balance the budget rather than increase their own salaries before they even start. If they cared, they would make students a priority rather than an after thought. If they cared, they would set their standards higher than, “we’re not being sued.”

But they don’t.

And so it’s the responsibility of ever member of this community who cares about education and the quality of our schools to continue to ask these questions (and thousands of others like them) every day.

So I’m asking you to take a stand.

If you believe that these are valid and important questions that should be answered, contact your board member and Dr. Wardynski and ask them. If you think that students should be a higher priority, make your school board and central office respond to your questions. If you know of other important questions that I don’t know about, share them. (I’m not the brightest bulb in this town.) Ask your own questions, and share the answers you receive so the rest of us can learn from your experience.

Never, ever stop asking questions.

There maybe will be a board meeting scheduled for tomorrow night (Tuesday, October 11, 2011) at 5:30pm at the Merts Center, 200 White Street, North. This meeting should have has an item on the agenda for public comments at the end of the meeting. (The meeting was announced several weeks ago, but there is currently nothing on the website about the meeting, so it may or may not be happening. The agenda has not yet been published on the web.  The agenda was just published tonight. They are supposed to publish this information 24 hours before the meeting, but they’ve missed that deadline. Once it has been, I’ll share the relevant details here later.)

So what can we do about these unanswered questions?

Come to the meeting and ask questions. Ask them during the meeting. Ask them after the meetings. Ask them via email. Ask them via phone calls. Follow the board and the superintendent around the city, and ask them these questions when they make public appearances. Ask for meetings with your board member and the Superintendent to ask them these questions.

This is the only way that the system will become responsive to and concerned about our students and our community.

I cannot do this alone. They’re used to me, and they’re happy to ignore me and my questions. You and I can hold them accountable if we’re willing to take the time to ask the question every good teacher teaches their kindergartners to ask:

Why?

Join me tomorrow night to irritate our school system’s leadership.

The post Irritating Unanswered Questions appeared first on Geek Palaver.

On Sunday, September 16, 2001, I had the responsibility of coming up with words to fill the void that was very much alive and screaming from five days earlier. Those words were inadequate to the task.

Yes, poets, priest and politicians all have words to thank for their position. And I have played, at some level, all three.

But today requires something more than words can capture.

It requires an acknowledgement that sometimes, we just need to hush and listen. Even if there’s nothing to hear.

The post September 11, 2011: Silence appeared first on Geek Palaver.

Truth is in the details.

– Stephen King, Duma Key

Questions keep me up at night; especially when they involve my kids. Here are some involving Huntsville City Schools, the decisions that are being made about both of my children, and the direction of the HCS Board of Education. As I’ve argued before, questions are important. If you have a child in Huntsville City Schools–even a child who is not affected by the Special Needs changes that the Superintendent is implementing–these questions should be important to you as well, for they deal with issues that affect all of our kids.

• How many of the approximately 420 people who have already been pink-slipped, directly and regularly interacted or provided services to Special Needs students? Dr. Richardson claimed when making his report that he had not considered Special Education at all in the budget cuts he was recommending. This is a misleading statement. Here are some details we do know: Of the 137 cuts made in the first round, 65 were Instructional Assistants who work with Special education students. In his presentation to the board in April, Richardson recommended the firing of 45 Probationary Support Employees. He recommended the firing of 77 NonProbationary Support Employees. He recommended the cancellation of 216 Contracted Support Personnel. These numbers represent primarily Instructional Aides and Custodial Staff. As he is fully aware, the vast majority (perhaps as high as 100%) of the Instructional Aides, and every single one of the adapted PE teachers who will be released were employed to work with Special Needs students. 338 of the cuts are classified as “Support Personnel.” Thus, potentially 80% of the cuts to personnel have direct impact on Special Needs Children. Until we have the exact numbers, this will be my working assumption. If the board thinks my calculation is too high, I will be happy for them to prove me wrong with specific numbers.
  
• Where are the central office cuts? Dr. Moore, Dr. Richardson, and the Board have repeatedly stated that cuts must be made. Dr. Richardson laid our $23 million in cuts to address a $19.5 million deficit, but his plan included not one single cut to the central office. When discussing the cuts that are being made to Special Education, Dr. Moore recently claimed that they had been “overly generous” but offers no evidence supporting this claim as it relates to Special Education. The only area where the claim of “overly generous” applies is to the central office. Yet, the central office is currently facing no cuts. When asked at the end of his presentation about this “oversight,” Dr. Richardson claimed that the central office would face cuts at some point in the future. Here are some details we do know: The Huntsville central office employees 500 people. The Madison County central office employees 11. Madison County has 20% fewer students in it’s system than Huntsville City. Huntsville City has 99.8% more people working in it’s central office.
• Why won’t Ms. Sledge and Dr. Moore put their segregation plan in writing as Ms. Sledge promised she would on April 6th? I’ve written about this here.
• Why hasn’t the Board, as they claimed they would do on March 16th, insisted that Ms. Sledge and Dr. Moore present their plan for Board input and approval before they implement their plan? I’ve written about this here and here.
• Why does the Board need to pay an outsider (Dr. Richardson) to propose a scorched earth approach to the budget crisis they have created? His advice is bad. He isn’t being straightforward in his claims. He’s free to leave as soon as he has collected his check without any accountability for his decisions.
• Why is Dr. Moore still implementing policy without oversight from the Board even though she was fired twelve months ago?
• Why is the Board of Education limiting Public Comment and Participation?
• Why isn’t the Huntsville City Schools’ budget published on the system’s website for public review? Many other Boards publish extensive budget information on their websites. Why doesn’t HCS?
• Why does Huntsville City Schools have more instances of Mediation and Due Process than any other system in the state? From 2004-2008, Huntsville City Schools had 121 incidents of Dispute Resolution. The next largest number was 93 from Birmingham City Schools. BCS has approximately 3,000 more students than HCS.
• Finally, why is the central office and the board of education so adverse to transparency in their budget-making, policy-making and implementation? It is reasonable to assume that when someone refuses to share the motivation behind their decisions as Ms. Sledge and Dr. Moore have done that they have something to hide. It is reasonable to assume that when Dr. Richardson hides the specific details of the cuts he is recommending and that the board has approved (like the impact these cuts will have on special education) that they are aware that the cuts are being inordinately placed upon one specific population of the system who had nothing to do with getting us into this financial predicament.

These, and likely many more, are questions that need to be addressed immediately. We the public, the parents, the people who care the most because we live here (unlike consultants from outside) need to insist that the board, and the superintendent answer. The truth is in the details that we must insist our board and superintendent provide.

Those details will, I believe, set our system and our children free.

The post Questions for HCS Board of Education, Superintendent, and Consultant appeared first on Geek Palaver.

Why does a great deli give away ice cream but not wifi?

Why does the same deli offer to carry food to two guys, but not to me and the girl?

Why can I write a new post on my iPhone, but I can’t respond to MrEd’s wise cracks about understanding inerrancy better than I do on it?

Why does the girl act tired at 6:30 but not at 11:30?

Why does coke taste so much better than pepsi?

Why do little old ladies like to give me the finger when I’m trying to help them?

Why are students surprised by their grades when they haven’t shown up enough for me to learn their names?

Why do I have so many books and so little time?

Why does the boy like to jump naked? (Okay, that one I kind of get . . .)

Why do smart dogs do stupid things?

Why do little girls and boys have to grow up?

The post Why? appeared first on Geek Palaver.