On a glacier in Norway

April Griffin says on her blog "Sound off and Be Heard":

...when people do come forward and feel retaliated against I need to know about it so I can engage in the situation. I will not tolerate doing business that way.

I left this response to the above on Ms. Griffin's blog:

The excerpt from your Web site to a teacher encourages me to believe you will contact Bruce Burnham, Ms. Griffin, and review his retaliation complaint that Mr. Hutek, Armwood principal, stripped him of his honors classes in history and gave them to first- and second-year teachers. Bruce's offense was using his First-Amendment rights to tell board members that the new class that Elia loaded onto teachers to solve her budget problems was bad for teachers, students, and education.

Bruce said he had been prominent in speaking out against the extra class Ms. Elia downloaded on teachers. This action, we recall, did not get one murmur from you board members on the podium. Not one board member gave a welcoming word to the many teachers who came to protest. Not one board member said they were glad to have the teachers' views. In fact, the board stared with surly resentment at the teachers who came to board mike to speak against the extra class.

I am sure everyone would be interested in your posting whether you will contact Bruce Burnham and Armwood principal Hutek and provide Bruce and the school family the data that these contacts produce.


lee

April Griffin said...Anonymous 9:48,

Change takes time. I can not undo decades of culture overnight.

Lee says:

Dr. Martin Luther King said when he wrote his "Letter from the Birmingham City Jail" that time is neutral. It's what we do to fill it that makes the difference said King after his confrontation with "Bull" Connor, the police dogs, and the snarling citizens of Birmingham.

Griffin and Valdes are the only two board members who show even minimal concern for the schools as a whole, not merely for Elia and the ROSSAC’s culture.

While the school family should be glad these two do what they do, teachers should not be chumps and accept crumbs. They should demand of board members that they fully engage in helping the whole school family.

Ms. Griffin speaks of the joy that a recent conference gave her on a vision of what the schools can become at some magical future time. Vision conferences are smoke and mirrors depicting sugar plums dancing on moonbeams while, back in the world of reality, principals savage teachers for using their First-Amendment rights to address the school board.

Retaliating against a veteran teacher by jerking away his honor history courses and giving them to junior teachers is more important than visions, however delightsome they be. Paying attention to business demands that an elected official who gives a damn about the Constitution should lock and load to carry out the laws of the land she swore to uphold in her oath of office.

All the conferences of the board and administration on gauzy "visions" of future ideal schools will not change the grotesque real events that unfold all over the district in the here and the now.

To see what is in front of her should be the top priority for board member Griffin. To deal with the problems that afflict teachers and students right now should be front and center for Griffin and any other board member who has real dedication to good schools.

Board members must not get caught up in Laputan visionary meetings and conferences and dialogues and dreaming and chewing the fat about the sweet bye and bye. The board has done far too much of that while the superintendent and her administrative sidekicks have walked off with the store. Seeing visions is exhilarating, soothing, tranquilizing. But keeping feet on the ground and listening to teachers and students--the heart and soul of education--should be a serious board member's first priority.

Board members must do something about the evils right in front of their nose is this citizen's advice. That's what you all promised voters when you ran for the board. You said you would change things. You didn't mention not having time then to change the schools for the better; you didn't say when you campaigned for office that change is a will-o-the-wisp that ever flies before you and that you don't know that you will ever catch up with it because your agenda has too many vision conferences to take care of the homely stuff that involves running the schools for the good of the public, the teachers, the students, and education..

So board members must keep that promise to the voters and change the schools now. They should help teachers and students now. They must hear the call of the need for change now--not after they have luxuriated in all those delicious fantasies spun in vision conferences. lee