This was the last paragraph in today’s editorial from the DNT:
Openness and transparency are the very least any constituent could ask. There’s no reason to believe Grover or anyone else intentionally tried to suppress public opinion or quiet the voice of the people. But a written policy is in place to assure the input in letters and e-mails is part of the public record. It’s on Grover, Johnston and the rest of the board — as well as future boards — to make sure the policy is followed, without question and without exception.
I can say categorically that the Trib editors are naive and wrong.
Many of us have suspected for a very long time that Dr. Dixon was intentionaly hiding this part of the public record from his school board.
Many people have written letters in opposition to the school board over three years. And yet the pro Red Plan school board members kept assuring the public that the plan’s favorables were running far in excess of the negatives. I have no doubt that that was part of Dr. Dixon’s plan to keep his Board in ignorance and behind him.
Although I couldn’t recall that policy precisely word for word from my days on the Board I’m not at all surprised to read it. I’m only surprised at how clear it is and how deliberately it was violated. But then this board has ingnored a great many policies drawn up by previous school boards over a century of practice.
Teachers are not exempt from Board policy and in fact could be penalized for not following it. And yet the policy is no longer put into printed form.
Its quite long even though a top administrator edited it down by about half fifteen or so years ago. When I was on the Board and had to consult it it was helpful to have the enitire three ring binder available to go through the sections. Dr. Dixon began a new policy of limiting the policy’s to the District’s website which does make it available to the public but much less convenient for Board members unaquainted with their own long established history of policy. That makes it so much easier to ignore for both the Board and the Administration. Frankly, policies can be changed when necessary or even suspended. Under Dr. Dixon’s tenure that practice too has largely gone on hiatus. Our Board simply does what it wants to do (meaning what Dr. Dixon wants it to do) as though there is no past practice or policy to follow. Its so much quicker to do things without strings attached.
Its also much quicker to drive down highways at whatever speed a vehicle is capable of rather than obeying the speed limit. Whether blissful ignorance is better or not, however, may depend on whether one avoids an accident. In the case of our Board such accidents might be things like a four-day school week, or increased class sizes, or eliminated programs, or stranding half the teachers or, or, or……..the list goes on and on.
BTW – Tim Grover served on the Board for ten years before Dr. Dixon arrived and was perfectly aware of the policy to make all communications available to the Board members and the public. Its becoming distressingly obvious that Dr. Dixon’s ethics have rubbed off on the Chairman.
