I read the little summary of the taxpayer’s hearing in the hard copy of the Trib that was delivered to my door just now. I wanted to link to the story but I couldn’t find it online. Maybe holding info back from the website is part of a strategy to keep people from dropping their subscriptions. I poked around and found something else I’d missed beforea column written by the Executive Editor Rob Karwath. It wasn’t really news to me or to any Duluth School Parent but seems to suggest that the School District like the Trib actually has the power to inform if it so chooses. Karwath was explaining the Trib’s handling of two recent school bomb threats:
But it still felt inconsistent. Swing wondered aloud in our Thursday afternoon news meeting, “Maybe we need to reconsider how we handle these.” One reason, she said: “It seems as if the schools themselves are handling them differently these days.”
Indeed they are, said Duluth Superintendent Keith Dixon. It’s the result of advances in technology and a belief that transparency is the best way to approach communication with students, parents and the community – on this and other subjects.
“Fear of the unknown is often worse than the actual factual information,” Dixon said.
So schools in Duluth and nationwide have opened up communication. The Duluth district has invested in technology that allows it to quickly make recorded phone calls to parents when news breaks.
“We can call all parents at one school in an hour or less,” Dixon said, “and we probably can call the whole district in a couple of hours.”
I don’t know if or when the duplicity of Dr. Dixon’s Administration will get past letters to the editor and on to the front page. Maybe its my fault. In retrospect I’ve probably been far too civil about Dr. Dixon for Duluth’s good. I know that will sound laughable to some of the Superintendent’s groupies, lackeys aiders and abettors. I’ve only written what I was pretty certain of or pointed out things that seem fishy. Liar is a pretty strong word and my readers have seen it used here in connection with the Superintendent many times recently. If I bother to keep harping on Dr. Dixon’s rapacity. . .Sorry, not PG approved you will see more such references and examples. That’s if I bother.
If our struggle to shine the light of day on this dark episode is thwarted because of a million dollar bond I will probably retire from the fight and cross my fingers for Duluth.
Back to my original carp.
So Dr. Dixon is aware of the District’s phone system which can call parents within hours to tell them about bomb threats and such. He just won’t let it be used to inform parents of meetings about issues that will affect their children like boundary changes and risk their showing up to bad mouth the miseries of the Red Plan. Like the Tribune Dr. Dixon figures that what they don’t know won’t hurt them.
