K K K Katie

Its a new day and I’m not going to bother commenting on all the members of our new superintendent’s council after all. I’ll stick to one of them, Katie Kaufman.

In some ways its not really fair for me to pick on a particular member of the School Administration. I’m a private citizen and can shoot my mouth off with impunity whereas poor old public servants have to suffer in silence. On the other hand, as the chief writer and dispenser of the School Board majority’s point of view Katie has no doubt taken anonymous delight in contradicting and pooh poohing my own pooh poohs of the Red Plan.

The School District is rather like the weather inasmuch as its something everyone feels free to complain about. All school districts need sticking up for. I don’t recall exactly when Katie came on board as a low paid PR person but it could have been shortly after Superintendent Julio Almanza got into an unnecessary war with the DNT Editors in 2001. Her charge then was to tell the community about all the good things going on in the District and make sure nothing worthy of praise was overlooked. To this end Katie was efficient and made sure that lists of all the good things going on in the District got published regularly.

After my retirement from the Board I was tapped to sit on the District’s Endowment Committee to help the District raise money. Our group, which I joined with Superintendent Dixon’s wife, relied on Katie to broadcast our good work of handing out grants to teachers with good ideas in need of a bit of financing. I would describe Katie as businesslike.

Shortly after Dr. Dixon’s arrival he removed a grant writer from his office (she had gotten in the way of his power to oversee grant spending) and Katie and Dr. Dixon’s wife moved in next to the Superintendent’s office. Katie kept up the roll call of good things in the schools and gradually took over most of the District’s pro Red Plan PR. This meant that as the community (egged on by me and my allies) kept pointing out Red Plan problems Katie took on most of the burden for refuting us. Eventually Katie was given a contract, a pay raise and much more job security. She no doubt felt great loyalty to Dr. Dixon who had taken care of her so well. I have little doubt that she grew equally loyal to Dr. Dixon’s primary concern the Red Plan and found my constant criticism of her boss outlandish.

What was outlandish to me was the deference the Duluth News Tribune gave the District’s PR person.

I only discovered this when Let Duluth Vote scratched up the funds for a full page ad to point out problems with the Red Plan and requesting a referendum. The District, not surprisingly, posted a two-page rejoinder ad at the public’s expense to contradict our charges. That was fair enough. What wasn’t fair was my discovery that the District got to read our full page ad a couple days before it was published by the Duluth News Tribune. I discovered this because the District’s ad contradicted a passage in our ad that Let Duluth Vote removed before publication. Someone at the Trib had given our ad to the District in advance. We have subsequently found that a great many of our letters to the editor have similarly been handed over for review prior to publishing, mine included. In many cases the Trib’s editors have demanded that we make changes. This one-way editing has been most aggravating especially since so many of the District’s phony claims have been put in the Tribune without any serious scrutiny. This has only served to make the Trib’s editors look like dupes. Remember their happy announcement of $34 million dollars soon to fall into the School Board’s hands?

That Katie Kaufman has become the chief voice of the District has not gone unnoticed by me. Neither has the deference given her by the Trib. Neither have her mistakes. I have presumed that Katie has been the chief ghost writer for most members of the Duluth School Board when they have taken pains to defend themselves or the Red Plan or cast stones at their critics. Certainly many of the incumbents who have supported the Red Plan fail repeatedly in spoken discourse to effectively explain or defend the plan. As a consequence defenders of the plan like the gentlemen from Hibbing and Move Duluth Forward speak with an otherworldly unanimity rater like Rush’s Dittoheads.

Now I read that Katie the public relations spokesman is one of the four members of Dr. Foster’s inner circle. But she is hardly an objective analyst of the District. She continues to be the chief cheer leader for the Red Plan. I would be hard pressed to think of any top heavy organization that includes its PR spokesman as a top administrator. Previous Superintendent’s cabinets included the top finance officers and vice superintendents with vast experience as school principals.

Dr. Foster has but one administrator with experience as a principal and in his case it is not much more than four year’s worth. Everyone else on Dr. Foster’s council is consumed with the building and completion of the Red Plan. For the best advice Dr. Foster will want to get away from subordinate consumed with defending the decisions of the past and who are focused on pulling the District out of quicksand.

And Katie keeps getting advance notice of criticism by critics writing into the Trib. I recently learned that Loren Martell offered a small treatise to the Budgeteer to be placed as paid advertising. He was told the Budgeteer would take a look at it and get back to him about whether they would take his advertising money to publish it. (I’m sure the District pays them a lot more for pro Red Plan ads) No doubt Katie Kaufman has read it over thoroughly and prepared a defense for the people who shut off the microphones of their critics – including those writing into Fargo Forum publications!

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