Bad Boards, Bad Boards, Whatcha gonna do?

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

Big guns, held by reckless hands, already drawn to rob you blind.  Christina is leading the charge.  Pay up, or suffer our wrath -- fewer teachers, bigger class sizes, no textbooks or school supplies!  Extortion is such an ugly word...referendum sounds so much more reasonable.  After all, it's only money;  lots and lots of money.   

All right, I can hear some of you whining right now - you think I'm picking on Christina.  Like I'm oblivious to the antics going on in Colonial.  No sir, I saw it all go down and with certainty, Meney is getting his due.  His board has been searching high and low for a way to dump him for years.  Talk about a mistake.  That $100/hr consulting fee was blood money.  If he wasn't caught red-handed with his hand in the pot, and ratted out to the News Journal, he'd have remained a leach for as long as he could hold on to the cold lifeless student body.

Like the stiff teflon suits over at Colonial, it seems that Christina is also having its own internal battle with Open Meeting Law compliance.  Like shooting fish in a barrel...easy pickins for commentaries.  Blogger, please!  They leave themselves open for criticism with nearly every decision they make.

For starters, they treat their Schneider, their over-paid rookie Stupid-intendent, as an equal and allow her to direct the meetings.  Good god, someone's rolled over and...well, you get the picture.  Talk about Oscar worthy -- Schneider's over-the-top performance during the signing of the MOU "debate" was theatrical gold.  There was posturing, yelling, and even the suggestion of emotional vestment, attempting to over-shadow the life-long financial investment of this monumental death-blow to the district.  Did the board President rebuke her?  Oh, no.  Not only did he sanction her ridiculous and unprofessional behavior, he was at the brink of little-girl tears of joy.  Evidently, she's the wind beneath his wings. 

If she were MY employee, baby would have been kept in the corner and reprimanded accordingly.  She is NOT the voice of the school district.  The schools belong to every tax-payer in Delaware.  We are responsible for electing a board to represent us, not lord over us.  They, in turn, are responsible for hiring a Stupid to mis-manage our hard-earned money, abuse the district's loyal employees, and deprive our school-aged children of a comprehensive education.  Doesn't sound quite right when you think about it, does it?  GOOD!  That's called reading comprehension.  For your edification, it has now been replaced by rote memorization in our schools.        

But I digress...

The only redeeming thing about Christina board meetings now is that they are great place to take fussy "youngsters".  Ten minutes into the pompous proceedings and they're out like a light.   If your kid doesn't fall asleep, the board will expel him.  There are alternative schools that are paid to put up with that crap.  "We are adjudicators here...I mean educators."  Speaking of the elderly Mr. Esquire - quit your day job (and your evening job, while you're at it!).  I can't imagine that you're much of an attorney, based on your blow-hard, preachy exhortations --  "Well, I concur, sir, and I'd like to hear more about our recyclin' project, if the board so deems it appropriate ..."  ZZZZZZZZ (better, and MUCH less addictive, than ambien!)

Last night, there was actually a spark of life on that stage.  Too bad half the audience had walked out and asked for a refund by the time it happened.  Schneider sang the praises of the fifty people (rounded up) who participated in the strategic plan.  A district of 17,000 students and several thousand employees and fifty f-ing people, half of them flying monkeys for the Stupid, actually knew about it.  Obviously strategic, but not much of a plan.  More like stage-one of the great RTTT failing schools give-a-way, tying up loose ends by returning all inner-city high school students to their respective hoods before cutting the schools loose.  A inter-board squabble over whether or not there were actually any focus groups (I guess the honeymoon is over) and then it was finally spoken aloud - the R-word...Referendum.  Then the board covered their heads, anticipating the reaction from the die-hards left in the peanut gallery. 

The blow was tempered with promises of additional public meetings to grease the pig.  Mr. Esquire, in what was either a senior moment or ADHD, starts mumbling about another unrelated meeting, a dispute over blah, blah blah, Title this and Title that, it was a board workshop, there were no posting compliance issues.  WTF?!?  It was pretty hard to follow, but he said they'd be sure they get it right.  For a minute, I forgot he was a sleazy legal weasel who has methodically helped destroyed the district over the last 20 years and felt sorry for the old guy for having a stroke in front of everybody.  I had 9 and 1 already dialed when it started to occur to me that he was just probably just covering his butt for something they screwed up.  The dead give-away of the buried issue was the sudden incongruent continuance of the referendum crap.  Awkward and weird at best. 

What the hell was the old man talking about?  If anyone knows anything about the screw up, I'm game for posting it.  I watched little miss Children and Educators shuffling lots of papers, listened to the Professor start and stop a thought out loud, and C&E comes out swinging, correcting the preacher man, with documentation about an earlier March meeting that was not posted in compliance with the Freedom of Information Act.  Scandalous! (possibly)  Regardless, more life than I've seen out of this board in a LONG time.   

Well, I'm tired, I'm old, and I'm hanging up my reporter hat for the night.  This entry was a bit of a departure for me but I thought I'd just share my view of the theater of the bizarre from the cheap seats, so I can get to sleep (on the off chance that I still have a job tomorrow).