It's Like Getting Praised By the Devil; Plus, How to Alienate Folks Who Already Dislike You

Item #1

Lebanon Superintendent Jim Robinson was quoted in the Lebanon Express story regarding his return thusly:

Robinson said he believes he can continue to work with the board despite the events of the past two months.

“I do believe in the board majority with its new member and I stand for the same cause, we want harmony and peace and a stronger sense of community,” he said. “We're quite a ways from that, but we're prepared to pursue it.”

That strikes me as not quite the best thing he could have said. Since Robinson is viewed as the devil incarnate by lots of folks, having Robinson praise Debi Shimmin (she is the "new member" of the majority board) does not strike me as helpful. It seems like it will push the anti-Robinson crowd farther away from Shimmin - and may or may not serve to push her into the Robinson camp. It could actually serve to push her away from Robinson, since, to me at least, the quote could be interpreted as assuming Shimmin's allegiance to Robinson.

In other words, all that stuff about "harmony and peace and a stronger sense of community?" It was etched on to the shell casing of the cartridge that Robinson just used to shoot himself (or Shimmin, or both) in the foot with. Not smart.

It's amazing sometimes how much the words and actions of Robinson don't seem to match up. His books talk about leadership, but by all accounts, his abrasive leadership style is what got him in trouble. He talks about building community, then says something that could serve to drive a wedge in between people. I mean, his comment about the new board majority also suggests some sort of permanence to that majority, and I wouldn't be so sure that's the case. And if I'm Robinson and I'm serious about changing and serious about working together to build a community, I don't start by suggesting that two board members don't matter. That seems counterproductive and hypocritical.

I don't get it.


Item #2

The Democrat-Herald ran a story on the latest board meeting that featured lots of stuff on the discussion the board had around the potential district evaluation. My favorite bit:

Assistant Superintendent Steve Kelley repeatedly encouraged the board to keep the investigations in house, saying the district would save money and reap greater benefits by having people work closely together to solve the issues.

Board members who replied to Kelley’s statements, however, said they preferred to enlist a consultant or other outside entity to work on the study in addition to any evaluation the district might do.

Kelley also pleaded for the board to first set a big-picture priority, such as creating a community with a shared sense of belonging and a profession of common beliefs and shared values, as listed on a values statement that hangs on a wall in the board chamber.

The process is what’s important, Kelley said. “The thing I don’t think we’ve learned to do is to agree to disagree respectfully.”

This is dumb. Well, maybe just insulting. I get that in-house stuff is cheaper. That's the nature of in-house work. But there's only two viable reasons I see for Kelley to propose that the evaluation be done in-house:

1. He genuinely believes that is the best option, probably both based on cost and based on his (likely) belief that nothing has happened that warrants an outside evaluator.

2. Robinson and Kelley are rubbing sand in the faces of the folks they just beat, politically.

Come to think of it, I don't think the two options are mutually exclusive. By suggesting that the evaluations are done in-house, Kelley is, in political terms, not showing a willingness to compromise. And since Kelley and Robinson are a team at this point, it also suggests that Robinson is not willing to compromise. Not what I would call a smart move on his part; even if Robinson is basking in the glory of being reinstated (which he shouldn't be), he should at least have the good political sense to not push things so quickly. Doing so only reinforces the idea that he uses power, not compromise, as a primary tool to get things done.

At this point, it seems reasonable to assume that a) something is actually wrong in the district, simply based on the number of people with advanced degrees who are seriously pissed; and b) it's worth spending the extra money to hire an outside (and neutral, both in fact and in appearance) evaluator if that is something that satisfies the folks who are upset. I don't mean placate, especially in the usual pandering/condescending sense; I am suggesting that hiring an outside evaluator rather than going in-house is a good basis for compromise when it comes to the pro-/anti-Robinson forces, especially those on the school board. An in-house evaluation will likely not be taken seriously by anti-Robinson folks, as they already think that Robinson has a hammerlock on anything that happens in the district office.

I'm not sure what Robinson is thinking with this one, either, not really. There is no way that people are going to voluntarily disconnect Kelley's statements from Robinson's, and this move just looks like a power move of exactly the kind that has angered so many people.

I have been inclined to take Robinson's claims that he wants to change the way he operates seriously, both based on my own personal inclinations and the stories that have appeared suggesting he was in the process of realizing he needed to change before he got suspended. But these two examples don't exactly reassure me that Robinson is really intending to build a whole community. It sounds like he is angling to take a chunk of the support from the opposition and use his new and improved majority as a new and improved club. Not cool.