Lebanon School Board Meeting: Sand Ridge Charter School

Continued, basically, from last night's post... only this one is really, really long.

Part Six: Sand Ridge (the battle of Sand Ridge?)

Up until this point, the entire board, including Rick Alexander, had been getting along fairly well both between themselves and with the D.O. staff. Bear that mind.

There were officially three items on the agenda that dealt with Sand Ridge: The Administration's Report, the "Notice of Intent on Renewal" and something titled "Determine Renewal Status of Sand Ridge or Set Meeting to Do So."

Perhaps a little complex, but nothing too crazy.

Sprenger started off by noting the three agenda items and proposed that they start with the Admin Report and follow with a discussion. No one objected.

Robinson, rather than go through everything himself, broke down the report and had various people cover their respective sections. He went first.

Robinson:

He covered the remarks made at the public hearing. There were lots and lots of positive comments about Sand Ridge, which he applauded. My favorite: "the only option for students who are struggling elsewhere." (Possible translation: Have been expelled from other district schools.)

There were also lots of negative comments from the public hearing about the district as the "enemy," which he deplored (and rightly so). He was very clear about wanting to get to the root of that perception and correct it by building relationships between the Sand Ridge and LCSD communities. Unlike other times I've seen him try to be generous and welcoming, I thought this was very, very genuine. (Apparently Robinson is a fan of charter schools, so this makes sense.)

Robinson ended his remarks about Sand Ridge with the line "Sand Ridge must - it must - continue to operate." He was, frankly, passionate and fired up. I'd never seen him like that in a board meeting.

At that point, he shifted gears, noting that the district had "major and significant issues" with PIE. (While he did not elaborate, his staff later did.) Robinson then alluded to a list of nine recommendations his staff had developed that he wanted the board to choose from and that would be presented at the end of the admin report.

Steve Kelley:

Kelley talked about the history the district had with Sand Ridge and PIE in terms of the district trying to ensure that Sand Ridge complied with the terms of the contract between PIE and the LCSD. Basically, he went over a timeline of instances and ways in which PIE had failed to respond (literally not returning phone calls or emails) to LCSD concerns regarding both compliance with state law and the contract. I was also impressed with Kelley's open tone and lack of hostility - though it makes sense, since Kelley himself noted he'd been the principal of a charter school before he came to Lebanon.

Paul Dakopolos:

Dakopolos started with something that I thought was important: That PIE's failure to notify the district of its intent to open another school was a material breach of contract that could result in the termination of the contract if not corrected. Interestingly, none of the Sand Ridge supporters seemed to care. Dakopolos was clear to say that the Board could choose to either change the reality on the ground or the contract, but it could not do nothing. "The toothpaste is out of the tube," he said.

He was very, very careful to note that the contract was something the Board wanted and owned, and that it was the Board's choice to change it or not.

After that, his two related concerns were liability and money.

1. Liability: Basically, the issue was the PIE, in violation of the contract, had opened both another charter school (in Sweet Home) and a fully private pre-K school in Lebanon. He was concerned that since PIE was "one nonprofit running three schools," there was no way to keep separate Lebanon's interests in Sand Ridge and PIE when it came to a lawsuit or other legal action against PIE.

This is an obviously legitimate concern from a legal point of view. To suggest otherwise is to deny reality.

2. Money: Arm-in-arm with liability, Dakopolos was concerned - and thought the board should be concerned - that PIE does not track funding received from different sources separately (this was echoed in no uncertain terms by Donna Chastain). In other words, Dakopolos was worried that Lebanon dollars were being spent on the other two schools operated by PIE - and that there was no way to know when this was happening, or to what extent.

Again, an obviously legitimate concern. Frankly, I'm a little shocked that this was at all controversial, though again, the Sand Ridge supporters in the room didn't bat an eye.

Dakpolos was also careful in noting that having one nonprofit run two charter schools is legal - he just wanted the board to consider whether or not it was a good idea. His recommendation was to change the contract to require a separate entity for Sand Ridge to provide "operational assurances."

Rick looked like he wanted to attack Dakopolos when he said that. I have no idea why.

Donna Chastain:

She spent a looooong time going through a list of contractual and state law violations related to Sand Ridge and PIE's policies and procedures. I won't rehash the whole list - I didn't take notes on all of it anyway. I did think that her presentation was simultaneously very effective on merit and very counterproductive in terms of building a bridge between PIE and the LCSD. I think it came across to the SR supporters as an attack - but all of Chastain's points were simply her trying to get SR and PIE to comply with the law & contract. I wish she would have pointed that out more often and more clearly. Sometimes professionalism gets in the way.

There were a few things I wanted to note:

1. Chastain had found an "us vs. them" mentality in the meeting minutes of the PIE board.

No crap. However, since the PIE/SR folks obviously think the district hates them, I would suggest an approach that doesn't bring up conflict (doing so being tantamount to acknowledging the truth of the Sand Ridge approach, as counterintuitive as that might sound) but instead publicly ignores it in favor of simply offering to be the first to give something up to bridge-building.

By the way, I think Robinson did just that with his whole approach and presentation. It was just Chastain who mentioned it. Again, she's correct on the merit, but LCSD School Boards meetings are their own alternate reality, so she loses on political grounds.

2. Chastain noted that PIE fails to inform the district about a whole host of things that are required by contract & law, including the presence of more than one sexual harassment case as well as the possibility that SR had improperly denied overtime to classified (custodial?) staff through misclassification of their job status.

The total of the content of Chastain's recommendations can be summed up as follows: 1) Develop a procedure governing [problem X]; 2) "You'd want the auditors to come and look at that."

Again, she was professional, but the effect was to have a district representative eviscerate SR, which did not play well in the proverbial Peoria of the crowd.

The cumulative effect was to make SR's operations more professional. I am starting to wonder if the SR supporters explicitly or implicitly reject that, setting it in opposition to perhaps a DIY ethic or even an anti-government/old-school libertarian ethic.

Whatever the merits of either of those, I would hope that PIE can at least acknowledge the legal realities of modern U.S. society. I'm starting to think they can't.

Also, I wonder if they reject the Enlightenment model of professional expertise on something like an unconscious epistemological level - the "we have always done it this way and we don't need anyone from the city to tell us what to do" model of knowledge.

While there are good things to be said for such a rejection, it at least needs to be a nuanced rejection that allows for learning from the expert in a controlled fashion. I see a wholesale refusal.

Jan Zarate:

Zarate's advice was short and pretty simple, but was in the same vein as Chastain's: Here is a list of things you're doing (or not doing) that violate state or federal laws; here are some ways to correct them.

One example of the lack of Individual Education Plans (IEP) for students, which is a violation of IDEA .

I think she also mentioned the lack of training given staff around the dispensing of medication, something else that's obviously illegal.

Robinson Part Two:

Robinson had a wrap-up piece, which was to present the list of nine choices for the board. Robinson was very clear that two options were eliminated a priori from the list: (1) Simply not renewing the charter and (2) renewing the charter without changing it at all. I think that is an eminently fair and wise idea given the long list of ways in which PIE failed to meet both the contract and state law.

The Recommendations:

1. To not renew but let PIE resubmit with PIE controlling just Sand Ridge.

2. To not renew but let PIE form an offshoot to resubmit for control of Sand Ridge.

(Basically, to have someone resubmit with Sand Ridge being independent of the other two schools currently being operated by PIE; this was an attempt to get at the liability and money issues raised by Paul Dakopolos.)

3. Renew the charter contingent on PIE's willingness to offshoot the other two schools.

4. Renew the charter contingent on PIE's willingness to form a separate entity to run SR.

(These are variations on 1 and 2, respectively.)

5. Have PIE and the LCSD agree to a nonrenewal, with the district agreeing to take over SR and operate it "as is."

This was going to be incredibly unpopular and Robinson had to know it. It might have been bad politics to include this, but it is at the least a sign of his professionalism that he included it since it would be a viable option in a more functional environment.

6. Renewal of the charter with PIE signing a management agreement with another organization (again, to get around the liability issues, I think).

7. Renewal of the charter but have the LCSD become a 'signee' of PIE... I'm not sure what this one would entail.

8. To have PIE disassociate with the LCSD as the oversight or sponsoring entity, and instead have PIE work directly with the State Board of Education.

I can't see this one going over well, since PIE is so insistent on a total lack of oversight. But it again speaks to Robinson's professionalism that he included it; if selected, it could almost not help but be read as an admission that PIE and the LCSD couldn't get along.

9. To have PIE withdraw the application for renewal only to form a new nonprofit and have the district expedite the application; this would be designed to get SR run as its own nonprofit and not have to close down for any period of time. It was also suggested by Jay Jackson.

Robinson stated clearly that the board was free to choose from the options or reject them and pick their own; I think he had intended to provide guidance and a starting place for discussion.

Up to this point, it seemed clear to me that there was going to be a discussion, but that everyone in the room wanted to see Sand Ridge survive. It was just going to be a matter of establishing a way forward that was amenable to all parties. I was actually sort of happy about the way things had gone, because Robinson and the D.O. staff were clearly offering not just the olive branch but the whole damned tree. They had planned out some really good process and even presented their information in a way that I thought made it clear that they supported the existence of the charter school. All the setup had been done, and done well; it was time to get down to business.

Sadly, Rick Alexander was not interested in talking or building relationships or any of that other hippie crap. As soon as he had the opportunity, he made a motion to approve the renewal of the charter without asking a single question. He also failed to give Jay Jackson, head of PIE and principal at Sand Ridge, a chance to weigh in - which suggests to me that this was very clearly planned beforehand. Why else would Alexander not want to hear from Jackson?

This is where it all goes downhill. Like a landslide.

It was clear to me that neither Robinson nor Sprenger had any intent to deny the renewal of the charter; they just wanted to have a conversation about how to best work through the legal and communications issues they had discovered before they voted. Again, I consider this to be good process, and sensible. Robinson had made just about every effort possible to make it clear his intent was to see the school survive.

Alexander had other plans. He started blathering on about a charter school meeting he'd attended and some guy named Randy. According to Randy, we have to do it this way, Alexander said. It was very clear.

This was a revelation to me. I had thought it was a revelation to the admin types as well, but I found it later it almost certainly wasn't (see #2 below).

Turns out that Alexander - for once - had found something that actually stuck; he had found ORS 338.065, which governs the renewal process of public charter schools. It states that there are two parts: Renewal of the existence of the charter, and subsequent negotiations over the content of the charter. Alexander's explanation made no sense to me - I had to read the statute for myself to figure out what he was talking about.

The thing is, he still used it like Robinson and Co. were attempting to deny renewal. They weren't. They just wanted to talk first - and besides, the D.O. staff does not vote on renewal; the board does, and the board had showed no signs of opposing the charter renewal.

I was a bit flabbergasted, actually. It seemed so obvious that Alexander was going to get what he wanted - renewal - and that playing nice would not cost him anything.

Boy, was I hopelessly naive. That and I had been lulled into a false sense of security, I guess.

By the way, the vote was 4-1 with Sprenger dissenting on the grounds that the process was bad. Also, Debi Shimmin never said a thing or asked a question and voted yes without hesitation. I consider this another sign that she, Wineteer, and Alexander had planned this out beforehand, which is in violation of both the letter and the spirit of the law here.

As far as I can tell, there were three things going on:

1. Grandstanding

There were lots (100+?) of SR supporters in the audience. Rick was playing to them, showing off by being all tough with the school district.

This was pathetic. It reminded me of a little kid who insists on disagreeing with his parents even when his parents are suggesting ice cream or something the kid really wants - the important part is to appear independent and strong even if it is counterproductive. (Or to put it another way, the goals of appearance of toughness and getting what you want conflict and the former wins.)

I am beginning to think it worked, since there was a loud round of applause when Alexander's motion passed. It also suggests that the audience either a) didn't actually understand the admin's report at all (which can also be summarized as "follow these recommendations or be in violation of the law and liable to get sued") or they just didn't care - they just wanted to see their school stay open and the district lose at any cost. I'm waffling between the two, but I suppose it could be both.

2. ORS Statutes/Legal Process

Since the LCSD went through this during the last renewal process, they should have known about it. Yet nowhere did Robinson or anyone else from the D.O. acknowledge them, and Rick Alexander was very successful in beating the district over the head with them. Yes, he was correct on the law, but - and here I agree with Robinson and Sprenger - he severely undercut the developing process, thereby eliminating a rather large and important opportunity to start to develop a better relationship between the LCSD and PIE.

Obviously Rick has no intention of doing that. Apparently his supporters are OK with that.

What I don't understand is why the D.O. didn't have a better rejoinder to Rick's insistence that his method was the law. It obviously was - why not just admit the point and have the discussion? I was surprised that the D.O. had not anticipated Rick's move of instantly motioning to approve.

It made the D.O. staff and Robinson look either unprepared (strange, considering the comprehensiveness of the report) or like they were trying to somehow weasel PIE.

Sadly, I think they just might have got caught trying to do the latter, at least in the eyes of the SR supporters. I suspect, given that Robinson knew about the process, that he wanted to have the conversation before approving the existence of the charter because it would have resulted in a much stronger negotiating position for the district (which, by the way, is a completely appropriate position for the Superintendent of the School District). He lost, and as a result the district's negotiating position is compromised. It should go without saying that this is good news for Alexander - why the public thinks having someone on the School Board who hates the district is acceptable is beyond me; certainly it's possible to provide meaningful oversight to Jim Robinson and still play well with others.

The district's entire presentation was based on getting PIE to follow state law and their contract - both of which are consistent with a district who likes Sand Ridge. For Alexander to be so hostile is a slap in the face of just about the nicest thing I've ever seen Jim Robinson do. He bent over backwards to illustrate his commitment to Sand Ridge and to the process. What happened poisons an already-polluted well even more, and this time, Alexander needs to take full responsibility for that.

I've blogged before about my skepticism that Robinson has or will change his approach. His method of dealing with the Sand Ridge renewal - with the possible exception of the ORS flap - was fantastic. I was very impressed with his willingness to work with the folks that have dumped on him and his dedication to building a relationship. So kudos to him and his team for that.

3. Accountability

In retrospect, the actions of Alexander and PIE are designed to avoid any meaningful accountability or oversight. They simply want to take public money and spend it how they want. Neither do I see any indication they have any intentions to follow relevant laws.

This is, to put it politely, crap. It will catch up to them eventually. None of the recommendations I heard from the D.O. staff infringed on the pedagogical independence of the school. I wonder how many of them realize they just made it less likely that Sand Ridge will survive in the long run, not more? I would have thought having the district work quietly with you to fix contract and legal violations would be infinitely preferable to getting sued or having the state come down on you (the state being far more likely to subject SR and PIE to punitive measures as well as provide additional and unwanted oversight).

Or do PIE and Rick Alexander really think the law does not apply to them? Do they think the contract with the district can be ignored forever and without consequence? One certainly hopes not, but that was the behavior on display at the meeting.

I'm also beginning to think that Alexander and PIE are part of the black helicopter/New World Order crowd.

Consequences/Aftermath

The ball is in PIE's court. They got what they wanted - renewal of the charter's existence - but at what cost?

The next step - someone correct me if I'm wrong - is renegotiating the charter contract. If I'm Jim Robinson, I'm going to do the same thing I was going to do before: Insist that the revised contract take into account all the problems the district found and otherwise act in the District's interest. This is going to be a giant thorn in PIE's side, since - if the D.O. has any sense - it will mean the inclusion of much more specific language in the contract regarding the consequences of PIE's failure to abide by the terms. In other words, it will mean placing increased accountability and oversight in the contract rather than work it out in discussion, as Robinson obviously wanted to do at the meeting.

One other possibility is that Alexander will try and micromanage the contract, or at least give directions to the negotiating team that undermine the interests of the district.

I wonder if it takes a board motion to break the contract based on material breach? For PIE's sake, I hope it does... though the board discussion surrounding that, should it become a reality, should be hilarious in a War of the Roses meets Mad Max sort of way.

In any case, it may not matter. The LCSD may report - as per the law - legal violations it discovers to the relevant state and federal agencies if PIE is not willing to work with the LCSD to correct them. That will create a much larger headache for PIE than Jim Robinson ever could (it will also create another headache for the LCSD as the overseeing district, which has got to be one of Robinson's motivations throughout all this).

(Very) Long story short: Power politics rules again in Lebanon, much to the detriment of students.

This time, however, it was near-unilateral.

I hope people stand up and take note of this, especially you folks who have been making blanket condemnations of the board.

This was not an all-around mess. It was one faction reaching out in good faith and having their efforts rebuffed in a needlessly hostile manner by another.

This is why I post these insanely long meeting summaries. I think they are more revealing than the space-limited DH or LE stories.

Word Count: 3796

Alexander wastes everyone's time - again

LT has already posted on this, but I want to point something out that I noticed while reading the dead tree version of this story:

Alexander is asking the court to interpret the contract in light of an Oregon statute, ORS 342.845, that states school boards “may elect not to extend the administrator’s contract for any cause the school board in good faith considers sufficient.”

...

Alexander disagrees and is asking for a ruling saying that the law allows boards to end contracts for any “good faith” reason and without having to first make a job evaluation.

...

Shannon Priem, communications director of the Oregon School Boards Association, said OSBA agrees. She cited definitions under ORS 342.815 that specifically state superintendents are not included in the definition of “administrator” for dismissal purposes.

This seems pretty clear-cut, actually, which is unsurprising. Meadowbrook and Alexander are still playing spaghetti: Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. So far, they've had no real success.

Also, what do we think Alexander will use as a 'good-faith' reason? And how much will Robinson get when he sues Alexander?

Will Robinson be forced to sue the school district to get the rest of his pay and/or clear his record? How does that help the district's students.

However, what was raised for me when reading the story for the first time was the larger issue of the rolling three-year contract that Robinson and most other Superintendents get.

My understanding is that such contracts are tantamount to job or financial security (buying out the remainder of the contract being one way to end a super's employment without waiting for the contract to end), and they allow a Super to work without the immediate possibility of the current year being their last. However, unless school boards can fire without cause, I don't see why a rolling contract is necessary. Well, unless a board can fire a Super without cause.

Anyone?

On being called a coward by Hasso Hering

...well, not directly. He does pull the old "some" canard, which should be a journalism no-no. Moreso he is going after LT and the idea of anonymous blogging in the first place.

Anyway, this editorial is getting old, but I've not really had a chance to think about it or weigh in, and I wanted to.

Hering:

The Lebanon dispute about a web log or blog is essentially about cowardice.

[recites some context about LT and Kim Fandiño]

This is the universal problem with the online universe. On some sites it is easy to post commentaries anonymously. You can say anything, true or not, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it. [Italics added.]

FULL STOP.

Did Hasso really just ignore libel and slander laws, not to mention laws governing harassment, to make his point?

Yes he did.

Lies by intentional omission (because even I believe Hering knows what libel is) are still lies, and have no place in a newspaper.

The Internet thus becomes a perfect tool for weasels who like to slam other people but are too shy to tell the world who they are. They may be the same kind of people who throw stuff at bicyclists from a moving car, knowing that their victim cannot catch them. Figuratively, they are pleased to wound people while remaining safely out of sight.

Hasso calls them weasels. I call them the Founding Fathers. See, for example, Publius and the history of the Federalist Papers, which provided some much-needed context for the Constitution and were printed anonymously.

Notice how he also implies that it's somehow a crime if anonymous words wound someone - never mind the truth or falsity of said words. If Hasso can't look you in the eye, you obviously have nothing worthwhile to say.

Moving on:

At Lebanon’s school board meeting this week, a lawyer said he represented the blogger or bloggers in this case and was ready to defend his, her or their rights of free speech, or words to that effect. Wonderful! Let’s drag the noble First Amendment down to the level of the anonymous blogger, why don’t we!

Nobody doubts that citizens have the right of free speech, no matter what their opinions. But the principle of free speech implies responsibility too. Bloggers who refuse to bear responsibility may make people wonder whether free speech is such a good thing. (hh)

Har. See my point about the Federalist Papers. Also, Hering should do some - any - research on this topic; anonymous speech, including blogging, has significant protections under the First Amendment. For Hering to so openly mock this idea implies that (a) he has no clue as to the history of protected, anonymous free speech in America and (b) he's a fucking fascist idiot.

Also (c) that people say stupid shit all the time using their real name. Responsibility, which is definitely not the same thing as people knowing one's identity, is no guarantor of quality. Hering should know better than anyone.

Worse, (d): That Hering, a newspaper editor, doesn't believe all that strongly in free speech. His claims regarding responsibility are a poor cover for his manly anger at someone's refusal to...what? Duel with pistols at dawn? It would be comical if he weren't so serious.

"Coward?" "Weasel?" Really? I know I frequently use, um, sophomoric terms, but I'm a crappy blogger; he is a newspaper editor, and should leave the ad hominem attacks where they belong - which is not on the editorial page.

This is by far the worst editorial I have ever read by Hering. He is either forced to lie to make his point or is completely ignorant about a fundamental aspect of public speech in this country. Either is completely unacceptable for a newspaper editor; can SOMEONE over at Lee - be it at the DH, GT, or corporate - sit up and take notice?

Please?

What would it take?

Hasso Hering, Professional Educator

It's been a long time since any of Hering's columns have made me laugh without also making me angry. So good on you, Hasso.

That's not to say I agree with Hasso's latest; in fact, I think it does a marvelous job of reaching his usual standard of incoherence and/or irrelevance. I am waiting with baited breath for someone above him in the Lee Enterprises hierarchy to notice.

It gets better - this column is on what should be taught in schools. Let's look at Hasso's list:

Teach them what? Well, how about reading, writing and enough arithmetic and math to know if their computers or calculators are kidding them when they want to know how much tile to buy to cover the bathroom floor.

...

Our own history is crucial but not enough. Our students must know something about the world as well, including its geography and history.

People are hard pressed to have a conversation, let alone enjoy life, if they haven’t been exposed to music, literature and the arts, preferably by learning to play an instrument and attempting a painting or a sculpture, even if it’s only an earthen pot.

...

Whether it’s Spanish or Chinese or Arabic, by 2030 it may be crucial to know at least one or two other tongues.

...

Schools need an identity, one that lets children and teenagers know they are part of something larger, something that has a wholesome and valued tradition. Athletic competition can provide this as long as it also reinforces virtues such as sportsmanship, meaning manners and ethical conduct.

What Oregon needs are young people who are optimistic instead of glum about the prospects of the country and their own selves. They can have that confidence if their schools teach them well.

Wow... that list is indicative of the cutting of pedagogical theory...from the 1950s. Possibly earlier. Very Eurocentric. One suspects unapologetically so.

Also, I believe the Albany School District - according to Hasso - asked for values, not subject areas. All he did was recite a list of subject areas (math, "the science on which our society is built," history, reading, writing, literature, the arts, foreign languages) with the inclusion of 'school spirit' as a value.

This is insulting to anyone even remotely involved with education. Hering should have devoted his editorial space to a column or op-ed by someone with ANY knowledge of pedagogy or the role of schools in modern society. That might have been interesting, or at least relevant. What Hering wrote is absolute rubbish on the merits.

Besides, as mentioned, he just talks about subjects, not values. 'School spirit' might be a value, but it's becoming increasingly clear that it's not really sustainable or even a good idea (as it serves as a model for learning patriotism).

Instead, why don't we teach students to think critically about themselves and the world? Why not teach them to have the ability to learn, so we don't necessarily have to teach them all about the content, but they can - with some guidance and advice - teach themselves and keep learning far after they leave school? I know that the 'lecture' model of learning does not work well for me, and I know I'm not alone. Also, those are values - and applicable to all subject areas to boot!

Anyway, Hering also reveals his ignorance in other ways besides ignoring the parameters of the assignment:

What Oregon needs are young people who are optimistic instead of glum about the prospects of the country and their own selves. They can have that confidence if their schools teach them well.

I suppose it never occurred to Hering that there might be even a shred of good sense behind the glumness of young people. Obviously, they just need better indoctrination socialization! That line also reeks of a linear model of history in which one's own can do no wrong. Eurocentrism what?

Also, because optimism TOTALLY trumps corporate globalization and the creation of a feudalistic service economy. Who knew Hering was so New Age?

I hope the Albany School District's employees got a good laugh out of this. That's about all it's good for.

The Barometer's Amazing Lack of Professionalism

I submitted an op-ed awhile back that, had it been printed, would have run around the 1st or 2nd of November, but neither the Baro or the GT decided to run it. While I am not terribly bothered by the decision - I know the writing could use some work and of course it is the decision of a paper's editorial staff to run submissions or not - I am less than enamored of the way the Baro handled it: They didn't.

As in, I sent it off and apparently addressed it to a black hole. The GT at least had the courtesy to say no.

Anyway, in light of Michael's letter and post as well as Luke's post detailing his own little affair with the Barometer's amazing lack of professionalism this year, I'm going to run what I wrote here:

Barometer Should Have Known Better

The OSU Daily Barometer's admission that they need to do better when it comes to listening to the OSU campus (see The Daily Barometer, “Examining Offenses,” 10-26-07) is too little and too late.

Every couple of years the Barometer runs something incredibly offensive or ignorant, often around race or religion; rarely do they actually bother to respond to the subsequent outrage or criticisms, often hiding behind the implied claim that they bear zero responsibility for the speech of their columnists.

I'm glad to to see that this time is different, that at least the editorial staff ran a response. However, the failure of the editorial to adequately address the issue suggests a lack of understanding of the nature of the problem, and a problem that outlasts the high-turnover Barometer staff – but not Frank Ragulsky, the Barometer's faculty adviser.

It is my opinion that these sorts of mistakes could easily be avoided if the Barometer's editorial staff had some sort of journalism-oriented diversity or cultural competency training. But they don't. When I served on the Student Media Committee, I pushed for the editorial staff to participate in just this sort of training. But I was rebuffed, and it was obvious that no one, including Mr. Ragulsky, saw such training as beneficial or necessary.

By all accounts, Mr. Ragulsky is an excellent advisor. However, he has been the constant throughout all the incidents that have occurred for a long time, long before I ever came to Corvallis. I find it extremely troubling that he consistently fails to show any interest in educating the staff of a college newspaper about the intersection of journalism and diversity.

Journalists, like everyone else, bring to work with them the sum of their experiences and their values – and are therefore not the neutral or objective actors that ancient media theory hold them to be. It would be nice if the sum of their experiences included some awareness that would allow them to avoid the sorts of mistakes that seem to occur with a disturbing regularity.

So I propose three things, hoping they will provide long-term solutions:

First, that Mr. Ragulsky personally endeavor to have his staff participate in some form of training that addresses the intersection of journalism and diversity at least once every year.

Second, that the Student Media Committee take a more active role in overseeing the newspaper. As it stands, the committee is largely a rubber stamp, having little to no role beyond hiring for a mere seven positions for all of student media. Instead, the Committee members should have unfettered access to information, giving them them the ability to decide for themselves what information is relevant. As it stands, Mr. Ragulsky tends to control the flow of information to such a degree that it forces committee members to do his bidding.

Third, that The Daily Barometer institute a public editor to write columns detailing the internal decision-making processes of the newspaper, as well as receiving and responding to reader criticism of the newspaper. Such a position could provide a wonderful training tool for journalists and editors at a university with no official journalism program.

I suggest these things out of frustration and sadness at seeing a paper I have long been enamored of continue to make offensive, avoidable mistakes no matter who fulfills the role of editor-in-chief. I would like nothing more than to see The Daily Barometer take a more active role as a member of the OSU community rather than hide beyond decades-old ideas about the proper behavior of journalists.

Lebanon School Board Meeting Part Two - Hiring and Transfers

In this installment I'm going to cover the consent agenda. I missed part of the discussion as I came late. Apparently most of the hires and transfers were uncontroversial except four: An interim AD, an interim Social Systems Principal, an involuntary transfer from LHS to Sand Ridge, and an Administrative Assistant for Transportation. Those four were pulled and discussed separately; in the end, the latter two passed and the former did not. Here I'll mostly talk about the discussion regarding the two that were rejected.

The discussion was so stupid when I walked in that I almost left without even finding a chair.

How so? Well, Rick Alexander asked what the difference between a substitute and an interim hire was....and he did not appear to be asking a rhetorical question.

I am still shaking my head over that. Who let him on the school board again?

Josh Wineteer then made the "point" that since LHS has three other principals, not hiring Dick Behn as an interim principal would not really affect the school.

That, I thought at the time, is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Each academy has its own principal, so not filling position requires either a) the other three to somehow collectively fill in, which would be pretty difficult given the small schools structure, or b) to leave Social Systems at a severe disadvantage and without leadership (alternatively, they could just have Dick Behn as an indefinite sub). Either Josh was really, really fishing for a reason not to hire Behn, or...well, or he just said something monumentally ignorant. Again, this did not appear to be a rhetorical question.

Josh also complained that an internal candidate (which reportedly turned out to be Nancy Bauer) did not get selected, and he was confused as to why. I have no idea as to the internal hiring process, but that was the wrong time to ask about it. Seriously - again, it came off as a transparent attempt to get his way without a shred of supporting evidence.

I can only imagine what Ken Ray was thinking in regards to Josh's questions and comments. I consider the fact that Ray's face remained expressionless throughout most of the discussion to be evidence of his professionalism and experience, but damn, would I be furious were I in his position. He had both his interim principal and his interim AD hires rejected.

Speaking of that, Rick kept making motions to reject the hires, and Sherrie kept pointing out that there is no motion required to reject; the board simply lets the matter die. Motions are positive things. Despite this, Rick just kept trying to make the same motion over and over again, doing so at least three times when I was there.

I cannot believe that dude has yet to learn Robert's Rules of Order. I was once given two weeks to learn it - not a problem. This guy has had years and has not bothered. He does not belong on the school board. It's an insult to the students in the district, some of whom probably know Robert's Rules better than he does.

When I first saw the meeting agenda, I had thought that the only possible contentious items on the Consent Agenda would be the AD and Assistant Principal hires. I was told that was unlikely but possible.

I wish I had been wrong.

Let's face it: Rick, Josh, and Debi are really fucking the district over on this one. Yeah, you didn't get Bo Yates - so what? He's got an unresolved complaint against him filed with the TSPC and he's got another full-time job in the district. Once those are resolved, see if he is available next year. For now, deal. Hiring him as AD at this time is not a good idea, and is not in fact evidence of the evil of Sherrie Sprenger or Jim Robinson.

The same goes with Dick Behn - what does anyone have to gain by not letting him fill in as interim principal?

These are two cases where it's really obvious that the high school students and staff are being fucked over so that Rick, Josh, and Debi can throw a fucking temper tantrum.

Please. Grow the fuck up, people. Passive-aggressive behavior is only cute in toddlers.

I hate small-town politics. I hate the backstabbing and the unwillingness to deal with things honestly and openly. I hate the attempts at nepotism. I really hate the fact that the School Board is filled with people who honestly consider their own understanding of issues to be better than those of trained professionals, including the District's surely-insane-and-rich-by-now legal counsel.

Yes, I am aware that there is a huge class schism here between Lebanon's blue-collar, lifetime residents (Allen, Shimmin, Yates, etc.) and the mobile professional class of outsiders (personified by Robinson). I get that, and I even get that I'm coming down hard on the side of the educated. But such a divide in experience and education does not have to result in a mess like this.

More posts to follow.

Lebanon School Board Meeting, Part One - Outing the Anonymous Blogger

Preface: Two nice young gentleman recently informed me that my blog posts are too long. I'm going to go ahead and break what is probably my only principle regarding blogging - don't listen to anyone else, no matter how good their advice - and try something new. Normally, when the LCSD School Board has a meeting, I write a monster post that details everything. This time, I'm going to try and shorten things up, instead dividing the content into several shorter posts. The Lebanon Community School District School Board met on Monday, November 5th, and I would like to relay some of what happened at the meeting in series of blog posts.

Topics that will be covered in the next several blog posts: The board's processes, the appointment of interim staff to cover positions, the Sand Ridge Charter School report, a report on the various Title programs funded by the district that the state mandates be received in the next two weeks, and a few other odds and ends.

So, on to the content!

I'll get to the most relevant one first: While the board had plenty of passionate and emotional discussion regarding the now-Level-4 complaint that Kim Fandiño filed with the district alleging cyberbullying on the part of blogger Lebanon Truth, in the end, the board did not act on the agenda item presented to them. That's the short version. The long version is as follows:

The agenda item that I was really there for was the one regarding the appeal of the cyberbullying complaint to the school board by Kim Fandiño (hereafter KF). As an anonymous blogger who has been known to write about the Lebanon Community School District, I was very curious about the inclusion of this item on the agenda and the potential consequences for my own blogging. All the talk was about how KF was essentially requesting that the board subpoena Google, the company that owns Blogger, the blogging software used by this blogger and Lebanon Truth, to reveal the identity of Lebanon Truth. (Side note: All it takes to get a blogger account is an email address...meaning that revealing someone's identity requires tracing an IP address or similar detective work. Real names are not required - a point that I think none of the pro-subpoena folks know, as they seemed to think it would be as simple as asking Google for a name.)

I have this sinking feeling this post alone, even excluding the preface, is going to be over the prescribed limit given to me by the two gentlemen - hereafter known as Punk #1 and Punk #2 (in no particular order) for blog posts. Screw it.

Rick Alexander started the discussion by immediately motioning to have the board hear KF's complaint.

Tom McHill, a Lebanon attorney and former board member, immediately stood up from the chair he'd been slouching in for the past three hours (the cyberbullying issue was basically the last thing on the agenda) and said that he represented the blogger. He then stated that he was there to defend the blogger's right to free speech.

I did not see that coming, though I should have. It is a brilliant move by LT - I think it caught many people by surprise, and it showed the folks on the board who wanted to out LT that it was going to involve some real work. I'd call it a preemptive strike, though I really hate that term.

Chris Fisher then asked how this issue moved the district forward, and how this was related to educating children, which was actually a comment I found insulting. Workplace safety is completely relevant to educating children, and a violation of that was a central part of KF's complaint, as far as I could see. While I don't think Chris meant it that way, it sure came across as trivializing the obvious emotional pain KF has gone through over this.

Ensuing was a short discussion regarding the various levels of complaint. I learned that a 'level one complaint' involves talking to the person one is complaining about directly, which is a challenge in the case of an anonymous blogger - though not impossible, as LT has an email address posted on their blog. This was something much overlooked in the discussion: the assumption that a resolution to the issue necessarily involved outing LT.

Rick Alexander asked if identifying LT removed their free speech. It was a leading question and he obviously thinks it doesn't. However, I think it does, as it would likely provide an avenue for attack on the part of LT's detractors that would surely serve to silence LT. Furthermore, it's irrelevant to the issue at hand; if I heard Mr. McHill right (and I may not have) protected free speech gets some Constitutional protections as well.

Rick then asked how one enforces a cyberbullying policy, his answer being that it requires outing the anonymous. However, this is a theoretical question masked as something relevant, as the district's legal counsel had ruled that the material presented in the complaint did not constitute cyberbullying by the district's standard. Rick was again trying to lead people on.

Josh Wineteer really only said one thing during the whole debate, but he said it over and over and over: That the board had to choose between preserving Kim's rights and outing LT, and that if the board chose not to out LT they should remove the cyberbullying policy entirely. This assumes, again, that what happened was cyberbullying. Josh is free to believe that, but I'll take the opinion of the Linn County DA and the LCSD's legal counsel over his any day.

Chris Fisher pointed out, as he does often, that this would cost money that, in his words, should be used on kids. This is also a bit disingenuous, as providing a safe environment for teachers is part of creating a good learning environment for kids. Josh called him on it - correctly - pointing out that there were lots of school board policies that take cash away from kids.

At this point, the whole thing struck me as a witchhunt (not for the first time, but the proceedings had become so farcical that it was impossible to not think in those terms). Wineteer and Alexander were asking the same questions over and over and over, questions that were designed to imply that outing LT was necessary and good, even though the reasons against it had been given in spades: It was against the legal advice of the district's counsel and the district office had found it to be a civil matter, irrelevant to both criminal prosecution and violation of district policy.

Chris Fisher asked if the Board had the authority to subpoena Google, and Tom McHill said "no" in no uncertain terms.

Rick then proceeded to act as if he'd not heard a single word said to this point and pointed out that the district is required to promptly investigate and take seriously any credible evidence or allegation of cyberbullying. He claimed that not voting to try and out LT was a violation of that policy, but I think he is full of crap; the District obviously took it seriously enough to let legal counsel look at it as well as have the Linn DA (and reportedly the Lebanon PD) check it out. Once it was decided that it did not violate policy, it was dropped. That's taking it seriously and finding it wanting; instead, I think Rick and Josh (and probably Debi, though I am less sure) equate 'taking it seriously' with doing what they want, which is to open an investigation on the assumption there is something to find. (And, of course, to out LT, which I've always thought was one of the real points of the complaint in the first place.)

Sherrie Sprenger, who constantly looked like she wanted to kill someone, reminded the board several times during the discussion that they had received clear & confidential legal advice from legal counsel, and that choosing to accept said advice basically meant dropping the matter. She also repeated her concerns about once again making the district liable for a potentially illegal action. Instead, she proposed talking to legal counsel directly at the earliest opportunity to clear up what the board's options were.

Jim Robinson interjected hinself into the discussion at this point, noting that it was impossible to actually follow up on complaint procedures without knowing the identity of the blogger, since established complaint procedures required giving the person being complained about notice of the complaint. This, I think, was pretty disingenuous on his part, since the district could at least attempt to contact LT at their provided email address and see what happened. It is also transparent bullshit, or at best a stupid suggestion, since it relies on the assumption that outing LT is necessary to get to the desired outcome, which is something to be proven (personally, I don't think it is necessary). It was not Robinson's finest moment of the night.

At this point I want to insert an aside and note that Sprenger and Robinson, who have both constant targets, were pretty obviously pissed and fed up with what they consider all the bullshit. Neither of them would give an inch, instead offering the most conservative interpretation of LCSD policy possible, which often meant summarily dismissing the concerns of others. This is, if nothing else, bad politics - it has been suggested to me that both Sprenger and Robinson should give their opponents enough rope to hang themselves (my words).

Hm. While I agree that Sprenger and Robinson's actions are somewhat counterproductive, I will say that they are wholly understandable, for two reasons. One, that both of them are exhausted of acting professional in the face of such amateur and unprofessional crap. Two - and this is the big one - I am beginning to think that given the board's recent history, both Sprenger and Robinson legitimately fear that Debi, Josh, and Rick, if given any rope, will manage to hang the district along with themselves. They'll do it through simply ignoring any laws or legal advice they don't like and acting from what appears to me as the gut. I have not considered this option until now, but at the moment I'm finding it pretty frightening. Now back to your regularly scheduled account.

Josh just kept saying that the board 'had' to ditch the policy if it didn't investigate the complaint in this case.

Here, KF got permission to address the board from Sprenger. KF made an impassioned plea to let the board hear the complaint directly, a plea that would be turned down multiple times before the end of the meeting. I think - though I could not see Kim's face - that she was wound up very tight with emotion almost the whole time, which is pretty understandable.

Sprenger then asked for a motion. Debi Shimmin pointed out while appearing to cry that she thought the content of the posts definitely rose to the level of cyberbullying (I should note that LT has talked about Shimmin in the past in less than glowing terms).

Shimmin also claimed that not following up was a denial of KF's rights to due process, and said that the spirit of the complaint was legitimate even if the technical details were not. I found that incredibly unconvincing, as I interpreted it as saying that a school board should judge the case based not on legal interpretations but on how they felt. Um, no?

Interjection: Yes, the debate really went on this long. I am trying to capture it in detail since I know no newspaper will cover it so thoroughly, and besides, I like having a written record of who said what and when (even if it is a rough record).

Josh Wineteer actually suggested that the person behind LT might have become anonymous specifically to violate board policy, which was a suggestion so far out of left field I'm still confused as to what he was thinking.

Tom McHill, LT's attorney, pointed out that if LT is a school district employee, trying to punish LT would bring up a whole host of procedural problems related to how employees are handled (I suspect this is something that the district's legal counsel also said).

Jim Robinson chose this moment to remind the board and audience that civil court was an option he'd suggested to KF as an alternative to criminal court since her complaint was found not to show any violation of the district's cyberbullying policy. Robinson also pointed out that he, Shimmin, and Fandiño had all been attacked and that despite that, the three were all legal amateurs and should seek legal counsel instead of presume to know best.

It was at this moment that Rick Alexander blurted out - and I am sure this was unintentional on his part - the words "why don't we go criminal?" This, despite the fact that it had been explained multiple times including moments before that the district had no standing to bring a criminal charge...and that the Linn County DA and Lebanon Police Department had both decided that the complaint did not rise to the level of a criminal case.

I am thoroughly convinced Rick does not listen, but instead just beats his head against the wall until it ejects another half-baked statement he thinks will help him pursue his goal. He has no place on the school board, as he cannot act like a reasonable adult.

After a bit of back and forth, KF was recognized. She noted that under existing district policy, she had a right to a hearing by the second meeting after filing a complaint. The 11-5-07 meeting was the second meeting, and she wanted her hearing. Sprenger agreed that it was possible to give her one, and that Sprenger would facilitate it, but she also noted that she really disliked the procedure.

At this point the debate was really heated, with KF nearing tears (and Sprenger, I think). Wineteer AGAIN claimed that the board had to make a choice between outing LT and violating KF's rights.

After a few more comments, Rick Alexander made a motion to hear, on the spot, Kim's complaint. I believe Josh seconded it, but Sherrie, finally exerting some serious pressure, decided not to entertain the motion as is her right as board chair (OMFG, what would this circus look like if Rick or Josh or Debbie or even Chris was chair?). The crowd - myself included - was shocked, as was the board. Sprenger was obviously tired, and came right out and said that the board could overturn her denial to hear the motion if they wanted to, but she was not going to allow it.

Sprenger gave the following reasons for denying the motion: It went against direct legal counsel, it exposed the district to legal liability, it was out of order, and 'I'm just trying to keep the district out of legal trouble.' I think she's essentially correct, though feel free to quibble.

KF immediately asked how telling her story made the district legally liable. I think it was a great question, and the only answer I ever saw was that given earlier by Robinson - that doing so without giving the blogger a chance to respond to the complaint would violate the blogger's (if they are a district employee) rights. I think it's a relatively weak answer.

Sprenger got really upset here, letting her long-simmering anger come to the surface. She pointed out both that she believes LT's blog does not help bring about unity or community, and also that she would not be party to the school board once again going down a road that resulted in backtracking from legal liability. Rick Alexander, in his all-time finest moment, interrupted her to say with surprise "We did?"

I wanted to throttle him, since it was obvious that Sprenger was referring to Robinson's suspension, which was initiated by Rick. That means one of two things: Alexander is so stupid he never realized what he'd done the first time around, or two, that Alexander is such a dick he threw that in there as a jab. I'm betting the former, which does not make him look good. If the latter, it's a great bit of comedy, but an incredibly mean and divisive statement.

Wineteer addressed the crowd and claimed that a legitimate concern was being stifled by the school board and that the public should know; this was the closest, by far, that he'd come to sounding like KF's lapdog all night. Sprenger interrupted and snapped at the board to either override her denial of the motion or let it die, practically claiming that the rest of the board did not have the gumption (her word) to do so.

Sprenger won that incredibly tense showdown that lasted all of 10 seconds. After that, the crowd deflated and several people got up to leave. The meeting was over in less than 30 seconds, the room strangely quiet despite the tension.

Yeah.

I am damn glad to see that Sprenger won that fight (though of course it may not be over), and I'm sure LT is at least somewhat relieved as well - it's that much less in legal fees they'd have to worry about if nothing else.

I'm also incredibly fascinated that no one was willing to buck Sprenger and make a motion to override her. She flat-out won a battle of wills, three to one. Hatred for her is only going to go up, but I think she did the right thing, especially when it comes to following board procedure, legal advice, and her own personal legal liability.

Meanwhile, the three clowns - and on this count Debi really did join Rick and Josh, I suspect because she's never been a public figure or had her decisions criticized like this before - showed just how little they understand public governance or what it means to act in anything resembling a professional manner.

It was a long night - this whole debate started some time after 10 p.m., and it was obvious the board, who had been meeting since 5:30, was exhausted.

More to follow; if you made it this far, this post is over 3000 words.

Please. Make. It. Stop.

I think I am - rather absurdly - looking forward to new editions of the Lebanon Express.

Why?

Because there's usually another story regarding the school board.

Admittedly, this is somewhat like looking forward to the next major train wreck.

This week, our saga continues with yet another low. I was sure the Board had hit rock bottom, but, like the Bush Administration, they've kept digging.

In the latest story, there are two things I want to touch on. The first:

Nearly a month after the Board of Education put School Superintendent Jim Robinson on administrative leave, at least one teacher has turned down a job offer from the district because of the on-going clash between board members and the superintendent.

...

“We did offer a job to a special education teacher who declined, saying ‘no thanks, your district is throwing off more red flags than a bullfight,' “ said Steve Kelley, acting superintendent. “It's too bad because special education is a very tough slot to fill.”

Board member Josh Wineteer says he does not believe the current controversy is hurting the district's ability to recruit teachers. “I think there is a lot more factors that go into our ability to recruit,” he said.

Ouch. Even given that this is only one position, it's a safe bet the shenanigans in the district have caused potential teachers to not even bother applying. Verdict: The stupidity hurts students!

Shocking.

No, really. I'm amazed...that the teachers' union is taking this in stride. I'd be popping pills like there was no tomorrow if I were a teacher right now and my school board was pissing all over my school's chances of hiring quality staff. And I know the teachers are furious at Robinson, but blind rage is not, um, becoming of professional teaching staff. Ever.

But wait - our good friend Rick Alexander, savior of the Lebanon Community School District, is about to weigh in on this horrible news:

Rick Alexander, who made the motion at the Aug. 1 special board meeting that led to Robinson's removal said that although some teachers might not want come to Lebanon during this public dispute, in the long run teacher retention will be better if a review can identify the root cause of what he says is widespread teacher dissatisfaction.

Wow. That almost sounds reasonable. It also sounds familiar. Where have I heard that before?

I know.

"If you want to make an omelet," Lenin insisted, "you have to be willing to break a few eggs."

Put charitably, Alexander's unspoken suggestion is that the only way to solve the issues of teacher dissatisfaction and Robinson's authoritarian leadership style is, conveniently, Alexander's way: With a very large hammer.

Put uncharitably, Alexander is willing to tear down district in order to achieve his goals. I honestly don't think he realizes there is any other way. It's politics through ignorance! It's also very clearly an "ends justify the means" argument. Those sorts of arguments are bollocks. Alexander's not creating a peaceful district with solid, grounded ways of resolving conflicts before they get to the let's- suspend-the-superintendent stage; he's creating a model for nonstop gridlock and petty politics. No one with half an ounce of sanity is going to want to teach in that kind of environment, and teacher retention is going to - surprise! - continue to suck.

Anyway. On to the second thing I wanted to address:

Meanwhile, the board has moved away from the performance review of Robinson that was called for in the motion that placed him on leave. It is now contemplating what one board member describes as a ground up review of the district, including the school board.

Unbelievable. The flimsy curtains that surrounded this pathetic charade are falling away and lo and behold, Rick Alexander has no f***ing idea what he's doing! Imagine my consternation.

You'd think that if this is the case, Robinson would be reinstated, since the original motion was to suspend him based on a performance review of his performance.

You'd think wrong:

Asked after the last board meeting why Robinson is still on leave, if the review process is looking at the district as a whole and not the superintendent, Alexander said that if Robinson was working, employees would be intimidated and might not give honest answers to whoever the board selects to carry out the fact finding. Even if interviews are held in private, Robinson would still know who talked, Alexander said.

Wineteer agrees with Alexander on keeping Robinson on leave during the review process. “If you are going to get an unbiased view, the CEO can't be present during the audit,” Wineteer said.

Neither do you get an unbiased review if the people who call for it are folks who are known to want Robinson's head on a stick, but whatever.

And kudos to Express reporter Larry Coonrod for asking the question. I wish he would have pushed harder, since Alexander and Wineteer are so obviously clueless, but hey, he forced them to justify the decision on the record, and that provides a trail for them to be held accountable to. Let's see more of that. If they are really on the right side and telling the truth, there's no harm in having a record of their statements, is there?

I have several reactions to this revelation:

1) Performance reviews of people who are working take place all the time. Yes, it is true that the person in question can be suspended, but it's certainly not necessary - especially when the performance review is no longer directed at one person.

2) What evidence does Alexander have for the claim that Robinson will "know who talked" during a private, confidential performance review? (Unless it's never occurred to Alexander and Wineteer that a real performance review does not consist of the dynamic duo talking to teachers and handing out poorly-constructed surveys, which I have to admit seems a possibility at this point.) Is Alexander really suggesting that a) the board can't select an independent, trustworthy party to conduct the review; b) Robinson can read minds; or c) the information put forth in private interviews is that traceable? I'd like to see some evidence for Alexander's assertion here, but I'm not holding my breath.

3) Ethically, the Board just shot itself in the face. How any sane person could trust these clowns after this is beyond me. In fact, this whole episode is making me sick to my stomach. It's pretty obvious that if you suspend someone for a reason, and that reason disappears, you reinstate that person. You don't just shift the rationale for the suspension. Speaking of...

4) Why did they shift from a performance review to a district review, anyway? I'll grant that a district review is probably a decent idea, but as Chris Fisher has been pointing out relentlessly (to his credit), this stuff costs money. Money the district does not have. Is anyone paying attention besides him? I'd love to start seeing some anonymous comments from District Office employees, teachers, and staff about this whole fiasco, especially when it comes to how much money and time is being pulled from, you know, TEACHING STUDENTS. Some inside dirt would be great. Here: The Express newsroom can be reached at 541-258-3151. Pass it on.

Finally, there is the news that Bo Yates is under investigation by the TSPC based on a complaint filed by Superintendent Robinson. I don't actually have anything to say about that, but it could prove to be an important detail.

Totally Logical, But Still Incredibly Stupid

This is why people think that modifying one's assumptions about the world in response to evidence is a good thing. Not that I expect it to happen, especially any time soon.

Anyway, can you believe this shit? Someone has been smoking from the free market pipe a bit too much:

Brinkley said early economic planners had made the understandable mistake of assuming that a free market would rapidly emerge to replace what he described as Saddam's "kleptocracy", and create full employment.

Um, right. The most charitable thing I can say about that is this: It's only understandable if all you know about the world is what you learned at the feet of Thomas Friedman, or maybe from FOX news. A broader view - hell, any view - of history would have suggested that no, "free markets" do not just spring forth whole from armed conflict. That is a badly mistaken idea that neoliberals have convinced themselves of the truth of rather effectively in the last 20 years. The sad thing is that they show no signs of recognizing their ideological error, but seem to be desperately clinging to the idea that the implementation of Iraq was a mistaken, not the premise.

The least charitable thing I can says is that holy shit, those people are fucking idiots. No wonder things are such a clusterfuck.

Via Eschaton.

Hometown Insanity, Comment Edition

Well, the first post I did on the LCSD School Board and Robinson now has 10+ comments. That is by far the most of any post of mine. Interesting.

I want to highlight one comment that just came in:

Anonymous said...

This mess is going to set education in Lebanon back by years. It is highly unlikely that Dr. Robinson will be able to return to effective leadership and what talented administrator will want to walk into this disaster? The district will get an ineffectual trainee at best and this is a very big, very serious job. My only hope it that principals and teachers, in a leadership vacuum, will pull together at some level and produce some good education.

Rick Alexander, of course, is just a destructive force. He put his own kids through private parochial school. He does not believe in public education and is making it his personal mission to use politics to impede success of Lebanon's regular schools so that even more students will be driven out. This guy is bent on destroying the school system so he manages to get himself elected to a local school board. It is just bizarre.

I'm not so sure the first point holds - the district might still be able to find someone with some amount of talent, but that person will be a tool as far as the school board is concerned. Unless, of course, Alexander disappears. I will agree with one thing: The board and the teacher's union have done such a good job conflating hatred of the small schools initiative with their hatred of Jim Robinson's management style that they've all but guaranteed that a) any innovation will be from the bottom up, which could be a good thing, except b) any innovation will be easily crushed with a reference to the recent history of the district. No one is going to want to propose anything remotely forward-thinking in that environment unless they get the blessing of Alexander and the Lebanon Education Association. Which brings me to point #2...

The suggestion that Alexander got himself elected to the school board for the purpose of destroying the public school system is not at all bizarre. In fact, it has been a pretty common M.O. for conservative operatives of all kinds for years. The Republican Party, and by extension the people they appoint - and I am deadly serious about this - do not believe that government can be a force for good, and they are intent on proving it through a combination of mismanagement and a predisposition towards lining the pockets of their supporters at a huge cost to the general public. They the proceed to point to the programs they've just destroyed and use it as evidence for their claim that government needs to go. What Alexander is doing seems very much the same thing to me; it's slash-and-burn politics that, if successful, leaves the instigator as the only person left standing in a large pile of wreckage. In this case it will be Alexander and maybe the LEA, and since Alexander is an idiot, I don't consider that a particularly good thing.

What gets me is everyone else is apparently so blinded by their anger at Robinson's authoritarian style they don't see the possibility that Alexander could be worse.

However, I will say that I think essentially removing the top level of day-to-day administrative oversight may or may not be a good thing. The School Board cannot effectively replace Robinson in that capacity, as much as they may try (and it will be a disaster if they do). Micromanagement by one person is nothing compared to micromanagement by the likes of an entire board, especially one that contains Alexander (and especially given that micromanagement is very explicitly not what the board is there to do). On the other hand, it could actually serve to leave people with more freedom to innovate at the school or classroom level - under the radar, so to speak. Unfortunately, that could go either way, and in any case getting support for innovation in the future is a dicey proposition.

I would not want to be a parent with a kid in that district right now.

Does anyone know for sure if Alexander's kids went to a private school? If so, which one? Was it in Lebanon?

Hometown Insanity, Part Two (School Board Meeting Edition)

I am in shock.

I went to a Lebanon Community School District School Board meeting tonight.

I have never seen something so pathetic in my life, and that includes me and how much I fawn over my cats.

Four of the five members have been on the board for more than a year, yet they don't follow the established rules governing how the committee runs (in this case, Roberts' Rules of Order). They are barely functional.

What's worse is that I can't decide if they don't follow the rules because they don't like them or because they - with the exception of the chair and maybe one other member - don't actually understand how they work. I'm leaning towards the latter because there were at least two instances in which the board members - and Rick Alexander in particular - got himself so tangled up in motions and amendments that he effectively prevented himself from getting what he wanted until someone, usually the chair, bailed him out by explaining what his options were and what the consequences would be.

I was on a budgeting board at OSU and a media oversight board that both used, ostensibly, RRO. I hated them - I think they really limit discussion and aren't near as adaptable as their proponents do - but at least I understood them by, I don't know, the time I needed to use them.

I only stayed at the meeting for two major agenda items, and on both of them the Board stumbled around like drunken children. The Chair, Sherrie Sprenger, was acting like a mother to the board, shepherding and herding them towards where they wanted to go even when it was clear that she would have preferred they do something different. I guess that makes her practically the only professionally-behaving person on the board.

Well, her and Chris Fisher, but he didn't have much to say aside from some passioned pleas to follow the rule of law. It's a sad day when his cries to follow established procedure end up on the other side of the teachers in the audience. They really should know better.

If I had done that during my second year on either of the committees I served on, I would been the laughingstock of everyone in the room, especially on the media committee. We at least knew that a board has to deal with one motion at a time, rather than introduce several conflicting motions at once and then try to resolve the tangled web.

Why did I even go in the first place? See here.

What happened at the meeting? Two things of note: there was an agenda item regarding finding an interim replacement for Superintendent Jim Robinson, and there was an agenda item regarding finding someone to do an outside performance review of Robinson (ostensibly, the reason they placed him on indefinite paid administrative leave in the first place).

The Interim Superintendent

When I read in the paper that the Board would be looking for an interim person to fill Robinson's position, I immediately thought of his underling, Assistant Superintendent Steve Kelley. Normally, in a position like this, one would simply let the next guy down the line step in for the duration. The reasoning is pretty simple: absent any outstanding reason (the assistant being part of the problem is the one that comes to mind), the assistant is the one who knows the position best and has the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively run the place while the boss is gone.

The second thing I think of is the fact that if you're not just going to appoint the immediately most qualified person, you'd better have some kind of rationale for appointing someone - which usually means a public search with some halfway decent criteria.

In the case of the LCSD School Board, I could not have been more wrong. Instead of even talking about the process, Rick Alexander immediately put forth a motion to "appoint" Ken Ray, who is the current Principal of Lebanon High School, interim Superintendent.

He didn't even ask that man first. He didn't even ask him first. Unless, of course, he had talked to him beforehand and this was all a sham deal. Possible, but I want to have more respect for Ray than that.

Instead, we got motions and seconds and amendments and some painful discussion. Chris Fisher pointed to some policies that suggested that Steve Kelley takes over automatically in the "absence" of the Superintendent, but Sprenger pointed out that there is also a provision in district policy that allows for an appointed interim in the case that the permanent person holding the position is unavailable. They argued over that for a bit, and then someone - I think Sprenger - pointed out that they needed to ask Ken Ray first, and maybe, just maybe, they could amend the motion from "appointing" to "entering into a conversation with Ken Ray about the possibility of his accepting the position of interim Superintendent."

Like I said, it was pathetic. Worst comedy show I've ever seen, let me tell you. No subtlety in the writing - just a direct, brute appeal to power.

Ken Ray happened to be in the audience, which was not surprising, as it had been in the newspaper that one of the board members wanted to ask him to step in while Robinson is gone. Sherrie Sprenger asked him very directly if he would be interested in talking about the possibility of wearing two hats; he responded with some platitudes about being honored and then said yes.

The motion to ask Ray to attend an executive session (meaning closed to the public) meeting in which they would discuss the terms of his hiring passed 3-2, with Sprenger and Fisher voting against. It was predictable.

Personally, I am a little shocked that a) no one asked Steve Kelley to step in, b) they asked Ken Ray so quickly, and c) there was no sense of process or procedure or even a vague, weak attempt to actually look for someone qualified. I think I'm too used to semi-professional, liberal bureaucracies (those of Oregon State) that try to follow the rules. If a board had tried to pull this at OSU - call a special meeting when the victim is out of town caring for his sick mother, then proceed to suspend him indefinitely, then proceed to hand-select a replacement - there would have been outrage.

Instead, there were dozens of people in audience that cheered and clapped when the motion passed. Many of them were teachers. On the one hand, that was somewhat unprofessional. On the other, the fact that so many people were that upset at Robinson suggests that there is a very real basis for their anger. I will try and return to that at near the end of this (very long) post.

The External Performance Review

The sad, sad shenanigans continued with the next agenda item. When they broached the subject, the board did so in such a poor fashion that I wasn't able to figure out what they were talking about for more than 10 minutes into the discussion, once they had got themselves so tangled in motions and amendments that Sprenger once again had to step in and explain what was going on - and this time it was to the audience as well as the board.

When they finally got things tangled out, here is what happened, at least as far as I could tell: Chair Sprenger wanted to simply start talking about the process they would use to select someone. Alexander (and by extension Shimmin and Wineteer) wanted to select someone on the spot, someone they had already researched. This time, the lack of process and procedure almost got them in very, very hot water.

I should note that at the beginning of the meeting, Alexander noted the name of a law firm that he had in mind. He was very insistent that it be placed on the agenda. I was never clear if he didn't actually know that the topic - finding an outside review person - was already on the agenda (copies of which the audience had, btw), or whether he actually wanted the name of his chosen law firm to be physically on the agenda. Either option suggests he's not very bright.

Shimmin first asked to talk a bit about one potential candidate she had talked to. She listed the woman's accolades, but noted that she wasn't "proposing a candidate."

Two second later, Alexander motioned to approve her as the outside performance review person. Sprenger asked - and this was a good insight on her part - if the person in question, Kathy Beck (I think) was part of the law firm Alexander had talked about earlier.

Lo and behold, it was the same. Funny how that sort of stuff works. I should also note that Sprenger had compiled several names and firms of what she thought were potential candidates, but she didn't want to talk about them until they had a handle on the process they were going to use.

During the discussion on Alexander's motion, Chris Fisher pleaded again to follow some sort of decent process - you know, an open search for the most qualified candidate. He also pointed out that any money they spent on this would not be spent on students, a point that NO ONE APPEARED TO CARE ABOUT, teachers included (again suggesting that there is an immense amount of anger in the district over Robinson's behavior and policies). Alexander and Shimmin appeared to have made up their minds already, so they objected, obviously wanting to get their way.

Finally, and I am very thankful of this, Donna Chastain, who is an employee of the LCSD, pointed out that any time they spent more than $5,000 on something like this, they have to have an open, competitive process involving written bids. Any more than $150,000, she said, and they have to give out a Request For Proposal, or RFP. That, she pointed out, is state law. Furthermore, she said, the typical process for something like this takes 60-90 days, which means that unless the School Board opts to make an end run around the rules, Robinson will be on paid administrative leave for a minimum of several months. That's a lot of money.

As far as I know - because this is about where I left - the Board tabled any decisionmaking and instead proposed to meet Thursday in a working group to try and figure out how to proceed. It's possible that something happened after I left, but I really, really hope not.

There was one other agenda item that I wanted to stay for, but as it was near the end of the agenda and I was already frustrated, I decided to leave.

The agenda item? "School Board Ethics."

Just thinking about it blows my mind, as most of those folks have absolutely no standing to talk about ethics after their little stunt the previous Monday.

Analysis (of a sort)

So what were some of the consequences of the two agenda items? What did I learn from watching the board for a few hours? Sigh...it's so tempting to write some version of "how not to behave," but I won't.

I learned that as far as I can tell, Rick Alexander is a hack who, as I suggested before, really just cares about power. He certainly doesn't care about the students of the district. His complete lack of respect and understanding of the rules and procedure is apparently a feature for him, and not a bug. I also learned that he, or the audience, felt no need to be consistent. They were upset when Bo Yates was relieved of one of his two positions, but felt there was no problem in appointing Ken Ray to simultaneously be Superintendent and Principal of LHS. At the least, people were thinking about it and never said anything. At worst, they didn't even realize how inconsistent those two positions are. At this point, I suspect it was the latter, given how little ethics or principles of any kind have gotten in the way of people's desire to get their way.

I learned that Mrs. Shimmin is in way over her head.

I learned that Mr. Wineteer wasn't very talkative.

I learned that Chris Fisher desperately wants everyone to slow down and become the deliberative body the school board is designed to be, or at least he wants to make sure that the board follows existing policies, procedures, and state law. It's a sad day when that makes one an outcast and a minority, but that's where he was.

It's also interesting that the classic conservative argument of the "rule of law" is being touted by the board moderate, and completely ignored by the people who seem to be political conservatives. And by interesting, of course, I mean pathetic. I'm all for breaking unjust laws (see MLK's Letters from a Birmingham Jail), but I don't think that a law requiring and fair and open process when spending tens of thousands of dollars is all that unjust. Inconvenient, yes. Unjust? Please.

And I learned that Sherrie Sprenger is desperately holding on, afraid that if she bails on this disaster that it will only get worse. She is also do a very good job behaving as a professional, neutral chair in the face of ignorant absurdity. I felt a lot of compassion for her and Chris Fisher, as they were trying to slow down the lynch mob with very little public support.

There was one moment when I sort of confused. One agenda item was celebrating a woman who has organized and provided 11,000 meals for students this summer with only four other volunteers. She got a standing ovation from the crowd, which is pretty awesome. However, I realized that the only reason she got such attention is that the crowd was there to see Robinson get hammered. In essence, the crowd was there for blood and out of anger, yet they applauded like mad when something very, very positive came up.

At first, I thought that was very strange and very inconsistent. Now I think the crowd doesn't see it as inconsistent at all, since they view Robinson as a harm to the students. Nevertheless, it sticks in my mind that what brought them to the meeting was not the amazing accomplishments of this woman (who may have been blind, I couldn't tell) but their anger at their own Superintendent. Without that, there would have been 15 people in the audience instead of several hundred.

What else?

Oh yes - the best line of the night, especially from my perspective, was Rick Alexander saying "I don't understand the...process." I laughed out loud, because what I heard was someone admitting they were totally clueless....and totally unqualified to be on the board. I may have some blind spot thing going on here, but I keep coming back to his level of support among teachers - if it's not widespread, it's pretty deep, especially among long-time teachers in the district - and how that signals an incredible amount of anger at Jim Robinson. I have to admit that this is also changing my perspective on this whole thing.

The more I think about it, the more compassion I feel for the angry teachers. From what I have heard from teachers and other knowledgeable sources, Robinson does have a very abrasive personality and did force the academy system down LHS's throat. For those reasons, I think the anger is justified. Saying "that's just his personality" does not excuse such poor behavior. As a result, I am beginning to think the anger from the parents and teachers is pretty legitimate; I have admit, also, that until tonight I tended to write it off to Alexander's meddling and normal district politics. Given the turnout and behavior of the crowd, I need to reconsider that assumption.

Despite that, I stand by my original position that the behavior of the teachers and the three board members - Alexander, Wineteer, and Shimmin - is disgraceful. It's taking time and energy away from the needs of students; it's not addressing substantial issues brought up by the presence of the small-schools system (of which I think there are many); the process that's being used is pretty much brute force and raw power, which, while probably typical of Lebanon, is doing a lot towards making the LCSD something to be laughed at, as well as setting a piss-poor example for the otherwise very intelligent students that are paying attention to this disaster of local government in action; and finally, I think it's case where the means are going to result in a very ugly end that no one wanted or foresaw (except maybe Sprenger and Fisher).

I should also point out that bringing in the academy system in the first place sounds like a somewhat desperate and innovative attempt on the Superintendent to try and improve a school with high dropout rates and low grades. His application of the system may have stunk, but at least he was trying - and trying something that's on the cutting edge of K-12 education. And by some metrics, the system appears to be working.

Maybe that's the problem. Maybe Lebanon just couldn't handle some so...so...radical as a substantive change in education policy. If so, shame on them.

So, what happens next? The whole sordid affair plays out, one agonizingly incompetent meeting at a time, and in the end, I think Robinson might actually leave the district. He might reform his ways, and the academy system might get jettisoned, or he might prevail in this fight largely due to the incompetence of the folks attacking him. At this point, I'm not going to predict an outcome. Too many things could happen between now and then.

One thing remains certain: Anger - even justified anger - has not, thus far, led to anything but stupid, unproductive behavior. Maybe it's time the School Board sits down and remembers they are a deliberative body tasked with doing the best they can for the students in their district - and maybe it's time the teachers realized that once the Rick Alexander monster succeeds in getting rid of Jim Robinson, it's only going to turn on them.

And maybe - but I doubt it - the parents and community members who haven't yet joined the rabid lynch mob will step in and restore some sanity the board.

They want to get rid of Robinson? Fine. Just don't destroy the district in the quest to do it.

Hometown Insanity, Special Reader Edition

At the behest of commenter Michelle, I checked out the DH story on the school board meeting and the comments that folks have left.

Two words: Comedy Gold.

Some of my favorites:

Concerned Parent wrote on Aug 2, 2007 2:32 PM:

" Ok, could this Lebanon board be any more disfunctional?!!? It's emmbarassing to me as a parent of two children enrolled in the Lebanon School District to see how this supposed group of "caring" adults continuse to act. It's just appalling. It's time to clean house and start with an entirely new board in my opinion! "

I love spelling errors. Actually, I don't understand why the DH can't throw in a more advanced commenting system, one that has preview and spellchecking features. Seriously.

Moving on:

Concerned Lebonite wrote on Aug 2, 2007 10:36 PM:

" Over Joyed. I belive it's time to take a closer look at some of the other members of the school board, and the damage they may cause in the future. "

That one puts me at risk of some serious Godwin's Law violations. Someone's got a little fascist just waiting to come out.

Dammit.

And they actually spelled Lebanite wrong. Everyone knows it's Lebanite, not Lebonite. Geez.

But wait, there's more:

Lloyd - Parent wrote on Aug 2, 2007 3:35 PM:

" About time! Our children deserve the best education possible. Now the board needs to turn around the disasterous changes that Mr. Robinson has implemented. Lets get on with the job of changing the attitude of low acheivement in our system and rebuild it and gain back the respect of our students, parents, and the community. "

This one is interesting, and is more or less the dominant theme of the thread. Sadly, there is little evidence presented for this argument. Having talked to lots of folks in the high school, it's not at all clear that the changes are "disasterous." It is clear, however, that there are some teachers very interested in changing the attitude of low achievement, academy system or no.

My own take is that a lot of negative views of Robinson and the district are due to folks like Alexander and Wineteer spending lots of time talking trash. That's not to say that there aren't good reasons to oppose Robinson or his policies, but that those reasons aren't even making it into the debate.

Personally, if I lived in Lebanon and wanted to support the schools, I'd try to get the district more money, probably from the state or federal government. That would help immensely. The whole "funding via local property tax" thing is regressive and painful.

Finally, a commenter who is not looking to grab a pitchfork and join the mob:

Lebanon Teacher wrote on Aug 2, 2007 4:30 PM:

" I think the board's action is not appropriate or fair. To call a meeting to suspend the superintendent while he is unavailable to defend himself is wrong. I have disagreements with the superintendent but I would never stoop so low as to attack him in the manner this board has. "

Hm. Well said, Lebanon Teacher. Unfortunately, I think Alexander and Wineteer and Co. aren't really interested in good process or good relations. I think they are interested in power.

And finally, the tiny voice of sanity:

CSW again wrote on Aug 3, 2007 10:59 AM:

" Has anyone considered how much it will cost the school district to remove a superintendent who is under contract! His entire pay for at least one or two years and then we have to pay a new guy at the same time! Just when we finally get a budget which allows our distict to hire new teachers. "

Sound about right.

Oddly enough, there is one thing that I think could have prevented a lot of this mess, and as far as I know, it's arguably Robinson's fault. The one thing, not the current mess. The current fiasco can be laid squarely at the feet of Alexander and Wineteer.

1. The Superintendent is on a rolling three-year contract (a deal with is standard for almost all district superintendents), which means that each year the Board approves his contract for the third year out. So if they want to get rid of the guy without obvious grounds for termination, they have stop renewing and wait.

2. For the first several years, and I don't know the exact number, of Robinson's tenure, he was considered "provisional" or "probationary" or something, meaning they could fire him without cause - the old "he's not working out" thing. That seems pretty standard. When the time came for the School Board to renew his contract for the year that would push him beyond that probationary envelope, there was an effort to hide this information from board members. They renewed, locking him into the system. I think if they hadn't done that, this process might have been far more civil. Maybe.

Point being is that Robinson has quite a reputation for being authoritarian, and from what I can tell some of it is well-deserved. That doesn't mean his policies are bad, which is something I think many folks are conflating. Being authoritarian is a bad thing all by itself.