Last Thursday the Wicomico County Board of Education (WCBOE) met in closed session. This, by itself, isn’t particularly unusual. What was unusual - downright worrisome - was the subject matter.
The Wicomico County Board of Education met in closed session to obtain legal advice. What advice did they seek? Sources on Long Avenue confirm that the board wanted to know if they were obligated to answer questions posed by the Wicomico County Council; how far they have to go in answering questions from the council; and even if they are required to MEET with the county council. This really jibes well with the claims of Supt. John Fredericksen and multiple board members that they are an "open book" and welcome public scrutiny.
How can the members of the BOE be shocked that the public questions their their integrity, and their stewardship of the taxpayers’ dollars, when they behave in such an underhanded fashion?
WAS THIS “SECRET SESSION” EVEN LEGAL?
This is precisely why this meeting violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the act. The were seeking legal advice on how to stonewall the elected representatives of the taxpaying citizens of Wicomico County.
TRUST ME?
Just a couple of weeks ago, WCBOE members had a hissy fit in front of the county council. They argued that they were tired of being “grilled” and having to answer insulting questions from the council.
A few days later, the Daily Times implied that the Wicomico County Council were equivalent to terrorists for daring to ask valid questions regarding the WCBOE’s stewardship of taxpayers’ dollars. In their scathing, falsely premised, op-ed the DT made the following statement:
While the council does not have authority to manage the school board's budget line by line, it does control the purse strings and may choose to cut funding. However, council members are not better qualified nor do they understand the responsibilities or inner workings of the Board of Education -- which includes 14,619 students, 1,249 teachers and 25 schools -- while meeting local, state and federal regulations.Yet, it is the heroes of our local paper – the Wicomico County Board of Education – who have made fools of the very champions who rode to their defense. One can argue that the Wicomico County Council, who meets in public, answers questions from all comers, and continually strives to be good and faithful stewards of the taxpayers’ hard earned dollars are, in fact, more qualified to make decisions regarding our children’s educations. They certainly set a better example.
Pointing fingers and thereby tacitly implying there must be wrongdoing, mishandling or waste somewhere does not lead to constructive resolutions. Divisive behavior does not save money, nor does it lead to a better education for our county's students.
There is only one goal: to make the best possible use of scarce resources to provide the highest quality education for all students. The only way to reach this goal is through open, honest dialogue and constructive debate.
Divisive behavior may not save money. Nor does attempting to hide relevant information from the public and its elected representatives. We agree that “open, honest dialogue and constructive debate” are helpful, if not necessary, to setting public policy. We would also argue that conspiring to hide information and obfuscate our elected representatives does not meet ANY definition of these terms.
The next time that a member of the WCBOE or Supt. John Fredericksen dare stand up in public and proclaim that they are forthright individuals with only the best interests of the county’s children in mind, any person present should remember that this same sanctimonious group wasted tax dollars attempting to shield themselves from public scrutiny.
Stonewalling and Sophistry
This recent behavior of the WCBOE would be shameful enough if it were an isolated incident. Talk to parents who have dared question the board’s policies or decisions. Even a relatively small sample yields multiple examples of the same stonewalling. If not stonewalled, the questioning party is treated to sophistry straight from the dialogues of Plato.
The answer to these problems is simple. Fredericksen and the WCBOE need only be honest. If they don’t know the answer to a question, admit it. If they aren’t comfortable releasing certain information, say so and tell us why. Otherwise, simply answer the question. You don’t need a lawyer to do that.
34 comments:
This is sickening. They need to answer the questions and be held accountable for their actions. They are not above the law and should not make any attempts to hide details of their spending practices. "WE" pay for what they use and "WE" should know how they spend it. PERIOD. Go Wicomico Council. Please publish any divisive tactics by the WCBOE. We need an elected BOE, Conway - get it right next time pal.
they should all be fired!
Guess they forgot they work for the taxpayers! just like the council.
" However, council members are not better qualified nor do they understand the responsibilities or inner workings of the Board of Education -- which includes 14,619 students, 1,249 teachers and 25 schools -- while meeting local, state and federal regulations."
I think the above sentence, quoted from your editorial, speaks volumes. This is one reason that I think we need to retain an appointed school board. In fact, if I had my druthers, ALL members of the school board would be former educators. Only they would really understand the complexities of running such a massive operation. The County Council has engaged itself in nitpicking, which is something that the uninformed tend to do.
Schools and school systems are not what they were when I went to school in the 1950's. Things seemed so simple then. There were not all of the federal and state mandates that we have now. How many people know the tremendous cost, for example, of special education. Back "in the day," if a kid couldn't keep up with his peers, he just quit school; now we have programs in place from even before kindergarten to follow such kids through to graduation. This costs money, lots of money. In some cases, one assistant is hired for one student--unheard of not so long ago.
School buildings are not as they were. With technological advvances come the requirement that buildings be retrofitted. Some buildings are just plain obsolete. Those who don't understand education in the
2000's ask why we just can't use the old buildings. They say, "Why, when I was in school..." And the list goes on.
I realize that funding for education is ultimately the responsibility of the County Council, whose members by and large do not know or understand how school systems work. The whole fundings mechanism needs to be revamped. The BOE negotiates contracts with teachers, for example, but they don't have the power to fund them. It is true, though not many may know it, that the BOE is not really a "department" in county government, such as Public Works; yet it must come, hat in hand, to the Council.
Yes, there may be some waste in the BOE that needs to be corrected, but weeding out such waste would result in relatively minimal savings (e.g. putting a cap on lunches that employees may consume).
Long story short, it is the responsibility of the County Council to fund the school system to AT LEAST the level of the previous year. Anything less is cheating our young people of the quality education they deserve.
10:00,
While I agree with most of your comment, I disagree with your summation of:
"Long story short, it is the responsibility of the County Council to fund the school system to AT LEAST the level of the previous year. Anything less is cheating our young people of the quality education they deserve."
I feel as though the BOE should be transparent enough to release the facts so that the citizens who fund the BOE are better informed. IMO, if you hide the facts and the truth, there is usually a reason for it. The citizens deserve to know the truth and also deserve to be reassured that our dollars are properly being managed for OUR children! If there are no issues with excessive spending in the BOE, then why hide it? Sorry, but there needs to be complete transparency period! If Fredericksen or his group can not see this, then they need to go period!
Lol, "sophistry straight from the dialogues of Plato?" Do us all a favor G.A., don't use words you don't understand and reference things you haven't read. Nobody is fooled and you just end up looking like an even bigger idiot than you already are.
Anon 1156 -
I apologize if you didn't understand the statement. Rather than whine, you could just ask.
Sophistry is simply an argument or explanation that is designed to deceive. If you had read Plato, you would understand this. You would also appreciate the argument if you had ever attempted to argue with Fredericksen and the bureaucrats on Long Ave.
If you were actually interested in improving your education, you could check out Plato's the Meno, the Protagoras, the Gorgias, or the Sophist. My personal favorite is the Gorgias.
BTW - get the "Complete Works" edited by Cooper. Much better than the Hamilton & Cairns edition.
The BOE needs to be held accountable to the taxpayer---Period!!!
Way to go Cty Council----Glad you Understand !!!!!
Many have written as 1:30 does that "the BOE needs to be held accountable to the taxpayer."
Now how do we implement that? The BOE budget from all sources is, what, around $50 million? (Maybe someone can supply the correct figure). Now what does the taxpayer do to ensure that the BOE is "accountable?" Go through the many pages of the BOE budget line by line? Then you're doing what the County Council seems to be doing--nitpicking. As laypeople, how do we know if an item is not needed or too costly? How do we know, for example, if the requested allotment for high school English texts is too much?
There seems to be an idea that the BOE is crazily spending the "taxpayers' money." By asking for transparency, there is, of course, the implication that the BOE is trying to hide something. Hide what? How would we who know nothing about what the BOE does be able to point the finger and say, "You don't need that."?
I know absolutely nothing about the Public Works Department, what they do (beyond fix roads), what they need, how much it costs, etc. So it would make as much sense for me to try to find "hidden" itemsin its budget as it would for someone to find such items in the BOE budget.
Yes, of course, we taxpayers deserve the "best bang for the buck." Maybe it's time to trust those in the BOE to do their job. If anyone out there has a solution to how to look at the BOE budget--or for that manner the budget of any department--objectively, please share it.
2:00
That is why we have elected to County Council. Remember the phrase "For The People"? If not, then you should go back and review what our founding fathers stated when forming the origional government, not this abomination we call our current gov't. With your stated words, I assume you are involved with the BOE which is fine, however when any agency goes unchecked like the the BOE currently is, there are numerous opportunities for illegitimate actions to arise. If there is nothing to hide, then why not just answer the questions with a straight foward answer so the rest of us can be educated on the facts? Sorry, but with the cuts that are taking place, we want to know why our children are not being treated the same as we were when we were their ages.
If your philosophy of " it is the responsibility of the County Council to fund the school system to AT LEAST the level of the previous year. Anything less is cheating our young people of the quality education they deserve.", then why has driver's ed, arts and numerous other programs been cut from the budget? Perhaps if the employees decided to brown bag their lunch instead of taking a $60 food allowance, our children would not have to suffer through as many of the cuts as dictated by someone who chooses to hide the facts instead of educating us on the whys and hows. We have trusted the BOE for far too long, now it is time for them to be accountable.
Joe- on a slightly different note. Did you know that it is over 90 degrees in several schools in the county today with no A/C?
The board is telling parents that they are getting water breaks and they can pick thier kids up if they wish. I haven't seen that on news or anything. You know anything about it? I heard Bennett Middle had classrooms in the mid - 90's!!! Kids just cannot learn nor teachers teach in those conditions!! Let us know what you find out please!!??
10:00, I agree with your post. I think the board and the council have gotten into a pissing contest and are overshadowing the real need of funding our schools. Everyone needs to take a step back, shut up and get to work on some real issues. And that doesn't include where food vouchers are spent, or whose spouse works for whom or who their friends are. Gossip and garbage are not what we are looking for from either the council or the BOA. Grow up and get to work.
anon 200
I have thought about this, since I am in the still new to the public school system in this county. I suggest, they start at each school, and work up from there. It is easy to say that there is a lot of waste at the headquarters, but there is also tons of it at the school level too. I am not talking about taking something from the classroom, away from our children either. If they have to start somewhere, why not at the schools?
Perhaps instead of seeking council on how to "handle" the county council, they should be trying to figure out how to implement the policy's they have at the school level. There is so much "covering-up" and "juking" the stats it is sicking.
For what it is worth, I will so HAPPY when this school year is done. It has been a nightmare from the start at my school.
10:00 - Sounds like a rallying cry to promote further inbreeding that has created the problems that exist today. If folks aren't groomed through the system they certainly can't have any idea of how to administer the system.
IMHO that is hifalutin balderdash. The only way we are going to get Wicomico County education back in line will be to get a non inbred board and administration to go through the entire system asking what the spending and efforts have to do with educating our children. If they truly focused on educating not implementing their sacrosanct sophistry wouldn't have to be explained.
Bennett Middle School had upstairs classrooms with a heat index of 106 today - my daughter's Science teacher used the conditions to teach about humidity for their weather unit.
If people kept pets in those conditions, they'd be taken away. But Stevie Prettyman et.al. have no problem with 900+ middle school students left sweltering (with no recess, remember) in unsafe conditions.
Shame on you, County Council! Shame! The BOE may have had a plan that was a bit grandiose, but TRUE leaders would have found a way to get a suitable building built, instead of being drawn into a spitting contest with the BOE and pushing a solution years down the line.
Nobody has prevented the BOE to install air conditioning in that school.
not once in any of these comments or the original post has anybody mentioned the Federal and State mandates that literally force the BOE to spend money to meet these requirements. One person did mention a one on one assitant- and that is just the tip of the iceberg for what the government mandates but does not fund. The BOE does not have a choice regarding these requirements- things like "No Child Left Behind", - I agree there is probably waste- but, nothing is being accomplished by all of this grandstanding- I am so disappointed in our council- there IS a way to go about being a good steward- I have not seen that demonstrated by them...I see power hungy people acting badly.
Umions are the reason for the high cost of the new school.
4:35----You "nailed it!" They complain about their salaries---sure don't know why --as the average working graduate would love the "perks" they receive---These perks add up to an additional $15-20,ooo a yr to their pay ----that's not taxed!!!
2:00, Do you believe that outside the current employee list at the BOE that there is no one who knows anything about the inner workings there? No retirees? No ex- employees? No one from other states who moved here that have worked in a school system? Really? Methinks that the current board won't answer the questions because there ARE educated people outside the system. (even though you try so hard to keep us dumb!)
2:34
I teach in the school system and I have not heard the Board saying parents could pick up their children. It was over 90 degrees when I walked into my room at 7:30 a.m. this morning. At one point, it was 98 degrees on the thermometer in my room, not counting the heat index. We are giving students their fourth quarter Benchmarks in this heat. How accurate do you think this data will be? Never saw any Board empolyees or School Board members at our school today. Maybe they should turn the AC off at the Board and the County Council meetings until all schools have air conditioning.
The Council should ask where the $30,000 went that was removed from the account for the salaries of home-school liaisons. The director, Mrs. Finger,was not told when the money was taken in January and some schools were told recently that their home-school liaisons would have to stop working because the money to pay them had been taken from the account. Good luck getting anyone to admit it.
I'm 61 years old and I worked outside today. It didn't kill me. maybe it won't kill the brats in school.
I realize it doesn't belong here, but:
Dr. Fredrickson just sent out a message that:
With a note from a parent, children may be kept home (or at least be excused from school((if you know what I mean)) due to heat and lack of A/C in there respective school.
I can't say what I would like to here.
BMS parent
anon 200 you are doing a very bad job hiding the fact that you are a self important educator who thinks that just because qwe do not have a teaching degree we are beyond the needs of our children
Dispite the fact that the BOE executive staff is arrogrant and mean to their staff, Bennett Middle needs to be built.
To 10:16
You need to take a reality pill.
I'm warning everyone out there - it is high time the taxpayers formed their own union because if we don't - we'll soon be overun with burdensome taxes. It's the special interest - School Teachers Union - that is the culprit here.
If they had been doing such a fine job then we would have mew employers & start-ups exploding around here. All we have is the ought from ought = naught or in simplistic terms;
0 - 0 = 0
When the lawless teachers union was allowed to sqeeze the very juices from our system - (i.e. Thornton Funding) - you can see the results of our economy.
8:19pm And Bennett Middle will be build when the county has the money to pay back the money it borrows for it. I have been at council meetings and I have heard every council member say they want Bennett Middle to be built. There just isn't any money right now. I know the council has taken a lot of heat for this decision, but I agree with it. I haven't heard one person thank the council for funding the building Bennett High. So, thank you county council for that. And since I don't know the entire budget situation I also thank you for being wise with my taxdollars and saying no to BMS until the county gets in better shape.
Reference 8:41 Posting
Amen - brother. I've been saying the same thing for so long that the chickens have finally come home to roost.
Personally - I don't see how Pollitt's reorganization is going to streamline anything. If we don't get some new start-ups and offer some significant employment opportunities - it's only going to get worse. Especially with the winter coming on latter in the season..
Pollitt's vision for Wicomico is like putting - a moustache on a Cadillac and calling it a Lincoln - but that still doesn't make it a Lincoln.
BMS DOES suck but the plan for the new school just gives everyone the gut reaction that WCBOE does not care about the taxpayers but only themselves. Its just too elaborate. Make a brick school something like WI middle big enough to house the kids and focus on comfort elements like good a/c. I mean come on. . .all those windows? That is very energy inefficient! For any building windows cause heat to be lost and the more you have and the higher your ceilings the more it costs to heat. Windows also allow sun inside and causes buildings to warm up. The BMS plan is all about the looks and nothing about education. As soon as one educational Taj Mahal gets built every school board in America thinks thats what they need to keep up with them. Just build a simple brick building with good HVAC and be done with it. We don't need a modern art masterpiece. Taxpayers SURE don't.
To the individual that is 61...I am 61 also and I worked in my yard all day in the heat and i too survived. However, that does not mean that the young people do not deserve an air conditioned school. More over where do you get off calling the students "brats". My grandchildren and the children of mjy friends are not brats thank you!
4;46 What in the world are you talking about? Please let me know...beause I don't know about that perk, and I have been working for the BOE 13 years!!
Agreed 10:32, that is not a true statement.
I have to weigh in on the comparison of working outside to sitting inside with no air. Totally different, no comparison. There should be no school in 2011 without air conditioning that works, that's just a fact.
I must say that I attended BMS 1981-1983. The school has not changed and does need upgrading, HOWEVER, we survived the heat just fine and so will todays children. The upgrades need to be done but in a logical manner. Not in an over the top manner. I think that several comments in this thread refer to the heat issues. It does get hot in there, but those comments just support the fact of how lazy and spoiled numerous Americans have become over the last 30 years. It is time to get back to basics and correct our nation NOW for OUR CHILDREN!!! Great legacy we are leaving them...a completely screwed up situation. I cringe when I think about what things will be like when our children get to be our ages unless we do something now to correct it! If you are a teacher and are screaming about the heat, get a different job.
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