Recently a family member of someone who resigned from the BOFG board wrote to the Union Democrat suggesting that an unnamed person had trespassed or knocked on the board member's door at night and that people should be "ashamed" of the tone of the recall effort. The students, parents and community members involved in recalling this board are hard-working people who have jobs and kids and have done everything possible to show the highest level of professionalism.
However, let’s talk about who really should be ashamed of themselves in this recall event.
Who should be ashamed?
a) The people who investigated and discovered that the Superintendent/Principal of Don Pedro only turned in only 62% of eligible students' scores for STAR testing to the State of California (compare to 100% for Tioga and 99% for the County)
b) The board who took at face value the excuse received that the discrepancy was due to “independent study” students; the superintendent/Principal of Don Pedro HS who claimed her test scores were greatly improved compared to last year (when the former Principal turned in 97% of tests taken including those for Special Education and Independent Study students)
Who should be ashamed?
a) The students, parents and community members who rallied support for a teacher whose cause for dismissal they knew to be false and unethical, and who knew that the supposed cause was then documented by a California State agency to be false
b) The board members who took at face value everything they were told by the Superintendent, (yes, the same person under-testing students) and listened to nothing they were told repeatedly by the community; the board members who did nothing to investigate the incident themselves; the board members who refused to reinstate the teacher
Who should be ashamed?
a) The community members trying to get real facts on district spending from the school district office
b) The secretary of the Superintendent who made them stand outside for 1 ½ hours and then produced a document said to be board policy saying they must make appointments first, which was proven to be a false document. (The real board policy said the public can come by any time.)
Who should be ashamed?
a) The students, parents and community members outraged when the school board lowers the pay of the Tioga principal after she is told to teach a class in addition to her Principal duties to help the budget, and then outraged further when that board begins deducting money from every lowered paycheck saying that over the summer she was therefore a part-time teacher and as such was overpaid as a Principal over the summer
b) The school board members (including the one who resigned) who claim they knew nothing of these events and once they did know, did nothing; the attorney working for the superintendent who offers the Principal an insulting sum to resign
Who should be ashamed?
a) The community members upset at the cancellation of the very valuable Fire Science program at Tioga
b) The school board who sat in the front of the community just weeks ago and said they had no idea what happened to the Fire Science program
There are many more incidents that could be listed here, pertaining to the lack of understanding of school financing leading to the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars for the district, refusal to put requested items on the board agendas, talking to newspapers about events in closed sessions, and much more.
Really, who should be ashamed?
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