The following, copied email, was sent on Monday, September 16, 2013:
Socastee
Family, Members of the Board, Dr. Elsberry, and Selected Media,
After
hearing my address below, the Horry County Board of Education did not discuss
any of my objections to last Thursday's voting. Instead, it quickly voted
unanimously to approve our district's $2.5 million grant application
for President Obama's Race to the Top Initiative. I can only conclude that
money and District desires are more important to every member present who voted
for this than principles, policy, and professional ethics are. Power and money
rule in Horry County Schools. What a shame!
Members
of the Board and Dr. Elsberry,
Needing
at least 80% of a faculty’s support for Obama’s Race to the Top Initiative, in
order for an Horry County school to receive money from a $2.5 million federal
grant, the District sent an e-mail to each school about 8:30 a.m., Thursday,
September 12, which included a 2 ½ minute video pitch from Dr. Elsberry urging
support, faculty signature sheets, indicating support and non-support, a form to
provide the number of its professional staff members and the number and
percentage of those supporting the initiative, and gave a deadline of the end of
the day to supply this material. This hurried effort clearly
demonstrates that money and District desires are more important to Dr. Elsberry
than the treatment of teachers as professional educators, was a violation of
District policy, and is more evidence that our school district needs to return
to traditional governance.
Deadlines
can creep up on all of us, but if the District needed to involve teachers in the
decision to receive a grant, time should have been allowed for ample
exploration, discussion and debate, before teachers were asked for their
opinions on this important matter, weeks, if not months, of serious
consideration. Teachers lead very busy lives, and many have not
kept up with the intricacies of the Race to the Top Initiative and its highly
politicized and controversial components. It would be better not
to pursue the grant than to treat teachers as an afterthought or urge them to
support something without their thoughtful study.
The
District clearly violated its own policy, “Information Gathering by
Administrators,” (pp. 222-223, District Policy Manual) which was enacted in 1998
as a result of a grievance I brought against the District concerning improper
balloting procedures used for year-round schooling and block scheduling.
Enacted under traditional governance, it was removed in 2001 by
Superintendent Gerrita Postlewait, after we switched to policy
governance. Following my objection to its removal, Dr. Postlewait
reinstated it in 2002.
In
gathering information from teachers on highly sensitive issues, the District is
supposed to guarantee complete anonymity and announce plans for tabulation of
the data and the reporting of results. This did not happen
Thursday.
E-mails
are supposed to be read at Socastee High every day, but many were teaching a
first block class when the District e-mail was first distributed.
Signature sheets began to circulate during second block
(10:10-11:40). Some teachers signed their names without having
time to view the video or consider what was happening. This was
not reasonable.
I
informed Dr. Elsberry of my concern about policy violation at 10:23 a.m.
After my objection, principals were notified midday by the District that
signatures would not be necessary. However, many signatures had already been
supplied. Complete anonymity had not been guaranteed.
This
grant application should have gone through committee development and review,
perhaps a curriculum or operations committee, on which teachers could have been
represented, before final approval by the board. Unfortunately, we
have no standing committees under our form of policy governance.
This mishap is further evidence that we need to return to traditional
governance.
Either
Dr. Elsberry needs to declare the results of Thursday’s district-wide efforts
invalid, or the Horry County Board of Education needs to do so through its own
operational policy. Both the superintendent and the board have the
responsibility to correct this colossal error.
Teachers
were not considered significant participants in this endeavor, no matter how one
interprets policy. Teachers should be treated as professionals and should not be
an afterthought in significant District decisions.
Sincerely
and professionally,
Bobby
Chandler
722
Pine Drive, Surfside Beach, S. C. 29575
Phone
(843) 450-0962District Office
Conway,
S. C.
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