I watched the meeting and had a rather different reaction to the financial discussion as compared to you, Tom, and most of the commenters. Regarding hiring a consultant, this was a proposal by Dr. Turner due to various factors, including lack of bandwidth and expertise within her own team. I don't think it's reasonable to expect the Boar…
I watched the meeting and had a rather different reaction to the financial discussion as compared to you, Tom, and most of the commenters. Regarding hiring a consultant, this was a proposal by Dr. Turner due to various factors, including lack of bandwidth and expertise within her own team. I don't think it's reasonable to expect the Board "to do this work themselves." And I don't think it's accurate that "[t]he Board, yet again, continues to abdicate their elected responsibility to voters, parents and students." Omar Salem stated, as if anticipating your objection, that while the consultant will present options and recommendations, the vote to cut $10M will be the Board's. The only option the Board had was to say to Dr. Turner: "No, we will not approve your hiring a consultant, you have to do this project internally." I thought that their reactions to Grossi's dire warnings were appropriately sober and generated decent questions. The January date for putting forward a plan for cutting $10M was not something the Board came up with. It came from Dr. Turner, presumably with Grossi's assent. The laughter at the end of the meeting was, in my opinion, anxious or, at worst, wry laughter. Lastly, there is justice or accountability of sorts in the fact that, having presided over this mess, the Board will have to take very hard and unpopular decisions next year.
This is good feedback, although, I will say .. I'm not sure how much accountability there really will be. They're going to preside over this in January but 4/7 are off the Board by April. It's the next Board that will really be cleaning up the mess.
I respect your willingness to express a different take on much of this, but a lot of what you said assumes all of this occured in a vacuum. There have been plenty of concerns raised over recent years over cost overruns, including an overreliance on expensive consultants. Furthermore, I think it's very valid people are annoyed/angry at the notion that part of hiring a consultant to make recommendations on school closures is to insulate the board/admin from tough feedback from the community.
As Tom noted, the majority of the current board won't be sticking around to face that justice/accountability you referenced. In fact, the current reality might dissuade some would-be candidates from running at a time where we really could use a wide pool to choose from.
Pablo, yes, I was reacting to this meeting and there is a long history here of the Board trusting/relying on/deferring too much to the Administration. I hope many of them get replaced and will campaign actively for challengers. I do think that Omar is willing to be honest out loud which should be commended.
I watched the meeting and had a rather different reaction to the financial discussion as compared to you, Tom, and most of the commenters. Regarding hiring a consultant, this was a proposal by Dr. Turner due to various factors, including lack of bandwidth and expertise within her own team. I don't think it's reasonable to expect the Board "to do this work themselves." And I don't think it's accurate that "[t]he Board, yet again, continues to abdicate their elected responsibility to voters, parents and students." Omar Salem stated, as if anticipating your objection, that while the consultant will present options and recommendations, the vote to cut $10M will be the Board's. The only option the Board had was to say to Dr. Turner: "No, we will not approve your hiring a consultant, you have to do this project internally." I thought that their reactions to Grossi's dire warnings were appropriately sober and generated decent questions. The January date for putting forward a plan for cutting $10M was not something the Board came up with. It came from Dr. Turner, presumably with Grossi's assent. The laughter at the end of the meeting was, in my opinion, anxious or, at worst, wry laughter. Lastly, there is justice or accountability of sorts in the fact that, having presided over this mess, the Board will have to take very hard and unpopular decisions next year.
This is good feedback, although, I will say .. I'm not sure how much accountability there really will be. They're going to preside over this in January but 4/7 are off the Board by April. It's the next Board that will really be cleaning up the mess.
I respect your willingness to express a different take on much of this, but a lot of what you said assumes all of this occured in a vacuum. There have been plenty of concerns raised over recent years over cost overruns, including an overreliance on expensive consultants. Furthermore, I think it's very valid people are annoyed/angry at the notion that part of hiring a consultant to make recommendations on school closures is to insulate the board/admin from tough feedback from the community.
As Tom noted, the majority of the current board won't be sticking around to face that justice/accountability you referenced. In fact, the current reality might dissuade some would-be candidates from running at a time where we really could use a wide pool to choose from.
Pablo, yes, I was reacting to this meeting and there is a long history here of the Board trusting/relying on/deferring too much to the Administration. I hope many of them get replaced and will campaign actively for challengers. I do think that Omar is willing to be honest out loud which should be commended.