Where were FUE, OLÉ, SWOP, ATF and the PTA? Where was the Journal?

In  the Journal this morning, link,  we first find out that the leadership of the APS has embarked on a leadership plan whose effect will far out last the election of three new board members and the hiring of our next golden parachutist.

This plan will outline what academic programs APS will put in place in the coming years and how they will be budgeted for, Winter said.

“It’s going to be a five-year plan of where we’re going and what we’re going to do,”

It isn't so much that the board shouldn't be planning ahead,
of course  they should be planning ahead.  It is that,
they haven't been planning ahead for years, and that,
they're just getting around to creating a plan now;
a month before an election and six months before a new superintendent takes over.

The meetings in which the plan was hatched were conducted without the meaningful participation of stake and interest holders. I will of course bow to controverting truth; tell me who, what and where there was meaningful participation.

School Board President Analee Maestas offered;

“It’s actually our educational plan for student success.” 
“And I do think it’s time for us to update it.”

Shouldn't any multiyear plan be reexamined annually,
or better still; continuously?

Their plan illuminates ongoing administrative shortfalls.
They hope is to get things fixed before that new board and superintendent expose the shortfalls in the process of addressing them.

For example,

The ongoing problem of their lack of oversight over their spending of our resources and wielding of our power, will be addressed by providing some accountability;

It will also attach “an evaluation piece” to each program so the school board and administration will know whether a program is successful or not, (Winter) said.

Journal reporter Jon Swedien noticed, or loosely quoted  APS chief academic officer Shelly Green, that;

A key difference between the former academic plan and the one administration is working on now will be how academic programs and initiatives are evaluated.

What a great idea!

The ongoing administrative shortfalls should not exist in a more than one hundred year old organization.  That they do exist is a manifestation of administrative and executive incompetence and corruption.

Where were stake and interest holders when the plans were being drawn

The new academic plan will be focused on reducing truancy, use of technology in the classroom, ways teachers can use data to improve their instruction, professional development strategies ..." said Shelly Green, APS chief academic officer.

How can this plan not involve,
how can it not be fundamentally based upon,
the meaningful participation of teachers and the others work work everyday in classroom and at schools.

Green said "APS must still help teachers adjust to the new standards ..." 

Educated, experienced and dedicated adults who have between them, hundreds of thousands of year of ongoing experience will come on board just as soon as they "adjust" to standards they had no part in creating.

Despite the manifest lack of involvement of stake and interest holders; APS Interim Supt Brad Winter has the unmitigated gall to say;

it is important for APS to communicate key aspects of the master plan to the community at large.  

Notice please;

• communicate to stake and interest holders, 

as opposed to, and every bit in place of,  

• communicate with stake and interest holders.

Marty Esquivel favors the aggressive move to preempt voters and the new school board.

“It’s very aggressive planning and it’s good,”.

Esquivel claims;

"... teachers, parents and community members should have a say in creating the plan, and it’s important the plan isn’t created from the “top down.”

He did not point to the time, the day, or the place where stake and interest holders will have their say, in especially since it is apparently, already to late for them to participate meaningfully in decision making that affected their interests.

Hitting Esquivel's lob back over the net, Winter claimed;

... he wants the district to establish a community academic advisory commission.

Please note that when, if, any advisory "commission"(?) is established;

(the)Details regarding who will be on the board and how they will function still must be decided, Green said.

The "details" will be decided by the administration without the participation of any of, the FUE, OLÉ, SWOP, ATF or the PTA.

The Journal will not be there; not as a participant, not even as a watcher and reporter.

The scary part; 

Winter is expected to leave the district shortly after APS hires a new permanent superintendent, although he does plan to stay on board for a “transitional period.”

Your seat on the school board

Call me a cynic, but the "transitional period" is the period where the new board and superintendent begin to understand what is going on and how it is being covered up.

They may rebel; they may
refuse join in the cover up.

I think they need Winter to hang around for damage control; to keep the lid on when it starts to blow off.




photo Mark Bralley