Old Iron Fist Abraham allowed that he's going to recommend the board censure Alison Bartlett, claiming she violated policy by not taking her contentions about coercion of teachers by some principals to Superintendent Fred Sanderson.
Several board members went ahead and did their own censuring of Bartlett after a report from Dr. Linda Bernknopf, who just happened to be a former Cobb principal, hired to investigate the matter.
Bernknopf said she found no evidence to support Bartlett who had told the board Nov. 11 that staff members from five schools cast suspicion on the integrity of the survey. She said some teachers told her principals had encouraged support for the "balanced calendar" in the non-anonymous survey of district employees.
Bartlett asked the investigator/former principal if she had talked directly to any teachers. Bernknopf said she had not because Bartlett disclosed no names of teachers, only the names of the schools. But many of the principals were insulted, Bernknopf said.
Stop right there.
Why did the investigator need names of teachers? She should have interviewed teachers at the schools as part of her job. Not that it would have mattered: No teacher in her/his right mind was going to squeal on a principal. And what principal was going to admit pressuring a teacher?
So the sleuth talked to the principals at the five schools. No teachers. And no question about the outcome.
That's an investigation?
The "report" was more than enough for board member David Banks to all but call for Bartlett to resign. He told her to evaluate whether she should continue as a member. This from the man who flip-flopped on his campaign promise for a later school start date as did Abraham to carry the "balanced" calendar in a 4-3 vote.
Member Holli Cash quizzed Bartlett on whether she owed the five principals "an apology for not following procedure as a school board member and the way you went about announcing it?"
She should have been asking why the district survey was not anonymous and why parents were not polled. The district said it surveyed all 15,211 employees, including 6,636 classroom teachers and 1,672 special ed teachers, producing 8,400 responses (55 percent of the total employees) and of that number, 51.1 percent (about 4,284) favored the "balanced calendar."
Censure Bartlett? Abraham and his potted plant cohorts are the ones who should be censured for violating state law by voting on matters behind closed doors time and again, by voting on a cell tower contract not on the agenda, by voting in secret to renew the sweetheart contract of district lawyer Glenn Brock, etc.
Alison Bartlett being censured by this board is the bad joke of the year.
dmckee9613@aol.com
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should be addressed, but the MDJ invariably picks
the side that serves its anti CCSD agenda. And you
sir are merely a conduit for the publisher's
vitriol.
GAE or PAGE is (1) capable of protecting a teacher from Sanderson, or even (2) managing to conceal the identity of a teacher from CCSD. If you really are that gullible, I have several investment opportunities I would like to talk you about. Any CCSD employee, particularly a teacher, who dares to buck Sanderson is toast. Small wonder there were no complaints filed. Small wonder many chose not to even vote, since they knew it would do no good. Vote the way Sasnderson wanted you to and what was the point? Vote your preference and it would not make any difference because you would be out of a job on some trumped up charge, investigated by the bogus investigator they use.
Big D, you need to take off your rese colored glasses and get a look at reality.
You know not what you talk about - as a person who spends all day researching data. I know. It is easy to find out anything about someone who hits a site. It can all be recorded!
So knowing how wrong you are in part 2 - I can only imagine how wrong you are in part one.
of it.
Also, when you claim that it was a "non-anonymous survey", you ARE technically correct, but the reality is that it would take some substantial forensics to reveal those identities and votes. MDJ should be ashamed of the way it is orchestrating this latest round of attacks on the teachers, principals, administrators and Board of this school district!
First, by her OWN ADMISSION, the board member erred in broadcasting her unfound concerns at an inapporpirate time and place and to the wrong audience.
Go back to the tape of the meeting. The member brought up the so called arm twisting in repsonse to her fellow board members using the survey as partial justification for their choice of vote. She was throwing gasoline on to the fire of a small issue being raised by a few very vocal, well orgainzed citizens in an attempt to change the other member's vote. She couldn't change their minds on the issues with logic or any other valid point. She had to resort to what the MDJ has championed over the past several years with watching the Cobb school board: pure rumor and suspect that any issue that does not meet the approval of the vocal,well orgainzed minority who use the MDJ as their personal newsletter, is nothing but wrong, criminal and/or outright lies and deceit.
We have far bigger fish to fry with education in Cobb County than to argue over a few days in the calendar. That is why the great silent majority is so quiet about it. It is a NON-ISSUE.
Move on and let's talk about how the school system is going to fund itself next year when the tax digest will gets reduced in 2010 by as much double digit percentage points! Now that is a real newsworthy topic!
2nd Abraham gets the police to escort a woman from the podium because she was doing something he didn't like - explaining how he campaigned to get elected on one issue and then voted another way. I'm for the balanced calendar - but that is wrong.
NOW Abraham and the zoo "stone" a fellow board member because she did something they didn't like. Blew the whistle on the way the vote was taken.
These are the 3 ways O know that these men have discrimanated against women. I wonder how many more there are that we just don't know of because people are afraid to speak out.
I'm afraid to speak out, because of reprisals against my kids. This is America people we are supposed to be able to speak our mind.
If I'm afraid and I just have 3 kids in the system, I cannot imagine what it is like to be a teacher.
BAD Example for our kids - we should learn from our leaders not fear them.