A Citizen Responds to the August 14th Board Meeting

8/18/2018

I am concerned about the quality of work the KCK Board of Education is producing. On August 14, they had a regular meeting under the leadership of board president Valdenia Winn. The wisdom of the board’s action is one thing, and reasonable minds can differ, but there should be a process for the whole board to decide what is wise. Sure, financial audits happen without fanfare, but they are part of the usual course of business. Administrative audits are not routine, so stating some reason for the expenditure and identifying the goal of the exercise seem like topics the whole board would want to discuss. The agenda was duly posted. Motions were made, seconded and passed. As Dr. Winn stated in regard to the CIS contract but apparently applicable to the whole meeting, the law was followed. In my opinion, merely complying with the law is not the standard of excellence our students deserve. Unfortunately, in my opinion, no real board work was accomplished at this meeting: no discussion of the issues, no common understanding, no explanation of the action taken. When the expansion of the CIS inquiry came up after executive session, Dr. Winn called for a motion and a second which were quickly offered, then she asked for a vote and had to be interrupted to remind her to allow board discussion before the vote. When discussion was allowed, Janey Humphries raised a variety of questions about the proposed amendment to the CIS contract. The rest of the board let her speak, but no one replied in agreement or disagreement or curiosity about the answers to her questions. Two other board members must have had reservations because when Dr. Winn called for the vote, they abstained. Yet they didn’t enter into the discussion before the vote. Then, oddly, Dr. Winn gave an interview after the meeting to explain her position. Read Here:
http://wyandottedaily.com/old-issues-surface-at-new-superintendents-first-meeting/ Why not talk it out among board members during the meeting? Also troubling, board member Janey Humphries stated that the whole board did not have access to all the information. You just can’t have a functioning board when the bona fide members are split into one group with inside information and pre-arranged votes and another group shut out completely. A 4 to 3 vote indicates there are things to talk about. If Dr. Winn is confident of her proposed course of action, it should be able to stand up to open discussion. If not, it just makes this member of the public more concerned. In her public comment, Betty Maddox suggested that the board participate in a seminar on policy-making and I think that’s a good idea.

Sincerely, Sally Murguia

4 Comments

Concerned

8/19/2018 01:08:36 pm

Need an email campaign before it’s too late. Wanda Paige was not eligible to vote on this contract, because it affects her. If she abstained, it would have failed 3-4. We need the board attorney to clarify what happens when a member should have abstained, but failed to.

Worried citizen and employee

8/19/2018 10:49:05 pm

This audit doesn’t effect teachers so it wouldn’t affect Wanda Paige. Our teachers and police force cannot be included due to the contracts and collective bargaining rules.
It doesn’t make sense to include everyone else as “administrator”. Janey Humphries asked if bus drivers are administrators and no one answered her. Then in the interview Valdenia Winn mentions seeing if people have the right training? Does she think we have bus drivers without CDL? She gave a similarly vague answer when Barb Shelley from the Pitch interviewed her about the need for the review.
People are seconded guessing their decision to work here when a lady who has multiple lawsuits against her and her company from other school districts is being given unlimited access to almost everyone’s files. And the board cannot even spell out what they want from the review. So whatever she finds or thinks she finds will be twisted to support whatever Winn and Paige want it to be. Both of them have made no secret they want people from their neighborhoods to be hired - and given jobs even if they don’t have credentials.
Watching the board meeting that was at the JEDunn office awhile back was sad - Paige was badgering the Dunn people about the unemployed people she knows and why don’t they hire them. Who knows if these people she knows even applied. And now this review contractor lady is allowed to look at our contractors records too - it says so in the file.
I hope they come to their senses soon before more money is wasted and more people make plans to leave. We finally getting new and better schools in KCK and a lot of upper staff are going to leave like dr Mather.

Concerned

8/20/2018 09:37:35 am

She is not on a teacher contract. She falls under the "all employees EXCEPT, teachers, LEOs, and Library."

Employee

8/20/2018 10:19:15 am

People all over the district are looking to leave. The ONLY reason to work for the government, is a sense of job security. Other than that, you get lower pay than the private sector across the board considering our education and years of experience. The exodus will continue all year long. Neighboring districts have spoken openly about making room to poach those with specialized knowledge from us. Sadly, they seem to be looking at it as a way to pick up some great talent on the cheap, because most are willing to take a pay cut to get away from this board and their agenda. This board doesn't realize some pretty important things about the work that is done daily. Teachers are absolutely important, but teacher turnover doesn't grind things to a halt. When you start losing people like Dr. Mather, who is running the entire bond project, or replace the leadership of a whole department like HR, there are MAJOR unintended consequences. Turnover there DOES grind the whole machine to a halt. And that's exactly what this is about folks. They want good people out of their jobs so they can give their supporters that position. In the private sector, CEOs have bachelors degrees all the time. It's experience and results that matter. Education is extra points on the resume only. I have no idea where they are coming up with this idea that people aren't qualified, except that they're not the right skin tone for this board. The have no idea that half the challenge of this job is mastering the systems we use to make everything work. You may not like that HR isn't hiring your friends, but when you replace them with your friend, and no one can get paid, because your friend has no idea what they are doing in an, infinitely complicated database system, I think it's pretty clear what the priority should have been. There are several programs just like this, and we cannot afford to lose the experienced people that make this whole machine run. You cannot just walk in the door and learn "on the job". You cannot come in and focus solely on hiring minorities to make the board happy, and ignore all of the other vital things you do all day to make sure people get paid, have their complaints heard and investigated, process job offers, run a sub program that never should have been brought back in-house, and somehow troubleshoot and fix issues in the system that can come from any one of 1,000 tiny typos or bugs. They've never worked a day in an administrative position in this district, and have ZERO understanding of what is needed. That scares me to the bone.

Let's Talk About KCK School Board Activity