New Woodburn Community School

GLARING LACK OF DIRECTION, LACK OF LEADERSHIP

It’s worth repeating:

There is a crying need for a large community push for better conditions in the schools for the students, and for the teachers: i.e., smaller class sizes, bigger and better classrooms and facilities, and more and better resources…and more teacher and community control of those resources, which means a never ending school board election campaign for what should amount to an essentially parent/teacher & service worker/community run school board, as opposed to the current administrator/superintendent run school board that has proven to be so contemptuous, so incapable, and so wrong.

American Federation of Teachers President Sam Brunnet comments in his letter to the DP earlier this month:

And again, as previously posted:

It is highly instructive to listen to various State Delegates offer their views on these issues, following this past week’s AFT presentation to the delegates. The interviews of these delegates can be watched and listened to at the American Federation of Teachers Meeting video on Youtube. The quotes below are taken from these interviews. (Another excellent source for good information and valuable perspectives on these matters is the Facebook website of County Commissioner Tom Bloom.)

Marion County State Delegate Tim Manchin: “I was somewhat shocked to learn of some of the problems that we have with top heaviness in the school system, where we’re spending way too much money on administration and not enough money getting it into classrooms. You know, when we start showing increases in administrative personnel while our per pupil per teacher ratio is going up, there is something wrong with that scenario and we’ve got to figure out a way to turn that back around. Those were the two big points that I came out with.”

Monongalia County State Delegate Bob Beach: “My focus for this evening is obviously Monongalia County and that perception of being top heavy. And I believe the information they [AFT] shared with us tonight filled in those blanks that were missing for me before I came in here. I was actually only hearing one side of the equation, and this evening added that additional element that I needed to take back to Charleston, and be able to work through this, what I want to call a mess right now.”

Whither Monongalia County Schools? Turning out the current bad leadership would be a good start.