- Kudos to those who are so wealthy that they need not be reimbursed;
- If the reporter had taken the trouble to provide a table showing each of the Board members' total expenses for the past three years, the public would have a clearer picture.
- In that case, the article would have displeased the Superintendent, who wishes to discredit her most vocal critic.
How hard could that be?
Wouldn't you like to see the training expenses for all of our associate superintendents year by year?
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11 comments:
Keep it simple for November. Vote only for school board candidates who are willing to ask as many questions of the administration as Kandrac. Vote "NO" on the sales tax referendum and any other tax increase that can't be explained without smoke and mirrors. Ask for (better still, demand) a forensic audit to stop the waste and redirect the tax money CCSD already gets but is withholding from teachers and students in the classroom. Roll back the fat raises given to the office queens at 75 Calhoun last year.
The CCSD is a joke and Diette Courrege is the most naive, simple-minded "journalist" on the P&C staff. Elizabeth Kandrac, however, is the only board member who has responded to my complaints and she has done so in a thoughtful, intelligent manner.
I'm curious about the process for demanding a forensic audit of CCSD. Can a private citizen initiate one? Would the responsibility be a county or state one? And which agency? I read in the news about forensic audits for this city or county and surely there must be a remedy for the CCSD situation.
The article about Elizabeth Kandrac's expenses made me mad!! Here the lady is trying to learn more and be an informed board member and what happens!! She is put on the carpet for a measly amount of money in the scheme of things. CCSD wastes so much money and pays such large salaries to some while the teachers and students have to do without. Makes me sick!!
There is so much more that could be reported but is getting a pass. What about the referendum Nancy McGinley had drawn up for Bill Lewis to tear down and replace the downtown schools? The engineering reports said the schools could be fixed and renovated, but Bill Lewis alone decided they should replace them all. McGinley's referendum says $35 million or Buist but only $18 million for Charleston Progressive. It also says Buist has 500 students, but CCSD's web-site says 400 is more like it. Why not just fix the structure and do a total renovation as the engineers recommended for less than half what Bill Lewis wants?
Maybe Bill Lewis and Nancy McGinley need some training in public honesty. They may be too old and too far along to learn a basic character trait now.
My question to the P&C is how will they follow up on this story and take it where it should logically go? Let's break down the whole financial structure at CCSD. Tell us what that looks in its proper context. Already the price tag for new schools looks a lot more suspect than training expenses for board members that as a whole came in way under budget anyway.
Come on, $30,000 for board member education is a whole lot less important than asking us to swallow $35,000,0000 for a new school that could easily be renovated and expanded for much less. Who's calling the shots at CCSD? Is it just me or have the head honchos at CCSD really been treating the public, parents and taxpayers like sheep? Now that's the real story. We need a few more people to step up and have the courage to ask questions the P&C isn't. If the P&C would do that, we all might finally get some answers.
Keep it up Ms. Kandrac. No child will ever be denied an education simply because someone asked too many questions. But a whole lot of children in Charleston County have been denied an education when not enough questions were asked. How long have we asked officials why high school students can't read? What happened when the P&C finally started asking the same question? Enough said. Now do what's right.
Boy, Brian Hicks really doesn't get it. All those administrators with newly minted raises in McGinley's office have done a real snow job on him. Does he really think this is about $6,000 worth of board training for Kandrac vs. $900 for Green? What about Toya Green voting to fund a new directorship for her husband (Dwayne Green)? The word on the street is he's been given a six figure salary. And who sits on the Charleston Promise board which hired him? Nancy McGinley. And who reviews the Superintendent's job? Toya Green. Come on Mr. Hicks, where's the real taxpayer scam here.
Don't blow this off as an example of party politics. Oh, yes, the author of this post (me) is quite a bit left of center and Ms. Kandrac is every bit to the right on the conservative spectrum. Sometimes common sense has to override party loyalties and even conventional wisdom (i.e. popular sentiment).
I give Ms. Kandrac credit for carefully responding to most constituent calls while still putting up with this petty drivel from the newspaper. It should be no surprise that Ms. Kandrac is open to considering wise counsel from every reasonable source. Too many past and present members of the school board haven't been open to becoming more informed, lest they be turned away from the hand that led them to their positions in the first place. Ms. Kandrac knows that she owes her seat to her constituents.
Ms. Green, by contrast, has often expressed her distaste for constituent service. As a Charleston County School Board member since 2006, Ms. Green continues to openly oppose support for charter schools in spite of national Democratic Party educational policies that favor them, the party she claims when she wants their support. Most local Democrats aren't aware of how she's played them for their endorsements, disregarding that her position on educational issues have gone against what most Democrats are for.
Local officials of the two major parties here may be just as uninformed as Mr. Hicks about who is doing what as a "non-partisan" school board member. Public corruption and hypocracy are still the same regardless of who's doing it.
However you spin Kandrac, she's making noise about issues CCSD would like to hide. It looks like our esteemed daily newspaper is following a red herring on this issue. I thought Mr. Hicks had more sense than to take at face value whatever Elliott Smalley says.
Boy, Brian Hicks really doesn't get it. All those administrators with newly minted raises in McGinley's office have done a real snow job on him. Does he really think this is about $6,000 worth of board training for Kandrac vs. $900 for Green? What about Toya Green voting to fund a new directorship for her husband (Dwayne Green)? The word on the street is he's been given a six figure salary. And who sits on the Charleston Promise board which hired him? Nancy McGinley. And who reviews the Superintendent's job? Toya Green. Come on Mr. Hicks, where's the real taxpayer scam here.
Don't blow this off as an example of party politics. Oh, yes, the author of this post (me) is quite a bit left of center and Ms. Kandrac is every bit to the right on the conservative spectrum. Sometimes common sense has to override party loyalties and even conventional wisdom (i.e. popular sentiment).
I give Ms. Kandrac credit for carefully responding to most constituent calls while still putting up with this petty drivel from the newspaper. It should be no surprise that Ms. Kandrac is open to considering wise counsel from every reasonable source. Too many past and present members of the school board haven't been open to becoming more informed, lest they be turned away from the hand that led them to their positions in the first place. Ms. Kandrac knows that she owes her seat to her constituents.
Ms. Green, by contrast, has often expressed her distaste for constituent service. As a Charleston County School Board member since 2006, Ms. Green continues to openly oppose support for charter schools in spite of national Democratic Party educational policies that favor them, the party she claims when she wants their support. Most local Democrats aren't aware of how she's played them for their endorsements, disregarding that her position on educational issues have gone against what most Democrats are for.
Local officials of the two major parties here may be just as uninformed as Mr. Hicks about who is doing what as a "non-partisan" school board member. Public corruption and hypocracy are still the same regardless of who's doing it.
However you spin Kandrac, she's making noise about issues CCSD would like to hide. It looks like our esteemed daily newspaper is following a red herring on this issue. I thought Mr. Hicks had more sense than to take at face value whatever Elliott Smalley says.
It's easier -and lazier- to reflexively criticize Elizabeth Kandrac for $6,000 in training expenses compared to digesting the amount of corruption in the CCSD. Even reading the previous post gives me a headache and requires me to think -but hey, $6,000 I automatically understand.
The P&C merely threw out the figures without providing context. That is lazy reporting for lazy readers and I this selective bitchiness is a way to almost harass Kandrac.
Million dollar question: Why is the P&C so deferential to the CCSD? They could enhance their readership and their reputation if they adopted a more critical approach. You know, if they acted like journalists.
Kandrac is a well-placed pawn.
Not that some of her criticisms are not timely, but she is one of the most thoughtless, inane and unprofessional persons I have had the displeasure of meeting.
If you wish to criticize district waste and politics, you are more than likely right to, but to say that Elizabeth Kandrac is a voice of reason is to only see what this blog and a few supporters have spun.
She is a not coherent oft- times, and although seemingly well-intentioned, is not the one pulling the strings. We need better quality on the board for sure, but she is not it.
You've got to be kidding. No one is pulling Kandrac's strings. Now if you want to call her a loose cannon, that might be more accurate. As for board members being tied to a string and being manipulated by a puppet master, Toya Green and Ann Oplinger would be good examples. In the absense of cohearant, thoughful and intelligent leadership on the board and in top district offices, a loose cannon is the best we have. If the previous author has a better idea, then by all means share it. CCSD is sharing nothing, it seems, unless they are forced.
I didn't say she was the district's pawn...
She does not act on her own...ever.
The rest of the board are a mixture of sycophants, seniles and silent space-takers.
Kandrac is a silly-nilly.
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