Cook or Crook? Or a Bunch of Crooks?

From reading the P&C's Sunday edition, we can be sure of one fact: former CCSD Board of Trustees Chairwoman Nancy Cook doesn't give a damn about veterans. Yoga. Candles. Right.

Venial people exist around us, but they can't take their venality to such lengths without the complicity of others. Let's start with former CCSD Board member Gregg Meyers, who is attempting to defend Cook's actions as nothing out of the ordinary. Undoubtedly Meyers knew some of the details of Cook's behavior while she was still on the CCSD Board; I guess her vote was safe for his projects.

The VA's problem is that Cook wasn't a big enough player in terms of dollars for them to spend their limited resources researching her behavior more fully. Therefore, it had to depend on the directors of the men's shelter to keep finances in line. Joke. That was a joke. They appear to have treated their positions as honorary rather that real.

Cook should be prosecuted for misappropriation of funds and insurance fraud.

The Board of Directors should be prosecuted for not doing their jobs.

Cook-Meyers Duo in the News Again

What do former chairmen of the Charleston County School District Board of Trustees do for an encore? Perhaps the same behavior they exhibited when on the school board.

Attorney Gregg Meyers filed a lawsuit for Nancy Cook (don't you wonder what she has on him?) as a preemptive strike in a suit brought against Cook for taking advantage of monies she received from the Veterans' Association as director of a men's shelter in North Charleston. Among other items of interest, Cook doubled her salary to $130 thousand per year.

Quite a profitable nonprofit for Cook, wouldn't you say? Who knows what additional shenanigans occurred at 75 Calhoun when the two of them were in office? Someone does.

McGinley Subscribes to the NSNS Too?

National Sarcasm News Service, or Halloween joke? You decide.

From the Superintendent's Desk, October 31 [italics mine]:

On Monday, we honored the proud legacies of Nancy Cook, Brian Moody, and Hillery Douglas—all three of whom, after longstanding tenures on the School Board of Trustees, stepped down. We will miss them, but as I said on Monday, we know that the enduring impact of their work will be felt for a long, long time. Not only is our recent academic success a tribute to their leadership, but new buildings—such as Sanders-Clyde and Haut Gap, two schools we ceremoniously broke ground on this week—would not have come online if these Board Members had not championed the need for them.

"Come online"? Who's writing this stuff?

P & C Takes Sides in CCSD Dispute

Splashed all over the front of the P & C Friday morning was one of the most important stories to come out of CCSD this year! At least it must have been to receive the place of honor above the fold. So, was this startling information about the school district banner news about its achievements or even its failures?

Of course not. It was about a spat among CCSD school board members facilitated by employees of 75 Calhoun. [See Threats to McGinley's Job Alleged ].

Lost in the explosion about "he said--she said" was the reason for the anger. Found in the detritus was a stick to beat members of the school board (mainly Arthur Ravenel, Jr.) who don't take directives from Gregg Meyers et al. Seizing the chance to overreact in an election year, Douglas and his toadies made noises about changing the policies of the Board so that language might be a cause for public censure: "A board member who violates the code could face public discipline."

Spare us the sanctimonious simpers. No one excuses foul language, not even Arthur Ravenel, Jr., as it seems from his later TV interview today, and his explosion of temper was truly uncalled for, for the person who took the agreement with the Charter School for Math and Science to use the Rivers building off the Board's agenda was not present. In fact, no one has said who took it off, so we must read the tea leaves. Judging from remarks regarding the Superintendent, it must have been McGinley.

Needless to say, the P &C ignored the issue, hoping not to pick at the scab that has formed over the ongoing dispute between organizers of CSMS and the school board, which is seething quietly over its inability to stop CSMS's fulfillment. That continues to be the real story.

Oh, and one other observation. Courrege apparently parrots whatever Meyers et al say to her. How else to explain the statement that, "Cook and Toler frequently vote with Ravenel on controversial issues"? That statement was, of course, made to cast doubt on their neutrality in the dispute. Instead, it reveals the reporter's ignorance about the relationship between Cook and Ravenel.

May we get on to the topic at hand--when IS the CCSD board going to grapple with the CSMS agreement? When hell freezes over?

School Choice, Diversity Training, & Duck Death

Wednesday's diversions from the P & C:

"The push for school districts to offer more choices to students has been stopped this year by lawmakers."

Whose push is this? Oh, yes. The State Superintendent of Education. We're using the word "choice" here loosely, as in charter schools. If school districts need more charter schools, let's see elected school boards and community members organize them without the help of the legislature.

"After meeting with [Nancy] Cook about her controversial comment [see my previous blog about CCSD airheads] over the weekend, the [NAACP] said she should enroll in sensitivity and diversity training, and urged other members of the county school board to condemn her comment."

Can we require President Dot Scott to attend also? She believes anyone with a white skin must be racist [i.e., her previous remarks on organizing of the new charter high school downtown--a racist plot]. That couple could contribute so much to the class!

See Driver Charged in Accident, Duck Death

No wonder we have such a high homicide rate in North Charleston.

I know--it's not that funny when you read the article. Still.

CCSD Politics: Airheads at Play

Now obvious to the public is the political deal made between CCSD School Board members Hillery Douglas and Nancy Cook. Let's face it: the two of them may be the biggest racists on the present board, so maybe that's what they have in common.

The conversation clearly went something like the following:

Hillery: If I run for mayor of North Charleston, you'll support my candidacy.
Nancy: Yes. And then if you lose, I'll let you be Board Chairman while you support my candidacy for Charleston County Council, even if I have to run as a Republican.
Hillery: Why do you want to be on the Charleston County Council?
Nancy: Well, remember, the CCSD Board can't send funds to my shelter any longer, the way it did with the Derthick Fund. If I get on the Charleston County Council, I can get some funding from the county to replace that money. After all, the County Council puts lots of earmarks right into the budget, even if its slush fund has been under the gun lately.
Hillery: That's true. It's a deal.

Of course, the former was only an IMAGINED conversation, but it does explain Douglas's reaction to airhead Nancy's stupid remarks made earlier this week on local talk radio.

In case you've been hiding under a rock, the comments, which Cook now claims have been taken out of context, concerned sterilization and taking babies away from what used to be called "welfare mothers." THIS is her solution to high dropout rates in our nation's schools. AIRHEAD is not too strong! [See Cook's On-air Remarks Draw Fire]

Cook: We're not paying for another baby, maybe one baby, but after that, we're taking the baby. And maybe you get sterilized. I know that sounds kind of extreme and radical, but we're in times to where — think about America.

Out of context? Here's what Douglas said in response:

Cook was trying to give an answer to a problem that has most people perplexed.

"Sometimes when you try and do that off the cuff, the wrong things come out," he said. "I'm almost certain she really doesn't mean that that's the solution to it by sterilizing. I just think it was something that was said that should not have been said."

Why was it said? Because Cook is after the racist vote in North Charleston, that's why. She's no Republican. Don't kid yourself that she really doesn't think this way.

Can you imagine the firestorm from Douglas and his cronies if Sandi Engelman had made remarks even one-third as racist as these?

Buist Lawsuit May Be District 20's Last Gasp

For sure, once CCSD's Board of Trustees starts appointing District 20's constituent board members (and all others, as supported by Sen. Robert Ford's stealth bill), the raison d'etre of all constituent boards will no longer compute.

Let's all remind ourselves why these constituent boards were created. The idea was to bring what were then separate districts into partnership while still protecting the interests of each individual district. Decades later, the results reveal it was a forlorn hope for the downtown district. Instead, its best interests have been ignored, with the proceeds of its considerable assets going to build up other constituent districts, especially in Mt. Pleasant.

So it is with a certain amount of nostalgia that we read of District 20's day in court over the lawsuit concerning CCSD's policies for Buist Academy [Buist to Get Board Answer], noting the irony of Alice Paylor's role in the Buist controversy, obviously a conflict of interest. As District 20's attorney, Larry Kobrovsky, correctly pointed out, "it wasn't fair for former Charleston County School Board Chairwoman Nancy Cook to receive free representation from Paylor on an issue related to her board candidacy and then preside over the Buist Academy principal's appeal of the constituent board's admissions policy decision."

Just out of curiosity, does Buist still have "over 1000 on its waiting list"? I thought Doug Gepford was working on that.

CCSD's Pretend Residency Politics

CCSD labors mightily and brings forth . . . a mouse.

Saturday's P & C reveals the results of its new policy on enforcing attendance zones. [See Board allows 6 outside zone to stay at school].

Whom should we feel sorrier for: Nancy Cook, who voted to enforce the residency policy approved on her watch and was voted down 8 to 1 by the rest of the CCSD board members; or the St. Andrews District 10 constituent board, which naively assumed that enforcing that policy was what it was expected to do? Perhaps its members have now discovered they have more in common with the District 20 constituent board than once they thought!

According to the constituent board's chairman, Russell Johnson, "no one on the constituent board wanted to move children mid-year, but they were trying to uphold the county board's rules."

'I'm not real fond of (the county board) making rules that they don't enforce themselves,' Johnson said. 'What is the point of the residency verification if they are not going to enforce the results?'"[italics mine]

Exactly. So the plan is, drag your feet verifying addresses for the first semester; then allow the miscreants to keep the children where they should not be because they've been in the school for a semester. I'm not talking about hardship cases here, but it's hard to believe that all six exceptions fall into that category. Let the parents explain to Johnny Joe why he has to change schools mid-year. It reminds me of the criminal who murders his parents and then begs for mercy because he's an orphan.

If CCSD is not willing to enforce its attendance zone policy now, there is no reason to believe it will do so in the future. The school board passed this policy to placate those who believe (and still do) that the lists for Buist Academy have been "cooked" and bypassed for favored children of the well-connected. Nothing has changed at Buist with this policy. Community concerns have not been answered. Only St. Andrews was impacted by Goodloe-Johnson's assigning multiple unhappy Buist applicants to the school as a sop. The uproar began when the school became overcrowded and added mobile classrooms as a result.

At Buist, which claims to be the only magnet school to have completed the process of verification, the process was never truly started. No enrollees were checked to see which of the four lists they were supposed to be fulfilling. Does anyone believe that all of them actually live in Charleston County? Why should anyone when downtown addresses have been proved false in the past and NOTHING happened?

Gepford should not allow himself to be used as a figurehead for this ethically-challenged group, not if he has any self-respect.

[By the way, is this the same Doug Gepford who is a supporter of Charleston Collegiate School?]

CCSD: You Thought We Were Going to Follow Our Policy?

Clearly what CCSD needs is a Chief Obfuscation Officer, such as the one suggested for the New York City Schools [See DOE Announces New Administrative Positions]. Then slip-ups like the one below wouldn't occur.

Board trips over policy on expenses

By Diette Courrégé

The Post and Courier

Friday, January 11, 2008

Charleston County School Board members haven't followed their policy to publish their expenditures and share what they learned with their colleagues.

The school board approved a policy that requires it to publish the yearly expenditures for its members each August, but the board failed to do that last year. The Post and Courier began asking for that information in early October and submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for it in late November. The district supplied the information in early December and provided more details later that month.

Board member Gregg Meyers said it was inappropriate that a Freedom of Information Act request was needed and that the information should have been available in August. He said he planned to let the superintendent know the district should follow the board's policy.

School board Vice Chairwoman Nancy Cook was chair of the board until November. She said she forgot the board was supposed to make this information public, and district officials should have reminded the board about this. The board doesn't have anything to hide, but this disclosure wasn't on her radar, she said.

"They should've been on top of that," she said.

School Superintendent Nancy McGinley said she wasn't aware of the policy's requirement until recently, and the responsibility to ensure such a report was generated would have fallen under the chief financial officer. She said that she relies on the heads of district departments to follow policies and that this issue wasn't brought to her attention. [Note: And the chief financial officer said, what?]

Job description for this new CCSD official could be modeled after the one [satirically] proposed by New York parents:

"Chief Obfuscation Officer: Heads the PR Department division responsible for explaining all DOE restructuring issues to the public."

Add to this administrative position the responsibility for explaining the School Board's arcane financial decisions and unequal treatment of District 20 and North Charleston, and I think we've got a winner.

CCSD's New Leadership: Rearranging the Deck Chairs

Buried in today's report of CCSD's Board of Trustees Monday-night meeting is the fact that Hilary Douglas, last year's vice chairman, and Nancy Cook, last year's chairman (and chairman for the last four years), have switched chairs. Now Douglas supposedly is in the driver's seat ["Douglas to Steer School Board"] and Cook is his co-pilot.


Recycling the past will help the future? Douglas was first elected chairman in 1989, eighteen years ago. He was on the Board starting in 1985. These were years when county schools continued unopposed in their downward slide.

What is the record in North Charleston, the area Douglas represents on the Board? Both North Charleston High School and Brentwood have records during his tenure that should cause nightmares. Has Douglas looked out for them in his 15 years on the Board?


Same old same old.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: CCSD & First Baptist Johns Island

Would you believe. . .

• CCSD's official "who oversees charter schools" was not allowed into the building where the schooling takes place, but Gregg Meyers voted to keep the Sea Islands YouthBuild Charter School open anyway--and send it $98,000 more of taxpayers' money?
• Sea Islands has no general liability insurance, leaving both the church it occupies AND the taxpayers in CCSD liable for any mayhem or accident that occurs during its sessions, but lawyer Hampton-Green voted to keep the school open anyway--and send it $98,000 more of taxpayers' money?
• Sea Islands failed to notify the First Baptist Church of Johns Island that its program in which "about 10 students a year worked toward their GEDs, learned construction skills and built homes with community partners" had been enlarged to 75 at-risk students, a number too large for the space available--but real estate expert Jordan voted to keep the school open anyway--and send it $98,000 more of taxpayers' money?
• Sea Islands is now suing the Church because "it allowed district officials to trespass on its property" [that would be Church property]--but Douglas and Toler voted to keep the school open anyway--and send it $98,000 more of taxpayers' money?
• First Baptist members, who thought they were helping the community, must now endure the snail-like eviction process to rid its buildings and grounds of Sea Islands Charter while suffering daily vandalism and fear of abuse from students?
• even Nancy Cook voted against sending the Sea Islands YouthBuild more taxpayers' money?

While everyone wants to better the lives of these at-risk students, is that really what is happening in this case? And when the program was changed, why did CCSD trustees show so little curiosity regarding arrangements for its expansion?

CCSD Shenanigans: The Thick of Derthick

For SIX years--SIX years--CCSD school board members voted to distribute "more money than it was supposed to" from the Lawrence Derthick Jr. Memorial Trust Fund. That's SIX years, folks, when no one watched the store, six years that, if my memory serves me correctly, encompass Don Kennedy's entire service as CCSD's chief financial officer.


To quote Friday's P & C, "The committee administering the fund has given out more money than the fund earned for the past six years. In the future, the district's finance department will notify the board chair of the amount available to be awarded."


Umm. In the future? And the Board weren't notified previously how much was available? What kind of crazy system is that?


Needless to say, the taxpayers will foot the bill for this foolishness, which member Brian Moody called "over-funding" of "worthy and legitimate causes." Moody himself is an accountant, but he didn't notice that a fund that contained $150,000 gave out $50,000 in one year, seriously depleting its principal. Fortunately, member David Engelman pointed out the discrepancy, or as he has said, "what $150,000 investment makes $50,000 in one year?"

Truth to tell, board members used the fund as a personal charity for favored groups, some undoubtedly deserving, and some, like the one run by Nancy Cook, an apparent conflict of interest. Two CCSD board members, unnamed in the article (but one is Hillery Douglas) and a third from the District 20 constituent board make the recommendations to the full CCSD board each year.

As the P & C points out, "The fund isn't supposed to fall below its principal amount, but that happened this year after the board doled out too many grants. The fund has earned an average of $500 in monthly interest for the past four years, but at that rate, the fund would take more than seven years to rebuild itself to the principal amount."

Where IS Al Parish when we need him?

Buist Policies: Worth 1000 Words

At the Buist policy hearing this morning--Gregg Meyers finds his cell phone more interesting than the proceedings; Nancy "listens" to Marvin Stewart of the District 20 Constituent board.

Viewing local TV news broadcasts suggests the meeting was a farce, the CCSD board's simply going through the motions in response to a policy passed by the District 20 Board several months ago.

So what did happen? Nothing as usual--except eloquent defense of the right of District 20 schoolchildren to better opportunities. Why would Nancy and Gregg want to pay attention to that?

Eyes on the Prize in This CCSD Fight

In one corner we have a school building that began life as Rivers High School, renovated previously at a cost of millions, sitting vacant, perhaps as an emblem of wasted taxpayer dollars.

In the other corner we have an avid group of racially-diverse parents and citizens anxious to bring true academic success to downtown Charleston in an integrated setting in the form of a charter high school in District 20.

And in the middle we have obstructionist Gregg Meyers and the majority of the CCSD school board--that would be Douglas, Cook, Jordan, and Hampton-Green, who suddenly must defend the indefensible action taken arrogantly in August. The Board is about to find out that just because you have a 5-4 majority does not mean that riding roughshod over the minority has no consequences.

Today's editorial staff of the P & C does a fairly creditable job of taking on Meyers's self-serving Letter to the Editor published on the same page, so I'm just going to point out the downside if CCSD doesn't do a 180 and allow a public school to use a public school building in the same manner as James Island Charter High School and Orange Grove Elementary. As I've said before, parents stymied in creating better schools as charter schools ultimately will turn their efforts to school vouchers. Can you blame them? To them, their children's education is not an intellectual exercise. Even now, as reported in the State, the prospects for school choice look better for the next legislative session.
In addition, as the P & C's editors so delicately put it, "Mr. Meyers also writes that he will try to return the question of the school's rent to the board's agenda." My! I'm sure it will take a herculean effort for him to gather his sycophants to agree, since they've been following his advice all along.

The editors also point out that, "When the rent issue was last considered, two board members were not physically present but participated in the discussion by telephone. This issue is a critical one to the school's future and deserves a full hearing and debate, which to his credit, Mr. Meyers recognizes and is working to accomplish." Well, he certainly didn't recognize it the FIRST time around!

Maybe they're playing to his ego so that he will cooperate, but notice that the editors did not NAME the board members who participated and VOTED by telephone--that would be Board Chairwoman Nancy Cook and MEYERS HIMSELF. Further, it doesn't take a crystal ball to know who designed the invidious rent policy in the first place and knew that it would come to a vote while he was absent.

Gregg Meyers can make all the nice noises about charter schools he wishes, but the reality is that he can't stand the idea of losing power--a sad example of a former Civil Rights lawyer stuck in the sixties. Apparently, he suspects any group that he doesn't personally control of ulterior motives.


And he's part of a system that has produced de facto segregation in virtually every District 20 school. He's the one whose motives should be suspect.

CCSD Professional? Get a CFO Who's Qualified

Tenisha Waldo of the P & C quoted Nancy Cook, CCSD board chairwoman as saying of Don Kennedy's departure for the Seattle schools, "'This is our third person [Goodloe-Johnson] has raided. It's just not professional, in my opinion. That's why we're so disappointed.'"

Who's not professional? Maybe Nancy Cook, who hoped that a "lucrative counteroffer" would keep Kennedy in Charleston. CCSD was prepared to beef up the salary of a chief financial officer who does not have the qualifications to do the job in the first place? Kennedy sensibly took the Seattle offer, which as far as I can determine is NOT as chief financial officer.

Maybe someone can set me straight. Apart from soliciting what could be considered kickbacks from district contractors (a long-standing practice he did not end when hired in 2004), his obfuscation about the budget during CCSD school board meetings seemed to be Kennedy's most outstanding quality. He may very well be, as McGinley asserts in the CCSD press release, "a man of great honor and integrity," but what was it in his background that qualified him to oversee CCSD's millions in expenditures?

• Does he hold an MBA?


• Is he an accountant?


• Does he have any specialized financial training beyond undergraduate courses at Newberry College?


• Prior to joining CCSD, did he have any experience beyond being in the Air Force and working in the comptrollers' offices at two defense-industry organizations?

While McGinley reviews the "job description," let's hope she adds more sophisticated knowledge to the requirements in her "nationwide search."

In the P & C, using the district's press release as a "prepared statement," Waldo quotes McGinley in calling Kennedy"'a man of great honor and integrity.'" However, she must have tired of rewriting the release. Paraphrasing poorly and quoting word-for-word from CCSD's release she wrote, "Kennedy plans to leave in about eight weeks and will use that time to ensure that all operations will run smoothly after his departure."

The original actually went, "Kennedy will leave the District in approximately 8 weeks, using the time to ensure that all operations will run smoothly after his departure." Plagiarized sentence structure and wording.

Since Kennedy is quoted directly after that sentence, the reader assumes the information came from him; it didn't, unless he's memorized the press release formula.

The rule for plagiarized wording is three words in a row from the original source. You don't need to graduate with a degree in journalism to know that.

Butter Wouldn't Melt in Their Mouths

One by one the CCSD school board proponents of charging high rent to the Charter School for Math and Science, a public school desiring to use a vacant public school building, sweetly assure the audience that they favor charter schools--and then prove it by adding an illegal quota system to the rent issue passed on a 5 to 4 vote.

If you were not at the school board meeting of August 13th but have had the time to view the two programs broadcast of the events, you are probably as annoyed as I am by the sanctimonious and hypocritical statements of members Jordan, Douglas, and Hampton-Green as well as by the Keystone-Kops aspects of the so-called participation and voting by cell phone of Meyers and Cook. These five treat their constituents as if they fell off the turnip truck yesterday!

In his successful campaign State Superintendent Jim Rex made much of what he calls "public school choice," suggesting it as a way to get successful, appealing, competing choices to parents and students without going the school-voucher route that would send public funds into private schools. He and the majority voting on CCSD's board need to take heed. Throwing up too many roadblocks to new charter schools will backfire. If the public gets tired of waiting for those choices, it will decide to support vouchers instead.

Not that the tactics being used are unexpected. Nor were they invented here in Charleston. They're being used in various forms all over the United States to halt, slow down, and cripple the growth of public charter schools. As former New York Daily News reporter Joe Williams writes in a recent issue of Education Next, apart from the more obvious legal barriers to successful charter schools being considered in state legislatures, the "'air war,'"

". . . there is also evidence of a perhaps more damaging 'ground war.' Interviews with more than 400 charter school operators from coast to coast have revealed widespread localized combat—what one administrator called 'bureaucratic sand' that is often hurled in the faces of charter schools. Indeed, as a 2005 editorial in the Washington Post described charter school obstruction in Maryland, 'It’s guerilla turf war, with children caught in the middle. Attempts to establish public charter schools in Maryland have been thwarted at almost every turn by entrenched school boards, teachers unions and principals resistant to any competition.'
The goal appears to be to stop charter schools any way possible."

For the rest of these interesting parallels to CCSD's latest tactics and tales of the turf wars, see http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/4611587.html .

To quote Hamlet on his murdering uncle, "One may smile and smile, and be a villain."

"Bureaucratic sand," indeed.

P & C Discovers the Broad Foundation!

Only three months after my posting on the Eli Broad Education Foundation and its production of urban superintendents Abelardo Saavedra (for Corpus Christi), Maria Goodloe-Johnson (for Corpus Christi and then Charleston), and Nancy McGinley [see my post of April 5 on "Roving Opportunists"], the P & C broke the news last Monday that the foundation has provided "substantial" resources to CCSD!

Clearly the editors need to pay more attention to this blog. Perhaps their attention was raised when CCSD appointed its THIRD graduate of the Broad Foundation's fellows program for urban educators, Randy Bynum, Sr., who was in its Class of 2007.

The Broad Foundation is active in many other cities, too, including Portland, Oregon. An on-line weekly newspaper, wweek.com, identifies its goals: "to create competition by starting publicly funded, privately run charter schools, to enforce accountability by linking teacher pay to student test scores, and to limit teachers' say in curriculum and transfer decisions." Whether true or not, this list sets up some interesting queries for CCSD. Portland parents are mainly unhappy about the closing of neighborhood schools in the name of progress.

Googling into the efforts of Broad-trained personnel will certainly turn up some disgruntled, in fact, ranting, opponents of the foundation, especially after it joined forces with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. No doubt many, if not all, of these unhappy districts (such as the one in Christina, Delaware), like CCSD, had many problems waiting to be solved when these supers arrived. But Broad's philosophy (and follow-through) should raise some yellow flags (notice I didn't say "red").

To assist them in succeeding, Broad-trained fellows have resources available to them that support their training, and Goodloe-Johnson took full advantage of them. According to Courrege's article, the "foundation has spent more than $100,000 in the district." Thus,

"--The foundation will provide McGinley with a strategic support team of superintendents and leaders who will come to Charleston periodically and work with her on any issue she picks.
"--The foundation paid for an outside expert to come in and look at the district's communications department to see what could be better, and it will do the same for the district's information technology department.
"--The foundation has paid for Jim Huger, an independent consultant, to lead school board workshops.
"--The foundation covered expenses associated with executive coaches for Goodloe-Johnson in her first years as superintendent and McGinley, just beginning her tenure.
"--Brenda Nelson, the school district's new director of community outreach, will apply for the Broad Residency in Urban Education program, which involves two years of management training.
"--The foundation, with the Council of the Great City Schools, gave an $18,500 grant to the district to review operational or instructional processes and capacities for change."

Board members Hillery Douglas and Nancy Cook and training-participant board member Ray Toler are quite satisfied that the foundation's support "has done a good job" in helping schools.

But I'm wondering about the outside consultants. One aspect of Broad Education Foundation training encourages participants to explore the expertise of other national organizations to address specific problems in a district--for example, the New Teacher Project (or Teach Charleston) to recruit teachers for hard-to-fill positions and Community Education Partners to run Murray Hill Academy. No doubt there are other nonprofits either under consideration or in effect. So far the jury is out on whether the money spent on these consultants will reap rewards.

In addition, what are the qualifications of Randy Bynum, Sr., to be chief academic officer, other than being a Broad Fellow?

Try Googling "Randy Bynum."

CCSD: A MEGO and the Tip of the Iceberg

The appropriateness of William Safire's term--MEGO--struck me as I watched the tape of last Tuesday's meeting of the CCSD Board of Trustees. On the new school budget, MEGO--that's short for "my eyes glaze over"--truly applied as the millions of dollars flew in the air and on the Power Point and the millage fluctuated in Don Kennedy's presentation. Kennedy will not soon be named a reality-TV-show host.

It's hard to take any of it seriously (although I know the participants functioned as required by law) when on the Tuesday prior to the legislature's recess, no "hold harmless" legislation had been passed for a more-than-$10-million shortfall from the state. Yet the district mode was full- steam-ahead, counting on promises alone.

Then there's the not-so-small question raised by Ravenel regarding the accuracy of Kennedy's millage estimate. The estimate seemed to account for all the difference in other potential shortfalls and cuts. See, I did manage to stay focused for most of the presentation.

Yet the drone was punctuated, however briefly, by interesting questions and responses.

The previously-requested comparison of CCSD administrative costs in regard to other school districts was one such topic. Whether deliberately or not, the CCSD's accounting set-up for "leadership" contains ingredients not comparable to most other districts. Workers' compensation and insurance costs are included, whereas most other districts distribute those costs to individual schools. Moody made some silly remarks about allocating those costs to the schools so that the Board could claim that it had provided another $7 million to schools. I say, someone on the Board needs to request COMPARABLE percentages. Yes, that would require some research, but wasn't that the point of the Board's request in the first place? Obfuscation.

Second, did I hear correctly that the cost of Workers' Compensation had been reduced 83% in the last year???? What the heck was going on in previous years?

Also, the district's being forced to use an incorrect figure posted last Feb. 1st by the State Department of Education is yet another example of incompetence at the state level and belated response by CCSD. Since the correct number is known, and that correction adds money to CCSD, why has the Board not already pursued a legal opinion?

Last, but not least, Ravenel pointedly brought up the auditing process for the district. Frankly, I was at first relieved to hear that there WAS an audit. His point, however, was dead on: Kennedy sits on the committee that selects the auditing firm that audits. . . Kennedy.

Why do the Board members insist on creating conflicts of interest? For example, Nancy Cook makes a big deal of abstaining from voting on CCSD funds distributed to the shelter she directs, but she's still board chairman, isn't she? Surely we have progressed from the "we're-all-ladies-and-gentlemen-here-and-can-trust-our-pure-motives" mindset?

In fact, why have written contracts? Let's do everything on a handshake, like in the good old days.

Would that we could!

Cook Drives the Car; Green Oils the Gears

Today's lead editorial in the Post and Courier, "School Board Too Quick to Act, But Give New Leader Support," separates easily into three topics: (1) the CCSD school board's willful violation of the Freedom of Information act; (2) its unseemly rush to name Nancy McGinley superintendent; and (3) the P & C's desire to lionize new member Toya Hampton Green's take on the results.

Regarding the first topic, the editorial simply puts into words what onlookers sensed but could not crystallize--no public discussion of the process that would have quelled the community's feelings of a rush to judgment in the selection of Nancy McGinley as the new superintendent. Why? The board wants to project a united front; it knew such haste would be controversial and would elicit criticism. It believed it could take its chances with minor violations of the law.

On the second topic, Nancy Cook simply out-maneuvered board members-- Green, Jordan, and Douglas--into voting NOT to interview McGinley by ruling (in executive session apparently) that, if the interview measure carried, they would be unable to vote to name her as interim. Slick, that one.

Topic three is Toya Hampton Green. Much of the information in the editorial came straight from Green, whom the P & C touts as providing good advice to the disgruntled. Originally endorsed by the P & C, Green straddles an interesting position in that she has insulted the District 20 constituent board (the district where she lives) by stating that she wasn't elected to represent them but the district as a whole; her child's number was selected in the Buist Academy lottery (this miracle occurs for every CCSD board member having a child who applies); and, before going into practice with her husband, she represented CCSD for a major law firm.

Now, Green is an experienced lawyer. I for one refuse to believe that she couldn't figure out what Cook was up to with her ruling. If Green had voted to interview McGinley, the motion would have passed.

Machiavellian, isn't it?

Am I Now Imagining Things?

Just having caught a few minutes more of the last televised school board meeting (the one that voted a year's extension for both Goodloe-Johnson and McGinley), I am struck by the tension that appeared to surface between Ruth Jordan and Gregg Meyers.

Don't you wonder sometimes what goes on in executive sessions? I do.

Jordan seemed unhappy about transfers granted to students from Laing Middle School to Moultrie Middle School, both of which are in Mt. Pleasant. Her take was that these "transfers of convenience" could actually be attempts to avoid students who had transferred into Laing from failing North Charleston schools.

Nahh! Couldn't happen, right District 20? No intra-district transfers are allowed in CCSD based on race, are they?

A clearly uncomfortable and rattled Meyers referenced the board's long-standing policies, allowing reluctantly that maybe they need to be revisited. Ravenel woke up long enough to second the idea of revisiting policy.

Nancy Cook quickly changed the subject. Jordan didn't look all that pleased.

Hmm. Maybe there's some hope here that Jordan will not follow blindly.