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.
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