Vision Without Action and Planning is Merely A Dream
This school year, we have not met as a full board with the superintendent in our traditional annual summer planning and continuous improvement meeting at the Holiday Inn in Matteson to plan for the 2013-2014 school year, to reexamine our board self evaluation blueprint, review our vision, mission, and goals statements and to revise and reexamine our school improvement plan for the 2013-2014 school year. Not meeting, for the first time ever to better understand our significant and essential roles in school improvement and to plan for the future is not a formula for success. Rather, it is a formula for continuing failure and disaster. Those who fail to plan are planning to fail.
Monday, September 30, 2013's tragic events at Rich Central and Rich South demonstrates lack of planning, leadership, foresight, insight, forethought, and vision for "those who made that tragic and callous decision should be in no position to make decisions for our students", said some district 227 parents. Reached by phone, two school board members, Emmanuel Imoukhuede, Shelia Friday, and a parent and community activist, Komaa Mnyofu, were outraged by Monday's events. Mnyofu called it "The most diabolical, insane, colossal, and destructive decision ever made in the history of District 227." Emmanuel Imoukhuede rightly asserted that "Whoever made that decision to bus students has no knowledge of safety of children and something needs to be done quickly. Such a person should not be in any way responsible for taking care of the kids anymore."
On the other hand, Shelia Friday, another board member maintained that "None of this would have happened if the students were never transported to Rich South. We could have sent the (Central) kids home and got in touch with their parents and dealt with that consequence rather than putting them in a position where they could be harmed." Regardless of who is making unwise decisions, for the safety of our children, both full school board, parents, their children, administration, staff, and community must have a part in re-evaluating an out-of-date safety and student achievement plan which means having no plan at all. Today, we must agree with what is in the best interest of students regardless of who is making these statements. We must listen to what is said rather than who said it. We must agree with what is right regardless of who said it. Otherwise, we will not move forward as a school district and as a community of learners.
Planning and continuous school improvement is the single most important business of the school board and school district. It is the process that school districts use to insure that all students are safe and are achieving at high levels. Perspectives vary as to what the life cycle of school improvement looks like. However, today in district 227 with no student achievement or effective safety plan in place, we are beginning to realize that school improvement is both strategic and operational. Vision with action means having a sense of direction as to where we are going as a school district and willingness to plan in order to get there.
It is more than obvious today, that those who want to remain stagnant in a nineteenth century limited box are against others in the community, many of whom are progressive educational leaders, who want academic progress to take our school district to another level in traveling from failure to success. Some of these individuals, who want to remain stagnant and are unwilling to learn, are also sitting on the school board. Today, we are either moving forward of getting farther behind by going backwards. The community who voted them into office may be forced to pull them kicking and screaming into the twenty first century of high student performance levels in district 227. Progressive leaders of vision and planning in educational excellence who wish to move our school district forward into the twenty-first century are being criticized by those who want stagnancy, lack of a plan, and backwardness in business as usual and in moving backwards with no plan. They are without a clue as to what constitutes continuous school improvement in the twenty-first century. Today, we must practice "Forward ever. Backwards never." Those who do nothing are inviting more shame as well as more incompetence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality.
Today, because of wrong decisions with those without a clue in picking strong leadership and highly effective employees, we have a less capable employee work force without a clue in how to be effective team players, than was the case in the previous administration under Dr. Leak. The reason is that recent employees were chosen by board members and others sitting on interviewing teams without a clue, without listening to anyone beyond self, or any data to prove their choice, beyond being an acquaintance and "friendship," as to what constitutes leadership and school district employee effectiveness. As a result, since new induction of board members in April 2013, we have been set back for another thirty years with those who have continued to pick their friends for positions in district 227 rather than the best and brightest with an already established record of accomplishment. If the community doesn't wake up and understand what is going on and insist to take part as participants in a superintendent selection process, we will repeat the same callous mistakes that happened that have akreadt happened for decades in selecting another ineffective permanent superintendent, with one individual doing the choosing because they are friends with a board member rather than doing a national search process based upon full community input.
Today, in school district 227, Many of our progressive leaders are the progressive parents who want a successful high school education for their children to prepare them for college and careers, successful community leaders, community business leaders, and civil rights organizations who believes that creating a quality public education system that is so fundamental to a strong democratic society is the birthright of every child. Others are highly successful principals, some retired and others still working, with a record of accomplishment, highly successful visionary superintendents, educational consultants and facilitators who are now either retired or still working in the Chicago Public Schools and in other arenas. Most of these individuals live in our community but have busy lives. Others are community leaders who have worked in conjunction with school improvement specialists and educators across the country to develop a nationally recognized "School Improvement Framework" based on current research and Best Practice who can support and facilitate District 227's continuous improvement efforts.
Today, there are those with vision, who rightfully want to move forward in vision, accountability, dignity and integrity, developing a positive school climate, and continuous school improvement in planning, collaboration, community engagement, board deliberation, systems thinking, high standards, student assessment, and with recognition of what a profile of courageous and great leadership looks like. Putting this all together means having an information-data-driven-knowledge-based willing-to-learn board of education. It also means community involvement in moving forward, using a superintendent selection process, in choosing the next school superintendent with vision, a record of school improvement and student achievement, and with courageous leadership.
VISION WITHOUT ACTION IS MERELY A DREAM. ACTION WITHOUT VISION JUST PASSES THE TIME. VISION WITH ACTION CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.
Sincerely,
David E. Morgan, Ph.D., Educational Leadership
School Board Member & Chair, Continuous Improvement Planning Committee
Rich Township High School District 227
Olympia Fields, Illinois 60461
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