Update of School Board Meeting and so-called "Board Agreements" on August 21, 2012
In the 2011-2012 school year, with less than three out of every ten of our high school students at grade level in district 227, as a school board member, it is my duty to demonstrate integrity, transparency with district oversight, and to inform the community. After having sat on a school board for over three years being threatened with arrest for speaking and not buying into a status quo of lying, hiding, trying to represent my community, the best interest of children, and disagreeing with a failed, suppressive, unaccountable, and negligent status quo, I would never willingly give up my rights to individuals who have been hell bent for over three years in trying to take them away from me. In the same manner, these are individuals who will go out of their way to repress and not represent who we are as a people and what we should stand for.
The role of school board members is to improve student achievement levels and to democratically engage the school community of parents and tax payers to achieve this goal. These individuals continue to bully, stripping targeted board members of their right to speak and serve in open sessions, interrupt, lie, disrespect, and try to suppress both community and targeted board members. Since these same individuals, through interruptions, disrespect, and discourtesy, made sure that this point was not made at the August 21, 2012 school board meeting, we are making it clear here to the satisfaction of all concerned. When everyone who is on school board 227 is about accountability for student achievement, moral integrity, district oversight, children, continuous assessment, our community, our roles in addressing district goals, and not just themselves, then we will be successful as a school district. But we can't teach what we don't know and practice and can't lead where we don't go.
Most of our hard earned tax dollars are reinvested somewhere else and not in our own business community who help ease our homeowners tax burdens. Being a school board member is more than just filling our school district with our friends and family. They're not interested in doing their job at all. They're more interested in getting a job than in doing their job. In their lack of integrity, they parade suppression of full board and community, lies, and politics as values.
Our community believes that this corrupt and selfish for self only school board system is rigged against our children, parents, tax payers, and our middle class community. But the painful part is that they're right. Look around and examine the evidence. What do you see? These are the same ones who have wrecked our schools, promoted lies, lack of trust, misrepresented our tax payers, and is destroying our community fighting it in court, and are still bullying parents, our citizens, and minority progressive school board members who are working hard to help our children despite their obstruction, and they continue to misuse our tax dollars.
Demanding jobs and favors, trying to take away our First Amendment Freedoms that we won over two hundred years ago at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, they're acting like we should thank them. How the board majority has handled others failures, corruption and mistakes has revealed more of who they really are. Remember St. John, Indiana where a principal's picture was burned and hanged in effigy? The likes of that situation has resurfaced but has not changed in District 227 but has grown worse. The name of the game is still "Let's not hold anyone accountable, cover it up, silence or fire them, arrest them for speaking out, or bring suit against those who speak up, using the tax payer dollars to do so, and then lie about it." But lies never produce any positive results and are meant for evil.
When the ones banging the gavel don't respect or represent us or these basic principles of board accountability, parliamentary democracy, fairness for all, assessing student achievement levels on a continuous basis, integrity, respect for everyone, equality among board members, and the children we should fight for, we lose. We are in a failing school district but the school board has never followed a regular process to review student achievement data, to ensure continuous improvement, and then meet with the school administration to address our findings. But assessment and evaluation is state law. We don't respect what we don't assess and inspect.
We should never give up our rights as Americans to the party of "No" to student achievement and to those who lack integrity, and are in denial. After having sat on a school board for over three years observing school board meetings where the school board members themselves have never engaged in the process of data analysis, equal collaboration addressing formative progress and dialogue, first among ourselves, and then with the school administration in closed session, it became obvious during the first month that this board does not have the slightest interest in truly addressing district goals, school improvement, or in children, but mainly themselves.
We don't respect the student achievement data that we don't inspect, as a full board. When the chair doesn't represent these basic principles of board accountability, democracy, parliamentary procedure, fairness, efforts toward continuous improvement through assessment, and what we should fight for, we lose. Why should we give up more of our rights as Americans to someone who has tried nothing but to suppress and abuse our community and targeted board members as public officials who want better for our children, is still about wasting precious tax payer dollars in court fighting the community that we are trying to serve despite school board minority objections, and appears not to represent us and is obstructing what we should have come to the school board to do, improve student achievement levels?
Our Actions speak louder mere than words. These so-called "Board Agreements" are governed by the poisonous pedagogy which creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of a continuing dysfunctional school board that is anti-democratic with inequality of treatment and power, full of lies and denial and suppression of our First Amendment Freedoms, unequal rights characterized by suppression, repression, lack of respect for others input, lack of collaboration and democratic participation, lack of purpose and emotional vitality, individuality, spontaneity or healthy self assertiveness. These "Agreements" were broken by the board chair from their first inception in August 2011 until September 2012.
The board's lack of integrity glorifies lack of accountability, lack of innovation, or creativity, a failed stationary and repressive status quo which says "Let's stay the same", lack of oversight of our academic, instructional, moral, and fiscal wellness, obedience to a school board boss, suppression of targeted board members rights with continuing lack of representation of the full board, skewed board minutes with inability to hear both sides of a full story with equal participation, such as happened at the August 21, 2012 board meeting, lying, and is outrageously suppressive, backwards, unjust, undemocratic, anti-community, anti-children, anti-change and improvement, anti-academic assessment, anti-democratic, and anti-life.
District 227 should be in the news for the high quality of education provided to students in Rich Township High, not wasting tax payer funds fighting our community, losingcostly First Amendment lawsuits, low PSAE scores, corruption with lack of accountability and oversight, and open government violations.
Dr. David E. Morgan
School Board Member
Rich Township High School District 227
Olympia Fields, Illinois 60461
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