| After our feel good phase in restoring democracy in our school district, today we are about to move forward again to the most important phase, restoring educational excellence in our schools Today, unlike the old school board, we cannot afford to continue to delay and play games with our children's future and the lives of a hundred thousand parents, tax payers, and citizens of school district 227. After over two decades of decay in our academic, instructional, fiscal, and moral fiber, today we are at a tipping point in the history of our school district turn-around. After removing road blocks to full board and citizen communication at open board meetings, at this point, either we will go forth in educational excellence and school district turn-around and make history, or continue to move backward in school board dysfunction with business as usual in our traditional comfort zones of doing nothing, saying nothing, standing for nothing and accepting the status quo of what is going on. At this serious moment in our school district's history we must continue to move forward in our schools with no more delaying tactics because we don't understand the next steps involved in moving forward, while others do. Today, by beginning a more effective coalition of concerned and desperate citizens who want to improve our schools, many thousands of high performing and informed parents who want better for their children's future, community leaders, both retired and employed educators and many more led by citizens such as school board member Mr. Antoine Bass, community activists, David Johnson, former school board member, former mayor of Harvey, Illinois, professor, colleague, and writer for the Southtown Star; Mr. Clifton Graham, President of the South Suburban NAACP, parent community activists, and many from the business community are now joining together in a coalition to say enough is enough. Today, we are agreeing to stop the bleeding and the waiting in school district 227 in the development and approval of continuous school improvement board policies for putting in place the proper keystones for students to learn and achieve at the highest possible levels. The primary agenda of board members is raising student achievement performance levels and engaging the community to attain that goal. Today, we are in the second phase, improving student performance levels and productively engaging more board members and the district community in achieving this goal. The rest of the school board, who needs to be better trained, more prepared, and deeply engaged in the work to be done but are not, need to stop fighting a battle they have already lost in the April 9, 2013 school board election. Today, the new progressive school board of progress and change will not continue to sit silently and idly by, as the last school board did, and continue to preach that nothing can be done. The board is responsible for putting in place the proper keystones for students to learn and achieve at the highest possible levels. Today we must continue to be transparent as we promised during the election, continue to be advocatew for children, continue to inform the community of what is still going on, and to tell it straight. Today, forward ever in selecting the best and the brightest, backwards never by continuing to repeat the past in selecting merely our friends and family. Today, we must continue our movement forward to seize this golden opportunity and to make history in turning around our schools. Today, we cannot afford to continue to move backward by merely subjectively and emotionally selecting our "friends" and family from right around the corner rather than objectively and mindfully using data, understanding and informing ourselves on what a leadership skills set looks like, and then developing a leadership rubric for those interviewing future employees and superintendents to guide them in knowing what great leadership looks like. This way, we will stand a better chance at selecting the best and the brightest among us in this nation by those doing the selection but are without a clue as to what constitutes great leadership. The larger the pool of candidates based upon a national search the better will be the choices in our continued movement forward to make history. The best and brightest superintendent candidates will also both attract and choose the best and brightest employees as a school district turn-around team to move our district forward. That way, many of those selected by selection committees who are without a clue of what it means to select the best and brightest since May 2013 can be compensated for. Like attracts like. A transformative-proactive-visionary-superintendent with a record of school district turn-around and high student performance levels will also choose a highly effective performance team in moving forward. Those with no such skills will not. Where ever we go, there we are. Today, we have already been set back, at least thirty years, by firing the former administration team and then repeating history by selecting those who were far less qualified than the ones being replaced. Those who forget the past are doomed to continue to repeat it. In being an organized, accountable, progressive, and responsible school board, we also need to meet in a school board-community meeting, that was cancelled on Oct. 3, 2013, and rightfully address what happened and why on September 30, 2013 during the riots at Rich Central and Rich South, then working with full stakeholder input of administration-staff-teachers-parents-students and community to develop a future school district up-to-date-security plan going forward. Today, we are without such a common-sense effective-safety-security plan for student safety in our schools. Thanks for stepping up! In moving forward again, we would like to thank again those board members, community activists, and citizens north and south, east and west, who have continued to lead, look forward, and push for continued excellence in public education. You have again acted not out of a sense of legal duty, but out of a sense of human decency. To do otherwise is barbaric. Like our soldiers and sailors in all parts of the world, you are meeting freedom's challenge on the firing line, and we salute for your honor and your courage. Today, we must continue to be forever vigilant and to do something in moving our district forward in the establishment of continuous academic improvement school board policies. That is why we are on this earth. We will continue to need your support as we move forward in restoring the needed vision, desire for educational excellence, and continued support in this fight toward moving our school district forward and in restoring the accountability, educational leadership, instructional effectiveness, and moral excellence in our schools. Sincerely, David E. Morgan, Ph.D., Educational Leadership School Board Member & Chair of Continuous Academic Improvement Planning Committee Rich Township High School District 227 Olympia Fields, Illinois 60461 |
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