| MRS. SHELIA HESTER FRIDAY'S MOVE TO HELP OUR CHILDREN From: "sheliafor227@yahoo.com" <sheliafor227@yahoo.com>; "sheliahesterfriday@hotmail.com" <sheliahesterfriday@hotmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 8, 2013 7:48 AM
From: At this time in our school district's history, behind closed doors, we are being speedily destroyed. Since coming to the school board as chair, Cheryl Coleman has speedily isolated all but her two most loyal board members and has unlawfully prevented the full board and the community from participation in both an interim and permanent superintendent search. Since May 2013, Dr. Morgan has fought to move the district forward by encouraging Cheryl Coleman to allow for full board and public participation in our community's internal affairs in addressing issues at open board meetings. His is the agenda that won the so-called reform school board the election on April 9, 2013. Without his continued push, this would not have happened. At this time, Cheryl Coleman is still pushing only two board members to be engaged in the business that the full board should be engaged in. She has also alienated the full board as well as Dr. Morgan. He has always believed that while the majority rules, the rights to full board participation (this includes the minority board members) and community participation must be protected. The so-called reform school board appear to be united in public, but only three are working together as a team with one another with Dr. Morgan who wants what is in the best interest of children and community being the outsider, but they are still expecting him to vote their way in public. Hence, the so-called reform school board who is about "change, a new vision, and school improvement" conundrum. Today, Dr. Morgan is the only one who has encouraged Cheryl Coleman in the agenda for full board and community democratic participation in our affairs. Without him, we will not move forward to re-establish our full democracy and full board and community participation in our school improvement affairs. It is Dr. Morgan who has pushed for full board and democratic participation and democracy, and not Cheryl Coleman. The movement for reform, change, and accountability was pushed by Dr. Morgan and not Cheryl Coleman who still doesn't fully understand what it will take to achieve our goals in this arena and is, obviously, without a clue in how to improve academically. Dr. Morgan has taken a Chicago Public School off academic probation in his role as principal and he can certainly help better in taking school district 227 off academic probation as school board president than a Cheryl Coleman who is without an understanding in that process and is now blocking school board policies on the agenda to deny the school improvement process. Restoration of democracy and academic improvement is what the so-called new reform school board had promised the community, but after the election is now backing out. The real reason is because they were really never for improvement and restoration of academic success as they had promised in the first place, but was using these popular positions to identify with Dr. Morgan in an effort to win an office. This is not about children or the community, but only about them and their pursuit of private power. Item Number 2:220 of the Rich Township High School District 227 Board Policy Manual states that "Items submitted by Board of Education members to the Superintendent shall be placed on the agenda. District community residents may suggest inclusion for the agenda." Right now Cheryl Coleman is holding up the process of school improvement by obstructing the progressive community's move to put continuous improvement school board policies on the school board agenda which will establish a supportive foundation and framework for students to learn and achieve at the highest possible levels. This is not the school reform that Cheryl Coleman pretended to push for with Dr. Morgan during the election. In fact, behind closed doors and secretly with the new school board members, she has never supported Dr. Morgan in the process of school improvement. For over four years, Dr. Morgan has kept the community informed. It was these principles of restoration of democracy and academic success that he has pushed that won the so-called reform school board the election on April 9, 2013. According to our board policy manual (2:150 Citizen Advisory Committees) " has been used to interpret needs to the community and to gather information from the community." In our superintendent selection process, the school board has used superintendent selection committees to involve the community in the superintendent selection process. At this time, the community nor the full board has been involved in this essential process. This is unlawful. In regards to due process, school board policy 7:130 maintains that "All students are entitled to enjoy the rights protected by the U.S. Constitution, the Illinois Constitution and laws for persons of their age and mentality in a school settings." Denial of due process cannot be tolerated by anyone on this school board, whether we are the majority or minority board. Due process is a fundamental constitutional guarantee that students accused will have a fair and impartial hearing before the school board and will be given notice to bring support and legal representation before the school board acts to take away one's rights to a quality education. The constitutional guarantee of due process of law, found in both our school board policy handbook as well as in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, prohibits the school board majority from arbitrarily, capriciously, and unfairly depriving student or the full board of their basic constitutional rights of life, liberty, and due process. Dr. Morgan understands and follows this essential process in school board-community deliberations and is urging everyone on the school board to do likewise. Today, for the first time ever, the full board is not being informed on what is going on in the school district when emergencies occur and are non-participants in our rights to our most sacred and essential roles, the essential first steps in the process of selecting, interviewing, hiring, evaluating, and/or firing a superintendent. With the full board, before October 8, 2013, Cheryl Coleman has avoided meeting with the full board and then the community to address riots at Rich Central and Rich South High Schools or to meet to address our traditional summer planning at the Holiday Inn using IASB facilitators in the process. We are not so much concerned about who the facilitators should be as we are about a fundamental process in board planning that Cheryl Coleman has ignored and neglected as not important just as she is today blocking input of the school board in all areas of our community's affairs and in the business of the school board. This year, for the first time ever, we have not met in our traditional forum with the Illinois Association of School Boards to address board self evaluation and to discuss how we plan to move forward in the next school year. When we fail to plan and be proactive, we are planning to fail. Today, we are still not meeting as a full school board to address anything and Cheryl Coleman is now meeting with everyone except the full school board. This is sociopathic behavior. Superintendent selection is only the responsibility of the school board. It begins with the full school board and ends with the full school board making an informed decision, after input from the full community, in selecting a highly qualified, effective, transformative, visionary leader with a record of success. Today, the role of the full board only in interviewing, selecting, evaluating and/or firing a superintendent is legend. It Is part of both our board policy and of our state and national laws. At this time, the board chair, Cheryl Coleman, is conducting secret superintendent interviews with only two board members while excluding Dr. Morgan as well as the full board. Dr. Morgan, who has an earned doctorate in Educational Leadership and has taught principals and superintendents at the nation's colleges and universities should be considered the expert in what a great superintendent looks like. Rather than using his tremendous knowledge, experience, and talents in school administration, he has been shut out of this most significant and transformative process by Cheryl Coleman as well as the full board. Only the full school board, the community's chosen representatives, has the full responsibility in interviewing, and selecting the superintendent with community input. No one else is legally allowed to perform this function. Additionally, the community who has a stake in this process has also been excluded again by Cheryl Coleman. This is not true reform, a reformed mentality of improved student performance levels, and the change that the community has asked for. To understand true reform, true change, and demonstrate a true interest in moving our district forward, we must both understand, practice, and have knowledge, skills, and belief in processes, planning, meeting as a full school board, change and reform. Having a board chair without this belief, the importance of communicating with the full board whether we agree or disagree, and certainly not the knowledge, skills, and resources in understanding true reforms rather than just cosmetics, is truly not reform. Rather, it is a formula for continuing disaster, and of what we saw on September 30, 2013, as the full school board was not informed from the district administrative offices of what had gone on, which is our traditional practice. Mrs. Shelia Hester Friday School Board Member and Independent Rich Township High School District 227 |
No comments:
Post a Comment