ED, shake-up in District 89 management [D89]
Pioneer Press (John Huston):
What's going on?
Katrina Fey, assistant superintendent of operations, and Melvin BoBo, director of public relations and grants, resigned their positions after increased scrutiny by the Board of Education.
BoBo and Fey were both hired in August at the recommendation of Superintendent Cynthia Broughton who worked with the two at North Chicago School District 187.
What's going on?
posted by Carl Nyberg at
12:01 PM
2 Comments:
proviso booster parent said:
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sounds like business as usual!!!!!
its the proviso way....
"students last"
By
Anonymous, at 10:19 PM, March 01, 2006
Following is a Letter to the Editor I sent regarding this subject.
February 6, 2006
Letter to Editor - Maywood Herald, Forest Park Review, West Suburban Journal
It now appears that D89 is following the lead of D209 by ousting administrators without due process. At a D89 special board meeting on Monday, January 30, Melvin L. BoBo III, Director of Public Relations/Grants, after only a five-month tenure was terminated along with Katrina Fey, Assistant Superintendent of Operations with a five month tenure, the latter having been on “administrative leave” with pay since early November.
These two administrators were recommended for hiring by Supt. Broughton in August 2005. However, it appears that they were dismissed at the recommendation of District 89 Board of Education members, particularly Marie Urso and Ric Cervone. What is troubling to me is how can these individual Board members, in such a short period of time, know with any level of specificity, the performance level of administrators unless said Board members are seriously guilty of micro-managing and stepping beyond their roles as board members. This also suggests that the board is not showing much faith in the ability of the Superintendent to run her shop and is, thereby, undermining her effectiveness and rendering her authority impotent.
At a recent board meeting in November 2005, Dr. Lou Gatta of ECRA, the outside consultant hired to assist District 89 with its strategic plan, responded to an inquiry by Board member Urso. Ms. Urso wanted clarification on the Board’s desire to participate on District committees and be hands-on in the district. Dr. Gatta clearly stated twice that this was NOT the responsibility of the Board of Education. He pointed out that board members were stepping beyond their roles. He further stated that the Board’s responsibility is policy, planning, and management.
Apparently, this is a difficult concept for some board members to get. Much time and energy is spent by the board micro-managing the superintendent about jobs and other non-educational matters – at the expense of educating the children.
What is even more troubling about this is the fact that now we are without resources to write grants to support education. If we currently have personnel to write grants, why did we hire a grant writer in the first place? There is more than enough need for new programs. For example, I recently attended a D89 Educational meeting and was made aware of the heavy burden being placed on teachers whose schools have a significant influx of limited-English-speaking students. Grants could be written to hire special teachers or teacher assistants to help alleviate this burden as well as to assist limited-English speaking parents in better communicating with the schools. Grants could also be written for resources to support turning a negative situation into a positive one by funding programs to creatively utilize Spanish-speaking children/families to assist English-speaking children learn Spanish. When the D89 board (prematurely) fires administrators, serious thought should be given to the impact on educating the children.
Barbara D. Cole
1412 S. 21st Avenue
Maywood, IL 60153
708-344-3577
By
Anonymous, at 10:35 AM, March 07, 2006
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