BreakDown: Danville’s 8/21/2014 School Board Meeting

I promised a BreakDown on last Thursday’s Danville School Board meeting where the public got to speak about the next superintendent, so let’s get going with a commentary on what happened.

Here’s the article with the LIVE coverage of the meeting for reference…

It’s time to pull out a BreakDown Big Board…

• Wow. The GW staff changed the cafeteria into a meeting hall quickly and perfectly. I also noticed that the 400 seats were arranged perfectly. They didn’t have much to pull that off and put the stage up.
• The central office staff also set up a very effective sound system along with getting wi-fi in for the media. Not only that, they wanted me to make sure it was working before the meeting started. Nice touch.
• Ugh. GW looks like a prison with the iron fencing around it. There’s no nice way to say that.
• I was waiting for the public to pour in because we’re set for 400 people and there have been so many people “concerned” during and after the Ed Newsome “resignation”. Thud. Attendance was shameful.
• Chairman Ed Polhamus explains the four possible methods of hiring a new superintendent in detail. Steven Gould speaks up and asks what methods were used in the previous searches and gets his answers after various people fill in the blanks. Polhamus’ explanation was very informative.
• The public comment section starts with school system employees in heavy support for acting superintendent Kathy Osborne. While they’re praising her, I’m looking at the school board’s reactions to the speeches. Some have polite smiles, a few have non-committal looks and then a few look like they’d hope the speaker would catch on fire. I’m not convinced that Osborne has the support of enough school board members (four) to get the job instantly. Even if she did, I don’t believe that would happen because they’d go through a small search process anyway.
• Greg Hairston’s respect meter went right back up to where it should be. His speech on behalf of the “Citizens for Excellence in Education” group was concise and strong without being aggressive. His speech wasn’t against Kathy Osborne, but it sure wasn’t for her. I can’t get behind his idea for an extensive national search because Danville is not going to attract the Big Players, and even if it did, we couldn’t afford them.
• I want to know who this “Citizens for Excellence in Education”. I’m assuming Carrie Ashe & Doris Wilson are in the group as Hairston and them conferred before and after the speech. Perhaps they’ll come forward with a membership report soon.
• The consensus from these speeches is that the next superintendent should be someone who knows the education system and has the students’ best interest in mind. Since this meeting, two other forums have been held with low attendance and people that say the same thing. Somebody’s got to say it so I will. No shit, people.
• This “hear from the public about what you want the next superintendent to be” is a Very Nice Thing to do… but if the conclusions are “We want a superintendent who knows the education system.”, we’ve accomplished nothing but make the public feels they’ve been involved. Again, a Very Nice Thing.
• Back to the meeting now that pretty much everyone has bailed out, I’m concerned that a teacher with 25 years of experience would “Quit without proper notice”. It’s too bad that we’ll never know what happened, but those things just shouldn’t happen.
• Besides that, it’s just routine stuff. That’s it.
• As we get ready to leave, a thunderstorm pops up and I realize that GW is in serious need of new gutters.
• One final thought. Central office staff are now wearing their ID badges so that people can tell who they are. Thanks, yall!

There’s the BreakDown. Osborne has support from some of the current staff, but I don’t think will be a compelling factor in the school board’s final decision. We’ll be LIVE! at this Thursday’s regular School Board meeting for our regular comprehensive coverage.

More coming up on SouthsideCentral!