Let's replace impasse with good faith and move fully into the post-LeRoy era
Kathryn LeRoy dug Polk County a massive, massive educational hole. She was helped by an inattentive and misguided School Board and a less than engaged public (myself included in the latter). We will be clawing our way out of her four years for more than four years.
From the failed LIIS system to the insane and pointless assessment/testing structure to the $100,000 diplomas of Acceleration Academy to the TOP schools to the most recent disruptive magnet school zoning plan to god-knows-what-else will come out, the new Polk board members and staff leadership are working diligently through serious inherited problems. I am asking everybody, from the bottom of my heart, to understand the enormity of what LeRoy left us and what we have to do to fix it. It will take time and patience and persistence. And we'll have to do it in a teacher shortage era.
That leads us to one of the worst of these problems inherited from LeRoy's tenure: the fundamentally adversarial relationship between leadership and staff.
This year's "negotiations" started a few months after LeRoy left. That's true. But it's important to remember that every board member except Lynn Wilson back in January 2016 publicly praised Leroy's performance. They didn't like her personal behavior, as documented in the whistleblower report and subsequent investigation.
But, except for Lynn, they liked her overall leadership approach and results. That included the heavy-handed approach to our people.
If we could start over from scratch with the current board and the Byrd/Akes leadership combination, I think we'd be in a very different place with our teachers and staff. But we can't start over. The School Board put itself in this position back in May and June, when Sarabeth Reynolds and I were not part of it. We are not in control of the board now. But I think we are influencing it culturally. I can't talk about our negotiating positions. And I don't know how all this will play out in mediation. I think our teachers and staff will probably be disappointed with even the best case scenario this year. I do not want to raise hopes dishonestly. But I do expect our negotiators to act in better faith when we go to mediation on Friday.
And I fully believe this is a year of transition. Next year should be much, much better in negotiations. Sarabeth and I will be in a position to influence that much more directly -- rather than trying to steer it on the back end.
Marianne Capoziello yesterday delivered to me 775 copies of a statement signed by members of the public. They were collected by teachers in just a few hours at community events. They don't ask anything radical, just "an honest intent to settle the issues." I was happy to accept these signatures. I was happy to sign one of the statements myself. The public wants teachers treated with same respect afforded to police officers and nurses and other vital cogs in democratic civil society. That's what I want too. I want it here; and I particularly want it at the state level where the true teacher-hatred and contempt dwells.
We in Polk County cannot afford unnecessary conflicts. We have too much work to do. I see this unfortunate 10-month "negotiation" as an unnecessary conflict. I'm eager to get past it and move forward.