Greeley CO District 6 Board's Best Chance at Real Change

It has been a while my friends. With twenty-six thousand reads recorded I always feel an obligation to continue to check up on the well-being of education in Greeley Colorado. Rarely however am I moved to write a new post but I appreciate your emails and calls nonetheless. These are important in filling in the details and movement in District 6.

I agree there have been some good changes made over the years and this must be acknowledged. Especially in the Board of Directors changes have been significant. Plus certainly the decision to not renew Lang's contract is the highlight of all that's good in education for the town of Greeley. The chance for a superbly highly qualified and competent Superintendent with the ability to construct a well-honed team lurks on the horizon. I hope the search is extensive and the interview process inclusive of a high regard for education rather than the political dogma and ideology which has gutted the possibilities of District 6 for so long.

However some disturbing news has reached me and raises some new concerns (the reason for this posts obviously) on this topic. As such I am urging citizens of Greeley to be vigilant on the process of hiring Ms. Lang's replacement. It means everything to your child's future that this process be fair, impartial, and objective--with a formal professionalism.

The selection of Mr. Eads to Interim Director is very troubling. As I blogged on some years past, http://greeleyville.blogspot.com/2010/01/financial-crisis-or-house-cleaning-for.html, for example or here http://greeleyville.blogspot.com/2009/10/part-iii-greeley-school-district-six.html as a second example; As an Interim Director with Mr. Eads tendency towards nepotism and favoritism, and I'll argue manipulation of the leadership of the Board of District 6 through the art of "Credentials over Substance", could lead to a very shaky hiring process when combined with other professional debris Ms. Lang left behind. That spells out an even bleaker future for District 6. It is time for the Board to be strong and do their own homework independently.

Emails and conversations have reached me from concerned parents who have brought some dubious actions into light--citing that those with long ties to District 6 are already feeling the tip of the sword Eads is presumed to have been given to wield. It is not a strong sign of Democratic leadership for the leader who climbs into the throne seat to first thing shed the school district of any person worthy of challenging, logically and reasonably, some of the poor positions and decisions that lurk in the District 6 history. In fact it is the sign of desperation to purge those who disagree or challenge one's authority.

To be fair, a strong and well-reasoned human resources executive, along with an objective Board of Directors should check this power surge. Sadly though these historical nepotistic trends in District 6 are not one of the positive changes the Board has driven. The wagons instead, have been circled, allowing those with questionable credentials to pick and choose their friends with even more questionable credentials and place them in high value jobs. An audit on these selective systems and managers would indeed I believe uncover a murky history or clear it once and for all.

Alas, for now, I will hold out that this newer Board will act fairly and objectively, ensuring that their Interim Director has no conflict of interest in selecting Ms. Lang's long term replacement or influencing the people who will choose that person. A truly professional process must be given the chance to thrive. While the local paper will remain a rubber stamp for the inappropriate, and some will argue, corrupt democratic shenanigans, there are twenty-six thousand others watching and reading as a force for doing what is it right--and above question. Democratic process in public institutions after all is a part of the whole job and the check and balance the public relies upon to curtail abuses of power.

I'll be one of those watching this with interest--keep those documents flowing; I'm reading with great concern; I still have family in D6 schools. :)

Greeley School District 6 Cuts Government and World Culture Requirements

Greeley Colorado's infamous school district, District 6, has been busy putting the finishing touches on the mountain of financial cuts the Board has declared as needed. It began, if you recall, with a panicked forced contract on teachers to save money, grew into a dire 15% round of emergency cuts, and has ended with an actual 6% shortfall for next year. That shortfall as I stated earlier could have been almost covered with reserves had the reserves not been questionably spent earlier.

In addition to bullying the teacher's union, firing the District's Human Resource Director and replacing him with a her from the inside, the District has taken on the consolidation of "under-utilized" schools according to Mr. Wayne Eads--the janitor turned operations manager. One consolidation move places alternative students together under one roof at Jefferson. Hence forth parents will be happy to know that students who have a low performance academically will now be attending the same school as kids who have violent histories and have already been, or their next stop will likely be, Platte Correctional Center.

Additionally District 6 has removed Government and World Cultural Geography from graduation requirements and made them "electives". Whether or not the school will continue to fund teachers for these courses every term is also "elective". From this year forward students, our future community leaders and citizen voters, may actually be able to get out of high school without learning ANYTHING at all about government process and people from other parts of the world--formally. What a great plan.

In the meantime there is a lovely discussion going around the community that these cuts have been based on the "best guesses" of people like Mr. Eads and a few accounting studies on utilization rates. It has yet to be seen what Ms. Ranelle Lang, the Superintendent does to earn her pay (see earlier posts on Mr. Eads' inflated role in D6), and why educational outcome studies were not used to base the financial cuts upon. It is very easy to surmise without these studies being published, without Ms. Lang standing up in front of the public in an open question and answer forum or appearing in front of D6 teachers, that the whole hoopla this year, following the failed voter initiative, has been a timely recessional scare tactic for cleaning house at D6.

Only problem is the good old boys are still running the show. They just aren't being very transparent about what is happening. They'd do well I suspect in the corporate private world. It is too bad they've been given a public institution to play with.

But nonetheless the Good Old Boy Board and Administration have made some changes and are in the process of shedding thirty-five employees and putting even more propaganda out in favor of themselves and Ms. Lang within the community. No one is talking education outcomes.

And who'd ever guess by the gutting of World Cultural Geography that Ms. Lang had the wonderful relationship, as stated in her Nebraska job interview process, with the local Hispanic community and its leaders. Which leaders would that be Ms. Lang?

Ms. Lang's home town wouldn't take her back so she may well be around now when those educational scores start coming in during the next two years. Only the Greeley Tribune and the lack of community interest will be able to paint those numbers pretty.

Accountability for poor decision making doesn't fall just on the Board. The community willing to roll over and play intellectually dead while all this goes on around them has to take some hit too. This is what happens when politics and ideology are allowed to embed themselves into a community's public institutions. It doesn't matter what the politics are about or whose side they are on--it is deadly to the outcome.

In this case Greeley's kids will pay the price for a very long time and those in the senior community, with few options to leave, will be able to serve as witness as services dwindle away and the various crime rates rise as happens with communities without viable opportunities for their citizens to succeed.

And the crowning cherry on the top of this muddy mountain? The District is buying its textbooks from Texas.