When the Christina School District was told that Glasgow and Stubbs would be two of the four schools chosen for the Partnership Zone reform effort, they were given several options to make change happen for those kids. They chose to provide their own detailed plan for how they would transform those schools. The state accepted the plan, and the district committed to implementing it.Dear Gov.
This week, the school board members seem to have voted to change their mind. Instead of making progress and moving forward, some members decided instead to point fingers at the state for local implementation issues they could have identified and solved. They offered angry speeches instead of offering options on how they were going to keep the commitment they made to the kids in those schools. They injected tremendous uncertainty about what those schools will look like next year.
This is a personal letter, in a public forum, submitting one individual's own interpretation of the recent series of events in Delaware:
As of Easter Sunday, you still don't have your facts right. I strongly suspect that you have not listened to the audio file of the April 19th meeting that is readily available to the entire listening public on the Christina District website. If you had, you would drawn vastly different conclusions.
You would know that Christina absolutely recognized that the fidelity of the implementation to the MOU as a local issue. You would know that members of this board did seek out your Sec. of Education for guidance on this issue before April 19th. And that she confirmed this was a local issue. You would know that this board agonized over what was the right and fair remedy and that we all spent many hours of our own personal time outside this meeting responding to constituents and researching our options.
If you had listened to that audio file, you would know that this board owned the errors of process and the mistakes of implementation. We accepted that as the elected policy-makers and custodians of the district. We feel deeply that true reform will happen only with fidelity to the plan and that the absence of fidelity will result in the failure of this plan.
If you had listened to that audio file, you would know that this board never, at any point, discussed deviating from the approved-reform plan, although many board members do have gut-wrenching concerns over the reform models and the total instability that these models are inflicting upon our students.
If you had listened, you would know that this board voted to "retain and retrain" its teachers. That it is committed to moving the reform plan forward utilizing among other commitments, the professional development avenues already imbedded into the plan. The retention of 19 teachers at these two schools did not in any way walk the PZ plan backwards and therefore did not jeopardize your Race to the Top.
If you had listened, you would know that we at no time threatened your Race to the Top legacy. As the PZ is regulated, we have no option but to continue on course. You would know that the decision this board made was one based upon integrity, not fear, nor threats. It was a vote to support our students and that one's word is as valuable as one's actions. We made a promise to the teachers at our PZ schools that decisions regarding their futures would be informed by multiple measures. We failed to keep our word. We acted within the province of local control to remedy those errors.
If you had listened you would know that the MOU could only be changed by mutual agreement of the two signing parties. The board was one, the CEA, the other. The DOE has no vote.
If you had cared to contact us after the meeting and before you froze our funding, you would know that the CEA leadership has expressed their gratitude and support for undoing what was truly a tragedy to some wonderful educators.
If you had cared to contact us before you froze our funding, we might very well have worked through these issues before they became national news and thrust Delaware and Christina into a bad light. We may have avoided the angry rhetoric and propaganda campaign embarked upon by the state.
You would know, Gov, that this board never walked away from the table and that the only party injecting tremendous uncertainty is your department of education. CEA is committed. Christina is committed. Are you and DOE?
It's not too late to listen. But, prepare yourself, it was a seven hour meeting.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Scheinberg
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