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They say “No Publicity is Bad Publicity”… I’m not sure the school district will agree
Hopefully you read Bubba Brown’s excellent article in the Park Record on the student who was discriminated against by the Park City School District. If you haven’t, I would recommend you do that now.
The article basically talks about an investigation by the federal government that pointed to school district personnel discriminating against a kindergarten student who has type 1 diabetes. The student was not always provided care by our schools as required by law and was not allowed to participate equally in some activities.
Well, that excellent article by Mr Brown has been picked up by the Associated Press. It has now gone far and wide. I’m sure the school district isn’t exactly happy with that. I also bet those people who feel our precariously balanced tourism business could be disrupted by any negative news flow are equally non-plussed. Finally, I’m sure real estate agents advertising in the WSJ and Miami Hearld can’t be happy, either. There’s nothing like a little tarnish showing up on our gem of a town.
Personally, I’m glad the Associated Press picked up the article. It’s a story that must be told.
We had a chance to sit down with the mother of the student last week and hope to provide our view early next week.
In the meantime, here is a compilation of a Google Search that shows how far this story has gone:
Parkrag
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Comments
4 Comments
This is way worse than the “threat” thing. That was just people being stupid and the district not realizing how stupid and panicky their parents are.
This is a pattern of deliberately violating someone’s rights. It’s contemptible. A number of people should probably be fired. Hopefully we’ll hear more about exactly what happened.
Walt, parents are not ‘stupid,’ as you wrote in your comment. High school students are not ‘stupid,’ as Julie Eihausen wrote on Facebook following the May 3rd debacle. These people are awake and pissed for good reasons. They have not just been whiners and complainers, either; rather, have offered ideas and solutions to the school district administration.
We can wait for changes in process. Wait, wait, wait…until the cows come home and the hens come home to roost and the bad apples rot the good. Sure, we can wait.
As for discrimination followed by the firing of a nurse for cooperating with feds, well, let’s say, ‘stupid is as stupid does.’
This was not just one bad mistake. It was a series of bad mistakes caused by poor judgement on the part of leaders in our school district. Why wait until the next debacle? In any corporation this would have been a done deal months, possibly more than a year ago. Corporations don’t typically wait until the numbers hit the red. But our school system clearly does not operate at the same performance standards as a business. Maybe we need more business savvy in our school system? Leaders who understand law, who lead by example and thereby develop their followership, who understand and get along well with people. This is not about naming names, but about the need for solid leadership. Were we to take a hard look at it, there may be a number of people in our system who may or may not be able to develop themselves to that level; who may or may not actually be in the right positions for their skill sets. Maybe an entire paradigm shift is needed. Maybe we ensure that our system has solid leaders at the Principal/Assistant Principal level and allow our schools to thrive sans further leadership (e.g., consider these folks to be the top and give them, along with solid teacher endorsement, the reins, including budget management). This would cut costs, allow more flexibility in instructional spending, and improve freedom and creativity in teaching to higher standards.
What solutions have been proposed? All I’ve heard is carping and whining. Plus people who pulled their kids from school on what was probably the safest day they could be there, ruining a day of learning for basically everyone.
Stupid.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that the district did any better. The whole situation was a perfect storm of panic and stupidity on all sides as far as I can tell.
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