Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Are you too busy, too discouraged, too reluctant?
There has been a great deal of discussion about apathy lately. Both the MDUSD blog and the Misterwriter.com blog have written about the poor attendance at the recent community meeting held at Foothill Middle School last Thursday night. They report that out of 68 attendees, only 33 were parents the remainder were administrators from the district. There were no students. If you did not attend tell us why. Were you too busy, were you afraid of retaliation if you spoke out, are you happy with the job MDUSD is doing so there was no need, did you believe the meeting would be a waste of time, did you have a conflict with another school event, etc..
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7 comments:
After reading about the last community meeting where April Treece said "this should only about positive things" and McHenry eating up most of the time pontificating on the glorious state of the district I decided these meetings are not useful. The format is too formal and typical of a district meeting. Make introductions, you have the questions and get on with it. The district needs to be brave be able to communicate not hire a consultant.
As usual, the meeting was scheduled on short notice and posed a conflict with an important Jazz Band concert at Northgate HS (the band played with College Park HS, the Univeristy of Michigan Jazz Band, and famed musician, Mic Gillette). True to form, the district put its business interests ahead of its students.
Anon 3:46
FYI, these meetings were talked about at the PAC Meeting with the Superintendent in January. The reps from NG and the feeder schools were present.Dates were set while they were there. Maybe the NG reps. need a calender from NG and all the feeder schools. Remember that this time of year is tough, there is a lot going on between sports, music, chorus, drama and then to fit in meetings. I don't think stating that the district put its busines interests ahead of its students is a fair statement. Truthfully, someone will find fault if that is all they are looking for.
I see there is a poll about the meeting at Rocco's.. please come. Detailed information is at Paul Strange and Gary Eberhart's MDUSD.blogspot.com blog. Come to Rocco's from 10am to 11:30. Informal meeting with Paul and Gary. Join other parents and other concerned community members to ask questions, get information and share concerns with other parents, students and concerned community members who want to unite for change. We look forward to a good turn -out.
Cathy
cathym0423@gmail.com
Parents after the past 10 years have written off the dsyfunctional MDUSD as hopeless. Check out not only dramatically declining API scores for Northate, but also check out the MDUSD blog, here's what Trustee Eberhard had to say about the poorly attended meeting. He best summarized the malaise:
"April 3rd Northgate Community Meeting
I was in attendance at the April 3rd community meeting held at Foothill Middle School and I have several observations. If you had attended the meeting and you didn’t have any knowledge of the turmoil that currently afflicts our district, you’d think that all was peachy in the MDUSD right now. MDUSD Superintendent Gary McHenry spoke eloquently of the good things happening in our district and made little mention of the severe fiscal problems created by his administration, the historically low morale afflicting district employees, and the increasing distrust of the district by parents and community members all across the district. The Superintendent spoke about the public’s perception that we are not a good district, that there is financial mismanagement by his administration, and there is a need to communicate better, but seemed to discount the community's concerns as misperceptions rather than truths."
So Mr. Sparks, wouldn't you say that given the fact that it is highly unlikely that Northgate will be leaving the district anytime soon, that parents should join together with Eberhardt and Strange in getting rid of the Supe and others? Attend the meeting at Rocco's and find out what positive steps we can all take to help our kids.
Northgate is not my area so I didn't attend, but as an employee (teacher) I am too tired of the canned administration dog and pony show that too often occurs. I was not even inclined to even attend my neighborhood meeting opportunity after hearing what has been happening at these.
I think one problem we have as a community is that while many can easily share their perceptions of the problems in MDUSD, there are few planned "next steps" the community can persue to bring about positive change. Just how do we fix this thing??? Northgate is trying something at least, even though it is getting a mixed response. Hopefully a positive plan will come forth that the entire MDUSD community can and will support.
Optimistic (Naive?) in MDUSD
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