"The people of this County do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created." ***The views expressed on this blog are the opinions of the individual that wrote them.
6 comments:
Oppression a key component to today's education system
Dear Editor, Dr. Sheila E. Sapp, principal of Crooked River Elementary School, threatened me with a $500 fine, imprisonment for 150 days and community service due to my daughter’s five or more unexcused absences.
Has your publication made it acceptable to refer to educators as “doctors”? In last week’s edition you required journalists to use “doctor” at least 500 times in the article on top teachers. Is every teacher a doctor? When I cry out for a doctor, is it because I have an urgency to know the ramifications of the Battle at Yorktown? The difference between integrals and derivatives? The denouement in "Stranger in a Strange Land"?
Teaching children the electric slide in physical education is demanding, but we can acknowledge it isn’t separating conjoined twins. Was the silhouetted icon on the edition’s front page a teacher? It looked like the lunch lady with a Glock in one hand and detonator in the other.
The unexcused absences: a trip to see the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and sightsee California. Not an acceptable excuse as listed in my rulebook, Sapp’s Kampf, says a friendly administrative drone as I inquired about my grievous offense.
I am not the monster characterized by Sapp. The tone of the threat places my daughter in the same category as the boys from Columbine and me the avian bird flu personified, more removed from law and morality than Timothy McVeigh and David Koresh.
I apologize to Sapp for trying to enlighten my daughter and expand horizons in a way public education cannot. I apologize to Sapp that my daughter missed five or more days of in school Papa John’s pizza commercials, Chick Fil A Night advertisements, fundraisers, teacher donation plates, raffle tickets, t-shirt orders and spend-a-thons.
Sapp faces no incarceration or fines, though Georgia continuously ranks in the bottom tier of education. I do not echo the sentiment that she was promoted only to pacify the local chapter of the Rainbow Coalition. I do not scar my vehicle with bumper stickers that state, “Those who cannot do, teach. Those who cannot teach, administrate.”
Boards of education exist as oligarchies. Administrators are by definition promoted to their level of incompetence, a compromise that taxpayers accept.
The education system in America is day care with football. I expect little more from it than my child’s safe return each afternoon.
I refuse Sapp’s demand that I acknowledge poor parenting, my daughter’s monumental second grade ugliness and that additional absence will result in prison. I invite Sapp, the good doctor, to meet me at the Georgia State Supreme Court to argue Georgia’s Mandatory Education for Children Law.
I ask Sapp and the school district goons to cease and desist further harassment. Are we only a year removed from Sapp’s controversial sanctioning of students making collages from magazines containing nudity, pornography disguised by the National Geographic? The footage of the agitated mother wading through photos of well-endowed aboriginal men on the nightly news was unforgettable; awkward principle established by my daughter’s principal.
Roy M. Noland
St. Marys
tribune-georgian
School superintendent selection process a sham and a shame
Dear Editor, While reading a recent issue of the Tribune & Georgian I was stunned at the article regarding the soon to be vacant school superintendent's position.
The article showed the pictures of two local Camden County school administrators that are the final candidates for the position.
I called the Board of Education to ask about the selection process and found out that the position was only posted internally.
As a Camden County resident I would think that the Board of Education and the people of Camden County would want the very best candidates available. The only way to do that would be to open the selection process up to individuals outside the area and even outside the state.
I feel a great injustice is being done by not looking beyond the county. Our county and school district will be growing in the next five to 10 years and we need someone who has experience as a superintendent.
Ron Judge
Kingsland
tribune-georgian
Superintendent selection process failed to consider the students
Dear Editor, When I was a kid, I use to sit in front of the television on Saturday mornings to watch my favorite cartoons. I also looked forward to watching the toy and cereal commercials, especially the commercial advertising the cereal Trix. You know the one with the rabbit that always steals the box of Trix cereal and the kids began to chase him for the cereal. “I got to have my Trix, I got to have my Trix” says the rabbit. Of course the children always catch up to him and deliver the most famous line in all of commercials: “You silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!”
Learning the announcement for the new superintendent was appalling and an underhanded method of selecting one of the most important positions next to a classroom teacher. As a parent, I felt that the most progressive school district in the state has echoed a message to our surrounding school districts that our school board members are tricksters and care nothing about our students only the success of adults. The decision to search for a suitable replacement for Dr. Proctor appears to be sugar-coated rhetoric to pacify voters, potential school board candidates, and parents for the upcoming election year.
The final two candidates from this year’s pool of applicants should be compared to outside candidates for whom this would offer a fair chance for other highly-qualified candidates to showcase their expertise. By doing this comparison, it would give Camden County a true assessment of the kind of leadership they are producing, and if it is good enough, then promote from within. Sometimes when one is at the top, evaluation still needs occur amongst others in that field in order to establish if the characteristics and skills that got one at the top are successful. Reality checks are good to go through sometimes. Just like the rabbit in the commercial, the kids constantly give him a constant comparison that rabbits do not eat Trix cereal, children do. I find this child-centered commercial is a small reality check which should translate to some of our local school board members and influential educational leaders that their actions were puerile. Silly board members, schools are for kids!!
Robert Thomas
Kingsland
tribune-georgian
Double Standard by BOE in Hiring Practices.
Dear Editor, I wanted to bring to light the hiring of a new principal at the Alternative School by our “transparent” board of education.
The new principal, as I understand it, is a black male from Augusta, Dr. Walter Taylor. While I congratulate Dr. Taylor on his appointment, the superintendent and the board’s decision to overlook candidates from inside Camden County School System disappoints me.
Mr. (Jimmy) Coffel, in a news article on June 16 ("Board names Will Hardin new superintendent") defending the decision to choose a candidate for superintendent locally, stated, "We have home-grown people that are well qualified here, who know our system, how we work, how we are and will keep us in the top 10 of the state."
What I do not understand is how our school board could, as a majority, agree that we have qualified candidates for the top job of school superintendent, but turn around less than two weeks later and approve the superintendent’s recommendation to hire outside the system to fill a more subordinate position as principal of the Alternative School.
The board stated some years ago that the reason why there were so few minority persons in leadership is because it was difficult to find qualified candidates. Dr. Joseph Bryant, a longtime assistant principal of Camden County Schools, and Dr. Malcolm Fuller, a long-serving assistant principal in Camden County Schools, were both applicants for the Alternative School principal job.
Fuller and Bryant are both African-American educators with exemplary service as administrators over the course of their careers with Camden County Schools. Both men are actively involved in community efforts to improve the state of youth in the Camden County community.
Based on these qualifications alone, one of these men should have met the requirements to fit the description of “qualified, home-grown candidates.” If the superintendent and the board wanted to hire a minority for the post, these men exceeded the qualifications for the job. This writer can only conclude that Mr. Coffel’s statement on qualified, “home-grown people” did not include black educators in Camden County.
The board of education was elected to represent you, the people of Camden County. The resignation of Mr. Leon "Bo" Chance, the only black member, from the school board has left the board with no minority representation.
Major decisions that will affect our community for generations are occurring at this time without representation for blacks in Camden County. Our silence on important issues gives consent to the intentional or unintentional discriminatory practices to benefit the interest of an elite few in a state and federally funded, equal opportunity employment institution.
To the hard-working and overlooked black educators of Camden County Schools who have worked tirelessly in this community to educate their family, neighbors and friends, do not be discouraged. We appreciate what you mean to the children and also the future of the Camden community.
Samantha T. Black
Kingsland
tribune-georgian
Where is the accountability in local government?
Dear Editor, After you have read all of the current/past editorials of Tribune & Georgian, you should be convinced that the biggest fault in this lack of improvement lies with you, the citizens. Citizens have taken an attitude of "I don't want to be involved." But we can't afford not to be involved, because the government, the criminal justice system, will not work without accountability.
Accountability can only work when law-abiding citizens become involved, and I'm not talking about just going to the polls. We have to monitor elected officials, note their voting records, and see what they are doing. If they're not doing their job, what the citizens elected them to do, then we must do whatever is necessary to replace them; get someone who will.
In our community, we think we can elect someone and our job is over, and that is not true. Our form of government is not designed to operate that way. Without accountability, it is human nature not to do the right thing.
And what's so unfortunate about the criminal justice system is when it doesn't work as it's supposed to for law-abiding, innocent victims, there is nowhere else to turn. We have no other recourse when charges are dropped or plea bargained down to a lesser crime. There is no appeal for that. So we have to work to make sure the system metes out justice.
Government cannot, will not and has never reformed itself. Government only reacts to the will of the voters when they exercise their will strongly enough and let their wishes be known.
I would like to know how many registered voters in Camden County have ever attended a city council or county commissioners meeting, or contacted the person who represents them in their area, may it be via e-mail, phone call, letter or otherwise. I would guess, based on the performance of a lot of these individuals, none of their constituents have ever contacted them. But they take the time to go out and vote for them during every election.
This mentality has to stop. All of us are responsible for paying for the decisions these elected individuals are making. As I see it, the majority of the decisions are not in our best interest. Let me name a few, for those of you who are in the dark.
·The JDA is contemplating relocating the airport, at cost to the taxpayers of Camden.
· The JDA has asked for a blank check for $1 million a year for the next 10 years. The county commissioners have rushed this through for a vote on Tuesday, May 17.
·The county manager/planning and zoning director can't perform his job adequately. Instead of the commissioners hiring someone as planning and zoning director to relieve him of some duties, they have decided to hire an assistant for him. Why?
I could list 17 more reasons why the government of Camden County needs accountability. But I will simply end with asking, who is monitoring the district attorney of Camden County, and how can we make him accountable?
Denise R. Taylor
tribune-georgian
If the lockers are not safe at the high school, do something about it
Dear Editor, A letter of warning to parents of Camden County High:
My daughter, who's a 10th-grade student at CCHS, had her yearbook stolen. We were told by the staff that this happens every year because the lockers in A and G hall do not lock properly, and that "everyone knows this."
Well, aparently not everyone knew. We asked for a replacement, and so far have been told it's not their responsibility. This yearbook cost $50.
With two other children in the public school system, it adds up. This was not the first theft from my daughter since starting in the Ninth Grade Center. We have replaced lots of money, agenda books, scientific calculators, etc. Those of which were stolen right from her classes!
Students are not allowed to carry bookbags; their lockers are not secure; what options do they have?
Please remind your children to keep their belongings safe and close to them at all times. My daughter kept her yearbook in her locker during lunch "to be safe," because another student had hers stolen right from her lunch table!
Apparently, my daughter's locker was no better. It's unfortunate to see the love for a school a child once had go right out the window with the daily disrespect from other students and the lack of a sense of security from her own school.
I am told how to get the lockers to work: have your student spin the dial before closing the locker and yank the heck out of it in all directions to make sure it's secure.
Some money spent on new lockers where children supply their own locks would be a welcome site for the 2005-2006 school year. I wonder if there is money left over for our students' belongings to be secure?
Janet Meyer
St. Marys
tribune-georgian
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