BlogSpasm #41...July 25, 2011
Apparently, the sauce used for the goose doesn’t go well with the gander in the IISD!
It appears that the principal of Nimitz HS and the superintendent have agreed to reprimand an Irving teacher for forwarding an e-mail. Said e-mail was alerting/inviting/informing teachers that a member of the Irving board of trustees (S. Jones) and mayoral candidate Van Duyne would be holding a discussion regarding the school district and city affairs at an off-campus site.
The DMN article reflects the following:
WHAT THE PRINCIPAL SAID: Nolly said that the emails were inappropriate because they were sent during instructional time and utilized school email for noneducational reasons. Superintendent Dana Bedden said they also were political emails related to the mayoral race.
WHAT’S NEXT: A complaint conference will be scheduled with the school’s principal. If the issue is not resolved, it may be appealed to the superintendent and then to the school board.
Now, here’s the real rub of this situation. Didn’t the superintendent and board president (Ashley) do basically the same thing? Wasn’t school district time and resources involved when they had their discussions (e-mails?) about having mayor Gears, who was in the most expensive and heated political campaign in Irving’s history, attend all of the high school graduations? Wasn’t this also “playing politics?"
Of particular note: During the course of the mayor’s invitation to attend all the graduation exercises, two different stories seemed to emerged. The superintendent related that the “administration” was contacted about his appearance, while the mayor was reported to have said that the “administration” contacted him about appearing. So, who did make the initial contact for the mayor’s appearance?
Staff of the CCR would suggest that if the superintendent is going to serve goose or crow, then he should at least be consistent with the sauce used to baste the fowl.
…………………..Mark Holbrook
NOTE: Refer to ZAP! #51, May 1, 2011 for an additional occasion involving the IISD superintendent and e-mails. In this case, he didn’t want to “become involved” in the upcoming school board election, yet he distributed on a Saturday morning -- at a local restaurant -- e-mails (some marked confidential) created on district time using district resources. He also had members of his staff in attendance to assist in furthering his case in the brouhaha involving school board candidate S. Jones. Can one assume that this wasn't "playing politics?"
