Over the past year or so, I’ve written a lot of emails that never got a response. I save all of them, and since I am so often accused of not reaching out, I thought I would publish those sent emails. There are many more going back to the Mark Murphy days, but I will get around to those another time. In the meantime, see what questions or requests I had that no one ever answered. On some of these, they did respond, but when I responded back the sound of crickets was all I heard. There are those who always respond to me, and I do truly appreciate those people. And some I disagree with on policy all the time. But for those who choose to ignore me, please see how I will be dealing with this practice at the end of the article going forward.
This email was sent during the infamous “school report card opt out & participation rate” saga from last fall.
For the Parent Strike on 9/17/15, I sent a letter to the editor to all the major media in Delaware. The News Journal actually edited parts of it which changed the whole context of what I wrote in parts.
The PTO at Las Americas Aspiras was telling parents the school would lose ALL funding if too many parents opted out. I reached out to their Head of School.
To be completely fair, Delaware Secretary of Education Dr. Steven Godowsky did reply to the original email, but after that… complete silence when I called him out on a few things.
Last fall I reached out to Matthew Korobkin who was assigned to the Secretary’s area at the Delaware DOE to work on a special education strategic plan. I had heard of him, but I did reach out to him in good faith to talk about special education.
This was a second request to Governor Markell’s education policy advisor, Lindsay O’Mara, to clarify some questions about expenses when the Governor speaks for private education companies. No response…
About a year after I posted an in-depth article on Rodel and their CEO Paul Herdman emailed me about not reaching out to them first, I thought it was time to attempt to reach out to him after he completely ignore my response to him the year before. Once again… nothing…
I did get a few responses to this one, done in the spirit of the holidays, but nothing from Jack Frost…
This was a second request to Governor Markell asking him to contribute to a New Years Day article. I asked folks to list three things they wanted to see in Delaware education in 2016. I guess Jack didn’t have any…
While there is no guarantee that a letter to the editor will be published or even considered, a little bit of acknowledgment, which the News Journal did in the past, would have been nice…
Last January, Delaware State Rep. Earl Jaques asked for my opinion on getting opt out for students with disabilities. I was vehemently against the idea as I believed it is any parent’s right to make that choice and shouldn’t be “allowed” for one group over another. It angered me that he would think I would support that kind of idea, so I wrote this. US Secretary of Education John King did respond to this, but not with anything truly addressing the issues I wrote about…
For anyone following the former Delaware Treasurer Chip Flowers FOIA situation with Governor Markell’s office, I had a little bit to add to that situation. Funny how precedent is set on issues when it is in the Governor’s favor…
I did finally get a response to this FOIA request concerning National PTA President Laura Bay (no records found), but this wasn’t the first time I addressed FOIA issues with the Delaware DOE which they are acutely aware of. To be fair, Alison May did respond to these emails, but from Godowsky… nothing!
I submitted a request through the Delaware DOE’s request for data forms for actual data. Especially information concerning their data. Sometimes I think they like to mess with me… The first pictures are screen shots I took of the actual request as I was doing it since the DOE doesn’t send an automatic reply showing what you requested.
After I read a special education due process decision for Cape Henlopen School District, I saw an inherent flaw in Delaware code in regards to this decision. I reached out to legislators who I know tend to advocate for special needs students. Granted, it was the second to last day of the legislative session, but I have yet to receive a response from any of the legislators with one exception. I did discuss it with Kim Williams in person, but for the others, nothing.
I sent this one last week to Christina School District CFO Bob Silber. No response. But I have since found out these VERY high non-state employee travel costs were paid with federal funds which makes me even more curious…
For the past few weeks, Jack Wells has been hammering Delaware State Auditor Thomas Wagner to more effectively (and in some cases actually) audit school funding. Wells tends to include a lot of folks on these emails, including myself. I jumped on the bandwagon. Either Wagner doesn’t read his emails or feels everyday citizens of the state that elected him into office aren’t worthy of a response. I asked him to look into the Appoquinimink tuition funds situation. To date, nothing from Wagner….
Here I am basically telling people in response to a Jack Wells email that all too often, folks in Delaware who have the power to change things ignore the pleas for help and transparency coming from Delaware citizens. I did get responses from Rick Jensen and Colin Bonini (who wasn’t even on the original email). And some of the usual citizens on this email chain. But for the power brokers…zip…nada…zilch…
As well, I also emailed Capital School District to find out why they lump special education funding into one big bucket on their expenditure codes instead of giving breakdowns…
While this was just sent two days ago, I think history proves that Delaware Governor Jack Markell doesn’t respond to anything I have to say. He did once, and that was when I sent something to his personal email address which was made public through a FOIA another citizen obtained. And that was basically saying “we both want what’s best for students and we won’t always agree”… For a Governor who believes transparency and accountability are SO important, he can’t even get through the gate with those two things…ob
I have many more examples of this non-response environment in Delaware which I will put up in the future. From here on out, if I send a request to someone who is a Delaware state employee and they fail to respond in a week, or within a week after an out-of-office reply shows a return date, I’m just going to publish the original email I sent… no matter what it says. This is my idea of transparency. If you think this is arrogant or presumptuous on my part, then keep ignoring me. I think it is arrogant to ignore people as if we are just little tiny bugs you can swat away…
The Season Of Myths 
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