Red Clay, Brandywine, & Appoquinimink Go After Christina For The Same Bling The Charters Got In Settlement

Christina School District is about to get screwed again!  But not by the charters this time.  This time it is districts who should be their allies!

Okay, time to let the cat out of the bag.  A month ago, and if you blinked you missed it, the Christina Board of Education discussed and voted no on the Chief Financial Officer of their district negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding between Christina, Red Clay, Appoquinimink and Brandywine.  The MOU would have given authority to the CFO of Christina to send those local funds to the three other districts for students that choice to those districts out of Christina.  The board said no.  Look for a special board meeting sometime next week.  From what I’m hearing, now the Superintendents of the districts (all four) want to have the MOU between them.  Welcome to Christina Richard Gregg!

That’s what happens when you open Pandora’s Box like that with that stupid settlement between Christina and the charters.  I’m talking to you four Christina board members who voted FOR the settlement and then voted against rescinding the settlement a week later.  Did I not distinctly hear that it would set a precedent?  That it would come back to bite them in the ass?  I know I said it.  I believe a few others did as well.  Karma truly is a vengeful and mean bitch.

Do I have anything against Brandywine, Appo, or Red Clay for going after these funds?  I don’t know.  The timing sucks.  And how soon until Colonial jumps on the train?  All this happened because, supposedly, according to some commenter named Elizabeth, Jack Markell had some secret deal with Lillian Lowery and Christina when she became Secretary of Education.  The way I’ve heard it, Lowery was involved in a lawsuit when she became Secretary and Captain Jack wanted it all hush-hush so all sorts of crazy crap happened.  I heard that from someone who used to be on the board who hasn’t been too quiet about it over the past year or so.  Funny how stuff gets out in The First State.

So what happens if Christina’s board says no again?  Will the big three (and possibly Colonial) get their feathers in a twist and file a lawsuit against Christina as well?  My gut tells me Christina’s board will be forced to vote yes because of the precedent set in the charter settlement.  So last week, the board announced they will be laying off 44 or so teachers.  Will this cause that number to rise?  And how the hell does their CFO Robert Silber still have a job there?

How much money are we talking?  I don’t think it would be as much as the cha-ching the charters got, but it will leave a mark on their budget.  At this point, anything more is suck city.  Here’s a novel idea… how about going after Jack Markell and Lillian Lowery for their side deals that went on.  Better catch Jack quick before he goes on his Forrest Gump tour of America!  Yeah, like that will ever happen.  Captain Jack seems to have some special immunity shield around him.  It’s a special kind, where you screw things up for eight years and you get to go biking into the Pacific sunset.

Education never gets boring in this state.  But this will not be a joking matter for the teachers and staff in Christina School District.  These are good people who have been the victim of these education funding games for many years now.  Throw in priority schools and the constant labeling and shaming of the district.  I feel bad for all the districts right now.  Students and teachers should not be the sacrificial targets because the adults in charge can’t get their shit together.  Sorry to be so blunt, but I’m really getting sick of it.

Here’s the kicker!  I submitted a FOIA to the Delaware Auditor of Accounts office a couple of weeks ago.  This is what I asked for:

Please provide, in PDF format, all reports, letters, guidance, or inspections for any Delaware school district, vocational school district, or charter school generated by the Office of the Auditor of Accounts that is not listed on the Auditor of Accounts website for fiscal years 2014, 2015, and 2016. This would include any of the above listed documents sent to members of the General Assembly, the Delaware Department of Education, the Office of Management and Budget, Office of the Controller General, or the Office of Management and Budget that would be considered a public document 29 Del. C. Paragraph 10002(1).

Wanna know what I got?  Bupkis, that’s what!  I got the petty cash letters sent to a handful of charters last year along with the letters about that specific situation sent to various state agencies.  For three fiscal years!

Wanna know what that means?  The Auditor of Accounts office is NOT auditing ANY school district unless it is an investigation based on something submitted on their tip line.  Which means that office is breaking the law.  But the General Assembly won’t give them the funds to do their job as required by Delaware State Law (which the General Assembly does: create laws).  So who do we take to court?  The Auditor of Accounts office or the General Assembly?  Who is tracking where the hell education funds actually go?  NO ONE!  Except myself and Jack Wells it looks like.  But yeah, let’s layoff teachers and make classrooms into sardine cans while people in district offices are making over $100,000 in salary.  Cause that makes a lot of fucking sense!  Let’s keep paying for state testing and all these one-to-on devices so we can just weed out teachers and turn education into a reformer wonderland!  as I said, I’m getting tired of all this nonsense.  And if I were a teacher, I would be too!  If I were a parent (which I am) I would be shouting this from the rooftops: Stop screwing over our schools!  And when I say schools, that primarily means the students and teachers.  That is the heart of it all.

The Delaware Education Hunger Games Logic Puzzle

Okay folks, this will be somewhat cryptic, but some moles I have in two different districts are telling me the same thing.  And I’ve heard rumblings of this for quite some time.  Last night I threw up a quick poll to gage whether or not the settlement with the 15 charters schools and Christina School District was fair.  While I didn’t expect a huge turnout, 74% of the 54 voters felt the settlement was not fair as opposed to the 14 who did.  Now comes word that the story isn’t exactly over.  For those who know the education landscape in Delaware, this should be fairly easy to figure out.  Ask questions…I might answer!

The five districts are A, B, C, D, and E

D is not coming to the party or could arrive late

E is not coming to the party

A is at the party but hasn’t partnered with D yet

B, D, and E all did something the past few years but A did not

A likes to take care of their own but E takes care of many

The many got a huge honking Apple Pie from E and now A, B, & C want a piece of the pie, maybe peach, but it’s still a friggin’ pie!

D is in big trouble if they can’t do what B & E did last year

Delaware Governor John Carney is stiffing A, B, C, D, and E along with F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O and P which is the true catalyst for the party and I can’t believe this is even a potential talking point since Carney brought ALL this on and it would be very petty if A, B, and C did this now in the middle of all this.  But it was beyond petty the first time when the many ate the pie.

A, B, C, and E had a recent race but D didn’t have to

Apple pie is yummy except when it has been sitting in a basement for many years

What A, B, and C want is something very similar to what the Delaware DOE demanded from A and E three years ago

E doesn’t belong to an organization that A, B and C belong to

The leader of C was the leader of an advisory group that began with the letter E but has nothing to do with the letter E in this logic puzzle

If Edwin Meese had a C instead of an S and a first name like the eldest Brady Boy, he would need to be the leader of the many in their quest for apple pie

When the many got their apple pie, their was something in the pie that lit the match for The Delaware Education Hunger Games for Governor Carney, how interesting… what timing… almost like looking into a crystal ball…

A guy that ran in the race for A loves the many

All the teachers and educators in A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S and the twenty-something a,b,c,d, etc. ALL need to get down to Legislative Hall when the Joint Finance Committee meets for two weeks after this coming week, show up in person, and tell them NOT to pass the proposed budget by Governor Carney.  They need to rise up even though they feel abused and beaten already in many cases and say NO, You can’t keep taking and taking and taking from us without any regard for our lives and the students we are tasked to teach.  They also need to tell their districts to stop shuffling them around, and lobby the legislature to change the ridiculous May 15th deadline when the General Assembly doesn’t pass their budget until a month and a half later!  If they can’t make it, they should blow up the email accounts of every single member of the JFC every day from now until then.

Some of these clues are just thrown in here for amusement

Is robbing Peter to pay Paul the wisest thing to do these days when the Delaware Education Hunger Games are in full session?????