Guest Post: “Mike Matthews Has Nothing To Apologize For”

It is the return of The Bygone Blogger!  This blogger of old has some more stuff to say about the controversy surrounding Mike Matthews and his DSEA resignation based on old blog posts Mike wrote.  In which we learn, once again, things are NOT always what they seem on the surface and some of the pitchfork throwers aren’t exactly innocent!  Take it away (again) Bygone Blogger!

Mike Matthews Speaks- From April 2006

This guest post is brought to you by the handle of The Bygone Blogger.  This blogger was one of those around back in the halcyon days of Delaware blogging- the time when the Iraq War commanded the headlines, America saw its first African-American President, and the Recession put America in severe dire straits.  In Delaware, it was the days of Governor Ruth Minner and the “I still have some hair” Jack Markell.  The Bygone Blogger covers the Mike Matthews situation and in the middle of it found some fairly recent material written by another Delaware blogger running for office!  We learn very fast that context matters!  This is something Atnre Alleyne, despite his vast amount of education, can’t seem to grasp.  Take it away Bygone Blogger! 

The Optics Of Politics

I came back from Star Wars: The Last Jedi last Friday night and saw a post from Steve Newton on Facebook.  I always read his posts because I know they are going to be interesting.  Once I read the second sentence, I knew somehow I was going to be a part of this post.  Since Steve specifically said at the end of it not to reply with reasons or justifications, I gave a brief reply acknowledging he was talking about me and fully owning my posts about one of the two people he was talking about in his post.  Since then, Steve has taken it upon himself to wage some bizarre one-man crusade against the validity of this blog.  See the comments section over on Blue Delaware.  You can read Steve’s opening salvo he posted on Facebook in that article.  I also posted an article mainly in reply to Steve’s post.  It was already in my drafts folder but I added to it due to the nature of Steve’s post.

This is what I wrote in reply to Steve’s original post:

Delaware Education Roundup, Early October 2017 Edition

The school year is in full swing and there is lots going on!

For starters, a Charlton School special needs teacher was arrested for sexual texts to a 17-year-old student according to WDEL.

Sources have said several board members at Thomas Edison Charter School resigned last week in response to the actions of Board President Ronald Pinkett.  I was not given names or an exact number.

Central Middle School in the Capital School District are in the process of hiring two constables for the school.  Dover High School started this program last year with success.  Capital got the idea from Indian River School District who has, I believe, 16 constables throughout their schools.  Last night, the school held a parent q & a for interested parents and will be holding another one when they have hired the two constables.

The September 30th Unit Count took place last Friday.  The results should be released at some point in November.  Expect numbers and data crunching here at Exceptional Delaware.

According to the Cape Gazette, several students from Cape Henlopen High School participated in public service announcements for safe driving: On October 4, 2017 several of our Cape Henlopen High School juniors were selected by the Driver’s Education Department, to participate in recording radio PSA’s promoting teen safety while driving. iHeart Radio stations will be playing the PSA’s throughout Sussex county on the radio and online. Students who were selected were also part of a team who competed at the Delaware Drivers Ed Competition. The competition took place at Dover International Speedway at the end of last school year.

Three Delaware schools won the Blue Ribbon Award this year.  No charters.  Olive B. Loss Elementary School, Seaford Central Elementary School (Seaford), and East Millsboro Elementary School (Indian River) all won the federal designation this year.  This is the first time since I’ve been blogging that a Delaware charter or private school was not in the list of the winners.

The Delaware Department of Education is holding “community conversations” to tweak their school report cards.  Five meetings have been scheduled: Monday October 9th from 6-8pm at Beacon Middle School in the cafeteria (Cape Henlopen School District), Thursday October 12th from 6-8pm at Warner Elementary School in the library (Red Clay Consolidated School District), Wednesday October 18th from 6-8pm at Dover High School in the cafeteria (Capital School District), Monday October 23rd from 6pm-8pm at MOT Charter High School in the cafeteria, and Tuesday October 24th from 6pm-8pm at the Laurel Middle School in the cafeteria (Laurel School District).  The Delaware DOE is asking for participants to RSVP here.

Another committee, The Anti-Discrimination Guidance Team will hold their last Community Conversation tomorrow night (October 5th) at Sussex Central High School from 6:30-8:00pm.  I have been in the midst of a move recently so I haven’t been able to fully delve into this committee.  But you can find information on the Draft Policy, Draft Regulations, and a survey from the DOE here.  I hadn’t looked at the membership of this Guidance Team until just now.  How ironic that Greg Meece from Newark Charter School is on this.

Capital School District will be holding their Super Senator Day at Dover High School from 10am-2pm.

The month of October is Disability History and Awareness Month in Delaware.  As per the Indian River Facebook page, October is Disability History and Awareness Month in Delaware. This official observance began in 2009 when members and staff of the Governor’s Advisory Council for Exceptional Citizens encouraged Rep. Quinton Johnson and Sen. Bethany Hall-Long to sponsor House Concurrent Resolution 19. The purpose was to encourage schools to include information in their lessons and sponsor activities to promote the accomplishments of individuals with disabilities throughout history. The goal is to increase awareness and the acceptance of students with various disabilities.

On Colonial School District’s Facebook page, they announced the following: Staff and students were recognized today by DuPont for the amazing agricultural work being done at William Penn High School. Representatives from DuPont, members from State Legislature and Senate, USDA and members from the community celebrated the efforts of WPHS agriculture and science students and teachers in their work with pollination. Several staff and students were also awarded with grants to help further their education to continue the success at William Penn. In honor of her tireless efforts in making William Penn the great school that it is, a wildflower meadow was named in honor of Ag Teacher Kate Pickard. Thanks to DuPont and our community for helping our kids and give them opportunities to grow.

Appoquinimink is providing dinner for interested parents of students with special needs at the Marion Proffitt Training Center.  I would RSVP fast though!  Other events through their Parent Council is included in the below picture!

State Senator Margaret Rose-Henry from the 2nd Senate District in Wilmington announced she will not be seeking reelection in 2018.  This follows State Senator Brian Bushweller’s similar announcement in August.

Campus Community School in Dover had a cool announcement yesterday: Campus Community School is in the news again!!! This year, we have partnered with Northnode Counseling and Jennifer August, a board certified Art Therapist, to provide this service to our students. Art therapy provides students with an outlet and allows them to express themselves through their artwork.

Shields Elementary School students in the Cape Henlopen School District performed a worthy cause for hurricane victims as per the district’s Facebook page from September 22nd: This week Shields Elementary School teamed up with Lewes Fire Company, and collected items to send to Florida and Texas to help families affected by Hurricane Harvey and Irma. The students spent part of their morning “stuffing the bus” full of the donations. Thank you to the students, staff, parents, and community members who donated and made our “Stuff the Bus” event a success!  Way to go Shields students!

A friendly reminder that all Delaware public schools are closed on Friday due to an in-service professional development day.  While the children play, the teachers pay! Just kidding (I hope)!

Academia Antonia Alonso will be holding their Fall Festival on October 22nd.

Glasgow High School in the Christina School District will hold their 8th Annual College Fair on October 26th.

Red Clay Consolidated School District will be holding their 11th Annual Family Resource Fair on November 4th at John Dickinson High School from 10am-1pm.

Next week is National School Lunch Week, from October 9th-13th.  I’m not sure what that means.  How do you celebrate school lunches?  Free Chik-Fil-A or Panera?  That would be something to celebrate! (No disrespect to the thousands of school cafeteria workers in our fine state)

This week, Positive Outcomes Charter School is holding their Spirit Week.

I don’t think Governor Carney likes me too much today.

I don’t care.

If you have any school or district events you would like to share, please email me at kevino3670@yahoo.com with details.  Or if you want to share something controversial, feel free to do the same.  Charters are welcome to share as well despite my writing stuff about them all the time.  I write about district stuff too but that gets lost in the noise sometimes.  Trying to make this blog less bad and actually share some of the good stuff going on in our schools.  Once again, if you want to promote any type of standardized test score enjoyment, please don’t.  I will opt right out of writing about that kind of nonsense!

Dave Sokola & Greg Meece Played All Of Us And They Are Laughing Behind Your Back!

Suckers!  Governor Carney vetoed the 5 mile radius bill.  Big deal.  We all knew he didn’t really have a choice.  But don’t think for one second Senator David Sokola and Newark Charter School Head of School Greg Meece didn’t plan all of this the second the bill went into circulation.  Did any of you think for one second Meece would give up his beloved 5-mile radius for NCS?  Come on!  This is Delaware Politics 101 folks!

This was never about Wilmington students.  This was ALWAYS about Newark Charter School.  They do NOT want anyone outside of their 5-mile radius crossing that line.  Sokola knew the bill had legs so he found the perfect amendment to kill it: exclude the Wilmington portion of Christina.  It would get all the civil rights activists going off and it worked like a charm.  Lest we forget, this is the same State Senator who messed around with the opt out bill every single chance he could.  How many of us were there when he scheduled many bills during a Senate Education Committee meeting and the opt out bill, House Bill 50, was delayed for a week?  Remember the whole “Assessment Inventory Task Force” crap?  That was him.  Remember the charter school audit bill which was fantastic under State Rep. Kim Williams’ original incarnation until he got his charter-dirty hands on it.  And what about House Bill 399, the bill that would have given teachers a choice of using the Smarter Balanced Assessment or other tests for their evaluations?  He put so much crap in his amendment and watered it down to nothing.  This is classic Sokola.

Don’t believe for one second that NCS had issues with transportation logistics.  They didn’t want the 5-mile radius to go away.  Period.  That’s all this was ever about.  I have no doubt Sokola was cheering me on when I wrote about how his version of House Bill 85 would result in a massive lawsuit against the state.  This is what he does.  He turns gold into poison ivy.  But all the clowns up in Newark keep voting him back in over and over again.

As for Meece, he is never going to change.  He loves the fact that HIS school is the “best” in the state.  He loves the fact it’s the biggest as well.  And he has stacked the deck with the sibling enrollment preference.  That way all his favorite families can keep bringing their kids there.  He might throw a prize our way by taking in some special education kids.  Make it look like he is trying.  But he isn’t.  He’s just playing the game.  And with Sokola by his side, he always wins.

Everyone on social media is talking about Carney and Wilmington.  How Carney did or didn’t help Wilmington kids with his veto.  Do you really believe Carney didn’t know what Sokola and Meece were up to the entire time?  See the game for what it is folks.  It isn’t about change.  It’s about the status quo.

Lucky for Sokola, he got to go on a cross-country bike ride with former Governor and good buddy Jack Markell.  They are somewhere in middle America right now, sweating their hineys off in spandex.  I have no doubt Meece is thinking “Yes, we win again!” while wondering if he should go for a threepeat on Blue Ribbon status so he can brag that they are 1 in 5 trillion schools who ever got the hat trick.  They played all of us for suckers, again.  And they will do it again.  As long as Sokola has his little amendment followers and enough whine to go with his charter cheese, this scene will play out again.  And again.  And again.  I don’t have a doubt in my mind that Meece and Sokola ever worried about this bill at all.  Gravy!

 

There Are NO, I Repeat, NO State Employee Salary Cuts In Delaware’s Budget Bill

Blogging is funny sometimes.  You can get things wrong.  When multiple sources tell you the same thing, you assume it is gold.  But for the end of June in Delaware you have to be a bit cautious.  That is my situation right now.  I want to apologize for anyone who had angst over this.  I thought, based on sources, that it was going to happen.  While eating dinner tonight, I was informed there was a 1.45% deduction in state employee salaries, but this was a misread of the appropriations bill.  It is NEVER my intention to put bad information out there.

I’m sitting in the lobby at Legislative Hall to a packed house.  Even the House Republicans are here!  Below is the current appropriations bill, House Bill #275.  I haven’t had time yet to take a deep dive into it yet.  Far too much going on.  I’m running into people I haven’t seen in a while and catching up with the usual suspects.  But I felt it was important, in the face of this budget crisis, to at least get this information out there as soon as possible.

View this document on Scribd

 

Townsend & Baumbach Declare War On Lobbyists & Legislator Conflicts Of Interest

Two new bills introduced today tackle the very problematic issue with lobbyists in Delaware.  State Senator Bryan Townsend and State Rep. Paul Baumbach are the main sponsors of each bill showcasing the need for transparency from lobbyists.  As well, their peers in the General Assembly will have a lot more to answer for in terms of their relationships with lobbyists.  Conflicts of interest will be under the spotlight, as they should be.

Senate Bill 225, sponsored by Townsend, is a much-needed bill that removes exemptions for General Assembly members not being investigated in conflict of interest and code of conduct investigations.  The legislation also requires lobbyists to disclose any payments they receive, including the source of the payment and the amount.

House Bill 385, sponsored by Baumbach, would make it so lobbyists have to pay a registration fee to offset the costs imposed on the Public Integrity Commission.  Many lobbyists pose a conflict of interest and this bill would actually generate funds in a situation that deals with this ongoing issue.

Both of these bills are very welcome in my opinion.  We can’t cut the rot out of Delaware politics until we get to the root of it.  And unfortunately for the good lobbyists, there are many bad ones.  In most investigations, it becomes a standard game of follow the money.  If both of these bills pass, that will be much easier.

This will get real interesting with the Delaware State Education Association (DSEA) and the Delaware Charter Schools Network.  In Delaware education, they are both at Legislative Hall for anything education related.  I would love to know how much the lobbyists for the Delaware Business Roundtable make as well.

Updated, 5:20pm: I’m now seeing a third bill introduced today, once again by Townsend.  Senate Bill 224 deals with Campaign Finance Reform and disclosure of a contributor’s occupation and employment information.  This is already done in federal elections.  It looks like the transparency train is finally making a stop in Dover…