Collier County - You've Been Punked!

Not sure why I can’t let this go. Maybe it’s the thousands of students who won’t be able to attend college, get scholarships or military appointments. Maybe it’s the loss of federal grants and programs to the district. Maybe it’s the loss of dedicated teachers and staff.

Here’s the bottom line…The Collier County School Board received a FAILING grade on a report issued in April of 2007 from the Region Accreditation Association (SACS.) One of the chief criticisms was the micro-managing of the district by the school board. Essentially the report indicated the voting majority of the School Board was inhibiting the success of the district by not working WITH the superintendent to accomplish goals. The report gave the Superintendent, teachers, and staff a PASSING grade.

Now here comes the Bait and Switch…
Certain School Board members got miffed and decided to create an inflammatory report to redirect blame to the Superintendent. They ensured the report received extensive media coverage and the SACS report was buried.

Follow the bouncing ball folks...Board gets bad report card...floods media with inflammatory report to throw them off from the real one...stomps their feet and cries foul until we (the citizens) let Mommy (Dr. Thompson) come in and change their grade.

Problem is, certain Board members didn’t do their homework and relied on the flawed advice of alleged “community” members with an agenda who had been jockeying for their cause in CCPS for over a decade.

First lesson for living in FL, especially Collier, “Choose your friends wisely.”

Are you ready to be punked? The SACS committee really doesn’t care who is super, who is on the board, etc…they care about what gets done…including the board working WITH the super…even though it’s not the same super reviewed in the report.

If you think firing Thompson is the answer, better take a look at his contract. Even if he is relieved as super…we have to employ him somewhere else at the same salary.

http://wftx.images.worldnow.com/images/incoming/pdf/superintendent%20contract.pdf

In Bytemeworld he would be demoted to custodial staff – it would be the best $240k + this district ever spent!

On the upside, Donovan promised in the NDN to resign if we lost SACS accreditation.