What message yesterday at Summit Parkway M.S.?

When students returned to Summit Parkway Middle School yesterday after the Memorial Day week-end and the shooting death of Cyrus Carmack-Belton on Sunday night, what was the message to them from their Principal?

I don't know, because no one has told me. Of course, I wasn't there to hear the message.

If I had been the Principal, I would have offered a moment of silence in memory of Cyrus.

AND I would have admonished all the students to THINK before they act. And not to do stupid stuff.

And I would have been fired before noon.

Why was a 14-year-old carrying a gun? And why, when he went shopping in a convenience store while visiting in the neighborhood eight miles south of his school and home? The location doesn't matter. Why did he have the gun, at all? (And yes, he did have a gun.)

Did he have the gun when he got a ride there? Did he get the gun after he got there?

Whose gun was it? Where did it come from? Had he ever carried it before? Who knew about it?

I'm sorry for the hell that Cyrus' family is going through. 

Stakeholder Survey Report

Most readers here have no experience of newsboys' standing on street corners, shouting "Read all about it!"

Here it is, without going out to the street corner. Published today on the Richland Two School District website is the Stakeholder Survey Results report that the consultant from McPherson & Jacobson last week told the board they probably wouldn't like.

She chose her words carefully on May 23, throwing softball sentences at them. After all, she was hired by them to identify candidates for the job of Superintendent, starting in July.

Click here for the Results. It is a 110-page report.

What happened to the rest of it? Last Tuesday the consultant told the board it might be up to 150 pages. Were parts of it too ugly to put in print?

A blank page follows the title page, so already it's not a 110-page report.

Read the Executive Summary first, especially the third section. Be sure to notice the DEI slant in the last two words, "therefore inequitable".

Browse through the report. Which board members do you think will read it? All of it? Some of it? None of it?