Your Opinion, please

How would you like to show up at orientation for your administrative job at Richland 2 and have to sit through this video?

The description on YouTube is "Short film for the African American Policy Forum, showing metaphors for obstacles to equality which affirmative action tries to alleviate."

If my employer started that video and expected me to sit through without comment, he'd be sorely disappointed. I'd try to be polite on my way out the door to find a new job, but I suspect I might miss the mark.

Baron - still Supt.? see website

In most businesses, when the top dog goes out the door, the business immediately says so. One problem for District 2 is there is now no top dog.

The Deputy Superintendent ought to be in-charge, at least temporarily. There should be an automatic succession policy. Is there?

The District could take down the superintendent's Welcome and his About page and replace them with factual information about his "resignation". And file all his photos elsewhere.

There's a new guy in charge of Media Relations, and he could craft the announcement and put it out.

But anyone looking at the website today will think that Baron is still the superintendent.

Virginia School Board - 3-hr. Public Participation

Read this article about the 1st-Grader who shot his teacher in Virginia.

Read what the teachers said.

How much of that is going on right here in Richland 2?

https://www.aol.com/news/anger-grows-virginia-city-where-195809849.html

Special-Called Board Meeting, Th., Jan. 19

The starting time for the special-called meeting is announced as 5:20PM EST. The meeting will be broadcast at   https://livestream.com/richland2/events/10746230

The agenda has not yet been published but will be by 5:20PM EST today.

My guess is that the board will appoint an Acting Superintendent.

[Edited 1/18/2023 5:13PM]

The agenda provides the purpose of the Executive Session: "Receipt of Legal Advice Regarding Acting/Interim Superintendent".

Let's hope the motion can be made clearly, correctly and briefly, "I move that we enter Executive Session for the purpose of receiving legal advice regarding an Acting/Interim superintendent."

How big will the technical problem be, if they do more than "receive" legal advice? What if they discuss structuring and offering a position? The lawyer won't tell them whom to appoint as Acting/Interim Superintendent, how to conduct a search for the successor to Baron Davis, and all those details. Does all that fit neatly under "receiving legal advice" or is the Board entering a minefield by limiting the purpose of the Executive Session?

IG Report Committee Meeting 1/18/2023

The Special Committee on the I.G.'s Report is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, January 17, 2023, at 6:00PM. 

The announcement, which appeared only on the school board agenda webpage, fails to announce the location - a FOIA requirement.

Members of the Special Committee are Richland 2 board members Tamika Washington (committee chair), Niki Porter and Joe Trapp.

Too bad that the Committee meeting will not be livestreamed. The public is more than interested. I wonder if the committee tried to get it livestreamed.

The public is reminded that you can record the meeting; it is a meeting of a committee of a public body. You could even publish it on Facebook LIVE, if you want to.

[Updated 1/18/2023, 12:06PM]

1/17/2023 Opening

Opening of this afternoon's board meeting?

Pitiful.

Give the Chair a big whip!

At 10:15PM the Executive Session is still in progress. There are 265 viewers who are hanging on, waiting to hear nothing when the meeting is over. 

How many people are there in person?

Board is Correct to Understand Supt. Contract

Another school board meeting will be held for the purpose of receiving legal advice regarding the superintendent's contract. That meeting is this afternoon, Jan. 17, at 4:30PM.

And why not?

Is there some reason that the Board should not understand his multi-year contract? It represents a $1,000,000 obligation of the District - three-and-one-half  years of employment (School Years 2022-2023, 2023-2024, 2024-2025, 2025-2026) plus a severance package of 18 months' pay.

What company with $1 Billion in Assets and a $300,000,000+ Annual Budget would not want its board to understand the contract with its CEO or keyman?

Former board member and former chair James Manning waved a red flag at media earlier this month, when he surmised that the board was about to fire Baron Davis.

Now Hamilton R. Grant used yesterday's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration to defend Davis. See his post on Facebook on January 16.

Grant was "with" Terrance Cummings and Chris Leevy Johnson on Facebook when he published a long post linking Dr. King and Davis. Grant referred to Davis as "stellar", "nationally awarded", "beloved, homegrown and proven exemplary leader". Grant also wrote, "Davis has earned the respect of educators and academicians across the world." 

Come on, man.

Grant asked, "... is a stellar leader as Davis next on the preverbal [sic] chopping block?"

What is a "preverbal" chopping block?

It is the Board's right and duty to understand Davis' contract.