October 16, 2006

Parent Post

Just to be fair, I want you to know the question of whether or not the job was posted was indeed answered. I met with the Superintendent and the School Board President last May and this was one of the questions I asked. I was told the dates of the posting, it was for 10 days and no not during a holiday. I believe the question that wasn't answered was if it was posted in a usual manner or posted just to meet the "legal requirements". I was concerned about the hiring of a relative of the Superintendent and I was informed that this was not illegal. I questioned the ethical issues associated with this and was "reassured" that the Board was fully aware of the relationship when they approved the hiring of this individual. The answer given by Mr. Cwayna (Board President) was "They would not allow a personal relationship to keep them from hiring the best qualified candidate for the position". When I asked how many candidates were interviewed for the two positions at White Fields, a long pause ensued and eye contact was lost as the reply of "Two" came back.

Our Reply

Thanks for the updated information. I wonder how you know you have the best qualified candidates if you only interview two people for two open positions. Hmmm.

October 11, 2006

Parent Post

Ghost Employee? Superintendent Wilkinson hired her daughter-(certainly unethical, if not illegal)-for a teaching position that does not even start until November 1st or later. She and another teacher have received full teacher pay since the first day of school. They have done light substituting, filing and stuffing envelopes (office clerk duties) and have received full teacher pay. The program they were hired to run does not even start until November 1st and will only have a handful of students at most. Two full time teachers receiving full teacher pay for a job that has not even started yet. Isn't that like paying someone for not working?

Our Reply

There are two issues here, contract negotiations with White Fields and employee vs. employer complications.

The contract with White Fields has yet to be resolved and is what is preventing the two teachers from working in the positions they were hired to do. We believe that in anticipation of that contract being signed and White Fields being complete by the beginning of the 2006 school year, the school had gone ahead and hired the teachers. Was that a good business decision? The answer to that is another topic unto itself. It was announced at the last board meeting that the contract is close to be ratified.

As for the hiring of the Superintendent’s daughter, that still remains a mystery to us. In the beginning there was some question as to whether or not the position was ever posted or needed to be posted. From what we understand the contract between the school and the teachers' union requires that open positions be posted. When asked, the administration, to our knowledge, never answered the question.

But of course since the board approved of the hiring, then it must not be unethical or illegal. I am sure the board did the research and looked at all possible angles before approving such a hiring. (For the record the last two statements were sarcasm.)

At the risk of sounding like I have all the answers, I will give you my opinions as to why this is a big deal. Let's put the ethics issue aside (another topic in the coming) and look at basic chain of command. The Superintendent's daughter's boss reports to the Superintendent. Put yourself in the place of the person the Superintendent’s daughter reports to. How comfortable are you going to be if a situation arises that requires you to discipline your boss’ daughter? Or how about the Superintendent having to deal with an accusation of nepotism by one of her subordinates?Put yourself in the Superintendent or the person the daughter is reporting to. Could you be objective when evaluating these situations? The truth of the matter is no one should ever be put in a position to have to ask any of these questions.

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