Cannibalization of Public Education

Cannibalization of Public Education is a series of blog entries responding to the school district’s assertion that as an elected member of the Board of Education, I am have cost the district $75,000.00 (as of December 2014) due to the Government Records Access Management Act (GRAMA) requests I have filed over the past two years.

That accusation is actually an indictment against the school bureaucracy. As a policy maker, I should not have to submit GRAMA requests to the very organization that by the authority of State law, I have oversight for.

Ironically, in September of 2014, the Superintendent’s fulltime attorney submitted 15 GRAMA requests to various elected officials and public agencies seeking all records of my interactions with them!

I submitted a GRAMA request seeking copies of those request. I also asked for an explanation as to how the superintendent finds the time and resources to monitor my activities. State law has it the other way around, I am to evaluate and monitor his performance.

The blog entries in this series will explain why I was compelled to file GRAMA requests to the very agency that I was elected to provide a checks and balance for.

The results of the latest GRAMA request (monitoring elected officials) demonstrates how the  school bureaucracy brings to bear the resources of the school district, i.e. fulltime attorney, fulltime public relations officer, fulltime external communications director, full time superintendent etc.. to work against the duly elected members of the Board of Education.

Thus the title of this series, I predict the implosion of public education as we know it, if we cannot right this ship and place the governance of our local schools back into the hands of the public, not the school bureaucracy that has run amuck.