At today’s school board workshop, School Superintendent Malcolm Thomas told the board to that he would rename the Advisory Council for Gifted to a working group after a parent objected to the group’s composition and requested more transparency and openness.
The Advisory Council for Gifted was established by Thomas to review the district’s program for its gifted students after parents objected to shut down of the PATS Center. The advisory held its first meeting last week.
This morning, Wendy Underhill pointed out to the board that the district has rules for how school advisories are to act. There even is a handbook for advisories. The handbook states that advisory councils should be composed primarily of persons not employed by the school district.
Only five of the advisory’s 17 members aren’t district employees….and two of those once worked for the district:
Facilitator: Ted Kirchharr (Amstaff, former district deputy superintendent)
Director ESE: Teri Szafran
ESE Program Planning Coordinator: Sondra Hill
Program Specialist: Pam Cebula
IT Director- Tom Ingram
Parents: Nicole Endacott, Ryan Hess (former Escambia County teacher), Mr. Prettyman, Wendy Underhill
Gifted Teachers: Katie Belk, Melissa Hughes, Nancy Marlor, Carrie McGugin, Dr. Anita Schmidt , Allison Rhodes
School based Administrators: Tara Palaciano, Joe Snyder
It would appear Superintendent Thomas stacked the “working group” – formerly an advisory – to get a desired result. Underhill told Inweekly that she was initially told the meeting last week was by invitation only. However other parents did attend the meeting at the Hall Center.
Underhill and other gifted parents will be speaking out at tomorrows’s school board meeting. These mothers aren’t going away, Mr. Thomas.
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Note: This is a classic Malcolm Thomas move –pretending to be open, while avoiding true transparency and stifling any real discussion. If this process continues as he has set it up, it will be interesting to see how it plays in his re-election campaign next year and the possible referendum to replace to change his job to one appointed by the school board.