2023-07-16

July 16, 2023

There were a few important items that I'd like to discuss from the regular meeting on July 11, 2023.

School Resource Officers (SROs)

My vote: No (to the SRO contract)

This is a simple one: the contract requires that all SROs in our schools would be armed with firearms.  There is no place in our schools for deadly firearms, and I will work to see what can be done in the future about new contracts to either remove firearms or replace classic police officers with other kinds of resources for the children.

Data Wise via Koru Strategy Group

My vote: No (to cancel the $300K contract with Koru Strategy Group this year)

Data Wise is a mindset/methodology/etc. for iterating and evolving teaching practices at the local level (in the classroom); it's a bottom-up approach (that obviously needs buy-in from the top, ultimately, to succeed).  In our case, the top (the district level) is fully committed to this practice and is rolling it out to more and more schools over a 5 year period.  We have just completed the second year.  (For my developer friends, this appears to be fairly analogous to Agile software development.)

A big concern that the board had was a conflict of interest (either real or apparent) between the deputy superintendent and Koru Strategy Group.  (Note that Koru Strategy Group is the only organization able to provide Data Wise services.)  Prior to the meeting, the deputy superintendent resigned from Koru Strategy Group, eliminating any such conflict.  My inquiries into the matter satisfied me that there is no impropriety.

For me, the larger concern was the stability of the school district.  The board approved this contract last meeting, and immediately undoing that would potentially make other business partners think twice before doing business with us.  In addition, the district employs around 3,000 teachers, and the superintendent has centered the district's professional development around this work.  If we were to cancel the contract now, we would be throwing the district into chaos, making it even harder to hold on to our teachers (who have plenty of options elsewhere with the teacher shortage).  I believe that the board should take this matter seriously, but exercise its oversight function more explicitly: set guidelines and metrics, monitor them, inquire about progress, and if we are not pleased, then we can require changes.  But those changes should not be an abrupt surprise; we should give the district time to properly implement any such changes to ensure a stable work environment (which ultimately will ensure a stable school environment for the students).

Delaware School Boards Association (DSBA)

My vote: No (to cancel our $16K membership with DSBA this year)

Delaware School Boards Association is a group that most Delaware public school boards belong to.  They provide various services to the school boards, but most importantly, they are our most influential lobbying force in Dover.  While I do not agree with every position that DSBA has taken, I believe that they are still a net positive for Christina School District.

If we were going to get out of the organization, I would rather do it when they have taken a position on something that we oppose so that we could use our membership as leverage and also use whatever media attention this would garner to put out a message to the community.

University of Delaware

My vote: Yes (to no longer use their facilities for graduations)

Much like board member Baqir, I am troubled by the behavior of University of Delaware police with regard to one of our recent graduates.  I am committed to the safety and well-being of our students, and if we cannot trust the University of Delaware with that, then we must look elsewhere for our graduation events.

News related to the incident: