The NEEDS of the district

Kudos to MNPS BOE member David Fox for stepping up to bat and attempting to change the recalcitrant behavior of MNPS Director of Schools Dr. Pedro Garcia toward charter schools. As the BOE is quite aware their only employee is Pedro Garcia. He has fairly free reign within the Executive Expectations which are used to grade Garcia on his job performance in preparation for his contract renewal. Including in those EE's specific expectations of his interactions with charter schools which are serving students MNPS hasn't been able to satisfactorily serve must be a component of evaluating Garcia's job performance.

The City Paper quotes from e-mails between Garcia and Fox:

“I can tell you that based on what I know about the present district needs, I do not recommend allocating space to charter schools because I believe it will have a negative impact on the projected needs of the district,” Garcia wrote.

On Thursday, the schools’ director did address concerns over the perception that he and school district administrators were not in favor of charter schools and insisted that he would always put his school district first, then take care of relationships with the charter schools.

It's his actions that are having a negative impact on these MNPS students. These children ARE a part of HIS school district. The need of the district is that all of its students get a good education. The need of the district is cooperating as much as humanly possible (formerly known as "whatever it takes") to ensure that these children have the facilities, resources and professionals to get the job done. To withhold from them what he can reasonably provide is an abuse of those children. He ought to be held accountable and he ought to lose his job if he continues to withhold that help.