Testy, testy

Yeah, that'll work. A couple of weeks before your evaluation tell the Chairman that it's her fault. Apparently MNPS BOE Chair Marsha Warden is peeved that MNPS Director of Schools Dr. Pedro Garcia missed the Council's Education meeting on Monday which then put her in the position of having to defend MNPS. That was something she wasn't prepared to do. The Tennessean tells us:

Garcia fired back an e-mail confronting Warden for her repeated threats to give him a bad evaluation. He also suggested that she take note of questions at future public hearings rather than give out incorrect information.

The Tennessean has copies of the email exchange between Warden and Garcia. You're going to want to read these. Scroll down to see them.

Warden wrote:

There was no financial information available at the
meeting. In consequence, there were a number of allegations of
impropriety that was made to which I cold not respond effectively.
Financial information was not the only thing missing. The most
important thing missing was you. You could have answered the questions
and demonstrated that Metro Schools did not misappropriate funds.

Just my opinion, but it seems to me that as Chairman of the BOE she should have had a handle on a lot of this.

And she gives him a direct order:

I expect you to review the questions asked at the meeting and
present written responses to those questions to Ms. Smith, the members
of the Metro Council, they Mayor, and the local press. I expect this to
be done immediately.

Garcia responds:

I take my job very seriously, but I also make it a practice to have representation from the Administration at every meeting. Sandy Tinnon used to be that representative, and presently those duties are handled by Woody McMillin. The Board has never directed me as to what meetings I need to attend.

Now I like Woody McMillan a lot and wouldn't want his job for all the tea in China, but he's not Sandra Tinnon, or Chris Henson or even Paul Changas, all of whom, I expect, would be better able to handle most of the questions.

I don't see any explanation from Garcia in his email as to where he was or why that was more important than the Metro Education Committee meeting.