Ed Kindall should resign

Why has MNPS BOE member Ed Kindall's (District 7-Downtown-Glencliff) mess not gotten more notice? Channel 4's Dennis Ferrier reported on January 30, 2009 that Attorney Ed Kindall had to be sued by an estate he was handling. To start with Kindall's check written in August for $38,800 bounced! He failed to provide any accounting of where the estate's money went/is to Probate Judge Randy Kennedy despite being granted and extension and has promised to provide a full accounting and the funds by March 6. That means this family has been denied their inheritance for some 10 months. A man with 30 years of lawyering and 24 years on the school board who cannot monitor his own small office's handling of just under $60,000, by his statement, of his client's money is pretty much getting a free pass and is being allowed to oversee some $600 million in taxpayer dollars.

Why does Kindall get away with not providing an accounting to the Judge on January 30? Why does he get another 5 weeks? How is it his office needs an additional 5 weeks to provided a clear accounting of the funds? What other accounts are wrong? Where is the money during all this time? Ferrier says that the attorney for the estate thinks the widow and her three children are owed $121,500. Are criminal charges being considered? How much more of this might be coming now that the community has been given this heads up about Kindall's office practices?

This report from Dennis Ferrier does identify Kindall's attorney as George Thompson but it fails to point out Thompson is a former BOE member. Thompson decided not to run for reelection last August. He and Kindall have worked on the BOE and in the same building for quite some time.

The Tennessean has a few more details. Apparently, Papa Kindall is blaming his daughter Marjorie Tansil (a paralegal per this document). According to the Tennessean she's got other legal issues also.

Oddly, the MNPS BOE Code of Conduct fails to mention any sort of criminal behavior. As close as it comes is this paragraph [emphsis added]:

The Board commits itself and its members to ethical, businesslike and lawful conduct, including proper use of authority and appropriate decorum when acting as Board members.

Maybe this would fall under the conflict of interest clause since both the deceased and his widow formerly worked for MNPS. According to the BOE rules the most they could do is censure him.

Kendall obviously has some personal family and business issues that need his attention and the children of this district, the parents, the taxpayers do not have the time to wait in line during this vital transition time for Kindall to get his personal life in order. If Kindall cannot keep track of his own affairs and cannot fulfill his fiduciary responsibilities as a lawyer, how can we trust him to monitor a budget of $600 million?

Stakeholders and money

Bit and pieces that have collected over the last couple of weeks.

Stakeholders: The City Paper editorialized on 4/7/08 in regard to the number of people running for the MNPS BOE and how several current members got on the Board with 'business' support:

That being said, there is not only a debate that needs to take place about where the schools are headed but also what has the quality of the board’s stewardship been sine the 2006 elections.

It happened again, chatting up another citizen while waiting to give blood they sheepishly admitted they occasionally watch Channel 3 and the BOE meetings. Then they shake their head and make a comment about how unbelievably inept the BOE is and then they tell me what numbers their child has for the lottery to magnet schools. Their zoned school isn't an option.

Frankly, the Board's stewardship has been lousy. They have failed over and over again to hold their only employee responsible for the failures in the district. They gave him pay raises and extended contracts. No one who voted to keep Garcia at the helm of MNPS should be reelected. As the current candidate list stands the only person we can actually hold accountable is MNPS BOE member Ed Kindall (District 7-Downtown-Glencliff) as MNPS BOE member Gracie Porter (District 5-East Nashville) has no opposition and MNPS BOE member George Thompson ( District 1-Bordeaux) and MNPS BOE Chair Marsha Warden (District 9-Bellevue) have wisely decided to move on. Kindall has been on the board for nearly a quarter of a century. He's got a lot of explaining to do.

And so the 'business community' referenced above has decided that more community input is necessary. But they didn't mean community community. They meant special interests community. Again from the City Paper we learn that several entities have written the mayor and BOE expressing their desire to help find the new schools director.

The letter was sent March 27, and was signed by leaders of the Chamber, IMF, Metropolitan Nashville Education Association (MNEA), the local NAACP chapter, Service Employees Union, Steelworkers Union, Stand for Children, and Nashville Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Seems to me several of these entities have already put their money where their interests lie and have, essentially, bought and paid for their representation on the board. See Gracie Porter's contributors in 2006 as an example. <<<----- What we need is some vetting by parents and taxpayers. We need some specific statements from the candidates. We need a person who is an excellent administrator first and then someone who can work with the educators, parents, the council and citizens. Oh, and the Metro Council (those that hold the purse but don't have the authority to direct its spending) also wants a voice in the process. As quoted in the City Paper on 4/8/08

Council member Jim Gotto said, “It is fine and well for all of these individuals and groups to want to give [board members] input, but board members, you make the choice. You’re going to have to live or die with who you choose.”

Ah, but that requires some accountability by the voters. Which is something that has been sorely lacking.

MNPS budget: CM Emily Evans (District 23) has a series of lessons regarding the Metro Budget. Here's the link to her MNPS overview.

The Director of Schools, Chris Henson spoke at great length tonight about getting input from the schools themselves on how to improve and working to eliminate top-down decision making. This notion that the people that spend each day with your child are best equipped to decide what they need to get the job done is irrefutable and represents a cultural change that can only bring us good things. Chris also said that not every school needs the same thing.

Which fits very well with this City Paper article of 04-18-08.*

In accordance with what has been asked of the district by the Tennessee Department of Education (DOE), Metro schools will soon submit “action plans” on a quarterly basis that will monitor student performance and play a role in school funding. The plans complement the annual School Improvement Plan structure, which is already in place but in the process of being overhauled.

At some point we've got to recognize that each school, each district isn't the same. The Central Office is too far removed from the front lines to mandate how every dime of this money is spent. Schools have got closets full of 'central office ideas' that are going to waste because they don't fit that school's population or are yesterday's hot idea. We have got to hire great principals who, like the superintendent should be, more managers (and teacher mentors) than educators and let them manage their portion of the budget as their student needs warrant. I believe that will create better neighborhood schools AND create a cadre of experienced administers that can move up that career ladder and mentor the next generation of principals.

Things are looking up: It's looking like between Interim Director Chris Henson and the State DOE some major improvements are being implemented in MNPS. Throw in the obvious relief as expressed by many folks including today's Rex in the City

Principal hiring procedures are now what they were before Garcia arrived; the district is now completing school improvement plan forms using the same template as other districts in the state — MNPS had its own form during the Garcia administration — and district leaders have been told in plain language to shut down the “culture of fear” pervading many Metro schools.

and things haven't looked so good for MNPS in almost a decade. If Henson keeps this up and we get through this BOE election season in August we should seriously consider offering him the job--if he'll take it.

MNPS website still quite frustrating. Some sub-domains would be handy.... http://www.MNPS.org/Board, /Schools, /Budget. No one remembers numbers. Where's Interim Director Chris Henson's page? Why can't the BOE member page also include info on their district...or at least a link to that separate page that MNPS provides?


*[Man I HATE that the City Paper doesn't include a date on their articles. If no one comments you've no idea when it was published. I finally found the date by searching for the article. Thankfully, they've finally started including dates there.]

George Thompson 2004 Election Finances

The following is gleaned from the records I picked up from the Davidson County Election Commission the other day. Remember, these records are destroyed after five years so if you want details, you may want to get 'em while they're still available. They'll be gone next year.

This from George Thompson's file. He was last elected in 2004 and has been a BOE member since 1996.

When he picked up his qualifying petition he indicated his party affiliation was Democrat. Did you know both he and fellow BOE member Ed Kindall (also up for re-election) share the same business address?

A curiosity: Thompson's file had two diplomas in it. One from the Tennessee Agricultural & Industrial State University for George H. Thompson, III dated June 8 1969 and the other diploma from City Public Schools Nashville says George Henry Thompson, Jr. I've heard of going from JR. to nothing at all when SR. passes but never going from, essentially II to III.

Thompson acted as his own treasurer. Maybe that explains why he has obligations noted that are never moved to the expenses columns and the numbers don't quite balance. Does anyone check the math? It also explains how he got away with not really accounting for some $1,500 in miscellaneous expenses. It's just sloppy bookkeeping to not have receipts for so much money. Especially when part of it is for 'contractual fees'. Looks like his current campaign balance as of the last filing is $295.83. He started with $268.78. Further it looks like about half the money he took in came from the very people he's supposed to be supervising in some capacity. Fredericka G. Zee made a tidy sum. There can't be two in this town. She's got to be the one somehow connected to Project New Beginnings.

If you can tell me how to convert an Excel sheet to html or some other format Blogger will render decently, let me know. If there are any errors in the Excel sheet below, please, speak up.

So take a look and see who helped get the man in office 4 years ago.

BOE is unsure--I'm not

It's the sub-headline that tells the real story regarding the MNPS BOE and Nashville Mayor Karl Dean's 'partnership' to find a new superintendent for Metro schools. That sub-headline at the Tennessean is:

"Board members seem unsure about next step in process"

And that's exactly it. We've hired 9 people to run the district, they rubber stamped pretty much everything former superintendent Dr. Pedro Garcia wanted, they were propped up by the business establishment and the unions and haven't been held accountable by the electorate, it was assumed that since they had legal and education experience they were qualified and so here we are. They are unsure about how to hire one employee. Like nearly everything else they've decided to 'hire' out the hard work which will then allow them to avoid accepting all the blame later. They'll let the mayor help, they'll call in the Tennessee School Boards Association and before the final decision is made they'll have created a community group to advise them. What are these folks getting paid to actually do? When things are cruising along they wield that rubber stamp pretty well, but let the system wobble a bit and they just aren't up for the task. One of them needs to grow a backbone and start leading.

From BOE member's Karen Johnson blog:

"...the School Board in a 7-2 (Marsha Warden, Steve Glover, JoAnn Brannon, Mark North, George Thompson, Gracie Porter and Ed Kindall -7) (Karen Johnson, David Fox -2) vote moved the following motion from Board Member George Thompson "I move that we request the involvement and participation of Mayor Karl Dean in helping to identify a candidate for interim director of schools to be selected by this board....then at the appropriate time the Mayor would further be involved to participate with the board in a search for a permanent Director that will be hired by the board."

Karen Johnson offered an amendment to include 'all stakeholders' in this motion. It was voted down:

The amendment failed by a 5-4 vote (Marsha Warden, Steve Glover, Mark North, JoAnn Brannon, and David Fox -5) (Karen Johnson, Ed Kindall, George Thompson, Gracie Porter -4)

From the City Paper:

[Mayor Karl] Dean later added that he believes the interim director position should be filled quickly, and that he believes the best process would be for Dean himself to find members of the community willing and qualified to fill the temporary position. The board could then make the final decision.

This is just a bad idea. first of all...it's not his job. He's got enough on his plate. It is the BOE's job and they need to earn their paychecks. What quickly hiring someone will do is give the appearance of stability and progress in time for the August BOE election.

At this point in time the MNPS staff doesn't need the distraction of taking on a new person and training them in the finer points of running the school system. Something like this will slow them down and eat up valuable resources at a time when we don't have them to spare.

For now, Chris Henson needs to focus on the budget. I suggest the other 'cabinet members' can step up and finish out the school year and begin planning for the next. They've been around long enough to have done this several times, this isn't reinventing the wheel. They can do this. Likely, without the heavy hand of the former superintendent they'll have a great opportunity to shine and show us just how successfully they can work together and actually get the job done.

This season of change is a great time to see which of the BOE members is up to the task of actually running the system and has earned the right to stay on the BOE. Pay attention and remember this August. Remember, all but North, gave former superintendent Pedro Garcia a hefty raise and voted to renew his contract, Porter once, the rest over, and over and over again.










From left to right:
Ed Kindall on the BOE 23 years since 7/9/1985,
George Thompson, more than 12 years: 4 months on the BOE in 1991 and then back on 8/1/1996,
MNPS BOE Chair Marsha Warden on the BOE since 8/24/2004 ,
Gracie Porter elected in August of 2006 and
Mark North since spring of 2007.

Covering

From this morning's City Paper:

Between now and Saturday Nashville School Board members will complete the process of evaluating Director of Schools Pedro Garcia, complete a written evaluation, and then publicly hear the results of their efforts. When they do, their individual scores will become public record — but their scores also will be anonymous.

This is wrong.

The Tennessee School Board Association is facilitating this evaluation. It became obvious several years ago that Garcia's performance was so divisive that the BOE couldn't do this on their own. Now they're going to use TSBA's usual operating procedure, and their own Policy Governance as a cover for their own accountability to voters.

The board’s governance process policy states, in multiple points, that only the board as a whole — rather than members as individuals — can exercise authority over the director. In one portion, the policy states that, without explicit authorization from the entire board, all board members’ “interaction with the director and with staff must recognize the lack of authority vested in individuals.”

Karen Johnson:

Board member Karen Johnson said she thinks it’s right that the official evaluation be only a cumulative document, but that she plans to post her individual scores on her blog, karenyjohnson.blogspot.com.

George Thompson:

Thompson said he does not believe it is right that board members can keep their evaluation scores to themselves.

Unfortunately he doesn't have something as public as a blog or website, like Johnson to use for publication.

Steve Glover:

Glover said he would be willing to share his scores with constituents who inquire. But he reiterated that he believes it is correct that individual names be left off the evaluation,...

Ditto on the blog/website.

It shouldn't be a surprise. They're not reliably including their names in the regular Executive Expectations reports evaluating Garcia, why should we expect them to include them now?

They used to. Here's a snip from a report from 5/23/06

















and from the most recent EE available dated 12/11/07.



















I think we need to encourage every board member to ensure their scores on Garcia's performance are made public. Move to have them included in the BOE minutes. Make them available via the MNPS website somewhere. The people of this district, the BOE employer, deserve to know where each one of them stood at this very important time. To hide this vote, months before most of the Board is up for re-election comes across as covering their own backsides to protect their seat.

Undercutting the Chair

Further evidence that no one is in charge comes from George Thompson in this morning's City Paper:

Board member George Thompson said it’s important to keep in mind that Warden, though she is board chair, was representing only herself in the e-mail.

“We have not authorized her to say anything, or to do anything,” he said.

Thompson pointed to a portion of the board’s governance process policy, which states that the Board of Education chair should “refrain from exercising any authority as an individual to supervise or direct the Director.”

He's exactly right, but of course the BOE hasn't authorized HIM to say this either.

So if you had hope that MNPS BOE Chair Marsha Warden's 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.

in her email to MNPS Director of Schools Dr. Pedro Garcia yesterday was going to be fulfilled, think again. What I would have liked Mr. Thompson to say is something along the lines of: "I happen to agree that this information must be provided to these people as quickly as possible and I'll present a motion at the next BOE meeting to instruct Garcia to do so." If he did, no one is reporting that.

The Board has a Code of Conduct and in Governance Policy 9.2 it states:

2. Board members may not attempt to exercise individual authority over the
organization.

a. Members’ interaction with the Director and with staff must recognize the lack
of authority vested in individuals except when explicitly authorized by the
Board.

b. Members’ interaction with the public, press or other entities must recognize
the same limitation and the inability of any Board member to speak for the
Board except to repeat explicitly-stated Board decisions.

c. Members will not publicly express individual negative judgments about
Director or staff performance outside the formal evaluation process. Any
such judgments of Director or staff performance will be made only by the full
Board.

This Governance Policy is part of the problem with the BOE and thus the entire system. I'm not saying we need to adopt a free for all BOE but this policy becomes a very convenient excuse as well as a crippler for real action. I knew if I had stayed on the BOE I was going to violate this policy eventually. It's too easy to characterize legitimate public discussion of issues as 'negative judgments'. Never mind whether those judgments are accurate or not.

Anyone wanting to take on the task of running for School Board this August should read this entire document. Frustrated citizens and parents should be familiar with it also.

George Thompson is up for reelection in August.

Where are the students?

Some interesting comments in this morning's City Paper article titled "Schools see slightly fewer students than anticipated".

“This has been an unusual opening — the volatility of the heat and the half-days,” said Larry Collier, Metro Schools’ student assignment services director. “And we have a lot of schools with high numbers of ELL (English Language Learner) students…” (snip) Many school administrators have indicated that some of their ELL students are still out of the country visiting family and are unsure of when they will enroll, according to Collier.

Seems like an after Labor Day start to the school year would clear up most of this. People vote with their feet. They decided that somewhere else was where they wanted to be in August. I know a young woman who missed the first week because she was still on a cultural exchange trip for the first couple of weeks this month. THAT's the sort of educational opportunity that trumps being in school and her parents chose rightly to send her regardless of the start date of school. I'm not supportive of routine family visits preventing attendance, however.

So the system remains in flux until everyone is in place on "day 40"? How handicapping on the educational process is that? This is less of a negative impact on learning than a Christmas break? Here's another thing to factor into the real cost of starting school so early. (See SaveTennessee Summers for others.)

George Thompson (17 year BOE member, Chairman of the Board for Great City Schools and up for reelection next August) is quoted as saying:

...he is seeing increased growth in the county reflecting increase enrollment numbers, he thinks the numbers would have been much larger had an exodus to private schools not occurred in the 1970’s.

“We’re not growing as fast and at the same time we’re having some people who are leaving the district,” Thompson said. “Those who are opting out and going to private schools… [but] we have experience growth in our Hispanic populations.”

He's exactly right in saying that in 1970 MNPS was on the cusp of reaching that 100,000 enrollment mark and we took a huge plunge after that. However, what started as 'white flight' 40 years ago, has morphed into legitimate school choice by parents who will no longer tolerate empty promises and have decided that their children will not be sacrificed on the altar of public education. This system didn't want to hear from me last summer why this school district is losing families. It's easier to place the blame on the racist fears of parents rather than their own performance and decision making. They fail to accept that they are becoming less and less of of an educational monopoly despite legislative props. Just because MNPS doesn't want to participate in the competition for students doesn't mean they aren't already in the game. Token choices are not enough. And they shouldn't count on a influx of Hispanics to ensure the numbers climb. Those families are also starting to look at other educational options. What MNPS fails to realize is that there is a longing for quality neighborhood schools--the original small learning communities. The quicker we get there, the faster these enrollment numbers will rise.


I was given information from student services while on the school board last year which included a wonderfully illuminating set of charts. I expect they update these on a regular basis, as they should. These are charts tracking the Nashville population on top and the MNPS population on the bottom (a larger copy can be seen here). The years are not exactly aligned, there is a couple of years difference. But the margin of decrease so enormous that that small misalignment is meaningless. The high point on the MNPS chart at the bottom is approximately 96,000 students in 1970. MNPS isn't even keeping pace. People continue to leave and the BOE, if it wants to ensure a healthy and vibrant public education system in Nashville, must, absolutely MUST, commit to providing every available option if they want to survive. The sheer volume of applications for magnet schools year after year after year ought to have given the BOE plenty of clue of what parents want. Why it's not being provided is a mystery to me. Parents and voters need to start asking those August 2008 BOE candidates why not and expecting specific answers. If they respond with a lot of 'our hands are tied' answers--I suggest you cut them loose and find candidates willing and capable of undoing those knots.

BOE Travel dollars

Again we read that MNPS BOE member George Thompson is unhappy about his share of the travel money allotted to each Board member. From this morning's City Paper:

Thompson serves as chair of the executive committee for the Council of Great City Schools, an organization of the 60 largest urban school districts in the country, and he said because of his position he is required to travel more than other board members.

If his position at the Council of Great City Schools 'requires' more travel. I suggest the Council of Great City Schools pay his travel expenses.

And while it seems like a good idea, I'm a little concerned about Steve Glover's solution to the travel money problem:

Board member Steve Glover, elected in August along with five other board members, said he solicited private funding and contributed some of his own money to attend a conference in Colorado recently.

I think it's reasonable for citizens to ask who those contributors were in order to assess whether there is any conflict of interest or influence buying here.

In loco parentis loco

This is not a good beginning for our new school board, or its new chairman.

School board member (and chairman of the Board for the Council of Great City Schools) George Thompson, an attorney, took a case that involved a woman whose son brought a gun and drugs to school.

Incredibly, the new school board chairman has to ask--

“My question to Metro legal was ‘Is there a conflict of interest in this matter?’” said Marsha Warden, chairwoman of the Metro School Board. City Paper

Of course there is and I'm astonished that both George Thompson and Marsha Warden even needed to ask. The minute this woman said 'school' as in "my son brought my gun and drugs to school" Thompson should have said: "I'm sorry ma'am but I'm on the school board. I can't take this case." Further, he's just resigning now when the incident happened back on May 11? When was he hired by this woman?

The other half of this story-- perhaps the rest of this iceberg-- is why it took so long for the school system to let the parents know what's going on in the schools.

Instead, many of the nearly 50 parents who attended the special meeting wanted to know why they first found out about the May 11 incident more than four months after it happened, and were not notified by the Metro school system.
(snip)
“This is about trust, and right now that trust has been broken,” said Scott Dickson, the parent of a now-first grade student at Shayne Elementary, City Paper

Parents who don't trust don't support the system, leave the system and, perhaps, leave the county. And they talk to their neighbors and relatives--who then don't trust. Catch a clue, MNPS. I've talked about this over and over, people assume that many of our schools aren't safe and it doesn't help when they cover these things up for 5 months.

In a conversation at a meeting held by CM Pam Murray regarding Maplewood High School I, as a school board member, said we've got to let folks know just what the truth is so that we can either kill the rumors and assumptions about the safety of schools or work on correcting the problem. At the time Ralph Thompson, head of discipline for Metro Nashville Public Schools, said they were still working on the information but he'd get it to me. Well, it took quite a while and we still didn't get a school by school breakdown (more at my previous post.) They are still hiding information about the safety of our schools--of our children.

At the very least the parents with children in that classroom should have immediately been told that their child's classmate had brought a gun and drugs to school so that parents could do what good parents do--help their children understand the situation, fight fear and train them about proper gun and drug handling (for them don't touch, call and adult). But no, 'in loco parentis" kicks into high gear and the system decides that they should handle it and it's none of our business. Never mind that they're our children, it's our school system and it's our tax money paying for it all.