Smith and the board appear eager to run the district like a business. But public education is not a business, and education on the cheap will cheat students.
The Superintendent justified the mass layoffs in no small way on grounds that no other school district in the state had licensed professional media specialists in its schools, and there had been no ill-consequences. Since that turns out not to be so, as the SE quickly discovered and reported, I think the proper word to describe his performance --- a word the SE editorial board tip-toes delicately around --- is "incompetent."
More strong words on the Standard-Examiner editorial page this morning, as the editorial board pulls no punches and follows up on yesterday's flurry of angry lumpencitizen letters and editorial pieces slamming the Ogden School District's knuckle-headed and "mistaken" decision to terminate the positions of 20 professional media specialist/librarians in OSD schools:
Kudos to the Standard, as it adopts this morning's "double-barreled" editorial approach, i.e., 1) impeccably arguing that "[i]In a world with limitless information gathering, including changing traditional media and the Internet, having a professional teach research skills and guide students to credible sources is important," (especially to disadvantaged Ogden City school-kids), and, 2) strongly slamming both Superintendent Smith and the Ogden School Board itself for their ham-handed mishandling of this "lightning rod" Ogden Schools "budgetary" matter:
The district’s wholesale cuts were also handled badly, with false information attributed to Smith. Also, how the job cuts were announced were disrespectful to those affected. At first, Smith claimed that the Ogden School District is the only remaining district on the Wasatch Front to employ licensed teachers as media specialists in their libraries. That was false. Representatives of Davis, Morgan, and Weber school districts quickly corrected the record, noting they keep licensed media specialists at their secondary schools. That was a shoddy bit of false information, particularly on a day where 20 professionals learned their jobs were to be terminated without compensation.
Also, the failure of Smith, Ogden School Board President Shane Story, or any member of the school board, to be present when the media specialists were informed their jobs were to be cut show a lack of leadership by the district’s highest officials. When leaders make tough decisions, they don’t outsource the announcements. Not being there to face those affected when this decision was announced seems cowardly.
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| Incompetetent? You be the judge! |
While we won't fault the Standard for being perhaps a little overly polite, even within in the context of an otherwise bruising editorial, we'll nevetherless thus enthusiastically join with the Standard in demanding that these ill-conceived media specialist/librarian cuts be summarily reversed. Surely there must be some other useless OSD deadwood from which the Ogden District Schools budgetary shortfalls could be more sensibly cleared up... without "cheating" the students, right?
Just a thought...
