Campaign filing begins in one week

Just a quick update…can you believe we’re a week away from ballot filing time? Filing opens at noon next Monday, Feb. 11 in downtown Greensboro at the county Board of Elections. Filing closes on Feb. 29th at noon.

And that’s all I’m going to say…for now.

Further announcements will be made at the appropriate time. Stay tuned.

E.C. 🙂

Dot’s not shooting straight

I’ve been “off the air” for most of the day today, but I want to revisit this whole Dot Kearns e-mail flap.

If you remember, she got angry not long ago over an e-mail sent out through the “gcsnc.com” domain over the recent revelation of additional art/music cuts. In fact, Dot proceeded in a nonprofessional way to “call out” this teacher from an unnamed GCS middle school, then proceeded to suggest it was misinformation.

At the time, I had not seen the e-mail, and I said on this blog that this campaign had nothing to do with the original e-mail distribution.

But after seeing the actual e-mail message and after talking with some individuals today who, like you and I, are concerned about existing art/music cuts to our elementary and middle schools, I honestly don’t see where the problem lies. If anything, Dot’s not shooting straight…as usual. I’m surprised at Dot’s reaction.

I said that Dot’s getting in a tiff over a simple e-mail, when she should be putting her anger and energy into supporting the full restoration of the yanked art/music time.

I struggled, pondered and prayed over posting this or not (names and identifying schools have been removed from this), because everything in this e-mail message…is true. It’s truthful. I struggled with reposting it, but I needed to call Dot’s bluff on this. And when one of our public officials is not shooting straight, it is our duty to make it known. That’s what this blog has successfully tried to do for the last 14 months.

This message is written very professionally and courteously (and I said before that I hope nothing happens to this teacher for speaking out publicly about a curriculum issue–this teacher cares, imagine that), and it is not a degrading message.

Point blank, the information in this e-mail is true. Administration is proposing cuts, no matter how you do the math. A cut is a cut is a cut. It’s reduction in time. We do not support any additional reductions in art/music time. It is an issue. We will not go away, we will not be silenced and until major changes have occurred, the advocacy will continue. And all campaigning aside, it is a personal issue for me because my daughter likes art and music. She deserves more, not less.

So here’s the message that got Dot all upset, and I’ll let you be the judge.

Subject: FW: proposed cuts to music and arts education in 2008-09

Parents,

It seems as if Guilford County Schools is seriously considering making more cuts to our arts programs.  As for XXX (unidentified school), the cuts we suffered from this year to last year have been substantial.  Seventh and eighth grade students can now only choose band, chorus, orchestra, or two semester-long electives besides PE, whereas before they could have two year-long, or a combination of year or semester.  The middle school concept clearly states that children at this level need to have a chance to experience many things so that they can decide what they would like to concentrate on in high school.  With this current schedule, children have to decide in sixth grade whether they want to take band in high school, or chorus, or orchestra, and no student has the opportunity to take band and chorus or band and orchestra in the same year as I have had students do in the past.  Please voice your support to our board and let them know how important arts education is to the education of every student.  I could recite chapter and verse about how education in the arts helps students improve skills in the incredibly important ABC or No Child areas, but arts education is important simply because its important.  Please let your school board know what your feelings are.

Thank you.

**************************

Dot got upset over this. Puhleese! She does not have a prayer in the world if she decides to run again.

E.C. 🙂

BOE Meeting this Thursday

Your school board will meet this Thursday, 2/7/08 at the regular time (click here for the agenda).

I thought they were initially going to just talk about the superintendent search. Turns out this is not a “special called meeting” per se…they have other things on their mind too, and the item on the Super. search is near the bottom of the agenda.

Not good. In my opinion, this should have been the only thing on the agenda.

E.C. 🙂