It’s Been A Rough Week At the Wicomico Board of Education

Wise people learn from their mistakes and view adversity as opportunity.  This may be a cliché, but true none the less.  One thing we have learned this week is that the people running the Wicomico County Board of Education (WCBOE) are not wise men and women.

After being denied a budget transfer by the Wicomico County Council for the first time in memory, members of the board and senior staff were then hit with the public revelation that one or more school libraries were stocking material wholly inappropriate for school students.  Has the WCBOE learned from its mistakes?  No.  Are they turning a bad situation into an opportunity for improvement?  Hell No!

Instead, we have Superintendent John Fredericksen flip-flopping right and left as to what will be done.  Basically it depends who is interviewing Fredericksen as to what will be done about the book scandal dubbed by one public official as “ComicGate”.

Since Tuesday, Fredericksen has claimed that the books will be coming off the shelves, the matter will be turned over to a committee for further study, and on Thursday’s 6 o’clock news we were told that a decision will be made by the end of the week.  For someone who is supposed to be the CEO of our public school system, Fredericksen isn’t very decisive.  I guess CEO’s don’t have to make decisions if the taxpayers are footing the bill.

Not to be outdone by his superintendent, WCBOE President Mark Thompson decided to get into the act.  After the Tilghman Times, as predicted, gave the WCBOE a mulligan and allowed them another opportunity to quell public outrage, Thompson felt the need to make matters worse.

While the WCBOE pays for a public relations officer, they must believe that being the wife of the local paper’s managing editor is the only required skill.  No one seems to have taught either “Public Information Liason” Tracy Sahler (don’t you simply love the titles they bestow on WCBOE personnel) or her colleagues to get out in front of the story and be straight.  If the memo went out, Thompson surely didn’t get a copy.

In Greg Latshaw’s Thursday piece, Thompson states the following:

Mark Thompson, president of the county school board, said it appears grant funding — not county dollars — bought the books in question. He said county schools did not select the books individually because they came as part of a "bulk purchase."

Sounds good, doesn’t it?  There’s just one problem.  Neither statement appears to be entirely true.

We have known for some time that the books in question were purchased using funds from the Reading Forever Fund.  This fund, managed by the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore, was established in the memory of the late Samuel Seidel.  Neither the Community Foundation nor the Reading Forever Fund are accused of any wrongdoing.  The fund simply funds the purchase of books.  Neither the fund nor the Community Foundation have anything to do with the selection of the material.

However, as the fund’s website clearly states, participating schools contribute $0.10 per student to the fund.  When we asked several staff members at the WCBOE where that $0.10 per student comes from, we were told that they couldn’t talk to us.  We were also told that all future contact had to be through Mrs. Sahler.  Unfortunately, Sahler was MIA on Thursday and we have received no comment or evidence that refutes taxpayer dollars being used to fund the school contributions to the Reading Forever Fund.  Lacking such evidence, we are forced to conclude that taxpayer dollars were (in part) used to purchase books such as the now infamous Dragon Ball.

What about Thompson’s claim that “county schools did not select the books individually”?  Well, I guess that IF you parse the statement like you’re Bill Clinton talking about Monica Lewinsky you MAY be able to make that one come out as truthful – but I doubt it.  SOMEONE at the WCBOE cut a purchase order for that book.  When asked, Thompson said, “I can’t talk about that”; while simultaneously claiming that the Tilghman Times’s Greg Latshaw misquoted him.  In other words, expect a NEW explanation real soon.

Of course, what Thompson must not realize is that he just stepped into a slightly bigger pile of pooh.  IF the WCBOE did not “select the books individually” then they are in DIRECT VIOLATION of their own policy regarding “The Selection of Media Resources”.  Regardless of Thompson’s attempts at being cute, we all know that SOMEONE at the WCBOE approved the purchase of those books.

Is it POSSIBLE that Latshaw misquoted Thompson?  Of course it is.  However, it is unlikely.  Latshaw is lazy, not incompetent.  Latshaw will take a quote from a favored subject and treat it as fact without checking its veracity.   He is a major proponent of the “He Said – She Said” school of journalism.  However, I am not aware of him misquoting people.

Just today I received a note from a fairly prominent member of our community.  This person has always been a great proponent of public education and has been heavily involved in the public schools.  According to this person:

“For the first time I am becoming genuinely fearful for the future of our public schools.  An increasingly large majority of citizens seem to feel nothing but distrust towards the Board of Education and its senior staff.  Sadly, I have to sympathize.  Any criticism by citizens seems to be met with contempt.  Increasingly, money is the answer to all.  If this current board doesn’t quickly realize that taxpayers should be courted rather than ordered about we could soon see a collapse of the current system.”

Unfortunately, this is not a fact that either John Fredericksen or Mark Thompson seem willing to accept.

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