An Editorial by Dan Deming appearing in the Hutchinson News today. - TopicsExpress

An Editorial by Dan Deming appearing in the Hutchinson News today. ++++++++++++++++++ It’s time for USD 308 to be transparent... By Dan Deming | Posted 15 hours ago Why Hutchinson USD 308 Superintendent Shelly Kiblinger can’t muster enough courage to meet directly with Morgan School parents about how the district has mishandled a disruptive student and overall bullying problems in USD 308 remains a mystery. One thing is clear: This is a controversy that never should have gotten this far had Kiblinger opened up lines of communications when first made aware of the growing problems at Morgan and elsewhere and school board members stepped in to meet with concerned patrons rather than joining the superintendent in hiding under their respective desks. The Morgan group and those with similar problems from other schools aren’t asking for much and virtually nothing that would require money. They want a personal meeting in which they can express concerns and seek solutions. They want to be notified when there are significant behavioral or violence problems at their school so they will be prepared to deal with it when their children come home, especially if situations lead to school lockdowns. They want a safe learning environment for their kids. They want repeatedly disruptive students to also have a good education, but not to the detriment, fear and anxiety of other children in the school. They want to see classroom teachers and principals backed, not left out to dry, if they intervene to prevent other students from being threatened or injured. And they want straight answers, not sweeping problems under the rug and feigning phony privacy excuses when explanations without names are perfectly acceptable and legal when handled judiciously. That’s not too much to expect, but darn if it hasn’t been like pulling teeth for the Morgan group whose “rally” supporting school staff was met with a pathetic and virtually meaningless news release issued by Kiblinger, rather than getting down in the trenches and actually trying to solve issues. Although agreeing to meet with Jon Powell, concerned parents spokesman, this past Monday, Kiblinger has twice refused to meet with the parents, issuing a bizarre statement that “the district will prioritize its time to strengthen relationships with longstanding parent support organizations” in all schools, such as site councils, PTO/PTA and advisory groups who rarely muster more than a handful of people and generally back whatever the administration wants. What has more priority than grade school kids being injured and threatened, disruptive classrooms, children going home traumatized and parents concerned about their safety? A great start could have been made at last week’s Morgan meeting giving the superintendent a chance to hear, directly, the frustrations and concerns and then hear from Kiblinger the school’s reasoning, limitations and concerns. But she was nowhere to be found. We pay the superintendent more than $142,000 annually and elected school board members to grapple with problems and be willing to meet with groups voicing legitimate concerns. Having one or more board members attend the Morgan meetings and dispatching the district’s public information director (if Kiblinger still couldn’t bring herself to go) to be at the meetings, write down concerns and bring them back to the superintendent would have been a minimal response, but we didn’t even get that. Board meetings that limit groups to only having one person speak, giving such an important topic only five minutes, not allowing any concerned taxpayer and patron to express themselves and saying the board will not respond, is absurd and needs to be changed. Since we are filing new members to run for the board and will soon have the potential for electing new members, it would be nice to see several people run on a platform of more openness and a much broader opportunity for persons to express themselves, get public answers and have board members who are willing to get out into the community to listen and respond. I never thought I would see a day where parents at Morgan, one of the city’s premier schools, had to take to open demonstrations, public meetings snubbed by school officials and even the potential for legal action to get the ear of an administration and school board that is either clueless or not interested in the public schools truly being public rather than operated on a “tell the folks the minimum possible and hope the problems go away” basis. Yes, the Morgan situation is complicated by the parent of a special ed student who has also been a big part of the problem, federal and state regulations dealing with requiring the “least restrictive environment” for special needs students, a lack of firmly set and adhered-to guidelines for handling disruptive students along with bullying, but all of these could be largely mitigated by good communications with parents. These are times when we could really use the communications skills of such past superintendents as Wynona Winn, Gary Price or even Bill Hawver, all of whom could and would have handled the Morgan and overall bullying problems much more openly and differently than the Kiblinger administration. She is a very good superintendent in many ways and has taken admirable steps in trying to involve patrons in school budget problems and setting spending priorities, but when it comes to handling virtually anything controversial, it’s “hide whatever possible that might look bad” and clam up, using “it’s a personnel or private issue” when it’s really trying to avoid embarrassment or conceding something might have been done wrong. How sad after such strong support voters in recent years have shown USD 308, and the quicker a majority of school board members take control of the situation and Kiblinger starts leveling with the public, the better. Dan Deming, former general manager of Hutchinson radio station KWBW, is retired and is a Reno County commissioner. He can be reached at (620) 960-6733. Email: [email protected].