Those following Slabbed on Twitter saw that yesterday I met with Bay Waveland School Board Trustee Mike Bell. The following Tweet of Cassandra Favre’s story in last Saturday’s Echo was the catalyst:
BW School Board creates conflict of interest in order to add new assistant superintendent to Central Office https://t.co/pOxcPuimea
— Slabbed New Media (@SlabbedNewMedia) January 28, 2017
Trustee Bell also invited both Lana Noonan of the Hancock County Alliance for Good Government and Cami Cornfoot, a former Candidate for School Board who remains very active volunteering at the schools to sit in. We had a frank and wide ranging discussion, some of which will be covered in the next post.
To his credit Bell was proactive gathering information from the central office to share with us and that information included a list of top administrator salaries and how they were funded. As Lana pointed out that information alone has news value and it will be shared with the people that read Slabbed. We’re also going to address the toxic environment created by the void left by the departure of former Superintendent Becky Ladner. Hopefully we can distill a very complex and fluid set of circumstances that became evident at the last Board of Trustees meeting.
This much is clear from those observing the School Board, which was dominated by a single forceful personality for the better part of the last 13 years. It now has five individuals that are of five different minds that are working in what is new territory for each. I used the term “fractious” to describe the Board and not in a negative connotation. It’s a good sign the system is working like it should.
Stay tuned.
The end result of this Superintendent search is truly an enigma to me and a lot of other residents of the school district. In conversation with a member of the Committee to study the pros and cons of consolidation of the two school districts I learned that a very similar situation occurred in Louisiana, and not for necessarily noble reasons.
To say this is a mess is an understatement.
In case you haven’t noticed Ms Noonan, our State has been infiltrated with the bottom feeders from the eastern borders of Louisiana. They have infiltrated our government and are now controlling and making the rules for the citizens of this State. They are “in bed” with the undesirable politicians in this State and that is why nothing has been done to any of them for all of the criminal activity that has occurred along our Coastal home. From Texas to Alabama, the Coast Mafia is alive and well.
Charlene,
What a shame to think
they have infiltrated our education system as well?
Mind boggling.
Sad, but true….anywhere there is a dollar to be filtched….they insert “one of their own kind” who will play the game and keep the $$ flow rolling.
The whole thing just makes no sense at this point, and they seem to be spinning it for some reason. Who knows?
Thank you again Doug and Lana for your diligent reporting and letting us, the taxpayers, know what is going on. Keep up the good work.
Outraged,
Thanks for the compliment, but at this point we can’t tell anyone “what is going on” because we don’t know. We can raise some interesting questions, and will continue to do that.
It is a work in progress, slow progress!!
Consolidation is probably the best and most feasible solution to the system. Think of the double positions in each district that could be one, then more money could be spent on education and not salaries. Put aside your egos for executive positions in the systems and think of the children first. More arts, music and other programs to help the children and not the pockets of administration. Our children need these resources today to keep them busy and interested and expand their minds and creativity.