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Comments:
Eric - 2005-03-17 12:30:00 I don't think Dr. Z is very nice at all. He's done some things to me and mine that were unconscionable. He's smart, though.* * * * * * * * * * * * Ingrid - 2005-03-17 13:00:03 I don't think Dr. Z is very nice at all. He's done some things to me and mine that were unconscionable. He's smart, though.* * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2005-03-17 13:12:45 Eric: yes, you're right, the original contract ran till 2008. Ingrid: I'm sorry to hear that; anything in particular? Both: Do you think there will be any adverse effect from his leaving the job in mid-year (end of this month)? If the school district can make it to June OK, then...just maybe Ypsi can consider doing what that up-north school did, which is (extreme suggestion) get rid of its super altogether to save money (in the case of that northern MI town the super voluntarily resigned to save money).* * * * * * * * * * * * raymond - 2005-03-17 13:21:26 Must be head-rolling season in academia. EMU regents made up their minds about the new resident of the Presidential Palace on Hewitt. They should pay these characters monthly so as not to be subject to these huge buy-outs.* * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2005-03-17 13:31:10 Raymond: Yes, Fallon will be the new EMU prez. I do not know why school execs at public schools get six-figure salaries. That has always struck me as wildly excessive.* * * * * * * * * * * * Ingrid - 2005-03-17 13:44:44 I think that there will be a positive effect from Dr Zuhlke leaving his job as soon as possible. He and his administration did not respond to concerns raised by parents in a timely or effective way. However, a more responsive and caring superintendent could benefit the district by providing leadership in attracting families back to the Ypsi schools, and I hope the Board find such a person to lead the District. * * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2005-03-17 13:57:44 Ingrid, may I ask, were there some two or three top areas of concern to parents, in general? Just wondering.* * * * * * * * * * * * Ingrid - 2005-03-17 15:58:37 Depending on what school their children attended, I think there were different concerns. From my perspective: 1. Complaints and Inquiries from parents were not responded to. You'd go up the chain of command and call and call and write and nothing. 2. Zuhlke unnecessarily prolonged negotiations with teachers creating low morale. 3. Zuhlke overlooked serious problems. For example, $3,000 was embezzled from the parent group at our elementary school last year even after parents had been complaining for years about lack of accounting procedures there and the State had written Zuhlke a letter indicating that it did not seem like proper procedures were being utilized. 4. There were so many other things. Like the bus crisis last year where the school hired Plante Moran to do a study to "improve" the bus system and they nearly destroyed it by dropping kids off near abandoned buildings, crowding the buses, having stupid routes that circled around and around Ypsilanti for hours, and forcing kids to trudge a mile on streets with no sidewalks to get to school. * * * * * * * * * * * * Eric - 2005-03-17 17:25:11 The Incredible Shrinking School District is my main concern. Back when Zuhlke was turning the elementary schools into "academies," spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on select schools, he refused to fund programs at our elementary school. Our teachers had quite a few innovative programs--several of them funded by the teachers and parents. Without the superintendent's support, these innovations died on the vine. Since then, the number of teachers in our school has dropped from 16 to nine. That's one indication of how many kids have left the district for parochial schools, charter schools, or better-performing districts. I could complain all night, but I won't. :-) I'm just happy that our schools have a fresh start and a new direction. I'm going on too long, but let me say one last thing. There was a strange paranoia in the District in the last years of the Zuhlke reign. Overt and subtle threats of lawsuits if you complained. If you walked onto the grounds of the elementary school one of my children attended, the janitor would immediately radio to the principal to tell him an "enemy" parent had arrived. Even now, I'm hesitant to write the worst (and most interesting) of it because Michael Vincent will pop up threatening some baseless slander suit. * * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2005-03-17 19:46:09 Wow. I had heard some things but hadn't known it was that bad. To me the worst thing is not listening to parents. Even if there's no money to correct a given problem, or no way to correct a situation that a parent is concerned about, an awful lot can be defused by just listening respectfully. The bus situation sounds like a disaster. Even today I see redundant buses in my neighborhood. The radio warning about encroaching enemy parents is indicative of a broken system--that will now hopefully have, as Eric says, a fresh start.* * * * * * * * * * * * add your comment: |