There is a special meeting of the Spotsylvania County school board on Wednesday August 3rd. Screenshots of the agenda are below. There are two main topics on the agenda; a closed session to discuss personnel matters and the Superintendent’s report on employee vacancies. Hopefully, this meeting produces answers to the following questions.
- Will the new Superintendent finally be announced?
- Will Uncle Rich be back from vacation?
- Will Makaila spend more money on another frivolous lawsuit for everyone’s amusement?
So…here we are again. Hopefully, the members who, for some unknown reason insist upon showing their hind quarters to anyone who would look, refuse to seek the psychiatric care they so desperately require will be somewhat civil. With the supply chain crisis and economy in the tank there is no telling just how many nail care products are available to use while the board is in session. Perhaps, if we are lucky, the three gentlewomen will continue their trend of not showing up to meetings en masse, and rather just send one representative to sneer, make motions that do not adhere to Robert’s Rules, scowl at colleagues, and conduct other utterly unsavory acts for her peer group. Truth be told, that is much more efficient for the the Three Amigos; additionally it saves the rest of us from having to hear and watch prepubescent pyscho babble and behavior. I find it odd that those who purport to “care about the students” very rarely speak about them and how we can better serve them. In any event, hopefully these gentlewomen (or at least the two most incompetent among them) skip this meeting (like the past several already) and some semblance of order and progress forward can occur. My advice to the Board on the superintendent search and other personnel matters. Choose carefully and wisely. Remember that the students and their education is the mission. All other conditions are secondary and will follow if the person selected understands and lives this mission. The superintendency is not about money, prestige, or a curriculum vitae builder for future employment. The superintendency is about SERVANT LEADERSHIP and providing our students with the resources necessary to succeed; even at the expense of him/herself. Salary? Salary should be minimal and comparable to what other civil servants make. Think on this, if you will. A Colonel in the armed forces typically commands no less than 3500 personnel as a commanding officer. That Colonel is responsible for the lives of every man or woman under his/her command and billions of dollars worth of equipment. That Colonel is responsible for training, equipping, mentoring, developing, and caring for each and every one of those men/women in his/her charge. That Colonel must take those men/women into harms way, do exceedingly difficult tasks that involve life and death; literally. That Colonel’s salary is $116,953 a year. Why is a person who cannot even remotely begin to handle the responsibilities of that Colonel need in excess of $200,000 a year to do a job? That is insanity. That is also money that could be used to improve our schools and positively impact the students in the county.
One should do a job because they believe in the mission, not for excessive financial gain; and any who does require 400% of a teacher’s base salary should be considered suspect. The hyper inflated salaries (like Baker’s) is disgraceful. In short, Board Members, please choose a person who believes in mission over money. John Galt’s .02.