Saturday, March 15, 2008

Liberty is independence, maintained by force.

March 13, 2008

Dear Mr. Zandberg:

Thank you for your e-mail of October 17, 2007, in which you express your concerns regarding the Edmonds School District. Please accept my apology for the lengthy delay (120 days) in responding to your message.

This office has no authority to intervene in the practices or policies of local school districts. These matters need to be negotiated at the local level with the school district’s board of directors and superintendent.

Thank you again for sharing your concerns with our office.

Sincerely,

Martin T. Mueller
Assistant Superintendent, Student Support
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
PO Box 47200
Olympia, WA 98504-7200
360-725-6175
martin.mueller@k12.wa.us

Editor: So OSPI's official position is that they have no authority to intervene in the practices or policies of local school districts. The Snohomish County Auditor has zero involvement and the State Attorney General's Office has zero involvement. That would suggest that the State Auditor is the only governing body that has any meaningful interaction with the Edmonds School District, and the relationship is strictly limited to "findings" and management letters.

The District monitors itself and has zero accountability - aside from the illusion of accountability to constituents.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, I guess we all start stealing like them.
ESD15.org thank you.

Anonymous said...

It is hard to believe that the Edmonds School District in not accountable to anyone other than themselves; this is a public school system!! What's wrong with this picture??

Anonymous said...

The same thing that's wrong with the picture on his computer screen. And he might be working with your child.

Anonymous said...

It's a matter of "passing the buck." It sounds like your legislator should be made aware of this lack of accountability. Perhaps it would be in their political interest (their continued service as legislator) to try to determine who should be accountable and create a law that will settle the matter.

Anonymous said...

You got it wrong - this is clearly an effort by public officials to be polite to a kook.

There's tons (probably too much)"accountability" loaded on top of public schools.

But maybe it's not all bad, I'm guessing accountability is what got your ass canned.

Anonymous said...

Is that "Ralph" the name or verb?

Anonymous said...

Ralph,
My ass got canned because I was standing up to the bullying principal and office manger. They had been bullying the staff for 2 or 3 years. When I witnessed them bullying 2 students, I made a public (e-mail) request that the bullying of me stop. I was attempting to protect the STUDENTS of MMS from further bullying by the administration.

I succeeded in that both the principal and office manager found jobs "someplace else." Upper management (and union), however, decided that, in spite of my having tried to get the situatuion resovled by other means for the previous 2 years where they were not intersted, that I was a threat to their leadership. Ultimately, I know who did what (or didn't when they should have) to whom and I am therefore a threat to their job.

So the guy who has the nerve to face down the bully (me) gets fired. Unfortunately, the principal has turned up in another district's head office. At the very least, he has no direct contact with students any more.

I am perfectly willing to accept MY responsibility in this mess. Limon, Houser, Bradshaw, Osborne, Wilson and Woods have not. If I am a "kook" because I tried to protect YOUR students, then I accept that label proudly.

Anonymous said...

Early steps that lead to genocide include name calling and scape-goating, Ralph. Actually, many of us singled out and ostracized by administration employed rich, challenging curriculum that lead students to excell. State and national recognition followed. It is unfortunate when people slip into discriminatory language. We understand that some of this information might be disturb to the public.