After writing my last posting, I read the articles in the paper and then I was contacted by someone who made a comment that interested me and peaked my interest so I contacted someone who was present at the Board meeting and a couple of teachers at the high school.... It would seem that the pattern of harassment toward Ms. Fandino did not stop with Mr. Robinson's departure...
Here are some facts:
1. The administration was going to be changing the schedule anyway.
2. She approached administration and asked permission to work on the schedule, she was given the blessing and data by the administration.
3. She took used a math formula to calculate how many classes are needed based on how many kids there are that wanted or needed each class.
3. She stated at the board meeting that the intent was for departments to decide who taught what and in fact actually was quoted by one listener as saying, "I could care less who teaches each class, but we all know that if someone loves what they are teaching they do a better job than if they are teaching a class they don't like."
She mentioned that the intent of the draft was to create a place for each class and then you can swap the classes in any given period between teachers. Which, by the way, is how it was done for years and generated very positive relations with the teachers.
4. She did check with people in most of the core subjects to see what preferences there were and tried to reflect that.
5. Now here is the crux of the issue. She gave administration the schedule proposal BEFORE anyone else saw it. Apparently she had asked administration to stop by to talk about it, but when they never showed, she emailed it.
She was contacted by the math mom later that evening who requested that Ms. Fandino help her understand the scheduling issue because that group had been talking about it already, and wanted to have a clear perspective on what can and cannot be done. According to the math mom, Ms. Fandino was clear that she had given the schedule to the administration and that it was simply a draft that she had created and wanted to get in the hands of teachers.
Also, it should be noted that the math mom showed it to others, what happened from there was not Ms. Fandino's doing.
6. BUT here is what was really upsetting to the administration... she actually talked to students, teachers and parents as she worked on the schedule. She stated at the board meeting that these were drafts and that in fact she had adjusted the first draft after hearing from the parents in the math group.
She purposefully tried to get input from those who had been left out of the schedule creation to get what she referred to as a "fresh perspective."
That makes sense. According to Mr. Kelley, the current schedule was created by 8 people who took several weeks to make something that is full of flaws and problems. According to Ms. Fandino she started the process last Wednesday and worked about 6 hours.
Also, she stated that not one of the administrators came to her to discuss the proposal ever.
It would seem that the administration got showed up by Ms. Fandino and rather than work with her, they decided to use their favorite play from the Jim Robinson playbook, discredit those who have upset you and make them look bad.
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In short... Ms. Fandino tried to work with those who had been disenfranchised in order to do what is best for kids, administration didn't like it, they went after Ms. Fandino, history repeats itself.
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You did not respond to me previous post about the schedule so I will repeat it here. And I am not part of the administration, I have friends who teach at LHS and from them I know and have seen the schedule. They are upset not that Kim made the schedule but that she allowed it to be spread around. It may have not been her who got it to the board but it should never have left the school in the first place. She was responsible for whatever happened to the schedules she released out of her possession. They are also upset about who was placed in teaching positions. I was at the board meeting and she never said it was a starting point. In fact she tried to bully another teacher into supporting it when he hadn't even seen it. He has honor and refused. Quit spinning to support your position. She made a big mistake and should pay for it. I would hope with only a talking to about what harm she did to the staff's morale and leave it at that. If she had honor, she would openly apologize to the staff for even un-intended harm.
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