MaryEllen Elia - One Horribly Ineffective Leader
Surprised? I'm not.
Hillsborough County School District used to give either Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur and Good Friday and Easter Monday as days off for staff and students alike. Then Muslims wanted in on the action and Eid Al-Fitr declared a holiday as well.
Last year, the Hillsborough County School Board responded by removing all religious holidays from the district calender. Except Christmas, which conveniently comes during Winter Break.
Fast forward to this year and an interesting issue is developing all over Tampa.
Take my old school for example: Out of approximately 2000 students, 1400 have indicated that they will not be attending school tomorrow. Over 30 teachers, so far, have called in for a substitute. Only ten substitutes are available. So. You do the math.
What else? Oh yeah. There aren't any buses either. Too many drivers called in and so kids have to find their own way into school.
And the cafeteria workers aren't going to be there so brown bag it, baby!
My old school isn't alone. This is happening all over the county. Good times.
Elia responded to this mass demonstration of passive aggressive behavior/civil disobedience by requiring all administrators to be at schools tomorrow from 6am until 6pm to cover for the missing teachers.
At a principals meeting, one such administrator said that aftercare had been canceled at his child's school because of a lack of teachers and wondered aloud what he was supposed to do about that if he was at another school until 6pm.
Elia repeated her demand that all administrators be required to work in the place of absent teachers until 6pm. Period. End of discussion.
Well, doesn't that just about sum it up?
Listen carefully, folks. Good Friday is not a day where work is forbidden by any church or commandment. Most of the people who aren't working tomorrow are not religious. Students and employees won't be spending the day at church. A good number of those staying home aren't even Christian.
Teachers and parents are rebelling against an unpopular and stubborn superintendent who has never learned the meaning of the word compromise.
They hate her. And it shows.
I live in one of the most religious areas of the country. My children's school district is open tomorrow. So is the one in which I work. Teachers, bus drivers and cafeteria workers will report to their duties like any other day. School districts all over the country will be operating like any other day. Businesses, too.
Yet Elia's district is a mess. Why? Because she lacks the leadership skills to effectively sell this new arrangement and her employees, parents, students are demonstrating, en masse, to show that they don't support her or her failing policies.
Good Friday indeed.
Elia is a disgrace and should be replaced as soon as possible. Enough is enough.
posted by kate @ 8:11 PM
16 comments
16 Comments:
Wow, glad I don't live in Tampa.
Oh, wait, I'm always glad I don't live in Tampa ...
The school system here is terrible. I can't wait until my son graduates in May and goes off to the university of tampa in August.
Ass aye prowd gladuate of A.P. Leto Comprehensile Hi Skool, eye kin til you that skool are gud in Tampa. We shuld knot sez bad thangs aboat hour techers. Oar the'yre boses.
Sounds like you have something personal against her - what happened, did she fire you from a job in the Tampa schools or something?
I remember back when I was in grammar school that the friends of mine who were Jewish would always be absent a couple of times a year. It wasn't a big deal then. So what has changed?
Here's a story of Hillsborough County schooling at its finest:
My wife pulls up at my son's school to pick him up after middle school band practice. He's 12.
"Mom, you have to get out and go inside to see my teacher," he says.
She does this. They walk to the band room together. She asks what the problem is. He says, "He'll tell you."
They get there and the teacher tells her that during band practice, he ordered the class to stop playing a song. They did so. Then a millisecond after the last note, my son lifts his lips off the mouthpiece of his trombone, quickly says the words, "Cheese fries" loud enough for everyone to hear and then puts his lips back on the mouthpiece. The students erupted in laughter.
Cheese fries.
The teacher is seething as he is telling this story to my wife. He's barely keeping it together. This kind of rage is only useful for invading Poland. And my wife is barely keeping it together. She wants to laugh, but can't, and it's killing her.
Now, what my kid did was wrong. He shouldn't have been disruptive. I will find a way to make it clear to him that he shouldn't have done so. But I'll try to do it in a subtle way that conveys that idea. And, unlike the school system today, I won't have to paralyze my house to make a point.
Like I said earlier, the Florida School System is bad. Had I known back in 99 what I know now, my son would have gone to private school. He IS going to private college. It's just very sad when you have a school system and a state that takes in billions of dollars of tax money for education and forces kids to share books with other classes because there isn't enough to go around. I live in New Tampa, which has many neighborhoods, (not mine) with million dollar homes. If the schools here can't afford to purchase enough books so that my son can bring one home for homework or to study, there is a major problem.
florida schhols suck, everyone knows that - dummies produce more dummies.
Sounds an awful lot like D-11, actually.
Florida schools are bad, but, I'm here to tell you, they're not as bad as South Carolina public schools. My oldest son scored a higher PSAT score at age 12 than the average college-bound senior at Jasper County H.S. One hundred points higher. Than 17 year-olds. When he was 12. Sure, he's smart, but mostly, the public school kids were that stupid.
Can you believe it???
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=6099351&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1
I begin to think that all teachers are secretly out to sexually exploit their students. SCARY how often you see that kind of story these days.....more scary how often it is women teachers.
Hey, hey, oh, you're right
From 1986 to 2001, I taught for the Hillsborough County Schools. As a Tampa native, the decline in discipline, curriculum, and overall quality was especially discouraging. My personal view - based on experience - is that three main issues have contributed to the current state of affairs:
• Superintendent Mary Ellen Elia was never a Principal or school site administrator. She was promoted straight to the District office - High School Math Department Head, to Director of Magnet Programs, to Superintendent of the 8th largest school district in the US.
• A Misdirected philosophy of “Client-Based” education - translated into giving the students and parents whatever they want - was propagated in the district office at the very end of the 1990s. Because this is a convenient line for the District office, principals know they will not get backed on unpopular decisions. In turn, teachers know they will not get backing from the Principal when they try to discipline unruly students. This has contributed to a chaotic situation in most of the schools….blurring the line between the authority of teachers and “authority” of students & parents. As is often the case with students, it may be difficult for young teachers to “act out the appropriate role” when the lines are blurred.
• You may find that most of the teachers involved in the abuse cases are graduates of USF. Until recently, The College of Education at USF had no screening policy or assessment of the “Personal Dispositions” for potential teachers. NCATE now mandates an assessment of “Personal Dispositions” before teaching candidates can student teach (intern). USF has just now implemented such assessments. The College of Ed at USF is extremely large. You can imagine how many “undesirables” graduated over the years, having had no personal contact with professors. On the flip-side, there ARE MANY fine educators who proudly display the USF diploma – myself included.
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Mary Ellen Elia is a great leader and may be the best superintendent in the USA. Superintendent is the most important and the most difficult job in all of education. Work with her to make the Hillsborough County School District the best in the country. Ron Young
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