Tuesday, April 14, 2009

PPS Peabody committee meetings closed

We will be correcting the Announcements page to specify that the meetings of the committee on Peabody formed by the district are closed and not available for public observation. It is not clear what the concern is- it would seem that the district would welcome the opportunity to share information as widely as possible rather than hiding it- but this approach was also taken with the IB committee, which was required to keep information confidential within the group until after it made a recommendation. The first meeting is set for tomorrow.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is not exactly a move that will build "improved public confidence and strong parent/community engagement" (strategic plan).

parnt1 said...

Has a committee member list been published? For many seeing that someone they know sits on the committee and has similiar viewpoints might go a long way.

Questioner said...

Maybe a list will be released if someone requests one, but it doesn't seem like a list of names or even the fact that a committee was formed is information that is readily volunteered- at least not until after decisions/ recommendations have been made.

Mark Rauterkus said...

I've been officially uninvited. I'm not on the list. A letter was not sent to me.

I've been tossed out of nicer places, but it never feels good.

Perhaps that is why my nose is so flat -- from getting the door slammed in my face.

Regardless, back in the first days of April I sent along my opinions and questions / points about the Peabody AC/DC plans.

Many of the same points were raised here, in blog comments, too.


http://rauterkus.blogspot.com/2009/04/pittsburgh-peabody.html

Sadly, I've not heard 'boo' about any of those issues from BGC's Rick F. nor PPS Administrators.

I've revisited and resent the comments/questions in an email to PPS administrators.

Questioner said...

The ideas was probably for BGC to gather up all of the comments and then have interested people meet at a later date. Then this limited access PPS committee was formed. The BGC group can still meet, but PPS apparently prefers to communicate with the committee it has set up rather than the existing group.

Anonymous said...

Have any of these committees (or the school board for that matter) ever had any real impact?

Mark Rauterkus said...

Nope.

Well, to be fair, we do get boxed lunches for the prep rally before the Take Your Father to School day.

I'm scratching my head for other impact outcomes.

Does feeling good count?

If it did, that wouldn't be implied here anyway as I often feel more frustrated with these efforts. I'm much better wired to be a team player and fight with rather than against. So, someday I might feel good about some system-wide impact with PPS.

Hope to be proven wrong.