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Transparency in education

Posted on July 6, 2008 by Staff

Whether you check the box on the census form indicating you’ve done post-doc work or dropped out of high school and went into a trade, the importance of a good education for your children is a shared value in this community.

Parents here are passionate about their kids’ education, which makes the schools a focal point of interest and scrutiny. For the most part, the district does a good job of keeping parents and students informed. But there’s been a troubling lack of communication regarding the major changes at Carrboro High School, where the reassignment of Jeff Thomas, the school’s inaugural principal, was announced via a terse email to the media.

We got that into print the day it came out, but found it difficult to get any further details. There were plenty of inferences one could draw from the results of satisfaction surveys, but nothing definitive. Naturally, our phones have been ringing and the town is buzzing.

In our subsequent issue — last week’s — Superintendent Neil Pedersen confirmed that the surveys and unsolicited complaints had something to do with it. But like a lot of administrators in these situations, Pedersen is unwilling to offer the details because it is a personnel matter. Thomas isn’t talking either; apparently he’s not permitted to do so.

State law limits the amount of information that’s required to be divulged in these situations. It does, however, allow further information to be revealed should it be in the public interest.
We believe that a little more information is needed and, indeed, in the public interest. Rumors are flying and parents and students are frustrated. Some learned ahead of time of the reassignment. Others had no clue what was coming.

This is not the first time a high-level departure at the schools has been inadequately explained. One parent we talked to has witnessed the same scenario — a principal leaving without much notice or detail as to why — at every level of his daughter’s education.

In Thomas’ case, it is all the more frustrating because the school is so new, such a focus of local attention and a somewhat fragile place without the traditions and strong internal institutions to bolster it in times of trouble.

To find out in the dead of summer that Carrboro High School is now in search of a new principal and will be led in the interim by someone who is relatively unknown in the Jaguar community can’t be comforting. The students and parents at CHS deserve more than to read about their principal’s departure in a news release.

1 thought on “Transparency in education”

  1. H. Krinkle says:
    July 6, 2008 at 9:59 pm

    Solution: Any individual may obtain the details of this personnel decision by signing a document stating that s/he is personally financially liable for any lawsuit filed against the district for privacy violations.

    The superintendent is being a responsible steward of our tax dollars by protecting the district

    With regard to “public interest,” how is this personnel decision on a principal significantly different than any other? Is the writer implying that personnel information about every such decision should be public?

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