
{"id":2940,"date":"2008-07-06T04:57:26","date_gmt":"2008-07-06T12:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=2940"},"modified":"2008-07-06T04:57:26","modified_gmt":"2008-07-06T12:57:26","slug":"transparency-in-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2008\/07\/06\/transparency-in-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Transparency in education"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Whether you check the box on the census form indicating you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve 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.<\/p>\n<p>Parents here are passionate about their kids\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a troubling lack of communication regarding the major changes at Carrboro High School, where the reassignment of Jeff Thomas, the school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inaugural principal, was announced via a terse email to the media.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>In our subsequent issue \u00e2\u20ac\u201d last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t talking either; apparently he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not permitted to do so.<\/p>\n<p>State law limits the amount of information that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s required to be divulged in these situations. It does, however, allow further information to be revealed should it be in the public interest.<br \/>\nWe 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.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a principal leaving without much notice or detail as to why \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at every level of his daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s education.<\/p>\n<p>In Thomas\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be comforting. The students and parents at CHS deserve more than to read about their principal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s departure in a news release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whether you check the box on the census form indicating you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 education, which makes the schools a focal&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}