The Issues
Contrary to the editorial in Sunday's Sun-News, this issue has nothing to do with Charles White or Bob Ogas. This is about a Superintendent who has little to recommend her except her degrees. To say that she has better credentials than others in this community is ridiculous. We have a number of Ph.D.s working in the district. That trumps an Ed.D., Harvard awarded or not. The Harvard degree seems to impress many community members. When Harvard awards an Ed.D., the institution does not guarantee that the individual receiving the degree has any people skills, financial skills or management skills. It simply says that an individual completed a course of study which included a dissertation and research.
Anyone in business knows that the degree may get a person in the door, but the performance of that employee determines whether he/she stays or goes. The track record of the Superintendent is abysmal. She left a NYC district with a $1.5 million budget deficit. She left the Bridgeport district with "21 out of 25 elementary schools failing federal standards. A lower percentage of students passing mastery tests. Higher percentages of high school students dropping out. In raw numbers, at least, the record compiled by Supt. of Schools Sonia Diaz Salcedo during her first three years as the city's education chief would not appear to be anything to brag about." This is from a newspaper article in the Connecticut Post. She left the Miami district after 6 months when her contract was not renewed. She had been shopped around by Pro-Act and had not been successful until she hit Las Cruces.
Since arriving in Las Cruces, she has run off the 3 top administrators through harassment, intimidation, threats and degradation. This is at the direction of the Board of Education, according to Sharon Wooden. If the Board wanted to remove these 3 administrators it should have bought them out. All 3 had valid contracts that had 2 years to go. That is what a business would do. The Board's failure to do what is honorable in this case may cost them much more in the long run.
The Superintendent began a campaign of wining and dining the power brokers in Las Cruces, which includes the legislative membership and the editor of the Sun-News. This is not rumor. She has been seen dining and wining (literally) the groups mentioned here.
The Superintendent is only gracious and genteel with those who can further her agenda. Her agenda is to promote herself. If you are an underling, administrative or classified, you are subjected to snide remarks, put-downs, ridicule, yelling tirades, and outright harassment. She is an excellent manipulator. Her dealings with the unions has little to do with her valuing the union members and all about bolstering her powerbase.
The Superintendent is doing what the Board "told her to do". Does that include fiscal mismanagement and hijacking of funds for allocated for textbooks and bilingual programs?
posted by LCPS1 @ 6:04 AM
4 Comments:
I would rather spend half a million dollars to get rid of Dr. Diaz, that let her run our school district into the red for 1.5 million dollars. I believe this would be money well spent.
It is time to act! Show up at the board room at 1pm tomorrow before the board goes into session! Bring posters! Let the board know how you feel!
It is troubling to me that the Sun News and certain legislators are quick to blame malcontents in the district and support the superintendent. I hope the school board members are listening to employees who have had personal experiences with Sonia Diaz. If she was hired to begin healing the district, as one board member said,-I have news for them-she's killing the patient.
Dear Sonia,
Let's have coffee? My place or yours? Yours would be better, though, because my room is filthy. After all, NCLB arrived before you, so I must cater to all its whimms. My teaching must be a carbon copy of all my peers...same content, same timeline, same testing, same schedule, etc. Whew! I'm glad to know that the decades that I have been teaching have allowed me develop a teaching style that has become outdated. You're right...the bobble-head approach is easier. No thinking required! However, I am comforted to know about your new flusher; as two menopausal women, we both understand urgent bodily needs. Speaking of needs and wants, if the life expectancy of a supt. is documented to be so short, why squander your few months here in our neighborhood with a power trip? Why not embrace our culture, Mexican food, and easy-going lifestyle? Dress down for a week, put away your mirror, and open your eyes to this beautiful community. If you want to meet with the state, speak up for us and against NCLB! We are drowning in educational ignorance created by a leadership tsunami! An effective leader surrounds herself with effective and smarter leaders, who would help to balance out weaknesses within the system. Therefore, leadership styles will either match with your subordinates or leave a precious few alternatives: the leader recognizes she should change her approach; the subordinates can just accept the worse case scenario; the subordinates can leave; or, my favorite...the leader can leave.
C-ya, Sonia!
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