Read The CAROLINIAN real story by Cash Michaels about the Tedesco/Margiotta scheme to get over 6,000 SouthEast Raleigh students re-assigned back to their neighborhoods. The school system’s own documents prove it:
THE TEDESCO SCHEME By Cash Michaels, Editor …
The agenda for the Nov. 30th Student Assignment Committee (SAC) meeting, chaired by Wake School Board member John Tedesco, was simple.
The committee would review and approve the minutes from the prior meeting.
The three board members, and nine citizen representatives appointed by all nine school board members, would get a staff overview and update on where they were per the third year of the multi-year assignment plan they were supposed to fine tune.
And the last agenda item listed, “An opportunity to share concerns related to school assignment issues in the 2011-12 school year.
As it happened, all but one of the Republican board members and citizen representatives knew exactly what that last agenda listing meant, and they were ready.
However, none of the Democratic Wake School Board members, their citizen reps, nor the citizen rep for Board Vice Chair Debra Goldman – a Republican who over a month earlier decided to split from the GOP board majority due to its attempts to operate in secret – had a clue what that last line meant, nor would they get the opportunity prior to the 11:30 Nov. 30th meeting to find out.
The SAC chairman, Tedesco, planned it that way.
A review of correspondence between Tedesco and Don Haydon, WCPSS Chief Facilities and Operations Officer, shows not only did Board Chairman Ron Margiotta’s closest lieutenant insist that the Nov. 30th meeting agenda be changed from what Haydon suggested in order to facilitate presentation of the Republican lists of node reassignment recommendations – lists that would make headlines because they involved moving over 6,000 black and Hispanic students from upper-middle class schools in North Raleigh, Garner, Cary and Apex – but then Tedesco withheld the agenda until the morning of the Nov. 30th SAC meeting so that none of the “opposition” would have time enough to question, or worse yet, challenge what wasn’t clearly spelled out.
It was 1 p.m. on Nov. 24th – the day before Thanksgiving and six days before the Nov. 30th SAC meeting that had been already posted, that Haydon emailed the SAC chairman for the purposes of finalizing the agenda to get it out.
“Based on the agenda you discussed with Ms Cobb…,” Haydon writes, staff is ready to move forward. He lists the agenda items to include finalization of any changes to the third year of the existing three-year student assignment plan; and a review of current assignments in relation to the 2011 opening of Walnut Creek Elementary School in Southeast Raleigh, in addition to student assignment adjustments that the Growth and Planning staff were preparing in other schools.
“Please confirm that the agenda as I have described it is what you had in mind. Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving,” Haydon closes.
While Haydon waits for an answer, some members of the SAC don’t even know if there is going to be a meeting, or when. The News & Observer is indicating that Tedesco, in comments to them, was still mulling whether to have one or not.
Meanwhile SAC Citizen Rep. Anne Sherron writes Tedesco on Nov. 25, Thanksgiving Day, asking him to clarify what she has seen in the N&O regarding a meeting.
She also has picked up on something disturbing.
“I have learned the list of schools potentially affected by the current reassignment proposal to be presented to the board [work session] on December 7, has grown significantly and without precedence,” Sherron, appointed by Carolyn Morrison, writes Tedesco. “I can assume easily from hearing parents’ comments at the CA meetings held last week that the poor could be disproportionately represented in these recommendations. With no formal in-house analysis, comparison, or study in place, weighing the educational effects either proximity or busing ED children has, (which I think was part of the basis of the evaluation Barbara asked for), frequency of movement, program effects (be it magnet, Title 1, SES, etc.), whether calendar has an impact on performance, etc., this board could be undermining the education of our most vulnerable under the guise of helping, the same way you have condemned past boards’ actions.”
Sherron continues, “To learn on the blogs there may not be a meeting makes me grow increasingly frustrated with the lack of communication, direction, and goals this committee has with its’ members.”
Even Board member Morrison emails Tedesco and Chris Malone on Nov. 28, asking if there’s to be a SAC meeting, and she’s the vice chair.
Tedesco responds to Morrison and Sherron at 12:01 p.m. on Nov. 29, before he finally responds to Haydon’s inquiry.
In his response to Morrison and Sherron, Tedesco displays some anger.
“Contrary to what rumor the media speculates on blogs, we had a scheduled meeting and it was not cancelled. That is all there is to that – there is no conspiracy or failed communication as Anne’s email suggests. The agenda is going out a bit late (likely this afternoon) due to the holiday schedule,” he wrote.
Lamenting the Oct. 5th vote when fellow Republican Debra Goldman joined the Democratic board members to scrap the 16-community zone neighborhood school plan that he had been working on, Tedesco then goes into a rant in writing:
” In the end, Mrs. Goldman, Dr. Morrison, and their other 3 friends said no no no – it’s fine the way we have been doing it all these years. It’s fine when we do not consider all the inequities that led to the Audit defining our schools as unfair. Debra cited herself in a speech that night before they voted to end our efforts to overhaul assignment, that most of all of our existing model is fine and forget all this new revamping as we can leave it all alone and just fix a few tweaks moving nodes (continuing – what Tim Simmons calls our “shell game”).”
Tedesco contunues, “She and the Dem 4 want to simply leave it alone. And she thinks just moving all the nodes closer to home will address all her needs. They also feel that the SAC should not be discussing these tougher issues but the whole board instead. This was made clear to me in our last discussion about the consensus plan of Kevin’s. I was told clearly that was not the role of the SAC – so we wont be discussing these matters anymore. ”
” So now they get what they asked for – no need for the SAC to look at those issues. SAC will look at some of the 3 year recommendations based solely on the new policy with the old tools (or essentially all that matters is node proximity). The SAC too will make some thoughtful recommendations to the staff matrix as the community meetings have and Board members have. ALL of that will go to the BOARD for review and vote and that will be it. Just like Mrs. Goldman and the DEM 4 want. In the end, they will get what they wanted to move all the nodes closer to home solely on proximity and to close out the community discussions for their own stalled discussions of consensus. At that time, if the board reaches consensus and wishes the SAC to look at some other issues than shifting nodes then we can revisit this.”
Seventeen minutes later, Tedesco finally responds to Haydon about the agenda he wants.
“…I would like 45 minutes on there for SAC members to make recommendations to get added to the list that will go to the full board. Thank you,” …writes Tedesco.
The time on his email is 12:17 p.m. on Nov. 29.
A caught off-guard Haydon, who had indicated that he would be out of the office on Nov. 29, emails Tedesco back at 3:44 p.m.
“Mr. Tedesco, I am concerned about the timing of “SAC members to make recommendations to get added to the list that will go to the full board,” Haydon replies. “Ms Evans [Linda Evans – head of WCPSS Growth and Planning Dept.] asked for all suggested changes to be identified by Thanksgiving, so that staff could evaluate them fully and include them in the staff recommendation on 7 December. There simply won’t be time for new ideas presented tomorrow to be included by the 7th, because staff is working on the 10+ pages of suggestions that were made during the community work sessions.”
An irritated Haydon continued, “Insomuch as I saw most of the [SAC] Citizen Advisors at the meetings, I hope there are no new changes that were not presented at the work sessions.”
Tedesco does not respond to Haydon’s email that afternoon, the day before the SAC meeting.
Instead, Chairman Margiotta’s closest ally on the board responds the morning of the Nov. 30th SAC meeting.
The meeting is scheduled for 11:30 a.m.
The agenda still hasn’t been printed. Nothing was given to the secretary the night before.
Yet Tedesco chooses to respond to Don Haydon’s concerns at 10:07 a.m., less than 90 minutes before the SAC meeting starts.
“Don…While I certainly appreciate your concerns, I respectfully disagree,” Tedesco writes. After justifying the apparently heretofore unknown SAC list recommendations, Tedesco then puts Haydon in his place by invoking the chairman.
“While I know (sic) something’s have been a bit up in the air with some recent vote changes in the last 60 days, Mr. Margiotta is still our Chair,” Tedesco writes. “Under his authority we created this Board level committee and he appointed me as Chair of that effort. As part of that effort committees make recommendations to the full board for review. I am confident from recent conversations with Mr. Margiotta, that he is expecting the SAC to make recommendations on nodes to be added to the list for the board to consider.”
After stating why the change from socioeconomic diversity policy to community-based neighborhood schools policy should be adhered to without delay, Tedesco ends his missive to Haydon by saying, “I have the utmost confidence in our team and am sure they can get some extra node recommendations added to the list over a full week (before the Dec. 7 board work session).
Tedesco copied his rebuke of Haydon to, among others, Chairman Margiotta.
When SAC members arrived for their 11:30 a.m.meeting, only then did any of them see the agenda, which was now in the meeting binders under “Nov. 30th.” When a SAC member asked Tedesco,” Did we ever get [our agendas], which is standard, he replied, “I think they went out yesterday. I apologize for them going out late.”
In fact, he knew they hadn’t gone out at all.
Over an hour later is when Tedesco asked for any node change recommendations from the committee. As Committee Vice Chair Carolyn Morrison, her Citizen Rep Anne Sherron, District 4 Board member Keith Sutton and others of the “opposition” watched, David Williams, Tracy Noble and Anne Rouleau – citizen reps representing Republican board members John Tedesco, Deborah Prickett and Ron Margiotta – and Republican Board member Chris Malone, all offered long lists of reassignment changes, primarily affecting black students from Southeast Raleigh.
As a tape of the Nov. 30th SAC shows, they all justified the lists per the need for proximity as mandated by the new policy 6200.
Answering a later request for comment, all of the Democratic board members and their citizen reps concurred that they had not been notified to compile and submit lists of suggested node reassignments for the Nov. 30th meeting.
Indeed, as Tedesco’s email to Don Haydon just the day before the Nov. 30th meeting clearly showed, staff not only had not been informed of it, but was not expecting it from anyone.
At both the Dec. 7th and Dec. 14th board work sessions, Goldman joined the Democrats in voting not to consider the GOP reassignment lists.
Margiotta says they’re being unfair to those “parents who deserve to be heard.”
Keith Sutton joins Goldman in asking what about those parents of the thousands of Southeast Raleigh children that the board Republicans sought to ship out of countywide schools.
Where was their voice, Sutton asks, when Democratic board members were denied their opportunity to submit and review node reassignment requests as well?