Is GiaQuinta The FWCS Board Spokesman?
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 7/18/08 @ 10:47 am - Filed Under 2008 Local Elections, Local Politics
Yesterday the NS had an article about the board’s refusal to release the superintendent’s evaluation and FWCS board president Mark GiaQuinta was quoted in a way that makes it sound like he’s the official board spokesman:
The Fort Wayne Community Schools board will not release the results of its evaluation of Superintendent Wendy Robinson, which was completed this week.
“The board believes (this) is a confidential matter, but we also acknowledge the completion of our duty to the public to review the progress of our chief administrator,” board President Mark GiaQuinta said in a statement Wednesday.
“While we won’t discuss the details, we can say that overall we are pleased with the direction Dr. Robinson is taking the district, and we are looking forward to continuing to work with her in educating all students to high standards.”
Did I miss the meeting where the board gave the president the role of spokesman for the entire body? I don’t recall hearing city council president Tom Didier speaking on behalf of all city councilmembers. GiaQuinta should speak for himself and stop using the word “we” unless he has express permission from the other board members. Another odd statement from the story:
GiaQuinta called the evaluation “constructive and positive” but further denied The News-Sentinel any request for the actual document, adding he was not afraid of any public backlash.
“I’m not afraid of anything,” he said.
Except turnips - sorry that was just too easy…
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10 Responses to “Is GiaQuinta The FWCS Board Spokesman?”
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So after 5 years the superintendent has (been given) a direction other than “staying the course”? We’re looking forward to seeing some results other than “wow day” announcements of stagnant test scores.
Marky Mark - secrets always come back to bite you in the ass.
For the past 2 years, I’ve tried to deal with financial issues with the East Allen County school board. I send the same email to all of the board members and only the president will officially respond. They have told me that they have agreed that only the president is allowed to speak on behalf of the board. I thought each board member was elected by the public, answerable to the public. I think they are more concerned about circling the wagons than responding to public inquiry.
As a pointe of information, according to the LPAC bylaws:
“The Chair”, Douglas Horner, “is the official spokesperson of LPAC in all public and media matters.” and goes further to state “no official statement of LPAC should be derived or assumed unless specifically stated as such from The Chair, or another Officer of the Party acting in his place, and such statements are always subject to review.”
A political party is much different than a school board consisting solely of publicly elected officials…
Right and technically, all officers of the LPAC are elected at our Annual Convention; or at minimum when necessary, after being appointed by the Chair, affirmed/denounced by voting membership of the LPAC at the next business meeting.
But my pointe was that a “spokesperson” for the entire Board or the District should be under duties or job description for all officers (elected or appointed) in the bylaws of the Corporation’s Constitution somewhere.
The other reason why this would be a good thing is to protect the School Corporation as a whole from someone doing something out of turn and creating a civil liability by said speech or other form (email) of communication.
My challenge, loosely stated as a quip so it would be indirect, was that, the easiest way to reign in a loose cannon on a Board is to stipulate in the bylaws who is the Spokesperson for the Entity or the Authority.
If no such bylaws exist then they need to be commanded to do so by the constituents/voters as a fail safe. But that would require people to launch a grassroots initiative and get involved in the process and we have seen the likely hood of that happening more recently.
The comparison of a party and its organization is in no way similar to the comparison of an elected board. Although the school board is non-partisan, each member has been elected on a different platform and may have a completely different opinion than that of the president or the board majority. Additionally, they are each elected by different constituencies with different opinions about issues. Does the president of the city council speak for the entire city council, both republican and democrat? Does the President Pro Tem of the Senate speak for the entire Senate? Additionally, there is very little liability of a board member speaking out of turn as a single board member has no power to enact policy. Federal, State, and Local legislator’s speak “out of turn” all the time and it does not cause relevant legal issues, but is considered an exercise in our republican form of government.
I would also argue that it is not the duty of elected board members to “reign in” loose cannons. Loose cannons are elected by their constituency and if the constituency wants them “reigned in” they will fire them in the next election. I can show you six board members that thought I was a “loose cannon” when I cast the sole vote against a 1/2 billion dollars in bonding. Four months later they found out that 75% of their constituency agreed with me.
In situations like the superintendent’s evaluation, contract negotiations or when there is a legal or contractual need for confidentiality it is appropriate for the board to put forth a unified statement. The board president will very likely be the face of that statement and certainly have a hand in crafting it but needs to be very careful when “speaking” for the entire board.
It is doubtful the news media would have wanted or published seven statements….hence, one will speak for the board.
Who else in this world shares their annual evaluation with the public? Anybody seen the evaluation from the CEO of GM lately? Expecting to see that is a bit much, no?
Let’s go back to the basics—how many third graders read at grade level, and what percentage of our children graduate from high school? What will it take to raise these numbers, and how can we assist? I feel these are the issues we need to consider.
Cara is right about multiple statements. In fact on any one issue the reporter’s seldom speak more than one or two board members. There is a slight difference in the Superintendent of a public school system and the CEO of a corporation. The public has many more rights to information of a government body than a corporation. Currently the Superintendent’s contract states that her evaluation is not public and this complies with the current sunshine laws; however, from this point on much of her evaluation will be based on her balanced scorecard. The balanced score is a model of business performance evaluation that balances measures of financial performance, internal operations, innovation and learning, and customer satisfaction. The balanced score cards of the district as a whole, Dr. Robinson and each building will be very public. Much of Dr. Robinson’s future evaluation will be based on the items on her balanced score card, thus from this point on, like it or not, it will be difficult not to discuss her performance and the districts publicly. Additionally, like it or not, the success and failure of FWCS will be very measurable and very public.
“Currently the Superintendent’s contract states that her evaluation is not public and this complies with the current sunshine laws”
Which is what Giaquinta SHOULD have said instead of the commentary he provided to the media.
Sheesh - is he trying to piss everyone off on purpose?