Entries in School Boards (5)
Punishment fit the Crime?
Personnel decisions. The hardest part of being a local elected official is dealing with personnel decisions. It starts with the hiring process and follows all the way through to the firing process. If someone is a local elected official for any length of time at all, they will be involved in a personnel controversy of some kind.
The Ashland Daily Press tells us the story of a personnel decision that had to be made by the Ashland (WI) School Board...
Two Ashland High School golf coaches recently turned the chaperone relationship upside down by leaving their team alone in a New Richmond hotel while they went out drinking, and then making a student pick up the pieces after one was arrested for driving drunk.Former head coach John Nuutinen and assistant coach Jeff Castle have since been dismissed from their coaching duties, according to parent accounts, school board members' testimony and district documents obtained through an open records request.
The 32-year-old Castle, who was arrested by the New Richmond Police Department for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, was not a district employee but a volunteer coach. Nuutinen, 40, served as the head coach in addition to teaching technical education, which he continues to do at Ashland High School. Nuutinen received a two-day unpaid suspension, in addition to other sanctions set forth in a May 28 letter from AHS Principal Norb Philipsek.
The story is worthy of a Three Stooges script.
It started as a routine extracurricular trip, with the golf team leaving Ashland on May 26 for the next day's sectional at Bristol Ridge Golf Course in Somerset. A parent, who wished to remain anonymous because they still have a child attending school in the district, said the team went down a day early so they could play a practice round on the course.
According to police reports, district documents and parent and student testimony, the trouble began after the practice round. Sometime after 7 p.m. on May 26, the coaches left the team unattended at their hotel in New Richmond, which is approximately eight miles from Somerset.
The pair left for "dinner and drinks" in a school van driven by Castle, according to the May 28 letter from Philipsek. (Castle had to be the driver, as Nuutinen's license was revoked in January because of a conviction in Ashland County Circuit Court of driving under the influence of alcohol.)
The police report states that at approximately 1:55 a.m. the next morning, a New Richmond police officer heard "multiple male voices yelling and hollering" on a street about one mile north of the hotel. The officer then spotted three men — Nuutinen, Castle, and an unidentified golf coach from another district — cross the street and enter the district van.
As the police officer followed the van driven by Castle, he witnessed it continuously weave inside and outside its lane of traffic and drift across the double yellow lines, according to the police report. The officer followed the van and pulled in behind it in the hotel parking lot.
"I was directly behind the van with my emergency lights on and my spotlight illuminated on the van," the officer wrote. "The driver then put the van in reverse and began to back up. I began to take evasive action to avoid a collision, however, the van did stop and then pull forward again and come to a complete stop."
The officer then performed a series of field sobriety tests on Castle, all of which indicated Castle was intoxicated. A subsequent breath test revealed that Castle had a .14 blood alcohol level, almost double the legal limit of .08.
While Castle responded cooperatively and commented to officers that he knew he had "screwed up," the police report indicates Nuutinen was less compliant.
"Mr. Nuutinen appeared very intoxicated and lied to the police," the report states, without indicating the nature of the "lie."
The police report said Nuutinen, who was released, told officers he would get an 18-year-old member of the team to come and sign for Castle's release.
Shortly after 3 a.m., the senior team member did get the message — though not from Nuutinen, according to the parent who wished to remain anonymous.
"The cops called and he did go to the coach's room," the parent said. "(Nuutinen) was laying across the bed with all his clothes on, and (the student) tried shaking him awake and he wouldn't wake up. So (the student) took the keys so he could go pick up the other coach."
The student, who also wished to remain anonymous, confirmed this account.
Castle was released into the custody of the student at 3:35 a.m., according to the report. The officers instructed the student to not allow Castle or Nuutinen to drive the district vehicle. The student transported the team and coaches to that morning's tournament, where a sober adult who had driven from Ashland that day helped drive the students home.
OK. The volunteer assistant coach is gone. Fired from the unpaid job.
But the Coach?
Two day unpaid suspension and not allowed to coach again?
The comments from the locals after the story on the web, are wide and varied.
From a unbiased distance what do you think?
Good decision by the School Board...or the punishment doesn't fit the crime?
Let's have a big round of applause for...
Ken Bartelt. The newest inductee to the Academy of Local Politics Hall of Fame.
Ken is not an elected official. Ken is a government bureaucrat.
Ken is the Principal at Northwestern Middle School in Poplar, WI.
We learn the story from the St. Paul Pioneer Press...
Ken Bartelt, principal of Northwestern Middle School, refuses to take down the pictures of student hunters holding their ruffed grouse, deer and bear after complaints from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Last week, PETA wrote to Bartelt, asking him to remove the bulletin board because it encourages a "dangerous mindset" of violence in students.
The bulletin board with about 50 student pictures is in science teacher Russ Bailey's classroom. Bailey is a volunteer firearms safety instructor, and the pictures feature some of his students.
"Northwestern Middle School's 'hunting wall' is nothing more than a monument to violence, suffering and death,'' wrote PETA officials.
Poppycock, says our inductee, Mr. Bartelt. Well, actually he said...
"Hunting is a part of the culture, not only in our school but in many parts of the country, and especially so in northern Wisconsin.
"Students here at school get excited about it, and it seems that's all they talk about before and after they return."
During his five years as principal, he said, there have never been any violent acts. Even fistfights are "almost nonexistent," he wrote.
"Violence in our society is because of family and societal issues. I think hunter safety classes and hunting teaches respect for weapons, and that they are not for fun, destruction or violence. Hunters are probably the least violent subset of our society."
Local school decisions should be made, well, locally. Not in Washington D.C., and especially not at PETA headquarters in Norfolk, VA.
"Half of our school board are hunters,'' he said of the rural northern Wisconsin district, where hunting is a long-held tradition. "How could I explain that to them?"
Ken you don't need to explain anything more, to anyone. You stood up to PETA when many others would have wilted under the pressure.
Welcome Ken ... to the Academy of Local Politics Hall of Fame!
Al Arnold
in School Boards, Hall of Fame
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Nobody is perfect.
Mistakes happen, don't they?
No matter how hard we try to do our jobs without blundering, we all fail sometimes.
Even school bus drivers.
The latest, in a long line of children being left on a school bus comes to us from Saratoga Springs, NY. The Saratogian.Com reports, "A four-year-old child boarded his school bus at 7:30 a.m. Thursday. At 12:46 p.m. his mother received a call from his school saying that her son had been found in the Saratoga Springs City Schools District bus depot, after spending nearly four hours alone in the cold rain."
Naturally, legal action is being considered against the school district.
No matter how hard school bus drivers try, considering the millions of students that are transported each and every day, sometimes this is going to happen. We can all wish it wouldn't, but it will. It has been happening for years, and will continue to happen.
It doesn't matter how many lawsuits are filed.
I hope whatever out of court settlement is reached, is put away for the child's education.
I hope the family doesn't make the mistake, of just spending it.
Hypocrisy in Schools
What ever happened to the 3 R's? You know ... Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic? Somewhere along the line, basic education has been lost and social engineering has taken its place.
I have talked with many School Board members over the years and almost every one of them deny they are "politicians". Someone who supposedly is accountable to the voters who put them in office. They all think they are above that "dirty word".
Because they think they are not "politicians" accountable to the voters, they either endorse or allow their schools to run rampant social engineering ... not educating.
I would like to see is every member of these School Boards and Administration get on a scale. I'm willing to bet it isn't just children who are overweight.
What hypocrisy!
Calling all School Board Candidates!
We are not allowed to see the actual drawing. Word has it that is was one of several drawings in the margins of a science assignment. This being the only objectionable drawing. Why, were these drawings on a science assignment? It seems the child finished early and drew a series of doodles in the margin of his assignment. None of the other doodles were offensive, but this drawing was good for FIVE DAYS SUSPENSION.
Before I go farther, I better come clean. I led a very violent childhood. As a young lad (late 50's - early 60's) I use to put on a cowboy hat and shoot imaginary Indians with my finger. I loved F-Troop. I graduated to a cork gun. Then, I actually picked up my brother's BB gun and fired. I eventually went back to using my finger because I was much more accurate with the finger. I never missed with that trusty index finger! To this day I still use my finger. However, most often it is used against my own head when attending a government meeting and hear something incredibly stupid said.
I am always amazed at School Board members who claim they aren't "politicians". Like, they are too good to be labeled as such. They believe they are good Samaritans who are only doing what they do, for "the children". What a bunch of crap.
Zero tolerance policies like the one in Chandler, prove that School Board members are just as capable as any "politician" of knee jerk reactions to problems without thinking through the implications of what they are doing.
The suspension of this child for a doodling of a gun, amongst a series of doodles, while killing time because his assignment was done, is ludicrous. ( I just realized I used the term "killing time". I wonder what the suspension would be for using that term?)
We need School Board candidates to come forward and have the fortitude to say they are running because they want their Zero Tolerance policies revoked before one of their children is suspended for such a silly reason.
Anyone want to take up this challenge?
Do it for "the children".