My response:
I reserve comment at this time but the letter is below.
Ms. Brenda Priestly Jackson
5089 Andrew Robinson Drive
Jacksonville, FL 32209
Dear Ms. Priestly Jackson:
I write this letter with profound sadness, and with deep regret. In recent months, you have exhibited behaviors that have been both divisive and destructive, and your actions have substantively eroded the community confidence in the School Board and in this district. What troubles me more, however, is the impact your conduct has had on our ability to meet the needs of our children; your behaviors have begun to demonstrate a contempt for the rules by which we live, and for the taxpayers who support the work we do.
I thought long and hard before writing this, but last evening I received information thatndependent of your behaviors in recent monthseaves me as secretary to the Board no alternative but to request your resignation from the Duval County School Board.
I have received data evidencing that you do not reside within the nominating district within which you have claimed to reside.[1] It appears you have not resided there in some timepparently even before your last election. Under FL Statute 1001.38, your resignation is required for this statutory violation alone.
But this statutory violation is not an isolated issue. Nor is it the sole basis of the request for your resignation. In the period I have been superintendent, I have attempted to accommodate aberrant behaviors in an effort to prevent disruption affecting our students and teachers, and to ensure a stability I felt was crucial if we were to achieve genuine reform in this District to benefit kids. I realize now that this accommodation was a mistake. In sum, here are some of the additional reasons I am compelled to request your resignation from the Duval County School Board:
1. You have attempted to use your position to influence the placement of your husband, an employee of the district, into a position of higher pay and apparent status for which he was not best qualified. You subsequently persisted in repeated reprisals following my refusal to honor your wishes relating to the employment of your husband; this conduct continues, and includes inexplicable false assertions that I am a racist, claims that I have targeted your husband for retribution because of your statements directed at me personally, and assertions that I have engaged in some sort of impropriety by remaining on the boards of nonprofit organizations.
2. You attempted to use your position to circumvent the school choice/magnet program by directing staffnd then meo place two of your children in magnet schools for which there are extensive wait lists, and for which you had failed in any manner to comply with rules governing placement. You stated that you were exercising your oard member prerogative. When it was explained to you that what you soughtolely because of your position and status as a Board memberould not be equitably provided, you alleged members of the District senior staff had been shown the favoritism you were seeking. Inexplicably, when an investigation of your allegation was initiated, you expressly and in writing refused to cooperate. This defiance on the matter was troubling, and telling.
3. You continue to refuse to reimburse the school district for taxpayer funds you expended to subsidize your family vacation. On June 20, 2007, you elected to drive rather than fly to attend a School Board-related function in New York City; you acknowledge you took your family and billed the school district for two hotel rooms a night in Florence, South Carolina and a suite in Piscataway, New Jersey. Despite the Office of General Counsel letter to you of July 31, 2007, explaining the requirement that you reimburse the school district, you have to date refused to provide the reimbursement.
I can provide additional examples of these aberrant behaviors if you sense providing more would in any manner assist you.
When you and fellow Board members voted unanimously to hire me, we discussed how we as a team would work together: targets would be set, and the Board would hold me accountable for ultimately reaching those targets. I was led to believe that you trusted my judgment, and that the primary reason you hired me was to exercise that judgment. Since my refusal to yield to your personal wishes shortly after arriving here, I have been obligated to sustain repeated and inexplicable behaviors on your part; behaviors, I must now acknowledge, that are radically interfering with my obligation to do the work I have been retained to do for the children and employees of this District.
As in every contract, there is an implied duty imposed upon each party to act in good faith. Brenda, regrettably, we have reached a point where I can no longer remain silent about your breach of that duty. Your behaviors, initially disturbing and distracting, are now something more: they are destructive. And they can no longer be ignored if the work, necessary to make a difference in our kidslives, is to get done. Respectfully, I submit this letter as a formal request for your resignation from the Duval County School Board; it is necessary if we are to restore Board and employeesfocus on meeting our studentsneeds.
Sincerely,
Joseph Wise
Superintendent
No comments:
Post a Comment