A consequence of bad governance and bad policy is businesses relocate and employees leave. Frederick County Public Schools is one of, if not “the” largest employer in the county. It’s a government business, that can’t relocate. However, its employees can leave.
Despite what legacy and traditional media outlets would want you to believe, most Americans don’t want to be told what to do. They certainly don’t want to be forced to inject unknown substances into their bodies. They also prefer job stability over day-by-day decision making.
Tonight at 6:00 p.m. the Frederick County Board of Education is holding a special meeting because our school system is “on fire.” Employees are leaving and replacements are as hard to come by as toilet paper in 2020.
I suggest each and every one of you reading this send a letter to the Board of Education (Board@fcps.org) and let your voices be heard and your opinions known. These are our schools. Even if you don’t have a child attending a local school, your tax dollars are funding the current version of incompetence.
Below is my email to them. We can’t take our schools back as long as good and moral people remain silent.
You called this special meeting because as a Board you have admitted you don’t know how to fix the school system that’s burning around you.
The people on the public’s side of the dais have given public comment, sent emails and made phone calls giving you options but you’ve ignored them.
While you’re busy trying to figure out how to make this about race and white privilege, FCPS is losing its workforce and not able to attract new people.
You’re not losing your workforce because of systemic racism or low wages. People aren’t ignoring job openings because they don’t want to work, quite the contrary. I’ve seen the Staffing reports, a lot of our most highly paid teachers have left.
People DO want to work. They just don’t want to work for FCPS. You’ve admitted you no longer interview employees to find out “why” they are leaving.
When you let support staff go during the pandemic, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, they went out and found jobs where they felt valued. They went out and got jobs where they know tomorrow, they will still have a job and not be at the whim of politics, mandates and bureaucrats.
You destabilized the work environment here. Why would anyone want to get a job with FCPS not knowing if tomorrow they will be mandated out of a job because they refused the jab?
FCPS could have kept everyone on payroll when lock downs started, their wages were already in the budget. Instead because you thought they were expendable, you sent them home. You created the understaffed, uncomfortable work environment under which we are currently flailing.
Along with destabilizing the system, you’ve created a culture of “toxic positivity” a phrase I learned from a recently departed FCPS teacher. Employees are only allowed to talk about FCPS with smiles on their faces, using positive words. You’ve stifled debate that even allows to have conversations that could bring you solutions.
I listened to Liz Barrett say this meeting isn’t going to be for criticizing. Why not? NOT criticizing or being able to call out the problems is how we got here. You don’t want to have uncomfortable conversations. You’re soliciting more meaningless chatter.
The seven of you “don’t’ have any answers” because you’ve stifled any real debate on the reality of the problems facing FCPS. You are unwilling to take responsibility that perhaps your policies and ideas caused all of what we are witnessing.
You’ve admitted you can’t do the job you were elected to do. It’s time to resign and let others with answers and ideas take your seats. Our Schools need leadership. They need people and student focused ideas, not politicians making decisions based on political marching orders.
