Urge School Board Not to extend Superintendent's contract

Is Bailey worth renewing his contract? - Oak Ridge, TN - The Oak Ridger Source: oakridger.com

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Citizens of Oak Ridge,

Let me stress that this is an important letter with issues that the public needs to be aware of, however, first off I need to say a couple things before getting into all of that…

Obviously over the past year and a half I have wrote more than one LTE and in many circumstances there have been certain individuals that have viewed my LTE’s as still grieving and lashing out so in response let me say this.

OF COURSE I am still grieving!!!! That will NEVER change and for those that have lost close loved ones they will understand. For those that have not, may you never have to understand or go through such a painful process!! It is unbearable at best some days and liveable on others when you know that you HAVE to carry on for those that you are still responsible for and love!

Furthermore, some have complained that my husband and I are assigning blame for the loss of our daughter by continuing to push for change in our schools. To that, I must respond that if we had truly wanted to place blame, we would have filed a lawsuit against Dr. Bailey and the school system. We did no such thing.
Now, on to what I REALLY wanted to say…
There is a SERIOUS problem with our administration today!!! If you have been reading all the articles and letters then you should be up to date on most items that concern our current superintendent at minimum.
If not maybe just a few facts will bring things to light for you…
Since 2002 when Superintendent Bailey came into office our National rankings for the school system have dropped significantly! At one point-( not under Bailey’s reign)- we were listed as one of the top 100 school districts, we are currently listed as 929 out of 1500. Wow, what a drop and a difference!! But wait, Bailey doesn’t think it merits an issue because according to him and his comments that have been published recently the current ranking is not accurate. Hate to break it to you but apparently when we were ranked in the top 100 is was considered accurate then because everyone took credit for it, so now that it has dropped so much NOW it is not accurate??? Sounds like someone doesn’t want any mud on their boots!!!
If it is positive credit is taken, if it is negative then the administrators deny it is accurate… anyone see a problem with this???
And that is just the beginning my fellow citizens. Look at everything else behind the scenes that has been pointed out about our current superintendent that was ranked 4.75 (HA) our of 5.0
There has been significant turnover in principals and teachers since his reign began. Not to mention that previously before he became our superintendent he bragged about all the principals and teachers he fired in his other school district.
He also was not suppose to get a raise last year when none of the school staff received a raise due to a shortfall in the budget but if you look Bailey did get a raise!! See a problem with that??
Not to mention that his next in command, Ken Green, doesn’t even have his kids enrolled in our school system… Makes you wonder why!!!
There are so many items that I could continue to mention but if you have kept up then you would already know. If you have not then I strongly suggest you look into everything!!

In closing, there is to be a vote on July 14th to extend Superintendent Bailey’s contract yet again. This does not even need to be voted on until 2011 because his current contract goes through 2012.
So I urge ALL of you to not only be at this meeting but also email all of the members of the school board to either vote against the extension or vote to postpone the vote on this. They have 2 more years before they have to vote so why rush it???
We need change but if no one speaks up then nothing gets changed!!!

submitted by Laurie Paine