School Superintendent Dr. Terry Grier's position before coming to Guilford County was as Williamson County, TN's first appointed superintendent.  The Williamson County Review Appeal has been following their county's old hire and today filed a story about Grier and what's going on between him and his arch-nemisis - ABC of Guilford County. Read the whole thing. (Link via ABC's Yahoo forum)

The story gives us some echoes of what occured in Williamson Co and and how it relates to what is going on locally with Dr. Grier's detractors....

 ... Charlene Kimmel, (with) a watchdog group formed when Grier eliminated pre-first and began the prekindergarten program here, isn’t surprised...   “Everything Dr. Grier did and stood for wasn’t wrong (in Williamson County),” she said. “But there are ways that he either carries himself or deals with people that arouses concern. I’m sorry he finds himself in this situation. He is an enigma.”

The article also provides some of Guilford County's educational strides and other accomplishments that have occured during Grier's tenure...

"Since taking the position ... Grier increased student achievement and decreased the dropout rate districtwide by creating award-winning alternative learning environments and was named Superintendent of the Year of the Piedmont Triad Consortium of North Carolina....

... This year — in a system with a 54 percent minority population — of the 107 schools, four elementary schools were targeted and one middle school was labeled low-performing under No Child Left Behind.

The article mentions a couple of times how that Guilford's ABC parent activist group has been in contact with a similar activist group in Williamson County for quite a while.  According to the article, "She’s (Kimmel) been in contact with members of the Guilford County bunch for two years."

My understanding is that ABC of Guilford County was formed in January of this year.  Tim Mann?... comment?

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I ran into GGO reporter Sam Hieb this morning on Elm Street.  Sam was doing his Tuesday morning paper route.

I asked him what he wrote about for today's edition and he stated the obvious, "School Board...".  After getting home and reading his article, I truly wish I had taken the time to atend last week's meeting - or watch a replay - and I would have, except for that most cerebral of Olympic events - Woman's Beach Volleyball.

Although the GGO is still not online (c'mon Ogi, pull the trigger) I still had to comment on the article.

It states that during the tongue lashing that was served up by disgruntled parents of children who got roughed up by the magnet hub busing system, the school board and Dr. Grier stood by and took it.  When the crowd in attendance erupted in "wild applause" after it was suggested that Dr. Grier should be fired over the screw-up, he was finally able to apologize to the Board and those in attendance after things quieted down according to the GGO:

"We're sorry for the worry and inconvenience we've caused.  We assume the responsibility for what has occured"

After Dr. Grier apologized there apparently was no reciprocal outrage of the system's failings from members of the school board - except for one.

Hieb writes, "... it was (Kris) Cooke who asked the really hard questions..." then he goes on to expound on what the hard questions were, and she had plenty of them.

The school board needs to know that parents are watching very closely how this school bus thing gets resolved.  As I wrote last week, if the schools were truly being run like a business some heads would roll as an overt sign to us, the customers, that accountability must be demonstrated.

I don't necessarily think that rolling head should be Dr. Grier's because it is known that he rightfully delegates such matters as transportation to trusted underlings, but someone - or perhaps more than one person - on the GCS payroll did not do their job.  If a front-line teacher or a school principal had screwed up in such a way, I have little doubt that they would have been ousted from their position in short order - why the double standard?

The failing of the hub system has caused a further erosion in the public's confidence in the Guilfor County school system at a time when they can least afford it.

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