Who let the dogs out?

To be specific, my wife let her little dog of 50 years out with a very short leash and held up a rolled-up newspaper as if to whack my backside if I didn’t behave. She put a muzzle on me until the latest GCDSD levy passed and took it off only for kibbles and bits. I’ve been a good boy so I didn’t have to sleep in the dog house. She’ll tell you my bark is much worse than my bite.

As a longtime community member and taxpayer, no one has been a bigger fan and loved our local school district more than me until the upper brass and their hired hand continually made and continue to make isolated reactive management decisions. They continue to lose trust and credibility because they accept no responsibility for their poor repetitive actions.

Here are just a few past examples of “leaps of abstraction” evidence. They said they were “broke” and their election requests were not excessive (even though we were living in a pandemic with crippling inflation), their Impact Aid funds are not significant, the state and federal government are not sufficiently supporting them, large numbers of staff and students leaving are not issues (all who talked with me were not given a survey and there are over a dozen job openings presently, they laid off drivers and now need them). They said public records requests are fraud, I could go on and on but all of these things are not correct. Also, they could be saving money to help the kids because they are overstaffed at the administrative and district office levels. The hired hand should be setting the example and taking on more responsibility, but remember he wanted to work less and get paid more per day. They only selectively respond to certain things.

Since the start of this current school year, they continue to show more evidence of dysfunctional patterns. Prepping for the start of this school year a staff member was hurt and had to go to the hospital. The Board’s hired hand never checked in on this staff member at the time. I’ve talked about people being treated poorly and favoritism prior and if you’re not a faithful minion you’re not worthy.

All of these important items were tabled by the school board: The secondary principal and athletic director brought a request to the school board from the students to raise grading standards for our athletes; later a request was made to use a weighted system for classes, and there has also been a request from students for additional higher-level classes. The hired hand verified the GCDSD only has one of these classes now, and the board chair said it is a supply-and-demand issue. Both responses are totally unacceptable. The powers that be continue to level down options for kids. Not all students want Running Start.

Recently, the GCDSD decided to support a lawsuit against Washington state due to improper funding issues. As a person and a taxpayer, this is unbelievable. This shows no class or maturity. Along with millions of dollars in support with the McCleary Decision, our state asked all school districts to live within their means at $1.50 per $1,000 assessed property values for levy requests, but the GCDSD ignored that. The state and federal government supported the GCDSD during COVID with an extra million per year and made our core systems whole. I’m ashamed that a simple thanks was never given. So even with all of this additional support and Impact Aid the GCDSD joins a lawsuit against our state. Our local school district is not our state or nation’s only priority and people wonder why nationally we’ve surpassed the debt limit.

The hired hand says, “Now we’re going to roll up our sleeves.” This should have been done long ago when they started spending our contributions and other fiscal resources inefficiently and excessively in ways that are irresponsible and don’t help kids.

The sad bottom line with all this is the GCDSD upper brass deny and ignore valid significant evidence. They operate in a vacuum and do as they wish. They are not in touch with current reality, do not know how to prioritize and find progressive solutions based on actual funds they have to work with. Complex successful organizational beliefs such as sound human dynamics and fiscal stability require expertise, a creative growth mindset and genuine servant leadership – not the reactive management style they practice overall.

They have staff that have recently shared with me that the culture is extremely negative and they don’t enjoy working for the organization, but they don’t feel comfortable speaking up and if they do it is treated as a waste of time.

There are many obvious reasons beyond fiscal and plenty of valid evidence as to why the GCDSD’s most recent levy request barely passed.

I’ll sign off for now before Scott swats me with a newspaper. He has a few extra. I will keep fighting for the best for our kids.

Thanks for listening,

John M. Adkins