Transparency?     Not Hardly

It appears that little has changed at the Dixon Unified School District except the players. As good little liberals do, they redefine the meaning of words such as transparency while their actions prove the opposite. The hiring of a new superintendent could have been transformative but instead has shown how little the Board cares for actual community participation.

Before further castigation of the Board, particularly the President Julian Cuevas who seems to believe that the citizens of Dixon can’t distinguish his fabrications from reality, I need to explain my comment in the first paragraph in more detail because the former president and now vice president, David Bowen, has a problem with differentiation of subjects addressed.

What is actually transformative on its surface was the fact that the Board did indeed listen to my direction to pick someone outside of the incestuous politics and relationships within our community. Bravo on this. Simply looking at just this one issue of transformation belies the truth that the process itself was what truly lacked “public” input or transparency.

Hiding behind the closed doors of closed sessions and actually believing five brains are better than 50 is tantamount to proving the lack of faith in your own community’s ability to provide you with ideas which aren’t present in “the vacuum of your own minds”. Having four members of the public attend two community forums, which were poorly announced and demonstrably poorly attended, is my proof.

For Cuevas to continue repeating his mantra of “this was the most transparent process this district has ever seen” leads me to question his definition of transparency or the rot and corruption Dixon has experienced in selecting leaders over the years. We can’t see the questions asked of the candidates, we can’t confirm how wide the search was because the district refuses to provide even the names of the cities where the candidates reside or their names, and we don’t even know, beyond the “guidelines” put together by those embedded in the school system, what the individual board members wanted in qualifications for the new superintendent.

When asked for information, current superintendent Brian Dolan hides behind the amorphous response that he can’t “expose the deliberative process”. According to case law I have been quoted by my attorney, you have to explain how giving the names or locations of applicants or the questions asked would do this. Common sense says “what are you attempting to hide in your deliberative process”? Are your board members concerned someone might challenge their logic in the selection process?

Perhaps the biggest exposé of the system and the process was when former unelected school board member Caitlin O’Halloran spoke in favor of hiring Brett Barley because she knows him well and has worked with him. How much input did Caitlin have? Did she talk to board members outside of the process? This is the way things have always been done in Dixon and why we never see positive change.

Rather than being a Pollyanna, I await Barley’s arrival and to hear his plans for improving the school district’s performance. Note I said performance and not its appearance.

Also on the table at the last three board meetings is the facilities master plan update – $170 to $202 million in new funding to provide for “modernization and maintenance. For 200 additional students? The problem is the State and ongoing maintenance for the schools which seems to be left out of plans when building new schools.

What happens when you buy a new home and use all available resources to buy it? It just sits there and deteriorates until you get a second job or hit the lotto. This isn’t planning. In the case of school districts, it is kicking the can down the road hoping you can pass additional bonds to pay for improvements you didn’t tell the public would be coming in the future.

Perhaps the biggest problem here is “why do we continue to fund an educational system which fails to educate” as proven by test scores. Maybe if Barley takes care of this aspect, I won’t oppose new funding. Good luck …