Report of the Meeting with Mr. Johnson

The meeting with Mr. Brady Johnson went very well. It was well attended both by teachers and citizens. Mr. John Rogers, School Board Member, and Mr. Larry Rogers, SHS Principal, were also in attendance.

The meeting started with Mr. Johnson telling everyone a little bit about his background in education as a teacher and as an administrator. He then went on to tell about the start of school and his goals as interim superintendent. As part of that he related some of the achievements of the school system such as the ABC scores, the schools that met AYP, and SAT scores. Mr. Johnson also told how the I-SS scores related to other schools in the state. Overall, I-SS is doing well. For example, with respect to the SAT scores, I-SS ranks 12^th in the state.

Mr. Johnson also talked of the principal’s focus group that was held last spring and that the three main issues brought forth from that session were inconsistent communications within the school system, the IFs were not evaluated by the principals, and that the Central Office did not value the input of the principals. To address those and other issues, Mr. Johnson said he asked the principals to meet and evaluate a number of school processes. He said that one of the processes that principals recommended fixing was the role of the IFs. Mr. Johnson then related some of the changes he put in place to do that such as having the IFs report to the principals and that the IFs will now be away from their schools only a half-day a week for ‘training’ instead of one full day a week.

Of course, Mr. Johnson also spoke of the Baldrige plan and that he saw the Baldrige system as one that aligns everyone in an organization so that everyone is working together toward a common goal. He also added that in the past the application of the Baldrige plan has been somewhat heavy handed at that there were plans in place to take some of the pressure off teachers. Speaking of teachers, Mr. Johnson said that he sees teachers as partners and that every other employee at a school should be working to support the teachers.

In addition, Mr. Johnson described the tentative plans for the search for the new superintendent. He said the process would start Tuesday at the I-SS Committee of the Whole Meeting when a representative of the NC School Boards Association will inform the I-SS Board of their obligations regarding the search procedure. Mr. Johnson added that there would be advisory meetings held at each High School during which the public will have input as to what qualities to look for in the new superintendent. There will also be student advisory meetings and staff advisory meetings. Mr. Johnson also said that there would probably be some type of electronic survey. He said that he expected that applications would have to be in by December or January and that interviews would probably start in February with the final selection to be in March or April.

Following this was the question and answer period. There were a number of good questions and, although I am sure that not everyone was completely satisfied with all the answers, I do think it would be fair to say that Mr. Johnson took the time to sincerely answer each question. Someone asked why the principals were surveyed but the teachers were not. Mr. Johnson stated that he expected the principals to know their teachers and thus to speak for them. There were questions and comments about Baldrige and the role of the IFs. Mr. Johnson again said that changes were being made and that he met with the principals and the IFs together and that he would be meeting with just the IFs to clarify his perspective of their role in the schools. I asked how he was making it known that he saw teachers as partners and that other school employees were working for the teachers. Mr. Johnson said that he had visited some 14 schools and that he was trying to get to the others soon and that he was trying to meet with many individuals at each school. He said that he would like to meet with everyone at their staff meetings but that staff meetings were on Tuesdays and that it would take over 30 weeks to get to every school. Someone then suggested that if he did go to staff meetings that he should take time to meet with just the teachers so that they could speak freely.

There were questions and comments about the EC program and IEPs. As well there were some questions and comments about the continued fear of teachers to speak out. There were also some questions of Mr. John Rogers who at one point commented that in the past the Board would instruct Dr. Holliday to do certain things and that he would often turn around and do something else. That, of course, led to some other questions and comments.

In conclusion everyone seemed to be very appreciative of Mr. Johnson for taking the time to meet with the group and several individuals spoke highly of their interactions with Mr. Johnson in the past. I know that this is not a complete description of the meeting. I did not take copious notes but I did try to cover a lot of what was said. Perhaps others who were at the meeting could leave a comment and fill in the gaps in my narrative or correct me if I did not relate things correctly. I know that Janey Munday gave her impression of the meeting in a comment to a previous post.