Renee's Requests and I-SS Responses

It seems there has recently been many requests for facts. All information in quotations are responses to requests for information. These requests were sent to Ms. Creason on August 26, 2009 and the information was supplied on September 14, 2009.

• Melanie Taylor's official new title: “ Associate Superintendent of Curriculum & Learning”

• Brenda Clark's official new title and new duties: “ Associate Superintendent of Learning; duties include management of 21st Century grant, managing the Closing the Gap task force, spearheading the effort to open a new career and technical education center, travel and speaking engagements required and paid for by BNQP, and other duties as assigned by the interim superintendent"

• A list of all retired personnel rehired and their salaries: “After speaking with both human resources and payroll; this record does not exist. An employee is not necessarily classified as a retiree in the computer system when they are rehired, so they are unable to be pulled as such. If you are interested in learning more about a particular employee, we can certainly pull that information.”

These are the facts. We are the taxpayers and citizens of Iredell County. These are our tax dollars and our children.

Renee Dulin

Mark Your Calendar

My wife, who is an I-SS teacher, received the following e-mail from Dawn Creason today.

Subject: Reception Honoring Dr. Terry Holliday

The board of education and the administration of Iredell-Statesville Schools will be hosting a drop-in reception honoring Dr. Terry Holliday on Monday, August 3 from 4:00 p.m. until 5:30 p.m. in ADR's staff development room #2. Please join us as we thank Dr. Holliday for his service to I-SS and wish him well as he begins this next chapter of his career. Kindly click either 'accept' or 'decline' above so that we might have an accurate head count.

Dawn Creason is the I-SS Director of Public Relations. I assume that all I-SS employees have been invited to the reception. My wife respectfully declined the invitation. I checked the I-SS web site and saw no mention of the reception so it looks like the general public is not invited.

One interesting note is that the I-SS Committee of the Whole meeting is scheduled to start at 5:00 p.m. on the same evening and Dr. Holliday has said that he will be at that meeting. I wonder what they plan to do about the half-hour overlap. The Committee of the Whole meeting is also in the ADR Education Center.

I do encourage all concerned citizens to attend the Committee of the Whole Meeting. This will probably be the last chance to see Dr. Holliday carry out the duties of superintendent. Then we can all go out and celebrate. But, seriously, I do think that we need a good turn out at this meeting and at the regular Board meeting. Remember that much of the real work of the Board is done at the Committee of the Whole meeting. If we want the Board members to consider our suggestions we have to show them that we are sincere in our convictions.