Wardynski Finally Meets With Mt. Gap Parents

Two days shy of six months ago, Dr. Wardynski promised that he would meet with parents and the community to discuss the merger of Mt. Gap Elementary and Mt. Gap Middle Schools into one P-8 school. At the September 15th board meeting, he said:

We’re going to go down and have a discussion with the community, the PTAs and the principals and make sure that that concept fits with what the community would like to see. And then once we’ve got that, John’s already working on some concept drawings, come back to the board with a discussion about how that would unfold for board approval.

On November 3rd, without having a discussion with the community, without making sure that the concept fits with “what the community would like to see,” without meeting with parents at all, Dr. Wardynski brought a recommendation to the board to approve the merger of Mt. Gap Elementary and Middle into one P-8 school.

Tonight, four months and ten days after the decision has been made, Dr. Wardynski has finally agreed to meet with parents of MGES, MGMS, and Whitesburg Elementary to discuss with them the decision that he has already started implementing.

Again, not once has he discussed this “with the community” to see if it is a “concept that fits with what the community would like to see.”

Tonight, in a highly controlled, one-hour meeting where all questions from the public are required to be submitted in writing before the meeting begins, Dr. Wardynski is finally consenting to meet with the parents of these high-performing schools to explain why merger is necessary.

I’m not expecting much of an explanation.

It will likely be something like, “We have to merge the schools because the state is pushing to close them.”

Really? Who, exactly, at the state level is pushing Huntsville City Schools to close Mt. Gap Elementary and Middle Schools? What’s the person’s name? Why aren’t they making this claim/request publicly so that we can ask questions of that person?

In short, this argument is just another form of “the boggy man is going to get you.”

There will be no evidence offered that the State is pushing to close the schools. None, whatsoever.

This is simply another play taken out of the Broad Virus playbook that Dr. Wardynski has been following since he arrived on July 5th.

He wants to merge the schools because it will make them easier to control.

And then, a year from now, when test scores have fallen as a result of the disruption that he has caused, he will use that as evidence that public education has failed and needs to be replaced with Charter schools.

But we should be happy and respectful tonight that he’s willing to offer us even an hour of his time to meet with those lowly parents, who just don’t understand education.

The meeting will begin at 6:00pm and end promptly at 7:00pm. I will be live tweeting the meeting and video recording it. It will be important to preserve this moment for the future.