{"id":401,"date":"2008-08-18T00:25:31","date_gmt":"2008-08-18T04:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/?p=401"},"modified":"2008-08-18T00:25:31","modified_gmt":"2008-08-18T04:25:31","slug":"arlington-schools-not-on-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/arlington-schools-not-on-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Arlington Schools Not On Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our schools are not on fire or radioactive.\u00c2\u00a0 They are not on a bus with a bomb that will go off if the bus slows down below 50mph.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, they are not even “in turmoil,” as much as the Globe would like you to think so<\/a>. Our superintendent resigned.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s it.\u00c2\u00a0 School Committee member Ron Spangler sent out an email today that called the Globe on their Chicken Little reporting: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”<\/p>\n

Ron continues on: “The overwhelming majority of the people we’ve hired to educate our children are doing just fine.\u00c2\u00a0 Their work in preparation for the school year is proceeding smoothly. . . . Principals and teachers are sending out their annual welcome back letters, same as always. The superintendent’s resignation will have no impact on our kids, or\u00c2\u00a0 their classrooms.”<\/p>\n

I still don’t even know why Nate Levenson quit.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve remarked before about how I admired his skill around the budget<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll miss him during budget season.\u00c2\u00a0 I wonder if my opinion of him will change when I find out what his “impropriety” was.<\/p>\n

As much as I liked him, he clearly pissed a lot of people off.\u00c2\u00a0 There weren’t a lot of people who were undecided about him.\u00c2\u00a0 He was loved and hated (in near-equal measures, looking at the last school committee election).\u00c2\u00a0 It’s unfortunate that there was such hardening of opinion.<\/p>\n

Ron again: “I think the only turmoil is in the places it can do the least harm. There’s turmoil among some elected officials.\u00c2\u00a0 (This is new?)\u00c2\u00a0 There’s turmoil on the Arlington List.\u00c2\u00a0 (Gasp!)\u00c2\u00a0 And there’s turmoil in the reporting of the local media, which sells papers and gets eyeballs on webpages, but doesn’t necessarily capture what is really going on.”<\/p>\n

The silver lining of his resignation is that it gives the town a fresh start.\u00c2\u00a0 It gives us a chance to let go of the conflict and abandon the battlements.\u00c2\u00a0 Hopefully the new superintendent can be picked in a refreshed environment – no hard feelings, just good skills and a good person.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our schools are not on fire or radioactive.\u00c2\u00a0 They are not on a bus with a bomb that will go off if the bus slows down below 50mph.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, they are not even “in turmoil,” as much as the Globe would like you to think so. Our superintendent resigned.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s it.\u00c2\u00a0 School Committee member […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arlington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}