I have repeatedly gone to the meetings about the Macon Miracle seeking answers but it is now clear to me that all any of us are allowed to do at this point is vent our frustrations. I have the same issues with the Miracle as many others but I want to implore the Board and Dr. Dallemand to answer for the runaway spending for which nobody appears to be accountable.
In a video that Mr. Dallemand commissioned, Macon was described as the fourteenth brokest city in the country. It is high time he started acting like it.
Members of the Board: A superintendent that YOU chose and YOU hired has apparently been given carte blanche to redecorate, travel, spend and entertain to promote a personal agenda. In true "let them eat lava cake" fashion, this administration is traveling and spending as if they are corporate jet setters while teachers are not allowed to attend professional conferences at their own expense due to the cost of substitutes! Parents and teachers (also known as tax payers and voters) are the ones trying to "do more with less" while the district is hemorrhaging money on extravagant travel upgrades, dining and entertaining. Aside from the monetary value of this style of "doing business", can you really afford the cost of morale of the ones who work with the children?
If you want to know what one values, just watch how they spend their money. As taxpayers, we want highly trained, motivated, passionate teachers, enough furniture and books for every child, 21st century technology that will open classroom walls to a world at their fingertips, and most of all, a safe environment where discipline is enforced.
However, what we are getting for our tax money is exorbitant spending at the highest level of leadership, flat screen monitors and working computers, ipads, iphones and the latest, greatest technology gadgetry for employees of 484 Mulberry and the Welcome Center. Neither of these facilities hosts a single child but you cannot deny that far too much of the limited resources that we have is siphoned away from the children to provide amenities for the infrastructure. Seriously? You need a ridiculously expensive conference table when there are multiple conference rooms already in the board office? Why not just rearrange the furniture you have? This district is full of classrooms with computers with floppy disk drives, broken computers, labs full of twentieth century technology and Windows 93 software. There are classrooms without adequate desks and tables but you cannot find conference rooms like that for the leadership team. Our children are served government food in the lunchroom while the dream team dines on shrimp and steak under the same roof. Our teachers are cutting paper towels in half, reducing the number of copies allowed, or repairing broken classroom furniture because there is no budget, instructional or otherwise. Their mantra is"we have to do more with less". Do the members of the leadership team conserve resources the same way? I suggest there is evidence that they do not.
There were numerous stacks of receipts submitted when citizens began to demand that Mr. Dallemand account where our money is going. It is unconscionable to travel, spend, redecorate, outfit, and entertain when it comes at a cost to the children; the ultimate reason that any of the leadership team or board members exist. I agree with the theme of the protesters; If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention!
