To celebrate National Professional Social Work Month this month, a large metropolitan hospital showed its 
appreciation for its overworked social workers by inviting them to participate in a blood drive organized in their honor.
Rather than treating them to lunch or even a cake, one social worker noted, the hospital “asked us to give our own blood.”
Let’s not give any ideas to the ardent parents out for blood who this past week demanded a recall election for the chair of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board and two other school board members because the parents disagreed with the way the three voted on an issue.
The school system’s administration had proposed transitioning Glenwood Elementary School to a Mandarin dual-language magnet school. Leading up to the vote last fall, board members Pat Heinrich, whose daughter attends the Mandarin program, and James Barrett advised parents supporting the transition how to be effective in their lobbying efforts. Parents supporting the traditional track cried foul. Though the two were cleared of any ethics violations, tensions remained on the board and among some parents.
At a school board work session in January, Samuels did not call for a vote to support a transparency proposition. The board traditionally votes only at formal meetings.
Samuels, Barrett and Heinrich comprised three of the four votes in favor of the MDL program when it was approved 4-3 in September.
In her resignation letter, Samuels called the accusations “baseless and without foundation,” and said she was stepping down because she had “no desire to be a part of anything that takes the focus away from our students.”
The recall referendum, should the petition get signatures of 10% of registered voters in the district, within 30 days, seems vindictive, given that all three board members are up for re-election in the fall. Barrett had previously announced he would not run again in order to pursue the state superintendent seat. A yes-or-no referendum would cost taxpayers a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Such burn-at-the stake political tactics common at the national level since Donald Trump ran for office have trickled down to the local level, and they are no less noisome here. This could have a chilling effect on good people willing to commit to public service.
The hours are long, and the pay is low for those who hold local elected office. Taking a principled stance against sacred cows invites vicious tweets, whisper campaigns and character assassinations. Last week, angry parents paid for recall campaign signs and placed them along public roads, until they learned of the fines for putting a campaign sign in the public right-of-way earlier than 30 days before early voting opens.
Local politics has reached a new low. The whole recall initiative reeks of white privilege and lacks class. If you would like to put an end to this misguided effort, sign the online petition at: https://www.stopchccsrecall.com/.
Stop the bloodletting.
— Nancy Oates
bart
/ March 12, 2019I have been in and out of Glenwood for years. I know teachers there and have had children attend the school. This action is not politically motivated or vindictive. It is a response to what seems to be callous disregard for what most people want in their school.
Glenwood is overcrowded because we keep building apartments in its attendance zone and it is the smallest school in the district. Expanding the Mandarin program artificially fixes that and redistributes traditional program students across the district by busing them to schools farther away.
THe issues around the MDL program are of long standing, with some relating to hiring and retention and others to equity. At every opportunity to re-evaluate the program and do a proper cost/benefit analysis to students and the district, the board has chosen to increase the program at the expense of everyone else.
The central office years ago did a study of the program that found it was not cost effective and very difficult to manage, recommending it be curtailed or stopped.
The MDL program is not like the Spanish DL program. That program makes more sense all around.
Here are some files from a public meeting held in 2013 that focused on the issues that have come out again in this recall.
https://sites.google.com/a/chccs.k12.nc.us/chapel-hill-carrboro-city-schools/academics/academic-programs/dual-language/dual-language-reports-archive
The most interesting files are the long feedback files from community members, schools, and parents from 2013 and 2014. One of the main complaints was that the achievement gap should be more thoroughly addressed than a program serving very few.
The continued growth of this program and the tin ear of the board on this issue meant the recall was all but inevitable.
Here is only one op-ed on the issue.
https://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/article221724830.html
Because Mandarin is a difficult language to learn, children cannot enter the program after 1st grade. Class sizes need to be capped and there isn’t enough room for all the English language speakers who wish to participate. Traditional classes at Glenwood have been larger than DL classes for years.
I went to a celebration at Glenwood years ago where parents were promised an “extra treat” at the end of an Easter sing-along by Kindergartners. What was that treat? Getting to hear MDL students sing in Mandarin while the traditional students sat down on the floor and wondered why the “treat” for their parents didn’t involve them.
The board and the board chair aren’t listening to a huge number of people who want the program re-designed or ended. Samuels said as much in her letter. She wants to label them as a mob. Her response IS the reason this recall exists.
bart
/ March 12, 2019I have been in and out of Glenwood for years. I know teachers there and have had children attend the school. This action is not politically motivated or vindictive. It is a response to what seems to be callous disregard for what most people want in their school.
Glenwood is overcrowded because we keep building apartments in its attendance zone and it is the smallest school in the district. Expanding the Mandarin program artificially fixes that and redistributes traditional program students across the district by busing them to schools farther away.
THe issues around the MDL program are of long standing, with some relating to hiring and retention and others to equity. At every opportunity to re-evaluate the program and do a proper cost/benefit analysis to students and the district, the board has chosen to increase the program at the expense of everyone else.
The central office years ago did a study of the program that found it was not cost effective and very difficult to manage, recommending it be curtailed or stopped.
The MDL program is not like the Spanish DL program. That program makes more sense all around.
Here are some files from a public meeting held in 2013 that focused on the issues that have come out again in this recall.
https://sites.google.com/a/chccs.k12.nc.us/chapel-hill-carrboro-city-schools/academics/academic-programs/dual-language/dual-language-reports-archive
The most interesting files are the long feedback files from community members, schools, and parents from 2013 and 2014. One of the main complaints was that the achievement gap should be more thoroughly addressed than a program serving very few.
The continued growth of this program and the tin ear of the board on this issue meant the recall was all but inevitable.
Here is only one op-ed on the issue.
https://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/article221724830.html
Because Mandarin is a difficult language to learn, children cannot enter the program after 1st grade. Class sizes need to be capped and there isn’t enough room for all the English language speakers who wish to participate. Traditional classes at Glenwood have been larger than DL classes for years.
I went to a celebration at Glenwood years ago where parents were promised an “extra treat” at the end of an Easter sing-along by Kindergartners. What was that treat? Getting to hear MDL students sing in Mandarin while the traditional students sat down on the floor and wondered why the “treat” for their parents didn’t involve them. This story is not important in itself, it merely reflects what traditional students, parents and many in the wider community have experienced.
The board and the board chair aren’t listening to a huge number of people who want the program re-designed or ended. Samuels said as much in her letter. She wants to label them as a mob. Her response IS the reason this recall exists.
Bob
/ March 12, 2019There is a lot to digest in Bart’s comment.
First I would I would be hesitant that he speaks for “most” people.
Second, the Recall organizers, Riza Redd/Katherine Kollins/Ron DiFelice/John Driggers, are publicly stating the recall effort has nothing to do with MDL. Yet, here we have Bart saying it has everything to do with MDL. Which we know to be true. Even though the organizers have tried to gloss over the fact they have been vocal MDL opponents in the past, it’s easy to see that they are targeting those on the board who voted in a way they did not like. If anyone truly believes that Margaret Samuels did anything “wrong” other than vote in favor of the MDL expansion you might want to reassess your critical thinking skills.
The MDL program has been under attack for years. This is just another attack of opportunity born of the baseless freedom of information request that was initiated immediately after the vote for MDL expansion took place. They searched for anything they could label as “unethical” and unleashed their PR and legal campaign. It is just another in a string of biased attacks against the program. However, it’s more viscous and subversive than what we have seen in the past. It’s truly a case where if these people scream loud enough that the program is elitist, then it is. If they repeatedly say it is more costly and sucking funds from the school system, then it is. If they yell that MDL families want a segregated school, then they must. If they blame it as the reason for why the entire distract has an achievement gap issue, then it must be so.
The Op-Ed was penned by a person that called out a board member’s child in a publicly held meeting. Instead of apologizing for doing so, he just asked to make sure he got his allotted time after being told of the policy he was violating. His wife has also been calling for the elimination of the program and has been causing division and strife inside the school. Instead of using her expertise to make suggestions to improve the program she has chosen to inflame tensions in the school and ask for her fellow teachers and students to loose their program.
You can see on the Chapel Hill Neighborhood Schools website they too also list that their forming is a direct result of the Mandarin expansion vote. Members of this group are also part of the recall effort.
It really is a shame that some parents have resorted to using this tactic and are dragging the whole community down with them. In Chapel Hill we should be so much better than this. When parents prioritize their own interests over the interests of the district’s children we have serious issues to overcome.
Liz Brandt
/ March 12, 2019In response to the comment from ‘bart’: “The continued growth of this program and the tin ear of the board on this issue meant the recall was all but inevitable.”
Excuse me, but recalling fairly elected board members who have been found to have committed no violations just because you really, really, really disagree with their duly considered decisions – this is not how democracy works. This is how a few well-connected and powerful people are proposing the use of our tax dollars to fund a recall with the intent to smear and bully and punish anyone who stands in the way of their selfish agenda.
Can’t it just wait until November?
Glenwood Gator
/ March 14, 2019Nancy,
While I agree that the Board Recall Campaign is negative, short-sighted, and possibly self-defeating, there is some key information not included in this post that may provide a fuller understanding of the history of this issue and why some people are compelled to this level of action:
• Since Glenwood Elementary is the smallest school in the District, neighborhoods in the attendance zone are constantly under the threat of re-zoning to keep the school enrollment socio-economically balanced and within the school’s attendance capacity. In the last five to six years there have been two or three re-zonings under consideration.
• A few years ago the Mandarin Immersion program underwent a full review by CHCCS Staff and the Board. The Staff recommended that the Mandarin Immersion program be phased-out for a variety of reasons, however I believe a couple of the major reasons were cost & equity (those resources could be better used spread around the whole District). Most of the senior staff that worked on this recommendation are no longer with the District. The Board instead chose to expand the program. I’ve never seen a Staff prepared presentation explaining how expanding the Mandarin Immersion program benefits the District as a whole or anyone not in the Mandarin Immersion program.
• After the Board voted to expand the Mandarin Immersion program, the Staff worked on a set of recommendations that lead to the recent recommendation to make Glenwood a Mandarin Immersion magnet school. This recommendation only came about from Staff because it’s earlier recommendation to phase out the Mandarin Immersion program was taken off the table by the Board. To have a viable Mandarin Immersion program it seems that it needs to get bigger (to offset student attrition in later grades) and Glenwood Elementary doesn’t have the capacity for both a bigger Mandarin Immersion program and traditional programs.
• The vote to make Glenwood Elementary School a Mandarin Immersion program only school last year happened at the very last minute with minimal notice. This was after repeated written communications from the District that they were studying the issue and no decisions were imminent. In fact the communication parents received right before the vote was that enrollments in the Glenwood zone were down so that the threat of re-zoning was off the table. Also, funny enough, I’d been receiving detailed communications on the Mandarin Immersion study for over a year from the District and the School, but received nothing immediately before or after the vote. If it wasn’t for other parents and the local news, I wouldn’t have even known about it.
• The vote to make Glenwood Elementary School a Mandarin Immersion program only passed 4-3. One of the Board members voting in favor (theoretically the deciding vote) has a child in the Mandarin Immersion program. That sure seems like a conflict of interest that should have led to abstention from the vote.
Few people, if any, know the full history of the Mandarin Immersion program, and most with more knowledge than the average Chapel Hill/Carrboro resident tend to be people with vested interests in seeing the program continue (or not continue), therefore it is very hard to get a knowledgeable and unbiased perspective on this issue.
Clearly, there is not consensus right now on what’s the right answer regarding the continuation of the Mandarin Immersion program or the siting of the program at Glenwood Elementary School.
I hope that everyone involved in this discussion will be thoughtful of others perspectives and interests and that the CHCCS School Board and Administration eventually proceed in the interests of the District as whole after careful and unbiased consideration. All of the current infighting and self-serving actions will only serve to erode the overall quality of the District for everyone.
Terri Buckner
/ March 15, 2019Thank you Bob for such a clear and cogent explanation of what’s going on. I hope you will submit your comments to the N&O so that more people can read them.
fyi
/ March 25, 2019For more background about the dishonest claims and harmful effects of the recall effort, please see https://stopCHCCSrecall.com
For more information about the Mandarin Dual Language program at Glenwood Elementary, please see https://chccsmdl.com