Win-win?

In his recent guest articles published in both the Durham Herald-Sun and the News of Orange, Orange County Board of Education Chairman Ted Triebel referred to the plan he recently forced upon the county as a "win-win" based, in large part, on "the recommendation of the CES-HES Task Force."

Unfortunately, Ted failed to take into account that members of that Task Force might have a different view of their discussions.

The Board recently heard from just such a Task Force member. Here is the full text of a message sent to every Board member, as well as a significant number of the District's staff, in direct response to the "artistic license" Ted took in his guest articles:

Mr. Triebel,

I am astounded by your statement in the column you wrote for the Durham Herald (Sun Jan 6).

You stated: "For Hillsborough Elementary, our board accepted the recommendation of the CES-HES Task Force, presented to us on Nov. 19. The task force (comprised of parents, school officials, teachers, central office personnel and board members) recommended that we revise the application and selection procedure for students attending HES, in order to move it toward a more representative socio-economic proportionality of our schools."

Your statement is not a reflection of the time the task force was allowed. There were NO official recommendations from the CES-HES Task Force. We were only allowed to meet twice and at the 2nd meeting was a brainstorming activity at which you were present. NO formal recommendations came out of this meeting and Ms. Morton presented them as initial conversations from brainstorming and progress made thus far by the Task Force.

Please review the minutes from the Nov 19th Board meeting:
07-11-(2)-07 Central / Hillsborough Elementary Task Force Report – Dr. Denise Morton, Associate Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, presented a preliminary report from the task force recognizing members of the task force who were present. The initial two meetings were devoted to questions, discussion and looking at data concluding with a brainstorming session. An analysis of the input was conducted to determine the top three brainstorming ideas. The consensus thoughts that emerged were
{: the idea of investigating Central Elementary as a magnet school and the application and selection procedure for Hillsborough Elementary to be revised. Merger of the two elementary schools is not supported by the task force.
Chairman Triebel indicated that since the two Board member representatives on the task force were not present at the Board meeting tonight due to family emergencies, the next discussion and action to be taken by the Board will be at the December 3, 2007 meeting.

It is irresponsible of you to assign this recommendation as coming from the Task Force. The Task Force was not even allowed to meet long enough to come up with a majority approved idea. We were not even allowed time to debate ideas the came out of BRAINSTORMING! Changing the application and selection procedure for HES was one idea that came out of brainstorming but the Task Force was not even given time to flesh this idea out with specifics of what should or could change about the process.

You misled the public in the media and I believe you need to fix it. I'm appalled by your presumptuousness. The Board needs to take responsibility for their actions and plans. At no point should this plan be associated with the Task Force. There were NO recommendations from the CES-HES Task Force.

CES-HES Task Force Member