"Safety is our #1 concern?"

Good evening, folks.  As I wrap up my campaign finances for the Superintendent primary, I was struck by an irony that would be quite funny if it did not involve our children's safety.  I could have entitled it, "A Funny Thing Happened to me on the way to the Election," but since it is not funny and it involved the second most spoken mantra by the Clay County School district, "Safety is our Number One Priority" (right behind "Clay County has Good Schools,"), I will stick with the mantra.

As you know with TS Fay approaching Tuesday morning, Duval County Schools announced at daybreak that after-school activities were cancelled, and that they would soon announce if school would be cancelled.  That decision was made before school ended, to include both Wednesday and Thursday.  In the meantime, the silence from Clay County School District was both deafening and defining, as they refused to communicate any information to the parents. Tuesday Evening, after only the second day of school, the district had also scheduled Open House at the high schools.  Parents flooded the phonelines, wanting information, so much so that we finally received an automated (and sounding particularly perturbed) call from a principal that stated the the open house was still on and school was still on and their number one priority is our children's safety.

As a teacher myself, I can tell you that many parents decided not to attend the open house for many reasons, including it being held too early before schedules had been solidified and concerns for the approaching weather.  Those whom did attend asked repeatedly that if the school district was so concerned with their child's safety, then why were they being required to attend school under a tropical storm watch and a tornado watch.  A higher than normal percentage chose to keep their children home today due to that fact.

After Fay began to stall late last night, it looked as though we had nothing to worry about until the lights went out in Green Cove schools this morning.  Between 10AM and 1:30PM, Green Cove kids sat in dark un-airconditioned rooms.  Our new expensive phone system was unable to operate without power, so one principal used a cell phone to call the county office, but they could not answer because their new phone system was without power also.  Emergency lights that were supposed to last 8 hours lasted only one and a half.  Parents found out via cell phones and began showing up to pick up children from the dark schools, and although the teachers did a great job teaching and entertaining and feeding our children, they should never had been put through this ordeal if proper risk assessment had been done by the leadership involved.  From my five years of teaching in this district, and with a 24 year background as a Naval officer, I would categorize this as a classic leadership failure and a communication failure through a flawed decision-making process concerning risk assessment.

I cannot attest to how it was done, however, I can tell you how it should have taken place.  First point is that proper communication is the key element when you are dealing with 100,000 parents and children.  Our new vaunted phone system failed during a simple power failure, so it is unacceptable that we must rely on it during a real emergency, like a fire or a tornado.  That is a failure to plan properly and a leadership failure to not have the right safety and communications equipment.  If the leader cannot communicate with anyone (I am assuming here that the district building on Walnut was without power or at least unable to be reached on the phone), he cannot perform his duties.  Backup power or land lines not needing power are imperative if we are really going to be safe.

Next, after assessing the situation, and seeing the uncertainty of the track, speed and intensity of the storm, one must ALWAYS err on the side of safety.  Trained Doctoral Meteorologists could not tell us the how, when and where's of the storm.  A leader should then check the risk models, and make the decision.  If the school district were truly concerned with children's safety, the decision was a no-brainer to cancel.  Something else may have weighed in, but I will not speculate because I was not there.  However, my call would have been (because to me, there is no sense in taking ANY risk associated with an unpredictable storm) to cancel early enough to give parents and students time to plan accordingly for transportation and child care.  Had the storm dissapated or turned away suddenly, I would have been guilty of being overcautious, a criticism I am willing to accept when dealing with our children's safety and security.

As an educator, I hold a Bachelors Degree in Oceanography and Meteorology, and a Master's in Strategic Planning.  As a former Navy pilot, I had to make  many risk assessment decisions to risk my life and the lives of my crew to accomplish a mission safely.  When science of meteorology becomes an art as it has done with Fay, a leader must decide if any risk is acceptable.  Had the storm intensified and accelerated, we would have had children at school today in unacceptable circumstances, and would have been unable to proactively communicate the emergency with our failed phone system.  While a leader cannot always predict the weather or power failures, he can always play it safe.  In my opinion, this was the only "safe" plan. 

This all goes back to leadership.  It is easy to Monday morning quarterback and second guess, so I have analyzed this as if I had been in charge and had been presented with the facts as they presented themselves.  But Clay County School District is guilty of what we used to call Paralysis by Overanalysis  - waiting too long to make a decision by hoping that time will provide the answer.  The bottom line many times is that the worst decision is not making a decision when the time comes.

I hope that parents and grandparents can see through this problem, and are willing to give some new blood a try at properly leading our school district.  Children's safety should always be paramount, whether it is a hurricane or a bully.  But you have to walk the talk and back up your words, or everyone will see right through the fasade, including the kids.  They are smarter than you think. 

V/R, Pat