The Iowa Department of Education issued a disappointing accreditation report to the Des Moines school district. The State found unlicensed teachers in the classroom, an inappropriate use of dedicated state funds, high school seniors attending school for fewer days than required, and credit being given for classes in violation of state law. Even worse, when the State notified school officials about these violations and prescribed a timeline to correct some of the most egregious of them, the District refused to take action.
If you think the Des Moines School Board is outraged and pressing for immediate action, you are sadly mistaken. The sound you hear is school board members trying to change the subject. 
The Des Moines School Board continues to abdicate nearly all of its oversight responsibility opting to blindly trust school administrators to run our public schools as they wish.
Not only did Superintendent Nancy Sebring fail to provide a copy of the accreditation report to the school board, but even after the troubling findings were reported in this paper, not a single school board member thought there was a need to read it himself. And, according to today’s Des Moines Register story, the District has submitted a corrective action plan to the State without school board review or input.
So, class, let’s review. The District received the report, ignored the parts district officials did not like and submitted a plan to fix the other problems all without a discussion with the School Board or one involving the public.
However, lack of knowledge about the report and the District response to it did not stop one school board member from saying, “I believe the school district is addressing each and every one of these issues.”
Wow. If the school board does not know what the report says, let alone what district officials are doing about the violations it contains; how in the world can a school board member believe the correct actions are being taken?
The overwhelming silence from the school board and its lack of interest in this serious matter makes one wonder what it would take to get this board’s attention.
If school board members cannot be bothered to read official reports, it is impossible to imagine they will ever take the initiative to dig into problems on their own in an effort to represent those they were elected to serve.
This school board’s disinterest in wading into any controversy, setting policy and overseeing the actions of the administration has rendered the Des Moines School Board an impotent body.
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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.
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