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McFarland Unified School District board exposed!
Topics: McFarland, Bakersfield, Bakotopia, Bakotopia.com, music, politics, MUSD, Jagels, fraud, students, report, NL, Podcast, blog, Korn, Buck, Owens, Bakotunes, entertainment
Posted by thenovelist Mon Feb 12, 2007 11:59:12 PST
Viewed 663 times
0 responses 8 comments Location: 259 Sherwood Ave., McFarland, CA 93250

What’s going on in education in Kern County’s outlying farming towns? I’ve always wondered if the lands just north of Bakersfield were as ruthless as I’ve heard in the past when it comes to underhanded educational leadership. Thanks to reader, Gustavo, I’ve been able to take a look at the just released February 2007 Management Study from the McFarland Unified School District. And let me tell you, the District Overview makes McFarland’s school board out to be a group of untrained ruthless educational leaders with a vengeful spirit, loose pockets and inability to elect a leader. Apparently, they can’t even run meetings very well. The question is, does the McFarland debacle represent more of the outlying farming communities? Are they going to be studied too?

Is there a relationship between how the McFarland school system is being run with what I heard Delano college students once indicate as problems in the past with farm labor structure? Underhanded dealings and employment favors? Talk about interesting classroom discussions. I have no way to prove if such rural area labor structuring methods have anything to do with the McFarland board. Could be mutually exclusive. The real question is if the McFarland study is an isolated case in the outlying Kern County school system.

So what does this 37-page document say?

No real leadership for one with Superintendents coming in and out, and citing, “Board relations have been fueled by recall attempts, threatened firings of employees and contentious board elections.” As a result, many employees were cautious with the team doing the investigating, fearing their own jobs were at stake. Each staff member interviewed recalled retaliatory measures taken by the board against employees. And they indicated such actions were still occurring. In fact, check this out:

A common perception of staff and board members is that some board members often try to act in place of credentialed administrators, particularly in regard to personnel issues.

(Read the full article and leave a comment)
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N.L. Belardes is an author and blogger. Read his Noveltown blog Paperback Writer

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Comment From: matt

5 question marks this time! An all-time low count for NL, but I still have to check your blog!! I'm still thinking about when I should cut myself off from being known as a native son of McFarland. There's so much more to this story, it makes my bowels harden... Comment From: twinkie

N.L. is good at getting the discussion going with the right questions, then letting us the readers do the damage. he. Comment From: thenovelist

How do you like that creepy photo I found? reminds me of a photo Sam Heath might put up... Comment From: twinkie

What creepy photo? I thought that was a picture of you next to a McFarland sign. It's not? hahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Comment From: matt

He was pre-Phantasm, Phantasm! Comment From: matt

Many of the McFarland student protests were pretty brave; However, many of the students were uninformed, and didn't bother to attend public school board meetings to hear the details behind the board's decisions. The information was there for everyone to read!! I don't blame the kids, they did what they felt was right. Many of them probably liked their teacher better than their own parents, and wanted to back them up no matter what they did. I do blame the other staff members who cheered them on during that time. It's almost as if the staff was like, "Oh shit! We'd better convince these kids to be on our side, so we don't get busted! We don't wanna get fired for being crappy teachers and counselors!" The immediate administration also needs to take the mochos out of their eyes and see how badly the school is doing. A lot of the school's money continues to be heavily wasted on fraudulent recalls, staff members on too much expensive stress leave, innapropriate behavior between administrators, and teachers trying to be "buddies" with the students instead of doing their job, which is to teach and guide young minds. I got to hand it to our buddy Ed Jagels though.. At least he blew the whistle on the recent MHS fraudelent recall. Grow up MYFA! Comment From: DUDLEYDORIGHT

Hey Buddy this saga is far from over.Have you seen what our ruthless leaders are up to now. They're seasoned administrators and staff are disappearing and being replaced with a bunch of puppets. I wonder what's at the end of that string. I wonder if our gang unit is going to sweep the district when they are done with our youth!!!!!!!!! Comment From: tekwiz

Well, well, well...this is certainly not any kind of new news to us MYFA types. This kind of crap has been going on since Matt, Twinkie, and I were there. (Let's just say a long time) But, the difference is that it is a lot more blatant now than back then. The nepotism and cronyism is just mindboggling. But, it will go on and on until heads start rolling or a majority of the board straightens out, which I don't see happening anytime soon. I'm like Matt, almost wants me to not claim I'm from MYFA anymore.