what happened tonight: woodland district 50
March 16 - Here's What Happened...
The board voted to cut licensed staff. In the same meeting, they voted to spend $314,920 on a vendor training platform and another $59,886 on a vendor data management platform.
When a board member asked them to clearly state the goal of the program - they stumbled. When she asked how they would measure success - they said three to five years. When she asked who chose this vendor over others - they couldn’t answer. When she pointed out the hidden cost of substitutes needed every time teachers leave classrooms for training days - silence.
Nobody in that room tonight could tell you whose benchmarks these teachers are being measured against. The vendor’s. That’s whose.
Here’s what nobody will say out loud: the people hired to know curriculum don’t train teachers anymore. Their job has become purchasing the people who do. We pay outside companies to decide what our teachers learn, how they learn it, and whether they learned it well enough. And we don’t ask whether it’s working until the contract is already signed.
Teachers are leaving. Enrollment is dropping (that's the reason given for the teacher RIF). Less enrollment means less money. And as the money shrinks, the vendor contracts stay. That’s not a budget problem. That’s a priority problem - and it was decided for this district by the companies that sold them the system.
I filed a public records request tonight before the meeting was over. It is posted here.
Read it. Share it.
Update - March 17
One Person Showed Up. They Formed a Committee.
Last night at the Woodland District 50 board meeting, public comment was made challenging the district’s decision to cut licensed staff while continuing to approve vendor contracts that have never been required to prove they moved a single outcome for a child.
The room was filled with district employees and board members. There were very few community members present — possibly just one.
Today, the district announced the formation of a new committee. In their own words, it was formed based on suggestions made during public comment at a recent board meeting.
One person showed up. The district formed a committee.
This is how it works. Not because the system wanted to change — but because someone was in the room and on the record.
That is exactly what this platform exists to support. The people who keep saying that’s just how it is are counting on you staying home. They are counting on you believing that nothing you do matters. That is not how this country works. That is not how a democracy works.
But here is what we need to be clear about: a committee means nothing if it meets in private. It means nothing if the community cannot attend.
It means nothing if the meetings are not recorded, if the membership is not public, and if its conclusions go nowhere.
Before anyone calls this progress, these questions need answers:
Is this committee open to the public?
Will its meetings be recorded?
Who decides who sits on it?
What authority does it have?
And will the people who raised the questions in the first place have a seat at the table?
We will be asking.
disagreelearning.com — one parent.
Watch what happens when it becomes more.
