Pat Gannon is probably correct about the blame game. Yes the SB and the Superntendant provide the infrastructure elements , they don’t teach everyday. The SB has little direct student contact with respect to education….for me the SB really doesn’t deserve credit or blame here. Dr Underwood has credit coming her way for sure. As far as I can tell the issues with the SB have little to do with how things go on daily in the classroom…they deal at the 30,000ft level.It is the strategic issues that remain a concern in the county as far as the school system is concerned, especially as their funding continues to dwidle in this horrible economy. The real game is how does the SB and Dr Underwood deal with further erosion in funding and a poor relationship with the BOS>

I can only imagine the outcry if the schools had not all passed and performed as well as they did. 

Nobody is willing to give credit.  Underwood would have gotten all the blame if they hadn’t passed.  This blog would be slammed with comments berating her if they hadn’t passed. 

Funny that the ones who are always so vocal are so quiet.  Is there a technical problem with the blog?  LOL

BWilcox is correct…in fact 96% of of schools in Va passed. who gets the credit is another issue. If one goes into the schools and sees the dedication of the teachers, one can get a better perspective of where credit belongs…it is the doers on the front lines of education , that in spite of all the travails, economic and political, they still manage to add value to the system. The election should determine where the citizens place value added to the system..

lost in rhetoric makes some valid points. which is exactly why we need to hear from candidates in a forum that will allow some degree of information transfer to the citizens. we also need to see and hear what experience the candidate has (serving for decades is not a suffecient acceptance criteria), their level of appropriate county participation. Rather than to simply use rhetorical responses about dirt and brooms..give us details, results….sometimes in the presence of poor results knowing where the dirt is and not dealt with it effectively speaks volumes ...i.e. no need for rhetoric..show the citizens where is the beef

According to the Richmond TD, Va. Dept of Education has reported today that Goochland County had all its schools pass the test for accreditation. Doesn’t this say that the board and the superintendant did something right?

In this disposable society, everyone seems to think that replacing boards is the answer to all troubles; however, replacing everything old with candidates that actually know less than those they’re replacing doesn’t accomplish anything; not that those incumbent Board Members do their homework or actually ‘know’ what’s going on. 

We need educated candidates who have actually read County policy and School Board policy or have a working knowledge of the policies.  This knowledge empowers them to make informed and sound decisions.  They need to be inquisitive board members who can question their designees and be knowledgeable in their questions.  Neither any of the School Board Members nor Board of Supervisors members know enough of what is legal by their own policies or what action needs to be done . . . they rely on what the Superintendent or County Administrator tells them.  Each Board member needs to do their in depth homework . . . not just rubber stamp what their designees tell them.  They have come to rely solely on what their designees or hired attorneys tell them, based on these people’s opinions and judgements.  They have attorneys on staff or retainer to advise them of state and federal mandates, but what about local mandates?  Attorneys are not infallible .  . they often don’t do their homework either.  What about what’s best for Goochland?  If any of the incumbent board members were tested on their own policies, what would their grade be?  How about the candidates . . .  if they were tested?  New members come to the board all fired up only to find that their notions of change cannot be accomplished because most of the time they think too small and nit pick instead of actually accomplishing something. New members without knowledge is simply the same song, second verse.
 
In the matter of the Board of Supervisors allocating the School Board Budget by line items, how can that be legal?  The School Board is an elected body by the people just as the Board of Supervisors is elected.  The Board of Supervisors has the authority to allocate funding to the School Board and that’s it, the elected School Board has the authority given by the people to spend it the way the School Board decides.  Did the Board of Supervisors have a memory lapse and go back to the days when the School Board was ‘appointed’  and not elected? 

Any person can talk a good game to get elected, but nine times out of ten, once elected, they fall right into the rut and forget what they’ve been elected to do.  Both Boards need to be fiscally accountable as well as accountable to their constituents, but neither Board is . . . because the individual members accept as fact what’s presented to them in their little prepared packets.  It’s too much work and time involved for them to really delve into and understand each situation and so much easier to rubber stamp what someone presents to you in a prewritten packet of information (prepared by the Superintendent’s or County Administrator’s assistant). 

Some say that’s what the boards hired their designees to do; but does that take away the board members’ responsibility for knowing about, understanding fully, not accepting at face value what’s before them, and being accountable for what they voting for or against?  Can any of them knowledgeably defend their decisions?

Most candidates run for office because they want the perceived glory and recognition of being a ‘Board Member’ without wanting to earn the public trust or realizing the amount of work involved in doing a good job.  Few recognize exactly what is expected of them and what their responsibility is to their constituents and the public good.

“A new broom sweeps clean, but an old broom knows where the dirt is.”

There was no closed meeting last night at the School Board workshop.

Ken;I think you nailed it , lame ducks…the SB might try a temporary fix until the end of the next school year. That may allow for minimum chaos. Anything beyond that would be reprehensible.We need some good news coming from our school system which has highly motivated teachers doing their best in a highly strained system. With the apparent lowering of assesments and resultant decrease in school funding we are going to need the best SB, BOS we can elect and then we are going to need the tax payers to make some very tough choices..