SCHOOL DAZE

The Grand Rapids Public School Board of Education must be in a daze in light of its recent infighting over inconsequentials while the system is unraveling under its poor performance, loss of students, and budget cuts.

For example, half the board is up in arms, “appalled” according to boardmember Jim Rinck, because Superintendent Bert Bleke gathered information for a plan to close down schools before they gave him the go-ahead.  Keep in mind, all this is about is the collection of data for a possible response to the shrinking school system.  Nothing Bleke has done has committed the board to any course of action.  I’m no fan of Bleke, but it borders upon the unreal that boardmembers are rioting over his failure to get a “pretty please” from them before doing what you’d think he was hired to do.

Meanwhile, boardmembers are at each other’s throats with charges of racism and tokenism flying back and forth over the mundane matter of hiring a search firm to find a replacement for Bleke, who is stepping down at the end of the school year.  Boardmembers Arnie Smith-Alexander and Catherine Mueller were engaged in mortal combat because Alexander thinks the firm Mueller favors isn’t sufficiently “diverse”, while Mueller thinks the racial composition of a firm is irrelevant to its performance.  Mueller’s right of course, but that still begs the question of why the board is spending $18,000 to hire consultants to do the job it was elected to perform.

And so it goes as the Grand Rapids Public School District continues getting sucked down a black hole of failure.