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2024-08-24 -Lurid Crime Tales-
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Bay Area school district splurged $315,000 on CHAKRA CLEARER while forcing teachers to sweep their own floors
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[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] …own floors and deal with cockroach infestation
A school district in San Francisco with significant attainment gaps has splurged $315,000 on an 'energy healer' who uses 'chakra clearing' while teachers have to sweep their own floors and face a nasty cockroach infestation.
A group of parents recently uncovered that Mountain View Whisman School District has been paying 'Master Energy Healer & Intuitive Guide' Alycia Diggs-Chavis to conduct 160 guided meditation sessions for the district's leadership team, the SF Chronicle reported. While her zen sessions have brought 'increased ability to focus, higher levels of engagement, and enhanced productivity and efficiency' to administrators, both parents and the 4,500 students have been left to fend for themselves. Frustrated parents also found that the district - run by Superintendent Ayindé Rudolph - has been paying a public relations firm and executive coach to guide staff.
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Meanwhile, a former teacher said the district never splashed out cash on them, leaving her to become a custodian for her own bug-infested classroom while administrators were excused for the day to attend their funded programs.
'These decisions he has made have led to the very high attrition rate in the district of teachers including myself,' the teacher, who asked to remain anonymous, said of Rudolph who makes about $370,000 annually.
For years, parents believed that the district's budget was going toward necessary programs for their children, but after some middle school elective classes were at risk of being cut, they dug into expenses themselves. They soon found a staggering $189,000 school board-approved contract for the spiritual healer's services. Over the span of three years, the district paid Diggs-Chavis a little more than $315,000, the SF Chronicle reported.
'We assumed the board was doing their job,' a parent, who also wished to remain anonymous, said.
'Why are we spending all this money? It's not going to teachers. It doesn't help our kids one bit.'
| The first step is digging out that kind of information. The next step is to get a slate elected to the school board that will focus on reprioritizing district spending. This is a good year for that kind of thing… |
Further investigation into the roughly $110million district budget led enraged parents to multiple million dollar contracts across the nation.
D.C.-based public relations firm Woodberry Associates has been paid $180,000 a year to help 'spotlight' them 'both locally and nationally.' The district paid more than $600,000 a year for leadership coaching, on top of hiring Woodbury Associates to advertise for them and 'draft press releases, statements, and other media documents to elevate district success.'
What's more, is the district also hired an in-house public information officer, whose 2022 salary was more than $264,000, according to state data, reviewed by the outlet.
In response to the district's spending habits, Rudolph told SF Chronicle that having meditation sessions for his staff is vital for stress relief and is backed by 'scientific-based research.'
'All the tech industries around us do it.
| And that is his mistake. Quite a few tech companies have loads of excess money on hand for such fripperies (the others offer things like shares in lieu of salary to keep operating costs low until they start making a profit), whereas public school districts — except in communities with very high tax receipts — do not. The answer is to go to those tech companies and ask them to donate toward such extras. The trailing daughters’ elementary school got a really nice science lab after a group of science and engineering PTA moms (for some reason our district had a lot of mothers in the science/engineering/medical professions) developed parent-led science lesson plans based on the state K-6 requirements, and used that to get a grant from Toyota to buy dedicated supplies after they talked the school into donating an empty classroom so the parents could make sure science was taught properly. They got building-wide intranet and internet access after a group of PTA dads, led by the regional manager for an internet company, donated equipment and time to design and do the install, which cost the school nothing except ongoing monthly service fees. |
'How well our schools do is predicated on how well our teachers and our leaders do… I think we've come to a point where all organizations have to take employee stress seriously,' he added.
| Teachers are less stressed when they can work in clean, safe, and healthy classrooms, and feel they have the support of the administration. |
Rudolph said that all employees in his district, including teachers, has access to executive coach, Peter Gorman - the former superintendent at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in North Carolina, where Rudolph was principal. Gorman has charged the district $37,000-$50,000 a year and up to $12,000 in travel expenses since Rudolph brought him in in 2015.
He is the president of and CEO of Peter Gorman Leadership Associates LLC, which 'provides executive support and organizational development for superintendents, senior leadership teams, and school boards across America,' according to his website.
But the former teacher that worked in the district ended up leaving because she didn't feel like a priority to Rudolph. Other then horrendous classroom conditions, she said many teachers were stepping in as substitutes after the district said they wouldn't pay for teaching coverage.
'There was so much burnout because we were subbing constantly and we had crazy class sizes,' she revealed.
She added that handling the students also became difficult while leadership stepped away to relax.
'There was no one to turn to if there was fighting or there was bullying or there was a threat from a student,' she said. She has since relocated to another district.
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Posted by Skidmark 2024-08-24 00:00||
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Posted by Procopius2k 2024-08-24 06:18||
2024-08-24 06:18||
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Posted by Skidmark 2024-08-24 09:21||
2024-08-24 09:21||
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02:04 Grom the Affective
01:26 49 Pan
00:22 EMS Artifact
00:16 Skidmark
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