FCPS School Board and Brabrand Must Go

[Anonymous]

This Post article is an indictment of some deep incompetence within FCPS: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/fairfax-schools-online-learning-blackboard/2020/04/18/3db6b19c-80b5-11ea-9040-68981f488eed_story.html

Making one IT person (Luftglass) the fall person for this disaster will not suffice.

Brabrand needs to step down immediately.

Corbett Sanders must leave the School Board. As a two time Chair of the School Board, it was her responsibility to make sure FCPS administrators were on top of things. She failed miserably, just as she has failed before in recent years (while making sure money that should have spent across the county ended up spent largely in her district).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This Post article is an indictment of some deep incompetence within FCPS: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/fairfax-schools-online-learning-blackboard/2020/04/18/3db6b19c-80b5-11ea-9040-68981f488eed_story.html

Making one IT person (Luftglass) the fall person for this disaster will not suffice.

Brabrand needs to step down immediately.

Corbett Sanders must leave the School Board. As a two time Chair of the School Board, it was her responsibility to make sure FCPS administrators were on top of things. She failed miserably, just as she has failed before in recent years (while making sure money that should have spent across the county ended up spent largely in her district).

The WaPo article basically restates everything that this forum has already dissected ad nauseum. Blame can be placed all over the place by posters, on FCPS or Blackboard or feminine products.

Saying that a bunch of people "must go" on an anonymous forum is a bit silly. Did it at least make you feel better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This Post article is an indictment of some deep incompetence within FCPS: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/fairfax-schools-online-learning-blackboard/2020/04/18/3db6b19c-80b5-11ea-9040-68981f488eed_story.html

Making one IT person (Luftglass) the fall person for this disaster will not suffice.

Brabrand needs to step down immediately.

Corbett Sanders must leave the School Board. As a two time Chair of the School Board, it was her responsibility to make sure FCPS administrators were on top of things. She failed miserably, just as she has failed before in recent years (while making sure money that should have spent across the county ended up spent largely in her district).

The WaPo article basically restates everything that this forum has already dissected ad nauseum. Blame can be placed all over the place by posters, on FCPS or Blackboard or feminine products.

Saying that a bunch of people "must go" on an anonymous forum is a bit silly. Did it at least make you feel better?

Sad that people like you think concepts of responsibility and accountability are antiquated. No wonder FCPS's reputation is in the toilet.

[Anonymous]

Y'all voted them in, enjoy it all.

[knrknr2019]

Any update on the investigation that was to be done on the Blackboard and DL fiasco when Luftglass was in office? There was a whole council setup from different IT companies in the area. What happened to the investigation report?

[Anonymous]

Who cares. She got fired. We can find out all the sordid details once these giant problems are over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who cares. She got fired. We can find out all the sordid details once these giant problems are over.

Was she fired? Or, was she reassigned?

[Anonymous]

If we are moving to DL We need school leaders that understand and can embrace technology. These dinosaurs should go the way of the librarian, unemployed.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, from all the board meetings I've seen and all the town halls, I think the school board is the problem. If Brabrand and Presidio were allowed to just roll with the plans they have, we would have a lot more certainty and that would allow the plans to be rolled out more effectively.

What seems to happen is that Brabrand presents a plan, then the school board amazes themselves with their ingenious modifications and questions about how every one else is doing X, and then they ask for more time and more information, which delays their approval. Then after they adjust and modify and change their priorities, the sausage that comes out is disgusting.

We all would be better off just allowing the chef to make the meal and accept that it isn't keto-friendly, lactose-free, vegan or made-to-order. But it will nourish you and taste better than when you have 12 different amateur cooks all adding a little of this and taking out a little of that and generally making a disgusting mess of a meal.

[Anonymous]

Listening to the meetings, the school board seems too big to offer effective oversight. None of their individual voices matter, but they all want to offer something

[Anonymous]

The only thing the SB is really interested in is social issues. There may be one or two exceptions. But, you hear little about actual education.

Just look at what they spend most of their time discussing. And, sadly, I heard a lot of it on citizen participation yesterday evening. Kind of hard to be worried about who goes to TJ when they can't even open schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, from all the board meetings I've seen and all the town halls, I think the school board is the problem. If Brabrand and Presidio were allowed to just roll with the plans they have, we would have a lot more certainty and that would allow the plans to be rolled out more effectively.

What seems to happen is that Brabrand presents a plan, then the school board amazes themselves with their ingenious modifications and questions about how every one else is doing X, and then they ask for more time and more information, which delays their approval. Then after they adjust and modify and change their priorities, the sausage that comes out is disgusting.

We all would be better off just allowing the chef to make the meal and accept that it isn't keto-friendly, lactose-free, vegan or made-to-order. But it will nourish you and taste better than when you have 12 different amateur cooks all adding a little of this and taking out a little of that and generally making a disgusting mess of a meal.

I agree.

The school board is the problem.

That is what happens when you put a group in charge that 100% agrees with everything the others say with no dissent, debate or critique.

The school board members are too in love with each other's ideas to be an effective oversight or planning group.

[Anonymous]

I agree. Braband and the other professionals should be allowed to make decisions. The school board is too wish washy and no one wants to make people mad at them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no question that FCPS over the past few months has been a disaster. This new FCPS school board is filled with egomaniacal fools. They lack the experience and strength to hold Superintendent Brabrand and administration to account, and they instead focus all their energy on sending out repetitive newsletters, isolating video clips of themselves and holding juvenile “quaranstreams.” I’ve received as many as six newsletters from school board members in one day. This shows their lack of respect for the community—they only respect themselves. Most gallingly, they voted in secret to add 1.5 personal staff for each board member without disclosing it to the public, amounting to more than $1M in additional taxpayer dollars.

They’ve been in office less than four months and have already run the system into the ground. It’s no wonder principals and staff are revolting against the board and Brabrand. Hopefully the community and parents will revolt, too, so we can get new leadership.

Most of the FCPS school board had been in office all of 3 months when COVID hit. Perhaps you should look to the people who were in charge for YEARS before that, and were more worried about who used what bathroom than whether or not Central Administration was even doing its job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This Post article is an indictment of some deep incompetence within FCPS: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/fairfax-schools-online-learning-blackboard/2020/04/18/3db6b19c-80b5-11ea-9040-68981f488eed_story.html

Making one IT person (Luftglass) the fall person for this disaster will not suffice.

Brabrand needs to step down immediately.

Corbett Sanders must leave the School Board. As a two time Chair of the School Board, it was her responsibility to make sure FCPS administrators were on top of things. She failed miserably, just as she has failed before in recent years (while making sure money that should have spent across the county ended up spent largely in her district).

Agree that Braband needs to go. But most of the school board was brand new when covid hit and are only cleaning up a mess that was left after years of control by people who simply did whatever the superintendent wanted and never questioned or performed any real oversight at all. Administration literally had NO oversight, and largely did nothing but pay itself a lot of money and expand its numbers for years. This school board is dedicated to addressing that and providing more accountability, but the pandemic started just after they did and they did not have time to even start on their agenda before they had to deal with it. The incompetence shown was the result of years of lack of oversight in the administration itself, which left a bunch of useless paper pushers just marking time until retirement and not doing the jobs they were being over paid for.