Helium Hands - All Rise at the Meeting

In a previous post, I cautioned that the Montgomery County Board of Education would likely raise their hands in unison to approve the use of American Express Purchase Cards on the July 14, 2009 consent agenda and without any questions.

Well, it isn't often that I can admit to being wrong. In fact, the BOE pulled the item off the consent agenda and allowed questions. Actually, only one question from Ms. Berthiaume, concerning rebates and actual costs. You will have to listen to the video clip for yourself to see if her question was answered:

Did you hear anyone answer Ms. Berthiaume question on rebates? Mr. Bowers has answers to other information, Mr. Barclay has seen the documentation, and the information has been brought before the Fiscal Management Committee. Funny thing too, that when I went to the minutes of the Committee, I didn't see any mention of credit card rebates - not at the July 22, 2008 meeting, the September 22, 2008 meeting, the November 18, 2008 meeting, or the January 15, 2009 meeting, the last meeting with minutes posted on the web. Most parents didn't even realize that MCPS staff members had credit cards until some parents started filing requests under the Maryland Public Information act.

But Shirley Brandman cuts off the discussion and simply moves on.

So the question remains - what are the rebates and what are the costs? Any oversight?

Show us the documents.

And, as a final note, imagine that Ms. Berthiaume's question was a BCR (single paragraph response) or ECR (multiple paragraph response) on the Maryland High School Assessments (HSA)? Both Mr. Bowers and Mr. Barclay would score a zero for not answering the question.

Thanks to the Maryland State Department of Education for removing the written component of the HSAs from the exam. How can we expect our kids to pass when the school leadership can't model a good response?