Wednesday, August 14, 2013

First Day of School! - NO Lunch Menus Online - Fox C-6 FNS Director Falling Down On The Job!

Wednesday Evening UPDATE!
I learned earlier today that a few people had emailed or called Kelly Nash or the school to find out why the lunch menus had not been posted on the district website. Several of the responses said that Kelly Nash was blaming the missing menus on a computer issue and that the tech department was working on the problem. Her email said she apologized for not having them available. Others had posted that the school district had a new website and they may have been the problem. Then a few others posted that parents should just send a bag lunch with their kids if they didn't have the menu information available. The problem with that response is that it was our Food Nutrition Services Director's job to make sure the menus were available for the parents prior to the start of school. It is part of her job as a Director.

Who's Responsible?
The taxpayers are paying Kelly Nash more than $65,000 to do the job she was hired to do. If she cannot do that job, then she needs to be fired. Ultimately, it is Superintendent Critchlow's job to make sure that district employees are doing their job. If she can't do that, then she needs to be fired as well. It's the school board's responsibility to ensure that Superintendent Critchlow is doing her job. If they can't do their job, then the community needs to ask them to step down and find new board members that can.

The Blame Game!
To blame the delay on the new website is irresponsible and just an attempt to cover for incompetent leadership. The new website has been online since June 25, 2013. The district has had more than a month and a half to get everything posted online. The menus should have been ready for at least a month. The menus for Elementary, Middle, High School and Bridges that were posted on Wednesday evening as PDF documents were dated August 14, 2013 with time stamps between 5:32PM and 6:23PM and were generated using Word 2007. The menus may have been prepared sooner, but they were definitely still work on them as of Wednesday evening to get them published on the district website. Other documents have been on the district website for some time and the Documents Container Folder for the menus was created on July 10, 2013. You can be assured that you will not get the truth when asking questions of our school administrators and staff!

For those that are interested, you can find more information about the National School Lunch Program at the USDA Food Nutrition Services (FNS) website: http://www.fns.usda.gov/slp.

USDA FNS Regulations: http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/governance/regulations.htm
USDA FNS Program Policies: http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/governance/policy.htm


School Board Responsibilities
The district should have been planning food menus when ordering food. How long is our school board and the community going to accept excuse after excuse for people not doing their jobs. It's time that our school board holds people accountable. Our district is suffering thanks to the school board's lack of accountability of our school leadership. The school board needs to start firing people and qualified individuals that CAN do the job they were hired to do.

Pay For Performance - Reduction In Pay
Last year we paid $246,824 just in salary for Superintendent Critchlow to run our school district. That amount doesn't include any of the other benefits she receives. Her salary was the 4th highest amount for a superintendent in the state of Missouri last year. If she can't ensure that the simple things are getting done in our district, she's going to have trouble completing the more important things.

Someone defending the district posted that Fox Senior High was ranked 26th in the state and that the community was getting more than it was paying for because our taxes are so low. If that's the comparison we should use, then Dianne Critchlow shouldn't be the 4th Highest Paid Superintendent in the state. She should be the 26th highest paid in the state. This would lower her salary to below $185,000. That would be more in line with what she should be getting paid. You can check out last year's Top 25 Highest Paid Superintendent's in my previous post. 






Below is my original post from early Wednesday morning prior to the start of school. Be sure and email or call your school board members and let them know that we need a NEW Superintendent and a NEW Food Service Director. Show up at the next school board meeting and voice your concerns! The next meeting is Tuesday August 27, 2013. Remember that you must show up and hand in your Public Comments signup form prior to 6:45PM or you won't be allowed to speak.

Our school district and community deserves much better leadership and more accountability! 


My Original Post from Wednesday Morning
I was informed that quite a few parents are upset with the fact that on the day before the first day of school there still aren't any lunch menus posted on the district website. As of 6:30AM this morning, there still aren't any lunch menus on the district website or on the individual school websites that I checked.

Please email your school board members and ask them where the lunch menus are. Our school board members are the ones that approved the hiring of current board member and then school board president Linda Nash's daughter in law, Kelly Nash to the Fox C-6 Food Nutrition Service Director position for $65,000.

Here is the Fox C-6 School Board Members webpage where you can find their email addresses:

Here is the home page for the Fox C-6 Food Nutrition Services webpage where you can find Kelly Nash's email address:

Perhaps Kelly Nash's "enthusiasm" has worn off!

Or, it could be that she has been too busy taking college courses trying to earn her degree and certification that the district is giving her 2 years to obtain. We will most likely never know. Emailing our school board or asking questions during public comments is rarely if ever answered.

Perhaps Superintendent Critchlow will be Tweeting out the lunch menus for everyone!

So you may want to be checking her twitter feed just in case.