It's been nearly 2 years since I first asked our school board to publish public email addresses for each individual school board member so the community could contact them. How hard was it to do that?
There was a schoolboard@fox.k12.mo.us email address on the district website. However, it didn't go to all of the school board members as you would have expected. It went to the school board secretary who is also our superintendent's secretary. She decided who should get the email. The couple of times I used it, it went directly to the superintendent. Our superintendent would respond even though the questions were for our school board. I don't believe I ever received a single response from our school board other than a letter that was signed by both our superintendent and Cheryl Hermann.
So, having individual email address for each of our school board members is BIG NEWS and VERY GOOD NEWS for the community. Now you can voice your concerns directly to our school board members. You no longer have to wait to go to a school board meeting which is only held once a month to voice your concerns. Fox C-6 school board meetings used to be held twice a month like they do in Rockwood and other districts. Up until now, you only had one chance a month to voice your concerns to your school board during Public Comments at a school board meeting. Plus, you had to voice your concerns in less than 3 minutes! These email addresses are a very welcome change.
However, the community will have to wait and see who actually receives the emails and if any of our school board members actually respond. Many people have already expressed their concerns to me. They don't think the board will actually get the emails. I hope they get the emails and that they aren't filtered by our school board secretary or administrators. The school board is elected to represent the community and be OUR VOICE to the administration. The school board hires the superintendent and takes an oath to ensure that they make sure our superintendent does her job properly and that the school district follows state and federal laws and regulations. If the school board never gets your messages because they are filtered by the school board secretary or the administrators, then you are not being served very well by your school board.
You can find the school board email addresses on the Fox C-6 website on the Meet the Board of Education web page. Please ignore the fact that the URL for the web page shows that it is the 2010-11_Board_of_Education once it is loaded. The page itself shows it is the 2012-2013 Board of Education:
http://www.fox.k12.mo.us/pages/Fox_C-6/Programs_Departments/Board_of_Education/General_Info
I highly encourage you to contact your school board and start voicing your concerns. I was at a parents club meeting the other night and the principal was telling us that there is so much negativity in the community right now. I told her that there is a difference between people expressing valid concerns and negativity. Our administrators and school board members don't want to hear what the community has to say unless it is positive news. Anything else to them is "negativity" and that is how they will attempt to portray anyone that voices a concern or speaks up about problems within our district. Our administrators and school board members keep trying to sweep everything under the rug. Well, the pile under the rug is getting so tall that people are starting to trip over it! They can't continue to mislead the public and think think that the community isn't paying attention anymore and simply ignore the issues. Our school board members and administrators need to take corrective action and undo the things that they have done wrong and move forward; OR, they need to step down from their positions and bring in people that WILL conduct themselves with Integrity and Honesty. The school board needs to listen to and respect the opinions and concerns of the Public. Our school board needs to uphold the oath they took when they accepted their responsibility to serve on the board. They represent and work for the community. The DO NOT work for the superintendent and her administrators.
The next Fox C-6 School Board Meeting is Tuesday February 19, 2013 at 7PM.
EVERYONE in our school community needs to attend the next board meeting. This is the only way to show your current school board that you are disappointed with how they have represented YOU!
The community needs to ask our school board for a NO NEPOTISM POLICY and TERM LIMITS for School Board Members. The Fox C-6 School District community deserves to be served much better than it has been over the last decade.
Please use the new email addresses to contact your school board members. Fox still hasn't published phone numbers for our school board members like they do at many other school districts like Rockwood, Parkway, Wentzville, Francis Howell, Pattonville, Lindbergh, Ladue and Webster to name a few. You can see how accessible and transparent Fox's school board is compared to those other districts by reading my comparison in the following article:
http://foxc6watchdogs.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-accessible-and-transparent-is-your.html
So, please email your board members and let them know how you feel about what has been going on in our school district. Let them know how you feel about having hired the school board president's daughter-in-law to a high paid position over much more qualified candidates.
