Can anyone give me an example of any organization that would ALLOW its employees to force it to shut down its core functions merely because its employees WANTED to take a day off?
Don’t almost all organizations require supervisor approval if an employee requests a day off?
Don’t (competent) supervisors subsequently ensure that the organization has adequate staffing during the employee’s requested off time prior to granting approval?
What does that say about Jeffco schools then when District and School Leadership essentially ALLOWED sufficient numbers of teachers and staff to take “personal” days on April 26th “forcing” Jason Glass to shut down the District for “safety” reasons?
In my mind, it means 3 things:
- That Jason Glass is an extraordinarily weak leader. He clearly demonstrated that he doesn’t have the will or courage to stand up for students and perform his PRIMARY job responsibility.
- It clearly demonstrates that students are NOT the Number 1 priority of Jason Glass or the District. The District has one job, and that is to provide a quality education to the District’s students. How does that happen when teachers, and students, are not in class? And what about the 31% of the District’s Free and Reduced Lunch students? Where are they getting their meals that day? It certainly seems that from the actions of teachers taking a “personal” day and Glass shutting down the District, that students are NOT the Number 1 priority.
- Jason Glass and teachers don’t care about working parents. What are working parents supposed to do if their kids aren’t in school? Jason Glass and the teachers essentially told these parents that they want them to take their own day off work, take their own “personal” day, or a day without pay so that teachers could “protest”. Selfish, selfish, selfish!
Who is running the school District? Certainly not Jason Glass. And after not standing up for the students and parents, and by extension the taxpayers who pay his salary to ensure kids get an education, JCEA knows that they run the District and can do whatever they want in the future.
What happened here demonstrates an extraordinary lack of leadership. It sets an extremely bad precedent. What will JCEA do next if they now know there are no repercussions for coordinated job related actions? While Jason Glass might agree with some of the funding related issues, it is his JOB to look out for the students, and their education, FIRST.
Finally, why haven’t we heard from the School Board? Actually, that’s not a hard question to answer as we already know the Board is owned by the union.
It is just shocking that there is so much lack of leadership, particularly from Jason Glass. This would just NOT happen in any other organization that is truly serious about its core mission.