If you judge her performance by the fawning coverage orchestrated by Editor Carol Stark, Besendorfer has been a visionary, a woman who has led the Joplin R-8 School District out of the darkness of 20th Century education and into the glowing light of career pathways.
If that is the case, if that is truly what the powers that be at the Joplin Globe believe, then they almost have to have an editorial praising the work Besendorfer has done during her seven years in Joplin.
If that editorial is written and published, then the Globe will likely receive blowback from the people who are aware of what the situation has been for the past few years.
Consider this:
-Besendorfer announces her resignation at the beginning of the long Thanksgiving weekend. The idea behind that, and it is used by all people in the public eye, the newspapers and television stations have a lot of people who are not working and those who are will be working on fluff pierces such as stories on Black Friday spending.
-Besendorfer's resignation also comes at a time when the R-8 School District, whether the Globe acknowledges it or not, is under the microscope from both the state and federal governments. Her departure comes at a most opportune time.
-The unveiling of the gaudy, expensive buildings at East, Soaring Heights, and Irving, coming at a time when the district is in deep financial straits is a reminder of Besendorfer's claim, made seemingly hundreds of times over the past two years, that "even funnel clouds can have a silver lining."
-The incredible spending that the district has done had just as much to do with Besendorfer's push toward 21st Century learning as it does with the tornado. During the past few years, she has added one layer after another of administration, which has been documented in the Turner Report and Inside Joplin, while cutting the number of teachers.
-She is directly to blame, as a result of C. J. Huff ceding most of his power to her so he can pursue one or two projects and hobnob with the elite, for the massive turnover in teachers that has plagued the district, most noticeably the past two years. When you have an administrator who either runs teachers off or forces them to flee (and who did exactly the same thing when she was superintendent at Reeds Spring), and who breeds a culture of fear, you have the recipe for the massive disaster that the school district has become. More than 200 teachers leaving in less than 13 months is a catastrophe, as everyone except Joplin Globe editors understands.
So the next few days should be interesting. Will the Joplin Globe shed whatever credibility it has left and write an editorial praising Angie Besendorfer or will it keep silent (or do the completely unexpected and write a critical editorial) and virtually concede it has been misleading the public the past few years?
10 comments:
Oh man. You nailed this story. She was an epic failure and it will take the district years to recover financially and academically. And the Globe and the Board stood back and watched. Thank you, Mr. Turner, for saying it the way it is.
Gaudy, expensive buildings? East and Soaring are sharing an auditorium. Soaring is one school being built to replace 2 buildings. East is virtually being built with the same plan as the previous building. You spin everything - you don't care if it is true.
Do you consider South to be gaudy? Or Irving?
Gaudy is putting it nicely. And I'm sorry, perhaps you have overlooked the point.The district is BROKE, the buildings aren't finished, and East never needed to be bulit to begin with. Come to her defense? You must depend upon her for your jobs. Too late now. The party is over. The district patrons have been taken advantage of, the money has been wasted, and for all the millions and millions of dollars spent, the students have learned less than ever.
Try looking at facts once in awhile. Turner has and you all can't stand it.
Gaudy is a nice word for those buildings. Expensive, and in the case of East, unnecessary. I'm not sure why that point isn't getting across to some of you, but when your beloved Angie and CJ abandon a bankrupt ship, maybe you'll catch on. You'll probably find someone else to blame it on, however. Anything but admit you were hoodwinked.
Funny that anytime there is a dissenting opinion on this blog, the response is to quit reading and go away. Fact is When turners traffic gets slow he simply throws out the name huff or bessendorfer to try to stir things up again. Same comments and attacks, same topics that have been covered time and time again.
Who wrote these words?
God willing, there will be a new East Middle School standing someday soon and the creation of new memories will begin.The EMS I had grown to love in its two short years of existence was no more, but the memories remain forever.
Woah up a minute folks. Angie did not travel to Joplin in the winds of that tornado. You all hired her and kept her in place for five long years before that fateful day. Her agenda was not a secret and a little due diligence would have exposed the fact that it was that agenda which sealed her fate at Reeds. Now, you put her agenda together with millions of dollars pouring in, coupled with a Superintendent up to his arse in alligators, who is more than willing to give her the ball and let her run with it and a whole town full of people who are in shock and rightfully focused upon rebuilding their own lives and property and what happened was predestined. So now, the bond issue has been passed and you will be paying on that for years to come and Angie is gone. I would say that this needs to be considered a learning exercise and perhaps in the future, you all will be a bit more careful when you hire people for Administrative positions within your System. Don't feel alone, the City was hit with an almost identical scenario and did not fare any better. Maybe we can all do better after the next tornado.
I agree with 3:27. Angie should have been fired years before the tornado, or not hired to begin with. A little research would've revealed the mess she made at Reeds Springs, and scores were going down here before the tornado. The tornado simply allowed her a bigger opportunity to "dream big" and exploit the situation. And the Board stood back and let her and the media is either bought off or too ignorant to see what's happened.
6:14 You write "East is virtually being built with the same plan as the previous building." You are showing your ignorance. Did you ever set foot in the former East? Have you seen the plans for the new East? The building is nothing like it was and is ridiculously large and won't even be fully used. It is gaudy and expensive. So is the school attached to it and sharing an auditorium does not make it cheap. Please don't speak about what you don't know.
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