Since red is the universal color for an emergency, I guess you can call tonight "RED WEDNESDAY!" Red is the new black.

One thing I'm looking forward to in my retirement, aside from bicycling to Key West and hiking the Appalachian Trail, is hanging out at the courthouse, attending all these meetings and reading the documents and spending a decade raising mortal hell over the way this city and county is run.

An emergency long term planning document? Give me a break.

Last night's meeting was appalling on SO many levels. From Kincannon's descriptions of the SPEAK representative's concerns as "crazy", to Carson's naked spite and utter contempt for anyone daring to ask questions (as well as her wholesale discounting of the SPEAK group in general), to - most alarmingly - a POLICE OFFICER being sent to corral one of our kindest and bravest teachers - Lauren Hopson - who dared stand up in the face of yet another blatant lie by the Superintendent. Particularly disturbing was Carson's sarcastic, biting mockery of Ms. Hopson at the conclusion of her brave, unscripted, and emotional speech.

Of further concern was the apparent unplanned call for "any principals present?" who may have cared to share impromptu thoughts about McIntyre's "regional management" scheme with the board. Of course, several principals (who had never been at a board meeting before other than Mc's contract extension last December) JUST HAPPENED to be present, and JUST HAPPENED to have typed, prepared, "impromptu speeches" ready to deliver in favor of McIntyre's latest trojan horse he is trying to slip under the radar.

It was a disgusting display of unchecked arrogance that makes even the "Yellow Wednesday" events of December 9 pale in comparison.

Time for the BOE to be sent HOME.

Does this language line up with the presentations by the principals describing the current support plan?

From last night's written notes re: Regional Support Plan Goal:

Ms. Severence: There are no plans to change from the current structure?
Superintendent: There would be level changes...potentially have a geographic component... logistical & structural changes.

Structural Changes (business definition) = Big reorganization involving BIG LAYOFF or just BIG LAYOFF. The financial people love big layoffs because it reduces overhead, salaries, benefits, offices.

With "structural changes" you are trying to create the impression that something essential about your business has changed--so the skills
of your current staff are obsolete. In a right to work state, this creates a situation where you can fire someone without cause.
Level changes: smaller more targeted layoffs.

Yet one more example of the Broad Foundation's "transparent" language of finance & business, and, oh, yes support.

McIntyre's Board of Ed will forever be known as "BOARD OF RED!"

It is past time for term limits for School Board members. Karen Carson was a disgrace last night.

I was astonished at the behavior, tone and attitude of some of the board members last night. They surrendered their principles to achieve an end - everything from suspending rules by declaring an emergency when clearly it was not, to "spontaneously" allowing speakers who were obviously prepared in advance.

Even if I agreed with their end, their means was totally out of line, unprofessional and just plain wrong. I hope they can all live with it because anyone who saw it won't forget.

What a bunch of shameless tools.

From a "A Few Good Men";

"You can't handle the truth!"

That's why things have to happen "behind closed doors", right Ms. Deathridge?

Don't know if they saw McMillan coming, but they seemed to see him coming with ready responses in hand.

A sham.

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What was the school board thinking last night? If Marshall Walker wins the new majority can undo everything this board has done. They just gave the new board a reason and a good excuse to undo the McIntyre era.

I've never seen anything like Ms. Kincannon and Ms. Carson. There was never any question that the Strategic Plan vote was in jeopardy. So their idea was to viciously insult teachers who dare question them? I don't see a future for either of them in public service.

That Youtube channel has a 124 videos and almost 72,000 views that don't show this town or school board in a good light. It is a documentary of bad politics and corruption.

And the false 'emergency'? That looks like grounds for ouster for Ms. Fugate. Ten signatures and a lawyer and it goes to a Chancellor.

The smartest ones of the board were Mr. Deakins and Ms. Trainor, who spoke the least.

My advice if Marshall Walker wins is for the new board members to be sworn in immediately. Vote in Mike McMillan as Chair and Patti Bounds as Vice Chair. Vote down this plan and restore order to this school board. As for Dr. McIntyre, that might best be done in executive session. Establish who works for who. Give him in writing your instructions and conditions. Tell him if he violates those conditions his employment is in jeopardy.

Good luck new board members. You have a difficult road before you.

I've attended lots of public meetings. In fact, I've probably attended most all of the most contentious public meetings in the CCB and elsewhere over the past 25 years.

I've seen screaming and hollering, bullying and threatening. Seen backroom deals going down. But I've never seen a security guard remove a citizen for standing quietly by the lectern, hoping to be recognized.

"Thank you Karen, Lynne, Indya, Jimbo, and Rocky.. Thanks especially to your baby,RED WEDNESDAY ,which has bumped us off the top of the list of venal dumbassery .Hugs and kisses".... Scoobie, R Larry, and the entire cast of former # 1, Black Wednesday

Who's Rocky?
All I can thin k of is the flying squirrel.

Anyone who needs a refresher on The Broad Academy's neoliberal school reform positions & training procedures, here's a link to the guide they wrote on closing public schools. This pattern of reform is happening all over the country. It's not a conspiracy- it's reality. TN's victims, for now, are in Memphis City, where every year more schools are sucked into a misnamed, privatized Achievement Zone. That's how private equity works- kill the competition until there are no competitors left.

What does it take for an educated BOE member to understand the role of private equity in education?

Just because KOC hasn't ever closed a school and handed it over to a private operator doesn't mean they won't do it in the future. Charlotte's restructuring started 4 years ago. Chicago started closing a few schools at a time over 15 yrs ago and accelerated in the past 4 years under 2 Broad Superintendents.

Getting out in front on this was important so there's no misunderstanding when the public hears weasel words like 'structural changes' and 'level changes' when referring to an elusive school support plan. Everyone needs to keep asking questions in public forums.

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Broad grads are well prepared for public relations,too. These reformers know the public will never agree to shuttering their schools and turning them over to private investors. Blunting any opposition in advance means PR is critical to their success. The events here in Knoxville are nothing compared to other parts of the country for at least 3 years. Large, angry protests by students, teachers,and parents against school closures have been met with heavy handed police force.

The Broad Academy is an initiative of the Broad Foundation, which literally wrote the book on closing public schools, School Closure Guide: Closing Schools as a Means for Addressing Budgetary Challenges. One of the more telling sections provides tips for effective public relations, offering detailed instructions on how to make the public feel like they are part of the process without actually listening to them.

This is a waste of time. Honest teachers making targets of themselves, while BOE members make asses of themselves.

They'll listen to the lever being pulled. Fugate believed she had the election and can do whatever she damn well pleases.

Mike Cohen,

Where have I heard that name? Couldn't be the "no business association" Cohen of the past, could it?

Talk about plain talk. Tim Burchett says the emergency BOE vote on strategic plan was embarrassing. He talks about the double standard at the daily paper too.

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Attack teachers:

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Mayor Burchett said McIntyre controls the BOE. That is proof. They have no shame.

Ms. Hopson went quietly to the podium hoping to be allowed to speak in order to expose yet another untruth that was given during the exchange of questions and answers between the superintendent and Carson. She stood quietly, making no disturbance, but an officer was sent to remove her. She then sat in a seat next to the podium until Mr. McMillan and Ms. Fugate acknowledged her after the principals had spoken, not having been on the list either.

You won't see the incident with the officer because the camera is on the board at that point, not the podium.

"We have too damn many people trying to run the school system now."

Yeah, democracy sucks to a dictatorship.

"We have too damn many people trying to run the school system now."

If anyone thinks this BOE is running anything they are blind and deaf. Those videos show proof that McIntyre is running the schools and the BOE do what he says.

Until one of them is ousted they will continue to ignore the people demanding change. I think Lynne Fugate earned the first ouster. Let a Chancellor decide if she should stay.

Amy Frogge had some relevant remarks on FB this morning:

Two quotes from linguist Noam Chomsky that ring true:
"That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital."
“The general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.”
I've heard some complain that those opposed to the "reform" movement are "conspiracy theorists," and I have to admit that some of what's happening sounds crazy at first blush. But after watching the events at our legislature, I know that the first quote above is absolutely true, and it's happening in Tennessee.

This video is what infuriated Indya Kincannon and Karen Carson:

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Am I the only one noticing that there are several movements aligning themselves under the big tent of education reform? For instance, in the anti-Common Core crowd there appear to be two movements. One is a movement to restore a level of autonomy to the teaching profession, while the other is a movement to micromanage curriculum by any means necessary.

While the overlap certainly provides a larger crowd, I can't help but feel and notice that it would serve the purposes of this school board and the Broadies to be able to lump all opposition to whatever faction of the group they have the best argument against.

I can't help but feel I'm becoming a part of a mob that may not end up pursuing the same type of change I believe in.

That is why the physical intimidation of Ms. Hopson is so disturbing. Once the moral leadership of a mob is struck down, anyone can rise up and guide it. I worry that the education reform movement won't have enough leaders to put up with the onslaught and push back that those in power are beginning to exercise.

On that note, McIntyre needs to be fired. He is currently unaccountable to the people he works for and the illegal harassment and detaining of orderly citizens at a public function crosses the line of what he should be allowed to do. Until there is some level of accountability, the board and McIntyre will continue to act in their own interests without regard to the students and teachers they are charged to lead.

After last week I can no longer believe in this Superintendent. He should be fired.

If anyone out there thinks that a police officer directing Ms. Hopson to sit down is enough to discourage her from fighting for her students and co-workers, they are sorely mistaken.It is obvious by the board's actions Wednesday that they can feel their control slipping away. Now is the time for teachers to fight harder.Teachers recognize that our system was far from perfect before the current superintendent arrived, but a Broad Academy superintendent and a school board that blindly follows him is only going to splinter the school system, not improve it.

I think Jani Norman revealing that KCS has not achieved what they claim was a big reason for the behavior of the School Board Wednesday.

Jani showed the improved graduation rates are not real. I think that is why School Board members were so militant in the Wednesday meeting and had their "emergency". Mayor Burchett said the emergency vote was wrong. The KNS didn't even report it. If the people of this county knew the truth there would be a petition to remove McIntyre.

Watch Jani Norman:

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Falsely graduating students should be grounds for termination for a Superintendent. This will not get better. McIntyre should be fired.

As one who attended many of the strategic plan input sessions, I never heard mention of a balanced calendar or a regional management system. The input sessions were wide open, "what do you want" events with as many opinions as attendees. That's OK, but the first inkling of the plan-to-come was at the meeting when Dr. McIntyre attempted to summarize what he had heard.

His was the first mention of a balanced calendar (year-round school) ... and I'm not sure when the regional management idea showed up. Not saying these are bad ideas, but am saying it's not truthful to imply these ideas bubbled up from a series of community meetings.

Perhaps a more honest and trust-invoking approach would have been for the school board and Dr. McIntyre to have developed a plan, based on best practices and shared goals ... and THEN presented that plan to the community and various interest groups, "stakeholders," for vetting.

What we got instead was a series of meetings where folks in blue T-shirts asked for a Gibbs Middle School, followed by a mystery report that was birthed full-grown and adopted on two readings (one called an emergency) during the summer when school is out with no opportunity for PTA membership discussions, etc.

And people wonder why there is distrust of this school board and superintendent?

The number one thing at every forum I attended was a new Gibbs middle school, and yet that is nowhere on the plan. I'm not necessarily saying it should be, but where was the explanation for not including it?

When a balance calendar first came up, it was shot down by parents in West Knoxville a few years ago.

McIntyre never "lost us." He never cared about the community, and the BOE has merely followed suit.

He needs to be fired, and the BOE replaced.

Cari, Sandra and I are talking about the way he introduced it last December as an item on a list of teacher requests/demands/whatever you want to call them.
Of course he and others had talked about this before; just not at this particular time. McIntyre has a habit of slipping initiatives he wants into the tent with nebulous claims that teachers or principals allegedly want them (SAT 10 and unannounced evaluations).

And, btw, the balanced calendar might be a good way to cut the summer learning loss. Seems a shame for big expensive government buildings to go unused for months at a time.

I hope there are local folks who can help expose what's going on nationally, but the better odds are working locally

This line of argument is a deceptive tactic being used to distract attention from McIntyre's failure to successfully manage Knox County Schools as the public and parents expect.

Being from the Broad Academy may be important issue to some, but the real problem is McIntyre's treatment of teachers, his disconnect from school communities, and his lack of accountability.

Those are the real, and local, issues that need to be addressed.

Wonder what a Broad super would call that?

What did McIntyre call it on his last evaluation?

Teachers are, after all, not referred to as people, but human capital.Even though the board has made it a point not to use that term in recent meetings, the titles of some central office staff still contain that moniker.

This is why there have been people here saying, while they respect the leadership of Emerald, the idea of the school is dangerous.

Taking public education out the hands of the public is a Pandora's box, regardless of the individual(s) holding it.

And the assault is not just from one angle, it's from many, and rarely obvious.

Where is Tamara? Why isn't she weighing in and stepping up? I hope all is well with her. She is much needed in these dark times.

There was a time just a few years ago when I would not have believed in the conspiracies behind the reform movement. Now thanks to a lot of researching and connecting the dots, I am, sadly, a true believer.

n. A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful

And that's the thing, at least Broad and Parthenon have been pretty open about their goals.

Drawing profit out of an untapped market.

Those not sure of this need only ask themselves; if not money, why are they doing what they're doing?

Where it's illegal, change the laws and policies.

Where it's perceived to be harmful?

Well, locally, we've had some hard lessons learned about how higher-ups of a well respected company can think and act when they think nobody is listening.

at least Broad and Parthenon have been pretty open about their goals.

Their agents haven't been. Far from it. As conservative as Broad is, McIntyre is the darling of Knox County's liberals.

Central Office and KCS are far more political than they ever were under an elected superintendent.

Even Ms. Shepherd's critics couldn't refute what she was saying, they just didn't like how she said it.

They didn't like that she was saying it at all.

Today, on the same day when Scripps reporters defend the Scripps way here on Knoxviews, a complaint was made on SPEAK about a censored/edited letter to the editor at the KNS:

"At the end of my original letter, I challenged the paper's journalist's to really investigate the data on their own instead of passing along KCS's official media release. I also mentioned that data can always be manipulated to fit whatever agenda is necessary. Interestingly, they left out that part."

Pretty much like complaining here that "Red Wednesday" was being censored/omitted by local Scripps newspapers. We are told that if something happens on a Wednesday the local Scripps weekly papers cannot report it the next Wednesday because it will be old news.

Yet both the Metro Pulse and the Shopper reported Black Wednesday. That excuse doesn't hold water. It is weak. We know why.

Early today the letter to the editor in the KNS with censorship:

(link...)

Later today in the Knoxville Focus without censorship:

(link...)

Local Scripps newspapers censor, omit, edit, and hide the real truth of the Knox County School system.

Any local paper that refuses to report on Red Wednesday has NO credibility. There is no excuse to hide the truth. This is why Dr. McIntyre has been in Knoxville for seven years with very little to show that is real. Local Scripps papers are complicit with hiding the truth about Knox County Schools.

You want KNS to pay attention? Threaten to have S.P.E.A.K. picket their golf tournament with whistles and noise makers until we get fair treatment and KNS will give the teachers the front page.

I actually don't have a problem with the whole Metro Pulse/Shopper timeline, but I do question why the bullying tactics applied toward teachers was not reported in the Sentinel when the KNS reporter had a front row seat.

when the mayor of your county says there's something shady going on with the schools in your county, that would be news.

Wonder why so many are involved in the BOE's and KCS's business?

Because of crap like this:

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Why is Wednesday such a bad day around here?

Because we have people eaten up with power, devoid of ethics, and disconnected from the public.

The teachers are big behind Burchett because they know he'll look out for them.

BOE looks out for their administrators in Central Office.

Fire McIntyre, hire McMillan.

I like Donila's take on this issue:

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Additionally (and this is me, not Donila) like the contract extension, this is a controversy that didn't need to happen. McIntyre's insistence on getting what he wants when he wants it causes trouble for his loyalists on the BOE. Fugate is right that the board will vote on individual measures as they come up and won't be bound by the language in the plan. McMillan is right that there's no big hurry and new board members are right around the corner.

All they've done is give McIntyre's detractors a new bone to gnaw on.

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Since some of this thread is about me, I felt the need to post. I called the BOE office at 4:30, on the Wednesday afternoon of the board meeting to get on the list to speak at public forum. I had nothing prepared to say, but felt I needed to be on the list in case the need arose. My message was not received, because office staff had already left for the board meeting. Well, the need arose. As Mrs. Carson was trying to discredit any of the information that SPEAK members had been disseminating about the 2020 plan, she began trying to discredit me, without calling me by name, for questioning the superintendent's honesty with the board in the past.

After hearing the superintendent tell the board for the SECOND time in the last few months that ALL KCS teachers were getting minutes of the monthly advisory meetings, I felt the need to correct that statement. The last time he did this, I was able to pass a note to a board member so he could call on me to correct this statement, as no teachers other than advisory member were getting the minutes. The very next day, teachers were sent a lengthy email with the minutes from only two of the previous 5 meetings attached to the bottom.

I decided to step quietly to the podium to see if I would be recognized to speak. As I stood there for several minutes, I expected to be ignored or to be told to have a seat by the board chair. However, I did not expect an officer to approach me from behind and direct me to sit. Mr. McMillan did encourage other speakers to come forward later in the meeting,and I was allowed to speak....after the principals who "just happened to be there" in support of the 2020 plan...with their previously type written speeches.

It was quite a surprise to have a police officer walk up behind me and touch me on the elbow when I was simply standing quietly at a podium.

Was I dragged from the board room...no. Did I feel intimidated...yes. Several teachers who feared for my well being came down to sit with me near the podium. If it weren't for Mr. McMillan, I feel that I would have had to sit quietly and allow the untruths to continue.

After the meeting, I was told by Nakia Towns, the Chief Accountability Officer for KCS, that April minutes were sent out.(The next day I found out that they had been sent out, again at the very bottom of a lengthy email which did not mention minutes in the subject line...so many teachers, including myself, missed it.)Ms. Towns did tell me that May minutes had not been sent out yet. I simply reminded her that it was now August.

We finally did get those minutes yesterday along with guidelines for selecting the new advisory group.Even though advisory members have consistently told the superintendent that members of the group this year should be strictly elected by teachers, they will not be and will have to apply.

No recording devices will be allowed in the meetings either. Guess someone did not like that I audio recorded one last year, so I would have proof of what our recommendations REALLY were.

One last thought, several of the candidates running for school board in the last series of elections were given rather large campaign donations from sitting board members. If elected, and some were,I fear these members would have only perpetuated the code of silence. Apparently, only teachers who disagree with the superintendent and the board are viewed as liars. Therefore, I don't trust the intentions of ANY candidate for the November election that is supported vocally or financially by a member of the current board.

McIntyre and Crew aren't on thin ice; they're treading water.

The sooner he and his BOE supporters resign, the better off Knox County will be.

Bob, what are you talking about? What announcement?

he slips in that he will begin to siphon off our tax dollars to the private sector based on the blessing of this plan. It's pretty slick really. Plot to steal from the citizens. Sneak the legalese in through the back door. Hid the announcement in double-talk gobbledegook and rob us blind.

McIntyre in the bunker doing what dictators do:

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McIntyre picks the members of the Teachers Advisory Committee and no one can record the meeting.

If he would just grow a funny little mustache the image would be complete.