It was a power play by a petty potentate.
--Arizona Republic editorial, referring to Christine Schild
Don't Bet Your Money On The Shanghai.
--Stephen G. Foster
by Jerome du Bois
Often in my life, and occasionally on this blog, I've used the term five-sided comedian to refer to a pure opportunist, a ruthless, heartless someone who, to secure power and control, works the angles, the moves, and who considers the rule of law, their own calling, their job profile, integrity, electoral responsibility, fiduciary duty, and every other moral consideration to be mere impediments to their goals --and those goals may be petty indeed. If you Google the phrase, I'm the only reference --but I didn't make it up.
Five-sided comedian comes from John Le Carré's exemplary spy novel Smiley's People. I don't have a copy now, but when semi-retired spymaster George Smiley recruits one of his former employees, Toby Esterhas, to help with a new investigation, and mentions a certain Otto from Leipzig, Toby says something like "George, if you're going after a five-sided comedian like Otto, you're going to need somebody like me, you know?" At the time, Toby was peddling Degas statuettes of dubious provenance.
We don't peddle anything but the truth here at The Tears Of Things. In my last posting on SUSD, I implied there might be a construction contract scandal involving SUSD's facilities chief Bill Johnson. I was wrong.
I was looking at it from the wrong angle. The scandal is Christine Schild and her two flacks, Molly Holzer and Jennifer Petersen. These three "unpaid volunteers" --that's how Ms. Schild described herself in an email to us-- want to harrass and humiliate a man who does real work, and who is supposed to be in the middle of the overdue rebuilding of five crucial high schools, not reporting to these five-sided comedians.
Arizona Republic Northeast Edition Online Editorial, April 5, 2005:
Christine Schild is at it again.
Her effort as Scottsdale School Board president to publicly humiliate a top district administrator is outrageous.
Schild has made an embarrassing spectacle of herself several times since winning election to the board in 2002. Last week, she gave every taxpayer who backed last year's high school bond proposal a figurative slap in the face with her disgraceful treatment of Bill Johnson, the architect of the construction plan.
Schild opposed the $217 million bond question, which passed Nov. 2 with nearly 70 percent support. In other words, nearly seven out of 10 Scottsdale district voters rebuked Schild's arguments against the much-needed bond, which will rebuild, remodel or repair Arcadia, Coronado, Saguaro, Chaparral and Desert Mountain high schools. Most politicians would get a clue that they are out of step with the public will, but apparently not Schild.
Unfortunately, Schild is enabled by two new board members who were elected the same day that bond passed. During the campaign, Molly Holzer and Jennifer Petersen wouldn't support the measure, despite its obvious importance to the community, and gave wishy-washy explanations for their lack of a firm stand. Holzer said she was "neutral," and Petersen would say that she didn't oppose it.
The voters' mixed message has handed control of the board to this trio, which elected the unpredictable and volatile Schild the new board president in January.
At the time, we idealistically held out hope that Schild might change her negative ways and become a true leader.
After all, we had watched her grandstand from the dais and browbeat people who appeared before the board. We had seen her launch a vendetta against Mary Ellen Simonson, a distinguished Valley attorney who did work for the district. She even filed a meritless lawsuit, since tossed out of court, against three board members, former Superintendent Barbara Erwin and Lewis & Roca, Simonson's law firm.
A little power apparently has gone to Schild's head. As president, Schild now is turning her old tactics on Johnson, the district's well-respected assistant superintendent for facilities and operations.
The Schild-led board dragged Johnson into a closed-door executive session and voted 3-2 to force him onto a formal employee improvement plan. As expected, it was the Schild-Holzer-Petersen majority that ruled. Kudos to board members Karen Beckvar and Eric Meyer for refusing to go along with this travesty.
What is their gripe with Johnson? Who knows, because Schild's star chamber proceeding was closed to public scrutiny. The only hint she dropped was that it had something to do with "communication challenges."
That's unacceptable. Schild needs to tell the public exactly what her problem with Johnson is now that she has besmirched his reputation. If she has a legitimate complaint, let's hear it. As an elected official, we expect nothing less.
The "communications challenges" complaint seems like a joke. If Schild, Holzer and Petersen need more information about projects, contracts, designs or any other, the board can hold another work-study session on the topic. Last week's executive session was inappropriate and classless. It was a power play by a petty potentate.
If the School Board has concerns about an official, members should express them through Superintendent John Baracy, whose job it is to run the district. He is Johnson's boss. For the board to insert itself in this way is unseemly at best. The result will be to drive good people out of the district.
Schild knows how to do it. Lewis & Roca decided working for the district wasn't worth putting up with Schild's continual barrage of smears and innuendos. The lawyers didn't need the aggravation and dropped Scottsdale as a client.
Baracy, who replaced Erwin on July 1, probably is wondering what the heck he got himself into by taking this job.
Other Valley school districts would love to get Baracy or Johnson or other top Scottsdale administrators. The Schild board will make it easy.
Schild is acting like a bully, not a leader. She is the one who needs to improve, not Johnson.
The voters spoke loudly that they want the high schools fixed quickly.
If Schild can't figure that out, she should step down.
Arizona Republic reader Joni Bosh of Phoenix witnessed this closed-door session. Her letter to the Editor is titled "Personal Revenge."
Your editorial regarding the outrageous behavior of Christine Schild and her two sidekicks, Molly Holzer and Jennifer Petersen, was right on the mark.
I was at that meeting, and I was shocked by their actions.
It appeared to many that Schild was using her position to extract some kind of personal revenge on a district employee who put together the bond issue that she opposed. Otherwise, why would any responsible board member try to micromanage staff with a competent superintendent in place, even if the state gives them that authority?
Many thanks to board members Karen Beckvar and Eric Meyer for standing firm against this nonsense, as well as to district administrators, especially Superintendent John Baracy and Bill Johnson, chief of facilities and operations, who must put up with the antics of this threesome week after week.
I would like to think that Holzer's and Petersen's behavior could be blamed on being new to the board. Their future actions will tell if that hope is misplaced. Schild's behavior, however, is consistent with other stunts she has pulled.
How ironic that the woman who claims nobody ever communicates with her didn't even allow public comment about her actions.
When we communicated by email with Christine Schild, in an unfriendly way, too, she got right back to us --until, as we usually do, we pushed it too far. These people just don't want to be forthcoming. (She never even mentioned the word "Islam.") We now have fresh interest in her prompt responses, though. I mean, who are we? Two hermetic bloggers. We swing no weight in her district or anywhere, politically or economically. We don't have children in any of those schools. We have no handles, buttons, or dials for her to try to manipulate. We just care about the future, and the how the contents of students' minds will influence that future.
Christine Schild could have ignored us, and now she probably wishes she had. (She actually answered many email inquiries about the texbook thing from places across the country.) We knew nothing about her, her background, or her behavior, until the Islamist-textbook story surfaced for us, and now we know only what we read in the newspapers, on the Web, and in her emails to us, but she does come across as contentious, combative, defensive, and manipulative. She's a lawyer who represents lawyers. She loves to pick a fight.
There may be a case to be made for an "employee improvement plan," and certainly for quality control. And after Beslan, everybody on those construction sites should know everybody else, and what each firm's job is supposed to be, and who has access, who has keys, who's building what, where, when, how, and why.
If you think Beslan can't happen here, then Beslan can happen here.
But I don't think preventing Beslan has entered Ms. Schild's calculations for a nanosecond. She's found a wedge into John Baracy's power base. I think she wants to be the de facto Superintendent; I think she wants to cut John Baracy off at the knees.
The Republic editorial writer makes a good point:
If the School Board has concerns about an official, members should express them through Superintendent John Baracy, whose job it is to run the district. He is Johnson's boss.
But Ms. Schild wants to do this part of Baracy's job, grabbing a lever with which to slow down --and increase the cost of-- the entire process, from laying concrete foundations (in a time of rising construction costs) to plugging in the final computers. And why? Because she wants to. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that. Remember, most district voters voted for full speed ahead on the improvements. But she opposed the damned thing, and she still does, and she wants to express her displeasure this way.
You think she didn't secretly revel in enjoyment beholding Bill Johnson, a six-figure man who probably earns it, brought to heel before her, the pissant lawyer, having to bring his files and figures and justifications and lay them out for her perusal? Forced to sit at a table like chastened student and be subjected to her questions? That's where the five-sided comedians find their fun.
Christine Schild wants to do another part of Baracy's job as well. On March 18, not long before she and crew clamped the slowdown manacles on Bill Johnson, she published an opinion piece in which she makes the argument that internal auditing should be shifted from the Superintendent's office to hers. You can look it up.
Now, given SUSD's recent history (which Catherine filled me in on), auditing is a fine idea, and there may even be a cogent argument to be made for having the auditors report to the Board instead of the Superintendent --I just don't think Christine Schild gives a rat's ass about such considerations. I think she wants to work the angles until she replaces John Baracy in fact if not in title. That won't happen, of course, but she will try, and it appears she has two willing Board members consistently on her side, Molly Holzer and Jennifer Petersen. It's got to feel powerful knowing you can always deliver the majority vote. Do the other two minority board members --Karen Beckvar and Eric Meyer-- feel a bit like appendices? She'd like that, too.
In the meantime she's trying to close the book on the Across The Centuries story, which is far from over. I hope the Scottsdale parents, and concerned cititzens nationwide --wherever those emails came from-- keep up the pressure. This woman is willing to divert valuable time, money, and human resources --all irreplaceable; the world only turns forward --toward a questionable agenda; and she's doing it aggressively and publicly. She has enlisted (convinced? hornswoggled?) two other Board members in her cause. That agenda, that cause, has nothing to do with the content of textbooks or a student's character; they have bigger fish to fry. They need to be challenged.
Posted by Jerome at April 10, 2005 09:00 AM | TrackBack