Barker’s View: School Board cuts like scissors

Recently, the fallout from what should have been anticipated funding reductions landed the School Board back in the news when students and stakeholders passionately defended a long-established arts program at Deltona High School – a popular choir that is being cut and its well-respected teacher lost to “displacement” – due to the district’s inability to effectively plan for the end of federal coronavirus relief funds.

You read that right.

Last month, I asked the question many anxious Volusia County students, parents, teachers and staff are increasingly worried about: “What do you think the first casualties of the Balgobin administration’s unconscionable lack of planning will be – music, art, physical education, sports, enrichment programs, electives?”

Now we know…

Oddly, those of us who pay the bills never hear about these critical cuts from Superintendent Balgobin herself. Why is that?

Instead, her often-draconian diktats are sprung on us – such as the disastrous transfer of Riverview Learning Center to the former Osceola Elementary, a controversial move that has left Ormond Beach residents and officials stunned – or, we learn about them in mass emails and canned press releases handed down from the Ivory Tower of Power in DeLand.

As a result, members of Balgobin’s “clueless cognoscenti” never need explain themselves to us rabble who pay the bills…

I found it disturbing that rather than study the issue, provide for stakeholder input, then develop a strategic plan for the expected loss of some $200 million in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds – district principals were simply made sacrificial lambs – handed a small pile of horses*** and ordered to make apple pan dowdy – all while board members and senior administrators shrug their shoulders and sigh from on high…

As the school year winds down – grinding toward an uncertain future – watch for the district’s fangshi to continue conjuring ways to replace certified educators with contrived “assistant teachers” (apparently charged with everything from classroom instruction to performing minor surgery…) and “administrative deans” so, as Volusia United Educators President Elizabeth Albert put it, the Balgobin administration can “stack ’em deep and teach ’em cheap” next year.

Or, as School Board Member Ruben Colón ominously put it, expect “larger than usual” class sizes next year…

During the April 9 board meeting, some 38 speakers submitted forms requesting their three-minute audience – many of them students who were infinitely more articulate, emotionally invested, and better prepared than those expressionless gargoyles on the dais – who received a valuable lesson in what passes for strategic planning and priorities in Volusia County Schools.

Before they were allowed to address our elected elite, Board Chair Jamie Haynes gave the assembled a warning on the grim fate that awaited anyone who would dare violate Volusia’s Supreme Law of Lèse-majesté while presenting before the Monarchy – including having the Chair subjectively “terminate your privilege” to speak on topics of civic concern in a representative democracy…

My God.

In my view, the curtain has been pulled and Volusia County’s educational literati – those omniscient elected and appointed Mystics of Magical Methods – have now been exposed for what they truly are: irresponsible phonies who were caught out when the chips were down.

Sadly, it is the students and educators of Volusia County who will now pay the price for their gross and inexcusable negligence…

— Barker writes a blog, usually about local government, at barkersview.org. A retired police chief, Barker says he lives as a semi-recluse in an arrogantly shabby home in coastal Central Florida, with his wife and two dogs. This is excerpted from his blog, lightly edited (he swears a lot) and reprinted with his permission.