Print this story | E-mail story | This story has 14 comments Add your own | iPod friendly
Parish school board fills two positions
Published Friday, March 14, 2008
VIDALIA — The Concordia Parish School Board filled two vacant positions and set the dates for summer school Thursday night.
The board appointed Superintendent of Support Services Patty Bellis the new director of federal programs.
Before the board went to a vote, Vidalia educator Dorothy Ulmer voiced her support for the board to appoint former teacher Rhonda Wilson-White to the position.
“She was embedded in federal programs,” Ulmer said. “In some parishes, ‘highly qualified’ means something, but in this parish, it seems to mean who you know or who your spouse was at the time.”
On the recommendation of Superintendent Loretta Blankenstein, Bellis was chosen by a vote of 6-3, with members Darlene Baker, Ricky Raven and Deanie Roberts dissenting.
“We want to be as fair as we can when we appoint people, and have the politics removed from it,” President Gary Parnham said.
The board also appointed Debbie Bairnsfather, the LSU extension service 4-H regional coordinator, as director of food services.
The board voted to set the dates for summer school for LEAP test remediation to begin May 28 for students. For GEE remediation, the dates set were June 9-23.
Re-testing for both LEAP and GEE tests will be June 24-26.
The testing dates were set by the state, Director of Academics Paul Nelson said.
In other news:
4The board approved the 2008-2009 school year calendar.
School will begin Aug. 11 and will end May 21.
All of the previously observed holidays will be included on the calendar, but because of the Presidential election students will also have Nov. 3-4 off.
“We included that Monday in the holiday because of attendance issues,” Nelson said.
4The board voted to pay a water bill owed to the Town of Ferriday for water at Ferriday High School.
The town agreed to remove penalties and late fees from the bill, Business Manager Tom O’Neal said.
At Tuesday’s aldermen meeting, Ferriday aldermen agreed to waive $2,000 from the bill and to accept $3,000.
But board member Martha Rabb, who said the town owes the board money, said being billed even as the board is owed money didn’t sit well with her.
Several other board members agreed.
“If I owe you money and you owe me money, we need to have a meeting of the minds and work something out,” Parnham said.
O’Neal said the board should go ahead and pay the town.
“I want it stated publicly that this board pays its bills,” O’Neal said.
Board member Raymond Riley agreed.
“I want to get this (bill) cleared up so we can go forward with getting what we are owed in the future,” Riley said.
After the board voted to pay the bill, Parnham asked O’Neal to bring what the town owes the board to the next meeting so the board can address that issue.
4The board also voted to reimburse Ferriday High School for transportation costs for the trip the school’s basketball team made to the state championship.
Comments
Posted by kpage (anonymous) on March 14, 2008 at 9:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Dorothy Ulmer said it right. "Highly qualified" in this area means who you know or who your spouse is. Isn't that the truth!! This lady can tell it like it is. She was my teacher and I've known her most of my life. If you want someone to tell the truth...ask Ms. Ulmer!! What a lady.
Posted by quest (anonymous) on March 14, 2008 at 11:24 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"former teacher"? Dr. White was a teacher in Catahoula Parish, not Concordia, for about 5 years later becoming employed in Concordia where she has only been for a few years. Mrs. Bellis was a teacher in Concordia Parish for many years before becoming a Supervisor. She has been in this parish for 25+ years. She has had experience with a number of programs including federal ones. Obviously, the most qualified candidate was chosen for the job. Congratulations, Mrs. Bellis, we know you will do a great job!
Posted by citizen (anonymous) on March 14, 2008 at 11:44 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Dr. Rhonda White Wilson was a teacher, principal, and Federal Programs Supervisor in Catahoula before deciding to move to Concordia. She has been a Concordia Parish Federal Programs Supervisor for several years. Pattie Bellis taught briefly in Natchez and then was librarian at Vidalia Junior High.
Posted by educated1 (anonymous) on March 14, 2008 at 12:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Ms. Bellis also taught in Ferriday schools.
Posted by coastgirl00 (anonymous) on March 14, 2008 at 12:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Anyone who knows anything about this parish should know that it was payback time.
Posted by quest (anonymous) on March 14, 2008 at 1:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
People who make comments should really know their facts before speaking. Patty Bellis never worked at Vidalia Jr. High. After teaching in Natchez, she taught at Ferriday Jr. High several years before becoming librarian at Ferriday Lower, then became a Supervisor working with a number of programs, many of them Federal. She will make a great director.
Posted by citizen (anonymous) on March 14, 2008 at 3:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I apologize for the errors.
Posted by coastgirl00 (anonymous) on March 14, 2008 at 5:32 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Actually Patty was moved from FLE to the CPSB to be a grant writer. The supervisor title came later. She has never been a principal or assistant principal. Dr. Wilson has been a teacher, principal at Jonesville Elementary for three years, a Title One supervisor in Catahoula for five years and has been a Title One supervisor in Concordia for the last three years. During that time she has sucessfully written a number of grants. This my friend can be verified as facts.
Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on March 15, 2008 at 2:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)
What in the heck is the Concordia Parish School System doing paying someone to destroy the future prospects of the children? Doesn't anyone in that school board know any math at all? With 9.2 trillion dollars in debt they are hiring someone to further shackle these poor kids, who aren't even working yet with more debt? What right does this woman have to subject these children to contractual obligations they can't even understand?
I thought this was the Bible Belt! When Christians start to behave this way, putting faith in the federal government, maybe we really are doomed. Whatever happened to "thou shalt not steal" and "thou shalt not covet"?
This woman ought to be going around from class to class explaining to the kids why government debt is bad, if she has any idea. Or maybe she just thinks it is right to for a government to hold the people under threat of arrest while the government steals their money. Good grief.
Posted by papajeff (Jeff McClure) on March 15, 2008 at 7:35 a.m. (Suggest removal)
EnKiKur:
Are you joking or something? Your comment is so out of line and weird as to be unbelievable. She's not shackling anyone to anything. Obviously you have no clue as to what this position does. And if we don't have faith in our government, the nation collapses.
Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on March 15, 2008 at 12:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The woman was hired as director of federal programs. Who pays for those programs, papajeff? We already have an unpayable debt, adding to it certainly does shackle both the young and the unborn.
What business does the federal government have with our schools anyway? Do we live in Washington D.C. or on a military base? No, we do not. So the federal government has no business interfering in any way.
I am joking in the previous post, but not much. I think it would be a really good thing if the federal governement would collapse. Why do we need it? We already have local government, and state government. Why should we have a third layer of government with the power to overrule laws the state makes? It makes no sense at all.
Federal school programs exist for one reason only, to replace the culture of the people with the culture of government; that is because government feels parents can't raise their own children. This should be obvious, but the scheme has been so effective the people can no longer see it, though in the beginning there was wide resistance to it.
In California there is currently an attempt to make home schooling illegal. Why? Because those idiots running the state government in California think they can make better decisions about what is good for a child than the child's own parents.
Go to any public school system website and you will find somewhere a statement that the purpose of the school is to prepare children for the workforce, or more education in preparation for the workforce. Why not prepare children for life by giving them real education that leaves them with the ability to critique and reason for themselves? The public school system was set up by people who wanted to create factory workers and managers, not a nation of finely educateted people with a rich inner life. This is how we came to have such a shallow, dependent society, where parents will pay up to a thousand dollars apiece for Hannah Montanna tickets and then vote for candidates who promise them free health care!
I place direct blame for the public's lack of reasoning power on the public school system. So, I forgive your earlier intemperate remarks to me, since you obviously buy into the whole scheme. Go ahead and put your faith in self proclaimed experts; admit to them that they are superior to you and your neighbors and by all rights should have total control of you and your child's mind. Or, take a minute to think for yourself. The choice is yours. One is much easier than the other. Figure it out.
Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on March 16, 2008 at 2:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Well, Jeff, you have missed out on a good opportunity to learn something. I was really hoping you would challenge my assertions so I could provide you with indisputable evidence that my point of view, far from being wierd and unbelievabe is actually the view grounded in reality and history, while the point of view you take is based entirely on false assumption and lack of knowledge. That is okay though, there will be plenty of other opportunities for me to carry out my grand scheme of teaching the people the facts public schools wish to keep from them: federally funded programs are the mechanism our elected officials use to subvert the ideals they swear to uphold.
It is not I that have no clue, it is you, and many others.
Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on March 17, 2008 at 12:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)
See, Jeff, this is just a small part of what I mean:
"U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals 2005 case Fields v. Palmdale School District.[citation needed] The court in that case ruled that parents' fundamental right to control the upbringing of their children "does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door," and that a public school has the right to provide its students with "whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise."
Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on March 17, 2008 at 1:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)
From Joe Larson's 2001 article in 'Education Reporter'
John Dewey, known as "the father of modern education," was an avowed socialist and the co-author of the "Humanist Manifesto." The U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities discovered that he belonged to 15 Marxist front organizations. Dewey taught the professors who trained America's teachers. Obsessed with "the group," he said, "You can't make socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society, which is coming, where everyone is interdependent".
After visiting the Soviet Union, Dewey wrote six articles on the "wonders" of Soviet education. The School-To-Work program, now in our public schools in all 50 states, is modeled after the Soviet poly-technical system.
In 1936, the National Education Association stated the position from which it has never wavered: "We stand for socializing the individual." The NEA, in its Policy For American Education, opined: "The major problem of education in our times arises out of the fact that we live in a period of fundamental social change. In the new democracy [what happened to our republic?], education must share in the responsibility of giving purpose and direction to social change. The major function of the school is the social orientation of the individual . . . Education must operate according to a well-formulated social policy."
NEA specialist Paul Haubner, tells us, "The schools cannot allow parents to influence the kind of values-education their children receive in school; . that is what is wrong with those who say there is a universal system of values. Our goals are incompatible with theirs. We must change their values."
Chester M. Pierce, M.D., Professor of Education and Psychiatry at Harvard, had this to say: "Every child in America entering school at the age of five is mentally ill because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our Founding Fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It's up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well - by creating the international child of the future."
The irony is that while we spent hunreds of billions of dollars fighting the Cold War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War to stop the spread of communism we spent more hundreds of billions of dollars right here at home teaching socialism to our children. We see the result all around us and have been left so bereft of any spirit of intellectual inquiry by our educations we can neither see nor address the problem.
Post a comment (Terms of Use Policy)
(Requires free registration.)