The Oconee BOE fiasco

A hearty well done to the citizens who showed up to express their justifiable anger with the Oconee County Board of Education, particularly the teachers who are seeing their resources dried up while the BOE was lobbying the state government for a pay raise.

And Teresa Davis deserves the most praise ...

Teresa Davis, PTO president at Oconee County Elementary School, gave the most stinging rebuke of the night.

The board has tried to justify recent bad decisions by "sweeping them under the rug" or justifying them with "some lame excuse," Davis said.

The board could pay for three part-time teaching assistants with the $26,000 the raise would cost, she said. "Do you know how many supplies that would put in our children's hands?"

The point that I've been trying to make all along is that this is the latest poor decision in a string of fundamentally poor decisions for the Oconee County school system.

First you had the BOE agreeing to extend the contract of Tom Dorhmann before, just a week or so later, re-approaching him and forcing him to resign. However, since he couldn't earn full benefits from retirement for another year, they secretly kept him on the payroll and hired an interim superintendent ... all the while cutting money from the budget to make up for a $300,000 shortfall, yet $100,000-plus was walking out the door to someone who was being paid to do absolutely nothing ... and he was doing absolutely nothing because you made him do absolutely nothing.

Just a month or so later, Brian Dickens is accused of physically, mentally and emotionally abusing his girlfriend, who just happened to be a former player of his with that relationship beginning when she was a minor and under his instruction at Oconee County High School. The appropriate law enforcement authorities notified the BOE and local school officials, and the response was ... do nothing. Instead, Dickens was allowed to coach the team to a state championship - because winning apparently is everything - and then, just a day after hoisting the trophy, was suspended from the school.

And now this ... angling to raise your own pay by five times its current amount in the middle of an economic crisis and when you're cutting back on other personnel positions in the county.

These things are connected. They are part of a larger pattern if self-serving, poor judgement, and that's why it's important to keep this botched pay raise proposal in the appropriate context.