Smith, Griffin should go
If this whole incident in the Charlottesville schools succeeds in highlighting, in a constructive way, the serious racial divide and the achievement gap in the city schools, we will be the better for it. As it stands, the issue is being torn limb from limb with accusations abounding about who really has those interests at heart [“Time to change the guard,” The Week, February 15].
If the School Board gets its way and Superintendent Dr. Scottie Griffin continues to pilot our school system in the years going forward, there is a symbolic victory achieved for those who believe this board is the only entity capable of bringing a measure of hope to the students who are failing out of the system. There is reasonable doubt about whether the board has created a satisfactory blueprint to achieve this.
Her continuation, however, may have other destabilizing consequences. Since the School Board continues to insist on closing ranks around its leadership, thus excluding input from parent/teacher organizations, teachers, principals and the community, it would seem logical that whatever good intentions the board and its superintendent have to improve the system will continue to be met in the future with suspicion and criticism, if not grown from open dialogue. It’s like scattering seeds on barren earth. A leader has to till the soil, not just toss and hope.
I hope the City Council will demonstrate its good faith in our community of talented and committed educators by thanking Dede Smith for her ferocious commitment to change and to Griffin’s efforts to take a critical look at the system, and ask them to step down. The legacy they will have left is a renewed focus on the problem, to which the current School Board, with its customary input from principals, PTO, teachers, etc., should reaffirm a primary commitment.
Rosamond Casey
Charlottesville
With silence, Griffin condones
Any hope I had that a peaceful resolution to the Scottie Griffin controversy was around the corner was quickly dashed at the February 15 School Board meeting by leaders of the black community, who relentlessly attacked stunned white parents while Superintendent Scottie Griffin and School Board Chairperson Dede Smith quietly looked on.
For 20 minutes, white parents were subjected to some of the most hateful language I have ever heard. In rapid succession, we were called a modern-day lynch mob by Rev. William Johnson, self-interested sinners by Rev. R.A. Johnson, and Ku Klux Klan members by Dr. Rick Turner—all because we dared question Griffin’s actions.
It wasn’t just parents who were slandered. Principals, School Board members, City Council members—in fact, anyone who is white and in disagreement with Griffin—all were cited as co-conspirators.
Unbelievably, Smith allowed the groundless, unconstructive insults to be delivered without interruption or comment. Only Peggy Van Yahres had the courage to condemn the outrageous remarks.
There’s no point in asking for apologies from the speakers, since the three men seem determined to divide, not unite. I suspect they’re using the issues surrounding Griffin’s behavior as a pretense to vent deep frustrations built up from real, not imagined, injustices.
But I defy any of them to show me one word or deed in my past or present that justifies their accusations. I ask them, Is it possible to criticize Griffin without being accused of racism? If an African-American questioned the wisdom of Mayor David Brown, should that person likewise be classified a racist?
Throughout the speeches, Griffin sat watching dispassionately, as though she were just a spectator. Yet with a single statement—“Please, let’s stop the name-calling; this isn’t about my race, it’s about my policies”—she could have put an end to the attacks.
She had the opportunity to demonstrate leadership, to show herself to be a peacemaker and consensus builder, to prove that she is more concerned about the future of the children and the community than the security of her position.
Instead, like Smith, she did nothing.
Robert J. Inlow
Charlottesville
Another city teacher speaks out
Four and a half years ago, I made a deliberate choice to become a teacher in the Charlottesville City School System. I have spent the last four and a half years teaching at Walker Upper Elementary. During that time, Jim Henderson, the principal, has spearheaded Walker’s efforts to align our curriculum to the SOLs and to use data to inform our instruction. We hold monthly curriculum meetings to assess what we’ve done well and what we need to change to better serve all students. We share ideas and lessons. We revise our curriculum every summer. If you drive past Walker off hours, you will find cars in the parking lot, cars belonging to the teachers at Walker. I’m sure our parking lot is not the exception but rather the rule throughout the division.
February 15th was a fairly normal teaching day. That morning we had a faculty meeting at 7:30 so that the Academic Review Team from the Virginia Department of Education could explain what they would be doing at Walker over the next two days. My teammates and I were interviewed during our planning period by a member of the Academic Review Team. As the 2:35 bell rang, I headed down to the cafeteria to oversee Learning Lab. Learning Lab is the place at Walker where every student is given the opportunity to stay after school for extra help, a place to do his/her homework, or to retake a test. I also briefly met with Mr. Henderson regarding the science club we’ll be starting next week, which is designed to help students who are in danger of failing. It is modeled on a social studies club started last year by Ms. Dickinson. Ninety-two percent of the students in her club passed their social studies SOL. At 4:30, I started making the copies I would need for the next day, I updated the model notebook I keep for my social studies classes so that any student who is absent will easily be able to locate missed work. I met with one of my teammates to discuss the lack of progress of one of our students, and cheered the great strides another has made over the last two-and-a-half weeks. I updated two field trip handouts for our trips to Monticello and Virginia Beach. At 6:30, I decided to call it a day and headed to the School Board meeting.
Once again I listened, sick at heart, as people stood up to call me and my colleagues racists. Once again, I sat through a meeting and wondered why I bother, wondered how anyone could believe that the people who come to work every day in this division are racists. I have left many School Board meetings this year feeling defeated, feeling as though nothing I’ve done has made a difference, feeling that even if I worked 24 hours a day some people would still feel as though I have not done enough. Never, during my time at Walker, have I ever considered leaving. And yet, this year I have considered it on more than one occasion. I have discussed my frustration with members of the administrative team at Walker and without fail they remind me why I stay, what a team looks like, and how we are making it work at Walker. I love what we’ve done. I love what we’ve created, and I love that we never, ever stop trying to give every student a top-notch education. And most of all I have hope that with the systems we’ve put in place we will continue the arduous task of closing the achievement gap.
It is disheartening to be called a racist by people who have never come to my school to see what’s going on or ask questions, have never come into my classroom to see what I’m doing, but continue to spout divisive rhetoric without offering a solution to the problems our division faces.
Christine Esposito
Charlottesville
Size doesn’t matter
This letter is in response to the advice given by Amy Alkon, the “Advice Goddess,” in your paper the week of January 25 [“Swell yourself short”]. While I’m sure you get plenty of letters informing you of her attitude, I’ll be the first to say that is just her own brand of wit. And generally, I must admit, she has empowering and modern advice for her readers (generally female).
In this column, however, she turned a confident, average-sized woman into yet another victim of our size-2-obsessed society. In case you failed to read this column, I will remind you that a recent mother wrote in asking for advice about how to encourage her husband to stop buying tiny clothes for her in an attempt to convince her to regain her pre-pregnancy figure.
I fully expected the “Advice Goddess” to tell her that the problem was his and not hers and that any man who would marry a woman for her figure had a few things coming in the way of a reality check. I was flabbergasted when I read on and found that instead of telling this new mother that being healthy is the most important thing and that her husband should accept her as the woman he loves regardless of her size, she slung insults, calling this creator of new life a “cargo van” and advising her to get her “expanding elastic waistband” into an exercise routine and stop consuming so many calories.
First, I would like to give my own advice to this woman: Your body is designed to do certain activities—walk, bend, lift, have sex, menstruate and procreate, among many other things. If you can do these things (and if you are a new mother and consider yourself content with your body, I assume you can) and feel that you and your body have reached a point where you are both happy, then consider yourself blessed. As for your husband, you should be upfront with him and tell him that you married the man you love and you are the woman he loves, that you are healthy and he has nothing to worry about and that you would love to work on finding ways to stimulate your sex life, if that is, in fact, a problem.
It is important that we all note that very few women over 5’4" are healthy in a size 4. The media and modern culture has duped us into thinking that skinnier is better, when in reality, vital body functions can be harmed by being underweight. I encourage women to find a weight where they feel happy and reach the sense of mutual satisfaction with their bodies that I previously described.
Next, I would suggest that the “Advice Goddess” change her name unless she plans on investigating artistic representations of the goddess and embracing that women have been revered for millennia not for their sleek, muscular, miniskirt-clad bodies, but for their curvaceous, voluptuous, rounded bodies capable of the most magical of miracles called childbearing.
Kristen Skaer
kskaer@gmail.com
Amy Alkon responds:
Since this woman was able to get pregnant, it’s unlikely that she was initially at an unhealthy body weight. We can’t know the size of her frame, but going from a size 3 to a size 14 is an enormous jump. Obviously, appearance isn’t all that matters, but it matters. I presented data from a number of researchers showing that men’s satisfaction with their marriage is substantially affected by how attractive they find their wives. It sounds like the husband still loves her, but he can’t make himself lust after her like he did before. For the good of their marriage, it’s essential that she not do as she was doing—lazily giving up. Not only did I refer her to a Registered Dietitian, I thought I responded to her complaint that she didn’t “feel good” about herself with an extremely positive message: She could be sexy if only she’d once again take pride in her appearance, wear waist-cinching clothes and “strut her stuff”—even if she did have more stuff to strut.
Road to ruin
Thanks for your article “Highways to hell” [February 1]. Maybe, just maybe, the people who read that article can read it and think before driving. Maybe they will read it, but most of the people in Charlottesville/ Albemarle County don’t seem to be able to read a stop sign or comprehend its meaning. Living in the area, we are supposed to be very highly educated people but we just can’t read or understand S-T-O-P. Then there are others who don’t understand the difference between a green light and a yellow or red light, or the proper procedure for turning right on a red light.
Nothing is more frightening to me than a soccer mom in her SUV (probably between 20 and 45 years old) on my bumper with a cell phone in her ear and a faraway look. We often travel in the Greenbrier area and 29N and dread the time when schools are letting out in the Greenbrier and Hollymead neighborhoods. These mothers in their cars and SUVs seem to always be in a hurry and impatient. They could just leave home in plenty of time and obey the traffic laws. I would rather meet a teenager or a senior citizen than a “soccer” mom!
Thank you again for your article. We are very aware of the locations you wrote about, but what can we do if some of our residents think only of themselves? I for one don’t want to be “roadkill.”
Barbara Lane
Albemarle County
Who’s behind the wheel?
Thanks for the dangerous roads article focusing on our local transportation disease. Everyone talks about the symptoms, but our local elected officials have been ineffective for years in treating the disease, and now people are dying. Taking care in driving is a personal responsibility; our overcrowded roads are a municipal responsibility. It’s about time someone pointed out the fatal cause and effect of ignoring our dangerous roads.
We can’t discuss redistricting our schools without unsafe roads being an issue for our new and old drivers. The Berkmar Drive extension to Sam’s Club was the last big local road decision—hoorah, and big deal. Our transportation problems are paralyzing and killing more than just people. Your article shows the local elected officials’ negligence and unwillingness to do something about our roads. Maybe it is time for local citizens to petition our General Assembly and ask them to usurp the local authority to get the job done. Lynchburg and Danville can see the disease and negligence—I imagine they wonder why we haven’t considered a frontal lobotomy!
W. Carswell
Albemarle County
Petty patties
I read with interest your article on the burger wars heating up between Martin’s Grill and the soon-to-open Riverside North in the Forest Lakes Shopping Center [“Hot crossed buns,” Restaurantarama, February 1]. Isn’t it curious that Riverside Lunch has been around since 1935, and now, 70 years later—within a year of the opening of Martin’s Grill by the Riverside’s former manager, Ryan Martin—Buster Taylor suddenly decides to open a satellite location? Give me a break. Clearly, there’s some sort of personal vendetta going on here, as evidenced by the lawsuit Taylor has filed against Martin. It’s no secret that northern Albemarle has long been designated a “growth” area. Taylor could have gotten a piece of the action long before now. If Taylor’s intent is to snuff out the competition, he’s in for a rude awakening. Martin has already established a loyal following and this is one fan who will not be going to the “other ’Side.”
Derik Rice
Charlottesville
Grounds swell for charter
Please allow this groundskeeper at UVA to respond to Jan Cornell’s quote of February 8 regarding the ongoing “charter” debate, “…and you know damn well the Board of Visitors isn’t going to talk to a groundskeeper” [“Full steam ahead,” The Week].
Just last year, Ms. Georgia M. Willis of Ruther Glen, Virginia, one of the newly appointed members of the Board of Visitors, made it a point to introduce herself to the landscape supervisors during a tree dedication ceremony. She thanked us for the job we were doing and indicated her interest in seeing that the Grounds were always well cared for. Twice since, during her visits, she has seen me on the Grounds and engaged me in conversation. It is this type of cordial interaction that often precedes more substantial discussion of employment policies, compensation and benefits.
During my 10-year tenure at the University, the past three years as Supervisor of Central Grounds, I have had the opportunity to meet with senior members of the Facilities Management Department, the Office of the Architect and staff at the President’s Office. Most of these meetings were landscape oriented. However, as a past chairman of the Facilities Management Employee Council, which represents nearly 800 workers, I had an opportunity to also discuss various compensation issues. My experience was, and continues to be, that my ideas and suggestions were always received in the manner in which they were delivered, in a sincere effort to improve compensation, efficiency and productivity.
As to Cornell’s assertion “…that UVA will be just like a private company…with low wages and low benefits,” if this were to come true in the coming years one would think that the academic stature of the University would start a slow decline. Neither University officials, the governor, the General Assembly nor the citizens of the Commonwealth would accept this.
Cornell and her union are wedded to the status quo, the state compensation system. This is a system that has given no raises or doles out 2.5 percent to 3 percent raises as the General Assembly faces tight budgets. This is a system that has virtually eliminated any merit pay increases and allows the unproductive worker to avoid the penance of accountability through myriad worker “protections.” Furthermore, since current law prohibits any coordinated union action against the University as our employer, her rhetoric rings as hollow as the chapel bell.
Perhaps in the coming years as the University obtains more autonomy, greater efficiencies will be realized with its incumbent benefits being increased compensation, merit pay, and a variety of retirement and medical benefits. Maybe none of this will happen, but this groundskeeper is willing to take the chance.
Scott P. Burns
Charlottesville
Charter bust
At first, I thought the charter bill looked like a good thing for employees at UVA. It looked like we might get some more control over our future, and some more money in our paycheck at the end of the month. I attended several meetings hosted by UVA on the charter bill, and posed questions to UVA President John Casteen, CEO Leonard Sandridge and a panel of our local legislators. Their responses (or lack thereof) are not comforting.
There are real problems with the charter bill. The long-term effects of this bill on the families of prospective students at UVA are staggering. Employees at UVA can expect benefits that will gradually degrade over time and wages will not even keep up with inflation. Residents surrounding the University will see an unprecedented increase in construction, controlled neither by state nor local government.
If the charter bill passes in its current state, UVA will try to straddle the private/public boundary, and its employees are going to get caught in the middle. UVA will be permitted to set wages, raises and benefits independently of the State. Workers will have no way to affect the process as they do now by contacting their state representatives. Employees will be left out in the cold without a voice. Their only options will be to shut up, or leave.
Due to the creation of a two-tiered system of grandfathered and non-grandfathered employees, new employees will not have access to the same benefits and compensation that current employees have. This is a bad situation for both groups.
Sure, Casteen and the Board of Visitors will be fiscally accountable to the State, but the charter bill requires little or no accountability regarding matters of human resources, employee compensation or benefits.
Here are some solutions to the problem. Any one of these measures would be
sufficient.
-Vote down the charter resolution in its entirety.
-Eliminate the Human Resources section of the charter bill that permits “covered institutions” to set their own rules regarding compensation, raises and benefits.
-Include written guarantees in the charter bill that assure classified staff that their raises and benefits will not drop below those for other state employees in any calendar year, and eliminate the provisions granting different treatment to grandfathered and non-grandfathered employees.
-Give classified staff the right to form a union with the right to strike and bargain collectively.
There is still time for concerned citizens to tell their legislators how they feel about this bill. Don’t delay.
Brad Sayler
Crozet