There Is A Lot Wrong With The Way Our School District Is Being Run

This week we are writing to point out how our school district seems to have been brought under the influence of the top administrator. There appears to be a strange alliance between him and The Morning News. It is almost as if they are determined to print everything he says about the district. Yet, not a day goes by without him having something to say about the district and his total involvement in everything that happens.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it seem a little Trump-like how he has an innate need to be involved in anything positive involving FSD1? We can't recall any other superintendent with this type of access. We are reminded of the negativity in the district when going through the initial introduction of the food service. What they did and how they treated the employees was not very nice nor conducive to building a relationship that their constituents could support. From what we hear, the students are still not too enamored with the food served. We hear a lot of food thrown away daily, but that does not seem to matter. All that matters to the food-service people, or the superintendent, is the number of meals they get paid to prepare.

They are now embarking on an endeavor with Pepsi-Cola at the McClenaghan administrative building. Excuse me, but this is the first time I have heard talk of Pepsi being lauded for selling nutritious food. Nutrition may be unrelated to why this unusual alliance is coming together. We know it is marketed as a win for the district, but that does not explain why such an inordinate alliance came together. We assume none of the special needs students had anything to do with it. So, whose brainchild is this? Doesn't IDEA have strict demands on the educational curriculum for Special Needs students? Where are they supposed to get the time to dedicate to selling Pepsi products?

The school board's willingness to go along with anything recommended by the superintendent is precisely why the justice department is investigating this district. And you may want to think about how the McClenaghan building got back into the mix. There was a proposal involving the old Poyner school building and some other projects that got lost in the shuffle. Anyway, this board has codified itself around supporting anything O'Malley wants to do with little to no regard for what the people want. Or should we say what the people of color want?

There should be additional lawsuits against the district for the way rezoning was done to revert back to the time when Whites had total control over the district and what it did. Black participation was noticeable in the photograph in the Florence Morning News coverage of the student-run Pepsi market. We hope they don't try to point to the one African American in the room because that would perfectly demonstrate our point.

There is a lot wrong with how our school district is run. An article published in the Morning News on Saturday, November 12, 2022, attested to things not going so well in FSD1. Interestingly, Dr. O'Malley's name was not mentioned in that article, but all the other assistant superintendents and staff members were mentioned. If you have been following most of the correspondence between the district and the Morning News, you would not have known these other people existed in the "O'Malley show" of influence.

The interesting thing about that article was that it went on and on, pointing out the way things are and what contributed to the test scores, but nothing was mentioned about how and what they will do to correct the deficit in performance. The testing indicated that only 8 percent of middle school students passed the exams. Maybe we were looking at the conclusions wrong, but it did not reflect very well on how FSD1 students are performing. As mentioned, the superintendent does not overshadow or take responsibility for the findings.

My recommendation for you this week is that you take some time out to understand what is happening in your school district. There has been a major push made concerning athletics, but not in academics. Which do you think should receive the most redress? As parents, grandparents, and citizens, we are responsible for paying attention to what goes on in our school system until we can force this board to be accountable for their votes and how they have chosen to run our school system. If we are not mistaken, the reason for all the lawsuits fought and won in the past was poor disproportional representation and performance by Black students. There appears to be no reason why all memory of the Old Wilson High School is being torn down and removed from our history while McClenaghan High School has been, and is being, thrust into our consciousness. Just the makeup of the board. WAKE UP!

Sincerely Yours, The Vestiges of Racism Are Rising Again.

Elder, James W. Williams, Chairperson