Oak Harbor Scool District

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Island County Commissioner Emerson Nominated by Senator Patty Murray to Represent Washington State at Senate Democratic Rural Summit

June 3, 2013 by Bill | 5 comments

Press release, 5/31/13:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Effective prioritization of transportation funding, protecting the tax-exempt status of municipal bonds and opposing unfunded federal mandates were among the legislative priorities that Commissioner Kelly Emerson advanced before members of Congress and administration officials during the National Association of Counties’ (NACo) Rural Action Caucus (RAC) “fly-in” advocacy effort, April 23-25, in Washington, D.C.

“It’s critical that our federal representatives hear directly from county representatives expressing rural America’s interests,” said Emerson. “With Congress needing to make deep spending cuts, considering higher taxes and fees and imposing new federal regulations, they need to understand how these decisions will affect our county and the communities we serve.”

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OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM IS NOT BROKEN; IT’S OBSOLETE AND NEEDS TO BE REPLACED

May 26, 2013 by Bill | 6 comments

Many say our education system is broken.

The teachers’ unions says they need more money to fix it,  BUT AN INCREASING NUMBER OF CITIZENS DISAGREE WITH THOSE CLAIMS.

A tech-savvy and caring parent could create a curriculum based upon state and fed standards and prep a child better than most public schools. Many are doing exactly this with “home schooling“:

One of the original goals in the late 1800s of expanding public schools was to create an environment for the influx of immigrants to become “Americanized” and for the system to act as a center for social interaction.

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The “Show Must Go On” in the OHSD, so Lance Gibbon will be christened OHSD’s new Superintendent + Video “The Show Must Go On”

May 9, 2013 by BillB | 14 comments

One really does NOT need a crystal ball to predict Lance Gibbon being given the OHSD Superintendent’s post

Sometimes, pulling out one’s crystal ball and making a prediction just seems too tempting a proposition. Therefore, I predict that on May 28, the Oak Harbor School Board will crown Lance Gibbon as Superintendent for the OHSD, and they will give him a three-year, regular (i.e. “permanent”) contract when they do so.

In doing so, the OHSD will step squarely into former Oak Harbor City Councilman Bob Morrison’s prediction about Gibbon’s eventual ascent, which he made to me shortly after Lance Gibbon first accepted the job as Assistant Superintendent for the OHSD: Bob’s take: “Rick Schulte was a Roger Woehl-trained man, and Lance Gibbon will be a Rick Schulte-trained man”. Read the rest of this entry »

Students, parents, grandparents document substandard teaching, mistreatment within Oak Harbor School District + Video “The Truth About Public Schools”

April 28, 2013 by BillB | 1 comment

Following an 18-month all-out campaign to double the local Maintenance and Operations levy, the Oak Harbor School District (OHSD) managed to convince 54.5% percent of the voters to do so.

Why 45.5% voted “no” is likely not a question of any present consequence to the OHSD, since their campaign strategy of lies, more lies, student exploitation, and thuggery succeeded.

Some of those who voted “no” have long-believed that the OHSD’s problems cannot be solved with more money. To demonstrate that point, we’ve received a series of letters containing first hand experiences within the Oak Harbor School District, along with permission to publish these letters here at Island Politics.

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Oak Harbor teachers’ union president fails in bid to become WEA union president + Video “Teachers Unions explained”

April 28, 2013 by BillB | 13 comments

Peter Szalai in his “educational soldiers“ red t-shirt.

The very politically ambitious Peter Szalai, president of the Oak Harbor Education Association, lost in his bid to become president of the Washington Education Association.

I suspect his own bio did him in.  

In arguing for a “clear-headed” path to “change the dominant narrative arrayed against us“, he vomited:

“It is time—way past time—finally, inexorably, and unalterably to say “no”—not “no, but” or “no, and” but simply “no.””

 

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The Washington voting rights act of 2013 would strengthen our mobile, Navy community in Oak Harbor, and that’s why OHSD opposes it + Video “The Cartel – Local Spending”

March 9, 2013 by BillB | 11 comments

The Washington voting rights act of 2013 would potentially provide the Oak Harbor Navy community a full-fledged full-time voice on the Oak Harbor School Board, but the OHSD’s Superintendent and incumbent school board directors have decided to oppose this legislation. The real reason they have done so? They do not want Oak Harbor on such a vector because they do not want to lose the ability to hand pick at-large public education sycophants who will simply go-along-to-get-along whenever asked to increase local property taxes in whatever amount the school district desires. Read the rest of this entry »

A Citizen Comments- Oak Harbor School District is a textbook example of long-term money mismanagement + Video “Teachers’ Unions Explained”

February 11, 2013 by Publius | 48 comments

UPDATE (below, within article): Have you recently heard these local cries from the Oak Harbor School District (OHSD): “We have no money for textbooks!?!” and “Our paper supply is being rationed!?!” How can this be? This certainly is NOT due to lack of funding.  What it has to do with is money mismanagement and the diversion of funds AWAY from the children and into the adult pockets that oversee children. This year, the money managers of the OHSD will burn through $57 MILLION dollars for 5,400 students. 

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Recently departed Oak Harbor School Board Director attacks teacher-constituent who used private dollars to pay for print ad against proposed doubling of Maintenance and Operations (M&O) property tax levy

February 8, 2013 by BillB | 4 comments

A single quarter-page ad against the Oak Harbor Maintenance & Operations (M&O) levy appeared (buried) on page 12 of the Whidbey News-Times’ 26 January edition. Having just left the Oak Harbor School Board as an elected School Board Director, David McCool wasted no time penning a letter-to-the-editor attacking his former constituent  - a reading teacher – and the WNT wasted no time in printing his letter-of-attack. The ad had been bought and paid-for at the Whidbey News-Times by a single individual, a private citizen, using a personal credit card. McCool called the ad “shameful” because, he says, whoever paid for the ad did not “have the courage to take personal ownership”. McCool also purports it to be “political fantasy” that the school levy is in any way connected to teacher TRI-Days. McCool is an outright LIAR. Read the rest of this entry »

OHHS Teacher Kevin Kindelberger Claims That No Island Politics Article About OHSD M&O Levy Has Any Truth to it + Video “The Machine”

February 7, 2013 by BillB | 4 comments

(Updated: see below within article) After first labeling me a Fascist, tin-foil-hat-wearing kid-hating bully in the Whidbey News-Times Facebook forum, Oak Harbor High School Teacher Kevin Kindelberger next penned a letter to the editor which received the title “The school levy is not a scam”. His was the second letter published in the News-Times in an attempt to counter my letter titled “Proposed levy is a scam, vote against“.

Teacher Kindelberger’s apparent modus operandi is simply to claim “I assure everyone that not one of these accusations (by Bill Burnett) has any truth to it”, referring to articles written by me and which he has apparently read here at Island Politics. Read the rest of this entry »

If OHEA Members Believe they “Deserve” TRI-Days Prove it by Running a Separate M&O Levy for All TRI-Days and Nothing Else and Lose All TRI-Days if the Levy Fails

February 5, 2013 by BillB | 3 comments

Updated (below): Peter Szalai, the Oak Harbor Education Association President, penned a letter to the editor in which he denies that the teachers’ union he leads will receive additional Time, Responsibility and Incentive Days (TRI-Days) as part of the Oak Harbor School District’s proposed doubling of its Maintenance and Operations (M&O) Levy.

I had outlined my claims in a letter which the newspaper titled “Proposed levy is a scam, vote against“. Mr. Szalai’s letter, written in direct response to my letter, received the moniker “Calling levy ‘a scam’ is shameful“

In reality, Mr. Szalai’s letter solidly re-confirms that the teachers’ union is purporting a scam. Moreoever, it’s essentially the SAME kind of levy scam that Ed Beeksma, the gentleman whose name adorns Oak Harbor’s Beeksma Gateway Park, also wrote to the newspaper about over 20 years ago in Oak Harbor, when he was an elected local school board director.

Let’s examine the actual facts of this latest proposed local K-12 property tax levy and the TRI-Day scam. Read the rest of this entry »

Oak Harbor School Board Directors sign their names to the false claim that there has been “no money for textbooks” + Video “California Teachers Union Socialist Brainwashing – Tax The Rich”

January 18, 2013 by BillB | 4 comments

Updated (below): A four page color flyer paid for by the Oak Harbor School District (OHSD) recently hit everyone’s mailbox on North Whidbey, boldly pretending NOT to be campaign literature for OHSD’s impending M&O levy.

Within that taxpayer-paid-for document, all five of our elected Oak Harbor School Board Directors signed their names claiming that the OHSD budget has had “no money for textbooks”, despite the fact that Washington State perennially provides revenue SPECIFICALLY for such items on a Full Time Equivalent (FTE) per-pupil basis.

Either all five of these people are either too stupid to be on a school board, or they think we, the public, are illiterate idiots, or all five of these elected officials are outright liars. In any case, the OHSD is being mismanaged and deserves ZERO public support, monetary or otherwise.  Read the rest of this entry »

“Would you mind if I simply removed that “Yes for Schools” pro-levy campaign sign from your front yard?” + Video “Governor Christie on why he said vote no on the school budget”

January 12, 2013 by BillB | 25 comments

Updated: After first ringing my front door bell and then immediately volunteering to having just read an unambiguous “vote no” letter-to-the-editor that I had sent to Whidbey Marketplace and News, Greg Goebel - whose wife Mary L Goebel (aka Lynn Goebel, an OHSD teacher already receiving $9,406 in “bonus pay” and one of two people heading up the Maintenance and Operations levy campaign for the Oak Harbor School District) – felt he needed to to ask me personally if I would place a pro-levy sign in my front yard. Greg Goebel‘s actions and request of me are only as reasonable as if I had gone directly across the street to the home of the two OHSD teachers who live there and had asked them to remove their two pro-levy signs from their front yard.

Below is the letter that Greg Goebel claims to have first read and then decided would be his “in” with me after ringing my door bell on a Saturday morning:  Read the rest of this entry »

A Citizen Comments- I intend to vote NO! (on the OHSD school levy) + Video “What’s Wrong With Our Schools?” (Part 1)

January 7, 2013 by Publius | No comments

Oak Harbor School District is asking for an M&O Levy that will net about three times more money than in years past. In 2002, we had 1,100 more students than now. When one divides the OHSD budget minus the ASB fund by the number of students, the result is about 10,565 dollars per student. When looking at the web pages for South Whidbey, Coupeville and Anacortes, one finds them bragging about scholastic success. Oak Harbor’s web pages brag about their sport successes. Is not the primary purpose of schools to educate young people so they can go on to a productive life?  Read the rest of this entry »

A Citizen Comments- Address the real problems instead of saying we just need more money for another school levy + Video “How A Blue Bird Bus Is Made”

January 7, 2013 by Publius | No comments

Oak Harbor School District has published a very expensive looking brochure about our schools. One of the budget items is called Transportation Vehicle Fund. The brochure states,” The district maintains a fund specifically for purchasing new buses.  This effort seeks to buy two new buses each year so that the district’s 40-bus fleet is replaced every 20 years.”  The budget is for $494,096 in 2010-2001, and, in 2010-2011, they spent $568,000 on said buses. My question: do school buses really cost over $250 thousand dollars apiece?* I understand their last two purchases were used buses from another school district. If these things are true, I have a bridge I would like to sell them.  Read the rest of this entry »

Questions from “A Caring Community” about the Oak Harbor School levy – Why are we spending more and achieving less? + “Vote NO” levy Video

January 5, 2013 by Publius | 2 comments

Why are we receiving grant money if we are doing so well academically? Why do we need a levy that is 2.7 times larger that of past levies, or more teachers, if we have 1,132 less students?

These, and a number of other salient questions are posed and addressed in a two-page document titled “Questions from “A Caring Community”" about the Oak Harbor School levy. Download your own copy now! Click HERE! Read the rest of this entry »

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