Why is she ignoring the “village”? Aren’t I, a teacher, a member? Apparently not. Only 4 members of the village are deciding what is best for everyone without any consideration of the feelings of the people that this affects. Shame on you, Ms. Adams, for ignoring us. And shame on you for abusing your power.

In my 20 years of professional experience and continued daily education that we receive from life, it is my experience that “Disappointment comes from unmet expectations. Unmet expectations come from lack of communication.”

My family and the thirty plus families that I have discussed the Board’s activity with are thoroughly disappointed and disgusted by the lack of communication that has been exhibited. Furthermore, we are disgusted by the abuse of power that the school board has exhibited.

The constituents were led to believe that we had three more years of stability with Dr. Williams. When a contract is renewed for three years, it communicates to all parties involved that the person has done their job and there is a strong belief that the person will continue to do his job. How can we not be disappointed?

I have served on multiple boards both in an advisory capacity and as a member since the early ’90s. I have never seen such a blatant disregard for protocol. Many times professional and not-for-profit Boards will pause to refer to a manual to make sure that the procedure was properly executed. Our Board seems to have thrown out years of procedures to take things into their own hands. The Board’s behavior and lack of respect for procedure have severly tarnished the Perry Township reputation. They have embarrassed our community. Their behavior is far reaching.

As a result of their actions:

Teachers that are educating our children are in a state of turmoil and unknown. Any business that loses its leader affects the employees. Whether you want to believe it or not, the Perry Township School Corporation is a business. It’s leader is not able to make decisions. We are losing ground every day. Even with an interim, that interim has to get up to speed. Does the interim have experience leading a school corporation? If not, let’s just thrown him into the fire and train him with one of the largest in the state.

A distraction has been introduced. Teachers are humans, too? If you do not run your own business, ask yourself the following quesiotns: If the head person of my business left and another person stepped in, would I have concerns? Would I function at my best? Would I be checking everywhere I could to get the information? I have faith and trust in the teachers educating my children. However, I have seen the concern in their faces and have heard what the top topic of discussion is.

Fiduciary responsibility!! As a CPA, this is my concern next to my children’s education. Where is the money going to come from? How much did this decision cost the school corporation — our business? This next statement isn’t literal — we are stockholders in this company. We invest money into this school corporation — our business — every year. How much of the constituents money did you just spend? If Dr. Williams has violated his contract, then, there is no cost associated with your decision. What are the factual reasons this decision was made? I firmly believe that if these actions were taken on a publicly traded company all board members involved would be personally liable. I believe that the constituents will need to find the following out: Although the actions may not be illegal, there are cases where you don’t do anything illegal and still are held financially accountable.

I have worked with over 100 Executives and CEO’s across the nation and Canada. The type of personality that allows a person to be a Top Executive or CEO is consistant with the complaints that I have read about Dr. Williams. A person that is able to lead a school corporation to the level that Dr. Williams has led this school corporation isn’t going to come in a “perfect package”. They often do have trouble communicating with their boards. It is difficult for them to exhibit the patience to come down off of their fast-paced schedule to communicate at the board level. The good news and the bad news is the same — they have the ability to be a school superintendant.

Community sponsors — There has been talk that people are pulling out their sponsorship. We will never know the negative financial impact that will occur.

Mrs. Adams states, “Education is a community responsibility and everyone should have a vote.”

My husband and I cast our vote — We SUPPORT Dr. Williams. More importantly, we cast our vote that we do not condone the actions of the board. We want procedure and professionalism.

I am very disappointed that you appear to not be listening to your “village.” If Dr. Williams is not doing a satisfactory job, then why are so many teachers showing their support for him? Why was he voted as Superintendent of the Year in 2004� [Editor’s Note: It was 2003 I believe]?Why were approximately 500 people at the last school board meeting, with the largest majority there in support for Dr. Williams? When other school systems are tightening their budgets and cutting out programs in “the arts,” why is Dr. Williams supporting “the arts?” Why has Dr. Williams spent countless hours talking to state legislators/news media about the flaws in “No Child Left Behind” and has asked for more school funding?

NCLB unfairly punishes schools whose special education population does not pass ISTEP at their age/grade level, not their functioning level. Most of our schools who did not make AYP are due to our special needs students not passing ISTEP. Dr. Williams has not berated the teachers, but instead encouraged us to do the best we can with what we have.

It was brought up at the last school board meeting that it was felt that Dr. Williams was withholding a receipt for $70 that a principal spent on an educational trip to Chicago. I understand about being concerned about budgets and appreciate this, but what about the thousands of dollars your board has and will spend hiring a new attorney, trying to buy-out Dr. Williams’s contract, and seaching for a new superintendent? In the big scheme of things, $70 seems very insignificant.

Rich Eskew suggested hiring a mediator and working out the differences between the board and Dr. Williams. I agree with him. Let’s show the students, parents, and staff of Perry how mature people who truly care about the education of Perry Township Students work together for the good of everyone.

“realizing that the 500 who showed up at the meeting were not an accurate representation.”

Not an accurate representation? I guess not if you don’t consider the fact that if the “silent majority” really cared, they’d come out and support the board that’s speaking for them. If the “silent majority” really cared, would they let their “voices” on the board go through this with no visible support? If that’s the type of people that support me, I’d rather know I didn’t have any support.

I am not here to bad mouth anyone. But for the first time, I am not proud to say that I am from Perry. This situation has brought out the worst in MANY, a few have been very civilized. Even as I read this page I am sad that the communication has gotten so bad between EVERYONE in the school system. I have had a hard time explaining this situation to my 3rd grader. She has asked many times “Why don’t they do conflict resolution? (a term that she learned in SCHOOL) The worst part is that I don’t know how to answer her. I am sure that both sides have done wrong but this situation is more than one standing one’s ground or someone not apologizing. Both sides need to admit that they have made mistakes (we all do that is what makes us human!) and come together to discuss the future of this township. As my daughter would say conflict resolution! This can not happen until EVERYONE is willing to openly communicate before the pride is lost for all.

Yes, we all know about the meeting on Monday night.

Reply to Perry Parent:

Yes, there will be many, many DOUG supporters there. It’s unfortunate that those supporters will include a HUGE number of Perry Township employees, how many of these people are REALLY supporters of Doug Williams? And how many of them are TOLD that they have to be????? Here’s even a more disturbing thought, did you ever think that maybe many of these “supporters” are AFRAID to let their peers know how they really feel???

My hope is that with all of the publicity that has come from this that it just might bring out a large group of NON Perry Township employees and rather bring out more concerned Perry Parents.

Perry Parent, there are more NON-SUPPORTERS than you think……I strongly urge ALL of them to come out and let their voices be heard on Monday night.

I don’t think anyone needs an “excuse” to express their opinion.

I was at the last meeting. I saw a number of people that worked on some of the 4’s campaign to get them elected. I know for a fact that 2 employees of the district( I personally only know 5 employees of the district) do not support Dr. Williams, that’s 40% disapproval. But, Here’s the real scary part. The 2 private dislikers where right there giving him a stand OVATION.

RETRIBUTION- It goes along way. Your principal starts pressuring you to show support for the team.

Parents are afraid of it, too. My kid will be an outcast.

If I was on the board, I would ask for a re-election right now. Let the Four who made this decision be up for re-election next week.

Because you know what would happen. THEY would win, probably by a greater margin than before.

You know why????? Because you don’t have BIG BROTHER IN the voting booth with you. We have a woman at work that asked if me and another co-worker would sign a petition to have Dr. Williams reinstated(if she could get one?), I said, ” NO , that I will be waiting for the investigation results before I make my decisions” , expecting my counterpart to also say NO, since this is the talk of the week and he had told me he was in support of the board. He told her sure
he would be happy to help her out.

When she left, I asked “what was up with that?” His response was, ” it’s not worth listening to her rant about this and that for the next couple of weeks.”

Again, Dr. Williams has done great things for this district, and they are a great foundation for the future, with or without him.

Yet, there are so many posting that say that people are afraid to stand up to their peers. Their afraid of being outcast. Their afraid of losing their jobs. “Standing by your principles only means something when it isn’t convenient.”

Let’s start setting a good example. Stand up and let your voice be heard. Don’t cave to peer pressure. Don’t worry about what your neighbor thinks.

I am not a Perry employee, teacher, administrator, etc. I am just a taxpayer that has children attending Perry. We chose to go regular school route.

I have spoken with 75 people since the board’s actions. I have encouraged people to give me their opinion. I respect that everybody has opinions. If you listen to someone’s opinion, you might just learn something. Only one person said that they were happy to see Dr. Williams leave. I thought — finally — I’ll get some insight. They indicated that it was a personal dislike of Dr. Williams. They didn’t like the way he handled a situation. They even admitted that it wouldn’t be grounds to fire him, but they just didn’t like him after that. Everyone stated that they thought the board acted inappropriately including the person who didn’t support Williams.

Of all of the families that I polled, only two families were Edison school families.

I polled Southport and Perry Meridian families, educators, administration, cafeteria workers etc. I polled High school students. I polled taxpayers that don’t have students at Perry.

I spoke to two area superintendents who admire and respect Dr. Williams. They stated that it is unfortunate that the majority of the population doesn’t understand the power that the school board can take into their own hands.

I’m continue to do my fact finding. I’m trying to find out why Dr. Williams needs to leave. I’m trying to understand what the board has done. All of my information that I have gathered doesn’t support what the board has done.

Don’t cave to peer pressure. Let your voice be heard. It is okay to have different opinions. The world would be a very boring place if we didn’t have opposing beliefs.

Let me just say that many of the adults of this township are acting more petty than the high schoolers. Completely ridiculous. Get me out of this township.

Thank you for pointing that out. I would say that the 1 and only thing the leadership of the current school board is consistent with is their inconsistency. It is proven that 2 minutes is longer for those that agree with the agenda of the majority of the board than those that do not agree. If you are given 2 minutes, 2 minutes you have…unless you receive the disgusted look from the current president of the board at which time you will be met by a person in a brown suit with a star on their shirt or jacket and a gun on their side. We now know their definition of intimidation……sorry, I meant mediation.

Secondly, my wife and me are new move ins to Perry and we have two sons.

If I would have know that Perry TWP was in this amount of turmoil, I would have moved somewhere else.

That being sad, after everything I have read and investigated, it seems these four “ladies” are basically a Gang of Four we a penchant for not getting along with men.If they really HAD something on Dr. Williams, they would have fired him already. Give me a break, $700 on tenderloins is the best you got?

We are putting our house up for sale this spring and will move to Center Grove. I will be the soothsayer and tell you, notice Mrs. Adams is going back to school to get her admin license, she wants Dr. Williams job.