LH board member plays word games with nepotism
That’s a smoke screen that everyone should see through. Vernon is simply trying to muddy the waters, which might be expected since he likely holds the current Laurel Highlands board record for number of close relatives working for the school district. Their combined gross income might even rival the John Marra family payroll that shocked the public back when Marra ran the Fayette County Housing Authority. According to Vernon, he’s looked up the definition of “nepotism” in four dictionaries and each one has defined the word as the hiring of relatives and close or personal friends. Funny, but we checked ours – a Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary – and the word “friend” doesn’t pop up.
In Merriam’s, “nepotism” is defined as “favoritism (as in appointment to a job) based on kinship.” For further clarification, “kinship” is defined as “the quality or state of being kin.” And, to leave no stone unturned, “kin” is defined as “a group of persons of common ancestry.” Call us crazy, but having common ancestry pretty much sounds like you are family.
Nowhere is the word “friend” found in any of the Merriam definitions. Perhaps Vernon is leafing through the pages of the lone copy of “Tom’s School Board Dictionary” to find the meanings of words. If that’s the case, we’d be glad to lend him ours for future and more accurate reference.
As Vernon well knows, “friend” is almost impossible to define in any meaningful way, when it comes to hiring practices. Any school board member could fall back on that accusation to scuttle the hiring or promotion of practically any candidate. If you ever had lunch or went bowling with a person, is that your friend? What if you were friends at one time, but have had a falling out? Are you still friends? What is someone thinks that you are friends, but you are only acquaintances?
The bigger objective, and one that we believe lies at the heart of Beal’s proposal, is to improve student performance. She has patterned her policy after the one adopted by Frazier School District, the lone public school in Fayette County to outlaw nepotism. Frazier also has consistently turned in the highest, and thus most respectable, student test scores in the county.
If Laurel Highlands or any other school district that still permits nepotism can duplicate Frazier’s performance, those board members who trash Beal’s idea could make a valid argument that the current system works quite well. But they can’t. And when something isn’t working, isn’t it time to try a fresh approach?
Those who foot the bill for school district operations via property taxes should also ask themselves a very important question: When board members have relatives on the payroll, and they are voting on wage and benefit packages for those relatives, whose interest do you think will ultimately prevail – yours, as a taxpayer, or theirs, as family members through blood or marriage?
There are plenty of qualified candidates for all available teaching and administrative school district jobs in Fayette County. Just ask the dozens who can’t beg, borrow or steal a teaching job, regardless of their good college grades and even after substitute teaching for many years.
Yet it’s common practice for those with some very familiar last names to be added to the payroll, year in and year out, regardless of their college grades and often after not substitute teaching at all.
The other members of the Laurel Highlands School Board have agreed to take a look at Beal’s proposal. Beal would like them to vote on it at the October board meeting. Don’t be surprised if it’s shot down. The only thing that will stop that from happening is a huge public outcry. And if that doesn’t work, it will take a change in the composition of the board.
If you agree with Beal that nepotism should end at LH, show up at the October meeting and let the board -and the world – know. After all, you’re paying the bills.