What's best for the kids?

You will rarely see a board of education meeting as packed as the most recent Polson meeting last Monday.
Usually, the people in the crowd include a few educators, anyone there to make a presentation, myself and VJ reporter, Berl.
On Monday, the room was PACKED, for an item not even on the agenda.
After Linderman principal Steve York announce he was leaving for another job, someone had to be moved there. Superintendent David Whitesell had a plan that included moving seasoned administrator Tom DiGiallonardo to Linderman.
No one else seemed to be happy with this. It was brought up during a special meeting two weeks ago. Many rumors ensued. Whitesell could have made the move with no board approval. But from the comments at Monday's meeting, most didn't want DiGiallonardo and PMS principal Brian Adams split up.
What came of the meeting was actually no change - but sometimes that's a good enough reason for discussion because many good points arose at the meeting about how to do what's best for the Polson kids.
Let's start off by saying kudos to the parents who stood up, during the proper forum, and told the superintendent and trustees what they thought. Even more impressive was the score of teachers (they live with the decisions made at the meetings) who made their voices heard. ( I didn't include many of these testimonials in the article because of space, which is always an issue).
Many of the trustees said the change may have been the best move. Why not pull from the pool of experience leaders already established with the district (as Whitesell himself said) and accept a change? Would this not benefit the whole more than just PMS?
Superintendent David Whitesell heard all these comments and more I'm sure. In the end, he made his decision - which he announced at the beginning of the meeting - to not move administrators after discussion with the administrators themselves. He also said he was keeping his word to one administrator, after he told them he would not move them against their will. Good for him for making good on his word.
The outcry/uproar, as I called it in my story, stemmed mostly from the responses made by some people outside the meeting. Sometimes early Saturday morning signs reading, "Go home," and "Go back" were posted on Whitesell's yard. Come on - what kind of reaction is this? I'd call it childish, but I know most educators would tell you the kids they teach wouldn't think of reacting this way.
I also received an e-mail from a "concernedparents@hotmail" account, that asked why the new superintendent thought he could move or let quality administrators leave. I never got confirmation that the signee had sent the letter, so we didn't run it.

The main objective is to do what's best for the kids, people on "both sides" of the administrator move uproar kept saying this. The thing is, no one agreed on Monday night what that exactly was. No one ever will.
But it was good conversation. Good that Whitesell would keep his word, good that parents are passionate enough about how who leads the individual schools to speak up.
Communicating is the only way to get new and innovative ideas on how to do better.