Will Jackson Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Cedric Gray resign today? Several sources told JJ that Dr. Cedric Gray is supposed to resign his position after he narrowly avoided being fired earlier this week.
A majority of school board members present at the Tuesday meeting voted to fire Dr. Gray but they were one vote short of successfully approving the motion. They met again yesterday in executive session. However, Dr. Gray apparently took the Tuesday action as a vote of no-confidence and agreed to step down. Chief among the reasons was the 2016 school accountability ratings. JJ can not report the actual ratings but will say they were pretty bad.* There were only four members present at the Tuesday vote. Thus the fire Dr. Gray side probably only needs one more vote to terminate his employment.
Kingfish note: It is about time. The Kingfish knew this guy was a fraud when one of the first things he did was blatantly lie about the school ratings in 2012. Don't believe me? Read this post for yourself. The number of "F" rated schools doubled his second year but he cut them in half during his third year - or rather, he got back to where he started. Then there were the crony contracts. Dr. Gray funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to his friends when JPS refinanced the 2007 bonds last year. Bonds that cost $548,000 in 2007 skyrocketed to $1.2 million in 2015 as Tony Gaylor, Betty Mallett, and Malachi all slurped at the JPS trough. Then there was the time he wanted to pay Malachi $500,000 to draft a budget when he has at least one CPA on the JPS staff but who wants to quibble over such minor things? A 2016 MDE audit stated that Dr. Gray did not provide effective leadership and that JPD schools are dangerous. Dr. Gray did not even ask for a hearing to contest the audit and submitted an "inadequate response". JPS spends nearly $60 million more than Desoto County for fewer students yet Dr. Gray shrieked that his budget couldn't handle a less than 1% budget cut despite a shrinking enrollment.
The sad truth is Dr. Gray was never qualified for his job. However, one criteria he did fulfill was keeping Jayne Sargent's son in a cushy downtown job when he became Superintendent. Several sources said that little promise played a part in who was hired for the position. There were only two finalists for the position and neither were qualified. Meanwhile, the school board blew off Jim Barksdale's offer to supplement the salary of a new superintendent so it could hire the best superintendent. The school board should pray that Mr. Barksdale has a forgiving nature and again makes the same offer.
Things should get real interesting today. Stay tuned.
*JJ and other media organizations have the results but signed non-disclosure agreements with MDE. We can not publish them until 10:00 AM today.
13 comments:
Barksdale want to pay more another total fool. Money is not the issue but the people doing the hiring.
How many 'national searches' can be handled at one time in the state of Mississippi? Send Gray to MSU and bring Cohen to JPS. Problem solved and it won't matter anyway.
"The sad truth is Dr. Gray was never qualified for his job."
Actually, "the sad truth" is that Dr. Gray was completely qualified for the job in the eyes of 80% of Jacksonians once they learned of the pigmentation of his skin.
Many people in Jackson think skin color is the only qualification a person needs. Anything else does not matter.
8:03 - Barksdale's offer was predicated on the people making the choice not being the people who make the choice. Or at least, the people making the choice had an oversight veto insuring that the choice would be a quality one. It would be nice to think that the spurned lover would come back, and I hope he does. But I'm not sure that the JPS Board is any smarter now than they were back then or the conditions that they would put on a new person would fit with Barksdale's conditions. But we can hope.
'Many people in Jackson think skin color is the only qualification a person needs. Anything else does not matter.'
Actually it is much worse than that. My experience working with unqualified minority firms is that they don't know themselves how bad they are at what they are trying to do. Any corrective action is see as racists. My boss, who hires them for political reasons, tells me 'They can't do XYZ. You just have to do it for them.' To which I reply - 'If no one ever makes them do their job correctly, and do it over and over until they get it right, how will they ever learn?' So they think me a racist for making them do their job properly when actually I am trying to help them learn to do it so their skin color won't matter.
My guess is that Gray himself thinks is at least above average, if not good, at his job.
@10:06am
I'm not one who votes because of skin color. However, you are upset because "skin color" is all the qualification that blacks think is needed. Think about how we feel when not only "skin color" but even an ethnic sounding name is all the justification whites need to disqualify us.
Did I feel that Dr. Gray should have been hired, NO! But I don't place all, most or even half the blame on him. Being a former teacher most of the blame goes to the adults with children. Notice I didn't say parents because you have to earn the title of parent. These adults and in some cases children with kids don't help the kids, don't show up for meetings, conferences or anything that is constructive. All they do is send the kids to school, complain that the district is not doing enough, see what they have to bring for parties and want to jump on the teachers and principals when you try to discipline their child.
I know a teacher who taught at JPS then taught in Madison. She told me the biggest difference was that the teachers in Madison complained the parents were too involved and worried the teachers about every little thing whether important or insignificant, while you have teachers in JPS who beg for the adults with children to get involved. So it doesn't matter who's in charge because the environment outside of the school setting can undo all of the instruction taught in school.
Mr Gray qualified? Is he an habitual bow tie wearer? If he has an affection for the bow tie, therein you have the answer.
Never give up on the students, but the adults making the decisions is a different matter.
3:24, if the ethnic sounding name is the problem why do the adults saddle their child with such a handicap?
All this bullshit aside, Gray needs to catch the Amtrak. It's just a matter of when and who buys the ticket.
Then get ready for a repeat of the same. First Jayne Sergeant, not Gray. Identical twins. Feather that nest, make your friends wealthy and hit the trail.
JPS will not change until the people responsible for bringing such trash as Gray change. They will just find someone else of the same character.
4:38 FYI. gives a little history of naming.
http://www.salon.com/2008/08/25/creative_black_names/#
Well.....did KF miss the call on this one? Is it too late to place a bet?
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