NCS: Ute, Christenberry send encouraging messages

Two items in today’s Advocate should cheer a weary Newark City Schools constituency. The first concerns the new superintendent’s message to his staff: “do one thing above all else: Respect the students, and do everything possible for them.” (Newark chief challenges teachers to respect students)

In all my rants about the Richards’ Regime, the underlying thesis called for the school system to resume the long-ago tradition of serving students and parents first and doing it in the most economical way possible. So Doug Ute’s first words to his employees is precisely on target and is what this community needed to hear. Now, we’ll see if his employees can rise to that challenge.

The second item reported that one NCS board member has again risen above the bobble-head category. Vice President Mark Christenberry took issue with former Superintendent Richards about something, spoke out about it, and voted in favor of common sense, not as he was told to do. (E-mails show disagreement over Newark school resource officer)

The dispute was a result of the superintendent’s unwillingness to cooperate or take suggestions, but instead to issue the board an ultimatum. It sparked a very telling question from Christenberry: "How do we, as a board, make him (the superintendent) do what we want him to do?"

Hooray for Mark, who is the only board member who seems willing to take a management role in school affairs as voters expect. Mark won props here before when I wrote 11/15/08 that he stood up to Richards and voted against him and his school board puppet people on the question of hiring a PR mouthpiece in view of community opposition. Here’s the link, but the Advocate has taken its video down from free Internet access.