Regarding questions pointed out in the article by Bobby Wilson published in Tuesday's Tracy Press that discussed the hosting of the five Jefferson School District web sites that I not only developed but currently host and maintain without any charge to the district whatsoever, something smells fishy in Denmark – er, rather – the Jefferson School District. I guess that isn't fish either…
Back in 2000, when my first child began attending Kindergarten at Tom Hawkins Elementary School, I approached then principal, Kathy Teixeira offering to freely develop, host and maintain a web site using the resources of my business – as a donation of my time and skills to the school which my two children would be attending over the next 10 years. There was never any personal gain sought by this action. It was offered freely as a gift to the students, school and community.
I was asked to give a presentation to the board. I didn't understand why such a request was made of me, but I obliged and spent additional time preparing this presentation so that I could offer time and resources to create a web site for the school. The board seemed to want four free sites - one for each existing school, and one for the district.
Over a year later, after not hearing back from the district, and wanting the sites to be available for the district students, I made the offer to the district to provide all four sites for free as I saw no other way to expedite the matter. Instead, they offered over $4,000 to a business associate of sitting board member Todd Wetherell for one web site. Wait – it gets worse.
The site developed for that fee by Mr. Wetherell's associate pales in comparison of quality and performance to the functionality and presentation currently encompassed by the five sites we ultimately gave to the district. Yes – five – the district has since opened a new school, and we have provided a new site for the Anthony Traina School – again at no cost to the district.
Now, suddenly, there is a concern of a conflict of interest since a sitting board member (me) hosts the sites for which the district has offered zero compensation. Where was this concern - or for that matter, the conflict of interest last year when we were developing the sites, or back in February 2004 when we went live with four sites maintained on our company servers? Not only does my company receive zero financial compensation but also the district sites are consuming our resources as they reside on our servers and utilize our bandwidth.
I have implemented the sites so that they are easily modified, and provided access for that modification to the district staff. Monthly, I update the online board meeting agenda and district budget, and gladly make updates for the staff upon their request despite the fact that I do not have to be involved in those updates. Thus far the only change request being made is a weekly update to the Traina newsletter provided online in PDF format. The four school sites include a new homework page feature available to, and updateable by each and every teacher in the district. Only a handful of teachers are currently taking advantage of this opportunity.
I also created a suggestion (feedback) page months ago prior to the success acclaimed for the same feature recently offered by Zane Johnston on the city of Tracy's web site. I was asked to remove the feature because Debbie Wingo thought the idea was tacky. Given the wide acclaim for and the success of the city's suggestion page, it would seem that Mrs. Wingo is out of touch with the perceptions and wishes of the citizens of our community.
As I am not gaining financially from hosting the district websites, and do not require anything of the district staff, there is absolutely no conflict of interest by my hosting the sites for free. The specter of a conflict of interest is in my opinion a smokescreen to perpetuate what I perceive to be a vendetta against me by Mrs. Wingo. I suspect that she has been bent out of shape since I likened her to a lizard – an ancient one (see www.dansdiatribes.com/diatribes/jurassic.htm) or even before that, when I called her onto the carpet for rolling her eyes, sighing loudly, and disdainfully tossing aside provided material during a presentation in front of the school board by a community member. I informed her at that time that I did not think such behavior was appropriate for an individual in such a leadership role, and that while I had voted for her in the past, I would not make such a mistake in the future.
Since that time, she has sought legal opinion against me at district expense, and has been instrumental in blocking the pursuit of every recommendation that I have put forth, including restoration of academic programs that were cut under the guise of unreal budget constraints, and implementation of technology via the web sites to assist in expanding the capability of community input and involvement in district matters.
Mrs. Wingo's behavior toward me personally remains that which I would not wish to be shown as an example of good manners to my own children. However, her decisions that seem to be intended to perpetuate her vendetta are becoming more harmful to our district. She would rather the district spend thousands of dollars than have me host the sites for nothing.
I'm not sure where the concentration of manure is higher – on the fields surrounding Jefferson Elementary or within the district boardroom. You make the call – or better yet – the recall.