2:00 pm - Called Clay County Board of Education, no other good schools that are close enough for me to drive him to and from every day have an opening for out of district students.
2:30 pm - I made the decison that instead of running from Chimney Lakes Elementary and the problems there, I am going to fight them head on. I then sent the email below sent to Duval County School Board Member Tommy Hazouri for him to help make something happen...countdown begins to going to the media about this...
From: Kelly Johnson [mailto:kellyjpc@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2011 2:31 PM
To: 'THazouri@aol.com'
Cc: 'willisp@duvalschools.org'
Subject: RE: I hope you can help me further
Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2011 2:31 PM
To: 'THazouri@aol.com'
Cc: 'willisp@duvalschools.org'
Subject: RE: I hope you can help me further
Mr. Hazouri,
I think I need your help now, and I hope that you will take this matter seriously now. I received a call about a week ago from student placement telling me that Hunter was approved to be released from DCPS. I have contacted Clay County to find a new school for my son to go to, but unfortunately, they are full for 2nd grade next year in all the ones that are acceptable to me and not a crazy distance from me.
Since I wrote the original letter I have seen teachers get upset over lack of support from the principal when a parent was harassing them for no good reason, I have learned from countless other parents that Ms. Knott (the principal at CLE) is out of touch with the school, is rude to the parents when she does talk them, does not make herself available to the parents unless you plant yourself in the office on a day she is actually at the school and wait for hours (as I did earlier in the school year) and overall the morale with the teachers seems to be extremely low due to this woman being in the position she is in.
At what point does DCPS realize that there is a problem with a principal? Apparently it’s not when they find out that she failed to report that a teacher was putting my child in a closet and closing the door.
I am not threatening you in any way with this, but apparently I have to do something to make DCPS wake up and stop ignoring a rather large problem at a school that is mostly full of wonderful teachers! So, I will allow you the time to look into this and for somebody to offer me a resolution at that school since it is obvious that even though I was granted a release I cannot find a new school for my son. If I have not heard back from somebody at the school board with at least an update on how not only the investigation into the events that led to my letter, as well as the overall issues at that school prior to the end of this week, then I will contact every media outlet in the area, and possibly on a national level as well with my story and I will get the attention that is needed to be received on Monday morning.
This is no longer acceptable…our teachers don’t deserve to have a principal that ignores their needs or fails to give them support. The parents of CLE deserve to have a principal that is there to help when there is a concern, not one that thinks if she ignores the countless voicemails, emails, and notes left for her that the problems will just go away. Our children deserve a principal that will stick up for them, not one that is so absent from the schools that most of the kids think that Assistant Principal Mr. Hill is their principal and have no idea who Ms. Knott is.
Duval schools owes me, as well as every parent at that school, a resolution…no matter what the budget issues are, our children deserve more than DCPS is giving them.
I look forward to hearing back from you on this matter before Monday morning.
Thank you,
Kelly Johnson
