Sunday, March 23, 2008

An Open Letter to Katharine Kornas of GreatSchools, Inc.

Dear Katherine:

Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of our democracy, and secrecy and dishonesty are a tool used by many (if not most) school districts to avoid fulfilling their duties to students.

I believe open and honest discussion is the best way to expose wrongdoing by school districts and protect the public.

My discussion of postings on your site led to the resolution of a problem. Why would you want to stop the discussion?

The parents who post on your site are trusting that no one on the site is aiming to harm them.

Why don't you add to your terms and conditions a requirement that school district attorneys and their surrogates reveal their conflicts of interest to the special education parents who might be going up against them in court?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree with you Maura Larkins many vulnerable parents desperately needing to network and comrades they can relate to. Parents of special education students cannot normally obtain acceptance in a public school system. As such public agencies refuse to provide special education students with their full entitlements and participation in educational opportunities. It is very difficult, challenging, mentally, financially, physically and emotionally draining to care for disabled children 24/7 in itself. Parents need emotional support and assistance with the provisional educational services for their children. At times the families are from one-income families as some one parent usually stays home to provide the child with needed assistance. This too is financially difficult for parents, however, when the established public agencies paid for by our tax dollars conspire to deny the appropriate educational services under the law and they engage in personal attacks against the parents. With many accusations and slanderous labels against these parents and their disabled children, parents more often than not retrieve and fall into deep depression and desperation.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with Greatschools originally Swab.. However when these website managers refuse to perform a fiduciary duty and admit people with ill intentions without screening the bloggers these already victimize parents are again slandered and emotionally raped once more. Many attorneys and agents of school districts frequent, post and monitor these websites in California and I can imagine this is done in other states. They are searching for dirt on parents who they have already red flagged and placed on the “enemy’s list.” This is correct the California State Superintendent’s Association has an “enemy list” for parents they perceive has asking too many question or pro active in their children’s education.

I had the opportunity to read some of the posts in the Swab and the presumed anonymous “Asechers” comments. Frankly I was not impressed in the way in which he/she opened conversations and sat back and read the responses to some attacks particularly on a parent of a special education student who no one knows at all. At times posting private publications that this person could have only obtained through a school districts attorney and posting that he/she was just the messenger.

Word of advice when you are having a one-way conversation with someone who is asked a question and responds with legal cases and drinking is not good. Disability perhaps autism? No, anyone with an autistic child knows that it would be quite the opposite. Autistic people are quite vulnerable, naïve, and would divulge any and all-personal information innocently.

So Greatschools/Swab dropped the ball on monitoring their site and placing a disclaimer for parent use only absolutely no school district or school district attorneys, state agencies and so forth. After all they have their own private sites in which they slander and red flag the parents at taxpayers expense.