Members of the Distressed Unit Appeals Board listen to the public and members of the Muncie Community School administration speak at a forum Monday inside the Northside Middle School. Staff photo by Corey Ohlenkamp
Editor's note
(Editor's note: Muncie School Board President Debbie Feick contacted The Star Press to further clarify that she did not blame prior school boards for the school district’s financial crisis during a public hearing on Nov. 13. “Throughout this ordeal many folks have wanted to blame others,” Feick told The Star Press the next day. “I have been steadfast that the blame-game only creates hurdles that obstruct our progress moving forward.”)
MUNCIE – A lot of blame was thrown around during a state hearing on the financial status of Muncie Community Schools on Monday night.
The state’s Distressed Unit Appeal Board (DUAB) conducted a public hearing on whether the state-appointed emergency manager of the school district should be terminated or empowered to supersede the school board and superintendent.
The superintendent and the school board have been the target of “unrelenting” and “horrific community criticism” for making the hard decisions to close three elementary schools; downsize faculty and staff; outsource food, custodial and nursing services, and take other deficit-reduction steps, school board President Debbie Feick said.
School board members have faced threats including trespassing on their front porches for “moving in the right direction” to correct the “bad decisions” of prior boards that got MCS into this mess, school board member Andy Warrner added.
Pat Kennedy, president of Muncie Teachers Association, blamed the “mass exodus” of teachers leaving the district on the “lack of respect” for the “professional skills” of teachers shown by Superintendent Steve Baule and countenanced by the school board.
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