To accept this is to abdicate our rights as parents. We have a God given right as parents to every aspect of our children's lives and a responsibility to ensure this right. We can not accept minimum involvement in their lives. Nor can we accept a novice and give them an undeserved 100 thousand dollar pay raise to play figurehead for the BOE. The parents of Baltimore, Frederick, and Montgomery all have expressed dissatisfaction with a process which alienates the community. The public is not even permited to solicit and offer candidates. When a member of the board does on our behalf those prospects are denied. Secret groups handpicked to be part of the process is not inclusion. Being denied the opportunity to ask questions and being told we are not proffessionals is the same as saying we are too stupid to manage our lives and raise our own children. By this action the BOE has discriminated against the public. We can not now allow the BOE to ligitimize this charade. We are excluded to the degree we are in effect without representation. How serious is this? It was serious enough for our forefathers to start a revolution and give birth to the United States. It is serious enough to deny Foose a contract as superintendent and demand a public search. The hiring of Foose under current conditions becomes a symbol for the lack of transparency and exclusion of the public. Neither the BOE or the superintendent under these conditions will ever have the public's respect or cooperation.

In December of 2010 Mr. Cousin suffered from a condition which caused memory loss. That is almost a year and a half where we had no functioning superintendent. Cousin continued to sign on behalf of the hcpss although he was no longer competent to do so. He even admitted during the "Turf Field" incident that he was not performing his job adequately. At some point Ms. Perkins was appointed to a long vacant position as deputy superintendent and performed Cousin's job. At one point the job of deputy superintendent did not exist and with Cousin's medical condition the system was being run by lower ranking staff. At this point we must question just how much work these people really do and what justifies their pay. It is like the housing bubble when real estate agents set prices based on the inflation next door. We are talking about around a half million dollars minimum for a deputy and a superintendent and we are certain, have proof, both positions are not needed.

If we can keep a superintendent with memory loss for a year and a half and pay someone else to do their job we must ask just how many people are allowed to remain in the hcpss and for how many years when they are no longer competent? What is the cost which comes directly from the quality of education we pay for. I ask this question from experience. We actually had an assistant principal at Glenelg who suffered from memory loss for years while other AP's performed her work. Actually she was one of quite a few at Glenelg who were incompetent. If it happens in Glenelg and it happens at the top then it happens in all of our schools.

According to sources, include Janet Siddiqui who is rumning for board of ed, the salary including benefits is not $100,000, buy a whopping $275,000!!! I guess whomever gets the position wins the salary lottery!! Who do you know makes over a quarter of a million dollars!! The job for supertindent pay is too much! There was supertindent of schools who cut top heavy school administration which should cut top heavy Howard County! As far job performance, this county seems to protect incompetent people, whether do to illness or otherwise. Be realistic if I was in business to make money, I could not let people skate along at a job. We are one of the richest county in the county, we allow so the government to have high level incompetence. For this county, it's all about money not the children who go to overcrowded schools or are not given the resources to learn. I hope that this supertindent, if approved, will work out better and do something about the lack of foresight of the BOE and other county top heavy officials to anticipate growth and put in infrastructure as schools and use outstanding resources like the empty school they was Norbel School in Elkridge.

A year ago she made 162 thousand so we are offering her a pay raise of about 100 thousand plus we are paying Perkins to hold her hand.