Outspoken JCPS critic Tom Hudson helped make the same mess he groused about | Brady
After reading Tom Hudson’s recent column, I realized Tom and my dog have something in common in that I have to clean up messes from both of them. To be clear, one mess is revolting, nauseating and a complete nuisance. The other mess comes from my dog.
If the former, emphasis on the word former, chief business officer really wanted to provide the Christiansen Report to the board, then he would have. Tom’s false excuse for not providing this report is that no one asked him. Board members were aware a report was being prepared and asked about it numerous times but were told it wasn’t complete and would be forthcoming.
If Tom was concerned about proper process, then he had a funny way of showing it. Tom had no problem bypassing the board and transparency to fund a budget project based on a book which suggested P.E. teachers could be replaced by aerobics instructors and computer support could be done by “tech-savvy moms working part-time.” Blatant sexism aside, those suggestions, and others like them that were never approved by the board, were the reason I suspect the board wouldn’t have approved his proposal and he knew it.
Tom also acted on his own when he delayed negotiations with the teacher’s union in 2016 and added negotiation issues without board approval. His conduct during those negotiations is why the board stepped in before the 2017 negotiations with other unions in the district and replaced him with a seasoned and competent negotiation team lead by our chief operations officer.
Tom’s criticism of the acting superintendent’s decision to settle an issue arising from the
residency of a principal is particularly infuriating. It was Tom’s own damaging testimony and flawed investigation regarding this issue that put the district in the position in which it was prudent for the acting superintendent to agree to a settlement. As Tom stated, the Human Resources Department reported directly to him and a critical function of HR is the safety of our students. It was under his watch that issues with inappropriate behavior in the district’s Head Start program occurred and were never, and I repeat never, reported to the Board by Tom.
When Tom was introduced as the district’s chief business officer in 2015, he stated, “I am not a finance person.” One would think any chief business officer with a scintilla of experience and who was responsible for a $1.5 billion enterprise would need to be a “finance person.” The lack of that and other skillsets were on full display when he presented to the board a flawed salary study that included a $50 million plus error which wasn’t acknowledged for months.
As time went on, it appeared Tom didn’t answer to the superintendent but to a different
power. Once that power waned, Tom seemed to switch his agenda from attempting to
privatize as much of JCPS as possible to laying the groundwork for several problems this board has been cleaning up now for over a year.
Prior to his time at JCPS, Tom was the president of a manufacturing company and was very active in Business Leaders for Education. That’s the group who the state commissioner of education spoke to about the JCPS audit and who apparently knows more about the progress of the currently ongoing KDE management audit of the district than your democratically elected board. Perhaps the timing of his letter says less about his concern for students than it does about trying to influence the outcome of the audit. Otherwise, why wait over half a year to sound the alarm about the well-being of students?
Chris Brady represents District 7 on the Jefferson County Public Schools board of education.