JonNarcisse.com

Dear Constituent:

Members of the Des Moines School Board will attempt, on April 8th, to ban me from emailing District staff. While mass emails have been sent over the years to district staff relating to a variety of areas, including sexually oriented emails - as staff have shared with me - the board and administration feel the following email was unacceptable, intimidating, threatening and disruptive to the operation of the District.

I will let you reach your own conclusions.

Jonathan R. Narcisse
Des Moines School Board Member

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Dear District Employee:

I care what you think and value your ideas, experiences and insights.

You are in the trenches day-in and day-out. You have an understanding and a perspective of our children, their parents, and the community you teach or work in that I simply do not have. Your expertise and understandings, if shared, will make me a much better board member.

Help me to be a better board member.

As a member of the Des Moines School Board I am one of seven Directors that has the ultimate responsibility to make policy decisions, fiscal decisions, academic decisions and other key decisions that will affect the 33,000 students we serve, the more than 5,000 people we employee, and the Des Moines community as a whole.

This is an awesome burden and one I am not qualified to make by just consulting either my fellow board members, a select few district administrators, my circle of supporters, or members of the greater Des Moines power elite who have had their opinions and wishes, too often, elevated above the rest of ours despite many times not even living in our District or sending their children to our schools.

I do not have all the answers. I am not an educator. I am a citizen, a parent and a grandparent that cares deeply about this community and our children. I have a daughter in 6th grade, a daughter in 3rd grade and three grandchildren. The Des Moines School District has been entrusted with their education and made co-steward of their futures.

This District is working well for my children. My eldest daughter Integrity, earlier this year, earned the Principal's award for being a straight A student at Callanan and told me school is like a second home to her. My youngest daughter Perseverance thrives at King. She loves the staff, her teacher and the education she is getting through our District.

I want all our District's children to do as well as mine. I want our children to feel safe, and cared for, and excited about learning. That's why I won't settle for the status quo.

We can do better. We must do better!

At this point some of you will discard this communication, or be offended by it, or have negative feelings towards it. That's your right. Others of you, however, will appreciate the opportunity to participate in shaping the future of this District.

Once again, I value what you think. I want your candid insights, criticisms, suggestions and especially your vision of what education in Des Moines should look like.

In meeting School District staff working in our buildings, feeding our students, transporting our students, maintaining our buildings, etc..I have witnessed first hand your dedication to the job. None of you are getting rich. You are working for this District because you love our children.

It's that simple.

As for our teachers my perspective is that after spending tens of thousands of dollars to learn to teach, after giving up a lot of money to teach, after spending your own money to better teach our kids, after arriving to work work early and leaving late, and then after spending hours at home on the phone, grading papers and doing other aspects of your job off the clock, after all that, you can be trusted with the power, authority and resources to do your job.

That's why I want at least 90% of the money we spend as a District to get to our buildings so we can pay you better, hire key staff like librarians, reduce class sizes and fund art, music and language programs. We also need to improve your working conditions by making our schools a safer and more RESPECTFUL environment. For that reason teachers need an empowered role in making disciplinary decisions.

I want this to be a team effort. Together we can make this the best School District in Iowa and our nation. Call me day or night. I am your servant. If you have suggestions, concerns, good ideas, share those, too.

Jon Narcisse
Des Moines School Board Member

P.S. Before you open the attachments or dismiss this communication pause and reflect on my intent - it is to enlist your wise counsel to the benefit of our children.

website: jonnarcisse.com
email: jon_narcisse@yahoo.com
phone: 515-770-1218 (C) or 515-280-8092 (H)

(If you would like to be removed from this list send your name and the address to be removed. If you receive more than one of these emails or were removed but are getting this your address existed in this data base more than once so please make note of that so I can remove any extra addresses or any addresses that prefer not to be on this list.)