Please Teach Kendy Behrends the Meaning of Tact

By the time most executives get to the top of the heap, unless they own their own companies, they're pretty familiar with the word tact. Believe me, tact combined with a small helping of sugar on top can do wonders. Kendy Behrends seems better fitted to be a prosecuting attorney than superintendent of a medium-sized school district.

When asked about those who oppose the name change of Weeden School, she commented to TimesDaily staff: ...she has heard from eight residents, "who are all living in the past."

We realize that things change; in a millennium, no one will remember Weeden School. Until that time comes, the school that is now dubbed Weeden will still be sitting in the middle of Weeden Heights, will still be serving many children who come from poverty, will still find many parents of its students either uninterested in helping the school progress or financially unable to help with such progress.

New names may help in the witness protection program, but we doubt that a new name for Weeden will miraculously change it into a model for other area elementary schools. Now, let us ask just what are some problems with Weeden School that can be remedied, either immediately or in the near future?

Certainly the administration comes to mind. It was just in June of last year that Behrends failed to renew the contract of Weeden principal Brenda Smith. Ms. Smith was principal of Weeden for eight years and had always received good performance evaluations. Yet, when Behrends announced that she was effectively letting Smith go, she cited 17 problems/infractions in relation to Brenda Smith's job performance.

What does that say about our system? To us it says that if Brenda Smith had received good evaluations for eight years, yet had a total of 17 infractions to her credit, someone was not doing her job, and that someone was Kendy Behrends. It's always fascinating to see what those in power can concoct when they wish to rid themselves of an employee. We may never know the reason that Kendy Behrends decided to terminate Ms. Smith, but at this point the Florence superintendent needs to come up with a better reason for changing the name of Weeden School than it now has a bad ring to it.

Is the name Weeden now sullied? Who sullied it? It shouldn't take long, with a little hard work by the new superintendent and Weeden staff, to return Weeden to a school on equal footing with others in the district. We encourage the community to stand together on this and show Kendy Behrends the correct way to handle such a situation.


Thanks: To the Florence School Board for exercising common sense and committing themselves to a better future for the children of our community.

Shoalanda

So...Weeden's a Dirty Name?

Kendy Behrends, outgoing superintendent of Florence City Schools, is proposing a name change for Weeden Elementary School; she suggests Singing River, a name that mirrors the official name of the Patton Bridge. John D. Weeden, for whom the small school was named, was the grandson of Gov. Robert M. Patton, the namesake of the Tennessee River island. At one time, Florence was also home to Patton School, but that too is now only a memory to Shoals adults of a certain age.

Gone are Coffee and Bradshaw High Schools, also the victims of Ms. Behrends' view of a modernized school system. Before Behrends' tenure, F. T. Appleby and Henry Grady Richards lost the educational monuments that were dedicated to them.

Time marches on; things change. Yet change for the sake of change is not profitable. We already have director Mary Day Smith of American Legion Post 11 in Florence recently commenting that the structure was built in 1936 by World War II veterans. We doubt that most Florence City School students know Mafeking from Mahjong.

It's our history. Let's hang on to it. It's not surprising that outsiders don't care about a former cotton town with a ten percent unemployment rate, but we should. Let's hope our next superintendent does as well.


What's up with this: Sex shop on Mobile Plaza? Let's hope no one tells TK the AG.

Shoalanda