Think the fight over IDEA Public Schools is over? Think again. At Monday night’s Austin ISD board meeting, speakers from Occupy Austin – many of them reading anonymous letters from staff, students and families at both AISD and IDEA campuses – gave stories that only deepen the feeling that the board moved too fast. Why the anonymity? Honestly, there is a culture of fear. Teachers are extremely cautious about speaking out, fearful that the district’s new culture of single-year contracts (except, of course, for Superintendent Meria Carstarphen’s multi-year deal) makes them too easy to target and remove. The district’s willingness to let even senior staff go (including the extremely popular and successful principal Connor Grady and his successor Joseph Coburn) does not dispel that cloud.

(via ‘At the Snap of a Finger’ - News Blog - The Austin Chronicle)