We, the parents and tax paying citizens of Essex County, demand the immediate removal of Mr. Scott Burckbuchler, the current Superintendent of Essex County Public Schools.

His poor leadership has led to the current deterioration and educational demise of the Essex Public School System. According to the Superintendents own words, Essex High School has once again failed to meet the SOL accreditation standards for four years.  Essex Intermediate School has failed to meet the SOL accreditation standards for three years. Tappahannock Elementary School is accredited with warning for two years.  Essex County has a 40% failure rate amongst its students. These statistics alone should be startling enough for the citizens, parents and teachers. Therefore, this school board must take action, and seek someone more qualified to manage the future of our school administration and our students.

We have several issues and concerns.  First we are concerned with the constant rotation of teachers and principals. It is not productive to constantly move faculty around as evident by the most recent SOL scores.  Statistics show that during the 2012-2013 school year Essex students collectively passed sixteen SOL tests subjects ranging from the elementary to high school grades.  During the 2013-2014 school year Essex students collectively passed only six SOL test subject matters. Our students deserve consistency which equates to success. We are losing teachers at an alarming rate. There have been over 16 faculty resignations from Essex high school for the 2014-2015 school year. Over 29 resignations are noted from all Essex County schools to include the central office for the2014-2015 school year. We have seasoned teachers choosing to retire or take their educational talents to other surrounding counties. Teachers feel bullied and threatened, and are asked to leave without warning. Corrective action plans are not provided to these teachers prior to their dismissal. This has led to substitutes teaching critical SOL core subjects. Some say that it is so they will not be tenured. The hiring and firing process regarding our teachers and principals need to be re-evaluated.

We also need to look internally to recruit school administration.  We have qualified teachers that have advanced degrees, and have acted as principal but are being over looked for positions. We need to provide support to our teachers once they are in their role.  Retaining our teachers should be a top priority.  Too much change and rotation of staff has become detrimental to everyone, and the ones that we are hurting the most are our students.  Placing a teacher or principal in a new environment for one year and expecting them to succeed without the appropriate resources is an automatic set up for failure.  We want to know if Mr. Burckbuchler was successful after one year on the job. SOL scores and teacher staff turnover rate suggests the answer is NO.  And yet Mr. Burckbuchler remains as the superintendent of the Essex County Pubic Schools system. What is his corrective action plan? 

Another issue and concern is that parents are panicking and placing their kids in private schools or sending their students to other counties to obtain a quality education. We are tired of the lack luster attitudes displayed, the unwillingness to listen to our teachers and citizens, and disrespect for our county, teachers and our students.  We the tax paying citizens of Essex County do not feel that the current superintendent has our children's best interest at heart as evident by the fact that his own child does not attend Essex county public schools. 

We are requesting that a parent advisory committee be elected to work along with the school board to once again get Essex County in good standing with the state and SOL requirements. 

Finally, instead of approving an increase of approximately $4,200 with Service Master to remove trash from our schools, we feel this money should have gone to additional funding to assist with additional tutoring in an after school program for our children. Instead of focusing on trash removal this money would have been better spent investing in additional classroom books. There are not enough classroom books for each student to take to home to help reinforce their educational skill set. Our students  deserve better. 

For all of these reasons we demand the immediate removal of Mr. Scott Burckbuchler.