Off Limits
You Call This Highly Effective Leadership? You'd never know that Metro schools director Pedro Garcia has read every leadership and organizational self-help book on the market—including, we're told, Chicken Soup for the Superintendent's Soul—based on the arbitrary way he shuffles personnel around the district. The latest casualty of Garcia's management style is Beth O'Shea, coordinator of Metro's gifted and talented program since 1996 and a 32-year veteran of Nashville schools. With little over eight weeks left in the school year, Garcia told O'Shea he wanted her to become an elementary school principal, taking a pay cut in the process; she said she preferred to keep her current job. Then, on Monday, she retired rather than accept the director's transfer order. The resignation has provoked outrage among parent activists, who Tuesday were planning to call for a formal school board investigation of Garcia's personnel practices. Teachers and parents say O'Shea was asked to transfer without warning because the district's second-in-command Sandy Johnson didn't like her, a charge Garcia denies. He says the program simply needed a change in leadership. But critics are crying foul. "This is business as usual in Metro," says one teacher. "You get a call in the middle of the night. It's almost like The Godfather; it's really spooky."
Political Chatter. Off Limits hears that former senator and VP candidate John Edwards will keynote the Tennessee Democratic Party's Jackson Day celebration June 4.... Nashville attorney Bob Tuke is changing his tune, now saying he may run against Rep. Harold Ford for Bill Frist's Senate seat in 2006—if Ford's campaign gets dragged deeper into the mire of his uncle's political scandals. One problem: who the hell is Bob Tuke? (Then again, who the hell is Rosalind Kurita?).... Former Metro Parks man and F.O.P. (Friend of Phil) Jim Fyke is the best-guess candidate to take the helm of the state environmental department, although the way things are going Fyke may not be conservative enough for Bredesen.... Incidentally, the Guv's high-powered attorneys seem to be getting their asses kicked on TennCare, at least in round one of this week's federal court hearing.
God Help Us. Southern Baptists are planning to evangelize the hell out of Nashville—literally—with a major soul-saving effort this June. Bobby Welch, Southern Baptist Convention president, has big plans for us: "What if there's gridlock?" he asked a group of pastors on a recent visit to Nashville. "What if people just empty their office buildings? What if you have to get out there street preaching and witnessing in these parking lots? What if people are on their knees praying?... What if [Nashville] became the epicenter for the next Great Awakening—how many of you would be for that? I'm tellin' you boys, it could happen. We're overdue." It's like an R.E.M. video, only much scarier.
Speaking of '90s Bands... Does The Tennessean's Joe Biddle know it's 2005, not 1995? Writing about new UT hoops coach Bruce Pearl, Biddle writes, "No, he doesn't have anything to do with the rock group Pearl Jam."
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