What is it with this system’s refusal to PUT THEIR PLANS IN WRITING? Even the board may never know what Richardson recommends concerning the closing of schools. He didn’t think it was necessary to share his recommendation in writing. Wow.
The actual numbers are disturbing.
After two Reduction in Force plans have been implemented in Huntsville City Schools, a total of two-hundred and fifty-nine (259) people who are classified as Support Personnel (Probationary and non-Probationary combined) have been fired by the Superintendent, the Board and the Consultant Ed Richardson. These numbers are based on the minutes from the HCS Board Meeting on February 10, 2011 and April 21, 2011. (You may verify these numbers for yourself by clicking on the links.)
259 people. This is a horrifying testament to mismanagement. 259. Yet, sadly, this number doesn’t include the Teachers (154) who have lost their jobs or any of the personnel provided by the ONIN Staffing Service when their contract was cancelled on February 17, 2011.
So considering only the HCS Support Personnel who have been fired (259), how many of them were Special Education Personnel? 41 percent. 41% (106) of all of the support personnel cuts came from Special Education personnel. Maybe a couple of pictures will help clarify that number.
41% Are Special Education Cuts
Additionally, remember that the Special Education population represents less than 12% of the student population:
HCS Special Education Population
Dr. Richardson claimed during his report on April 21st that he had not considered making any cuts to Special Education. The only conclusion I can draw from that statement is that he was unaware that cutting “Instructional Assistants” (99) or the “Interpreter/Tutor Hearing Impaired” (2), or the “Social Workers” (4), or the “Testing Specialist” (1) might have anything to do with Special Education. Surely he wouldn’t have made the claim that his cuts did not consider Special Education otherwise.
Dr. Moore claimed that the cuts would be made “across the board.” I suppose what she meant was that 59% of the cuts would be made across the board and that special education would make up the difference. Surely she couldn’t have known that 41 percent were coming from only one group. Right?
Let’s consider one final chart. This is a break down of the cuts by type. Wherever possible I’ve combined categories together by title. For example there were 7 “Clerical Assistants” fired in the first round of layoffs in February, and there were 17 “Clerical Assistants” fired in the second round in April. Combining these two numbers results in a total of 24 “Clerical Assistants” who were fired in both rounds. The chart below shows a combination of both sets of numbers.
Total Support Personnel Layoffs (Purple: IAs)
Do you see that giant purple slice? That represents the ninety-nine (99) Instructional Assistants (38%) who have been laid off. The next largest slice is the darker brown on the right rear, which represents the twenty-four (24) Clerical Assistants (9%) who lost their jobs. Moving on over we find a tan one on the right which represents the nineteen (19) Custodial Staff (7%) that were laid off.
There were four times as many Instructional Assistants who work directly with special needs kids laid off as Clerical Assistants.
There were five times as many Instructional Assistants laid off as Custodians.
If we combine this number with the 53% of ONIN Staff who were also Special Education aides along with the unknown number of Special Education teachers and Adapted PE Teachers who are hidden in the 154 non-tenured teachers that were laid off, we see that Special Education instruction was clearly targeted in these two rounds of layoffs.
No other single group has been asked to sacrifice more from these cuts than Special Education.
This is an abomination that the new Superintendent who will be named Thursday afternoon must address within his first month in office.
2011Sat28May
Background and Endorsement for Huntsville City Schools Superintendent
Filed in polity, spiritThe Huntsville City School Board is currently in the process of making their decision concerning who should be the next superintendent of our school system. The final three candidate have completed there interview processes and now the board is conferring and arriving at a decision concerning who the city’s top educator should be to help lead us over the coming years.
As we have learned over the past months and years, the superintendent of Huntsville City Schools is an extremely powerful position. Additionally, Dr. Richardson has recommended that the position actually have more power than it currently does. As I’ve said before, I think this is a bad idea, but we work with the system that we have rather than the system that we hope to have. As such, the position of Superintendent is a crucial position. We have to have the right person.
Watch the Interviews
The first and best place to start in this process is to watch and evaluate the three interviews that took place this past Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, May 23-25th. If you missed these interviews, they will be re-broadcast on ETV on Saturday, May 28th and Sunday May 29th according to the following schedule:
- 3:00pm – Dr. Daniel Brigman
- 5:00pm – Mr. Brett Springston
- 7:00pm – Dr. Casey Wardynski
I realize that six hours of time is difficult to come by especially over a holiday weekend. At a minimum, please try and watch the presentation of each of the three candidates. These presentation occur in the first 10 minutes of the interview process and offer details covering what each candidate would do in the first 60 days of their term. These presentations represent the priorities of each candidate.
Review the News Articles
Additionally, I would recommend that you also read the three articles by Crystal Bonvillian of the Huntsville Times on each of the candidates. You may find each of the articles here:
- Dr. Daniel Brigman focuses on student achievement during second Huntsville visit
- Communication key for Huntsville superintendent candidate Brett Springston
- Dr. Casey Wardynski seeks to bring leadership, integrity to Huntsville superintendent post
Review the Applications
Here are links to each of the applications of the three candidates. I would recommend that you read through each of these applications for a general feel for the candidates. You may download the applications in Adobe Acrobat format below.
- Dr. Daniel Brigman’s Application HCS Superintendent Candidate
- Mr. Brett Springston’s Application HCS Superintendent Candidate
- Dr. Casey Wardynski’s Application HCS Superintendent Candidate
Do a Google Search for each of the Candidates
Here are a few links for each of the candidates that offer various information from their home systems and backgrounds.
Dr. Daniel Brigman: Communication and transparency seem to be goals for Dr. Brigman as can be seen from his current position as the superintendent of Macon County Schools.
- Macon County School System website
- The Superintendent’s Blog
- The Macon County School Board publishes their “Budget Basics”
- There appear to be no major “red-flags” concerning Dr. Brigman.
Mr. Brett Springston:
- This is a copy of an award against Mr. Springston and his system for violating the first amendment rights of a central office employee who was attempting to defend the rights of a student. http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/08/25/Brownsville.pdf
- This is the video announcing his appointment as superintendent. http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=391202
- This is a press release announcing his plans to lead his system through budget cuts between $15 and $50 million dollars. http://www.bisd.us/PDFs/AdsPress_Release/2011/03_march/35_Superintendent_letter_ENGL.pdf
Dr. Casey Wardynski:
- Here’s a link to the Broad Superintendent’s Academy. Dr. Wardynski after retiring as a Colonel from the U.S. Army attended a week-end session academy over a period of 10 month in 2010 to learn how to be a superintendent. While still attending the academy, Dr. Wardynski took the CFO position with the Aurora Public Schools in July 2010. He has one year of experience in an educational system.
- His dissertation is entitled, Military Compensation in the Age of Two-Income Households: Adding Spouses Earnings to the Compensation Policy Mix.
- He was instrumental in the development of the Army’s First Person Shooter called America’s Army.
- There appear to be no major “red-flags” concerning Dr. Wardynski.
Contact your School Board Representative
In order to help shape the discussion about the next superintendent, please contact your School Board Representative. I have linked to their contact information on the HCS School Board Contact Information Page. Please do your own research and make up your own mind. Then contact your representative to share with him or her your recommendations for the next Superintendent of Huntsville City Schools.
The School Board will be making their final decision on Thursday, June 2, 2011. Please contact your representative before that time.
GeekPalaver Endorsement: Dr. Daniel Brigman
As a parent with two children attending elementary schools in the Huntsville City Schools system, I expect to be a part of this system for at least the next 12 to 15 years. I am committed to seeing this system through it’s current crisis of leadership and financial constraints. In short, we’re not planning a move to Madison and we’re not going to place our children in private or a home-schooling setting. What happens in the next week with this decision will likely affect my children until they go to college. In short, it doesn’t get any more real than this. As I have written on several occasions, I am deeply concerned about the complete lack of transparency that I currently see in the leadership of Huntsville City Schools. Furthermore, as the parent of a special needs child, I am troubled by the fundamental unfairness of the cuts that are currently being made to services offered to special needs students. (This population is bearing the brunt of the cuts.)
Frankly, I am astonished that Mr. Brett Springston was even granted an interview given his disturbing history and the fact that his current system is facing a deficit far greater than even the one we currently face. Perhaps Dr. Moore should apply with Brownsville Independent School District as she could immediately cut their deficit in half. Furthermore, Mr. Springston seemed generally unprepared for many of the questions he faced this past Tuesday. If the Board is seriously considering him, I may have to give serious consideration to making a move to Madison after all.
Dr. Casey Wardynski, however, impressed me with his forthrightness and his ability to affect change in the system. I do have some concerns about his ability to operate in a transparent manner. For solid reasons, the Army often must operate in secrecy. I understand and support that. But those thirty years of experience doing so will not prepare Dr. Wardynski to operate in the transparent manner that must be required for the superintendent of Huntsville City Schools. Secrecy has gotten us into this mess. It will not get us out of it.
Additionally when I look at Dr. Wardynski’s resume, I find myself asking one simple question: If I had to choose between a surgeon who had twelve years of medical education and seven years of surgical experience on top of his or her education on the one hand and a surgeon who had attended a weekend seminar for ten months with less than one year’s experience working in the hospital’s financial office, who would I choose?
There can be no justification in my mind for choosing as the top educator in the city an individual who has no formal training, no teaching experience, and little more than a collection of seminars to prepare him. Simply put, Dr. Wardynski, while impressive personally, is simply not prepared to lead this system.
Therefore, I am confident to endorse Dr. Daniel Brigman as the next Superintendent of Huntsville City Schools.
Dr. Brigman has seven years of experience as the superintendent of two schools systems. In both systems his central priority seems to have been opening up clear channels of communication with the stakeholders in the system. He believes in a model of leadership that is built upon trust, honesty and openness. In my opinion, these are the central qualities missing from the leadership of our system today.
He is committed to following the law as a part of his leadership style. Again as our system is the most frequently sued system in the state, leadership that seeks to follow the law will be a refreshing change. Furthermore, Dr. Brigman stated in his interview on Monday that one of his top priorities would be to examine the central office for areas of redundancy that my be cut to improve efficiency. He clearly stated that the guiding purpose of the central office should be to serve students. Again, this will be a refreshing change.
Finally, as a parent of a special needs child, it was clear to me that only Dr. Brigman currently holds a clear understanding and concern for making sure that all children have access to an excellent education. He is committed to improving parental access to the classrooms and to the decision-making processes that the superintendent and school board will face.
For these reasons, and frankly also because of his commitment to educate his own children in the system he is charged with leading, I am pleased to endorse Dr. Brigman for Superintendent of Huntsville City Schools. I am convinced that he is the right choice to lead the rocket-city school system back to the pinnacle of education not only in Huntsville, but across the nation.
On Tuesday, May 17 at an Employee Conference between laid off employees and the Huntsville City Board of Education, Mr. J. R. Brooks, the board’s attorney stated that, “state statute does not require that the superintendent or the board give their reasoning” supporting their plans to lay off employees.
Assuming that Mr. Brooks is correct, he is claiming that the superintendent and the board are not legally required to present any justification for their life-altering decisions. As Mel Brooks told us once, “It’s good to be ‘da king.” A king doesn’t need a plan, only the will and the force to implement his (or in this case her) decisions. Plans are for little people who have no power.
While I certainly do not wish to minimize the fear and uncertainty that these dedicated public servants are facing as they wonder how they are going to make their mortgage payments next month, this attitude is disturbingly familiar to me and hundreds of other parents of special needs children.
Just hours before Mr. Brooks (J.R. not Mel) made his pronouncement concerning the autonomy of the superintendent and the board, Dr. Robinson informed me that Dr. Moore has decided that the report that Ms. Sledge presented to the board on May 5th was the only report on the segregation plan that she was going to offer to the board or to parents.
It’s good to be ‘da king.
So what more could anyone expect from the superintendent and the central office? Not much, just:
- A clear, detailed description in writing explaining exactly what they are planning to do,
- A description, of any kind, of why they are segregating our students, or
- A discussion or approval of the segregation plan by the board.
It’s fairly clear that Huntsville City Schools is in trouble and that we haven’t had a clear plan in place for sometime. We are probably $20 million dollars in debt. (I say probably because I’m not sure how we would know. There are currently five (5) different databases containing the financial records of the system. And these five (5) databases do not agree with each other. So, I find myself wondering exactly how we would know we were $20 million dollars in debt. But for the sake of argument, let’s say that we are.) The superintendent has provided such weak leadership that she had to be replaced by an outsider. Enrollment in private schools and those choosing to home school their children has never been higher.
And yet the board attorney is advising the board that state statute does not require reasoning or the delineation of a plan.
If this is so, the state statute needs to be changed. Now.
For government to be effective, it must be transparent to the governed. It must be responsive to the governed. In must include the governed. Huntsville City Schools has managed none of these. We do not know what they are doing. We do not know why they are doing it. Our concerns are being dismissed, ignored, or denied out right.
We were told on March 16th that there was no plan to segregate our children. Mr. Blair also said on the 16th that even if there were a plan, that it would have to come before the board for discussion and approval before it could be implemented. The plan began to be implemented at least as early as Tuesday April 5th. We were told on April 6th that Ms. Sledge would present the plan, along with her reasoning for the plan, in writing to parents immediately. We were told that the plan would be presented along with her reasoning to the board on May 5th.
In short, nothing we have been told has been fulfilled.
They have no plan. They see no need for a plan. Since the state statute doesn’t require it, they aren’t going to do it. And so the superintendent is balancing the budget on the backs of the powerless, the voiceless, the weak, our children without needing to offer any justification for her actions.
Planning is important–even for a king.
On April 27th, tornadoes hit every county in Alabama killing over 300 hundred and knocking out the power to the northern part of the the state for a week. Madison City had generators on hand to run the refrigerators and freezers in their schools to prevent the loss of perishable food. Madison County did not have generators, but they did procure refrigerated trucks to store the food until the power came back on. The trucks cost Madison County approximately $7,000, but they only lost approximately $250 worth of perishable food. Both systems had a plan.
Huntsville City Schools allowed their food to perish. They lost approximately $175,000 in food.
The average Instructional Aide makes between $10,000 and $13,000 a year. (Stop for a moment and let that sink in. When HCS decided to layoff people, they laid off those who make just slightly above minimum wage. Some of the most valuable people in the system, and we pay them barely more than minimum wage. By way of comparison, Dr. Moore earns $197,685 a year.)
Huntsville City Schools threw away thirteen aides for a year for lack of a plan.
SUPERINTENDENT CANDIDATE INTERVIEWS
The Huntsville City Board of Education will meet on the following dates from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the boardroom at 200 White Street. The purpose of the meetings will be for second interviews with selected superintendent candidates.
• Monday, May 23 – Dr. Daniel Brigman
• Tuesday, May 24 – Mr. Brett Springston
• Wednesday, May 25 – Dr. Casey Wardynski
There will also be a school board meeting on Tuesday, May 24, at 5:30 pm.
Hopefully the new superintendent will work to open up the decision-making process to the public.
When you have an epiphany, it’s a good idea to write it down. I’ve long since been of the opinion that if you don’t write it down, it didn’t happen. So on those rare moments when a clear thought does wind it’s way up my spine to enlighten my darken mind, I have to put it down. Otherwise that light will go out. And if there’s anything that we must rage against, as Dylan Thomas said, it’s the dying of the light.
And so I write to rage against meaninglessness.
My insight tonight happened as a series of things came together. Thanks to a friend for kicking it off with your post earlier today. You wrote:
[The LEA] only wants to help those who are severe and not the ones who might fall through the cracks that have a chance to make it if they were given just a little bit of help.
While this wasn’t our experience, it did make me stop and ask of myself: Is it possible that my son’s severity is a gift?
It’s important to pay attention to that tickle as it moves up your spine.
When we speak of autism, we speak of it as a spectrum. There is a vast range of gift, talents, and abilities when it comes to the spectrum. There are those who are severely autistic. There are children and adults who’s autism is so severe that they will possibly never find a way to communicate with the world outside themselves. There are those who cannot speak, but learn other ways of communicating. There are people, who like our boy, don’t communicate clearly via speech at the beginning of their lives, but have the possibility of learning as they grow. And there are those who don’t seem to have a problem talking, but instead have difficulty recognizing non-verbal language or (well, this is the case with many who aren’t on the spectrum, too) nuance and sarcasm.
Frankly, I haven’t even begun to describe the range. Autism isn’t just a rainbow of visible light; it encompasses infrared and ultraviolet light as well. Sometimes you can see the disability. Sometimes you can’t.
And sometimes the disability that you can see is easier to deal with than the one you can’t.
We can see our boy’s disability and so can nearly everyone else who comes into contact with him. His disability is visible and audible; it isn’t hidden below the surface.
We don’t have to explain to those who interact with him that he isn’t being rude; he has an illness. We don’t have to defend his difficulty with making eye-contact, or his stimming, or his humming, or his bouncing. No one assumes that our boy is just misbehaving. And despite our struggles to understand him when he’s asking for things, or crying, or laughing, everyone knows that we’re telling the truth when we say that our child has a disability.
Sometimes severity drives a spike through my heart. When I know that my boy is screaming at me to get me to understand what he wants, what he needs, who he is, my life stops for a while.
But we find a way through. And the boy learns and talks, and life begins again.
But when I see my friends having to scream on behalf of their child, having to defend their child to others who think the kid is just bad, having to fight for just a little help with reading or writing or math; it’s then that I know, I see and I rage with them.
Sometimes severity is a gift.
Today at Challenger Elementary, we had a good IEP meeting that is best characterized as a meeting where everyone sitting at the table, I am completely convinced, had my boy’s best interest at heart.
For this, I want to publicly thank Mrs. Patti McCord, our regular education classroom teacher for leaving her classroom for an extended period to stay with us, answering questions, and providing guidance to us as we sought to address the boy’s needs even though she had much that she needed to be attending to. We couldn’t have addressed his needs without you. We’re excited that the boy will be in your classroom next year. Our boy will be in kind, wise and loving hands.
I would also like to thank Ms. Karen O’Hear who represented the special education needs as his regular teacher, Mrs. Niki Bowling, is out for maternity leave. Ms. O’Hear was drafted to do much of the work on the IEP even though she is not the boy’s teacher. She did much of this work on her own time despite the fact that she is one of the approximately 150 teachers who have received pink-slips so far. Even though this is the first time that I’ve worked with Ms. O’Hear, it was clear to me that she knew and cared about my son. She cared about meeting and finding ways of addressing his needs. It is a tragic loss to Huntsville City Schools that this dedicated teacher has been pink-slipped. I implore her principal, the Special Education department, and the School Board to find a way to undo this tragic loss. Our children need teachers like Ms. O’Hear in their lives.
Finally, I would like to thank Mrs. Nancy Barnes a special education liaison from the central office. The best advice that I have for parents in the Huntsville system who have concerns about their IEP is to contact Mrs. Barnes. While I have been particularly hard on the central office as a whole of late, Mrs. Barnes is proof positive that it is possible to work there and still be concerned about students’ needs. Mrs. Barnes listened, carefully to every concern that we raised about our boy, and she found a way to address those concerns. Others in the Special Education Department should make a point of learning from her how to keep the students’ needs first and foremost in the process of providing education to all.
The IEP process isn’t an easy one, but the entire system could learn from this one. Each person went into the process seeking only one thing: the best possible education of the boy. Thank you for your commitment to my child. Years from now when he is graduating from college, he will be singing your praises as he gives the valedictory speech for the work you have done today.
In addition, I would specifically like to thank two of our boy’s Instructional Aides who have also been pink-slipped: Mrs. Kim Collins and Mrs. Terry Klinkhammer. These two, despite massive uncertainty in their own futures, never fail to great our boy with joy and compassion. Without their work our son would not have managed to make the amazing progress that he has made this year. Both of them should be re-hired immediately. We cannot afford to lose them and their dedication to our students.
As teaching is always a community process, I must also thank Mrs. Susan Cooley for stepping in when Mrs. Bowling had to leave. Mrs. Kelly Smith his OT teacher who made it possible to hear cheers of joy. Mrs. Alison Johnson his speech teacher who helps the boy express himself. Ms. Kim Lam, Ms. Deborah Chavers, and Ms. Judy Stinson for their dedicated commitment to the education of our boy. He loves you all and so do we.
These teachers (and I can think of no higher title or praise for any of them) have committed their lives to helping give a voice to the voiceless. Teaching matters, and it’s time for us, all of us, to support our teachers rather than using them as scapegoats for mismanagement. Our teachers are not responsible for the financial issues that Huntsville City Schools are facing. Everyone of these that I have mentioned and millions more like them throughout our nation have given their entire lives, just as completely as those in our military have done so, to make our nation the greatest in the world.
They deserve our praise. They deserve our support. They deserve to keep their jobs. They deserve a significant raise.
2011Mon16May
Are the Huntsville City School Personnel Cuts Being Applied Equally, Legally and Fairly?
Filed in polity, spirit, venomIn a word, no.
Here’s what we know:
- There are 23,140 students attending Huntsville City Schools. 2,889 of them receive some form of Special Education. The Special Education Student Population represents approximately 12% of the total student population.
- 47% of the first round cuts came from Special Education. There were 137 cuts made in the first round. Of those cuts, 65 were Instructional Aides. So far as I have been able to determine, there are no Instructional Aides employed by HCS in areas other than Special Education. (I’ve placed this question before numerous teachers, administrators, and employment agencies. Each have confirmed that the Instructional Aides employed by HCS all work in and with Special Education students.)
- There have been a total of 420 personnel cuts in the system. 216 of those cuts come from “Contracted Support Personnel.” An additional 122 of these cuts were described by Dr. Richardson as “Support Employees.” Thus 80% of the cuts announced so far are described as “Support.” Instructional Aides are classified as “Support.”
It is a reasonable assumption that nearly 80% of the personnel cuts are from people who work directly with Special Needs students. This does not take into consideration the Special Education Teachers who are among the 154 non-tenured that will also be released. This also doesn’t take into account the loss of the Adapted PE teachers who work exclusively with special needs students who are being released.
Simply put, Special Education is receiving the vast majority (perhaps as high as 80%) of the cuts that are being made to Huntsville City Schools despite Dr. Moore’s claim that the cuts would be applied “across the board.” These cuts are not being made across the board. Special Education is receiving the bulk of the cuts.
This is not fair.
Moreover, it is not legal.
Alabama State Code Section 16-39-3 – Education required for exceptional children; source of funds states:
Each School Board shall provide not less than 12 consecutive years of appropriate instruction and special services for exceptional children, beginning with those six years of age, in accordance with the provisions of this chapter. Such public school instruction and special services shall be made available at public expense for each school year to exceptional children as provided herein. The funds for such instruction and special services shall be derived from state, county, municipal, district, federal or other sources. Each school board shall set aside from its revenues from all such sources such amounts as are needed to carry out the provisions of this chapter, if such funds are available without impairment of regular classes and services provided for nonexceptional children. If sufficient funds are not available to a school board to provide fully for all the provisions of this chapter as well as the educational needs of nonexceptional children, such board must prorate all funds on a per capita basis between exceptional and nonexceptional children basis between exceptional and nonexceptional children.
Therefore, cuts impacting Special Education should not total more than 12% of the total overall cuts. The first round of cuts alone represented 47%.
Ms. Sledge, Dr. Moore, Dr. Richardson and the Huntsville Board of Education are attempting to balance the budget on the backs of Special Needs kids. This is not fair. It is not legal. It is not moral.
Again, if anyone of these individuals would like to dispute my numbers or calculations, I will be happy to look at the actual numbers and publish a correction. However, I am certain that I will not hear from them simply because they know that the numbers will show that Special Education is not being treated fairly in these cuts.
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