At a parent’s meeting tonight to discuss the changes that will soon take place in the Johnson High School feeder patterns, Dr. Wardynski shared with about 30 parents at Rolling Hills Elementary that he is planning to close every middle school in the district. The man who claimed that he wouldn’t be closing schools, sure is doing a lot of it. He intends to either merge the middle schools with the elementary schools creating a Pre-K — 8th, and 9th — 12th model, or, as he is planning to do with Davis Hills Middle (and soon after Ed White Middle) he is developing a Pre-K/K — 6th grade elementary school and a 7th — 12th grade high school.

As the Director of Operations Jeffery Wilson explained tonight, “Because the idea is that if we build a new Johnson that opens in 2016 it’s the 4th and 5th grade parents and students who will be very greatly affected by that. There kids would go through their 7 to 12 experience at the new Johnson.”

Yes, the Director of Operations, under the direction of Dr. Wardynski and not the Directors of Curriculum and Instruction, is the person driving the decisions in this district. Once again decisions that should be made with the best interests of the education of the student are instead being made with the best interests of the director of operations and of course the almighty developers in mind.

This pattern will then be replicated across the district effectively closing eight schools across the district. This list of schools includes:

• Challenger Middle
• Davis Hills Middle
• Ed White Middle
• Hampton Cove Middle
• Huntsville Middle (I suppose he has a new school in mind for his boy Aaron King to run along with the help of two assistant principals, of course.)
• Providence Middle (This one is already in the works.)
• Westlawn Middle (Funny, I thought we were just celebrating how wonderful they were doing on their own.)
• Williams Middle

This list doesn’t include the new Pre-K — 8th schools that were “transformed” this year at Mt. Gap, The Chapman Schools, and Whitesburg.

Remember when Wardynski claimed back in September 2011 that “school closings are not really a panacea,” and that “we want to have exhausted every other hope we have” before closing schools? Remember when he proclaimed that the demographer’s report for which we paid $75,000 had “fallen by the wayside?”

Remember when the entire city got up in arms at the thought of closing nine schools in the district? Now Dr. Wardynski is planning to close twice that number with the schools that he has already closed, slated to close, relocated, or merged.

I wonder what schools will be on the chopping block next?

In fact, can anyone share with me any promise that Dr. Wardynski has ever made to parents that has actually been fulfilled? Even a basic promise such as “we’ll have laptops ready to substitute should one break” still hasn’t been met with regularity.

We have a superintendent, a board of education and a central office who steadfastly refuse to ask “will this help students learn?” Maybe the central office can be excused out of fear of what Wardynski will do to them if they should ask a question. I’ve been repeatedly told that he is quite happy to cuss his staff out when necessary. But surely at least one member of the board of education can find the intestinal fortitude to follow a simple suggestion that I offered for the first time nearly two years ago, PUT STUDENTS FIRST!

And the Board and Superintendent respond with silence.

I guess that closing schools is indeed a panacea after all.

Almost makes you miss Dr. Richardson, doesn’t it?

The post Wardynski Closing Every Middle School in the District appeared first on Geek Palaver.

Yesterday I wrote about the decision of the Huntsville City School’s Board of Education to subvert the democratic process by restricting who can and cannot run for school board seats. In short, if you’re an employee of the district, no one in your family may run for a school board seat. If they do, and if they are elected, you must resign your position with the district in order to avoid even the hint of nepotism.

In passing, with eight minutes of discussion, a policy manual that requires family members to resign, the current board members are telling the public that family members of teachers, principals, aides, custodians, and even administration are not worthy of our trust to lead our schools as board members. Because clearly a family member of a district employee would find it impossible to recuse him or herself from the rare discussions about their family.

No Family Connections Allowed?

Honestly, if this were actually an issue, then shouldn’t it also be against policy for a board member to represent a school where his or her children attend? Couldn’t a board member use his or her influence to get extra services for his or her child? After all I think most parents would tell you that while they love their spouse, there isn’t anything they wouldn’t do to protect their child. The board should pass a policy requiring children of board members to be bused to neighboring districts so as to avoid even the hint of favoritism.

Of course, such a policy would be considered ridiculous. Having a vested interest in the schools they represent improves the work of the school board. In fact, I tend to think that people without a personal connection to the district they represent should not be allowed to run for a seat in that district. If, for example, you live in the district but pointed send your children to a private school, you shouldn’t be allowed to run for that seat. (But that’s a post for another day.)

On the current board both Dr. Robinson and Mr. Blair have had children in the schools in their districts during their times of service. And yet one of the more common complaints voiced about Dr. Robinson at least is that she doesn’t do enough for the schools in her district. Grissom, in particular, has lagged behind others in the district in terms of renovations until quite recently.

In other words, having a personal connection to your schools doesn’t seem to result in favoritism for that school at all among our current board members.

The policy of requiring the family of board members to resign is a solution in need of a problem.

Nepotism and Favoritism By Any Other Name

Given that nepotism abuse that has occurred in the past, I completely understand and support having a policy that prohibits it. No one, no matter how well you know them, should have the inside track when it comes to jobs in our schools. Our kids need and deserve to have the best people working for them regardless of “who they know.”

In many ways the policy isn’t broad enough. There does seem to need to be some protects against favoritism at least. If anyone uses their position to give their friends, associates, or even service members the inside track on jobs, there’s a problem there. For example:

It shouldn’t matter if you worked in Aurora, Colorado with Dr. Wardynski, or served in the Army with him or his friends. It shouldn’t matter if you lived in Fairfax, Virginia or not. If you’re the best person for the job, you should be the person hired, regardless of your connections.

So in many ways, I believe the protections against favoritism should be stronger than they currently are.

McCaulley Benefits

I pointed out that the board president, Mrs. Laurie McCaulley, may benefit from this new policy as it directly impacts one of the people running against her in the coming election, Mrs. Pat King. (Mrs. King’s husband is a tenured assistant principal at Huntsville Middle School.)

If Mrs. King should happen to win the election, under the current policy her husband would be required to resign his position in October when Mrs. King would take her seat. Most people would never be in a position to take such a risk. (School board members make $15,564 per year. It isn’t intended to be a livable salary, and most school board members are either retired or have other careers.)

However, Mrs. McCaulley isn’t the only person who is likely to benefit from this new policy.

Wardynski Benefits

Another benefactor of this policy is anyone who wishes to keep family members of teachers and educators off the school board. Who might benefit from not being supervised by a family member of a teacher? Perhaps a superintendent who is unconcerned about forcing a teacher to move to a new school against her will, or one who conducts a national search to hire someone who “has a long history of infuriating parents“? It certainly makes it easier to score a 92 on your personalized evaluation when you don’t have to take teacher’s opinions and evaluations into account.

Dr. Wardynski certainly benefits from having board members who have no personal connection to the teachers and schools he’s destroying.

As someone without an education background, he tends to see those with education backgrounds as the single biggest impediment to his brand of “reform.” Making unsubstantiated claims like “Nothing about the kids (in our system was positive,” would be much easier if those on the board don’t know the truth for themselves. Ridiculous claims like “26 percent of the district’s leaders were strong” when he arrived are harder to make when a board member is related to one of those district leaders.

The superintendent doesn’t like questions. Having board members who will ask some because they have a personal connection to the people he is degrading is likely to lead to some questions.

Mrs. McCaulley isn’t the only one who benefits from this new policy.

But then neither is Dr. Wardynski the only one who benefits from the new policy.

Eli Broad Benefits

The Broad Foundation, Dr. Wardynski’s true boss, has a vested interest in keeping people who care about teachers off of school boards.

Public education and teachers are under attack in our city and in our nation today. In fact, this is one of the few areas where there is true bi-partianship. Both sides of the aisle are seeking to blame “failing schools” on teachers and no one else. Even teacher associations are often quiet in the face of attacks on teachers. (Or they’re supportive of the person bringing the attack.)

In short it is often left to those who are related to teachers to actually defend them.

If you’d like to read more about the Broad Foundation, please take a look at the Parents Across America guide to The Broad Foundation’s Programs and Policies.

Eli Broad also benefits from keeping family members of teachers off of school boards.

It’s All About Control

There are countless groups and people in this city and nation who are working to take control of our schools. The inclusion of this policy makes it much easier for them to do so. We may never know who included it. We may never find everyone who benefits from it, but this much we know. It’s purpose, as with nearly everything Dr. Wardynski has done in our school system, is to exert control through intimidation of the public and his teachers.

This policy is an attack on our teachers and their families, and if the Huntsville City Board of Education believes in the democratic process, they will remove it immediately.

The post Nepotism, Favoritism, and Intimidation to Control Schools appeared first on Geek Palaver.

When your goal is to replace as many qualified teachers as possible, even leaving them with the last week of school to celebrate and say goodbye to their kids is just too rich an opportunity to pass up. After all, if you can get one final kick in as someone is walking out the door, perhaps they’ll keep on going.

And so on Wednesday of last week, tenured teachers were called into principal’s offices all over the district to be informed that they were being transferred to other schools in the district. They were often given their orders in the morning, sometimes with their kids sitting in the hallway waiting for their teacher to return, and told to sign them in the afternoon.

If they didn’t sign them, they often received a visit from Mr. Al Lankford the following day requesting that they sign a document that they had received their orders. They didn’t have to agree with the orders, Mr. Lankford wasn’t forcing them to agree to the move, but they did have to sign a document stating that they had received the orders.

Having Mr. Lankford deliver the paperwork was, evidently, standard operating procedure.

Despite the implication offered at the called board meeting at 8:00am on Monday, not all of these teachers have agreed with these transfers. Many excellent teachers, including one dear to my son’s heart, have decided enough is enough. They are looking for and accepting positions with the surrounding school districts right now.

Our superintendent is doing an excellent job of driving off good, dedicated, devoted, and successful teachers to neighboring systems.

As a friend of mine said the other day, perhaps we should call this “Wardynski-flight.”

The only problem with that name is that I believe Dr. Wardynski would take it as a compliment. Trust me sir, breaking my boy’s heart over the loss of the single, stable figure in his educational life is not a compliment.

But that wasn’t the end of the fun times for teachers in the district.

On Monday, the board met at 8:00am to fire 122 non-tenured teachers.

(Interestingly, during the meeting when 122 people were fired, they had, from what I could see on the video, exactly two district security officers present in the room. I guess they didn’t expect a disturbance from a sufficiently demoralized group like our teachers. No need for HPD to have five or six armed officers on hand for that.)

One-hundred and twenty-two.

Last year during the RIF, the board fired only 154 teachers, but since there were very few details offered about these terminations, it’s hard for us to know much about them. We’re simply supposed to trust that the evaluation process that the superintendent developed was fair.

Dr. Robinson went out of her way to stress that many of “these folks can potentially be rehired” because this is simply what we used to call “non-renewal.” She and the rest of the board went on to complain about how mean the word “termination” is and that they wished the state would change it.

Funny. Non-renewal seems fairly mean to those facing it. I’d bet that the board and Dr. Wardynski would find non-renewal fairly frustrating if they were facing it every nine months.

But no. Board members are elected for four year terms. Dr. Wardynski’s contract is for three.

But there’s no reason to get excited, upset, or (god-forbid) angry over something as simple as “non-renewal.”

One-hundred and twenty-two.

Here’s a silly question: if the superintendent and the board are so sure that these “non-renewals” are going to be rehired, why not find a way to just go ahead and renew them?

Impossible you say? No so, say I. Just take a look at the contract that we’ve signed with Teach for America. Anyone want to make a bet that the 40 TFAers hired this summer will not have to worry about having a job in the 2013-2014 school year?

Could it be that the board wants to distance themselves from the impact of their actions? After all, no one who thinks it that they will be re-hired is likely to raise much of a fuss right now. And if they aren’t rehired come fall, well, that’s just old-news at that point isn’t it?

One-hundred and twenty-two.

I’ve heard from many schools in the district and from other sources that that 122 number comes remarkably close to representing all of the non-tenured teachers in Huntsville City.

So not one of the teachers we’ve hired in the last nine months was worth keeping?

One-hundred and twenty-two.

Additionally, as Dr. Wardynski said he would, nearly every principal in the district has now been moved to a new school.

We are again just supposed to accept that these transfers are being done for good, solid, justifiable reasons. We’re supposed to believe that being moved from a high school principal’s position to the principal of a ninth grade academy is a promotion. We’re supposed to accept that moving a principal from one of the finest middle schools in the city to one of the weakest is a celebration of a job well done.

We’re supposed to accept that Dr. Wardynski promising Mr. King a principal’s position back in a September 15th board meeting, represented the culmination of a search for the most qualified principals available. (That’s right. Since the middle of September, Dr. Wardynski has been talking publicly about King “transitioning” to a principal during the summer. It must be nice to have the promise of a job waiting out there for you.)

It seems that what is guiding Dr. Wardynski’s decisions here has more to do with rewarding his friends than what is best for the students in the district.

That and doing his best to drive off good, talented individuals who have dedicated their lives, rather than just two years, to meeting the needs of all of our children.

And the board continues to support him and shrug at those who do not.

This was perhaps best captured by Dr. Robinson’s defending this constant shuffling of teachers and principals:

Robinson: “I know that schools get real attached to their school leaders. But this is a corporate model. And it’s what corporations use to develop leadership strengths.”

Wardynski: “Right.”

Robinson: [Shrugging as if that resolves the matter once and for all, says before the board moves on] “That’s what we’re going to do.”

While I realize that our country seems confused at the moment about the differences between a corporation and a person, perhaps it would be helpful to Dr. Robinson and Dr. Wardynski if they could remember this one simple truth:

Education’s goal isn’t to increase profits for shareholders. Education’s goal is to encourage children to continue to ask questions about the world in which we live. While that may result in profit, it may also, just as easily, result in a loss of profit from an ethical decision to put people, to put children, first.

I know it’s difficult for someone making $175,000 a year with a $10,000 bonus out in front of him for simply doing his job (or someone who spent $60,000 to win a seat on the board) to remember this, but believe it or not, there is more to life than just the bottom line.

Treating people with dignity, honor and respect are just three of those things that matter more.

Watching the dawning of understanding come into a child’s eyes is another.

On Friday, May 25, 2012 at 11:30am, the board will meet again to, I suspect, continue to distance themselves from the thousands of lives that they are disrupting. The changes aren’t anywhere near over yet.

The post Another Bad Week For Teachers and Principals appeared first on Geek Palaver.

On Thursday, February 16th, Dr. Wardynski began to make public a process that he started in private in October with the hiring of Bryon Headrick of LEAN Frog. Speaking of the findings, Dr. Wardynski has claimed, “this is what incompetence looks like.” Dr. Robinson, as usual, praised Wardynski for bringing in a “culture of change.”

There are going to be “firings, demotions, and transfer,” and everyone said, “STRONG LEADER, STRONG LEADER” because that’s exactly what Wardynski paid them to say. And when they didn’t say it often enough, he led the chorus himself.

And much of the public buys into the message that our schools are finally going to be run by people who do things the right way, who follow the rules, who don’t just put their friends, regardless of their inexperience or incompetence into highly paid positions of power.

So where’s the evidence that Dr. Wardynski and his administrative team are doing things any differently?

There doesn’t seem to be any, and as Mr. Blair pointed out on Thursday, February 16th, that doesn’t make us feel any better.

Everyone knows that Dr. Wardynski has made a habit of hiring his friends. That’s old news.

Everyone knows that Dr. Wardynski is bringing in TFAers, even though they cost more and there is no shortages of highly qualified and fully certified teachers in the district.

As I said, old news. What have they done lately?

What about these two tidbits of information:

On Thursday, Mr. Headrick criticized the District’s Procurement Process. He claimed that there was “Significant opportunity for fraud, waste and abuse, and legal liabilities associated with non-compliance to state and federal law.”

The bid law is indeed state law. Was this contract with LEAN Frog executed in accordance with the bid law? That the school board approves the contracts that Dr. Wardynski enters into is also a requirement. (And since they’ve approved every single recommendation the man has brought so far, that shouldn’t be too onerous of a requirement, should it?) Was this contract approved by the board? If so, when?

Also who paid for this LEAN Frog evaluation that is offering Dr. Wardynski political cover to do whatever he wants? The first time that the school board voted to approve hiring Mr. Headrick of LEAN Frog was yesterday at a special called board meeting. AND YET, Huntsville City Schools has been paying LEAN Frog since November. Here are the numbers

• November 2011: ;$2,890.00 (Pg. 20)
• December 2011: $5,760.00 (Pg. 25)
• January 2012: $5,760.00 (Pg. 3)
• January 2012: $5,380.00 (Pg. 9)
• January 2012: $6,480.00 (Pg. 16)

So, the Huntsville City Schools has paid LEAN Frog at total of $26,270.00 since November 2011, but the first time the board approved hiring of this company was February 25, 2012. I have asked Dr. Robinson about this oversight in oversight, but as of this writing she hasn’t responded to my question.

A culture of change indeed, Dr. Robinson.

What about hiring practices, and the posting of jobs?

On Thursday, February 16th, Mr. Headrick pointedly stated that the Human Resource department was “inefficient” and “2.5 to 3 months behind at time of assessment.” He claimed that HR received “32 hours of interruptions in two days.” (You’ll note that he did not offer any details to put these numbers into context like sharing how many total working hours were performed in that office in those two days. That would be helpful information, wouldn’t it?) Mr. Headrick claimed that the department was having to waste time examining and re-doing work.

Perhaps one reason that HR is running behind is because Dr. Wardynski and his Administrative team aren’t following the standards and procedures for hiring themselves.

Goodness, but wouldn’t it be embarrassing if, say the then Director of Transition and the now Director of Operations were, oh I don’t know, posting jobs that haven’t even opened yet on his Facebook Wall?

That would require some additional oversight and re-doing of work on the part of the HR department, don’t you think?

Here’s a screen shot from Mr. Aaron King’s Facebook Wall. Assuming that he doesn’t lock his Facebook account down in the near future, you can see this for yourself if you wish. Just scroll down to a post on January 2, 2012.

In addition, I’ve “shared” this posting on the Geek Palaver Facebook Page. Here’s a screen capture of the posting for those of you who don’t use Facebook.

I wonder if this posting, “for all positions (directors, coordinators, principals, teachers, etc)” is following the standards established by the HR department, state and federal law? Perhaps the New Employee Orientation Materials that Mr. King received were not current. That must be the problem, right?

Giving your friends a two month head start on applying for state jobs, jobs that must be open to everyone, jobs that were not open on January 2nd, is a violation of the state requirements for hiring. And as Mr. King posted, he and Col. Wardynski, should “take ownership for their decisions.”

Doesn’t this basically prove that the current witch hunt that Dr. Wardynski is engaged in is politically motivated? I mean, why else would he instruct his XO to talk to his buddies about jobs nearly two months before he discusses any of this with the public? It would seem that he is hoping to take advantage of the public outcry over this issue to place yet more like-minded, inexperienced people into positions of power (that pay well) throughout the district, don’t you think?

See, I’ve gotten a good amount of grief since the 16th of February for questioning our “Strong Leader.” I’ve been told that I should just support what he’s doing to clean up Huntsville City Schools. I’ve been told that these changes, this culture of change that he’s bringing in, will be good for our schools. I’ve been told that ultimately these changes will be good for the system. I’ve been told I should quit being apprehensive and that the whining must stop.

But the simple fact of the matter is that all this talk of inefficiencies and criminal behavior that happened in the past is simply being used to cover up inefficiencies and criminal behavior that is happening right now.

As I said long ago, the new boss is the same as the old boss, and anyone telling you differently isn’t paying attention.

The post Culture of Change? appeared first on Geek Palaver.

Life is an amazing gift. Being up before the sun, looking at the night as it fades away helps to put this into perspective (although, honestly, I’m not a morning person.) The beginning of each new day is like Christmas morn: it’s hard to contain the excitement and potentiality that the day will bring.

Sorry for a rambling start. It was another wakeful night with the boy, but it ended with us walking together into school this morning, bouncing together, and saying bye. Nothing special there. Except the miracle of my boy actually telling me bye and adding three simple, beautiful words to the end.

“I Looove ooo.”

Life is an amazing gift: precious, wonderful and miraculous.

And it arises from treating each other the way we wish to be treated.

This is one simple idea that we spend a lifetime learning to follow. It’s crucial. Without it life loses excitement and potentiality. It becomes the gift that we put in the back of the closet and forget about.

Come Together

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit of late when I think about our schools. I wrote once that when resources tighten, it is natural to want to look after the needs of those dearest to you first. Even if doing so means that others suffer.

There was a time when I thought that we as a city would overcome this maxim. When it was announced back in June that nine schools were going to be closed, there was the beginning of a coming together that I hadn’t often experienced in this town except when the power was out. It seemed that having a state mandated superintendent sent in with orders to close schools on the basis of a flawed demographic report was doing quite a bit to get all of the schools (or at least those who were on the list) working together. There was no division between us. At least for a moment.

Too often our community is pitted against each other. We’re divided along racial lines. Those in the south are often callously unconcerned about the quality of the schools in the north. There are seemingly ancient divisions between Butler, Lee, and Johnson as well as between Grissom and Huntsville. (Or often times between Huntsville and the entire rest of the system.)

We are divided along financial lines. Wealthier schools often seem to receive preferential attention and support from the Superintendent than those schools in other parts of the community despite his claim to be primarily concerned about “closing the achievement gap.” It would be quite interesting to see if all of the schools PTA presidents, just as a single point of reference, received the same level of access to the superintendent. Somehow, I’m betting that there are those who are more equal than others.

Divide and Conquer

Now the Superintendent is attempting to divide the city along the lines of ability and the cost of services. In other words, Wardynski has offered a response to my questions about the seven million dollars in cuts. He believes that all students should receive exactly the same amount of funding, and since exceptional (the state’s legal terminology) students cost more than non-exceptional students, he is convinced that cutting funding from exceptional students is completely justifiable. He’s simply aware that it’s both politically dangerous and illegal for him to say so. So he keeps his mouth shut when I ask questions. Or he finds technical loopholes that he can wiggle through to avoid answering questions.

I suppose he’s never read Harrison Bergeron on the horror of a life where everyone was finally equal.

He wants to be the U. S. Handicapper General. He said as much in a discussion with Mr. Spinelli back during the budget hearings on September 8th. You can watch it here: http://www.ihigh.com/huntsvillecityschools/broadcast_176461.html?silverlight=1 but the volume is bad. The discussion starts at about the 3:50 mark.

Spinelli: 4.9 million is for ah special education. Approximately we spend $20 million to date on ah. Or we budgeted $20 million in Special Education for the fiscal year 2012.

Wardynski: So we’re um about 5 million in federal funding, the rest will come mostly from local funding.

S: Yes.

W: Total expenditures are pretty close to $20 million dollars. So that about $15 million will be coming from local funding. So of our local funding, which is about $95 million, about 18-19 percent of that will go to special education. And when we lay that down across the children, we’re still completing the analysis, there’s about 2300 children that we track in sets. We’re still waiting for iNow to surface some more for budget purposes. An of those 2300, they represent just about 10% of our students. We’re spending about half of our special education funds on about 400 of those students. So about 50% of our special education funding is going to about 400 of those 2300 students. And that sorta lays down in a way that’s sorta exponential in nature that um the local funding is in some cases is up to $30,000, $40,000 per student. So we’re keeping an eye on that one. We’re implementing the IEPs. By making sure as we’re looking at IEPs and resource allocation, that we’re doing it in a way where with the real sources we have we can meet all of the students’ needs.

S: Right. There’s some students that um we’re spending much more than the $30 or $40 thousand on.

W: Right. There’s a few outliers.

S: Yes.

W: We’re taking a good look at how services are rendered to make sure we’re being efficient.

S: Right

W: And yet meeting the needs of the children.

S: And the other 90% of your students, we’re spending about $8,000 or $9,000 a student for the education. [He is talking about non-exceptional kids here.]

So what is he attempting to accomplish here? First, he is attempting to divide the special education community. By arguing that “half of our special education funds” are being spent on about “400 of those students,” he’s attempting to say to the special education community that there are some special education students who are receiving far more services than the vast majority of the entire community.

Dividing Special Education

He’s attempting to defend his actions of cutting $7 million in special education funding by saying first to the special education (SPED) community that there are those who are getting more than your child.

I’m grateful to the SPED community for a world of things, but I think the main thing I appreciate them for is this: communication. We talk to each other, we listen to each other, and for the most part, we do our level best to treat each other the way we want to be treated.

You see, we’re used to getting those looks from strangers who don’t understand why our son is flapping his arms. We understand how it feels. And so rather than staring, we smile, or maybe we walk up and talk. In short, we would appreciate the gift of understanding from others, so when we are able, we offer it.

Dr. Wardynski’s blatantly political attempts to divide the SPED community failed because we talk with each other, and we understand that our child might soon require additional assistance.

Divide Special Education From Everyone Else

Whether or not this same blatantly political attempt to isolate the exceptional students from the non-exceptional students will work, frankly, remains to be seen.

When funding is tight, there is a sense of urgency to get what we can for ourselves and our families and let others worry about themselves. Wardynski is clearly hoping that he can make that case that spending more on a few students will be deemed unfair to the other 89% of the community who are non-exceptional. He’s clearly hoping that Huntsville gives into our baser selves rather than rising to our better angels.

The question is, is he right? Will he succeed in splitting the community into factions? A system is much easier to control when the people refuse to work together, when we only look out for ourselves and our own. A community that stands together cannot be abused.

Wardynski was sold to us as a numbers guy. That’s all well and good, but to be an effective leader you must care about more than just the bottom line. Doing the right thing for the right reason at the right time is also required. The rule of gold shouldn’t outweigh the golden rule.

Sadly, Wardynski, Spinelli, and King seem to have forgotten this. If we stand together, we can remind them.

Tomorrow, there will be a follow up with a list of reasons why you should care about the funding for special education programs. Please check back for that one.

The post The Rule of Gold Shouldn’t Outweigh the Golden Rule appeared first on Geek Palaver.

On Thursday, November 17th,  Mr. Aaron King offered an updated report on Special Education to the report that he and Dr. Wardynski presented back in August. While you may not have a child who is discussed in this report,  HCS students who have an IEP represent about 11% of the Huntsville City Schools population, what happens to the special education students should matter to you. The system seems to have a pattern of testing its implementation of procedures on the special needs kids before applying them to other segments of the population.

Closing services offered at schools, moving students, cutting teachers, aides and therapists, all of these methods of “saving money” were all trial tested on the Special Education population before they began doing the same thing to other groups.

The central office’s pattern of making decisions without involving parents or the public in any way is also a process that has been used with Special Education long before it was used with other groups. Thus, it pays to notice what they are doing with special education kids even if you don’t have one yourself.

Continuing this pattern on the 17th, Mr. King, who as far as I have been made aware has absolutely no previous experience working with or evaluating special education programs (he was a high school chemistry teacher in Madison Co., Mississippi before coming here as Dr. Wardynski’s aide) has been placed in charge of evaluating and assessing the special education services, IEPs and teachers in Huntsville City. Again, this is following a pattern with our school system. Experience is seen as a detriment or as an obstacle to be overcome. So rather than taking advantage of the extensive years of experience that our system has in working with IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), Dr. Wardynski has handed this over to his Director of Transition.

Repeating Patterns

This is a similar pattern to the way that Dr. Wardynski is handling the re-naming of Lee High School. It’s the way that he’s handling the consolidations of Mt. Gap, Whitesburg, and Chapman elementary and middle schools into P-8s. The pattern of replacing experienced personnel with unexperienced personnel is the primary issue that I have with the Teach for America decision.

But this is Dr. Wardynski’s pattern. Experience doesn’t matter to him simply because he doesn’t have any.

The pattern is to avoid parental involvement or input in the decision making process. While I certainly understand where Dr. Wardynski learned this pattern, in the military people follow orders or they die, a public school system is not the military. If the system excludes parental input, as they have done repeatedly, the school system will die.

As such, it’s crucial to involve parents in the decision making process. Dr. Wardynski claims on a regular basis that he wants this, but his actions and decision making process exclude parents. And ultimately, it is our actions that speak the loudest.

So what exactly have been the superintendent’s actions that we can learn from.

A Statement of Priorities

The superintendent has cut special education funding from FY2011 to FY2012 by $7,173,863.74. This is not an estimate. This is not a guess. These numbers are Dr. Wardynski’s and Mr. Spinelli’s numbers that they grudgingly provided when I asked for a report from them two and a half months ago. (I say grudgingly because Mr. Spinelli delayed providing these numbers to me by 15 days. When they finally sent me the numbers, they sent me the raw data in an Adobe Acrobat file without any totals. I suppose it’s a good thing I know how to import information into a usable format. Education is a wonderful gift, isn’t it?)

After I uncovered the seven million dollar in cuts that represent 61 percent of the total systemwide cuts from FY2011 to FY2012, I contacted Dr. Jennie Robinson seeking her assistance as my board representative in eliciting an explanation from Dr. Wardynski and Mr. Spinelli. This is the approach that the board prefers in handling these types of issues. If you have an issue, they ask that you contact them in private, and so I did. Dr. Robinson responded to my request for the board to discuss this at a board meeting on September 29th. I wrote about this back in October. In an email, she stated:

I followed up on this with Dr. W and Mr. Spinelli after the meeting today. They said that they are going to do a formal presentation on special ed costs at the November work session. They will not have all budget actuals back from the state until then. They also said that the discrepancy is not totally in the coding errors (although that does contribute a little bit) but in the difference between budgeted numbers and  actual expenses.

So you should have your answers in November.

The Special Education Report

This brings us to the November 17th meeting. The presentation that Mr. King offered was an updated version of the presentation that Dr. Wardynski offered on August 4th. For some reason, Dr. Wardynski did not want to follow up his presentation from that night. He chose to pass it off to his aide. The primary changes in the report include changes in the numbers of Instructional Assistants, and the addition of 1.5 Occupational Therapists.

In addition the report includes information on Dr. Wardynski’s moving 23.5 Special Education workers out of the Merts Office and into the schools. The claim was that this move:

1. Eliminates the drive time from the Merts Center and therefore reduces the milage expenses incurred by the individuals and the district.
2. Establishes more time for interaction with students and educators.
3. Provides more personnel in the schools to help manage and mitigate problems.

These all seem like reasonable benefits until you realize that there are 18 schools with autism units and 2 autism specialist who are placed at AAA and Challenger. In other words, there are 16 autism units that these two autism specialist will still have to cover and assist. Will they be driving from Merts? No, but they are still driving from AAA and Challenger to the other 16 schools.

Travel costs haven’t been eliminated, they’ve just been moved out of the Merts cost center and onto the individual schools. Interestingly enough, shortly after the Special Education update report, Mr. Spinelli offered a financial report that showed that the administrative expenditures were 3.4% of the budget, which they claimed were well below the state average of either 4.0% or 4.5% (they used both numbers). Is it possible that the transfer of personnel out of Merts an into the schools was simply to make it appear that the administrative costs were lower than they actually are?

Somehow, I think that might be the case.

Also, can anyone explain why you would place an Elementary Collaborative Coordinator at Huntsville High School? Or what about placing another one at Grissom High? Wouldn’t it make much more sense for the Elementary Collaborative Coordinator to be at an elementary school? At least they were successful at placing the middle school coordinators at middle schools.

Perhaps Mr. King, who appears to be in charge of the special education services at this point was confused? Nah, surely he had a good reason for doing this. Right?

District Plans for Equity

So what does Mr. King recommend that we do with the data he presented to the board? For that, we’ll need to examine the following slide:

I wonder: How exactly is someone with Mr. King’s limited experience going to “ensure that services are allocated and provided based on legitimate needs as determined by the IEP team?” Is he planning to examine the work of the IEP team and determine that some needs just simply are not “legitimate?” What exactly is he planning to base his evaluation of legitimacy on? Has he worked with Special Needs students for years? Does he have any formal training in identifying legitimate needs for special services? If so, I would love to hear about them, but I suspect that this is similar to all those excellent TFA studies that Dr. Wardynski keeps mentioning in defense of the excellent quality of TFA’ers when compared with teachers who are actually trained. Isn’t it funny how he never calls these studies by name? I suppose we should just trust him and Mr. King.

So, who is going to be establishing “the proper protocols to ensure that the IEP process is equitable across the district?”

Since it would seem that Mr. King is unaware, the “I” in IEP stands for an Individualized. This means that equitability across the district is not to be taken into consideration. If you’re focused on “equitability,” the “individualized” part is tossed out the window. Again, experience matters.

Where’s the Discussion of the Seven Million?

So what’s missing from this presentation? You guessed it: neither Mr. King, Mr. Spinelli, Dr. Wardynski, nor anyone on the board raised any discussion of the seven million dollars that was cut from Special Education from FY2011 to FY2012. The only discussion of funding decisions was Dr. Robinson expressing astonishment that Mr. Spinelli and Dr. Wardynski were able to show during the presentation of the 2011 Financial Statements that the general fund now has an operational surplus of $3.4 million dollars. She actually asked, “How were you able to do this?” I suppose that she had forgotten about the two reductions in force that she voted for in February and April.

I suppose she had forgotten about the report that I had shared with her two months earlier that showed that the special education budget had been cut by seven million.

The only mention of this reduction in funding came when I asked about it during the public comments.

No one offered any response.

So, per the boards request, I wrote Dr. Robinson privately again on Friday of last week asking her again as my board member to request a specific response to my concerns about the seven million dollar reduction in special education funding.

She has not responded to my email. I suppose that she didn’t receive it.

So, tomorrow night at the board meeting, I will stand to ask again why the Special Education funding has been cut by seven million dollars. It will probably be a fruitless exercise as the board seems happy to balance their books on the backs of our neediest children, but I’ll ask anyway.

I’ll ask because our teachers deserve my support. I’ll ask because our aides, therapists, and principals do too. I’ll ask because if they can make one group bear the burden of their financial mis-management, they can make any group do so.

I’ll ask because my son cannot ask for himself.

The post Repeating Patterns and Special Education appeared first on Geek Palaver.