Last night the board announced that they’ve been holding discussions with the superintendent about extending his contract which is due to expire on June 20, 2014, to June 30, 2017. He has requested to receive a three-year extension to his contract, an increase in his car allowance of $200 per month (from $600 to $800), and in return he is willing to give up his incentive bonus of up to $10,000 per year. Last year his incentive bonus was $9,920.

Contract Extension to Quell Rumors

Wardynski claims that he needs to receive this contract extension to put to rest “rumors about the superintendent interviewing for jobs in other districts.”

I often hear rumors about things occurring in the district. I heard about Spinelli’s resignation about 4 months before it occurred. I heard rumors about his harassment complaints before the superintendent discussed them at a board meeting in February.

I’ve heard rumors about Dr. Wardynski as well.

I don’t publish rumors. However, last night Mrs. McCaulley and Dr. Wardynski acknowledged the existence of rumors of his interviewing with other districts. So, one collection of rumors I had heard was that he was traveling for interviews in New York, Florida, and Maryland.

Illogical Reasoning . . . As Usual

Let’s look at the logic here:

• There have been rumors about Dr. Wardynski traveling for interviews in other districts in at least three separate states. Mrs. McCaulley and Dr. Wardynski confirmed the existence of the rumors last night. There was no discussion of whether or not the rumors were true or not.
• So instead of confirming or denying the rumors, Dr. Wardynski’s response was to request a three year contract extension from the board.
• He and the board concluded that such an extension would confirm his commitment to Huntsville.

There seems to be a problem here doesn’t there?

If Dr. Wardynski wishes to confirm his commitment to Huntsville, why is he asking for Huntsville to confirm our commitment to him?

Wouldn’t it make more sense, wouldn’t it be more logical for Dr. Wardynski to simply:

1. State that he isn’t interviewing with other districts?
2. State that he has interviewed with other districts, but that he has decided that Huntsville is far and away the best place for him?
3. Stop accepting interviews with other districts?
4. State that he isn’t interested in leaving?

Asking for a contract extension to prove your desire to stay is kinda like asking your wife for permission to cheat, so you can prove to her how committed you are to the marriage.

It just doesn’t work that way.

He wants us to tell him and the rest of the nation that we really  want him to stay. This will make a great bargaining tool when he’s negotiating and interviewing with other districts. Just as many companies will not hire someone who is unemployed, Wardynski looks better to other districts when his contract isn’t about to expire.

Extending his contract says absolutely nothing about his desire to stay here as the board claimed last night.

As Clause 13 of the contract states, the contract isn’t binding on him. It requests a three month notice, but if he doesn’t give one, all that will mean is that he won’t be paid the $43,749.99 for that time. In other words, all of the burden rests on the district. None rests on Wardynski. He can still interview with other districts. He can still accept another job. Giving him a three year extension doesn’t prove commitment to the district. The three year commitment proves the district’s commitment to him.

He can, despite the extension, leave at any time.

So if he actually wants to prove, as McCaulley claimed, that “he’s committed to Huntsville,” here are a few things he can do:

1. Say, “I am not interviewing with any other job.”
2. Refuse to accept the bonus he is receiving until teachers STEP raises are restored.
3. Refuse to discuss a contract extension.

If he’s really committed to Huntsville, he should be willing to work out his existing contract without requiring additional promises from the district. If anything, asking for an extension proves that he is not committed to our district.

There is no logical reason for the board of education to extend his contract at this point.

So, they will likely do just that.

If you believe that they should politely tell the superintendent where he can put his “suggestion” of a contract extension, please contact your board member and let them know what you think. You may reach them at the email/phone numbers below:

• District 1: Laurie McCaulley: lamccaulley@gmail.com
• District 2: David Blair: david.blair.hcsboard@gmail.com
• District 3: Jennie Robinson: personalbest@knology.net (256) 527-1425 (W) (256) 882-0925 (H)
• District 4: Topper Birney: topperb@knology.net (256) 883-2982
• District 5: Mike Culbreath: mwculbreath@gmail.com

Please contact them immediately and let them know what you think of their logic. It’s possible, just possible, that they might actually listen.

The post Wardynski Requests a Three Year Contract Extension appeared first on Geek Palaver.

Dr. Wardynski has been superintendent of Huntsville City Schools since July 5, 2011, or a just shy of five months. It’s been a busy five months for him.

Here’s a quick summary of the changes Dr. Wardynski has brought about in that time.

1. Classroom Sizes have increased along with a higher student to teacher ratio.
2. The Central Office staff, in particular the upper level of the central office, has increased.
3. The Special Education budget has been cut by $7 million dollars to pay for significant increases in the recruitment, selection and professional development of Teach for America teachers and various other of the superintendent’s personal goals.
4. Senior Administrative positions are slated to receive bonuses and have already received raises while teachers salaries are frozen and new teachers salaries are set at the state minimum.
5. Eli Broad Foundation’s Return on Investment is up to $2,310,000.
6. The Superintendent who doesn’t want to close schools has now either closed, slated to close, relocated or merged nine schools without parental input, which is exactly the same amount of schools recommended for closure by the demographer’s report in June.
7. All job descriptions have been suspended allowing for personnel to be moved at will.

Funny, it would seem that he’s following the Broad Foundation’s game plan to the letter. In, “How to tell if your School District is Infected by the Broad Virus,” SueP of Seattleducation2011 suggests looking at a few of the following clues:

1. Schools in your district are suddenly closed.
2. Even top-performing schools, alternative and schools for the gifted, are inexplicably and suddenly targeted for closures or mergers.
3. Repetition of the phrases “the achievement gap” and “closing the achievement gap” in district documents and public statements.
4. Repeated use of the terms “excellence” and “best-practices” and “data-driven decisions.” (Coupled with a noted absence of any of the above.)
5. Power is centralized.
6. Decision-making is top down.
7. Local autonomy of schools is taken away.
8. Principals are treated like pawns by the superintendent, relocated, rewarded and punished at will.
9. Culture of fear of reprisal develops in which teachers, principals, staff, even parents feel afraid to speak up against the policies of the district or the superintendent.
10. Ballooning of the central office at the same time superintendent makes painful cuts to schools and classrooms.
11. Sudden increase in the number of paid outside consultants.
12. Superintendent attempts to sidestep labor laws and union contracts.
13. Teachers are no longer referred to as people, educators, colleagues, staff or even “human resources,” but as “human capital.”
14. The district leadership declares that the single most significant problem in the district is suddenly: teachers!
15. Superintendent lays off teachers for questionable reasons.
16. Teach for America, Inc., novices are suddenly brought into the district, despite no shortage of fully qualified teachers.
17. The district hires a number of “Broad Residents” at about $90,000 apiece, also trained by the Broad Foundation, who are placed in strategically important positions like overseeing the test that is used to evaluate teachers or school report cards. They in turn provide — or fabricate — data that support the superintendent’s ed reform agenda (factual accuracy not required).
18. Superintendent behaves as if s/he is beyond reproach.
19. The superintendent receives the highest salary ever paid to a superintendent in your town’s history (plus benefits and car allowance) – possibly more than your mayor or governor — and the community is told “that is the national, competitive rate for a city of this size.”
20. Your school board starts to show signs of Stockholm Syndrome. They vote in lockstep with the superintendent. Apparently lobotomized by periodic “school board retreat/Broad training” sessions headed by someone from Broad, your school board stops listening to parents and starts to treat them as the enemy. (If you still have a school board, that is — Broad ideally prefers no pesky democratically elected representatives to get in the way of their superintendents and agendas.)

There’s more, but I think this is sufficient to communicate the point. If you’d like to read the entire list, you may do so at http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/how-to-tell-if-your-school-district-is-infected-by-the-broad-virus/

As I said, Dr. Wardynski has been busy in the past five months. Kinda makes you wonder exactly what’s in store in the future. If this is the type of “future leaders” that Broad Foundation supported programs like Teach for America produces, I would much prefer that they go on about their chosen careers and leave education to those who have committed their lives to it.

The post What Changes Wardynski Hath Wrought appeared first on Geek Palaver.

When you’re considering an investment, one of the first points to consider is, what will this investment return? If the ROI is small, you look for other places to spend money. If it’s significant, you’re much more likely to spend money on it. Eli Broad of the Broad (rhymes with “road”) Foundation has made an investment in Dr. Casey Wardynski through the Broad Academy. After five months as superintendent of Huntsville City Schools, how is Wardynski performing for his benefactor?

Well, we’ve already discussed at length Wardynski’s willingness to spend our money on himself. His salary ($175,000), his bonus ($10,000), his aides have been well documented here and in the Huntsville Times.

We’ve discussed his willingness to spend money on his friends from Aurora in the person of our CSFO at a salary that is competitive in at least two states of $130,000.

We’ve discussed the fact that we’re paying a deputy superintendent a salary of $141,600 (or $7,000 more than the maximum posted salary) because she, like Dr. Wardynski, wouldn’t have come for less than that.

We’ve seen how our system now has two standards for their salary policies: One for senior administration and another one for their friends.

We’ve seen how quickly and easily the board decided to reduce our new teacher’s salaries to the state minimum and to freeze step raises for all our teachers.

We’ve seen how the Special Education budget is responsible for 61% of the total budget cuts for the system in FY2012.

But perhaps this isn’t enough to convince the public that Dr. Wardynski’s priorities do not include educating students or supporting teachers, specialist, therapists, aides and principles–you know those people in our system who actually work with children.

Perhaps we still need to look to see what else Dr. Wardynski have gotten the rubber-stamp board to approve over the past few weeks.

On September 15th, the board heard a presentation on PROACT Search, a national search firm which the Board has contracted with to do six to ten principal searches at a cost of $11,000 a search. PROACT Search’s CEO is Gary R. Solomon. Solomon, in addition to being the CEO for PROACT Search is also the president of Synesi Associates. Both of these firms make active use of the SUPES Academy, which isn’t surprising as Solomon is also a member of the SUPES Academy Advisory Board.

When Wardynski started in July, one of his first responsibilities was to establish a search committee to fill the eight  principal positions that were vacant at the time. This committee was made up of current principals, teachers and community members. So far as I am aware, none of these people were paid for their work. They completed their work in record time, and their selections are among our more celebrated principals.

So why do we need to pay an outside firm to do the work that our board and central office are already being paid to do?

On October 20th, Wardynski recommended and the board approved spending $300,000 over the next two years to offer professional development to approximately 20 principals, especial the new principals that PROACT Search finds at a cost of $11,000 per principal. So Solomon is involved in both the finding of principals and the training of principals.

This is an exorbitant cost to spend on professional development activities. And again, why are we paying an outside firm to do the work that our board and central office are already being paid to do?

Maybe this will help explain.

If you’re wondering how Dr. Wardynski heard about PROACT Search, or the SUPES Academy, all you need to do is take a look at the SUPES Academy Advisory Board. The chair of the board, Timothy G. Quinn, has direct ties to the Broad Foundation. His description says:

Tim was engaged by The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation to partner on the creation of The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems and The Broad Superintendents Academy.

Dr. Wardynski met six times over a ten month period attending the Broad Superintendents Academy in 2010. This is a weekend training program funded by the Broad Foundation to recruit and train persons without an educational background in how to be superintendents. It would seem that at least part of that training time is spent teaching these future superintendents how to direct public funds to private search firms and professional development organizations all of whom have direct ties to The Broad Foundation.

The only organization that Dr. Wardynski has recommended to the board, that the board hasn’t yet been asked to approve is the Teach for America contract to hire “teachers” who have not been trained as teachers. During the Teach for America presentation, Dr. Robinson and Mr. Birney were both often seen nodding in approval. That contract requires that Huntsville City Schools pay Teach for America $550,000 to recruit and “train” up to 110 new teachers.

Teach for America, I’m sure will come as not surprise, is also one of The Broad Foundation’s “Current Investments.”

So let’s recap:

• Wardynski has recommended, and the board has approved hiring PROACT Search (with direct ties to The Broad Foundation) for $110,000 to hire approximately 10 new principals.
• He has recommended, and the board has approved hiring SUPES Academy to provide professional development to new Principals for $300,000 for two years.
• He has recommended, and the board will likely approve the hiring of 110 Teach for America (supported by The Broad Foundation) for $550,000 a year.

In five months, Dr. Wardynski recommended spending just shy of one million dollars on programs supported by The Broad Foundation.

That’s not bad for a five month tenure, is it? While it’s not clear how much The Broad Foundation has spent “training” Dr. Wardynski, if the “training” for Teach for America is any indication, it’s likely in the $20,000 range. In exchange for this investment, Dr. Wardynski has already returned $410,000 in five months. In all likelihood at some point in November the rubber stamp board will approve spending $550,000 for Teach for America to hire 110 teachers who haven’t been trained to teach.

If you’d like to read more about The Broad Foundation’s “commitment” to education, take a look at “How to Tell if your School District is Infected by the Broad Virus.” You might also consider following, “The Broad Report.”

$960,000 for five months work. Not bad. Not bad at all. I wish the ROI for Huntsville’s kids were as high.

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