Race to the Top or Race to Nowhere? Part I

After doing some preliminary research on Race to the Top (RTTT) we found that we were not the only ones who find this contest to be cause for concern.  By doing a simple Google search we found these articles of interest:

Race to the Top or Race to the bottom?

Why Race to the Top won’t solve the problem

Race to the Top: Where is the finish line?

Run Harder or Quit  Race to the Top?

A Race to the Top or Race to Judgement

This federal contest is one that should have all LCSD residents very concerned.   Our students are being used to win funds for the State Department of Education of which little if any will be returned to us at the District level.  A board member stated that fact to two of us after a recent BoE  meeting and Assemblyman Al Stirpe stated at a recent town hall meeting that he wouldn’t expect the District to see more than $100,000 to $200,000.   We are making sweeping changes that the US Department of Education is asking for yet how will we be able to sustain these programs and their layers of required reporting?   We are already sacrificing our elementary students into buildings with close to 100% capacity so grades 9-12 can expand into four buildings;  the main building, LHX, WRE and MRE.

We have been told that initially the FOCUS/Non-traditional academy would consist of some 80 to 120 students.  In practical terms, we have displaced 350 elementary students from one of the top performing elementary schools in the District because of decreased enrollment yet we can repurpose an entire building for less than 100 students?

BoE votes to hold off on academies plan until 2011 …

Monday afternoon, before the BoE meeting, the District send out a message via their Key Communicator email list stating that they would be voting on the closure of WRE and consider, “a motion to slow down the implementation of the LHS academies until the fall of 2011.”   We were very happy to see the consideration of this motion as we have been hammering the BoE with this exact belief for close to month.   How can we supposedly save money by closing WRE and then turn around in the same budget plan and start a new program?  The cost to repurpose WRE has yet to be disclosed, we have only been told that the cost will be “minimal.”

We have questioned the fast-track planning that was mentioned when Dr. Patterson presented the PowerPoint presentation of the plan to the public on March 1.  She stated then that the District Administrative Team has spent just under two months putting this plan together and Dr. John even mentioned that he had rushed her to have the presentation ready for that March 1 meeting.  What they presented was certainly a respectable framework yet, when looking at other similar plans from other districts across the nation there is one very important variable that, even now, the District refuses to include, community involvement.

At the heart of the plan that that Charlotte-Mecklenburg District in NC uses and the plan that Dr. Patterson even gave in her supplemental information packet posted here, the public played a critical and integral part in the development of the over all plan.  It wasn’t until just recently that the teachers themselves were made aware of the plan, in fact it was shared with them the afternoon of the March 1 meeting.

We, in the public, are still officially being left in the dark about what is truly driving these sweeping changes, a US Department of Education program/contest called Race to The Top (RTTT).  Some of what has been proposed, in a very general sense, comes directly from RTTT; technological improvements, school closings, connecting student achievement to specific teachers, a data collection administrator, and many more.

While reading through the points system for this contest, which dangles a $4.35 billion carrot in front of State Education Departments across the country, you will see many of those sweeping changes mentioned above that we are seeing here in Liverpool.  So, the real question here is who is driving this locally?  It certainly isn’t the members of the BoE yet they are certainly taking part in the execution of the plan.  The only time we have heard someone from the District Administration or the BoE even speak the words “Race to the Top” was at the March 1st meeting when the Executive Director for School Improvement Maureen Patterson vaguely made reference to Race to the Top in her presentation.

We confirmed the following with the RTTT Office at NYSED; Superintendent Johns, Board President Patricia Mouton and the Teachers’ Union president ALL signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on behalf of  the LCSD approving the District’s participation in this program sometime before the January 13, 2010 application deadline.   Now, again, keep in mind that at the March 1st BoE meeting when the District Administrative Team rolled out their academies plan, Dr. Patterson stated that the team had been working on this plan for just under two months.  So, the academies program and the closing  of WRE are uniquely and unequivocally tied to the RTTT contest no matter what we are being told.  We also have to question whether signing the MOU without a BoE vote follows Robert’s Rules of Order which the LCSD BoE professes following.   We have reviewed the BoE minutes and no where have we found a vote or even a mention of RTTT.

Because of local residents like members of our group and others who have been hammering away at the BoE members and Superintendent Johns over the past several weeks, it is quite clear that the delay in starting the academies has several goals; first, to distance the closing of WRE with the need for the building for the FOCUS Academy and second, the multitude of unanswerable questions that have been posed over recent weeks about the academies program has left the District with a proverbial black-eye.  They realized that we, the public, also knew they didn’t cover all their bases with the plan they presented.  Additionally, the rippling effect of this plan on students, faculty, administrators and the need for teacher training is undeniable.  We have specifically made reference to other districts across the country who spent anywhere from 18 months to 3 years to implement such a plan.   Thankfully, for the first time in close to a decade, the LCSD BoE didn’t simply jump in feet first with an invincible mentality.

We also found it quite entertaining that the BoE members and Dr. Johns would tout this sudden change in plan as “their idea.”  Since February 8th they have been attempting to shove this plan down all our throats and both residents and students alike have spoken out strongly against it.  Yet after two months of insisting that it could be done, suddenly one day they wanted to slow down and give this plan the time it needs to cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s.  Isn’t that what we have been saying all along?  Was it so hard to come forward and say that the BoE was going to listen to the public and take a step back?  This certain exemplifies where their loyalties lie.

Note of Sympathies: We purposely remained silent over the past week out of respect for the passing of BoE President Patricia Mouton.  We pass along our sympathies and condolences to the Mouton Family.

BoE Unanimously Votes to Close WRE

After what was apparently a planned maneuver on behalf of the BoE by packing the early part of the meeting with miscellaneous items,  the vote to close WRE took place at approximately 10:45 PM and most of the packed house that was there at the start of the meeting was well out the door long before.  It took shouts from the audience for the BoE Members to even have a 10 minute discussion of the measure before voting.  Board Member Donna Marsh O’Connor brought up the measure and all members were ready to vote before a LIVES member yelled out stating that they just spent 45 minutes discussion small cuts in the athletic budget yet couldn’t give the school closing the same attention.

Begrudgingly, members walked through canned statistics to please those still in the audience, before they voted unanimously to close WRE.  It saddens us here at LIVES because this Board has lost sight of their role in the education process and most importantly who they serve – the voters.  Many LIVES members have been in attendance at all of the BoE meetings beginning with the budget presentation on February 8th and were witnesses to well over 12 hours of public commentary about the budget, proposed school closings and the academies plan.  Through that entire process voters’ questions were routinely ignored, well over 70% of them, and those few that were answered were either answered with a broad brush or misdirected in the response.

In those long hours of public comments not once did one BoE member defend the person at the microphone by telling whomever was answering the question that either they did not answer the question posed or that a given question in the voter’s comments was not address.

What was even more disturbing was the fact that the multitude of conversations, comments and opinions that were expressed by all board members in those referenced 12 hours; on very few occasions were the voters, teachers or students mentioned or given consideration in the discussion.  We heard ad nauseum about the role of the Superintendent, the District Administrative Team and the Board members.

Yet what was devoid in their conversations and apparent in their lack of attention paid to the overwhelming majority of those who expressed their opinions during those 12 long hours of comments was the simple fact that they have lost sight of why they are there and for whom.

According to By-law 1120:

“As a body created under the Education Law of New York State, the Board of Education of the

Liverpool Central School District has full authority, within the limitations of federal and state laws and

the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education and interpretations of them, to carry out the will of the

people of its District in matters of education.”

… to carry out the will of the people

Was the will of the people carried out in this vote?  That would be a resounding NO … and there may well be a recourse for that.

(more posts coming throughout the day)

As he was saying …before he got the hook

At last night’s lively BoE Meeting, LIVES member Al Burch was gaveled and not allow to continue his comments because BoE President Patricia Mouton either did not want to hear what Al had to say, or knew what he was going to say and did not want to make it public.    Well, regardless of the Board’s wishes, the rest of the story is verified here.

In his last position at Webutuck Central School District, Dr. Johns’ son was hired, first, as a part-time maintenance employee and after approximately two years had risen to the position of Maintenance Supervisor.   As cited in the above linked news article, he also became the track coach and on March 9, 2009, an incident occurred during track practice in which he left an ill student, known to have allergies and required the use of an epi-pen, alone to return to the locker room.   The student had an anaphylactic reaction and 911 had to be called.  Dr. Johns did not discipline his son or even have him temporarily put on administrative leave while the event was investigated.

There were also allegations that a truck was purchased during Dr. Johns’ tenure at Webutuck which was done without the permission of the BoE.  A few short months after the event with the student-athlete, Dr. Johns began interviewing, apparently before his contract has expired, and eventually made his way to Liverpool.

We at LIVES have to seriously question the BoE’s vetting process in the hiring of Dr. Johns.  Were they aware of these incidents and ignored them or were they kept from the BoE by members of the District Administrative Team?

According to the Webutuck Athletics website, Dr. Johns’ son is now coaching two sports at the District and according to http://seethroughny.net/ (which lists the base salaries for all school districts across the State) as of 2009 Dr. Johns’ son is making approximately $53,000.

We are very concerned that Dr. Johns’ professional career which spans some 30+ years and some seven school districts in three states shows a pattern of inconsistency and certainly little if any loyalty to those he is supposed to serve.

LHS Students Up in Arms Over Avellino

LHS Students want their executive princpal back!

LIVES has learned that the students at LHS are not happy with the District’s decision to do away with the executive principal position under the new academies plan.   According to the Facebook page that students organized they are preparing to have several members of their group address the Board of Education and Superintendent Johns this evening at the scheduled Board Meeting.  This group, as of the posting of this article,  had over 700 members.

Grenardo “Greg” Avellino has a very unique and rare personality. His faculty and staff respect him and consider him a team leader while students, obviously, adore him for his warm nature and sincere desire to find the best in each of them.   Any one with secondary teaching experience will tell you that having this skill set is a special combination that any district would want to keep their hands on, not let go due to internal politics.

We support the students of LHS and applaud them for making their voice be heard in protest of the dismissal of Mr. Avellino.   We are quite sure that the public reason given for his dismissal and the actual reason are two very different things.   On March 5th Mr. Avellino participated, along with the District Administrative Team, in the presentation of the proposed academies plan.  Mr. Avellino was obviously on board with the plan and took an active role in the presentation, often responding to audience questions and thoroughly engaged in the program.  Making reference to what “we” will be doing and what “we” hope to achieve.

Mr. Avellino was invested in the plan or was he only need to help sell the plan to the public and then be told that he would not be part of the implementation?  We have been told that Mr. Avellino, being the kind of man he is, went to the District with questions and concerns on behalf of his teachers and his students.  It is not impossible to think that from that meeting with the Administrative Team and Dr. Johns he was asked to go back to his school with answers that he wasn’t comfortable giving them and from that his future was suddenly in question.

The District never expected the reaction from the students to be so strong.  In a show of solidarity LHS students wore black arm bands to show their disapproval of the Avellino situation.   We are anxious to have the students join us at the BoE Meeting this evening.   We are looking forward to sharing the public microphone with the students of LHS.

Loss of LHS Exec Principal and Johns @ Stirpe Town Hall Meeting

The Post-Standard reported yesterday that LHS Executive Principal Grenardo Avellino will be resigning from his post at the end of the school year.   The article states that the reason for his resignation was due to the fact that the District is doing away with the executive principal role with the new academy system that is being proposed for the 2010-2011 academic year.

The interesting point is that Avellino was right there in the thick of things on March 1st when the District Administrative Team pitched the Academies Plan to those assembled at the BoE Meeting.   He seemed to understand the plan and there were even comments made to the effect that he would be overseeing all of the academies.  One would think that there would still be a need to have someone overseeing all of the academies in some sort of administrative capacity.

Based on what we have heard from parents and students alike and even a few faculty members who were willing to share some information with us, there may be more to this story than what is being shared publicly.   Across the board LHS teachers are concerned about the lack of transparency in this plan and the fact that this entire program was designed, developed and structured without their input.   One would think that the involvement of ALL stakeholders who be the most appropriate direction in the planning of this new concept yet it was not what the District Administrative Team had in mind.

We have been told that Avellino stepped up, like any good building principal would, and shared the teachers’ views with the District Administrative Team and took an advocate-like role for his teachers and Dr. Johns did not appreciate that stance.   Seeing Avellino as a threat to his overall plan, Johns told him either get on board or start sending out resumes; Avellino, seeing the writing on the wall, decided to let Johns go down with his already sinking ship.

Our best to Mr. Avellino, certainly one of the “good guys” in education today.  Wherever he may go after Liverpool, they will be very fortunate to have him!

Members of our group, LIVES (Liverpool Invests in Viable Educational Solutions), have been researching Dr. Johns’ interesting career history and will be reporting more on that in the days to come.

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Last night Assemblyman Al Stirpe held a town hall meeting at the LHX cafeteria at the request of members of our organization.   Close to twenty residents were in attendance to hear him share some of the intricacies of the issues with the State Budget and to listen to residents’ concerns.  After presenting a slide show presentation on the State Budget, Mr. Stirpe opened up the floor to questions from the audience.

Many has questions about the State Budget and the state of the LCSD was also discussed in detail with Mr. Stirpe.   We share our concerns about the District’s budget process and the lack of transparency that has many residents unsettled.   The lack of sharing the proposed budget with the public and the short timeline that State Education Law requires for the to be shared, discussed and eventually voted on my the residents was discussed in detail.   We are confident that our concerns did not fall an deaf ears.  More on that once we have details on exactly what Mr. Stirpe will be trying to do for us.

Mr. Stirpe found himself in somewhat of an awkward situation as Dr. Johns, Board Member Michael Murphy, Bonnie Ladd – Director of Technology and another District Administrator whose identity we are not sure of at this time were all seated together in the audience.   Johns’ attendance was something that we were all very excited about.  His mere attendance lets us know that he is concerned about the rapidly increasing disapproval of his proposed budget and the research and investigation that LIVES has been doing over the past six weeks.   Stay tuned for more in the coming days …

The Academies explained … well, sort of

On March 1st the BoE Meeting was again close to a packed house as The Academy Program was presented to the public. Dr. Maureen Patterson, the Assistant Superintendent for School Improvement, along with the District Administrative Team, presented the plan to those in attendance.

Dr. Patterson began with a over view, stating that the District’s present Graduation Rate is 87%. The Administrative Team feels that is not good enough for Liverpool and that student achievement needs to improve from average to above average. The desire to use MRE and WRE for academies has the concept of creating a college-like campus setting.
You can see the PowerPoint presentation that they presented here .

Again, the overwhelming majority of the questions that residents asked were not able to be answered. Dr. Patterson repeated responded to question with statements such as, “We haven’t look at that yet.” “We are still working on that.” “We still need clarification for that.” etc. The simple fact that she told us that the administrative team spent a little less than two months putting this plan together explains the multitude of unanswered questions.

Many believe that this plan is reminiscent of the laptop program, the stadium construction mistakes, just to name a few of the BoE’s rushes to act instead of taking the necessary time to prepare. We have all been asking for the past month what the rush was to close elementary school s and open the academies. When Dr. Patterson stated that earlier in the day they had shared the Academy Plan with the high school staff earlier in the day, we were all beyond belief considering the fact that there has yet to be a vote on the school closings and the academy plan.

Yet, near the end of her presentation, Dr. Patterson tipped her hat, stating that over the next few days we would be hearing about the Race to The Top program and informed us that this program was what our academies were all about. It was an ah-ha moment for a handful of people in the audience. After doing some research on this topic, the reason for the rush to start these academies in such a volatile economic time was clear.

On Thursday, March 4th, the media made public what the administrative team must have know on Monday when they made their presentation, New York State was named as one of the 16 finalists in the US Department of Education’s Race to The Top contest, here.

For more on Race to The Top (RTTT) here and here .

We will be posting more details shortly.

More disapproval from LCSD residents

On February 22nd the BoE again meet to a full crowd of parents, residents and District employees who came to the meeting with many questions; sadly, very few were answered.  Individual after individual went to the podium to ask questions, share concerns and give alternatives to closes both WRE and MRE.

At this meeting the BoE members and Superintendent Johns were unengaged with the residents and their views .  They simply sat and listened, chatted among themselves at times and seemed to have little regard for the residents who shared personal stories and concerns for their children.   One parent actually addressed Mr. Pento and Mr. Cook asking for their attention while he spoke to the Board.   While the Board may state that they have not made a decision on things, their actions and body language say something different.

Dr. Johns was asked if his proposed budget could be posted online as many if not all of the area school districts had done.  He stated that he didn’t see why not.  The next day he only posted 36 pages of line item expenses with absolutely no detail whatsoever.  Without the descriptions of what the line item includes, which building it pertains to, which program, etc.  The information is practically useless without the framework that it pertains to.

Various media outlets were there and they are gradually beginning to see that there is something that the District is not sharing with the public.   We will work to keep the media engaged in this issue.

Here is the link to the budget information Dr. Johns posted Budget Line Items

2010-2011 Budget Plan Met with Resistance

Board of Education Members Donald Cook and Richard Pento having a private discussion during the BoE Meeting

At the February 8th BoE Meeting new superintendent Dr. Richard Johns rolled out his proposed 2010-11 Budget for the LCSD.  As the press informed the public in the days prior to the meeting, Dr. Johns recommended that Wetzel Road Elementary be closed at the end of this school year.  The interesting factor that became quickly apparent to those in attendance was that this proposed measure was not a cost cutting measure.  The LHS Auditorium was packed to the brim with additional seating for some 50 people as over flow was set up in the lobby to hear some news that took many in attendance by surprise.

The plan to close WRE was also coupled with a plan to close Morgan Road Elementary at the end of the 2010-11 academic year.  After the public began probing Dr. Johns for answers, he finally did admit that the decision to close WRE followed by MRE was because of both of these buildings’ proximity to LHS vs. any financial benefit .  According to Dr. Johns, in conversations with local realtors, the realtors explained that potential residents were bypassing the LCSD because of the large number of students, some 1800, housed at LHS.   His budget prosed that by closing these two elementary schools it would pave the way for an “academy format” at the high school level.

He went on to describe academies as smaller learning communities which were divided by content areas allowing fewer students to “fall through the cracks” vs. in the present high school setting at LHS.  The first of the academies would be put in place in the WRE building beginning September 2010 and then after closing MRE, a second academy could be established in that building while others could also be established in the present LHS building proper.

The possibility of closing MRE took everyone by surprise and during the Q and A session a rather vocal audience of WRE parents and taxpayers took Dr. Johns to task questioning the rationale behind this plan and the need vs. want dichotomy of such a program at the secondary level.

Expect to hear much more on this issue in future BoE meetings as budget review is listed as the topic for several upcoming BoE meetings and we would suspect, many more parents from WRE and MRE as well as concerned taxpayers to be voicing their opinions.