BOE: Issues On Assistants And What They’re Doing
With NorwalkNet doing a fine a job of covering the nitty grity on BOE issues, I’ve been slacking on education coverage. Imagine my surprise to find new interim superintendent, WIlliam Papallo, providing detailed backup on issues before the BOE. Way to go. (Superintendent Board Meeting Information click to read the packet.) But in perusing said material it stuck me that two issues, the assistant principals and elementary schools and the reinstatement of the human resources assistant position, were worthy of some closer examination.
Sure parents want all the resources for their kids education. The issue, as always, is the allocation of those resources. What the BOE has to weigh is all the mandates and funding triggers that will ensure Norwalk Public Schools shows all the test score improvement it can, while wrnagling various dollars from grants and the feds in addition to the state. Assistant principals at the elementary level fill in how? That is the sixty-four million dollar question, although I don’t think literally.
The Human Resources Assistant is an interesting position. Here Papallo outlines funding sources, and job duties and the technical skills of the job. Starting with, in position numero uno, “a college degree is required.” What? You mean there are standards for human resource positions? Will Papallo finally address the utter lack of qualifications of Bruce Morris? As previously posted here, Morris has no college degree let alone a Masters degree. Farther down the list, the HR assistant can translate written Spanish and knows basic oral Spanish. The HR Assistant covers the office from 4:00 to 5:00 each day, to serve the public and employees who are unavailable at other times. Granted the Human Resources position deals with employee issues; insurance, benefits, etc. while the Human Relations Director deals with …. er, what does the Human Relations Director deal with? There are six different health plans in place. Six. Here’s why a CFO level finance director could have made a difference years ago. For an 800 employee base having six health plans is inefficient. Sure there may be some specialized reasons for keeping some plans for different pools of employees. Likely do to union contracts. But preserving coverage doesn’t mean you have to keep a basket of health care providers constant. Or maybe that speaks to exactly how our health care system is broken, when its not so simple to say– hey large corporate health care provider, cover all our employees with the same coverage at the lowest price.
Meanwhile, with economy hitting the local day worker and service industries pretty hard in Connecticut, Danbury businesses that cater to the Hispanic population have been reporting that business is down and people are moving out of Danbury. Does this hold true for Norwalk? Is anyone tracking this? How will that impact school enrollment?
