The trend is clear from the many comments here and from the deluge of emails I’ve been getting. There’s some serious problems with the way our school system is run, and no one wants to be the one to step forward and tackle it. Part of that is the fear and intimidation tactics used by the proponents of the BOE budget. Part of it is political. Part of it is the caliber of the people involved.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” — Albert Einstein

The Problems

Whatever Corda wants, Corda gets …

• Corda’s view that Central Office needs to have more “intimate” control over the Admin of the schools
  but this has led to a doubling up of administrative layers, increased central office administrators plus leaving the school based administrators in place.
• One principal is rumored to run a college consulting business out of his office
• Another principal leaves school most days before 3pm every day
• Guidance counselors who leave school before the end of last period and book no after school appointments
• Central office does not make information public in a timely fashion, not even to teachers
• Corda does not promote teachers within schools, hires outside consultant to do “searches”
• Curriculum mistakes, like the $800k math text book fiasco that is needs to be replaced.
  A teacher commented; “How many ways can we teach 4 + 4 = 8″?
  Who was responsible and being held accountable for the original mistake?
• Jefferson school funding continuously gets raided:
  May 2004: Jefferson School Rennovation Recommendations
  May 2004 : Recomended Budget 3,300,000
  Feb 2006: D. Approve creation of a Science Magnet School at Jefferson Elementary School
  March 2006: Jefferson Portables

  The portables will be eliminated at Tracey and Kendall Schools but they will be placed at Jefferson School, which will make eight portables there. The reason the portables will move to Jefferson is to give the school four additional classrooms in order to get some of the programs currently held on a cart, such as music, into rooms that are more suitable for educational purposes. In addition, there will be one more section at Jefferson. Beyond that, they would like to create a computer lab there, which Jefferson doesn’t have now, as well as a science lab, which will serve the purpose of the magnet school. This will make a total of eight additional rooms to be used if the enrollment is significant in terms of students outside the Jefferson area. Dr. Corda said that the cost implications of this is a wash because of what had been budgeted for at Tracey and Kendall; the need for the portables at Jefferson will enable them to divert the funds and move the portables.

  June 27, 2006: Council Rejects Mobile Classrooms at Jefferson
  September 19, 2006: BOE Raids Jefferson
  

  ** MR. FULLER MOTIONED TO APPROVE THE TRANSFER OF FUNDS TO THE PONUS RIDGE AND NATHAN HALE BUILDING PROJECT ACCOUNTS. ** MR. BURNETT SECONDED.

  Mr. Opdahl briefly outlined why they need to transfer funds and where the funds are coming from. Part of the funding comes from unallocated capital funds and another part comes from the Jefferson account.

  From an email: “A year or two back a decision was made that funds “HAD TO BE BUDGETED’ for an elementary school grounds and building. Now those funds are being transferred to another elementary school to fix up their athletic fields so the fields can be used by Norwalk H.S. students — Not saying this is not needed, but if the funds were so urgent and important for the first school needs, why are the funds now being transferred to service NHS. What happened to the URGENT need of the other school?”

• School bathrooms smell and run out of toilet paper
• Custodians not being monitored

Things Look At

• Lets take a look at the PO’s and expenses at the end of the budget year - This is when the principals run around and tell staff to either spend what is in their budget or the principal will transfer the funds to something else
• What has been the 5 year cost of upgrading the Superintendents office, private bathroom, central office facilities with state-of-the-art technology in the board/meeting room?

Things To Do

• Perform an ROI analysis on the school funding to date
• Use this spreadsheet to examine costs: Quick Start Metrics (XLS)
• Reduce BOE spending in these (no employee cuts) areas: BOE Budget Reductions (XLS)

Why is there resistance?

There are people who feel as if there jobs at are at risk. That would be teachers in the system that see waste and want to stop it. The fact that dozens of teachers send me emails, are afraid to post, don’t want to be identified is alarming. We really don’t want our frontline teachers thinking that Norwalk is some eastern bloc communist regime that seeks to stifle participation in solving problems do we? And why are the BOE members themselves so secretive? There is no BOE budget online for public discussion. They reveal that they are being told not to discuss issues online or in emails as if there’s some “national security” issue at stake.

A refusal to conduct the public’s business in an open and transparent way is a failure of everything valued in a democracy. It’s time to stop the political games and start solving the very real and very large problems facing our school system.