Sal Corda apparently is under fire from more than the “blogs”. Although he alluded to the criticism from comments in this comment from The Hour:
During the meeting, Corda criticized recent postings in “local blogs,” and said comments posted “can be hurtful to individuals and can hurt reputations.”
“I have seen blogs in which people are saying, “I heard that,” and the next person gets on the blog and believes that to be fact because it’s written,” Corda said. “There’s a feeding frenzy going on.”
It appears that criticism arrives in all flavors. There’s the state of course, the Connecticut Department of Education that has singled out Jefferson and Kendall schools as being “dangerously” racially imbalanced. Corda added that Silvermine is headed that way too. Corda’s solution as it were, is to make Kendall and Silvermine magnet schools. Of course, having three magnet schools sort of seems like a dodge to avoid having to redistrict schools.
And then there’s the Norwalk Federation of Teachers, who have filed a grievance with the BOE over the duties and pay of the two high school athletic directors. From The Hour:
NFT President Bruce Mellion and James Ferguson, attorney for the NFT, discussed the grievance with Board of Education members during Tuesday night’s board meeting. According to Mellion and Ferguson, the grievance stipulates that Norwalk High Athletic Director Wayne Mones and Brien McMahon Athletic Director Joseph Madaffari should receive a higher salary for their position, should receive greater secretarial help and should have their workload decreased.
And Corda is right to think that the comments of this blog serve as a red flag about people who operate under the cloak of “Education Secrecy” and hope to avoid public scrutiny of their behaviors. It’s the teachers in Norwalk’s schools who see and hear things that don’t contribute towards “Education Excellence” that have lost faith in the administration of Corda. There are to sure, some allegations raised that have no merit. But rather than deal with the substance of the ones that do have merit, Corda prefers to shoot the messengers with offhand dismissal instead of working diligently at ferreting out the bad apples in his administration.
I will note again that the controversy swirling around Bruce Morris could be easily quelled by transparently providing evidence that Morris is not being paid for work hours he is clearly not providing to the BOE. A salaried individual still has to account to work hours performed, and sitting up in Hartford is not hours that should be paid for by the BOE. Then there’s the question of the position itself that once required significantly more educational requirements than Morris has. True, Corda inherited the Morris problem, but it is up to him to clear it up, publicly and openly. He has, and by extension the BOE, chosen not to. That very public inaction is part of the credibility gap that will only widen as more and more allegations surface without response. The controversy of Stuart Opdahl continues also. Opdahl is another case where the public meeting minutes show that his credibility is questioned by the repeated misinformation presented to boards and committees concerning financial details of his recommendations. Corda is being ill served by Opdahl, and the news of Opdahl’s misconduct will likely grow as more details and documents emerge.
I’m sure that they didn’t teach how to deal with all of this in superintendent school. And part of Corda’s inaction may be uncertainty over what course of action to take. But the time for action is now, and Corda owes the public explanations, even if his board members sit silently without questions of their own.
 source: The Hour, Federation files complaint with BOE over pay , By ANNA GUSTAFSON, APril 25, 2007
