Much like the rare sighting of the slender billed curlew, the BOE voted 8-1 against the grievance field by the Norwalk Federation of Teachers. The lone vote against the against, er, against Corda’s position was Bruce Kimmel. Kimmel has grown wary of the rubber-stamping flavored kool-aid drink being served by Corda these days, according to unnamed sources.
Tonight’s BOE budget meeting should be interesting, and I thank the poster who brought it to my attention.
Meanwhile, I applaud the spirit of independent evaluation, and here’s Kimmel from The Hour:
“You have a situation where two individuals were doing a lot of extra work, more than they anticipated. These two individuals were working far beyond the call of duty,” Kimmel said in reference to Norwalk High Athletic Director Wayne Mones and Brien McMahon Athletic Director Joseph Madaffari.
…
“There should be some kind of extra compensation for the two individuals, and we need to get down on paper what that compensation will be,” Kimmel said. ” … In my view, the athletic directors were being paid for one job and doing two. I think you have a violation of the contract.”
And here’s Corda also from The Advocate:
Corda told board members they should vote on the letter of the law, not the spirit of it.
“The issue before you is not whether the athletic directors should be paid more or less; it is based on evidence that the contract was violated,” Corda said. “That is a different matter.”
Except that also according to the Advocate;
The grievance, which requested back pay, full secretarial support and release time from their teaching duties, was filed because informal talks with Corda that began two years ago had gone unresolved.
Corda’s decision, upheld by the board, hinged on the language in the letter of agreement, which established terms for one year on a trial basis but also required that it be reviewed by June 1996. It was never updated.
“There is no contract language that refers to it,” Corda said of the athletic directors’ demands.
The current teachers union contract expires in 2010.
The union’s next option, after receiving the board’s denial in writing, is arbitration, said Bruce LeVine Mellion, the teachers union president, who attended the session.
He said he believes an arbitrator would find in favor of the union.
“That letter’s as good as gold. I’ll take that bet any day of the week,” LeVine Mellion said. “There’s been nothing to supersede it and so it stands as a living document.”
I certainly hope that Corda has a good excuse as to why it took more than 2 years to figure out a solution to the problem. But I bet he doesn’t. Just like I bet he didn’t consult with counsel on his position that a letter is not a contract.
In other action, former BOE member Roslynne McCarthy was voted in as a new administrator for Brien McMahon’s Center for Global Studies. She served on the BOE from 1995 through 2003. And promptly obtained a housemaster position at Brien McMahon.
source: The Hour, Board of Ed backs Corda’s denial of union grievance, By ANNA GUSTAFSON, May 2, 2007
source: Norwalk Advocate, School board denies athletic directors’ grievance, Published May 2 2007
