General Corda drew up his “surge” plans in a counter offensive to the revelations that he can’t count, fudges statistics and otherwise allows Opdahl free reign to mismanage operations. So we have multiple BOE stories in the papers today.
In the battle of the budget, which will once again loom in early January Corda is taking a proactive communication campaign by fueling the “woe is me” cuts to the athletic departments. The Advocate reports:
In March, the athletic directors, each facing potential $250,000 budget cuts that would have meant elimination of all freshman sports, along with varsity ice hockey, wrestling, golf, tennis and swimming, had considered a pay-to-play fee for athletics, Mones said. Those larger budget reductions were avoided.
The athletic directors have placed big-ticket expenses on hold, trimmed some costs and renegotiated other expenses. The girls consolidated golf team, which had five members between the two schools, was cut.
“The cuts have affected us, but in the same sense, we’re getting by,” Brien McMahon High School Athletic Director Joe Madaffari said.
He and Mones had to forgo installing safety nets to protect spectators from errant lacrosse balls, and Mones also postponed plans for a training room whirlpool, scoreboard maintenance, new weight equipment, weight-room flooring and a freshman girls lacrosse team. Madaffari eliminated crowd control staff at home games.
“We’re not happy. It’s more hours for us because where we had workers, now we have to do it, but it’s about the kids,” Madaffari said.
Funny thing is, that since that worked so well for him last go around, I’m kinda surprised that he’s trotting out the same old gameplan. But then, this is Sal “if it’s not working throw more money at it” Corda. Do not be fooled by the man behind the curtain, if you really think there isn’t $250k in operational savings between the stacks of paper in the third floor bathrooms and the unused textbooks that gather dust in Opdhal’s closets then kool-aide must be your favorite beverage.
The rallying student athlete troops wasn’t the only battle plan Corda deployed. He had to address the special ed debacle and his sufficient progress under the five year plan. The telling part is this graf:
Corda said he did not know if Norwalk had achieved all the goals the State Department of Education set for it following the P.J. case, but said it had made “sufficient progress.”
Yep, nothing like marching blindly without a goal in mind to determine that you made “sufficient progress.” This means that he can avoid the old, moving the goal posts trick, and bamboozle parents with progress measured against nothing. Show me the detail:
“We still have some progress to make—I don’t want to suggest we don’t,” Corda said. But, he said, the state has indicated, “‘Your progress is at a sufficient point where you have met the requirements that have been set for you.’ We have done that at a level that succeeds what takes place in most districts and at a rate that is faster than what happens in most districts.”
Corda separately addressed an issue that has gained media attention of late—that of overidentification of African-American students as emotionally disturbed, a subgroup of special needs. One goal set forth in the settlement agreement for the P.J. case is, “A reduction in the disparate identification of students with mental retardation or intellectual disability by local education agency, by racial group, by ethnic group or by gender group.”
The district has been working with the State Department of Education on the issue since Dec. 2004, Corda said, with positive results. In the 2005-06 school year, 1.8 percent of the black student population was identified as emotionally disturbed compared with 0.33 percent of all other students.
How does anyone let Corda get away with these mind numbing statements about nothing? We need to make more progress, but the state has said progress has been made, and would you like fries with that? I’ve got sort of a different progress in mind, “He pressed us to take special heed that we took not up any truth upon trust — as from this or that, or any other man or men” and I sincerely doubt that we can fancy a chuckle while Corda has ruined our schools by too confident a security in his unchallenged role.
source: Advocate, Parents step in as budget cuts strain sports programs, By Alexandra Fenwick, October 17 2007
source: The Hour, Corda cites progress in meeting state’s special education goals, October 17, 2007
