You--SO NOT our guy

So, we had the big School Board meeting.
We had nearly 100 people there from STOP, representation from Citizen Action, the news and dare we say several onlookers that were lured in by all of the drama.

Our group was amazing, respectful, well spoken, true to their beliefs and emotions. We had data and quoted legislation while also begging the BOE to not fire a highly experienced Special Education professional, that we have been lucky enough to have in the role of assistant Principal, and replace her with a dud lawyer, not qualified to do her job. 

The Board members ignored us. No welcome to the community, no thank you for your comments. Nothing. They didn't respond to us in any way, other than to come out and vote unanimously, in the face of the public, against everything we care about. Turns out, they suck. 

So, we lose, they win? Not so much. Just new questions, only this time we won't bother trying to work them through with the BOE and District, clearly they don't care. 

Who actually wanted these changes? Oh, that would be the heir apparent. The one hand picked to ascend to the throne. The guy who was not even the first pick for his job as High School Principal, but the current Super decided he was her guy. 
Guess what happened next? The BOE gave him a made up title, Assistant Superintendent, which apparently is equal to being highly qualified to run our School District. Not So Much

Comically, this guy, who didn't return a single email or reach out to a single community member in regards to his absurd and harmful plans to gut our elementary school, suddenly had words after his crappy plan was initiated by the puppet BOE.
 He was offended that a concerned parent of a Special Needs Child, mistakenly identified him as "friends" with the dud lawyer. No other concerns. No, no, you are right, although you have had several meetings, you may not be considered "friends". 
BTW, we are starting to enjoy your catch phrase "THAT IS BAD FOR THE DISTRICT!"

He was so happy, with himself,  after possibly his first time ever speaking to parents of the Elementary, he sent out duplicates of this super sincere email:

What a guy! I'm convinced.  You blame it on her, she blames it on you...MOMMY AND DADDY PLEASE STOP FIGHTING!
...what are we freakin morons?
 You are the hand picked follower, trained in her image, why would she enact these large scale changes before leaving? 

This is your plan, at least stand by it. You're the math teacher. You're the numbers guy. You think you should be able to churn scores out of our school, instead of keeping it an inclusive, imperfect, yet loving place where kids learn together. 

We deserve better. Our school deserves better. We gain absolutely nothing by having a guy who doesn't get, or care about our Elementary school or its students take over as Superintendent. 

We NEED and DESERVE a robust, statewide, Superintendent search. 

This guy, go ahead and actually APPLY and INTERVIEW for the job, like us normal people have to do. 

If you are the most qualified, fine, we'll deal, but you shouldn't just get the highest paying job in our town, because momma says so.
On that note, I find it nearly impossible to believe, that for 120K, we can't find someone with more experience than being a High School Principal for 6 or 7 years. 

Our school is broken. Our BOE does not represent us. We need a breath of fresh air. We need Board members who care about US, not the Superintendent's approval. 

We need a Superintendent, who doesn't think he's better than us, but who wants to know us and figure out what the needs of the community are, while supporting our kids in healthy development and high achievement. 

WE DO NOT CHOOSE YOU! 

Please sign our petition to help us build a more just, safe and fair school district that represents our community. 

Petition to remove the Superintendent and BOE


Much love....for our community and STOP

Lying to Smart People about Culture and Climate

Did you see our little story on the news? You really can't make this stuff up:

http://www.wbng.com/news/local/Misleading-letter-gives-wrong-impression-to-Harpursville-paretns-292544081.html

Comments referred to below, are located on the District website, http://www.hcs.stier.org/

Things are tense in our little hamlet leading up to Monday's Board of Education meeting. Vague and misleading non-answers to our questions have just further alienated, or in more honest terms, enraged. 

It would seem, that a major reason for the firing of one Principal and removing of the other is a perceived problem with the buildings "Culture" and "Climate".  Not in the you know a lot about fine art and why is it so freakin cold outside way, but in the "feel" and "motivation" of a school environment. Well, we know some things about that too.

Climate in our School District:

The climate in our District isn't one where skies open up and the sun shines down. Teachers and support staff live in constant fear of retribution by their Superintendent. Parents are afraid that by standing up, or by even reading this blog, that their children will lose services. 

Many in the community can recite stories of harassment or retribution. Some on the record some are so ridiculous, you almost wish they were true. Stories of teachers being sent home for wearing the wrong color pants for example. 

Surprisingly, those people are not bound by confidentiality agreements.  That's the Climate being fostered by the current District Admins.   

I suppose their wish for climate in our school, is one where kids are turned into #2 pencil wielding, standardized test taking robots. Teachers could be programmers rather than nurturing human beings.

Oh wait, the district has changed the definition of the word "nurture"  when used in it's mission/vision/goal/hoax, to something more like: to make kids do more better on tests.

Hmm...as much as it might be easier to feed robots, and they probably have less laundry, we’re not on board with that view. We like our Climate just fine, thank you. Our kids are happy, we have open communication with teachers and our admins, our kids are confident and even with all of that, our test scores are increasing.

Culture in our School District:

The Culture in our school is one that's been flipped on it's head. Our culture is like that under a dictatorship, not that of a democratic, openly governed entity focused on the well being of families and children. 

Top down all the way. In our district, the Superintendent hand picked and trained her successor. No interview, no search committee. No public involvement. Our support, our buy in? Who needs it? 

By the way, TWO YEARS is a very long time to exclude your community from dialogue about their school and their children.  Luckily, during this time, while the District Super/Ass. Super were hatching their plans for world domination, we’ve been building ourselves a community!

We’ve been talking to teachers and administrators. We’ve been showing up to concerts and award ceremonies, Moving up Days and classroom parties. We talk on the soccer field and baseball bleachers, we talk to our coaches, we offer respite to our overtaxed foster parents. We facebook and email with teachers. We cry and youtube over Common Core homework together. We have a network of parents, supporting newer parents with the CSE process. We have playdates and Birthday parties. 

We are together, we like our culture and the climate and they have underestimated us.

STOP

Bullies? We don't have those, do we?

OOOOOF....We get it....you like to beat on the little guy...sheesh, message received:

SUPER/ASS.SUPER HAVE LOTS OF POWER

 The previously mentioned phone calls, pleas to consider our children and their needs, rather than which of your friends out there might be in need of jobs, SHUT DOWN.

Explanations and examples of time after time where our Principal and Assistant Principal had our kids backs, put them first, dealt with them fairly and appropriately when consequences were needed. 
IGNORED.

Requests for evidence of actual reasons for this change, data of any kind, research that informed this decision.
DENIED.

Presentation of solid evidence on the detrimental effects this type of instability will have on children that already have so much unpredictable in their lives. 
YAWN.

Reminders that we have only barely weathered the storm that is Common Core, despite still fighting through tears at homework, we're in it, we're doing it. The stress on teachers with changes in APPR, please, reconsider bringing even more change to our most vulnerable population.
EYE ROLL.

Well, test scores, what about test scores? Even with our demographic and our high Special Education population, our growth in scores at all levels was significant! Why fix something that isn't broken?
COVERING EARS (lalalalala)

What about the high cost of Principal training? What about all of the efforts at retaining effective Principals happening across the State? Why are we dismissing highly qualified, successful school leaders? Why aren't you supporting them and helping them if their is an identifiable weakness? 
CHECKS WATCH

NONE OF IT MATTERS TO TEAM SUPER/ASS.SUPER

They have a plan. Per the letter posted on the website yesterday, they've been working for two years on this "plan". Did anyone outside of their bubble have any idea? 

Surely, the person they entered into negotiations with months ago to receive our Assistant Principal's exact salary knew about it.
Whichever other friend is running out of work at the end of the year, probably knows about it too. We'll figure that one out. We're thinking data person....get those numbers up-up-up. 

JUST MAKE THE 2's into 3's and 3's into 4's, and maybe we can run the 1's right out of the school. 

Place them in self contained programs off campus, super restrictive ones, where they can learn to tie their shoes and have no hope at a mainstreamed life. 

Was the community asked to participate in this planning? Is there any mention of restructuring or needs to be addressed in our school to be found in BOE meeting notes? Nope. 

Any response to the community's outcry now? Any effort to bring them into this process? Any ounce of care or respect for what they have to say about their own children? Nope.

 Who cares about the community really? Who even cares about the kids...robots, that's what we need!

So, we get it, we received the message, we have the bruises and scrapes to prove it.
 You guys have ALL OF THE POWER, but we are here to let you know, we're taking it back. 

Love, 

STOP 

They can't all be sheep....really, can they?

So, how do you clear up what must obviously be a misunderstanding. Removing an effective, experienced, likable Principal, who lives in our community and has four of his own kids in our school?  Outright firing an Assistant Principal who has worked in our Elementary for years, advocating for and motivating our neediest students. Keeping them coming to school day after day, despite their often inability to make it through the rigors of an entire day. A person with more than a decade of experience in Special Education, working in our District?

Clearly we've missed something. There must be some huge controversy, a cover up? We've heard of skunks, sheriffs and lawsuits...OH MY! But how do you get at the truth in a respectful and transparent way?

You start by getting home from work, worrying about dinner, investing 15 minutes of conversation into your marriage and doing an hour of homework with your second grader.

Then, you go back to the cheery letter announcing the demise of your child's security at school and review the comment:

"All questions or concerns regarding these changes should be directed to our Board Members...residents may also contact the Superintendent (name)." 

Then you ask people to make phone calls.

Lots and lots of phone calls, more than 70% unrequited. You get summaries and transcripts of those phone calls and dig through all of the information. 

Board members respond surprised..."What letter?"   Poor Board Members. Others state "This has been in the works for months, shouldn't be a surprise to anyone."

 When we cry out in despair and beg for reconsideration, tell our heroic, love filled stories of these two faces of our Elementary, we get the following: "We thought everyone hated them", "We've been told that they have a long history of disciplinary problems, their files are riddled with write ups". 

Do you have data? Do you have any evidence? Where did you get this information? When is the last time you were in our school? Have you seen any of this first hand?

How have our kids been attending this Alkatrazian Institution and yet they are willing to return day after day without any signs of severe mental duress????

Sure they have information, the Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent (AKA the High School Principal) have been coming into executive sessions during Board Meetings and telling them this for months. 

Excuse me? Can that be right? Isn't it your job to keep the District Admins in check? Don't they technically work for you? What else is being blindly enacted at the command of the Superintendent and her heir apparent?

And so.....we have more questions. 

Rebuilding our Community, one Facebook post at a time

When on February 1st of this year a letter arrived in the mail, cheerfully announcing the "Phase 1 Reorganization" plans to our Elementary School, something in our common psyche snapped. 

We are a small, rural school, like many in NYS. Our families struggle to put food on the table, pay exorbitant heating bills and taxes, keep transportation running and keep enough money coming in to keep roofs over our heads.

Sure we have a middle class representation, but what does that really mean anymore? Two parents, running insane schedules trying to balance work and family, finding daycare and carpools for kids events, doing homework until 930 at night. 

How do we come together? How do we find common ground? 

For years, our BOE and Superintendent have made decisions in a top down fashion. In fairness, we haven't been motivated to show up and do our part to govern our schools. Something the management of our schools has taken full advantage of. 

Instead of building a strong PTA, engaging in parent outreach, our Superintendent stopped even coming to monthly awards assemblies recognizing our youngest readers and students who have made incredible progress both socially and academically. The Superintendent's office is located on the other side of the parking lot, as is the Assistant Superintendent, who has been hand picked to succeed in the Super role.

Our website boasts that  "A close-knit community is an integral part of the district's success.  A strong Parent-Teacher Organization and committed community volunteers provide support to help Harpursville students succeed in school and in life". 

Our PTA may have as many as 5 members? One is a BOE member, one works for the District office. Another has not had children in school for years. Of course we still applaud the time and work that goes into being a part of this type of organization, but a "strong PTO"? Also, parent volunteers? Do we have those?

The letter that arrived to a select group of residents, announced that our much depended on and experienced Assistant Principal's position would be "vacated" as of March 23rd. A very curious date, well before the end of the year. She has 15 years of Special Education background and 4 years working in the capacity of an Assistant Principal. She is the heart of our FREE after school and summer programs.

As in any school, the task of discipline is a challenging one. In a school with a demographic such as ours, with children who are truly hurting and a high identified Special Education population, it is nearly impossible. This has been her job. She has taken screaming and kicking children out of classrooms and returned them centered, whole and ready to learn. Miracles really. 

In addition, the letter stated that our Elementary Principal would move to a job at the District level, focusing on non-instructional tasks. Turns out the job of Principal in a school like ours, is nearly impossible to keep staffed with experienced individuals. Somehow, our test scores are improving. We have made especially big strides when compared to schools with the same poverty and Special Education levels. In reviewing his files, his composite APPR score for last year was an 89, nearly highly effective (91).

Teacher turnover has been virtually non-existent for the past several years. Parents have stated over and over again that they trust both our Principal and our Assistant with their children. That they know their children are safe and cared for. That both know their children, relate to them personally and are REAL people. Our Principal is in his 4th year. 

A study published this past fall by the School Leaders Network, referred to the high cost to school districts of losing effective Principals. It also speaks to the negative effects on student performance, morale and teacher turnover. More specifically to the high impact the loss of a school leader has on the very young in a school such as ours. 

 http://connectleadsucceed.org/sites/default/files/principal_turnover_cost.pdf#page=1&zoom=auto,-15,792

Hence the nearly audible S-N-A-P of our common psyche. 

Our Superintendent, clearly underestimated our resolve and care for our children and the environment in which they receive their education.

So, we came together. We came up with a name: STOP HCSD, catchy, simple to the point. We created a Facebook group. Maybe people can't come together for a bake sale, but MAN do we show up for an online powwow! Almost immediately we had 45 members, then 60, then we reached 100....now we are at nearly 300 members!!! Not all of those are active on Facebook, but of the 150 that are, they all have friends and neighbors and families that they are talking to.

 Advised to "contact Board of Education Members with any questions", we have done so actively. The mountain of ugly that this mobilization has uncovered is crazy! There is more and more everyday. Our BOE has engaged in so many Open Meeting Law (that's a thing we've learned about) violations, that it is likely none of them have a legitimate claim to their seats at this point. It's sad really, I am sure they had good intentions and then simply fell into Business as Usual. They are still our community members, we welcome them back to the side of good anytime they want to come. 

We love our school. We love our kids. We are taking them back. We thank you for the kick in the pants to get us moving. 

STOP