The board voted against it by a 3-2 margin at is May 26 meeting with Board President Jeff Koch, Debbie Fort, and Jennifer Martucci voting against rehiring the consultants and Lynda Banwart and Mike Landis voting for the group.
Despite that vote, Core Collaborative is on the agenda for the 7 p.m. Tuesday meeting. It will be interesting to see if the three new board members will side with Banwart and overturn the earlier decision.
One thing is for certain, the district would not even have to think about hiring $100,000 a year consultants if Huff had hired qualified people for upper administration. The successful school districts in our area may go to a conference put on people like these, or more likely read the books and literature, but then the professional development and training would take place in-house.
Interim superintendent
The board will also discuss the procedures it will use to hire an interim superintendent to replace Huff and give the district time to conduct a full search for Huff's eventual replacement. Again, depending on the mindset of the three board members, the safe bet would be to assume that a retired superintendent will be brought in. Huff's failure to surround himself with qualified people leaves few, if any, in-house options, and almost any in-house selection would meet with disapproval by teachers and classified workers who have lived in the culture of fear created by Huff and his administrative team.
Legal representative
The board is expected to officially hire Norman Rouse as the district's legal representative at the cost of $120 per hour.
Restoring mall high school
The board will decide on a company to handle the renovation of the mall high school to the owner's specifications as required by SEMA/FEMA.
The district asked for three bids and received two. The recommended bid is $378,000 from Pro X, which says it will complete the task in six weeks. The other bid, $805,000, came from Apollo Industries LLC, which said it would take three months.
Closed session
A closed session is scheduled for legal and personnel matters.
16 comments:
Somebody tell me how this consulting firm is able to come back for a re-vote. Something smells rotten again.
What has changed that requires this item to be reconsidered? Do they think they can overturn the last vote because Lynda thinks she has the majority and can control the board? How arrogant are these people? This is so blatantly wrong and it just continues. Unbelievable.
Without this presenter Sarah Stevens will have to think for herself about how to do PD next year, which she cannot do since she has insufficient experience and education for her job position. Once again, there are too many people dealing with this department. You have a director of secondary education, a director of elementary education, a director of curriculum and assessment, and starting next year, an assistant to the director of curriculum and assessment. On top of all of those people, Sarah still needs a presenter at $100,000 a year? Nonsense. She needs to step aside and let someone have her job who has the knowledge and skill to get it done. Think of what could be done with that money that is far more pressing. Just say no, BoE. Just say no. Again.
Basic parliamentary procedure states someone who voted against it has to move to reconsider, otherwise they'd keep discussing the Dane things over and over. Jeff must have been ok with this for it to make the agenda.
Sarah peddles the Collaborative everywhere she goes. The funny thing is, the Core Collaborative was not even a business when the district contracted Bloomberg last year. So, to whom did they write the check? It's almost like she has a personal stake in this situation.
They did it they have control again, Landis and the others succeeded. Landis was correct when he said elections do not mater.
Since Jeff sets the agenda....I guess Jeff is bringing it back.
CJ and Banwart can ALSO put items on the agenda. He is STILL the Super. Bah-Humbug! Stinks to high heaven!!!
Why?
Why is this back?
Why is it so important to Sarah Stevens so insistent on this?
Why aren't those coaches do this PD?
Why spend this much money?
Why are these people advertising presenting at a conference and using Joplin Schools name?
Why do we have to keep paying for all this crap?
Does Sarah Stevens get paid for this conference?
Who is paying for her to travel and attend the conference?
What is so darned spectacular about this collaborative?
Here's a question:
Is the assessment thing that they pushed through earlier tied to this? If you look at the agenda for that conference, it's all about tests and data.
7:41
I don't know if Core Collaborative profits from the $300,000 spent on the assessment program requested by Sarah Stevens, but Paul Bloomberg did recommend it to her. If it comes from Sarah, it should be suspect.
Sarah Stevens needs to be told she has to pay her own way to her conference, or perhaps Bloomberg should pay it. She should not be allowed to go as a representative of our district, where she is generally disrespected and seen as an inept, bumbling idiot. She has no success story to present; she is doing a sales presentation for a large number of people, one from which it is beginning to appear that she might profit from herself. You have to be dishonest and greedy to work for CJ. He surrounds himself with only the sleaziest and the most stupid people he can find. She is no different from the rest or she would have been out of there in a hurry.
I attended a workshop lead by The Core Collaborative and Sarah Stevens. It was 1 day, and they charged $150 to attend. There were about 30-40 people in attendance. It was advertised as a really great workshop regarding student-centered learning. It was one of the weakest workshops I've ever attended. They did not teach anything. I felt like it was a sales pitch for the consulting firm. I paid $150 to have someone tell me how great their company is. Paul Bloomburg cried at least three times. It was strange. They had a nice video showing how much they have done for Joplin. He wept during that. He isn't from Joplin, doesn't have family here, but is moved to tears when discussing his work with Joplin? His work consisted of a handful of meetings and I'm sure a lot of email and phone/Skype consulting. I don't understand how he could have such a strong emotional connection to Joplin. Surely it wasn't his only account. Does he get emotional at every school? One of the presenters used published materials from another company, but covered the other company's logo with the Core Collaborative logo. Joplin should have been embarrassed and ended the business relationship after that was pointed out by an attendee who said she was a trainer for the company they took the documents from. It was a painfully awkward moment. That lady left after that, and then a goup of people left after her. If I was in admin, I would have had a serious discussion with him after that workshop because I wouldn't trust anything they had. I don't understand why they still want to pay this guy so much money. I just didn't see any evidence that what his group does is original or anything Joplin can't do independently. It seems as though Core Collaborative just takes the work of others and shows you how to implement it. Why can't the TLCs and the curriculum specialists do that as part of their salaries? Why have so many people in leadership roles yet pay six figures to have someone come in and lead meetings? What's really going on? Is Joplin leadership completely inept, or is there some business connection between Bloomburg and someone in Joplin? Or, is he really good at inspiring teachers and I just happened to attend a poor workshop?
In his defense, Bloomberg probably thought tears were the way to go in Joplin. He must have watched Cj's speeches before he got here. Teachers think of Bloomberg as a fast-talking bully who simply repackages old information and tries to present it as something new. It isn't. It's old news to teachers, but maybe since Sarah is so inexperienced she's naive enought to think it all sounds innovative. Or she's making a buck Either one or both are possible here.
What curriculum specialists? Curriculum is something that is reinvented every year in this district. Last summer teachers gave up their time to write curriculum to a format that Sarah found in one of her textbooks. The TLCs in charge couldn't even explain it to them and had no idea how to help. All they could do was hand out copies of the textbook pages and monitor teachers' hours so they didn't go over their time. Now Sarah wants to toss that and do something else. Who knows what next year will be. They've written curriculum at least four times in six years. This is why Joplin is failing. Wasted time, wasted dollars, and no leadership up top.
If you think that workshop was bad, can you imagine what it's like to work in R8? No raises, no material support, no discipline, and no leadership. A perfect storm.
Bloomberg really does inspire the teachers. He inspired me to teach somewhere else. Sick of the con man act in Joplin. If teachers would go to any other district, they could get a big raise. Joplin doesn't deserve good teachers because Joplin doesn't take care of them. I pity the children there.
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