As word was leaking out about the impending resignation and exile of Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Sarah Stevens earlier this week, Interim Superintendent Norm Ridder e-mailed a message to staff about Stevens' new duties, which will take up her time until her resignation is effective at the end of the 2015-2016 school year.
The new position would appear to be the equivalent of putting Stevens in a padded room and asking her to write "I Will Never Mention the Words Core Collaborative Again" 10,000 times.
I wanted to update you on some important changes that have been made regarding our strategic planning. Sarah Stevens, Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, submitted a request to resign effective at the end of the 2015-2016 school year. The Board of Education approved her resignation, sitting in closed session on November 10, 2015. For the remainder of the 2015-2016 school year, Ms. Stevens will work directly with me supporting the development of the district strategic plan, including the development of baselines of understanding in curriculum and instruction, collection and analysis of data, and writing of a model classroom and classroom support.
Accordingly, the curriculum, instruction, and assessment work will be managed as follows: Jason Cravens, Executive Director of Secondary Education, and Jennifer Doshier, Executive Director of Elementary Education, will lead curriculum, instruction, and assessment work for their respective grade levels as well as provide supervision for associated staff. Jennifer Statler will continue her work of coordination in this area under the direction of Mr. Cravens and Ms. Doshier. A more long-term solution to managing this important work will be communicated after careful consideration and study, to include feedback from district stakeholders.
I look forward to Sarah's direct work with me, which prioritizes and richly enhances our data mining and strategic outlook activities. The value of Sarah's eleven years of experience with the district and her analytical skill set make her uniquely suited for this important work.
Again, questions related to curriculum, instruction, or assessment should be directed to Mr. Cravens or Ms. Doshier.
I appreciate your patience and cooperation as we work through this transition.
Dr. Norm Ridder
Interim Superintendent
Joplin Public Schools
The Jennifer Statler who is mentioned is Stevens' assistant, who was hired by the Huff Administration after state auditors cited the district for having people, including Stevens, who were unqualified for the positions they held.
Stevens, who has a salary of $73,011, has no background in curriculum, which would seem to be a good thing for someone who is in charge of curriculum to have, so Statler, who does have a background in curriculum, had to be hired at a cost of $56,000 a year.
8 comments:
Someone please explain what this means:
"I look forward to Sarah's direct work with me, which prioritizes and richly enhances our data mining and strategic outlook activities. The value of Sarah's eleven years of experience with the district and her analytical skill set make her uniquely suited for this important work."
She's a gopher.
No Huff pay off for the lemmings.
@ 6:19--
What it means is Sarah is on a short leash until the end of the year. They would do better to stop discussing the situation at all. The more they talk, the more foolish it seems. She did a terrible job, and she was manipulative with the Core Collaborative. Just fire her and end the whole mess. Putting more incompetents in place of one incompetent is not going to help anything, either. I have my doubts about Ridder. Firing her I agree with. This kind of nonsense, as well as keeping CJ's overpaid, underquallified staff on board, I do not agree with. We are essentially going nowhere fast, and many of us are going to leave again if we don't see some kind of real, authentic change by December. This was a babystep slathered in admin speak. Poor play on his part.
Statler is knowledgable but also a TLC only interested in stepping up and not caring who she steps on along the way.
I have worked for government entities in the past, and know first hand how hard it is to fire people, even clearly incompetent ones. It can be done, but it takes documentation. And I am willing to bet that all of Huff's appointees got a thick pile of "What a rock star!!!" reviews in their records before he rode off into the sunset. Even if a normal person would call their performance sub-par, good reviews can be used to justify their behavior with "But I was only following orders!" This will take time--much longer than in private business where it's much easier to clean house when a new manager is hired.
Didn't the board say no on the core collaborative, but then the $8000 more was paid in October meeting?
So true.
Didn't the board say no on the core collaborative, but then the $8000 more was paid in October meeting?
Could be she ignored the board and Ridder and spent the money anyway for more of the same, and that's why she's now on the way out.
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