Port Ste. Lucie, FLORIDA

A trail of misconduct allegations.

Oct 18, 2006 - "Florida Teacher Left Trail Of Misconduct Allegations"

A teacher was hired in Florida after fleeing allegations that he'd had an inappropriate relationship with a female student in Oklahoma and a sexual relationship with one in Georgia. The Oklahoma allegations were kept quiet and charges were dropped in the Georgia case, but, nevertheless, neither school district or school told the Florida school of the allegations. He was tried once - in 2001 - but the Georgia jury deadlocked and a mistrial was declared.

The teacher denies the allegations. In an ironic twist, the school superintendent in Georgia who failed to disclose his problems has since resigned as superintendent and her teaching license was been revoked, partly because she failed to report a sexual misconduct allegation against her daughter - a high school guidance counselor - on time.

TT - How did a background check fail to discover his trial in Georgia? And how could school administrators not wonder at how often he moved from one school district to another and one state to another?

No national registry will prevent this problem. School districts will not even report to their state agencies, let alone report their bad hiring decisions to a national registry. Besides, the same self-defined legalese that prevents them from revealing a teacher's past also protects the school district from lawsuits.

Santa Clara, CALIFORNIA

There's more money where that came from.
Heck, taxpayers don't care. They just work for it.

Oct 3, 2007 -

Although she announced her "retirement" two weeks ago, Santa Clara County schools Superintendent Colleen B. Wilcox was actually pressured to resign - and the county school board agreed on Wednesday to pay her about $485,000 in exchange for her departure.

At its Wednesday night meeting, the seven-member board released a contract that bans Wilcox, 58, from having contact with all but nine of the 1,900 employees of the county office of education. She will be allowed into the main office on Ridder Park Drive in San Jose only on designated days.

As superintendent, Wilcox was known as an energetic and eloquent advocate for public education. But she has been dogged by employee allegations of harassment and retaliation.
In a closed-door session late Wednesday, the board voted 4-3 to receive a written copy of an investigation into an employee complaint against Wilcox - although it will not immediately be released to the public. It may take a court order to force the county office to make it publicly available.

Board members said they had little choice but to offer a generous settlement because her contract - which extends through 2009 - requires that she be paid a year and a half of severance, even if the board forces her out.

In an unusual deal announced Wednesday night, Wilcox will continue working for the county office of education - trustees are still working out specific duties and a title - for up to nine more months. Her assignments will be "off-site."

The investigation and attorney's fees cost $58,400.

Little Rock, ARKANSAS

August 25, 2007 - A group of taxpayers is challenging the constitutionality of using tax revenue to make severance payments to buyout of $635,000 a school district superintendent. The Arkansas Supreme Court granted a temporary stay, but one day after the school district paid former Little Rock School District Superintendent Roy Brooks.

The activity at the Supreme Court on Friday capped a week in which the School Board held a hastily called meeting Tuesday evening to approve a proposed financial settlement between the board and Brooks.

The settlement was put into final written form Wednesday and then signed by Brooks, his attorney, two School Board officers, and the board’s attorney Wednesday and Thursday.

The agreement called for the preparation of seven checks, including one of $ 350, 101. 74 to Brooks and another of $ 193, 069. 42 to Brooks’ attorneys at the Williams & Anderson law firm.
The other checks in amounts ranging from $ 5, 076 to $ 49, 014 were earmarked for various insurance, investment and retirement organizations, some based in Arkansas and others based outside the state.

They made payments totalling nearly $600,000, knowing that the Arkansas Supreme Court had yet to act.

The school district attorney argued that they payments were more than severance pay, but financial settlement of all claims that Brooks has against the district, and it pays Brooks for his legal fees and for his cooperation in some lawsuits involving the district.

See some other, what we call, Bad Hiring Decisions - here here here

Highly Qualified Teachers

You would think finding "highly qualified teachers" was equivalent to the search for the Holy Grail.

July 22, 2007 - At least the Bakersfield Chronicle apparently thinks so.

Of Kern's 250 or so schools, 141 traditional schools had yet to meet the No Child Left Behind requirement to have 100 percent highly qualified teachers as of October 2006. Of those 141 schools, about 74 percent are considered "high poverty."

They quote the coordinator for teacher quality for the California Department of Education.

"That tells us right there the neediest kids in our state are still not getting access to those experienced, highly qualified teachers."

The methods of recruiting and keeping highly qualified teachers vary. "Competitive salaries" and assuming student loans if they agree to teach in needy areas and bonuses are all considered.
---------------------- OPINION ----------------------
TT - To be a highly qualified teacher, you only need three things:

1. A bachelor’s degree
2. State credential or intern certificate/credential for no more than three years
3. Demonstrated competence in the core academic subject or subjects they teach. They can prove that competence in a number of ways, such as by passing a test or taking classes in that subject.

If it strikes you that those are what you thought were the minimal requirements all along to be a teacher, join the club. It's what the No Child Left Behind Act was all about. One of their core requirements was to ask for those three things to improve teacher quality.

The problem isn't the bachelor's degree. It's that colleges that awarded those degrees are turning out graduates who can't pass certification and licensing tests, let alone demonstrate competence in the core academic subject they teach by passing a simple test.

The worst part about this, however, is that the unqualified teacher continues to predominate in classroom. Despite failing either, or both, of these competency exams, teachers are given 1 to 4 years to practice teaching on your child, despite lack of aptitude. That's why retention rates are so bad. It isn't low salaries; it's low test scores. Over and over.

If 56% of Kern schools can't meet the NCLB Act requirement that 100% of the teachers are -- let's call it what it is -- minimally qualified -- it's because the Kern schools and the teachers unions don't want it to succeed. They're pinning their hopes on a change in the White House. That way, no one will know just how little they care about teacher quality.

And they will continue to cheat children out of an education, further miring blacks in poverty and Hispanics into the same low expectations. Uneducated voters don't vote. It's a win-win for incompetent schools.

Bad Hiring Decisions

Bad hiring decisions cost taxpayers millions each year.

July 10 - Schools and universities don't call them Bad Hiring Decisions. They're buyouts - paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to teachers and faculty or administrators who are tenured. In Missouri State University, it was $700,000 to nine departing employees in the past five years.

“You try to make some sort of judgment on the merits of litigation. What is it worth to the university to resolve it?” said Missouri State President Mike Nietzel, who has agreed to five such buyouts in his two years at the university.

“It’s not (a) $10,000 (agreement) versus nothing, but it’s $10,000 versus two months of a court case.”

How do you explain a $275,000 was given to a coach because the university could see increases in both ticket sales and fan support with a new coach?

Most of the agreements are made with tenured faculty. Under state statute, such workers can only be fired for “incompetence, neglect or refusal to perform his duties, dishonesty, drunkenness or immoral conduct.”

TT - you would be hard-pressed to find teachers fired for any of those breaches. The reason is that teachers unions provide free legal aid to tenured teachers which helps to reinforce this perception of invulnerability. The best most districts can do is negotiate a resignation, leaving the incompetent teacher free to teach in another district.

In the case of Hendrix, they hired him KNOWING his conviction for a sex offense against a small boy. Try and figure that one out. TT - Link to Hendrix.

Bad Hiring Decisions

Why should taxpayers pay for bad hiring decisions?

LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS
June 13, 2007 - A group of parents and taxyapers in Little Rock are suing Little Rock School Board for the board's decision to payout $400,000 - $500,000 in a severance package to a school superinendent.

The lawsuit claims that state law bars the use of public money on severance pay or spending public money when no value is received in return.
No link is provided to the press release.

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ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
June 13, 2007 - Three months after the Riverpaw School District removed its school superintendent, they're still paying him $13,300 a month, plus $700 car allowance.

He was removed in March after state auditors told the district Williams had "directed school money to his girlfriend, his life insurance accounts and his trips in the U.S. and abroad." Under his supervision, the school district spent $1.7 million on travel in 4 years. (He also took an African safari in South Africa.)

Williams was arrested and charged with attempting to evade income taxes and stealing $100,000 from the district, mostly in money funneled to his personal life insurance accounts.

They still haven't fired him because a clause in Henry Williams’ contract — which ends June 30, 2009 — requires a hearing first.

A hearing has been delayed because, reportedly, they can't find the documents. Boards in three other cities have had legal difficulties in getting rid of him.

The state is taking over St. Louis schools. TT - Link
Update July 13 - Williams was finally fired.

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INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
June 12, 2007 - Another school board vs. superintendent battle. From Channel 12 Eyewitness news on the ongoing attempt to replace a superintendent :

Dr. Doug Williams is one of the highest paid superintendents in the state. He has been receiving his regular salary since going on leave last November. And it appears he will continue to get paid his regular salary for the foreseeable future.

Missouri

As a student pointed out, "Basically, they're going to be paying for a teacher who's not teaching. They're going to be paying a sex offender to stay away."

May 1, 2007 - Missouri State University will be paying Eugene Michael Hendrix, an associate professor who resigned after he was identified as a registered sex offender for a crime he committed nearly 25 years ago.

The settlement calls for the university to pay Eugene Michael Hendrix $166,734 -- his annual salary over a three-year period -- plus money promised him to teach summer school and up to $10,000 for out-of-pocket medical expenses.

"A financial settlement was necessary because Dr. Hendrix held tenure and essentially had a long-term contract," Missouri State President Mike Nietzel said. "The risks for litigation in this case were substantial. This agreement eliminates the possibility of legal action."

In 1983, Hendrix pleaded guilty in Ohio of raping a 9-year-old Cincinnati Boy and served 3 1/2 years in prison.

TT - Another example of how tenure is less about academic freedom than a a job guarantee, no matter how loathesome the individual.

Springfield, VERMONT

Jan 13, 2007 - Judson Bolles was principal of Springfield High School. However, the school board voted to let his contract expire. They didn't give a reason for their decision.

Unfortunately, Bolles may not have mentioned in interviews for the Springfield job that he had been arrested in Connecticut and placed on administrative leave twice while working at Brookfield High School. After Brookfield, Bolles worked at a high school in Germantown, N.Y. The schools there bought out his contract after details surfaced about the previous events

The Springfield board supported Bolles even after learning of the arrest. They said at the time Bolles had favorable references. No one says what the details are and he was never charged.

Update Mar 1 - Bolles resigned abruptly. His last official day was Wednesday, but Superintendent Rose Rooth would not say when he left. They're pretty confident, however, that he'll be paid, most likely the remainder of his annual salary of $82,200. (Although neither the Superintendent or Board member Jim Ball would comment on the compensation.)

TT- which probably means someone should ask exactly how much money Bolles received while he wasn't on the job. And, how much he was paid just to go away? That's not a personnel issue deserving of privacy. It's fiscal responsibility and accounting owed to the public. What a concept, right?

Thanks to a poster for update info.

Gainesville, GEORGIA

Jan 11, 2007 - Curtis Bibb, assistant superintendent for Gainesville City Schools, plans to resign this week after his Dec. 23 arrest in Charleston, S.C., on three drug charges, including possession of cocaine with intent to distribute near a school.

Bibb was charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and possession of marijuana. Other arrest details weren't available. Until recently Bibb also oversaw personnel matters, including teacher recruitment.

This is the second time in a decade Bibb has resigned from a school position after a drug charge. The first time, he was an elementary school principal in Beaufort County, S.C. He told Gainesville school administrators about his previous drug charge before he was hired.

The superintendent learned of the arrest in South Carolina when someone anonymously left a court record – that looked like it came off the internet -- on his desk.

Jan 11 - The school superintendent remembers discussing Bibb's previous drug charge before hiring him, but some board members don't recall or had vague recollections. The preliminary hearing set for Jan 17.

Jan 13 - School board head Lee Highsmith says Bibb was "upfront" about his prior arrest. AccessNorthGa.com asked,

How could the board mesh hiring someone with something like that in his or her past while promoting zero-tolerance for drugs on its campuses?

"It is true that we don't tolerate drugs in our schools, but this was something that was in his past," Highsmith said, "that he had taken steps to correct and had not been involved in since '96."

You be the judge.
Jan 17 - Board president on Bibb's hiring:

As for the possibility that Bibb might revert to old ways, she said, "This is a country where if you are able to turn your life around, you could be elected president."
She cited Bill Clinton's prior history with marijuana and George Bush, alcohol."

Brooksville, FLORIDA

Speaking of the cost of firing a principal.

ENDLESS LAWSUITS
Jan 10, 2007 - Fired in 2006 after an administrative judge found him guilty of misconduct and gross insubordination, Michael Ranshaw, 37, has filed a lawsuit (again) against the school board. He is claiming racial discrimination and a lack of due process in his 2004 suspension and subsequent firing.

A similar federal suit was dismissed in July, after Ransaw's attorney had missed two deadlines to respond to defense motions.

Ransaw was suspended from his job in 2004 as Powell Middle School principal, after he had failed to acknowledge during job interviews that he'd been disciplined and demoted from a previous position in Broward County for pawning a district laptop computer.

He claimed not to have known the state Department of Education was considering disciplinary action against his certification when he applied to work in Hernando in 2001. He said his "schizophrenic" brother signed for a registered letter in 2001 notifying him of that state review, and he never saw it.

The suit said Ransaw still holds state certification as a principal and guidance counselor.

It's not exactly true. Last month the state Education Practices Commission stripped Ransaw of those licenses and barred him from ever again working as an educator in Florida. Ransaw, whose attorney missed that hearing due to a scheduling conflict, promised an appeal.

The district also is fighting a civil suit in which Ransaw claimed violations, including breach of contract, negligence, slander and libel, and infliction of emotional distress.

To date, the district has spent more than $142,000 defending itself against the former principal.