Thursday, July 12, 2007

More Erwin news...and she'd wants you to believe it's all news to her

I've got a brief road trip today, so I'll be a bit late pulling together analysis on today's stories.

Here's the new development and yesterday's newer development for those who may be catching up on the news.

But for now...

The Herald-Leader reports:

Kentucky's new education commissioner is part of a police investigation into a missing personnel file in the St. Charles, Ill., school district where she is the outgoing superintendent. In addition, that district's board of education has been cited for violating open records law when it met in closed session to amend Barbara Erwin's contract. Erwin said she knew nothing about the police investigation because she has been out of the country on vacation for the past few weeks.

If a suspect is identified, he or she would be charged with theft, police said.

Erwin has a four-year contract with the Kentucky board of education and both parties have 90 days to withdraw from the contract. But Keith Travis, chairman of the Kentucky board, said there are no plans to back out because of the St. Charles issues.

"We're interested in her performance in Kentucky," Travis said. "We really think she can do the job and she'll be held accountable while on the job."

Board member Doug Hubbard, who previously expressed concerns about Erwin, also was supportive.

"We've hired her and we're moving forward with her and supporting her as best we can," Hubbard said. "Whatever happened up there in Illinois it seems like it's (more) a problem of the members of the school board, than it's a problem of Dr. Erwin."

Christopher Hansen, a St. Charles school board member, questioned the board's stance.
"That's naive of (them) to say that and that's the same mistake we made," Hansen said

H-L also posted Erwin's disputed contract and the audio from the St Charles board's closed session which produced the Open Meetings violation.


In St. Charles, police had little new information on the missing documents, only stating “it was a case that was assigned right away to the investigator, it didn’t go to an officer,” said Public Information Officer Paul McCurtain, emphasizing the importance of the matter.Four senior members of the Human Resources department have known access to the personnel files, while other district officials “could have access” through appropriate channels, said Superintendent Donald Schlomann.“In order to access the files, they would have to do so after hours or they would normally be escorted into that room. Normally there’s nothing in those files unless there’s an oddity you wanted to review,” he said.

The Courier-Journal reports:

St Charles police established a timeframe of when they believe the file went missing, but he would not release that information or say if anyone has been identified as a suspect...If investigators feel there was criminal intent the case will be referred to the district attorney's office. Charges could range from misdemeanor to felony theft.

Erwin says she's "dumbfounded" to learn the file was missing.

The Daily Herald reports yet another post-Erwin Superintendent has Another mess to clean up:

St. Charles schools chief Donald Schlomann has set a 30-day timetable for rebuilding and reorganizing the district's top administrative cabinet after two years of massive turnover.It is expected to be one of Schlomann's first major challenges since he replaced Barbara Erwin as superintendent July 1 and inherited an administrative panel made up of relative newcomers and vacant seats.

Public records show eight of the district's nine highest-ranking officials under the superintendent have resigned, stepped down to a lower position or announced retirement plans since 2005. Four principals left during the same time.
~

More later....For now, I'm off to this place...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, the Daily Herald article says it all.

Good administrators ran away. The District was left in tatters. The new Superintendent is left to pick up the pieces.

I bet Dr. Erwin never even met with Dr. Schlomann to discuss District operations.

Nope, she's conveniently "on vacation" while her employment file is "mislaid." What other memos besides the one that prompted Mr. Spahr to look for a new job might have surfaced but for the fact that her file has conveniently disappeared?

The good people of St. Charles are just now waking up to the post-Erwin devastation that will take years to repair.

Just like Allen. Just like Scottsdale.

Why Kentucky thinks she'll be any different there is beyond me.

Typical abuser-abusee behavior.

It's not her fault she reviled and destroyed us, we were responsible because we just couldn't give Dr. Erwin what she needed.

Just an opinion based on personal experience.

Anonymous said...

It soundslike the Charles II District 303, and Barbara Erwin has something to hide. It also shows that the State of Kentucky does not care about what has happened in other districts that she has come from. I would just love for this to blow up in the faces of the Department of Education. We know what is in the best interest of the kids, except the state does not. How much was the state paid to hire her, or so on. It would be sad though if Barbara Erwin is somehow charged in the theft of the records. It would cast yet another black eye on the State.

Anonymous said...

"I find it interesting because a contract's a contract," said Erwin, during the Kentucky board meeting. "I don't know why there are issues with it ... I didn't take a raise for three years in lieu of the addition of 85 sick days. Now people are upset about it?"

Is there no one in Kentucky who can see through this lie?

Let's do the math. Figure that a "normal" work year is 250 days.That means 84 days of sick time represents 32%. At $195,000 annual salary, those sick days are worth $62,400

And Erwin says she "did not take a raise for three years." Oh really? If she got a 10 percent raise, it would be worth $19,500. It it were 20 percent, it would be $39,000.

Instead, she gets a benefit worth -- on its face -- $$62,000 and we idiots are supposed to believe she did us a favor by forgoing a pay raise? Of course, the actual value of the sick days benefit is many, many times that much....since it could have been used to vest an Illinois pension. Funny, how no one mentions that this little perk has since been shut down by the Illinois Legislature, which placed a cap of 15 days/year.

Erwin's unmitigated greed and the blatant coverups by her (few) supporters in St. Charles is compounded by the KBE, which is doing the best ostrich move ever seen.