David Adams does a little spit balling on the Petrilli v Silberman matter over at Kentucky Progress. David opines that what is at work here is a Stu Silberman retaliation against Peggy Petrilli.
...and an anonymous commenter on Kentucky Progress claims that the following letter has been sent to the OEA.
The author is claiming that FCPS leadership is either wrong because they didn't know what was going on at BTWA, or wrong because they not only knew what was going but were promoting the same practices throughout the district. You know....just wrong.
Dear OEA,
Issue:
Mismanagement and lack of adequate principal oversight and supervision by the FCPS school board, superintendent, and school directors.
The release yesterday of the 9 month investigation of the State accountability testing practices, irregularities in student retention, and gross violations of SBDM law, by the Principal of Booker T Washington Academy over a two year period, and the revelations in that investigation that these same illegal and unethical practices occurred in that Principal's previous school for years is a direct indictment of the leadership responsibilities of the district superintendent, school board, school directors, and SBDM coordinator. It also rasies (sic) serious concern about the leadership practices being allowed to exist in other schools in our district.
Specific concerns related to this complaint:
1. For years, a rouge (sic) principal was allowed to systematically and routinely violate KY school law in two different schools without knowledge of district leadership until parents recently brought the gross violations to the attention of the superintendent.
2. FCPS has a superintendent, five school directors, and a full-time SBDM coordinator who, for years allowed this principal to violate school law which, among other things, resulted in unlawfully retaining students and compromising the integrity of state accountability test scores for two different schools over a period of several years. This gross negligence in leadership, which allowed this situation to occur and persist for years, was only discovered after being reported by parents and the district was forced to investigate those complaints.
3. The negligence, mismanagement, and severe lack of leadership and oversight on behalf of the superintendent, school board, school directors, and district SBDM coordinator which allowed this Principal's actions to go unnoticed for years, brings into question their leadership and oversight of other schools in this district and the practices that are being allowed, and have been allowed, to occur in other schools in this district.
4. The former principal of Booker T. Washington Academy and Northern Elementary School was heralded by the superintendent as an outstanding principal and she served as a leader and mentor to other principals throughout this district. It is unreasonable to expect that other schools in this district have not emulated her leadership practices to improve their own test scores on the State accountability testing.
The superintendent has only now, after allowing this situation to exist for years and resulting in irreparable damage to kids in our schools, identified and reported this Principal's actions to KDE and the KY Education Standards Board. We feel that similar practices, through the gross negligence of district leadership, have been allowed, and are still being allowed to happen throughout this district.
Requested actions:
We request OEA conduct an investigation of every school in FCPS to determine the level of legal compliance with regard to state accountability testing, SBDM law, and student retention practices.
We realize this is a sweeping request and in the absence of any evidence to support our concerns, it would be easy to simply dismiss this request without review. However, we feel facts in FCPS's own investigation raises significant doubt about the competence of district leadership being provided to schools in our district. We feel that no reasonable person could read that report and be comfortable that similar practices are not being allowed to happen in other schools throughout this district. The revelations in that report leave us with no confidence that even adequate oversight of our schools is being provided by our district leaders.
FCPS Investigation: http://media.kentucky.com/smedia/2008/05/02/14/petrilli_complete.source.prod_affiliate.79.pdfRespectfully
submitted by representatives of
Fayette County Public School Parents, Employees, Kids, and Taxpayers
3 comments:
That is an interesting letter. How would one find out if it was really sent to OEA? Are they allowed to tell you if you called them?
I do know a family who's daughter attends Henry Clay HS in Lexington and she was told not to come to school until the afternoon during the entire week of testing. Is that legal?
Yes it is...and OEA will investigate anonymous complaints. More is on the way on that.
New allegation.
I had four kids (and a few thousand former students)go through HC and we got similar messages. I never meddled, but doubt it would withstand too much scrutiny. There is compulsory attendance and a regulated school calendar. On the other hand, I'm, sure testing schedules do present supervisory problems for high schoolers.
Oops. That was confusing.
I meant, yes that was an interesting letter.
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