Shepards and Their Sheep

DESE: School district recovery plan on track
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By Will Richmond
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Apr 14, 2010 @ 11:33 PM
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FALL RIVER — There weren’t any A’s as the School Committee received the district’s first recovery plan related report card, but the consensus is the system is moving in the right direction.


The School Committee learned during a special meeting Wednesday night that the district is where it is expected to be after the first six months of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education mandated recovery plan. The assessment came from Joan Connolly, who was appointed by DESE as the school district’s monitor for the recovery process.


“The administration of the Fall River public schools, under the leadership of Superintendent Meg Mayo-Brown, with guidance and support from DESE, has worked relentlessly to meet the benchmarks and deadlines in the initial stages of implementation of the recovery plan. They are demonstrating the willingness to think, plan and act in a focused and strategic manner as they take on the enormous responsibility of working in all four areas of concern at the same time. ... For this reporting period, with few exceptions, progress has been noted on the majority of action steps in the four sections of the recovery plan,” Connolly read from the report.

 The report does note the lack of progress made on reaching a collective bargaining agreement with the Fall River Educators Association. At the meeting, Connolly said the lack of an contract is a “big issue,” because without a contract there is no teacher evaluation tool in place.
“This is something we have our eyes on,” Connolly said.


The district was assessed on 77 action steps in the four main categories of leadership and governance, teaching and learning, human resource management, and financial management. Scores range from 0 to 4, with 0 representing a step is undeveloped and a 4 meaning the practice is fully embedded and sustainable.


Within the 77 action steps included in the report, the school department scored a 1 on 11 steps, a 2 on 41 steps, a 3 on 20 steps and a 0 on four steps. One not assessed was issued for developing a reliable common assessment aligned to curriculum and no 4’s were awarded.

 The highest scores were mainly reported in relation to the hiring of interim directors for the human resources and finance departments and the ongoing efforts to fill those positions permanently. The 0 scores were assessed around the district’s efforts to improve central office support for principals.


Superintendent Meg Mayo-Brown said efforts are already under way to address those concerns.
“This is an area of the plan you will see us revise as we work on strategies in order to offer the support our principals need,” Mayo-Brown said.

 Comments in the report reflect the preliminary nature of where the recovery process stands, noting that many of the action step are in the developmental stage and are not likely to result in immediate improvements in the school system, especially in the area of student achievement.


“The actions taken in the current benchmarking period are largely foundational steps, necessary but not sufficient to raise student achievement,” the report states.

 The recovery plan was written after a team from DESE’s Office of District and School Accountability visited the district for several days in January 2009. Following that review, Massachusetts Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester said the accompanying report “paints a sobering picture of a school district with persistent, serious and systemic problems.”
An initial plan was written in July. Following a request from Chester for more detail, a revised plan was submitted in September.

School Committee members thanked Connolly and DESE staff for the time they have taken to guide and assess the system, but concerns were also raised about where funding will come from to ensure initiatives outlined in the plan can take place.


“I see this report and appreciate its contents, most of which I agree with, yet where is the money going to come from,” Committee member Joseph Martins said. “Our biggest need is financial and yet no where in this report does it indicate where these resources are coming from.”
E-mail Will Richmond at wrichmond@heraldnews.com
  

The Commnn Fall River Man, er, SHEEP

"The district was assessed on 77 action steps in the four main categories of leadership and governance, teaching and learning, human resource management, and financial management. Scores range from 0 to 4, with 0 representing a step is undeveloped and a 4 meaning the practice is fully embedded and sustainable.

Within the 77 action steps included in the report, the school department scored a 1 on 11 steps, a 2 on 41 steps, a 3 on 20 steps and a 0 on four steps. One not assessed was issued for developing a reliable common assessment aligned to curriculum and no 4’s were awarded.


The highest scores were mainly reported in relation to the hiring of interim directors for the human resources and finance departments and the ongoing efforts to fill those positions permanently. The 0 scores were assessed around the district’s efforts to improve central office support for principals."

Fall River Taxpayers flocking to the slaughter of their wallets and bank accounts

More of the same is what we have here. Nothing is what we have here. No one is saying we're doing a good job. We're doing an expected job for a horrid school system just starting out in it's efforts to improve. And it's only taken us what, an entire academic school year? To get started? What's the problem here, who's been in charge of this " improvement " effort?
 Why should anyone get credit for hiring temp employees given to us by DESE , and using our own money to pay them, when we should have long ago hired professionals in a field where many exist? You know the reason as do I. PATRONAGE. Someone, somewhere wants to hire Uncle Felix or Cousin Imelda to hold those positions and have them owe their, and their extended families, lifelong allegience, and a portion of their take home pay in the form of future campaign contributions in exchange. So it's nothing but the same old same old. This City and it's politicians have perpetrated this fraud upon the taxpayers for generations. Yet the sheep keep electing these cretins year after year and then their bank accounts are taken to the slaughter house as if they were zomboid sheep. Clearly, the politicians run things here as if they go by the old saying "There's a sucker born every minute!"

So, when I see the Superintendent and members of the School Committee pat themselves on the back for a job not done at all I have to choke back my natural vomit response. It's what we have all learned to expect in Fall River. Why taxpayers in this City continue to put up with this is behhh...behhh....behhh....yond me.

Typical , decades long Fall River "Politician-Taxpayer" interaction;
Guess who the taxpayer is?! 

Maybe it's residual PCB's in the drinking water, or all those chemicals from the old tanning mills used in the process of curing cowhide that have seeped into the ground all over this City. I thought that was the reason this City has so many unfortunates cursed with physical deformities from birth. But there are tens of thousands of others we never really thought about. The sheep we call Fall River voters. "Behhhhhh...behhhhhh, I'm a suckerrrrrr Behhhhhhhhh....tell me whooooo toooo voooootte forrrrrrrr, behhhhhhhhhhhh. This is the most dangerous epidemic in the City's history and it's eventual outcome will decide the City's fate.

Enlightened Fall River Voters/Taxpayers

It's time for Fall River voters and taxpayers to demand the truth , and accept nothing but real answers to tough questions and more effective performance across the board. It is obvious to anyone who truly cares about this City that the people and ways of doing business in the institutions of government in Fall River have failed, miserably so, and there is NO CHANCE that those involved for the last 10 or more years are capable of doing otherwise. There is no incentive for them to change, so they will not do so. I believe most of these long serving pols in Fall River hope the State moves in to bail them out , all comments to the contrary, to allow them to keep their positions as well as escape blame for the mess in which every government related institution wallows at present.

It's time for you to make the decision for them.