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Working to elect good school board members is always the first option, but the fate of the building will be decided before the next election. However, school board members and those who hope to remain school board members could not ignore 10,000 signatures. In addition, a large number of signatures can help attract and sustain the attention of government agencies that address fraud and waste.
Yes, when many people get involved there is a news story for those organizations willing to cover it (and there are a couple). In addition, when the public is deceived or misled there needs to be a stronger response than merely electing a different government official, especially when that person has already left. The reaction to deception cannot be the same as the reaction to incompetence.
Good to see priorities are in order. You could care less about the furlough of 300 teachers. You'll allow a corrupt administration to escape all position cuts and allow it to cover up countless cases of ethical and moral improprieties, but hey, let's float a petition to revive the dead. Makes perfect sense.
You will see that the petition addresses the money wasted on a temporary "emergency" move of students (to Reizenstein and robotics to Peabody); this $10 - $20 million would have saved a lot of teaching positions. And preventing this type of waste will save future teaching positions.
It's all of a piece. If they can lie about a building and waste tens of millions, they can lie about RISE and VAM and test scores and PELA and everything else.
THAT's the point. Many parents asked a lot of questions about intended reforms during the Schenley ordeal. Many people who were not connected with Schenley didn't want to hear or see the warnings of what was to come.
When parents in meetings with administration would repeat what they'd been told, we were written off. But now, everyone's amazed at how much has gone off track since then.
Brian O'Neill's column today about our rising population in the 20-34 age group should raise HUGE questions about the falling enrollment. Our neighborhood picnic last weekend had so many school-age and pre-school kids running around, but I'd guess that fewer than 10% and maybe even less than 5% will be in our school system.
You can't keep families in the city and maintain population gains without successful and appealing schools.
But don't say we didn't try to warn you. If "unaffected" people had heeded the warning signs, asked more questions and demanded answers, we might not be in the hole we're in now.
And there will be more and more teachers gone -- I know several more families planning to leave the district. I know teachers who have taken their children out of district schools as well -- schools they had planned to use and now realize their children cannot be educated well there.
100 petitioners, just a day after the petition was put out!
Thank you to all who signed and please continue to put out the word that we need to stand for Schenley and for disclosure by our elected officials of all relevant information, whether it supports their initiatives or not.
No accountability. Let's face it, you have a group of people who believe they answer to no one, and when that is the case, you have a dangerous situation. it can't come as any surprise that decisions to close buildings and fire teachers are done without teacher and parental input. It certainly is no shock that countless incidents of sexual misconduct are swept under the rug and get little attention. Anytime you have a group of people who feel that they can do as they please without any type of explanation, you have the recipe for disaster. This is who we are in PPS. We have a superintendent who is simply biding her time until retirement, a group of people who surround her that can only be called intellectually, judgmentally, ethically and morally bankrupt, by and large, and a school board--save for Mr.Brentley and Dr.Holley--who would rather rubber stamp everything than ask questions, so much so that one must ask the natural questions, "Why?" and "What are they getting out of this?" What this regime has done to public education in the city of Pittsburgh is simply shocking. It's outrageous, to say the least, and the flight of families--despite the lure of the Promise--should tell onlookers all they need to know.
I am hopeful that District Attorney Zappala will be the first to lift the facade off of this group via his office's investigation of the Rooney situation. I am hopeful that other investigations come, and that the level of corruption and payola is exposed as having hurt the students and families of Pittsburgh. At the end of the day, it is appalling that Roosevelt's pied piper approach in making a school district a corporation has wrought all of the evils that big money can provide us, most notably the idea that controlling public sentiment through public relations can squelch questioning. At the end of the day, this is a taxpayer funded school district whose charge it is to help children. Since the arrival of Roosevelt/Lane and all of the assorted administrators, it has failed miserably. The Schenley closure was just the tip of the iceberg.
I think that most of the School Board is greatly influenced by who "wines and dines" them the most. I realize that these positions a lot of hard work and personal sacrifice of one's time but they need to be more objective and truly think about the needs of the children. EX..how many reading and math curriculums have we gone through in the past 10 years at a tremendous cost to taxpayers? How much does math and reading change in a 10 year period that we need new books for the entire district? Maybe we should consider giving these people a stipend of some sort to compensate for all of their personal time being used. There is also a lot of nepatism there. How many school board members have family and friends working for the district and receiving contracts from PPS? Are these contracts really the most competitive? Are the school board members getting kick backs from getting these people contracts? How many people retire from PPS only to come back as "consultants"? When are we going to go back to just teaching Reading, Writing and Arithmetic? What was wrong with the way we all learned it when we were in school? The biggest thing that the district needs to do is to get the low income families more involved in their child's education. These parents need to reinforce what their children are taught in school and back up the administration when their children are disciplined. I just don't understand....
Good, thoughtful questions that I have privately asked myself. Thank you for asking them. We, as taxpayers and clients of the district, deserve answers.
I, however, don't believe paying stipends to the board members will reduce the nepotism, payola, and corruption in the district when those in these positions bring nothing to the table.
I don't believe that being a grandmother qualifies you to sit on the board of a school district that is a size of a huge corporation. Having children attending schools in the district isn't a qualifier either when discussing nepotism. Afterall, the LIONESS will defend, feed, and care for HER CUBS over the others.
Dr. Holley is the only board member, in my view, who is not in a compromising/conflicting position. Some members are in more conflicting positions than others when you consider where they work and the events taking place within the district.
Believe me...Dr Holley was no "shining star" when she was employed by the district. But (and yes I'm going to say this) because she is black many of her failures were brushed under the carpet just as most other black administrators failures are. Look at the schools that receive all of the positive attention and check out who the administrators are and then look at their scores to find out that they aren't improving at all or are very marginal in their improvements. So, I say to you also...do your research because every one of those board members is their to support their own agenda what ever it may be. You are correct that one isn't qualified to sit on the board just because they are a citizen of the city but if you start saying who is and who is not elegible then I think that you would truly be hard pressed to find people to fill those positions without making them paid positions of some sort. You can't ask people to have certain qualifications when you aren't offering to pay them anything. On the flip side, I'm not saying that it should be a high paying position. If that were the case we would just have a bunch of "superintendents" sitting on the school board. I don't have all of the answers but I do think that we need a TOTAL overhaul of both our school board system as well as upper management within the district.
A paid school board doesn't have the power to tax. That power would then revert to the city council, I believe.
The point made above is just that people who may realize their lack of qualifications but who also spend hours of time on these tasks for no monetary reward...are particularly susceptible to being influenced by the administration.
I don't believe that it matters if the school board gets paid or not when it comes to school levies (taxes). The public gets to decide in a referendum during an election cycle. It must be voted on by the public since it is public money.
We did it, 200 signatures reached on just the third day after the petition went out. What an interesting and diverse group of people who signed- reflecting the students of Schenley itself.
Number 200 was Lidjia Barbaric, who wrote:
"Far too much good and history has been lost here, and we still are wondering why. The community has a right to know. Schenley needs more than a plaque on its wall to be proclaimed a historical landmark- it needs children, learning, inside of it."
Please keep the signatures coming and help the petition to grow stronger and stronger.
23 comments:
The goal is 100 signatures, but maybe that will be 100 signatures in one day!
Why would anyone think that Lane and company will pay any attention to a petition?
Even if you get 10,000 signatures, it will be politely ignored.
Get people to run against the old-line school board members. Then support their campaigns!
Everything else is a well-intentioned waste of time.
Working to elect good school board members is always the first option, but the fate of the building will be decided before the next election. However, school board members and those who hope to remain school board members could not ignore 10,000 signatures. In addition, a large number of signatures can help attract and sustain the attention of government agencies that address fraud and waste.
Anything that brings more attention to the issue and to the district's deceptions is valuable.
Perhaps a newspaper might even report on it more fully. (Or so a citizen can dream.)
Yes, when many people get involved there is a news story for those organizations willing to cover it (and there are a couple). In addition, when the public is deceived or misled there needs to be a stronger response than merely electing a different government official, especially when that person has already left. The reaction to deception cannot be the same as the reaction to incompetence.
At the 50 mark- let's go for 100 today!
Good to see priorities are in order.
You could care less about the furlough of 300 teachers.
You'll allow a corrupt administration to escape all position cuts and allow it to cover up countless cases of ethical and moral improprieties, but hey, let's float a petition to revive the dead.
Makes perfect sense.
You will see that the petition addresses the money wasted on a temporary "emergency" move of students (to Reizenstein and robotics to Peabody); this $10 - $20 million would have saved a lot of teaching positions. And preventing this type of waste will save future teaching positions.
It's all of a piece. If they can lie about a building and waste tens of millions, they can lie about RISE and VAM and test scores and PELA and everything else.
THAT's the point. Many parents asked a lot of questions about intended reforms during the Schenley ordeal. Many people who were not connected with Schenley didn't want to hear or see the warnings of what was to come.
When parents in meetings with administration would repeat what they'd been told, we were written off. But now, everyone's amazed at how much has gone off track since then.
Brian O'Neill's column today about our rising population in the 20-34 age group should raise HUGE questions about the falling enrollment. Our neighborhood picnic last weekend had so many school-age and pre-school kids running around, but I'd guess that fewer than 10% and maybe even less than 5% will be in our school system.
You can't keep families in the city and maintain population gains without successful and appealing schools.
But don't say we didn't try to warn you. If "unaffected" people had heeded the warning signs, asked more questions and demanded answers, we might not be in the hole we're in now.
And there will be more and more teachers gone -- I know several more families planning to leave the district. I know teachers who have taken their children out of district schools as well -- schools they had planned to use and now realize their children cannot be educated well there.
100 petitioners, just a day after the petition was put out!
Thank you to all who signed and please continue to put out the word that we need to stand for Schenley and for disclosure by our elected officials of all relevant information, whether it supports their initiatives or not.
Sorry to put this here but I'm struggling to find the "start a new post" link.
No accountability. Let's face it, you have a group of people who believe they answer to no one, and when that is the case, you have a dangerous situation.
it can't come as any surprise that decisions to close buildings and fire teachers are done without teacher and parental input. It certainly is no shock that countless incidents of sexual misconduct are swept under the rug and get little attention.
Anytime you have a group of people who feel that they can do as they please without any type of explanation, you have the recipe for disaster. This is who we are in PPS.
We have a superintendent who is simply biding her time until retirement, a group of people who surround her that can only be called intellectually, judgmentally, ethically and morally bankrupt, by and large, and a school board--save for Mr.Brentley and Dr.Holley--who would rather rubber stamp everything than ask questions, so much so that one must ask the natural questions, "Why?" and "What are they getting out of this?"
What this regime has done to public education in the city of Pittsburgh is simply shocking. It's outrageous, to say the least, and the flight of families--despite the lure of the Promise--should tell onlookers all they need to know.
I am hopeful that District Attorney Zappala will be the first to lift the facade off of this group via his office's investigation of the Rooney situation. I am hopeful that other investigations come, and that the level of corruption and payola is exposed as having hurt the students and families of Pittsburgh.
At the end of the day, it is appalling that Roosevelt's pied piper approach in making a school district a corporation has wrought all of the evils that big money can provide us, most notably the idea that controlling public sentiment through public relations can squelch questioning. At the end of the day, this is a taxpayer funded school district whose charge it is to help children.
Since the arrival of Roosevelt/Lane and all of the assorted administrators, it has failed miserably.
The Schenley closure was just the tip of the iceberg.
You can just label it "New post" and throw it in any comment section, and we will reroute it to a new post.
Up to 150!
I think that most of the School Board is greatly influenced by who "wines and dines" them the most. I realize that these positions a lot of hard work and personal sacrifice of one's time but they need to be more objective and truly think about the needs of the children. EX..how many reading and math curriculums have we gone through in the past 10 years at a tremendous cost to taxpayers? How much does math and reading change in a 10 year period that we need new books for the entire district? Maybe we should consider giving these people a stipend of some sort to compensate for all of their personal time being used. There is also a lot of nepatism there. How many school board members have family and friends working for the district and receiving contracts from PPS? Are these contracts really the most competitive? Are the school board members getting kick backs from getting these people contracts? How many people retire from PPS only to come back as "consultants"? When are we going to go back to just teaching Reading, Writing and Arithmetic? What was wrong with the way we all learned it when we were in school? The biggest thing that the district needs to do is to get the low income families more involved in their child's education. These parents need to reinforce what their children are taught in school and back up the administration when their children are disciplined. I just don't understand....
Anon 9:11 October 14th,
Good, thoughtful questions that I have privately asked myself. Thank you for asking them. We, as taxpayers and clients of the district, deserve answers.
I, however, don't believe paying stipends to the board members will reduce the nepotism, payola, and corruption in the district when those in these positions bring nothing to the table.
I don't believe that being a grandmother qualifies you to sit on the board of a school district that is a size of a huge corporation. Having children attending schools in the district isn't a qualifier either when discussing nepotism. Afterall, the LIONESS will defend, feed, and care for HER CUBS over the others.
Dr. Holley is the only board member, in my view, who is not in a compromising/conflicting position. Some members are in more conflicting positions than others when you consider where they work and the events taking place within the district.
Do your homework and research. Please!
Believe me...Dr Holley was no "shining star" when she was employed by the district. But (and yes I'm going to say this) because she is black many of her failures were brushed under the carpet just as most other black administrators failures are. Look at the schools that receive all of the positive attention and check out who the administrators are and then look at their scores to find out that they aren't improving at all or are very marginal in their improvements. So, I say to you also...do your research because every one of those board members is their to support their own agenda what ever it may be. You are correct that one isn't qualified to sit on the board just because they are a citizen of the city but if you start saying who is and who is not elegible then I think that you would truly be hard pressed to find people to fill those positions without making them paid positions of some sort. You can't ask people to have certain qualifications when you aren't offering to pay them anything. On the flip side, I'm not saying that it should be a high paying position. If that were the case we would just have a bunch of "superintendents" sitting on the school board. I don't have all of the answers but I do think that we need a TOTAL overhaul of both our school board system as well as upper management within the district.
Dr. Holley's record with PPS is quite good, both in terms of test scores and the opinion of those who worked with her. In what way was she not a star?
A paid school board doesn't have the power to tax. That power would then revert to the city council, I believe.
The point made above is just that people who may realize their lack of qualifications but who also spend hours of time on these tasks for no monetary reward...are particularly susceptible to being influenced by the administration.
Up to 180, maybe we can reach 200 before the weekend is over.
Anon 1:45 10/14,
I don't believe that it matters if the school board gets paid or not when it comes to school levies (taxes). The public gets to decide in a referendum during an election cycle. It must be voted on by the public since it is public money.
We did it, 200 signatures reached on just the third day after the petition went out. What an interesting and diverse group of people who signed- reflecting the students of Schenley itself.
Number 200 was Lidjia Barbaric, who wrote:
"Far too much good and history has been lost here, and we still are wondering why. The community has a right to know. Schenley needs more than a plaque on its wall to be proclaimed a historical landmark- it needs children, learning, inside of it."
Please keep the signatures coming and help the petition to grow stronger and stronger.
"All the lies, all the why's, will all be crystal clear."
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