On April 18, 2023 I sent an allegation of fraud related to the movement of $21M of the JeffcoNet project into the CIP to Jeffco’s CFO for forwarding to members of the Financial Oversight Committee.
Specifically, in October 2019 the Jeffco Board approved a $36M contract for the construction of a district fiber network. The agenda item stated that 60% (or $21.6M) of the funding for the contract would come from the “Building Fund Capital Reserve”. The source of this funding was distinctly different than other agenda items that evening that stated their funding would come from the 2018 Capital Improvement Program. In other words, JeffcoNet would not be funded from the CIP.
However, more than 2 years later a $14.6M Network Upgrade project with an Original Budget of $0 appeared on the monthly CAAC report. And, upon closer examination, the CAAC’s financial report had been showing a similar, but funded, Network Upgrade project with a cost of $7M.
The total cost of these projects, $21.6M, is the exact same amount for JeffcoNet that should have been funded by the Capital Reserve Fund when the Board initially approved it.
To recap, the Board voted on an agenda item which stated the funding for the project would come from the Capital Reserve Fund, yet somehow, without public Board discussion or authorization the complete $21.6M made its way into the Capital Improvement Program.
To make matters worse, the line from the CAAC report shows a note of “BD’ implying to the CAAC that the addition of this project to the program was “Board Directed”. That does not appear to be the cases and is deceptive.
To be clear, I do not disagree that Jeffco has the ability to add and delete projects from the CIP. However, I do believe that it is a violation of trust and fraudulent to move the funding for a project that the Board explicitly directed to come from the Capital Reserve Fund into the CIP without Board approval. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners would call this “Internal Organizational Fraud” or “Occupational Fraud”.
What this does is destroys trust. The Board can no longer trust District leadership to carry out their directions and instructions and the public can no longer trust anything the Board says or directs.
Therefore, in my note to the FOC, I requested that they initiate an independent external investigation of the transfer of the project which clearly violated the Board’s vote.
The FOC discussed my note at their April 25th, 2023 meeting. However, from the Meeting Minutes you would never know that it was an allegation of fraud. Here is what was written in the minutes:
Meeting Wrap-up
District leadership made committee members aware of communication that was sent regarding the JeffcoNet project. The committee discussed the issue raised with district leadership. The Board is aware of the communication and that district leadership is taking next steps to reconcile the Capital Improvement Program per the Board’s direction. District staff will continue to monitor the financial wellbeing of the Capital Improvement Program.
There was apparently no discussion of the potential fraud, no apparent discussion on whether the movement of the project into the CIP was supported by a vote or policy, only that the Board was aware of the communication and, in a complete misdirect, that the district is taking steps to reconcile the CIP.
That is a complete cover-up of the fraud allegation.
To make matters even worse, not one person contacted me, either before the meeting or afterward to let me know that my email had been discussed and its resolution even though they had my email address and I clearly included my telephone number. In addition, I had previously emailed the chair of the FOC, Jessica Keene, 3 times in November 2022, December 2022 and February 2023 about the same issue and she never once had the courtesy to even acknowledge receipt of my emails.
Jeffco’s FOC is a joke. They are providing ZERO oversight. They are now, along with meeting attendees Board member Danielle Varda, Superintendent Dorland and CFO Copland, complicit in an apparent cover-up of a fraud allegation in the district.
Jeffco's February 2023 CIP Update is full of deception, lies and unbelievable statements.
In 2018 Jeffco told the community that they would be undertaking $563M of capital projects at district facilities.
This included about $545M in projects at ~140 district schools that were very clearly identified in the 2018 Flipbook and another approximately $18M in undisclosed projects that later turned out to be for the Outdoor Labs, Trailblazer, North Transportation center and several other projects.
Sometime between November 2018 and late 2019 the estimated costs in the Flipbook increased by approximately $30M and those numbers are now used as the “Original” budget numbers. Now, every single “Original” budget estimate and Variance shown to the Board, CAAC and taxpayers is a blatant lie. Those aren’t the “original” numbers. This is because the numbers used are based on the costs already inflated by $30M, not the numbers that taxpayers voted on and expected from the program.
Moss Adams identified this as a major issue and recommended that all reports align back to the foundational documents such as the H Bond cash flow spreadsheet and 2018 Flipbook. Unfortunately, 15 months later that still hasn’t happened. In fact, the latest Flipbook published by Jeffco is more misleading, inaccurate and deceptive than ever.
Now, all of the $86M in program contingency has been used and only $50M of $118M in bond premium remained in November before ROTS savings started to impact the CAAC report. That is $154M over the original budget and until only recently the Board and CAAC have only approved one out-of-scope project, the D’Evelyn addition.
On Friday, CFO Copeland and Interim COO Suppes will continue with the cover-up of the overages and mismanagement and perpetuate the lies and deception that have been present in reports ever since the bond passed.
Here are some examples of the blatant lies in their report (here) or here if they update it.
From Page 9 of the presentation.
Lie Number 1:
Capital Transfer into the CIP – $23.8M per year is NOT getting transferred into the Capital Improvement Program. $23.8M per year is going from the General Fund into the Capital Reserve Fund, but $3.2M/year is being siphoned off to pay for previous COPS, and in 2023-24 an additional $1.1M/year will be siphoned off for the Meyers Pool. Up until this year only $20.6M of the promised $23M transfer is making it into the CIP and next year that will be reduced to only $19.5M. This slide falsely represents what has actually happened with the Capital Transfer into the CIP. At the end of the program, the CIP will have been shortchanged by over $17M from the $138M that was originally promised to taxpayers.
Page 3 of the presentation states:
“We have added an estimated $82.8M in new scope and additional uses” and then list those. Most of the items they include in the new scope and additional uses are misleading and downright false. $34,102,610 more closely represents the amount of additional scope and new uses of funds, a far cry from the $82.8M staff want people to believe. See below for details on this deception
From page 13 of the Presentation:
There are numerous lies and deceptive comments on this page.
Deception Number 1:
Additional Charter Share – $11,136,694. The Board agreed that Charters would get their proportionate share of all bond proceeds. This is their rightful share of the bond premium and interest. To attempt to characterize this as New Scope or New Uses of Funds is deceptive and does not take-away from the fact that Jeffco is projecting that it will get nearly $122M in bond premium and interest over and above original revenue projections for just District projects. This is not a new use of funds, this is merely a reduction in revenue Jeffco received.
Lie Number 2:
567/581 Conference Place (purchase and renovation for a new PL center) – This is flat out lie. Note the date – 9/6/2018. This is before the bond passed in November 2018. In addition, this purchase has never appeared in ANY CAAC document relating to uses of CIP funds.
Lie Number 3:
JeffcoNet – $7M for JeffcoNet was included in the bond program budget reducing the amount that should be shown as Additional Scope or New Additions. Also, $5M was added in additional Capital Transfer in FY 22 to help offset the $14.6M remaining in JeffcoNet costs that were transferred to the CIP. Therefore the net Scope Additions and New Uses of Funds for JeffcoNet is actually $9.6M, not $21.6M as falsely stated in this presentation.
Lie Number 4:
Trailblazer Stadium – The renovation of Trailblazer stadium was always included in the original $563M in projects. It wasn’t disclosed to voters, but the January 2021 Askelson report and my own CORAs show that work for Trailblazer was included in the $18M in projects that were not originally disclosed to voters. This is not a Scope Addition or New Uses of Funds.
Deception Number 2:
D’Evelyn Addition- The D’Evelyn construction contract included not only the addition, but also already planned, and budgeted, Efficiency & Future Ready items that had a base bid of $777,000. CAAC reports show budgeted funding of $870,082. Therefore, the real cost of the D’Evelyn addition in added scope costs is $5,392,003, not what is shown on the presentation.
Deception Number 3:
ROTS Schools – This presentation wants everyone to believe that $32,920,785 in scope was added to the CIP. Yet, in every other presentation to the Board staff subtract from that number the amount saved from projects that are not going to be done at closing schools. In the February 9, 2023 presentation, staff told the Board that ROTS Schools were only going to cost the district $19,200,607 in additional costs. That is the same number that should be shown here.
The more accurate number for Scope Additions and New Uses of Funds is $34,102,610, not $82,877,150 that Jeffco staff wants people to believe. Jeffco staff is trying to inflate this number to hide the true magnitude of cost overruns and mismanagement in the CIP.
From Page 16 and 17 of the Presentation:
Lie Number 5:
Alameda Jr/Sr HS – The Original Cost Estimate shown to voters was $18,003,098, not the $19,055,745 shown in this presentation. This merely highlights how sometime in 2019 Jeffco inflated most project cost estimates and has been hiding $30M in cost overruns ever since.
Lie Number 6:
Jeffco Open School – The Original Cost Estimate shown to voters was $9,307,490, not the $9,700,287 shown in this presentation for the same reason described above for Alameda.
From Page 24 of the Presentation
Unbelievable Statement Number 1:
Jeffco is going to hire a consultant to reconcile the current actual and forecasted spend of all CIP projects.
What, after 4+ years of the program, Jeffco doesn’t have these numbers in a readily available format and that are reliable? This is just incredible. Basically, Jeffco is saying that everything they have told the Board and community over the past 4 years can’t be trusted at this point in time.
Unbelievable Statement Number 2:
Jeffco is going to engage a consultant to improve the program financial reporting.
This is just a shocking statement. Moss Adams Recommendation Number 5 said that Jeffco should improve the financial reporting. 15 months later Jeffco is just now getting around to say they may do something about this in the future? Better late than never people say. But wasn’t SE2 hired to do this exact same thing last April? What did they do for their $100k+ contract? Something is not right here.
Unbelievable Statement Number 3:
Jeffco is going to review all in-process and not-yet-started projects in the CIP and update the forecast-to-complete amounts.
To not already have this information only highlights the total incompetence of Jeffco staff. You can’t make sound financial decisions if you don’t update your forecasts when you have rampant inflation. This should have been done on a continual basis for all projects since the beginning of the program. The incompetence is truly unbelievable.
From Pages 28 & 29 of the Presentation:
Sad Fact:
The projects on these 2 pages total $110M. Jeffco is forecasting netting $122M for district projects from the bond premium and interest. How many of these Unfunded Priorities could have been completed if Jeffco had managed to its original budget and $86M in Program Contingency?
Most of them. We’ll see how little is left after the Friday presentation. Nonetheless, this is what the bond premium and interest should have been used for.
This presentation to the Board has so much deception, so many lies and so many unbelievable statements that Suppes and Copeland are either completely incompetent or they themselves are involved in the massive cover-up of the mismanagement and cost overruns in the program. In either case, they are demonstrating that they are clueless about the CIP and that the only way Jeffco is ever going to know the full truth about the CIP and prevent this from happening again is with a full Forensic Financial Audit and Performance Audit. After taking a critical look at this presentation I think we all know why Jeffco is resisting performing these standard oversight functions.
Superintendent Dorland does not deserve a 5 year contract extension
Only 19 months into her Superintendency, Dorland has not yet demonstrated that she can solve Jeffco’s academic, financial and trust problems. In fact, one can make a case that those problems have only worsened under her leadership. She has not demonstrated that she deserves a contract extension, yet.
Her Reading Curriculum initiative resulted in the selection of a program that has no known history of improving results anywhere. Jeffco’s pilot program did not show improved results and there are no other Districts nationwide that used Into Reading that can show improved results. She’s taking a stab in the dark with 1000s of kids lives instead of using data and results to make informed decisions on something so critical in the District. To compound the issue, Dorland allowed multiple schools to not transition to a standardized curriculum subsequently resulting in kids at 6 closing schools needing to transition to a new curriculum again next year. That will harm more kids than it helped.
Fiscally, Dorland presented what is now a $32.5M deficit General Fund budget which only gets worse in the years to come. In addition, she submitted that budget with no accompanying cuts and without a future plan to balance it. Any decent CEO would have presented a very specific plan to bring the budget into balance. Unfortunately, Dorland did not do that. How can you give a contract extension to someone who runs a massive budget deficit and doesn’t have a plan to fix it? You can’t.
Dorland came to Jeffco with a reputation of someone who could successfully run a bond program. To her credit she engaged Moss Adams for a cursory review of the program, the results of which were quite damning. She then promised the Board, and taxpayers, that she was developing a 30/60/90 day plan to address the numerous Moss Adams recommendations. Now, over a year later, $40M in additional unallocated contingency has been spent and there is still not a comprehensive plan to address the recommendations in the report. The public has only seen a new Flipbook that is incomplete and misleading and heard some vague promises about staff addressing a few of the recommendations that may be implemented at some point still in the future. By failing to keep her word in delivering and executing a plan to address the Moss Adams recommendations, Dorland has demonstrated that she can’t be trusted. You don’t give a 5 year contract extension to someone who you can’t trust to deliver on their promises.
Multiple schools needed to be closed. However, the process that Dorland used to determine which schools should be closed and the community engagement surrounding those closures can, at best, be described as ‘rough’ and left much to be desired. Anyone involved knows that it could have been much better and she lost the trust of many people in the community. It is not good optics to immediately award a 5 year contract extension to someone who just oversaw a deeply flawed school closure process. That’s not how you restore trust in Jeffco schools.
Dorland did expend considerable time and effort in the development of a new vision and strategic plan for Jeffco. Only you can decide whether that was a good use of limited resources given all of the other issues in the District. One of the key tenets included that of Integrity. Yet, her staff presented false data in the FCB, suppressed information relating to upgrades at receiving schools, presented a misleading and deceptive new Flipbook to the community and she took no apparent action when her COO falsely and repeatedly told the Board that Jeffco would have some ownership of the new Meyers pool. There is a culture of deception in Jeffco. Including ‘Integrity’ as a key tenet in her vision without taking action to ensure actual integrity only further erodes public trust and makes her look weak and untrustworthy herself.
Finally, I think the Board has to look inward and figure out why it wants to give Dorland the extension right now. In most instances organizations give extensions because a contract is coming up for renewal and they want to keep the employee, or they make the extension offer early to keep a rock star employee from going elsewhere. In Dorland’s case she still has a year and a half left on her contract so end-of-contract timing shouldn’t be the driving factor. Therefore, the Board has to ask itself the question of whether it thinks another organization would think that Dorland is a rock star and make her an offer for something better than Jeffco. Given that she has been in her position for so little time and has no track record of fixing problems I would find it very unlikely that another organization would make her an offer that she couldn’t refuse. Besides, do anyone really think the Board couldn’t get an equal, if not better, replacement for her? Once again, there seems to be no reason to rush the extension.
Dorland is a very good talker. However, she has not proven that she is up to the task of fixing any of Jeffco’s problems, many actually seem to be getting worse. The Board shouldn’t make the Russell Wilson mistake and give her an extension too soon. Make her prove that she is actually improving the District, especially academics, before rewarding her. The previous Board fell for Glass’s grift, don’t fall for Dorland’s smooth talking too. Hold off on giving her a contract extension until she proves herself.
It's false that $0 in bond money has been put into Bergen Meadow
Jeffco staff lied to the Board of Education and public regarding how much bond money was put into the ROTS closing schools.
Jeffco staff told everyone that $16,395,891 in bond funds was put into the schools.
Staff falsely told Board that only $16M in bond money had been put into closing schools
Yet, in a September 1, 2022 CORA request Jeffco admitted that the information shown to the Board was incorrect and that the real amount was $18,056,873 due to a “last minute change”. The $18M number matches the sum of the amounts shown in the FCB for the closing schools.
But even after admitting this “error” staff never updated the information shown to the public and kept the $16M figure on their web site. That, in and of itself, is disingenuous and deceptive.
To make matters worse, the $18M isn’t the full amount of money put into the schools. It appeared that Jeffco only included costs associated with Efficiency and Future Ready projects at those schools and not costs associated with District wide projects. Therefore, I submitted a series of CORA requests for the breakout of costs of District wide projects that included the closing schools.
For example, I asked for a breakout of the by-school costs of the H DW Flooring project which included Bergen Meadow.
Jeffco’s CORA response was that this project included flooring that cost $289,188 that was installed at Bergen Meadow. Yet, Jeffco told the Board and the public that $0 of bond money was spent at Bergen Meadow.
This is just another flat-out lie.
To compound the issue there were numerous District wide projects that Jeffco could not or would not provide the by-school cost breakdowns. This prevents an accounting of the full amounts of bond money put into the closing schools. However, from what Jeffco did provide, the costs of District wide projects was more than $5M. Extrapolating for the projects in which costs were not provided means that the total was somewhere between $5M and $10M more than what Jeffco told the Board. This makes it likely that more than $25M of bond money, in total, was put into the closing schools. That is significantly more than the $16M told to the Board and community and taxpayers deserve to know that number.
The bottom line is that Jeffco staff repeatedly and knowingly lied to the Board and public. This is an egregious display of arrogance and deception.
Superintendent Dorland frequently says that she wants trust and transparency, yet she knowingly allows this type of deception to happen and does nothing to fix it. Because of this she is part of the problem and can’t be trusted.
Jeffco schools has a massive integrity and trust problem. There is nothing worse than that. Unfortunately, this problem won’t be fixed until the head of the snake is cut off and another round of cabinet members are fired and replaced with people who value integrity, honesty and transparency above all else.
Varda, Reed and Parker are running on a platform of “Paying Teachers What They Deserve”.
Obviously, they want people to believe that teachers are underpaid for what they are doing. But, what does that really mean in an era of declining results in Jeffco Schools?
In any private company I’ve ever been at a salary increase would be looked at very closely when organization objectives weren’t met. In many instances, annual increases would be limited to COLA increases or less, and it would stay that way until objectives were met.
For instance, taking last year’s DUIP, how can anyone justify salary increases when Jeffco wasn’t even close to achieving their goals, that were set during the pandemic?
Yet, Varda, Parker and Reed think that teachers “deserve’ more pay. Their definition of “deserve” is far different than mine. A salary increase above COLA would be hard to justify in my mind.
In fact, over the past 4 years teachers’ salaries have increased significantly, far outpacing the 11% Denver inflation rate.
For example, a teacher w/BA @ Step 2 and a teacher w/MA @ Step 4 would have each seen salary increases of approx. 30% including the 4 steps awarded by Jeffco. These teachers now make $51k and $61k respectively, before benefits.
Approximately
40% of Jeffco teachers have salaries over $70k and 20% make over
$80k.
That’s
not bad for:
185 working days
Job Security
Ability to retire w/75% salary @55 & 30 years
In
addition, Jeffco currently pays teachers based on their level of
education along with years of service. Yet, study after study show
that, with only limited exceptions (e.g. math and science), advanced
degrees do not correlate to increased teacher effectiveness.
(https://www.mhec.org/sites/default/files/resources/teacherprep1_20170301_2.pdf)
Therefore, why is Jeffco paying more to teachers with those degrees?
Do those teachers really “deserve” higher salaries? Not in my
mind.
With
year
after year of
declining education results, just how
much do Varda, Parker and Reed think these teachers deserve in
salary? They’re
not saying, but you can be darn sure a salary increase wouldn’t be
the topic of discussion on any corporate Board.
Jeffco schools is not an organization that is showing that it “deserves” salary increases for teachers and admin. It’s time to take a realistic look at total teacher compensation, not just salaries. It’s time to push back on the same old union rhetoric that teachers are underpaid because they aren’t for the results they are delivering.
And
it is absolutely wrong for teacher pay to be one of Varda, Reed and
Parker’s top priorities when Jeffco’s education results are so
atrocious.
They
aren’t a good fit for what Jeffco’s kids need now.
In 2017-18 the
Educational Research & Design department of Jeffco Schools, led
by Chief Academic Officer Matt Flores had a $23M budget. By 2021-22
that budget increased nearly 40%, $9M, to $32M.
Yet during that same time period both growth and achievement fell dramatically in Jeffco Schools.
It’s obvious that
more money and continuing to keep Matt Flores as CAO are not the
solutions to what is now a very real and urgent problem. Flores is
responsible for these atrocious results and it is evident he doesn’t
have the skills to reverse the slide that has permanently harmed
10,000s of kids.
Dorland needs to
fire Flores immediately. He is providing no useful value to Jeffco.
The fact that after 6 months she hasn’t already done this is a
yellow flag on whether she has the ability to recognize the rot in
Jeffco and the fortitude to do what is necessary.
Dorland and the
Board next need to scrutinize EVERY single penny in the $32M ER&D
budget. Clearly, that money is not being spent on programs that are
improving achievement and growth. It’s time to find programs that
work and spend taxpayers money in a manner that will truly improve
the schools.
It’s time for the
old, status quo, way of doing things to end. It is plainly obvious
that the same people are incapable of effecting positive change. It
is time for drastic and decisive decisions and actions to keep Jeffco
schools from spiraling from its current state of mediocrity into the
terrible category and to keep even more kids from being permanently
harmed.
Taxpayers and
students deserve Board members who will ask tough questions and hold
Dorland accountable for big improvements, people like
Jeff Wilhite
Theresa Shelton
Kathy Miks
More money isn’t
necessarily the answer to the problem. Even District staff admit
that.
Yet, Parker, Varda
and Reed want people to believe that repealing TABOR and eliminating
the BS factor will solve all of the the District’s problems. They
want people to believe that paying the same teachers even more money
will somehow, miraculously, improve education in Jeffco. They want to
“keep Jeffco strong”, when in fact Jeffco isn’t strong and has
been on a downward trend for years. They have their heads buried in
the sand.
Jeffco needs change.
Parker, Varda and Reed are not going to provide that change.
When 2018-19
assessment results for Jeffco Schools became available last year
there was a great deal of consternation. Achievement was down pretty
much across the board and more importantly growth for the District
was below the state average. A scramble was made to provide teachers
with more planning time. Even though this was the second year of
declining results under Glass, Deputy Superintendent Kris Schuh told
the Board that this dip was anticipated due to moving to a focus on
transforming the task and Deeper Learning.
We can compare the
yearly Winter MAP results to get an excellent idea of the direction
the District’s students were headed in 2019-20 before Covid and
whether the additional teacher planning time and the emphasis on
transforming the task and Deeper Learning were having positive
impacts.
Comparing the percentage of Jeffco students who Met or Exceeded Exceeded Standards from Winter 2018-19 to Winter 2019-20 we can see that the highly touted teacher planning time and continued emphasis on transforming the task were not working.
Essentially, Glass was failing in his most important responsibility – improving education in Jeffco.
And, unfortunately,
this was the 3rd straight year that Jeffco Winter MAP
results went in a downward direction, for both Reading and Math under
Glass.
Is it any wonder
that Glass beat feet out of Jeffco? Winter 2019-20 results should
have been available in January and he would have known these before
applying to be Kentucky Ed Commissioner. It also makes me suspicious
why, unlike every year in the past, Winter MAP results were not
presented to the Board of Education in January or February. Was this
an act of intentional deception that no one wanted to be accountable
for?
It is clear from
these charts that Jason Glass did a massive amount of damage to
Jeffco’s kids. Even without the additional impacts from Covid, it
will take years to stop this slide and get Jeffco headed in the right
direction.
Complicit in this
damage is Jeffco’s Board of Education. Current members Susan
Harmon, Brad Rupert and Ron Mitchell were members of the Board when
they hired Glass, without any record of improving education.
I hope these Board
members realize how many kids’ they permanently harmed with the
Glass hire and that they learned from this mistake when hiring the
next Superintendent.
Jeffco is fortunate
that Glass left when he did as there is no end in sight to Jeffco’s
continuing downward spiral.
Glass was a complete failure in Jeffco.
The damage he did was real and will be extremely difficult to correct.
With Denver Public
Schools just announcing a start to the school year in full Remote
Learning, we can believe that Glass will follow and announce the same
within the next few days for Jeffco. This will be mere days after
Glass’s disastorous FB Live event in which no actual questions
regarding the District’s restart plan were answered.
In fact, in the 40 minutes of the FB Live event, Remote Learning and academics were not mentioned once. The restart plan itself merely contains several pages of vague eduspeak and is actually tellingly shorter than the Communications plan.
It’s just a plain dereliction of responsibility and an avoidance of accountability that the Plan is so vague and includes no specifics.
Remote Learning, in
some form, was always going to happen this Fall. A failure to provide
specifics in the Plan is a truly appalling lack of leadership.
Going forward, Glass should be required to immediately and definitively answer the following questions:
By what date will EVERY Jeffco student have at-residence access to their own electronic device? The only acceptable answer would be within the first week of class.
By what date will EVERY Jeffco student have at-residence internet connectivity. The only acceptable answer would be within the first week of class. Did the IT Department work on alternatives during the summer such as bus or school building roof hot spots as many other districts have done?
Will teachers be required to deliver Remote Learning from their classrooms for accountability purposes? If not, why not?
Given that school will start a week late, should we continue to expect 5 days of instruction weekly? If not, why not and what impact on students will reduced class time have on students?
When will beginning of year assessments be administered to ascertain how much learning was lost during the spring’s failed experiment in Remote Learning?
Will student attendance be measured in a different manner than in the spring? If not, why not?
How will teachers be held accountable for their instruction?
How, specifically, will best practices be shared? Will best practice sharing be limited to tool usage or will sharing/instruction on proven Remote Learning techniques be mandatory?
What guidelines will teachers be given relating to Remote Learning? Will there be Synchronous teaching requirements? If not, why not?
How will students be held accountable for Remote Learning?
What are the specific plans to make up for the spring learning loss?
Will anything be done to improve the Grab-and-Go meal distribution to ensure more students and families receive meals?
How long will non-working Classified staff be paid full wages if Remote Learning extends beyond just a few weeks?
If the school year starts with Remote Learning for all, why didn’t the District fall back on the K-5 in school option previously presented?
It’s well past
time for the eduspeak and vague ‘plans’ for how things will work
this fall. Remote Learning was always going to be given. At this
point, Glass and staff should be able to provide details and
extremely specific plans. If he can’t do that the Board should
execute their responsibility of ensuring quality education and get
rid of him immediately. They should put someone in charge who will
actually get something done while there is still time to make an
impact.
Unfortunately, we
know that isn’t going to happen because the Board is
extraordinarily weak and unwilling to ask the hard questions. In the
end, thousands and thousands of students will be permanently harmed
because of the incompetence of Jason Glass and the Board’s
failures.
Nearly a week after
the release of his horrendous Restart Plan and at a crucial time for
parents and teachers to make decisions about what the coming school
year will look for them, Glass is missing.
Nearly 1,000
comments, most with Restart Plan questions, on 2 Jeffco School
Facebook posts and not a peep from Glass. Even worse, there has
barely been a response from the district on those posts and
questions.
Students, parents
and teachers need answers, yet there is nothing but silence and now a
hurriedly organized Facebook Live event.
This is not
leadership!
The District needs
answers and needs assurances, but the community is getting neither.
This is the epitome
of terrible leadership!
We all know the
answer to the question of where Jason Glass is. He’s in Kentucky.
And, that leaves 84,000 students and 14,000 employees in a very bad
place, but why should he care? He just got his ‘dream’ job.
Glass can call it
what he wants, an “opportunity to come home”, but mere days into
the start of a 5 year contract extension, I call it something else –
a complete lack of integrity and a total betrayal of Jeffco and the
Board members who gave him that contract extension.
As much as I think
that Glass is an extraordinarily weak leader, this move goes far
beyond weak leadership – this move is downright disgusting.
Think about it. Glass left Jeffco at a crucial time in implementing his Covid Restart plan and at a time in the year when it is extremely difficult to ensure that high quality candidates to fill the position would be willing or even available for interviews.
What type of person,
if they really cared about an organization, its employees and most
importantly its students would just pick up and leave at this
critical time after the Board had done everything within its power to
provide continuity for the next 5 years?
Obviously, someone
who is self-centered. Someone who doesn’t really care about the
damage that their move might cause. Maybe someone who doesn’t think
they can really succeed in the position. In any case, its someone I’m
glad I’m not. I’ve been in positions before where I hadn’t
finished projects I was leading, or hadn’t finished the
transformation of an organization to my standards and turned down
more lucrative and exciting opportunities. Not only did I want to get
the sense of accomplishment for what I set out to do, but I felt an
obligation to the organization and my people. I guess that’s the
difference between Glass and me. I’m glad I don’t have the same
set of values and integrity he has.
And, where does that
leave Jeffco’s 84,000+ students and 5,000+ employees? Essentially
leaderless for a year. Another year with no academic gains and then a
transition year with a new Superintendent, who most likely isn’t
going to buy into the Transform the Task, Deeper Learning mumbo-jumbo
that so far has only brought about confusion and declining results in
the District. So, another change in direction as 1,000s of kids
continue to be harmed each year by the poor curriculum and teaching
methods propagated by Glass.
The Board needs to
get it right with the next choice for Superintendent. We need someone
who has a track record of focusing on students, not teachers, and a
record of improving education, backed by results. Glass was a great
talker and blogger, but his 6 year record of failing to improve
education results in both Eagle and Jeffco is a total disaster for
the kids.
