Christmas in Edison - 2012

Twas’ two weeks before Christmas and those sly little elves,

Edison’s Board of Mythomania again labors to isolate themselves.

Not caring a wit what the people might think,

they lead from behind Super ‘Build the Trust’ O’Malley in spite of the stink.

And putting his thumb to the tip of his nose,

Maeroff said ‘O’Malley’s my guy and he tells me what goes.’

He thought O’Malley’s PHD would make for an easy sell,

but didn’t count on his inexperience bringing out a concerning yell.

He wasn’t concerned about misinforming the public per se,

dubious presentations and misleading arithmetic is the O’Malley way.

His Repurposed but still Out-of-Control Spending tour,

is sadly Not borne out by a single NJ ASK score.

So while we all scratch our heads and say What the Hey!,

 oversight and accountability is something he’s long tossed away.

You can bet that Maeroff is working hard on 2013-14’s Taxpayer Levy,

 using up last year’s taxpayer relief money leaves them nervous & a tad bit queasy.

He thinks we forgot about $80 budgets & that Staffing Shell Game,

and refusing to report out budgeted staffing changes shadows them all in shame.

A $212.2 million bucket of money without any controls or public scrutiny,

you wonder why their lack of monthly reporting comes with such Mytho-unity?

In this season of giving, Maeroff is again up to his Spending way,

this time, a $5 million gift to EHS where you don’t get to have a say.

While it seems he never sees Oversight as an anytime priority,

that Smarter than Us thingie brings them all up to a disappointing mediocrity.

If in this feeling I’m not alone,

take up your pen or pick up the phone.

Let Maeroff know that true leaders pave the way,

not hide behind others and claim they have no say.

With a Bond Referendum soon to be full with Super O’Malley quirks,

taking away the Board’s IPads should help wipe away all their big smirks.

And I heard them exclaim with all that taxpayer money in hand,

Merry Christmas to Edison, and let the uninformed taxpayers be damned!?!

A Big Kudos to the Board of Mythomania!?!

To all my friends over there on Mythomania Lane - really appreciate the heads-up on the important things. But hey, guess what I got on Friday, December 7, 2012? The Collective Bargaining Agreements for the Certified, Non-Certified and Principal unions. You remember the teacher's contract, which was ratified by the ETEA on May 14, 2012, the Board on May 21, 2012 and Maeroff's take on these contracts in his "From the Desk of Gene Maeroff" on May 22, 2012 (here).

So, they finally made the contracts available to the public. Depending on how you look at it, it only took them 6.6 Months or 28 Weeks, or 199 Days or 4,776 Hours or 286,560 Minutes or 17,193,600 Seconds from the time Maeroff had his say on the contracts. But who's counting?

Good thing these contracts weren't important for the public to see in a timely manner. After all, we have Maeroff's take on how wonderful these contracts are for the people of Edison. They saved us millions according to him.

Now that I have the contracts. I'll take some time to go through them and I'm sure I'll have something to add to Maeroff's May 22, 2012 take on them - and don't think it will take me 6.6 Months or 28 Weeks, or 199 Days or 4,776 Hours or 286,560 Minutes or 17,193,600 Seconds depending on how you look at it - to do it.

But hey, at least we're comforted in the knowledge that sharing information and keeping the public informed in a timely manner is a priority over there on Mythomania Lane.

From the Desk of...Really - you Kidding me?!?

You know, I don't have a problem when politicians take the facts and put them in a light most favorable to themselves (seems to be one of those contagious things here in Downtown Edison) but Maeroff's latest offering has so much spin on it that he makes himself dizzy. It's a tad bit disappointing to see Board of Mythomania President Gene Maeroff take the plunge with his take on the NJ ASK scores, which you can read here.

Now, never was much of a fan of his From the Desk of Gene Maeroff - look at what I did love letters, which usually are a one-sided version of what's going on over there on Mythomania Lane - his version. More often than not, there's always another side of things that never seems to make it in. 

Such is the case with his latest offering on November 26, 2012 regarding the NJ ASK Scores for the elementary schools (grades 3 through 5). This thing is so convoluted and misdirected that it's hard to see how anyone could get to the truth of the matter with these explanations of the test score results and corrective action plans. 

Seriously, does he really want to suggest that something may be wrong with the test since everyone state-wide did not score well - and the reasons have not yet been explained to his satisfaction? If so, then maybe he shouldn't of been so quick to pay out a bonus to Dr. Richard "Build the Trust" O'Malley for these test results. Continuing on, he jumps all around to find positive things to say and glosses over any detail of the not so good things. In fact, some of his numbers don't even agree with the test score sheets they gave me.

So, let's cut to the chase here. These 2012 test results show an unacceptable level of students scoring at less than proficient. Across the district for grades 3 - 5, 16.3% of the students scored less than proficient with 12.5%, 20.6% and 16.1% for grades 3, 4 & 5, respectively. And when you look at the individual breakdown between language and math, partially proficient ranges from 7.3% to 27%. Further, when you look at the individual schools, some have score results of partially proficient in the high 40 percentile. So, Maeroff's claim that district-wide proficient and advanced proficient scores are 91.6%, 85.7% and 92.7% for grades 3, 4 & 5, respectively - is simply not true. According to his own numbers, it's really 87.5%, 79.4% and 83.9% for grades 3, 4 & 5, respectively. 

In addition to the high partially proficient scores, there's the change over last year's scores that make it worse. For grades 3 through 5 - some 54% of the scores were Worse than last year's scores. Not an admirable trend.

Finally, I'm sure it's worth noticing how comparable districts and the rest of the state did on these tests, but really - don't see how that relates to what they're responsible for right here in Downtown Edison.

Moral of this story, these test results need some serious improvement - not blah..blah explanations from the Board President that don't really tell you the seriousness or magnitude of the problem or the real size of the numbers. Further, you should take the time to check the data for each school for yourself and check out the Board Goal for this school year that Maeroff touts to cap the third grade language arts partially proficient at 15%. In a prior post, I showed you the Board Goals they came up with for this year - and there's nothing in there about any 15%.

These scores need a real plan of action to correct and all of us need to make sure they do it.

All the numbers referred to above are in past posts on NJ ASK but here's a couple of things to keep in mind:

Board of Mythomania's Staffing Shell Game - Alive & Well?!?

Just happened to read the new ETEA President's Message here and it caught my attention. He's talking about welcoming 88 new staff members to their association. Now, maybe it's me but last I remembered the $212.3 million School Budget for 2012-13 had increases for only 10 positions - 8 teachers, 1 guidance counselor and 1 assistant principal. Hmm.. 10 - 88 - probably worthy of some explanation.

You remember this piece of staffing by the Board over the years discussed and shown in a previous post:

That's adding 391 unbudgeted heads since I've been keeping track (through 2011-12) and failing to disclose it in the budgets we were asked to vote on.

So, if we only had 10 new heads in the budget for the 2012-13 school year (going from 1,926 to 1,936 total staff- page 36)- don't you think someone should be telling us how the ETEA added 88 new staff members to their association this year??

Geez, can somebody over there on Mythomania Lane start paying attention to the changes in staffing and reporting it out to the residents? Not for nothing but such changes from the 2012-13 budget should have a reconciliation and explanation before we get to the 2013-14 budget and find out we added some more unbudgeted heads in 2012-13 to add to the existing 391 unbudgeted heads.

Board of Mythomania's NJASK Results - Gr. 3-5

Well, according to the agenda for tonight's Board of Mythomania's Caucus meeting, they will be presenting the NJ ASK Standardized Test Results for Grades 3 - 5. Now, this is something you probably want to pay attention to - whether you have kids in the school system or not.

Like I said before, the 2012 Results for 'Partially Proficient' alone are a tad bit of a concern but when you factor in the change in test scores over 2011 - it's rises to the level of a tad bit troubling.

Here's the summary again of the comparison with 2011:

Over half the 2012 test scores were Worse than 2011 scores for Grades 3 - 5.

Here's the breakdown by School:

Here's the actual Results by School and Grade:

Anyhoo, like I said before, this is Edison and we need to do a better job for the Kids - and we all have a vested interest in making sure.

A Big Kudos

to the Edison Board of Education and Super Dr. Richard O'Malley for opening the schools after the storm for everyone dealing with no power and a host of other storm related issues.

Thanks to all!

NJ ASK 2012 Results - not Kid friendly!

Well, according to the NJ ASK 2012 score sheets, we had 10 Elementary Schools (Gr 3-5) and 4 Middle Schools (Gr 6-8) take these tests - each grade with a language arts and math test and 1 grade in each Elementary (Gr 4) and Middle school (Gr 8) taking a science test.

Now, when you compare these results with 2011 results - you find some troubling information. For the school district, 56% of the test score results were worse than last year and when you look at the breakdown - 61% and 54% of the test score results were worse than last year for the Middle Schools and Elementary Schools, respectively.

Here are the test score results:

 Just the %'s of those scoring Partially Proficient in the 2012 Results alone is a concern unto itself - but when you throw in the change from 2011, it does raise the concern to a level of a tad bit troubling.

Anyhoo, this is Edison and we need to do better than this for the Kids.

NJ ASK Results compared to 2011 - by School

Well, here's the 2012 NJ ASK Results for Downtown Edison compared to 2011 by School. Now, Lindeneau and James Madison Inter were not included in the 2011 file I received, so there's no comparison for those two schools. When I get them, I'll share them with you.

Here's a summary of the results or go here:

Once again, if you're like me and don't want to stare at columns and rows of numbers to find what you'd like to see - there's an interactive Excel file that can sort all this data easily for you. Here's an example of a couple of things:

Here's all of Grade 4:

Here's a listing of the top 15 scoring at Partially Proficient:

Finally, here's the 2011 Results:

Anyhoo, anyone who wants the NJ ASK Results sheets for 2011 or the Excel file that I put together from those sheets - just drop me a note.

Say it ain't so - Super Dr. O'Me..Me..Me?!?

Really, you just gotta scratch your head and wonder what's going on over there on Mythomania Lane. I was a tad bit concerned when I saw a Letter to the Editor in the HNT today from Super Dr. Richard "Build the Trust" O'Malley - about "Breakfast after the Bell." Now, that was troubling on two fronts.

First, with a $212 million bucket of money to Spend this year, a local access TV channel, a complete and interactive website along with mobile access and a captive parent audience to boot - why does he need to be writing Letters to the Editor with these fluff pieces about himself?

Second, and more importantly, do we really need Senor O'Malley to pat himself on the back and tell us what a great job he's doing by providing nourishment to the kids in the district - after the bell?

Clearly, it's important and who's gonna argue with the fact that kids perform better when nourished? Did he really need to spend time researching this most basic truth? And, if it's so important to him, the staff and the kids, why didn't he just do it and avoid looking for credit for it? Does he think that the residents of this town wouldn't approve it even if there was no federal funding? Is this one of his 'I' - 'Me' great accomplishments these days that he wants to score up with the recently released NJ ASK Results for 2012? Geez, what a guy!

Not for nothing but here's a thought. Rather than focusing on fluff pieces like this - how about focusing on the inequity in the recent NJ ASK Results where the test scores in some Schools with Grades 3-7 are showing almost half the kids are Less than Proficient! Now, clearly Dr. O'Malley hasn't been around long enough to fairly lay blame or credit for these scores but these seem like thingies a tad bit more important than what he's writing about now.

But hey, at least we can be comforted in the knowledge that Super Dr. Richard "Build the Trust" O'Malley can always write a Letter to the Editor when he wants to tell us what a great job he's doing.

Anyhoo, what do I know - I still can't figure out who's in charge over there on Mythomania Lane.

NJ ASK 2012 Results by Escuela!

Well, recently received the Spring 2012 & 2011 NJ ASK Results by School  from my friends over there on Mythomania Lane. Took a look at the 2012 Results and plucked out the total student scores by School.
Here's are the 2012 NJ ASK Results by Elementary School:

 Here are the Middle Schools:

 Now, if you're like me and don't like looking at columns and rows of numbers to find what you'd like to see - there's a file with all the above numbers that you can sort to find the info you'd like to see. For example, have a key concern in those students who may be struggling and where they are in the district? Here's a list of the top 15 locations and subject of those scoring Partially Proficient:

You can also sort the file and see the scores on any particular test by grade for all the schools:

Finally, at least for me, it's easier to quickly pull up info that's important to see - so, there's one of these thingies for Language Arts & Math in the file:

Anyhoo, anyone who wants this Excel file is welcome to it. You're also welcome to the file received from the EBoE with all the NJ ASK Scores Sheets by School (from which I plucked the total student scores). Just drop me a note.

Edison High Turf Field - $931,000

Saw the piece in the Home News Tribune this morning on the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new synthetic turf field at Edison High School. Also, saw the comments by Super Dr. Richard "Build the Trust" O'Malley - and, once again, another reason-a-mundo to keep this guy away from numbers or presenting any numbers.

While waiting for him to "Build the Trust" as he promised - gonna have to start referring to him as Mr. "O'Mission" O'Malley when it comes to all the relevant facts about where all that money is coming from that they're Spending over there on Mythomania Lane.

First, let me say that athletics play an important role in public education and certainly here in Downtown Edison - and I'm kind of happy to see the new turf field at EHS and the one to be installed over at JPS.

Happy - but if a board member these days - would never have voted for it. Seem to recall that Board President Gene Maeroff voted against it but I could be mistaken. Tried to look the vote up in the minutes of the Special Board Meeting on May 5, 2012 - unfortunately, there are no minutes for that meeting on the school district's website. If I'm incorrect about Maeroff's vote, someone please let me know and I'll correct it.

However, that's $1.8 million to install these turf fields. Is it money "Smartly Spent" as O'Malley states in the article? Arguably, it can be said that it's not smart at all to spend that kind of money on this at this time. Seems there may be more pressing matters at hand where the money could be put to better use - the NJ ASK Results for 2012 come to mind as well as a host of other thingies.

But whether it's smart or not - here's what O'Malley says that's so typical O'Malley - "The cost of the new field was $931,000, paid using capital reserves." 

See, they had money put aside and sitting in a reserve account so it's not really costing you anything out of this 2012-13 budget!?! Well, it's true that there is a capital reserve and I'm sure they used it to pay for Edison's turf field.

What he's not telling you though is where they got that money from to put into the Capital Reserve account. Remember when they put together that Best-est Ever $212.2 million School Budget for 2012-13, which increased Spending by $7.2 million - yet they held the fiscal year tax levy flat? It's a miracle - and they did it through more state aid, better, smarter, and more efficient spending, right?!? Duh! State aid only went up $1.9 million over 2011-12.

They did it by using all that money sitting over there at Mythomania Lane that should of come back to us as taxpayer relief and Re-purposed it to fund their increased Spending of $7.2 million. They took that taxpayer relief money and turned it into more Spending in 2012-13. Hey, it's easy to figure out how much you can increase Spending when you know how much taxpayer money is being hoarded. Easy, but deceptive and misleading. But I digress, so let's move on.

Now, why is that "capital reserve" thingie important? Because you see, when they adopted the School Budget for 2012-13, they also took another $2.4 million sitting over there and put it into the Capital Reserve account - so they wouldn't have to give it back to the taxpayers. They did it on the same night the School Budget for 2012-13 was adopted!

They covered their $7.2 million Out of Control Spending increase in the Operating Budget and threw in an extra $2.4 million into the Capital Reserve account to boot.

So, you'll excuse me if "Hugs & Kisses" don't resonate here for Senor O'Malley or this Board that refuses to step up and Stop the Out of Control Spending going on over there on Mythomania Lane - or for Not keeping Super Dr. Richard "O'Mission" O'Malley away from the Numbers or any explanation thereof.

Anyhoo, if "the quality of a school district directly impacts the value of every home", as O'Malley says - then two things really, really worry me; (1) why does he run away like the dickens from any responsibility when rateables drop and (2) how can we truly measure the quality of this school district when all you get from him is sophomoric misdirection of the truth and political hyperbole?

Said it before and I'll say it again. We're all smart at something. What's important is not how smart we are but what we do with the smarts we have. If we use it to help people, that's a good thing. If we use it take advantage of people, trick people, play on people's lack of knowledge or hurt people - that's a bad thing.

What's going on these days over there on Mythomania Lane is not a good thing!

NJ ASK Scores - Spring 2012

The NJ DOE released the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJ ASK) scores a while back to the districts and just received the total scores by grade by subject from the Edison BoE. These are total student scores for each grade and looking forward to getting the breakdown of these scores by school.

I simply took these total scores and compared them to our 2011 scores to see the change. Now, there can be a ga-zillion reasons for these changes but overall - these 2012 scores are a bit concerning. Seems there are areas where we need to seriously focus on and address to take away the inequity that appears to be sticking out. These are basic skills tests and we want to make sure that we're making every effort possible to educate all our kids - including those who may be struggling.

Now, in all fairness, I know the Board is focusing on these scores - they have it in one of their board goals for the 2012-13 school year. But you need more than words on a piece of paper - we need a well thought out plan that attacks the problem where it lays. For a district this large and diverse and the amount of money in play - you need to go a tad bit further than throwing a performance bonus on the Super to help these kids.

I truly hope there is such a correction plan in place.

Anyway, here's a score card of the total scores:

And here's a breakdown of the total scores for 2012 compared to 2011:

Finally, here's all the total scores:

Anyhoo, there's a PDF file received from the Edison BoE which contains the individual NJ ASK Total Score sheets that the above info was taken from. Anyone wanting this file - just drop me a note and you're welcome to it. When I get the breakdown of these total scores by school, I'll share that information with you.

An addition - %'s of Partially Proficient - Not Proficient or Advanced Proficient:

$pending has its Reward$ at Mythomania Lane!?!

Congratulations to Super Dr. Richard "Build the Trust" O'Malley on his Performance Bonus dinero after only 18 months on the job! Don't know if it's money well spent but it does fit in with Board of Mythomania's theme of Spending money - anybody's money they can get their hands on! Guess it's true - Spending has its Rewards!

Now, not for nothing, but it would be nice if we let Super O'Malley build a track record of his own and this Board stop with the fawning (aka - vulcan mind meld) and start with a little more focusing. I only mention this because we also had a former Super who after 13 months into a 3 1/2 contract - someone decided to re-negotiate and extend her contract by 2 years - and we ended up paying $500,000 for her to sit home.

Remember this:

Now, I know there's no politics going on over there and this Board doesn't feel the need to protect their own - but geez, if you want to help this guy succeed, then do your job!

2012-13 Goals du Mythomania!?!

Really? Here we go again over there on Mythomania Lane. Up for vote tonight at the Board's Action meeting-a-mundo are the Board's Goals for the 2012-13 School Year. Once again, it's disconcerting to see them rise to the level of mediocrity. How hard is it to write a well thought out and comprehensive set of goals that addresses the immediate and long term needs of a school district our size - without all the silly rhetoric and hyperbole?

Let's take an example from these four (4) goals they have listed. "Continue to exhibit fiscal responsibility by keeping the growth in spending in the next budget below the increase in spending in the current budget."
Really? How do you continue to exhibit Fiscal Responsibility if you haven't done it yet? In this case, the 2012-13 budgeted Spending is $212.2 million, up $7.2 million over the 2011-12 budget - and the 2011-12 had Spending of $205.0 million and that was up $6.4 million over the 2010-11 budget. So, if the Spending increase in this current year budget (2012-13) was up by $7.2 million and that's up over last year's increase of $6.4 million - how is it even possible to make such a disingenuous statement? It's not only a misleading choice of words to say "Continue" but to call it "Fiscally Responsible" to let uncontrolled Spending go Unchecked?!? A new definition to add the Board's Mythomania dictionary to go along with their definition of Savings. Blah! blah!, blah!

And here's another tad bit of a concern - since the Board takes these goals and turns them into Criteria for Dr. Richard "Build the Trust" O'Malley's Performance Bonus - does that mean that an increase in Spending of $7.1 million gets him some more bonus money in 2012-13?

There's more on the three (3) other Goals but I'm beginning to bore myself with their repetitive silliness. But I do like the term "Functional Education Space" - it's hilarious. And "Utilizing state assessment data" is a hoot too. But hey, I'm sure O'Malley likes these type thingies going into his Performance Bonus - whether he achieves them or not!

Anyhoo, here's the Board's Goals for the School Year 2012-13 (the comment in Red is just something that I think they should of added:

It really is the Land of Mythomania over there!

Mythomania Hug$ & Ki$$e$ Bonu$ Award

Well, there you go. Out of that September 19th Caucus meeting Privileged session comes the announcement of the Board of Mythomania's award of a Performance Bonus for Dr. Richard "Build the Trust" O'Malley for the school year 2011-12. This will be voted on at the September 24, 2012 Action Meeting. Now, this is perhaps one of the silliest things I've seen come out of Mythomania Lane in quite some time - not to mention a foolish waste of taxpayers money.

You can see my take on this Performance Bonus in the June 3, 2012 post - Board of Mythomania's Super Performance Criteria. Briefly, if you're gonna set quantitative and qualitative criteria for a performance bonus, then the criteria can't be vague and ambiguous as it is in the criteria set for Dr. O'Malley. If you do, then you can't have any meaningful evaluation, which is what you get now.

Take for example the NJ ASK Scores. Fifty percent (50%) of his bonus is predicated on increasing %'s scoring in the Advanced Proficient and decreasing %'s scoring in the Partially Proficient. Now, that's nice but with all due respect, what does increase and decrease mean? What's the % needed? What scores are they looking at to evaluate him - total scores, individual school scores or the related sub-group scores? Ditto for what scores they using to compare against. Finally, how are they distinguishing between the normal year to year improvement and O'Malley's contribution to this year's scores?

Point being that with this vague and ambiguous criteria there is no clear and meaningful way you can measure performance and therefore, they can measure it any way they want. So it goes for the other three (3) Board Goals used in O'Malley's Bonus Criteria. Throw in the fact that a simple reading of O'Malley's contract here puts into question whether he's even eligible for a performance bonus in the 2011-12 school year.

But the Performance Bonus Criteria isn't the point of this post. I'll have more to say on this whole matter after they vote on it Monday night.

What you want to be aware of is this bit of duct tape transparency going on over there on Mythomania Lane. Once again, we have an unsigned agenda for the September 29, 2012 Action meeting that fails to disclose O'Malley's Performance Bonus is up for a vote. It's not listed on the Summary on page one (1) of the agenda. Maybe it's me, but something that important you might want to highlight right up front. Be that as it may, you'll have to search through forty-two (42) pages of the agenda to find it listed on page 25.

And here it is:

Now, this is exactly why O'Malley shouldn't be let around any numbers and certainly not be allowed to present anything that has to do with numbers. You see, they're only showing you what criteria they believe has been met and how much they're giving him. What they're failing to show you is how they believe he measured up to all the performance criteria they set up. Shouldn't they be telling us about how they measured him against all the criteria and not just the criteria they gave him money for?

Remember, fifty percent of his bonus is based upon four (4) NJ ASK Scores weighted equally and the other fifty percent (50%) is based upon the other three (3) Board Goals for 2011-12 and are weighted equally.

Here's his Performance Bonus Criteria:

And here's what they did, but failed to show you, to come up with the numbers used in the Action Agenda for September 24, 2012:

As you can see, all the numbers in Red, were not included in their resolution for O'Malley's Performance Bonus.

As I said, this whole thing is a tad bit of a joke but they could of at least put out the results of their review of all these silly performance bonus criteria - and not just selected numbers.

Not that it matters but they made him eligible for the Max 2% of his $210,000 salary for 2011-12 or $4,200 and he earned, according to the Board, $2,625 of that $4,200 or 1.25%.

Anyhoo, here's what the numbers would be if he earned the entire 2%:

And here. what the Board says he actually earned:

Guess he only had half a facilities timeline done!

But hey, what do I know? I still can't figure out if this $2,625 is for Performance - then does that mean the $4,200 raise he already got is for Non-Performance?!?

How to turn Grapes into Raisins!?!

Well, took a family member over to the Farmer's Market over in Clara Barton this past weekend to pick up some fruits and vegetables. Very cool place and worthy of your patronage whenever you can. It was a fun time and they even had a food tasting contest going on when we arrived and two of the judges were Mayor Ricigliano and Councilman Dr. Prasad. It was nice to see both of them and have a chance to say hello.

Also, got the history of the farm market and the whole Clara Barton Revitalization from Ester Nemetz. That was pretty cool too.

But wouldn't you know it, just as grapes have to turn into raisins - my smile dropped to a frown! I couldn't believe it. There it was right in front of the farm market, pointing the way to the Clara Barton Branch of the Public Library - the donated sign. And who donated it?

Someone by name of Karabinchak. Now, if that's your friend and mine - Councilman Rob "March on Trenton" Karabinchak, then Really Rob? Couldn't you find another part of town to be so blatantly self-serving and get your name out?

Anyhoo, if it's not Councilman Karabinchak - then I humbly apologize and will certainly remove this post once advised so.

But, if it is, then there's one thing that needs to go along with the Happy Owl to make the advertising on the sign complete - and it's this:

Seriously, someone please tell me this isn't Councilman Karabinchak's donated sign...so I can salvage the remaining grapes.

Mythomania Superintendents' Contracts

You know, it's one thing to see such duct tape transparency with this September 19th Caucus agenda but it would be a tad bit disconcerting if the employment contracts for the assistant superintendents, BA & Superintendent popped up with Executive County Super (ECS) approval as a result of their Privileged session on Wednesday night. Recognize that the ECS has to approve certain contracts before the board can vote on them. As it sits today, here's the list:

Apparently, some of this administrative staff have received 2012-13 raises and some have not. The assistants and BA have one-year contracts and Super Dr. Richard "Build the Trust" O'Malley has a 4 1/2 year contract. The one-year contracts require annual approval by the ECS and the Super's contract needs to be approved if there were any changes to his previously approved contract, which you can see here.

So, it would be nice to know what's going on with these contracts - especially any renegotiations, modifications or other alterations to Senor O'Malley's contract. And while we're at it, the decision on any performance bonus for the Super for the 2011-12 School Year. You can see my take on the this performance bonus in an earlier post.

Unfortunately though, nobody likes an ambush - especially with the Hugs & Kisses going on over there on Mythomania Lane.

Anyhoo, let's hope none of this thingies pop up as a result of their Privileged session on Wednesday night.

Caucus Agenda - Mythomania Board of Led!?!

Really?!? You got to be kidding, right? This is the agenda for the September 19th meeting? Now, normally I wouldn't mind but when you're waiting for information from them and wondering when they're gonna bring up the subject of that information request - it's a tad bit obtuse to put out something like this:

But it's good to know the Board's 2012-13 goals and objections have been handed off to Super Dr. Richard "Build the Trust" O'Malley. That should give you a warm feeling all over. It's also good to Not know what financial resolutions are on the agenda. And my favorite, no listing of what's to be discussed in Privileged Session. Guess you have to physically be there to have a say on anything that may come out of that privileged session.

But hey, at least we're comforted in the knowledge that no one wants to append their name to this informative piece of work. It must be the Unofficial Official list of thingies they may or may not talk about but don't want you to know about in advance anyway Caucus agenda!

Principals & Supervisors (P & S)

Here's the Summary for the P & S:

By Pay Type:

By Person Detail over the Contract Period:

As always, anyone wishing to have these files is welcome to them.

ParaProfessionals Guides & Scattergrams

The Para's - you remember them. They're the ones that got dumped on with that infamous Side-Bar agreement taking a 25% pay cut during the 2010-11 School Year. But hey, at least the Certified staff didn't have to take a pay freeze. But I digress, so let's move on.

Here's the Para's Summary of the 3-Year Contract:

Here's the Base Year 2010-11 Guide & Scattergram:

Here's the 2011-12 Guide & Scattergram:

Here's the 2012-13 Guide & Scattergram:

Here's the 2013-14 Guide & Scattergram:

And finally, here's the interactive Excel chart that will take you through the Steps over the 3-Year Contract:

Next up, Principals & Supervisors.

Teachers, Nurses & Librarians

Here's the guides and scattergrams used in the Teachers, Nurses & Librarians piece of the ETEA contract settlement. If you want these files, just drop me a note - you're welcome to them.

Summary of the 3 year contract period:

Summary by Level:

Here's the 2010-11 Base Year Scattergram - a - mundo:

Here's the Base Year Heads used:

Here's the Guides - 2010-11 Base Year:

Here's the Guide for 2011-12:

Here's the Guide for 2012-13:

Here's the Guide for 2013-14:

Here's the Fixed Longevity Schedule:

And finally,once again, if you're like me and you don't want to be looking at columns and rows of numbers to find what you want to see - here's everything in one place - an interactive Excel chart that will take you through the Steps over the 3 Year Contract Life::

Next up - the Paraprofessionals.