We are highlighting this post by Steve Colorossi because of a request. My suggestion is to follow the money. These expenditures need to be justified by someone sitting in an office on the third floor as well as by the chairman of the Board of Education.
Because it may be of interest to some of the readers of this site, I submitted a FOIA request to NPS requesting documentation relative to the efforts to expand the Stepping Stones/Literacy How, Inc. preschool at Fox Run to Brookside. Although the majority of documents have yet to be produced (which is the subject of a complaint to the state's Freedom of Information Commission) the documents which were provided are available by this link:
http://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B9zEmk3mJF92Q0tCQjJoYjd4ZFE&usp=sharing
What do you think?
Read Steve's attachments! They are eye openers.
ReplyDeleteI think that if you made this a link, people could read it on their portable devices.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeletedrive.google.com/folderview?id=0B9zEmk3mJF92Q0tCQjJoYjd4ZFE&usp=sharing
Copy and paste.
DeleteSteve, also follow Literacy HOW.
ReplyDeleteStepping Stones and Norwalk ACTS work together. Those who were the RedApples were also active in what is happening. All need investigation.
< < shaking my head > >
ReplyDeleteI can't believe that Supt. Adamowski won't release documents under the freedom of information act.
You don't pick a fight over public documents unless there is something to hide.
And you don't leave a job and take folders and documentation with you unless you have something to hide.
ReplyDeleteI saw the start of the Board of Education meeting last night (6/7) and tried to follow along with the Strategic Operating Plan. I kept getting the same sense that there has been no public input into the plan.
ReplyDeleteI had gone to one of the forums in the spring. But that was a lecture with some questions- not really an opportunity for give and take.
One thing on topic, one off...
ReplyDeleteOn topic...heard thru grapevine that they've decided not to go thru with new program. Is this true???
Off topic... the new special ed money was approvec and they are hiring a company to run/manage it. Does anyone know who they're hiring? Heard there is some nepotism involved and wsnt to look into it. Any help would be appreciated.
Supt. Adamowski announced that he is not privatizing the Brookside Preschool this year. He also announced that the Finance Director is reviewing the cost information so that a presentation can be made to the BoE's Finance Committee.
ReplyDeleteAnd, on a related topic, NPS has still refused to provide me any of the financial information I had requested regarding tuitions collected for Brookside and Fox Run.
Steve...what are next steps regarding financial information?
DeleteWhat, in your estimation caused the change of heart towards brookside?
I'm not sure that i trust our new superintendent nor his direct reports anymore. I have had little faith in the Boe recently
Regarding the financial information, I'm left with no choice but to file a second Freedom of Information Commission complaint because of the lack of complete responsiveness to my second FOIA request and to press the FOI Commission on the first complaint that I had filed.
ReplyDeleteIt was distressing to hear two administration officials bemoan the "high costs" of the current Brookside program, but make no reference to the costs of the privatization contract with Stepping Stones or to the significant revenue that is collected from tuitions at Brookside. And then to hear the superintendent explain that the calculations are complicated and that once Tom Hamilton finalizes his analysis he will share it with the Board of Education's Finance Committee, had me wondering how the Administration could have claimed a financial reason to justify the privatization of the Brookside program but not have any real data to support that claim. By the way, according to my estimations (which I posted to my Google Documents link which appears in the body of this post), Brookside's preschool generates more income than it costs when compared to the Stepping Stones Fox Run model. That model is, by the way, essentially the twenty-something-moving-back-in-with-mom-and-dad model(give us free space, School Readiness money, pay our expenses, give us free data that we can use to market our private for-profit partner's products and don't tell us what we can do).
I have no idea why Supt. Adamowski reversed course on his all-ELLI-all-the-time plan. Maybe the change was borne of true empathy for the parents who were left with no options? Maybe the change was the result of realizing that the misinformation being fed to select members of the Board of Education appeared to reflect a profound lack of respect for the professionalism of the teachers involved in the Brookside preschool? Maybe it was a nagging sense that parents, teachers and the early childhood education community were united in opposing an unfair give-away of preschool spaces to benefit a private company at the expense of our families and young children? Or maybe, just maybe, the fact that the Brookside preschool had been notified earlier that day that NAEYC had re-accredited the program (which is a sign of the program's excellence) made the privatization model and the mantra that those opposing it were simply committed to maintaining the evil "status quo" at odds with the simple fact that the Brookside program offers a valuable educational and developmentally-appropriate preschool model that serves the whole child.
Thank you, Steve, for providing this eye opening information. Please continue to keep parents posted.
ReplyDeleteThe school administration has refused to answer a second Freedom of Information Act request. As a result, I have filed my second complaint with the FOI Commission. Here is the link to the complaint:
ReplyDeletehttp://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9zEmk3mJF92T2R3SmUxZjhXQUk
The District is refusing to provide the BOE minutes showing approval for (i) any of the Stepping Stones contracts and (ii) any of the payments to Stepping Stones. The District is refusing to provide financial information about tuitions collected, School Readiness grants received and all payments made.
I would welcome anyone to find this financial data in the budget (which by law, C.G.S. Section 10-222, must set forth the itemized expenditure used to run the school system). If it is there, I would have expected the District to indicate where it could be found. But that hasn't happened, leading me to the conclusion that there is a reason for the stonewalling of legitimate FOIA requests.
What are the next steps? This is outrageous!
ReplyDelete