Showing posts with label Broward Schools Diversity Committee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Broward Schools Diversity Committee. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

More business-as-usual at Broward School Board is NOT good news for students, parents or taxpayers; Why the need by Broward Schools officials to impose omertà on school volunteers in Broward?; the very curious Hallandale High School roof situation reveals much about School Board's culture; Why is South Florida news media largely ignoring Broward Schools Diversity Comm. and their Audit Comm.?



CBS4 News/WFOR-TV Miami video: Broward Committee Demands Action For Dilapidated School. Reported by Natalia Zea. February 28, 2011 10:42 PM. Article at 

Despite what she promised over 20 months ago, above, Broward School Board member Ann Murray never kept her promise to the community most directly-affected -Hallandale Beach.
In fact, she has assiduously avoided coming here and being subject to answering pointed questions from constituents about her behavior, judgment and votes.
It's an all-too-familiar refrain from Ann Murray -spouting nonsense, and thinking that the public will fall for her lies.

My last blog post, on various aspects of education policy, corruption and the recent election of new people to the Broward School Board, 
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/speaking-of-diversity-and-backsliding.html
had far too much information to digest for for one post, so I've decided to split it in two and have migrated the second part of it  here so that the important issues I raised can get the proper attention they deserve.
Why the need to impose omertà on school volunteers in Broward?
Just for the record, I'd like to state that among sincere people I know who are very concerned about education in this city, for both educational and business reasons, they honestly feel they've never publicly received an adequate public explanation for the cancelling of the follow-up tour earlier this year by the Broward Schools' Diversity Committee at Hallandale High School, and the overriding of a vote to have the meeting.

So there's no confusion on this point, Supt. Robert W. Runcie and School Board member Ann Murray are the ones who specifically owe this community a full explanation, not staffers.
Runcie said nothing about it on his recent trip to Hallandale Beach City Hall.
But that doesn't mean that people here have forgotten.

According to people who are in a position to know, Ann Murray and her crew looked at the numbers at Hallandale High and made the decision that they were fine with what they saw, and then she made the decision to NOT have the School system's Diversity Committee re-visit the scene of the crime.

Now onto the case of the curious leaking roof at Hallandale High School...

  From: Michael J. Marchetti
To: andrew@addinsol.com
Cc: RR ; Ann Murray ; Laurie Rich Levinson ; Robin Bartleman ; Patricia Good ; Benjamin J. Williams ; Nora A. Rupert ; Maureen S. Dinnen ; Donna Korn ; Katherine Leach ; charlotte8@comcast.net ; Thomas E. Lindner ;mjmsplace9@aol.com ; Patrick O. Reilly

Sent: Monday, May 28, 2012 9:47 AM
Subject: Hallandale High Re-roof Project


Andrew,

In reviewing the agenda items for tomorrow's board meeting I came across item number JJ7 to re-roof HallandaleHS. To my surprise FCM is utilizing the TPM delivery method which is something FCM management told the Board they would not use anymore. As you know TPM is almost identical to the CM@Risk delivery method that allows the District to negotiate as apposed to seeking the lowest contract amount through a competitive bid process. Again, FCM management when asked by the Board specifically said Cypress and Palmview were the last of these types of projects.

In review of the GMP numbers the proposed cost of work is 1,221,678.00 plus fees of 378,000. That translates to the District paying 30% of the cost of work in fees alone. Also noted FCM is justifying these numbers based on an audit done in 2007 by an outside firm when construction costs were at their highest. And finally FCM notes that the plans have been permitted under the old 2007 code but will be resubmitted to the new 2010 code. Why in the world would FCM negotiate a TPM contact with a roofing company as apposed to  hard bidding it after they had a permitted set of plans based on the new code? I suspect one of their answers would be that we came in under the approved budget. This is no special accomplishment when you consider that FCM establishes the budget themselves. If you set it high enough you can always look like a hero. The only way to get to the real number is to competitively bid the job.

It is hard for me to grasp the recent behavior of FCM management. They rushed to issue an NTP for the Zone 4 project when everyone knew there was a problem with the contract. I don't have exact numbers for the settlement but I am sure that cost the District needlessly as FCM management continued to argue on behalf of the contractor. They also continue to argue on behalf of the contractor for delays on the Cypress El. Kitchen project. This despite their own staff and now our internal auditors saying those claims are not justified. FCM and the contractor are claiming that a CCD was not promptly processed by the project manager that caused this extraordinary delay. If this were true FCM management should be held accountable for not having any kind of management report that would have red flagged this over site. The question is how does an important CCD go unprocessed for months without upper management not knowing this. Did they forget to discuss this issue in their staff meetings for six months?

Most recently I notified FCM staff and the Superintendent that they had issued a notice to proceed on the Cooper City HS phased replacement project with only a foundation permit. Again in complete contradiction to FCM management claims to the Board they would never start a project without a complete set of plans that was fully permitted. This past and now current practice of starting projects without complete plans and a permit have been denounced in the past two grand jury reports as always costing the District needlessly.

At the most recent Board workshop on the capital budget I spoke about the Stranahan HS funding of items that are clearly not an emergency or the most critical need of the District. This at the very workshop that Capital Budget came to announce to the Board that their intention was to only fund emergencies and equipment breakdowns because of the shortage of capital funds. Even the most casual observer could look at these events and see despite all of the verbose claims of being fixed and we have better processes now and better people in place are just empty words with no facts to substantiate them. It is clear to everyone that it is business as usual. It is especially clear to the employees who work hard and try to improve the organization that they must keep their heads down in fear and hope they are allowed to remain as FCM management is in the process of purging good employees while hiring more people they can trust to sing in the chorus of we are all better now. Singing in chorus will not change the facts that while claiming financial hardship FCM is authorizing and arguing on behalf of contractors to needlessly spend precious capital funds with no one holding them accountable.

Because the meeting is tomorrow and there is no time for discussion prior to the meeting I am copying the Superintendent and the Board on this issue so they are aware.          

Michael J Marchetti
Physical Plant Operations
Zone 2, Supervisor I

(I've deleted the email addresses and phone numbers that appeared above -except one.) 


In a related matter, who the hell in the Broward School system specifically told members of the Diversity Committee NOT to speak publicly to the news media about what they'd seen and what they knew? 
That person or group of people need to be publicly identified and fired -today!

And seriously, would it kill the local Miami TV stations and newspapers to get off their asses and actually try to find out why administrators feel there's a need for a system of omertà among community volunteers who are, alternately, getting stabbed in the back or getting the shaft from elected officials?

Some of the longstanding personal animus against Murray and which is starting to develop against Supt.  Runcie in this community is directly attributable to the way the Diversity Comm. has been handled and the general state of things at Hallandale High School, though in my case, it doesn't happen to be the only reason to be against Murray.
That's a much longer fact-filled bill of particulars!

-----


South Florida Sun-Sentinel
FDLE: Contractor allegedly billed school system for Hummer repairs, Disney trip
Records shed new light on district dealings
By Megan O'Matz, Sun Sentinel
October 13, 2012

More than 250 pages of newly released interviews taken in the state's now-closed corruption probe of Broward Schools contain fresh allegations of a contactor padding bills, employees moonlighting on the job and managers shirking their duties.

Among the jolting assertions in the documents obtained by the Sun Sentinel are the reported actions of an executive of The Weitz Company, a construction firm that did considerable business with the school district.

Joanne M. Lenz, a former Weitz employee, told Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents that her boss, Rick Kolb, had billed the school district about $5,000 for personal expenses, including repairs on his Hummer and a family trip to Disney World. The costs were hidden in invoices submitted to the district for new elementary school cafeterias that Weitz built, Lenz told FDLE under oath in June 2011.

She also told the investigators that in 2008 Kolb helped arrange for a golf tournament to benefit the Broward Education Foundation, a School Board entity that awards scholarships. Kolb recruited subcontractors he did business with to participate at a minimum cost of $2,500 for four players, she said.
When the subcontractors later were awarded school district jobs through the Weitz firm, Kolb added the golf tournament entry fees to the bills submitted to the district and then reimbursed the firms, Lenz said.

"The way the School Board was treated was unfair," Lenz, now a data processor at a Broward school, told the Sun Sentinel Friday.

Kolb was not charged with any crime. He could not be reached for comment Friday through his current employer, Suffolk Construction in West Palm Beach. The FDLE documents do not indicate whether Kolb was asked to give his side of the story.

Weitz's senior vice president of Florida operations, Jon Tori, declined comment Friday, saying he was unaware of the allegations made to FDLE.

Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie, who took over the district last year after the investigation ended, said Friday he is working to eradicate mismanagement, corruption and fraud.

"The game's over," he told the Sun Sentinel. "There's a new sheriff in town. We're going to make sure we operate with integrity and that we focus our efforts on doing what's in the best interest of children. Always."

Among his priorities, Runcie said, is hiring additional internal auditors to ferret out waste and abuse.

The documents obtained by the Sun Sentinel are summaries of interviews FDLE conducted on behalf of a Statewide Grand Jury impaneled in February 2010 at the request of then-Gov. Charlie Crist to investigate public corruption.

The Grand Jury did not indict anyone but released a scathing report in February 2011 saying the Broward School District was so grossly mismanaged it could not be explained by incompetence alone but must involve "corruption of our officials by contractors, vendors and their lobbyists."

From the spring of 2010 through most of 2011, school employees, board members, and vendors were invited or subpoenaed to talk to FDLE.

Much of what the individuals told investigators has been widely reported: that the district was a place where contractors were paid in full despite not finishing jobs, safety inspections were compromised, shoddy workmanship was ignored, board members interfered in day-to-day operations and cronyism drove decisions.

But the fresh crop of documents from FDLE provides new insights into district practices and relationships. Often the information provided to state investigators dealt with the alleged misdeeds, large and small, of School District personnel.

Among the assertions: one district employee was selling hurricane shutters on school district time. Another: real estate.

One employee testified that his job included shuttling School Board members to and from the airport and escorting district "guests" around town.

Another described how a school roofing job, botched by one contractor, was given to another, which was found to be a paving company -- not a roofer.

In the process, the paving company hired an engineer, who hired a lobbyist: the husband of former Broward Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin, according to FDLE's report.

In the midst of the Grand Jury investigation, a secretary in the district's construction department reportedly was seen shredding documents.

Many of the interviews focused on the district's Building Department, which inspects school construction to ensure that the work is done properly and according to safety codes.

Employees described how at times district inspectors were furloughed and private companies hired to do their jobs at additional taxpayer expense.

Because of union rules, certified inspectors were laid off and replaced with uncertified staff with more seniority, FDLE learned.

One of the lesser trained individuals told investigators he inspected fire dampers at a job site while the certified inspector "remained in the car."

Another trainee said after about two weeks of instruction, he was sent out to perform 50 to 70 inspections despite being unlicensed. His supervisor signed the reports, he told FDLE.

Investigators looked closely at relationships some School Board members had with lobbyists and vendors.

A former construction project manager, Sharon Zamojski, told FDLE she attended a political fundraiser at one lobbyist's home, where contractors doing business with the school district each donated the $500 maximum allowed by law.

Contractors at the event then telephoned subcontractors instructing them to show up and also make a contribution, FDLE quoted Zamojski saying. Subcontractors "began to arrive and as they were met at the front door, they delivered their contributions in the form of checks in the amount of $500," the documents state.

The documents also include new claims about the actions of School Board member Jennifer Gottlieb, who abruptly resigned in August 2011.

For example: Gottlieb allegedly did not like the color the newly constructed Beachside Montessori School in Hollywood had been painted and ordered it redone, at an additional cost of $1,500.

In an email to the Sun Sentinel on Friday, Gottlieb said: "I don't remember making any request for the color of the school, maybe someone misconstrued my comments about the colors."

FDLE also was told of the chummy relationship some School Board members, Gottlieb included, reportedly had with Kolb, the Weitz executive.

Lenz said under oath that Kolb regularly took board members to lunch. In one case, she said, Kolb and Gottlieb had a five-hour, $400 lunch at Le Meridien, then a resort in Sunny Isles Beach. She said Kolb was reimbursed by their company for the lunch.

Elected officials cannot accept gifts of over $100. Gift disclosure forms filed by Gottlieb do not reflect any lunches.

Gottlieb told the Sun Sentinel Friday: "I have no recollection of a $400 lunch, but I have no idea what he may have expensed. It was my standard practice to pay cash for what I ate."

In May 2010, district auditors reported that taxpayers overpaid $47 million for 15 cafeteria projects because School Board members added unnecessary playgrounds, bus loops and other items to the deals and doled out the projects to favored firms, Weitz among them, rather than award the contracts based on the lowest bid.

I made the last paragraph bold so it would be sure to catch your attention, since if anyone needed a contemporaneous snapshot of this dysfunctional school system, that's it!

-----

City of Hollywood residents and members of the community are invited to meet Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie on Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. at the Boulevard Heights Community Center, 6770 Garfield St. in Hollywood. Mr. Runcie will be available to answer questions from the public about local public schools and other education issues. Members of the public who are interested in attending and asking Mr. Runcie a question are encouraged to arrive early to fill out a question card. 
Light refreshments will be provided. 
For more information, contact Donna Green at hollyed1@aol.com.

Speaking of diversity and backsliding on ethics, Broward County School Board becoming an all-female enclave is NOT good news for concerned taxpayers & parents: expect even more micro-managing and time wasted on trivial matters made melodramatic because these particular people, literally, can't help but pander; Broward Schools Supt. Runcie in Hollywood on Thursday night at the Boulevard Heights Community Center

 
Speaking of diversity, as a result of last Tuesday's election results, the Broward County School Board will now be an all-female enclave: expect even more micro-managing and time wasted on trivial matters made melodramatic because these particular people, literally, can't help but pander; Broward Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie to be in Hollywood on Thursday night at  Boulevard Heights Community Center
I was going to post this collection of news and tidbits last Friday afternoon but thought better of it since I thought few would see it then, and as you'll see, I'm glad I waited, since in the time since I first typed some of these words last Friday morning, I've already seen others in the community and in the press writing about the composition of the new School Board who, in my opinion, lack appreciation for why having an all-female School Board is not exactly reason for taxpayers or students to celebrate.

Based on my own observations and what others who are much closer to all things education in Broward County have shared with me about some of the people elected, I think Broward taxpayers and parents have good reason to be concerned about backsliding on ethics.

While I could always turn out to be wrong, my overall sense of things is that this new crew might not only be more spiteful than professional at times, and attempt to make far too many issues that come before them personal, but also indulge a bit too much in creating straw men for them to attack when the Board is being properly chastised by the public or the news media, or otherwise held to account for inaction or bad judgment or lack of fidelity to rules and procedures.

I also suspect that there will be more instances than perhaps need be when after talking for hours, Supt. Robert W. Runcie will say that it's time to stop the talking and time for voting and actions.
This particular crew seems destined to try to talk everything to death, as if that wasn't already enough of a problem with the current crew of characters.

As most of you already know by now, here's what happened last Tuesday:
District 4: Abby Freedman defeated Shelly Solomon
District 5: Rosalind Osgood defeated Torey Alston
At-Large District 8: Donna Korn defeated Franklin Sands
At-Large District 9: Robin Bartleman defeated Barbara Houston Wilson
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/FL/Broward/42272/111826/en/summary.html#



Over the past 2-3 months of observing political campaigning all throughout Hallandale Beach -and Hollywood- such as it was, given that there were never any chance there'd be actual bona fide candidate debates of the sort that everyone here desperately wanted, owing largely to Mayor Joy Cooper, Comm. Anthony A. Sanders and former Comm. Bill Julian desperately NOT wanting to be a part of any event in the city that they could not control, where they'd be forced to answer pointed questions from well-informed citizens, I only once saw a re-elect Robin Bartleman yard sign in a HB resident's front yard.

As it happens, it was located in a front yard in Southwest HB of someone who also had one for do-nothing Comm. Sanders, so you can well imagine what I thought every time I drove past it,
just off of S.W. Third Street -it's not exactly the sort of illustrious company you'd necessarily choose to be associated with.

While I was certainly glad that Bartleman attended the educational forum in HB in June of 2011 on what was REALLY going on at Hallandale High School with respect to what the School Board was doing to remedy longstanding problems that led to a lawsuit that the School Board lost, a forum that my friend, Catherine Kim Owens hosted and superbly moderated, THE first such serious meeting on education in this city during the eight years that I'd lived here up to that point, despite how crucial that subject is in this community for reasons I've previously mentioned here -and yes, Ann Murray was a no-show at that meeting in HB (again) just like Jennifer Gottlieb was!- considering what I'd seen and read about Barteleman's involvement and performance during the disturbing Douglas High School cheerleading coach saga, I'm not sure if her winning was really such a great thing for Broward taxpayers and parents long term.

See my post on that subject from October 8th, titled,
Dynamite! Bob Norman adroitly uses facts and context to lower-the-boom on the Broward School Board for their abysmal handling of the purported Douglas H.S. cheerleader coach 'scandal" -and drops School Board member Katie Leach squarely on her head; One month before the election, docs show Donn Korn opponent Franklin Sands funds his race with lots of money from his stepson’s lobbying firm -shocker!; @mattgutmanABC
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/dynamite-bob-norman-adroitly-uses-facts.html

Last Wednesday I received the following message from the City of Hollywood with the subject header: Meet and Greet Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie
City of Hollywood residents and members of the community are invited to meet Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie on Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. at the Boulevard Heights Community Center, 6770 Garfield St. in Hollywood. Mr. Runcie will be available to answer questions from the public about local public schools and other education issues. Members of the public who are interested in attending and asking Mr. Runcie a question are encouraged to arrive early to fill out a question card. 
Light refreshments will be provided. 
For more information, contact Donna Green at hollyed1@aol.com.
I've now seen and heard Broward Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie three times in person since he was hired by the Broward School Board -twice in Hollywood and once in Hallandale Beach.

(Surprise! Not present at that meeting in HB was School Board Chair Ann Murray, who is this area's representative on the Board, but whom as I've mentioned here so many times, has assiduously avoided showing her face in public in Hallandale Beach for well over a year.)

I've personally videotaped Runcie all three times -and have taken plenty of photos, too- though I've chosen not to post them here or on my YouTube Channel.

At this point, I feel fairly confident that I can tell what direction he's going to take a discussion based upon what the question posed to him is.
That's actually part of the problem -how the questions have so often been posed to him.

I don't know who first told told Mr. Runcie that the idea of having Broward taxpayers and parents write questions via index cards -read by someone else- was a great idea, but it's not.
I see it as both patronizing and condescending and it's precisely the sort of awkward attempt at (mis)communication that the Broward Schools needs to get away from -quick.

Mr. Runcie is very articulate and an agile conversationalist who can talk about a host of issues for long period of time if he wanted to.
He does not need -nor do taxpayers want to see- someone there as a handler, largely to translate what are almost always very understandable questions.

If I'm going to show up for something like this, I think I can also pretty well frame a relevant question for him in the hours and days leading up to the meeting. 
Maybe several, and having attended three of these before, I also know what NOT to ask.

For those folks who show up and can't ask a question in the form of a question, it's not my problem.
Everyone there can either laugh at them or ignore it, but I have to say that this notion that so many School employees are necessary to be present at these get-togethers, to form a phalanx of protection, is getting more preposterous with each passing meeting.
One person will do, nicely, thanks!

If you ask me, that same person could/should also pop a videocamera onto a tripod and point and then get out of the way.
That there hasn't been at least one person within the school system who had the common sense to tape the remarks he's made at any of the dozens of places he's been and put them online on a School system website or a YouTube Channel for taxpayers and parents to see, is ridiculous.
Not tape every meeting but at least one of them?

I seem to personally have more of them on DVDs near my computer than the entire Broward School system does.
What gives with all the continued indifference and half-assed effort?
Where are the signs of those positive changes we were promised? 

Some content originally contained in this post has been moved to: 
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/more-business-as-usual-at-broward.html
More business-as-usual at Broward School Board is NOT good news for students, parents or taxpayers; Why the need by Broward Schools officials to impose omertà on school volunteers in Broward?; the very curious Hallandale High School roof situation reveals much about School Board's culture; Why is South Florida news media largely ignoring Broward Schools Diversity Comm. and their Audit Comm.?

Monday, February 21, 2011

Broward School Board's Diversity Committee Site Visitation Report at Hallandale High School and the abominable conditions they found

Last week when I knew that I'd be posting here the two public notices about the public meeting on Tuesday night in Hollywood and Thursday morning at Broward Schools HQ, I already had a copy of the Broward School Board's Diversity Committee Site Visitation Report at Hallandale High School and the abominable conditions they found.

I had a copy because I have a friend on the committee and had asked her to send me a copy of the final report once it had already been publicly distributed to the Broward School Board and the acting-Principal at Hallandale High,
Anthony Dorsett, and other interested parties.

I decided not to post the information then, or even with the story on Friday night regarding the statewide Grand Jury, because I wanted to make sure that everyone would see this eye-opening report on its own demerits and just let the facts sink in a bit.


Here is the cover letter that was sent to them from my friend Catherine, who besides serving as Co-Chair of the Broward Schools Diversity Committee that checked-out the school, is also on the Hallandale Education Advisory Committee, and an appointee to the county's Commission on Women's Status.

The Site Visitation SubCommittee of the Diversity Committee has finalized the attached summary report on Hallandale HS

Attached is a courtesy copy, for your information and review.
Our SV SubComm. was very disappointed that after 10 years since the CCC lawsuit settlement, the Hallandale HS facility is still one of the worst that we've seen in all of our site visits in the past two years. Ms. Ernestine Price, one of the original plaintiffs, was visibly upset and she said she could not sleep that night and called a school board member at 4:00 am.

In our last (2/3/11) Diversity Committee meeting, the lawyers from the CCC lawsuit updated our Diversity Committee members. They, visited Hallandale HS about three weeks ago and took 300 pictures of bad facility conditions, themselves. Discussion about the lack of progress in the innercity schools took place, and Hallandale HS was at the top of the list.

We are all aware of the moratoriums on projects due to budget constraints. However, issues like the lack of a working lab for AP science, which would prevent those students from competing and succeeding in their AP exams, is clearly not acceptable.
By copy of this email, I'm requesting Mayor Cooper, City Manager Antonio, and the commissioners to see if they can provide additional support to these issues, perhaps thru the CRA budget? Also, I am requesting the community leaders of Hallandale and my Hallandale EAC members to see if there's anything we can do to assist with these issues, with the proviso that we're concurrently researching what can and can't be done under the Broward Schools' rules/policies.

Because Hallandale HS has made great progress academically within the past two years, it is critical that the students and hard-working staff are not required to work in such bad conditions. There is a YouTube video by Boyd Anderson students talking about how their new cafeteria made them feel like a whole new person, filled each student with pride...a person deserving, which motivated him/her to do better. Facilities makes a direct impact on a student's self-esteem. We all need to do better for our most challenged children.

Catherine Kim Owens
My friend and fellow Hallandale Beach civic activist Michael Butler of Change Hallandale Beach already has posted the entire report and pertinent photos on his site, along with some comments of his own, so I have that link here for you to read along with the report:
HallandaleHighSchoolSiteVisitReport

Change Hallandale Beach website is at:
http://www.changehallandale.com/

Hallandale High School info: http://www.browardschools.com/schoolsplash1/schoolsplash.asp?infoid=0403

HHS
website: http://www.broward.k12.fl.us/hallandalehigh/