For the second time in as many months Dr. Scott Clay, EMSD#63’s Superintendent has chosen to cease communication directly with this blog site. Says it’s not in the districts interest. The experiment has come to an end. We have found out how much confrontational-stretch the district can take. On June 23rd I published What was the EMSD#63 Board Thinking? A asked at the end: “Was this experiment in open communication dumb or brilliant?”
Time for you to make the call!
Dr. Clay has chosen to continue blogging from the safety of the district’s blog site: http://emsd63.edublogs.org/. Although you will not find confrontation there, you will be able to read EMSD#63’s latest PR.
For the last few months I have been fortunate to receive videos taken at EMSD#63’s General Board Meetings. These allow me an opportunity to “virtually attend” Board meetings without having to waste three valuable hours of my life.
The Board had just finished listening to Business Manager David Bein’s expertly delivered budget presentation when Mr. Levy asked about the creation of two new budget line item numbers covering the administrative and legal cost of FOIA requests to the district.
Near the end of his comments, Mr. Levy stated that these recent costs could have paid for two additional teachers. Of course, this statement must be true because neither Board President Jane Wojtkiewicz, Superintendent Scott Clay or Business Manager Bein chose to challenge Mr. Levy’s assertion.
Assuming Mr. Levy’s comment to be accurate, maybe he would like to tell us all about the recent FOIA request that generated the District’s Scariano, Himes and Petrarca legal bill; the one he was referring to.
Dr. Clay has again invited me in writing to meet with him in private at his office to discuss my “concerns.” He believes a face-to-face discussion would somehow magically assuage my fears while furthering a better understanding between the district and myself. And what fears would that be? The fears that EMSD#63 will continue down the road to paralyzing insolvency and ultimately to yet another tax-increase referendum in 2012. In fact, the process of softening tax-payer resistance has already begun, dear reader.
Now, what could Dr. Clay possibly say to us behind closed doors that couldn’t be said in public?
The problem for Dr. Clay and the School Board is not that I lack understanding but that I have discovered facts which compel a contrary opinion; a contradictory view they would like to silence or spin away.
Upon review of the “messages”, it occurred to me that a point-by-point rebuttal of Dr. Clay’s assertions would not serve the community’s interest, nor would it move us any closer to continuous open dialogue between EMSD#63 and this or any other blog site. So, I've chosen to direct my comments in this post to two items of disagreement and to one item to which we can agree upon.
I disagree with Dr. Clay when he states that my main concern is “to convince the public that the Board of Education wastes money in order to prevent any future referendums from being passed.” I do not have to convince the public of anything. The District and the School Board are doing a fine job already. Let me refer all readers to a prior blog posting: Another $735,000 Down the Toilet and let’s not forget the Gym Equipment scandal under the prior administration.
I disagree with Dr. Clay when he cites my statement “referring to a $5,000 expenditure out of a $40 million+ budget from four years ago as a ‘boondoggle’, as an exaggeration.” Dr. Clay’s flippant attitude when referring to any non-required expenditure of our hard earned tax dollars, no matter how insignificant he may believe those dollars to be, or no matter when they were spent following the last referendum, is an insult to every EMSD#63 taxpayer now struggling to keep his or her head above water in these difficult times.
And quite frankly, an immediate and public apology in writing to all EMSD#63 taxpayers is in order!
I agree with Dr. Clay when he publically and forthrightly stated in his June 15, 2010 2:52 PM “message”: “Also Mr. Butterly, you really seem to be missing the point that immersion is considered the most effective way of learning a language.”
By doing so, Dr. Clay has finally, openly, and in my opinion, effectively, put an end to the costly lie that English As a Second Language ( ESL) is the most “effective” or “best practice” for teaching English to EMSD#63 non-English speaking students.
Finally, as part of my June 14, 2010 11:36 AM response “message” to Dr. Clay, I stated:
“Dr. Clay, I seriously doubt if your language skills progressed much beyond the useful phrase level in such short a time. I could be wrong. The important questions of course are: Did you continue your studies when you returned to the District? Under what conditions did you use your new language skills on behalf of District #63? How often?”
As a follow-up to that comment, I submitted a FOIA #100618-001 request to determine if Dr. Clay or Ms. Glickman continued their Spanish Language studies and if those studies where paid for by the taxpayers. The FOIA and response is presented below.
