10, 2010.
Kim Eves
Director of Communications
Greenwich Board of Education
290 Greenwich Avenue
Greenwich, CT 06830
Phone: 203-625-7415
e mail: kim_eves@greenwich.k12.ct.us
Fax: 203-869-8003
COMMENT:
What Is Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund Hiding From The Single Family Home Owners Of Greenwich Who Pays For His Outrageous Salary?
When Is Sydney Freund Going To Learn That The Cover Up Is Always Worse Than The Crime.
A Greenwich Public Schools Official Releases A January 4th Internal BOE Memo About Director of Facilities Anthony Byrne And It Ends Up In Greenwich Time Cub Reporter Colin "BOE BROWN NOSE" Gustafson's Hands And Gets Mentioned On The Front Page Of The Greenwich Time.
Greenwich Time Cub Reporter Colin "BOE BROWN NOSE" Gustafson Is Just Handed The Memo, He Doesn't Have To File A Freedom Of Information Request Or Pay The Fifty Cent Charge For The Document.
But When Greenwich Roundup Requested The Same Document He Was Given The Runaround By Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund's Staff.
Then He Was Told That He Would Have To File A Freedom Of Information Request In Order To Get A Copy Of The January 4th Anthony Byrne Memo.
Then Greenwich Public Schools Employee Gina Williams Said She Had To Get Approval From Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund, Before She Could Release The The January 4th Anthony Byrne Memo.
The Board Of Education Officials Then Said The Request Had Been Sent Over To Town Attorney Wayne Fox In An Effort To Prevent It's Release To Greenwich Roundup.
Thumbs Down For Steve Anderson
A Message About The Anthony Byrne Memo Was Left For Greenwich Board of Education Chairman Steve Anderson, But He Was Apparently Too Afraid To Return The Call To Greenwich Roundup.
Greenwich Board of Education Chairman Steve Anderson Quickly Returned Greenwich Time Cub Reporter Colin "BOE BROWN NOSE" Gustafson Just Before January 28, 2010.
The Cowardly Steve Anderson Was All Too Happy To State To Colin "THE BOE BROWN NOSE" Gustafson That The Director of Facilities Anthony Byrne Had Tendered His Resignation, Effective Sometime In March. But He Is Scared To Death To Talk To The Real Reporter Who Broke The Story That Byrne Had Been Sent Packing Over A Month Ago.
Once Again, Greenwich Board of Education Chairman Steve Anderson Has Shown That He Lacks The Leadership That Is Needed To Protect The Interests Of Parents And Taxpayers.
Shame, Shame, Shame On Greenwich Board of Education Chairman Steve Anderson.
Thumbs Down For Sidney Freund
Messages Were Left Monday And Today About The Anthony Byrne Memo For Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund, But He Has Failed To Respond To Greenwich Roundups Hard Hitting Questions.
In Fact, School Officials Have Privately Told Greenwich Roundup That They Fear Speaking About The Memo That School District Employees Received On January 4th.
Some School Officals Said They Have Been Instructed Not To Give The Memo To Greenwich Roundup By Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund's Office.
Even Though A School Official Has Provided Access To The January 4th Anthony Byrne Memo To Greenwich Time Cub Reporter Colin "BOE BROWN NOSE Gustafson.
Rookie Reporter Gustafson Even Wrote About The January 4th Memo In A Front Page Above The Fold Greenwich Time Article.
Greenwich Town Attorney Wayne Fox Says That He Reviews All Board Of Education Freedom Of Information Requests That Are Sent By The Greenwich Public Schools, And That He Had Not Been Sent A FOI Request From Gustafson Or The Greenwich Time Concerning Anthony Byrne.
So One Of Two Things Is Happening Here.
Either A BOE Official Has Improperly And Illegally Provided The Anthony Byrne Memo To Greenwich Time Cub Reporter Colin "BOE BROWN NOSE" Gustafson.
Or
Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund Is Playing Favorites And Preventing A Board Of Education Critic From Having The Same Access To Public Records As The Greenwich Time Gets.
Today, Town Greenwich Town Attorney Wayne Fox Told Greenwich Roundup That The Anthony Byrne Memo Was Most Likely A Public Record, But He Could Not Definitively Rule On It Because Sidney Freund's Staff Had Only Sent Him The Freedom Of Information Request And Not The Memo.
So It Appears That Greenwich Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund Is Providing Easy Access To Public Documents To Media Reporters He He Likes And Preventing Access To Media Reporters Who Are Critical Of Him And His Administration.
Shame, Shame, Shame On Greenwich Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund
Thumbs Down For Kim Eves
A Message About The Anthony Byrne Memo Was Left For Greenwich Board of Education Communication Director Kim Eves.
Ms. Eves Also Failed To Respond To Greenwich Roundup's Message.
But One Probably Shouldn't Judge Ms. Eves To Harshly.
The Last Time Ms. Eves Talked About Anthony Byrne She Caught Up In The Middle Of Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund's Cover Up.
PLEASE SEE:
02/05/10 He Said She Said At The Board Of Ed
Often Times The Cover Up Is Worse Than The Crime
Superintendent says: 'No misconduct' in Byrne retirement
He Said:
“It has come to my attention that the news media has been provided with false and/or misleading information regarding Anthony Byrne’s employment status with the board,” Dr. Freund said in his statement. “Mr. Byrne is currently on leave pending a voluntary retirement when he reaches eligibility effective April 1, 2010. Mr. Byrne has not been terminated and there has been no finding that he engaged in any misconduct in the course of his employment by the board.”
She Said:
According to district Director of Communications Kim Eves, Mr. Byrne was placed on leave with pay Jan. 4.
He Clamed Up:
Asked why he was placed on leave, Dr. Freund said he couldn’t comment because it is a personnel matter......
=========================
Lastly, Thumbs Down For Colin Gustafson
A Message About The Anthony Byrne Memo Was Left For Greenwich Time Cub Reporter Colin "BOE BROWN NOSE" Gustafson, Who Like Board Of Education Officials Was Too Cowardly To Return The Phone Call.
Many Times, Greenwich Time Reporters Over The Years Have Called Greenwich Roundup To Ask Questions Or To Get A Quote, And Each And Every Time Greenwich Roundup Has Had The Professional Courtesy To Quickly Return The Call.
Last Summer When Hearst Newspaper Editor David McCumber Had Niel Vidgor Try And Do A Retaliatory Hatchet Job On Greenwich Roundup, This Reporter Was Man Enough To Pick Up The Phone And Respond To Each And Every Greenwich Time Question.
But Greenwich Time Cub Reporter Colin "BOE BROWN NOSE" Gustafson Whimped Out When Greenwich Roundup Called Up.
Colin All We Wanted To Know Is ....
How Did You Get So Much Special Access At The BOE?
Did You Have To Sleep With Someone To Get Such Special Treatment?
Was It Sidney?
Efforts To Reach Anthony Byrne, Whose Absence Began January 4th Were Unsuccessful
The Greenwich Board Of Education Has No Fear Of The Mainstream Media, But Is Very Afraid Of Citizen Journalists And Their Freedom Of Information Requests.
In Fact, Former Greenwich Superintendent Of Schools Betty Sternberg Abruptly Resigned, Because Of Citizen Journalist News Reports That Centered Around A Freedom Of Information Request.
LETS FLASHBACK TO
ONE MONTH BEFORE
BETTY STERNBERG'S
DEPARTURE NOTICE
Did Greenwich Education Reporter Colin Gustafson's Previously Work For This Newspaper?
Quotes From Horribly Confused School Administrators:
"It's perplexing," Susan Ellis,a Board of Education member, said at the board's Aug. 28 meeting.
"To have that juxtaposition, where writing is at a five-year high and reading a five-year low - it just doesn't compute," GHS headmaster Al Capasso said recently. "You have to do a considerable amount of reading and comprehension to be proficient at the writing section."
Previously Colin Gustafonson Filed This Report On The Failed Greenwich School Administrators:
Test scores offer mixed picture
By Colin Gustafson
Staff Writer
Article Launched: 08/26/2008 01:00:00 AM EDT
Middle-school reading scores reached five-year highs in the 2007-08 school year, while the portion of high school students proficient in writing increased by impressive margins.... blah... blah... blah..... I just write what school district administrator John Curtin tells me.... blah.... blah.... blah
And Greenwich Roundup Set The Record Straight By Reporting:
Only a fool would call these results mixed. Here's the truth. That giant sucking sound that taxpayers and parents hear is the sound of failed school administrators flushing their children down the drain.
Here is the failed report cards of our high paid school administrators.....
The Department Of Justice may soon visit the school district, because of the school administrator's failure to start to close the growing the achievement gap between white students and lower-income minorities.
The Greenwich School Administrators are repeatedly failing to address the longtime "gender gap" between boys and girls in math. and English.
Greenwich School Administrators allowed elementary and middle-school writing scores to fall for a second year on the Connecticut Mastery Test. (The percentage of students at goal tumbled from 81.2 in 2006, to 79.8 in 2007, to 77.2 in 2008. The "goal" to be satisfactory performance.
That means that 23% of Greenwich elementary and middle-school students can not satisfactorily pass the State Of Connecticut's writing test.)
Elementary scores were a disaster. Only North Mianus School was a success story, as it was the only elementary program in the district where proficiency levels increased on the math, reading and writing portions of the CMT.
In 2007-08, Hamilton Avenue School posted the lowest proficiency levels of all elementary schools on every CMT test. It also saw the biggest year-to-year declines in proficiency, with the percentage of at goal students in the writing CMT plummeting from 72.7 percent to 48.1 percent between 2007 and 2008.
The number of black students reaching goal in that test dropped to 32.3 percent in 2008, lower than the at-goal percentages of Hispanics (54.2), whites (82.8) and Asians (87.9).The poorest and most disadvantaged members of Greenwich Society are being screwed over as failed school administrators cash big fat paychecks.
Now Colin Files This Report On The Failed Greenwich School Administrators:
Greenwich school officials were incredulous when they saw how sharply 10th-grade reading scores had dropped on the most recent sitting of the state's Connecticut Academic Performance Test.
The drop was so sharp - down from 71.6 percent reaching "goal" in 2007 to 61.3 percent this year, more than a 10-point decline and a five-year low - that one school district administrator, John Curtin, initially suspected there had been an error in scoring the exams of Greenwich students.
There had not.
If not an error, perhaps other districts with a similar demographic make-up had fared similarly, he thought. Almost none had.
"We haven't found a smoking gun," Curtin said recently. "We were an anomaly."
The decline comes on the heels of slow-and-steady progress in the number of GHS students achieving goal, which, in the four years from 2004 to 2007, jumped from 67.3, to 69, to 71 and 71.6.
There was also a sharp drop in the percentage of 10th-graders scoring at the "advanced" level, which fell more than 13 points, to 28.2 percent this year, from 41.4 percent last year. Students scoring at the "proficient" level also dropped, though by a smaller margin, from 94.1 to 91.1.
The decline in performance is in sharper focus now that the state Department of Education has cited the district for failing to make "adequate yearly progress," in part, due to lackluster reading results at Greenwich High and Central Middle schools.....
.....the district's English coordinator will work closely with GHS faculty this year to ensure that "they're covering all their bases" in English instruction, Curtin said.
There will be no overhaul to the curriculum, however, in response to what could be a one-year blip in reading performance, he added. "Sometimes anomalous things happen one year that don't happen again the next."
The Board of Education will meet Oct. 23 to discuss a yet-to-be-released "monitoring report" on reading scores
Let me save you some time. Ametuer Education Reporter Colin Gustafonson only talked to failed school leaders about their poor performance in his one sided and biased article.
Please See:
08/27/08 Greenwich Time News Links
08/27/08 GREENWICH ROUNDUP READER RESPONDS: Greenwich School's Test Scores
08/29/08 Is Michael Bodson Parading Colin Gustafson Around With A Nose Ring?
09/07/08 Multi-Million-Dollar School Administration Failures Have Now Led To Town Service Cut Backs
=========================
Bill "The Scribe Of Greenwich" Clark says......
I agree.Can you find out what happened to the June survey than many of us filled out about the educational system here in town? One of the questions was, should Betty Sternberg lose her job? I was told at one point that she had agreed to resign if that's what the survey said.The survey was machine-readable, filled out with #2 pencils (like the SAT exam). Surely the results are now available over 3 1/2 months later?Oh - and if you check out the Hartford Courant web site for today (9/21/08), you will see a video clip on the front page, "Greenwich Losses Affect Everyone." It features yours truly and First Selectman Peter Tesei. Is there any way you can download the clip to "Greenwich Roundup?" I think your readers would find it interesting.
Comment:
That survey may be stored inside Betty Sternberg's Office safe, unless the Greenwich Board Of Education has ordered it shredded.
Seriously, the survey is a public document that anyone can request via the freedom of information laws. The Board of education is required to respond less than 5 Business days.
On the fifth day, if there is no response then a parent or taxpayer could ask the state freedom Of information commission to force the Board Of Education to release the document.
Maybe, Betty will get fined by the freedom of information guys like Jim Lash was. Or maybe it will Nancy since she is the the Board Of Education Chairman.
The reason there is so many problems at the Board Of Education is because there is no transparency and accountability.
=========================
Mainstream Greenwich Time Education Reporter Colin Gustafson And Betty Sternberg Both Get Big Fat F's.
Colin Gets An F for letting The Board Of Education Spoon Feed Greenwich Parents Misinformation About The Harris Survey Via His Pitiful Reporting.
An A For Citizen Journalist Bill Clark For Going Down To The School Administration Building And Actually Picking Up A Copy Of The Harris Survey And Independently Interpreting The Data With Out BOE Communication Director Kim Eves Spin.
If Greenwich Time Editor David Warner Was Worth His Salt He Would Walk Over To Cub Reporter Colin Gustafson Desk And Say, "Show Me Your Copy Of The Harris Survey."
And When Armature Reporter Colin Gustafson Could Only Show Him Board Of Education Press Releases About The Survey. Colin Would Be Shown The Door And Given Information On How To Reach The Other Fired Greenwich Time Employees At Our Greenwich .
Why Isn't Greenwich Time Editor David Warner Smart enough to hire real talent like Citizen journalist Bill "The Scribe Of Greenwich" Clark who is not afraid to bring the Greenwich school parents and the single family homeowners this exclusive news story:
By Bill "The Scribe Of Greenwich" Clark
Your scribe has been down to the Board of Ed, and has picked up a copy of the Harris survey that was carried out in May and June of this year. As you may recall, dear reader, the survey was machine-readable, having been filled out with #2 lead pencils just as we all used to do with the SATs. Theoretically, the raw results should have been available within 24 hours. But that's not the way these surveys work.
Clearly the public cannot be trusted with the raw data. It has to be massaged and obfuscated first. If certain results are not as wished, a portion of the surveys can simply be declared unusable. If a certain issue - e.g., the level of dissatisfaction with the superintendant - is too one-sided, the "impact index" must be applied to mitigate this fact. Other factors used to massage the data are called the "incidence rate" and the "penalty", which must be multiplied together to provide the numerator of the "impact score", and so on and so forth. Finally, if a certain segment of the population survey (in this case, community leaders and RTM members) is wildly anti-Betty, you can just decide not to report most of their results at all.
The survey was filled out by four general categories of "stakeholders" (shades of Wall Street!): students, teachers, parents, and community leaders. The students, being clearly not yet fully educated by definition, were not allowed to register an opinion of Betty. But the other three categories were, and in each of these groups Betty came in dead last in the "satisfaction" sweepstakes.
The scale used by Harris is the usual 1 to 10. As we all recall from our own schooldays, a grade of 60% was a low pass - a "D". 70% was a "C"; 80% was a "B"; and 90% or better was an "A". Anything below 60% was an automatic "F".
The teachers and staff gave the school system an overall satisfaction rating of 66% - a D+, let us say. The highest satisfaction for them was with the school atmosphere, parental support, the local principal, their own careers, and the students. These grades averaged out to just under 80% - call it a B-.
But Betty? She got the lowest rating of all at 50%, closely followed by the School Board at 52% and the central administration at the Havemeyer Building of 54%. Oops. Looks like they all got an F.
Betty did better with the parents, oddly enough. The parents' overall satisfaction rating was 76% - a C+. But Betty again got the lowest rating from them, at 57%. Oops. Another F.
The community leaders had an overall satisfaction rate of 70%, down from 83% just two years ago. That's a solid C, folks. Not a great grade for the Town of Greenwich school system. And who, of course, got the lowest rating in the survey? Why, Betty, of course - 54%. Oops again. Yet another F.
The only group allowed to rate the School Board as a separate category were the community leaders. Only two years ago, the level of community dissatisfaction with the Board (why does Harris suddenly reverse the reporting methodology like this?!) was 17%. Now it has soared to 39%. Harris deems this to be a "Negative" trend. No sh*t, Sherlock. For this they get the big bucks?
So there you have it, dear reader: Betty gets a resounding "F" from teachers, parents, and the community. But she continues to draw her obscene salary and benefits package of well over a quarter of a million dollars. Is there something wrong with this picture? Are we living in Greenwich or Wonderland? Or is there any difference between them?
Greenwich Gossip - http://greenwich-gossip.blogspot.com/
COMMENT FROM GREENWICH ROUNDUP:
Definition: Bill Clark » A journalist worth his salt
Many would-be amateur journalists like Colin Gustafson seem intimidated by the Board Of Education.
Thank God Greenwich Taxpayers have the Scribe Of Greenwich to alert them to what is really happening at the BOE.
You can't trust the sloppy and incomplete reporting at the Greenwich Time, but you can trust the factual writings of Bill Clark so do the smart thing and subscribe to Greenwich Gossip's RSS Feed.
=========================
Now Contrast And Compare How The Greenwich "We Love Betty More Than The Kids" Citizen Finally Reported On The Survey In Town After Every Newspaper In Town Followed Citizen Journalist Bill Clark's Freedom Of Information Request And Reported The Bad Results On Their Front Pages And Home Pages.
Poll Points to Dissatisfaction in Schools
By Anne W. Semmes
Article Last Updated: 10/10/2008 10:05:21 AM EDT
....."It was quite a big drop," said Dr. Betty Sternberg, superintendent of schools. Sternberg, who took up her post prior to the administering of the 2006 Harris Poll, revealed the survey findings in a press conference held before last Thursday's regular meeting of the Board of Education.
With her to explain the findings was John Curtin, assistant superintendent of research and evaluation.....
Sternberg called the poll a "courageous undertaking" by the Board of Education. "Its better to know what people are thinking, than not," she said.
Only two other districts in the state administered the survey, which carried a price tag of $22,000, a factor, no doubt, in that only 200 districts nationwide employ it.
"We see in the results overall satisfaction is a concern particularly with adults," Sternberg said. She called the results "disappointing but not surprising." ...... blah ..... blah ... Blah ....
Please Note That....
Betty Sternberg's Flurry Of Panicked Board Of Education Press Releases And An Unprecedented Emergency Press Conference That Was Held Before The Last BOE Meeting Was In Response To Bill Clark's Freedom Of Information Request And His Blog Post.
But Greenwich Mainstream Reporters Are Soooooooooo Much Better Than Bloggers And Citizen Journalists --- Yeah right.
=========================
10/17/08 Greenwich Time News Links Or Goodbye Betty
Sternberg has announced her intention to step down at the end of the school year
....With a Board of Education vote looming next week on whether to renew her contract with the school system, Sternberg said she decided on Monday night to not seek renewal of her employment agreement, which expires June 30, 2009.....
....Several school board members described Sternberg's decision Wednesday night as a surprise, and said the superintendent had not faced internal pressure from individual members to step down....
..."This was her own decision," said Board Chairwoman Nancy Weissler, who was on the four-person search committee that recommended Sternberg for the position in 2006. The others were current member Steven Anderson and two former members, Ginny Gwynn and Bill Kelly.
Weissler said she will begin selecting members for a new search committee to find Sternberg's successor following the body's Oct. 23 meeting.....
Please See:
She's Gone!!! (Except She's Not)
Our topic today is Betty Sternberg, of course. A scant few days before the Board of Ed was to meet to review her contract, Betty has bailed. The Board raises its hands in professed surprise.
"We had no idea," is the gist of their comments.
If so, they are even more mentally challenged than your scribe has previously supposed.
Practically since the day she came, Betty has been receiving negative reviews from parents, teachers, and the community at large. These were recently codified in the Harris Survey in which Betty received a failing grade in every single category from every single constituency.
And so she has jumped before she was pushed. And the Board of Education is taken by surprise? Spare me.
The real problem, of course, is that she will continue to be around to plague us and drain our Town treasury dry right up to the middle of next year. Why the Board of Ed doesn't just buy out her contract and give her the boot is one of life's great mysteries. Perhaps they're curious to see just how much more havoc she can wreak before the door finally hits her in the rear end next June 30.
Your scribe predicts that she will do considerably more damage to our already-reeling school system before then. She is like* the pilot of a burning airplane who has no parachute. She is certain to crash and burn. Will she head for an empty field, or, more likely, yet another school full of young children?
She has already all but destroyed Hamilton Avenue, and Glenville School exists in name only. That's two down in two years. But she still has almost a year to go, so she has time to target one more school here in Town.
Will it be New Lebanon? Parkway? North Street? Julian Curtiss? Cos Cob? North Mianus? Dundee? Riverside? Old Greenwich? How about the middle schools? Or perhaps even Greenwich High School itself?
How many more talented faculty members and administrators can she drive away in the next nine months? How many more falling test scores can we expect to see between now and then?
Since Betty is unable to do the honorable thing and just resign immediately, the Board should simply bite the bullet and fire her. By any standards of job performance, she has been and continues to be a miserable failure.
Why should she stay on the job even one more day?
That is a rhetorical question, dear reader. Everyone in Town, with the obvious exception of the Board of Ed, knows the answer. She should not.
*N.B. This is what is known as a simile, a literary device that is not to be confused with objective fact. It is meant to help clarify something to the reader, in this case the gravity of the ever-burgeoning train wreck in our Town's educational system. In no way is it meant to suggest that Betty knows how to pilot an airplane, or even how to steer one.
Breaking News ....
The Clueless Greenwich Citizen And Greenwich Post Have Been Totally Unaware Of Betty Sternberg's Resignation For Two Days, Because They Have Posted Nothing About This News Story.
==================================
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