Lessons for life...

"I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. 

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the ways he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas lights.

I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life. 

I've learned that making a "living" is not the same as making a "life." 

I've learn that life sometimes give you a second chance. I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. 

I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. 

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. 

I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. 

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. 

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

 ~Maya Angelou

Thanks Neighbors!

Thanks to the parents of D181 for recognizing our blog! 

"Not only does it appear that D107's board of education has its share of problems, but they too are going to have a new superintendent soon, since their current one has just announced his impending retirement.  We encourage you to read some of the posts on just how bad the administrative situation got in D107 before a detailed survey was finally commissioned and an outside auditor was hired to figure out if representations made by the superintendent regarding Common Core alignment were true.  You will be shocked by what you read."

Transparency and accountability are also two of reasons we blog. Parent blogs are popping up all over as parents are no longer willing to take a back seat in regard to the education of their children. 

This D181 blog post about the Pleasantdale blog can be found here.  Click the image to make it larger.

Breaking News!!

Mark Fredisdorf, who has been at the helm of Pleasantdale School District 107 for more than a decade, will retire after the next school year.

The School Board approved a retirement agreement with Fredisdorf May 20 after a closed session at the end of a contentious four-hour meeting. Fredisdorf has been chided by some board members for several months for not following their directives.

Read the entire story here!

http://westernsprings.suntimes.com/2014/05/22/pleasantdale-district-107-superintendent-retire-next-school-year/

Mission Accomplished?

Not quite....because a lot of damage can be done between now and then.

Caution! Directional Shift Ahead!

It has been in the making for about five months now but it became official last night... a new board majority has been born!

The new board majority consists of Doug Gilman, Mark Mirabile, Lisa Houk and Beth Tegtmeier.

Nearly every major vote at the May meeting went down 4 to 3.

It was truly politics at its finest.

Superintendent Mark Fredisdorf requested that board members who wanted officer positions submit a memo to him no later than Thursday, May 15. Up until the morning of May 21st, only two memos had been submitted for board officer positions - Kristin Violante and Gina Scaletta-Nelson.

Clearly this put Fredisdork into panic mode! So after phone calls, emails, or the ususal private meetings, a new alliance was solidified and by late morning, at the 11th hour, Doug Gilman and Mark Mirabile submitted memos for board officer roles.

Board officer selection is always the first thing on the agenda. BUT WAIT!!!

Beth Tegtmeier (who has either arrived late, left early or not even shown up at all for the last several montly meetings) would not be able to make it to the meeting in time for board officer elections. Apparently, according to Gilman, "Tegtmeier wanted to be present for board officer elections." Interesting. No one else got that memo. She didn't care about being there for the RtI or curriculum council updates, ELA or math audits,  or any other vote or topic of substance. She wanted to be there to cast her usual token vote to support Fredisdorf in the officer elections. Seriously Beth? You are a disgrace to every single person that voted for you to represent their interests on the board of education. And you care about kids? Get real! The only person you care about is Fredisdorf. 

So Gilman, in his ultimate power as president, decided that the board would not select new officers until she arrived. Interesting that those type of agreements used to be up to the full board. Not anymore... Tegtmeier waltzed in at 9:37 p.m.,  over three and a half hours late. At this point, why bother showing up? 

Nominations for Board President went to Kim Barker (who works harder than anyone on the board and has literally put her heart and soul into the district supporting students, parents and staff alike - always looking out for everyone's best interest including taxpayers) and Doug Gilman. 

Gilman was re-elected board president for a second term in a four to three vote by the new majority.

Nominations for Board Vice President went to Gina Scaletta-Nelson and Mark Mirabile. Scaletta-Nelson was ousted by Gilman's back door dealing and politically laced delay tactics. 

The role of vice president is really insignificant. The VP does absolutely nothing unless the board president is absent from a meeting and then the VP will step in and run the meeting. In the last year three years it has happened once, however, Gilman did not want to chance Scaletta-Nelson taking the reigns should he have to miss meetings in the future. The role of VP is really not a big deal... it's just the way the entire election process was handled and the principle of the matter. It's something Crook County politicians do, not necessarily suburban school boards. 

While we have to say that Gilman does a fair job of running the meetings and is usually calm and polite, (it was nice to hear him apologize to his fellow board members for last month's meeting); his team change was pretty much a slap in the face to his running mates and those that supported him and his promises during his election campaign.

The new board majority selected the STARR Assessment to replace the ITBS because as everyone knows, Fredisdorf is afraid to compare apples to apples. In other words, he does not want to compare D107 to the LT feeder schools. LT had hoped that D107 would join the entire feeder system by taking NWEA's MAP test, but the new majority gave a collective middle finger to the high school and those that want a side by side comparison to their neighboring districts by choosing something completely different.

If you recall, Gilman often spoke about wanting an assessment that would allow D107 to compare to the feeders during his election campaigns. Promise broken.

We could go on and on, but we will link the meeting when it's posted so you could see for yourself the new majority in action. Oh and when you do, pay close attention to Fredisdorf when he talks. It is more than obvious he talks in circles often confusing himself. You would think that he'd learned by now to keep his mouth shut, but he just likes to impress himself with his nonsense.

Sorry to those that dreamed of and banked on a new dawn for D107 and supported making the district better. It's just not going to happen anytime soon...at least not for another year or so according to Lisa Houk on the May 1st meeting tape ;)

Cha-CHING!

Over the past several year, through FOIAs, audits and investigations, the board of education has learned of the woeful state of affairs at Pleasantdale.

Rather than terminate Superintendent Mark Fredisdorf immediately, the board majority is trying to shore up his sinking ship by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on materials, administrators, consultants, educators, etc. to do the job Fredisdorf is paid $250,000 to do! Cha-CHING!

It recently came to light that Pleasantdale has no curriculum in place in language arts. When asked to provide a copy of the Language Arts curriculum, Fredisdorf  handed board members a pile of worksheets, rubrics and assessments (see photo below.) None of which made any sense or was organized in any kind of way. With all the money we spend on our technology experts, about $200,000 a year, you would think this pile of crap would be digitized! Cha-CHING!

The last time a a reading series was purchased at the elementary school was in 1999. Typically, in a good school district, a new series is purchased every seven years. Who is to blame for that?  District leader Mark Fredisdorf and building principal Matt Vandercar.

The board of education recently approved the purchase of HMH series called Journeys for $138,000.  According to Fredisdorf, it is the largest expenditure on a series in district history! This K-6 series, that many experts in the education world said was a complete waste of money, is actually an old series retrofitted with the words "Common Core" slapped on top to generate sales.

Experts say now is not the time to purchase any new materials claiming to be Common Core aligned. They also say that this series does not have a writing component and should only be used as a supplement. So, that's $138,000 down the drain! Cha-CHING!



How did the district choose the Journeys series? Well, for one thing, Carol Jago, who is a district consultant and is listed as an author of the the series for HMH is related to our curriculum director Nannette Ochs. They are cousins. Supposedly, she did not receive any money from HMH to say it was Common Core aligned even though she is featured on their website as an author. Yeah, right. Sound unethical and improper? We think so.

A recent investigation into improper testing practices has netted the district a new testing series awaiting board approval in May.

You might be wondering why the district has chosen a testing series that once again no other feeder school is using and few people have heard of. It's because Fredisdorf is afraid to compare our students with neighboring schools that feed into Lyons Township High School. Department chairs from LT were contacted through email and via phone and indicated that they would like Pleasantdale to use the same test (NWEA MAP) that all the other feeder schools are using so they would have additional datas point for incoming freshman. Fredisdorf probably wouldn't be able to game the MAP assessment the way he games the ITBS test results, but that is a whole other story. $16,743...Cha-CHING!

The nightmare that resulted from a lack of Common Core alignment/implementation in math has and will cost the district over a hundred thousand dollars for just mathematics alone!! The recent audit cost over $20,000 just for the math portion. The ELA audit is currently around $4,000 and hasn't even begun. Cha-CHING!

Fredisdorf contracted with Claran Einfeldt, a math consultant for $1750 PER DAY to fix the problem he created. Is the district getting a good deal? The answer is NO. There are a lot of consultants that are a lot less expensive, but they probably cannot be manipulated by Fredisdorf. You have to pay a lot of money to get people to do what you want. This consultant was asked to provide a list of five public school districts that she is currently working with. While she did provide a list, not one school on the list is using her any longer. Hmmm....

So far the district will rack up over $17,500 in expenses for her through June 10. She would like to do approximately 40 days in our district. Are you doing the math? That is another $70,000 for ONLY 40 days of work! Cha-CHING!

You might be wondering what is going on with the RtI program in our district and so are we. All we know is that this has been an agenda item since last June...12 months and still nothing to show for it. It took the diligent work of a board member to shed light on the fact that there is no formal program in place. Two LADSE employees, Sheri Wernsing and Sue Gallagher, under the direction of Fredisdorf (he is on the executive board there) tried to say we had a program in place, but they were quickly discredited during the February board meeting. Result: The district must now hire a full time RtI coordinator and reading specialist for the middle school. More money being spend because Fredisdorf did not even know about RtI or the law requiring it. We're not sure what that is going to cost the district, but it is likely to be about $40K. Cha-CHING!

For the last two summers the district has spent over $111,000 on summer work. You might be wondering what that entailed. So are we. A large portion of it was used to align the math and LA curriculum to the common core, but we know that that never happened. This was evidenced but the teacher survey results here and the recent math audit. Tomorrow, the curriculum council is expected to approve summer hours yet again to re-do what has been re-done twice now. You know what that means don't you? CHA-CHING!

Pleasantdale School District 107 is now hiring an Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning because Fredisdorf has not done his job. What is this going to cost? Approximately $150,000. CHA-CHING!

Due to recent pension laws that are due to take effect in June, administrators all over the state are seeking to get salary increases with multi-year contracts; our district is no exception. What will that cost the district? Well, that is to be decided at the May board meeting, but one thing is for sure...CHA-CHING!

Our condolences to the staff when they go to contract negotiations next year. When Fredisdorf, through his inadequacies, gets done raping the district, there likely won't be any money left for them.