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.