McHenry County Blog

Last Thursday night the Huntley School District’s Parents Special Education Advisory Committee met.

It was under the shadow of Huntley’s Special Education Director’s Cheryl Kalkirtz’ recent unexplained parting of the ways with District 158.

Now, the district has its 3rd (albeit interim) Director in seven months, Karen Aylward.

Although Special Ed parents invest a lot of time communicating with special ed administrators, there was no explanation of Kalkritz’ absence from the man she reports to, Associate Superintendent Terry Awrey, who attended the meeting.

“Our resolve to inspire, challenge and empower has never been stronger,” he told those gathered.

The meeting was evidently something for the administrators to “get through,” as more than one mentioned goal of ending it by 7:30 so they could get home.

One parent specifically asked,

“What’s the rush to get out of here at 7:30?”

She then said,

“We’re here, you’re here.”

Parents started asking polite questions after Aylward introduced herself as the Special Ed Director pending board approval. She repeated it three times in two brief paragraphs as if the roomful of staff and parents were unaware. Aylward when asked, confirmed she did not have an endorsement for Special Education Director.

Aylward now makes $65,383.93 as Assistant Director of Special Education for working 215 days. I haven’t figured out how much her salary will increase in the new interim directorship position.

At the meeting, a parent asked about accounting for the (Federal Stimulus) ARRA funds.  Parents bristled when Aylward pronounced,

“All of that can be FOIA’d.”

Aylward said,

“My goal is to spend it the way it is supposed to.”

A parent in the audience then asked,

“Isn’t it your duty?

Parents started asking polite questions after Aylward introduced herself as the new Special Ed Director, pending board approval. She repeated it three times in two brief paragraphs as if the roomful of staff and parents were unaware.

After another question Associate Supt. Awrey gave Aylward a gesture to move on with the agenda. That’s when Aylward said she has to stick to the agenda and questions and answers are not on the agenda.

One parent sitting near Awrey asked Awrey why he signaled Aylward to not take questions.

Awrey denied he did this, but insisted they had to stick to the agenda.

Parents Linda Betzold and Sara DiFucci made a joint presentation on autism. One person attending described is as “an incredible performance, rich in content, holding the audience’s interest and at times making the entire room laugh.”

A loud round of applause followed their talks.

After the rendition, parents began asking questions and making comments. Parents who were new to publicly speaking out asked questions and commented.

One of the first parents commenting said how there was a “huge lack of information and communication.”

Another asked if items and notices of meetings could be included in the newsletter.  One parent pointed out how the district uses the Honeywell Emergency Alert system to notify parents how their student’s lunch card money balance is low, so why not use it to notify parents with IEP’s about the PAC meeting?

A parent described how administrators don’t want to be responsive to sensible suggestions even when they are repeated again and again. She pointed out how administrators have special ed staff members on their web site who haven’t been employed in one instance for two years and one of more instances not employed for 18 months.

A parent said,

“With all due respect (Supt.) Dr.(John) Burkey never comes to our meetings.

“It’s become a joke among parents how he runs and hides after board meetings.

“Can you find out if he will be here for our next meeting?”

Another parent talked about the staff members’ workload – caseload and said,

“Lauren Smith was driving it, but this doesn’t mean she knows what she’s talking about.”

Lauren Smith presented recommendations on Special Ed staffing to the board from a committee of administrators and teachers. Parents found out the committee members did not meet before Smith presented the committee’s recommendation to the board.

Plenty of parents talked to Awrey after the meeting for quite some time. Some parents wonder what will be passed onto the Superintendent.

Meanwhile Kalkirtz is no longer employed, even though the board has taken no action on her departure.

I’m not an expert in personnel policy.

Maybe it is customary in school districts for contractual certified administrators to leave without board action.

At one point in the Financial Advisory Committee meeting, Huntley School District Controller Altmayer tried to persuade the committee that special needs children receive $10 million  more than what comes in for special education.  (Subject addressed here.)

Parents in the audience were visibly angered by this misleading assertion.

It is apparent to the parents their children should receive a proportion of school expenditures by virtue they are 1,300 students (per Altmayer) out of about 8,600 students enrolled.

The parents, of course, also pay property taxes and State Aid to Education comes to the district, based on student attendance.

If their students attend the district’s schools, the district receives money from the state, regardless of whether they are regular or special ed students.

The parents are intelligent and some are as well-educated as the administrators.

They can figure out that 1300 students comprise 15% of the district’s 8,600.

When the money specifically designated as Special Ed from the state and federal grants are added to this, they know their students are being financially shortchanged.

Not just in dollars, which is pretty obvious), but they can see it in the lack of services delivered.

Sara DiFucci, a Special Ed Mom in the district took issue with Altmayer’s numbers.

She pointed out that what he classifies as “Special Ed” includes services that are provided to all students.

Not all of the extensive social workers’ services, counseling or psychologist services for example go to Special Ed students. His numbers always assume 100% of these services and others are exclusively consumed by Special Ed students and 0% is used by regular education students.

Teenage pregnancy counseling, homelessness issues, socialization of grade school kids and many home life issues occur for both regular and Special Ed students.

Parents have asked for transparency in the form of a comprehensive, line item detailed Special Education budget.

When parents have asked administrators for a copy of the Special Ed budget, they were referred to the no longer employed Special Ed director.

When they would then ask the Special Ed Director, she apparently received direction to refer parents back to Altmayer.

You can imagine that such a daisy chain does not result in parents’ trusting fiscal services.

Altmayer said he wasn’t able to make his computer display the presentation he had for the meeting.

He referred to it as a “link up problem.”

On the one hand Altmayer said:

“I’m just the finance guy.”

Later on, the discussion got onto the budget agenda item.

Altmayer was advocating his spending priorities, which is to spend more on computer and technical upgrades.

He emphasized how he has the entire staff (including teachers and service providers in Special Ed) 100% buying into his budget priorities.

The parents who work with their students’ staff have a different story.

= = = = =

See also Part 1 and Part 2.

You might have had a teacher or two who told you to check your work before turning it in.

There are probably a few teachers in Huntley School District 158 who are either recoiling in dismay or laughing at how former teachers, now administrators in their district, have a different standard for themselves when they become administrators.

In this case, several parents, including Mrs. Sara DiFucci, seem far better at reading comprehension and mathematics than administrators who prepare and (are supposed to) read the documents given to the board and public.

In Thursday night’s board meeting, DiFucci pointed out a large error in special education material Supt. John Burkey submitted to the school board. It was in a document in which administrators added up their spending list for the Federal Stimulus ARRA IDEA funds.

There was a $295,576 addition error.

You can see the error on page 464 of 507 of the November board meeting packet.

If you scan and do a quick addition of the numbers on the first page of the report, say the first ten line items, you can see how they add up to much more than $800,000 (click to enlarge page 464).

Quick rounding is a way professionals and educators—even 5th graders in my son’s homework last year—look at numbers to see if there are any obvious errors.

Burkey’s board packet presented a spending total of $801,660.81 for 89 items in the initial request for Special Ed money from the Federal Stimulus Package.

The problem is that the first ten items on the two page list total more than $840,000.

A casual look of ten items lets you see there is an error.

Item	Precise No.	Quick Round, 000′s
1	$295,576	300
2	114,286	100
3	199,733	200
4	36,900	40
5	35,000	40
6	35,000	40
7	34,620	30
8	33,500	30
9	30,000	30
10	27,000	30
Above total	$841,615	840

Of course, Burkey probably doesn’t look at documents like this closely before they go to the board. That’s what staff are for.

Other administrators apparently didn’t bother either.

Later on in the meeting, board member Aileen Seedorf asked Controller Mark Altmayer if he knew of the large error.

Altmayer’s reply was interesting.

Without saying who was responsible, the Controller emphatically said it wasn’t his document, emphasizing he didn’t know about the error.

Sources within Huntley 158 have let it be known that multiple administrators knew of the error before Thursday night.

Is it possible, as top financial guy, Altmayer was left out of the loop and this wasn’t discussed at Burkey’s weekly cabinet meetings of which he’s part?

One might think that an expenditure as contentious as this would make that agenda.

To be fair to the new Special Ed (Special Services) Director Cheryl Kalkirtz, I have it on reasonably good authority the error was not of her making.

Interesting is no administrator was willing to raise his or her hand and say it was not Burkey’s mistake.

Burkey in the past has seemed proud of how he has a C.P.A. as Controller.

No comments about the C.P.A. test Altmayer passed Thursday night.

A fair question to ask is “What’s the point of having a C.P.A. as Controller if the district’s isn’t taking care that public documents with financial numbers in them are carefully reviewed?”

In any event, someone dropped the ball. In fact, the total for the proposed Special Education expenditures from the Federal Stimulus Package aren’t even in the ballpark.

In years past, Huntley’s board had Larry Snow and Tony Quagliano on it.

Both loved to review financial documents.

Snow, of course, lost to Mike Skala and Quagliano decided to retire.

There’s still a CPA on the board, Keven Gentry, but he apparently didn’t catch this mistake while reading the board packet. There are also a couple of M.B.A.’s on the board now. But, considering the District 158 administration dumped 507 pages into the board packet, there’s no reason they should have discovered the mistake.

The only board member who gave an indication of caring about the large error was Aileen Seedorf, who has been the one bird dogging on Special Education matters.

The six-member board majority expressed no concern at the mistake.

I will note, however, when state officials wanted a legislator not to find something, they smothered them in so much paper the odds of finding something that might be amiss were minuscule.

Burying people in paper is a tried and proven way to keep people from finding something.

Supt. Burkey didn’t so much as offer a superficial apology for the mistake. He didn’t say a word.

A $295,576 error would seem to me to be worth a mention.

Teachers help our children learn how errors should be admitted to when made.

It’s not as if anyone was expecting a Tiger Woods-like “I regret those transgressions with all of my heart” type of apology or offer of repentance.

An insincere “We regret the inconvenience this error may have caused anyone” that you might associate with a utility, bank or cable provider would have been in the something – anything category.

The example to teachers in the audience was when you make a large error admit to nothing and don’t say a word.

Special Ed director Kalkirtz apparently reports to Associate Supt. Terry Awrey.

Awrey, like all other administrators, sat silent, not volunteering a word lest it be thought he was at fault.

Showing teachers that neither he nor any of his top administrators are willing to admit to an error can hardly be considered leading by example.

It certainly won’t win a “We Set Good Examples” shiny apple award.

My guess is that all sorts of people set better examples of accountability than those unwilling to admit or apologize for this $300,000 mistake in public.

Say,

• kindergarten teachers
• first grade teachers
• second grade teachers
• third grade teachers
• fourth grade teachers
• fifth grade teachers
• sixth grade teachers
• any special ed teachers
• any certified special ed support people

or, well, you get the idea.

Some administrator(s) apparently has (have) not learned to check work before turning it in. Or to take responsibility for mistakes.

Or proof read the reading assignment given to the board and public.

Educators (and President Barack Obama) talk of teachable moments.

The Special Education revelation could have been one of those.

Burkey could have apologized for his staff’s mistake.

He didn’t.

He could have asked his staff in public to be more careful in the future, to double check their work before turning it in.

It gives me something other administrators can use as “how-not-to” example.

Perhaps the school board and the public will allow the “whatever” approach to an almost $300,000 error.

Even my son has learned there are consequences to that approach.

My guess is that teachers have set higher standards for students in Huntley’s classrooms.

Special Ed Mom Sara Deifucci started this story at the Huntley School District Board meeting on November 5th.

She asked this intriguing question:

“Has the district already purchased anything that parents aren’t aware of? Have you already purchased Read 180 licenses?”

Superintendent John Burkey replied,

“No.”

“If I FOI it, (will I find something)?” Deifucci continued.

“Do your FOIA (short for Freedom of Information request),” he said.

I don’t know whether she followed through, but I filed one that night.

Here is the summarized contents of the reply (click to enlarge any image):

• Intervention Treatment Proposal for Heineman Middle School for Read 180 and System 44 Materials Purchase
• Request to Purchase Form to Scholastic Inc. in the amount of $57,295.20
• Purchase Order #58187 to Scholastic in the amount of $57,295.20 for 180 licenses, Teacher and Classroom Materials
• Scholastic Invoice #2833847 in the amount of $5,760.00
• Scholastic Invoice #2833071 in the amount of $51,168.22
• Check #065672 payable to Scholastic Inc. in the amount of $57,233.62

It appears from the backup material from Heineman that Scholastic made an offer for 30 Read 180 licenses and 30 System 44 licenses for $57,295.20 and someone was able to convince the vendor to allow District 158 to buy 60 licenses for Read 180 and none of System 44 for the same price.

The heading does not indicate the Read 180 license will be used for special ed kids. As you can see, it says,

“Intervention Treatment Proposal for Heineman Middle School – 60 Below Proficient Students”

The date on the request to purchase form signed by Chief Academnic Officer Mary M. Olson is 8-28-9.   On the purchase order, she writes, on 10-14-9, “OK to pay in full.”

On 8-31, Scholastic apparently received a $5,760 bill for what appears to be four Read 180 licenses.

Next in the FOI reply package was a bill for $51,168, apparently for Marlowe Middle School, according to the check stub. It identifies the $5,760 purchase and the $51,168 as coming from “ADA Block Curriculum materials.”

I note one line for $998 seems to be for college prep. At least that’s what “COLLE PP” seems to indicate.

So, what’s it all mean?

I asked District 47′s Community Relations Officer Lorie Woods for a reaction and here’s what she sent:

“The question was in reference to the use of ARRA or IDEA funds to purchase Read 180 licenses, materials, etc. The purchases for which you have copies of Purchase Orders, Invoices, etc. were for the pilot program at Heineman Middle School.  Those items were paid for through the ADA (Average Daily Attendance) Grant.”