Shame on You, Shame on Us

Every resident of Matawan-Aberdeen should be disgusted and disgraced by the below story.

What kind of staff does the district employ that nobody is willing to loan $2 to a five-year old boy in our schools so that he can eat lunch? Shame, Shame, Shame!

The following - as reported by ABC Eyewitness News

MATAWAN, N.J. (WABC) -- Parents in New Jersey are outraged after learning their autistic son was forced to go hungry all day at school.

That's because the school denied the boy his lunch over a billing issue.

So the 5-year-old just sat there at Cliffwood Elementary in Matawan and watched others eat.

It was John Robert Caravella's fourth day of kindergarten in a new school.

But no one, not the principal, not the teachers, and not the aides, helped this 5-year-old autistic child get his lunch Tuesday. So he sat in the cafeteria and ate nothing.

"Really, for $2, you couldn't feed the kid?" said Silvia Caravella, John Robert's mother.

John Robert left for school at 8:45 a.m. and didn't get home until 4 p.m. And all that time, all he ate was a bag of mini muffins his parents packed him for a snack.

John Robert is a non-verbal autistic child. I pray someone in the administration find someone for that school who cares enough to notice a 5-year old child doesn't have lunch and does something about it. >>> Read more!

Back-to-School Bashing

Here are some of the latest school factoids you may have missed while reading the local news. The school board has approved a $1.5 million budget increase for the upcoming year. Sadly, Superintendent Healy neglects to mention how even a dime of that extra money will be spent or why last year’s $61.8 million budget wasn’t enough.

 Normally, you’d be able to review the district’s “User Friendly” budget to view the line item increases but a funny thing happened along the way. According to last year’s budget (and the superintendent’s budget presentation), the 2011-12 budget was $61.8 million. However, according to the 2012-13 budget, last year’s $61.8 million ballooned into $64.1 million.
>>> Read more!

Madness Run Amok

I know, like, and respect many of the school board members but I will no longer try to understand them. A year ago, I wrote, “the scary thing is the school board will likely allow [Healy] to take the lead.” I was correct but I never imagined it would get this bad.

Recently, the school board voted to strip the citizens of their right to vote on the school budget. They claimed to do this because the citizens were too stupid, ignorant, or partisan to simply rubberstamp the school board’s rubberstamp of the administration’s proposed budgets.

What were those proposed budgets that they couldn’t risk putting before the good people of Matawan-Aberdeen? In two years, during a recession and housing crisis, they’ve raised spending by 6.4%. All that extra money coming from the state could’ve gone to tax relief but tax relief will never be on the agenda. Taxes will keep going up forever.
>>> Read more!

Shut Up and Pay

What do you do when the citizenry keeps voting down tax increases? Take away their right to vote.

That’s exactly what the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School Board did this month when it voted to move school elections to November.

From now on, so long as school tax increases are kept under 2%, residents will no longer have the right to vote on the budget. Doesn’t take a genius to guess how much the school administration plans to raise taxes each year. No doubt the teachers union will be licking their chops. The district bloat can rest easy as well since the Sword of Damocles is no longer hanging over their heads to cut the fat.

According to School Board President Kenny, “When a very, very fiscally responsible and conservative budget is not passed in an election by a small group of people who may be entrenched or have other interests, we may not be able to serve the very students we are charged to serve.” I guess he’s already forgotten the Barza years.

Or maybe the board thinks a 2% annual increase is reasonable. For the average homeowner, that’ll be about a hundred-dollar increase each year on top of municipal, county, state, federal, plus a host of increases from government fees and regulations.

Over a ten-year period, that’s a $5,500 take from the average homeowner.

>>> Read more!

The Year Ahead

This year, the big news will be the upcoming presidential election. In local news, we’re not expecting much change and that would be sad because Aberdeen could be so much more. Here is a list of indicators to see if there will be any positive developments in town.

Town Budget
I have high expectations for Holly Reycraft. She has a well-deserved reputation for competence, integrity, and dedication. As interim town manager, she made improvements to the budget, implemented the new employee health plan, and brought order to the township operations. However, she’s still working for a town council that is deeply immersed in pay-to-play.

As soon as the new councilmembers were seated, their first order of business was the roads program, which is often code for CME, the pimps bankrolling the Aberdeen Democrats’ election campaigns. And then there was the gift to Coppola & Coppola, another reliable contributor, to do another study on the train station project that we’ve been hearing about for a decade.

So, look at spending and the tax levy. Taxes have a habit of jumping during the off-election years and we’ll see if that trend continues this year.

>>> Read more!

Next Steps

Let’s review.

• The local Democratic Party retains every seat on the town council, fire districts, planning board, and zoning board, despite a well-documented history of corruption, pay-to-play, and incompetence
• The school district continues to struggle with academics and appears unable or unwilling to segregate violent students
• Taxes will keep going up
• The electorate isn’t anxious to change any of the above

So, where from here?

Time and hard work.  I suggest small changes and patience until everything snowballs.

>>> Read more!

Committed to Providing a Safe and Supportive Environment

Recent news reports of violence among the high school students are extremely troubling. Multiple arrests for aggravated assault against police officers. Two fifteen-year-olds brawled on school grounds resulting in a broken jaw as their schoolmates watched. One student was caught with a knife.

This was on the tail of a separate incident involving school athletes that’s gone unreported but resulted in the suspension of five high school football players. And these follow other reports of an uptick in school violence and bullying.

The school’s mission statement declares “We are committed to . . . providing a safe and supportive environment where educators inspire, empower, and encourage students to excel.”
>>> Read more!

A Lesson in Bureacratese

Let’s take the following hypothetical from a board member’s perspective.

The state awards your school district nearly $600,000, no strings attached. Your superintendent insists the school district spend the money “for the children”. Yet, you’re reluctant. Your district is being ravaged by high unemployment and a wave of foreclosures. Your district is among the highest taxed in the county and, even discounting the windfall, the district has already increased spending by 4%.

The superintendent sees your reluctance and quickly outlines a plan for spending the money. Over a $100,000 will be spent on books. For the children. Who can be opposed to books? And, to make it more palatable, he insists it’s a can’t fail, “research-based” program to create classroom libraries.

You’re wondering why, if it’s such a sure thing, isn’t everybody doing it? And how does sticking books in a room really improve language arts scores? And why isn’t this concept, that’s “research-based”, listed in the federal Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse?
>>> Read more!

Found Money

After successfully passing its first tax increase in a decade, the Matawan-Aberdeen School District was delighted to learn it was the proud recipient of an additional $584,217 in state aid.

The district’s senior administrators quickly huddled to determine how to best spend the money. After all, the thinking goes, why should the money go to waste as tax relief during a labor and housing crisis when the school district could put it to good use.

And what was their master plan? Buying books. Lots and lots of books. Why? Because studies show that the mere presence of books in a room magically improves literacy rates among youngsters.

How does that work? I’m glad you asked. You see, according to this theory, kids are tired of watching TV, playing video games, chatting online or texting friends, and surfing the web. No, what children really want to do is curl up in bed with a good read. But they can’t because the school library doesn’t have any good books and Mommy and Daddy won’t take them to the public library. So, against their better judgment, kids have no alternative to social networking and mind numbing entertainment.

According to this theory, given the choice between Grand Theft Auto and Lord of the Flies, children will naturally be drawn to the latter.
>>> Read more!

When the School Budget Gets Defeated Again

There’s obviously some kind of disconnect between the school board and voters in the school district. For the past decade, the townsfolk have been crying No Mas! No Mas! Yet, with the exception of one year, the school board keeps voting to raise taxes.

This year, they’re understandably in a bind, having to transition between administrations, but you can already tell how they’re planning to deal with the next budget defeat.

I remember a school board meeting in May, 2008. The budget had just been defeated and Dr. O’Malley, new to the position, was explaining how they were cutting the budget. The big ticket item was replacing the roof at Cambridge Park. I asked Dr. O’Malley if the “spending cut” was going to cost the district more money since the roof would still need replacement plus immediate maintenance. When he was slow to answer, I said, “It’s okay to say ‘yes’."

Well, guess what’s back on the budget and sure enough the price has gone up 21% since 2008 – Roof Replacement, Cambridge Park, $454,485

Expect that item to be the first thing to go overboard when the budget fails. The roof is about 40 years old and does need to be replaced but I suspect they’ll wait until they finish their ADA obligations and then use a “payment plan” for the roof like they did for the football field.

As usual, employees provide the bulk of the expense. Despite all the agonizing cries of yesteryear when Dr. O’Malley slashed the employee rolls, I’ve not heard any stories of the district collapsing. (I did inquire regarding the stories of violence and there does seem to have been a temporary upsurge but that appears to have been quelled.)

I believe we can cut still more. Outsource where you can and transition some non-core programs to after-school programs. Right there is over half a million dollars. There’s a couple hundred thousand more by allowing class sizes to rise to twenty children. From there, we need to “convince” certain employees to retire and then eliminate those positions. That would be another half million. In the high school, we can offer some students to swap their first class for an online class and give them a late start.

After that, we need to bend the cost curve. As the budget shows, in a single year without any major layoffs, "Personal Services - Employee Benefits" is up 10.5%. As those benefits keep skyrocketing, the school district will have no choice but to keep firing personnel.

And the only place to bend the cost curve is in contract negotiations.

One thing to beware in contract negotiations is retroactive pay increases. For example, let’s say the board awards a 3% pay increase with no retroactive pay. School boards tend to promote the teachers are only getting a “1%” increase because that’s the hit to the current budget but the 3% increase creates a new baseline that lasts forever.

Another gotcha is abuse of the salary guide – teachers garnering $9,500 pay increases for worthless degrees that do nothing for the students.

Then there is the endless number of past practices agreed to by prior administrations. No superintendent could possibly know all the past practices but the union does, with written proof going back decades. Any contract that doesn’t address past practices is an invitation for more union abuses.

Finally, I would ask the board to make one more change. Do not sign any contract before a non-binding resolution has been voted upon by the district residents. Before the school board votes upon a contract, allow the community to have their say. After all, it’s the residents who’ll be paying for it. >>> Read more!

When the Teachers Union Goes Too Far

This week, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie called teachers union leaders “political thugs”. At the same time, the people of Wisconsin repelled the national labor unions who attempted to overturn an anti-union law by electing a left-wing state supreme court justice. Meanwhile, anti-union bills and executive orders have been marching forward in other states across the country.

It’s a dramatic turnaround from two years ago when the nation elected the most pro-union president in our history.

So, what happened? In short, the unions overreached during a financial crisis and refused to share in the national sacrifice.

As for why there’s so much animosity towards public unions, here are a few local stories from my short stint on the school board.

When unions work for private companies, they understand that if they demand too much the company will go bankrupt. Public unions have no such restraint. When the custodians were about to be outsourced, rather than offer meaningful concessions, the union leaders shamelessly demanded we raise taxes to the max and then distributed flyers claiming the school board was endangering the children just to save a few bucks.

That part the public knows. What the public didn’t know was that the custodians had sent signals to the administration that they were willing to take pay and benefits cuts to save their jobs. They were willing to meet us part way. But their union representatives refused to allow them to make the offer. The custodians considered creating a separate union but there wasn’t time. And they were warned against acting without union support.

In other words, any chance the custodians had of saving their jobs was stomped by their union representatives. As for the “infamous email,” I and the other school board members still retain a copy ready to go public in case the union leaders “misbehave”.

The same thing is going to happen to the transportation personnel. They may have dodged the bullet this year but it’s going to happen. Holmdel just outsourced their transportation department. The bus drivers have sent signals to the administration but the union won’t allow them to negotiate to keep their jobs. The union would rather see the bus drivers fired than offer job concessions.

There was the time we hired a wonderful young lady who was excited to secure a job with good pay and benefits during a recession. When we hired her, she agreed to a salary that placed her among the top half of school employees.

After she began work, her union leaders told her she was being grossly underpaid, that she was doing “administrator” level work, and that she must demand fair pay. Sure enough, within a couple months of starting work, she filed a grievance against the district demanding a 60% salary increase.

A few months later, the superintendent provided the board a long list of possible cuts. Not one board member suggested keeping this woman and she lost her job.

Then there’s the administrator who was grossly negligent in administering a district-wide exam. Rather than fess up, he participated in a cover up. When the board learned the truth, they withheld his raise that year. In the private sector, most people would have lost their jobs but the district has spent thousands of dollars in legal fees defending its right to withhold the employee’s raise.

There was another employee who filed a grievance against being moved to work at another school building within the district.

There was the grievance when the district decided to stop paying teachers for speaking to each other. There was the “Aberdeener Grievance” demanding the school board attempt to silence me. And the list goes on.

It’s no surprise that tenure charges haven’t been successfully brought against a single New Jersey teacher in over a decade. The teachers union is actively involved in “screening” administrative judges who review alleged legal violations. For example, we had one case of an employee who kept disappearing during the day. After a couple of warnings, the employee was fired. The judge ruled we had given the employee insufficient warning and terminating the employee was unduly harsh.

When a grievance involves contractual issues, the district goes before a mutually agreed upon arbitrator who gets paid by the hour. At the state level, the teachers union maintains a list of preferred arbitrators and these arbitrators won’t get jobs if they find themselves on the teachers’ naughty list. (Imagine the outcry if the school district colluded with other districts on such a list.)

At one arbitration hearing, the arbitrator declared that proctoring your own exam to your own class during your scheduled class time was a “non-teaching duty”.

Meanwhile, since the administration can’t fire any of the teachers, we have to beg and plead with them to do their jobs.

One-third of high school students regularly fail the HSPA Math exam. Not coincidentally, that’s the department where the teachers union president happens to work part-time for full-time pay.

The teachers labor contract specifically sets aside time for 30 hours of “professional meetings”. During one of those professional meetings, the high school math teachers were asked to review the HSPA Math test to review where we should tweak the curriculum to help the students.

The math teachers objected to reviewing the test data without additional pay. “Data analysis” wasn’t part of their job description.

Not only does the staff have a 7% absentee rate, sometimes they simply choose to take time off. We had one instance of an administrator who didn’t show up for work for months. When we demanded a doctor’s note, we got a letter saying she suffered from wrist pain.

On the Friday before Christmas, one-quarter of the staff regularly takes the day off.

One time, the union told the teachers to stop helping children off and on the bus until the district agreed to pay extra. Fortunately, that time the teachers openly rejected their union’s demands.

The district spent thousands of dollars training teachers to post their information on the school website but only a minority of teachers have done so.

Meanwhile, the district receives numerous complaints from district teachers upset by their union’s actions but they have no choice. By law, the teacher must belong to the union. By law, the teacher’s salary must be confiscated to support the union.

In Matawa-Aberdeen, the district pays the union about $1,000 per union member that otherwise would have gone to the employees. The union then uses a large portion of that money towards “advocacy”, i.e. political campaigns.

It wasn’t lost on any of the board members when Marty Ruprecht sat across the negotiating table from the guy who recently spent thousands of dollars helping Marty get elected. (To Ruprecht’s credit, he never gave the union any special consideration. It’s also funny to note that the teachers union campaign to oust Ken Aitken set in motion a chain of events that led to the destruction of Barza.)

We had teachers who were so bad we had to shift them into special programs to limit their exposure to students. But when the budget cuts came, we had to save the bad teachers and fire the good ones.

Then there was the occasional story of the teachers lining up by the school entrances in a show of force to send a message to the parents – We have your children.

Then there are the teachers who do terrible jobs but think they’re doing fantastic. On these pages, one teacher (CB) publicly proclaimed that he was proud of his record and challenged me to hold him accountable. The guy teaches an enrichment class to some of the best students in the grade and still a majority of his class scored below 70% on the standardized exams. But he, the proud teacher who once did me the honor of reading my blog aloud at a public meeting, is boasting that most of his kids scored above 50%. Talk about your low standards.

The overwhelming majority of teachers are good people who want to do the right thing. But teachers shouldn’t be surprised when the public judges them by the actions of “union thugs” the teachers elected to represent them. And they shouldn't be surprised when board members are forced to act in the best interests of the people they represent. >>> Read more!

Making Goals Mean Something

About a year and a half ago, the Matawan-Aberdeen school board had agreed upon three goals:

• Grade level reading/writing proficiency for all students
• Among a pre-selected group of twenty-five school districts, ours rank among the top fifteen on all state assessment exams
• The district would not raise taxes above 2% in any year

Since that time, we haven’t heard much, if any, discussion related to those three goals. That’s a mistake. Like the mission/vision statement, those goals should be a constant focus of the school board.

In the meantime, how are we doing?

Reading/Writing Proficiency
I think it’s a mistake to use the state exam as a standard. Proficiency should not be defined as knowing half the material nor should we rely upon the state to set consistent standards.

Still, considering the resources being used to train our students to pass the state exams (curriculum rewrites, professional training, consultants, etc.), it’s certainly fair to ask how we did.

Here are the results. Don’t get too excited by the 11th grade LAL. The state dumbed down the exam resulting in a big jump across the state. That’s why school ranking is a better indicator of performance than year-over-year score improvement.

	09-10	08-09	Change
3rd LAL TP	78.4	70	8.4
4th LAL TP	64.8	69.2	-4.4
5th LAL TP	65.5	69.2	-3.7
6th LAL TP	73.5	74.3	-0.8
7th LAL TP	77.1	77.8	-0.7
8th LAL TP	88.9	89.2	-0.3
11th LAL TP	90.5	86.9	3.6

Top 15 Ranking
The school board selected 25 districts in the GH district factor group (one above Matawan-Aberdeen) and set a goal to rank among the top 15 in both total proficiency and advanced proficiency for each state exam.

Click here for the full report on the Top 15 ranking.

As seen in the chart below, Matawan-Aberdeen’s Top 15 ranking increased from 8 to 12 categories out of 32, including all 3rd grade categories. On the downside, the district finished dead last in 11th grade math. More on that to come.

	Rank	Percent	Goal	Above/Below	1-Yr Change
3rd LAL AP	19	7.6	7.6	0.00	2.6
3rd LAL TP	3	78.4	68.9	9.50	10.1
3rd Math AP	13	53.2	47.2	6.00	3.8
3rd Math TP	9	90.7	88.1	2.60	0.2
4th LAL AP	11	12.1	12.1	0.00	3.3
4th LAL TP	18	64.8	71.7	-6.90	-9.2
4th Math AP	14	39.8	42.7	-2.90	-3
4th Math TP	15	81.5	86.5	-5.00	-6
4th Sci AP	18	53	51.6	1.40	3.6
4th Sci TP	23	95	96.9	-1.90	-1.3
5th LAL AP	19	8.9	10.9	-2.00	4.7
5th LAL TP	25	65.5	71.6	-6.10	-4.6
5th Math AP	18	48.7	44.6	4.10	7.4
5th Math TP	19	83.6	87	-3.40	-0.4
6th LAL AP	18	8.7	9.4	-0.70	5.3
6th LAL TP	22	73.5	76.2	-2.70	-1.5
6th Math AP	18	30.9	28.8	2.10	5.5
6th Math TP	20	81.9	79.7	2.20	3.2
7th LAL AP	23	19.4	21.1	-1.70	3.6
7th LAL TP	22	77.1	77.9	-0.80	2.6
7th Math AP	9	34.3	28.3	6.00	7
7th Math TP	17	78.7	74.8	3.90	-2.6
8th LAL AP	19	21.8	24	-2.20	-1.6
8th LAL TP	18	88.9	90.9	-2.00	-0.6
8th Math AP	8	41.9	36.7	5.20	2.5
8th Math TP	9	77.5	78.7	-1.20	-5.2
8th Sci AP	25	34.1	39.8	-5.70	-5.5
8th Sci TP	16	89.5	90.9	-1.40	9.3
11th LAL AP	21	19.9	22.3	-2.40	2.1
11th LAL TP	21	90.5	93.6	-3.10	1.2
11th Math AP	26	16	25.9	-9.90	-0.9
11th Math TP	24	67.1	81.3	-14.20	-3.2

Tax Increase of 2% or Less
Given the state’s newly mandated 2% cap on school budget tax increases, this goal doesn’t sound as impressive as it did when first passed. Unfortunately, the district has used newfound state funding to avoid the aggressive cost cutting still needed for taxpayer relief.

Although the proposed tax hike is only 1.69%, at $61.8 million the proposed budget will increase spending 4% during a recession.

We can save over half a million dollars from outsourcing personnel (bus drivers, secretaries, guidance counselors, child study teams, teacher aides, etc.) and another half million by cutting extraneous personnel.

Let’s make sure the 2% is a cap and not a target. More can be cut.

The board set goals. Let’s make those goals mean something. >>> Read more!

School Board Takes Back Seat to Another Superintendent

Despite opposition from within the administration, the Matawan Aberdeen School Board appointed David Healy to replace outgoing superintendent, Dr. Richard O’Malley. Healy is well known to the district and therein lies the dispute – in 2005, then superintendent Quinn appointed Healy as a high school principal and, suffice to say, Healy never made tenure. Most recently, Healy was director of operations at Middletown.

True to form, the Barza wing of the school board, now reduced to Demarest and Ruprecht, were noticeably and non-coincidentally absent the night of Healy’s appointment. (Apparently, they lacked the courage to put their opposition on the record.)

However, Healy’s remarks to the Independent reveal a disturbing trend in school governance; Healy made it very clear that he’s in charge and he’ll be setting the agenda for the school district. Not once in his published remarks does he defer to, or even mention, the school board. And the scary thing is the school board will likely allow him to take the lead.

That’s not how it’s supposed to be. The superintendent is supposed to be an agent of the school board, enacting school board policies and achieving school board goals. The district mission statement should be his and the board’s guiding light.

Unfortunately, the school board is only too happy to take a back seat, to let someone else shoulder the responsibility, and thereby make themselves unaccountable for any failures but free to share any praise.

During my brief stint on the board, Ruprecht once told me he would not consider or discuss any proposal that had not been offered by the superintendent. While the board majority doesn’t share his opinion, their actions lead to the same result.

Ask the school board if Everyday Math should be discontinued? Should elementary students be allowed to use calculators? Should high school graduates be expected to speak a foreign language? Should guidance counselors have an expanded role overseeing students’ curricula and performance? How are the academies being evaluated? Are we providing sufficient opportunities and incentives for our most gifted students? How are we partnering with the parents to educate their children?

In each case, the board will likely defer to the superintendent, forgetting that he doesn’t set policy but merely enacts it. The superintendent doesn’t set goals. He achieves them.

I wish Healy luck and I can perfectly understand his enthusiasm and excitement in becoming chief. However, somebody on the school board needs to remind his colleagues that accountability begins with them and they must set the policies, the goals, and the expectations. The school board must take the lead. That’s what they were elected to do. >>> Read more!

A Sample Exam for High School Seniors

One of my perennial complaints against the school board is that the board has never established educational standards for the students, instead relinquishing that role to the state and the school administration. The result has been a predictable diminished level of expectations and a graduating class largely unprepared to pursue higher education or the most promising labor fields.

I have long argued the board must set its own standards and hold the administration accountable for meeting those standards. Furthermore, everyone, from the teachers, to the parents, to the students, should know exactly what those standards are. That means providing exhaustive study guides from which all exam questions are drawn so that there's no doubt of nor divergence from those standards.

Below is a list of sample questions that I would expect every student to know prior to graduation and, contrary to the state's standards, anything below 70% is a failing grade.

I doubt a majority of our high school seniors could properly answer most of the below questions but the question for the community is this - After spending 13 years and $200,000 per child, which of the below questions is outside what we should expect a graduating senior to know?

English

1. Romeo and Juliet, Catcher in the Rye, and Huckleberry Finn are among the most revered and reviled works of literature in our nation's public schools. Choose one of the above works and write a 400-500 word persuasive essay arguing why it should be included in the school curriculum. Be sure to include quotations from the story and discuss the plot and central characters.
   

Math

1. Prove 4X^2 - 16XY + 16Y^2 + 2 is always greater than zero
2. Provide the mathematical equation for a circle whose center is (5,5) and radius is 5.
3. A mutual fund advertises “An average 8% annual return over the past five years”. If the fund returned 8% each year, how much would $10,000 have earned over the five years?
4. The actual track record of the fund for each of the five years was 15%, 25%, 10%, -40%, and 30%. Plus the fund has an annual 2% management fee. How much would a $10,000 investment have returned over the past five years?
5. 5 years ago, a bank offered a 5-year CD with a 2.2% annual interest rate. Which would have been the better investment?

Science

1. What is the chemical equation for photosynthesis?
2. A police car's siren operates at 300hz. The patrol car is traveling at 95 mph to catch a car traveling 80 mph. What is the siren frequency the pursued driver would actually hear?
3. What is positive feedback? Where is it found in nature? Why is it rare? Why is it central to man-made global warming theory?

American History

1. Why was George Washington unanimously elected to be the nation's first president? Discuss his personal qualifications, the political considerations, and both the needs and fears of a strong presidency.
2. Per capita, the Civil War was our nation's bloodiest. Why was it so important to Abraham Lincoln to preserve the union?
3. Of America's 44 presidents, a few are noted as having significantly transformed the role of the presidency. Pick a president who significantly transformed the presidency and discuss how he changed the office.

Government

1. What is a government of enumerated powers? Name three things, excluding civil violations, that the federal government cannot do.
2. What is the constitutional question regarding the individual mandate in the recent healthcare reform legislation?
3. The 14th amendment states, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States”. When adopted, did the 14th Amendment protect against sex discrimination? Does it now? Discuss.

Economics

1. What is the Laffer Curve? Why is it a source of disagreement in Congressional Budget Office projections?
2. The Federal Reserve is trying to stimulate the economy and prevent deflation by lowering interest rates and increasing the money supply. How would that stimulate the economy? What is the fear of deflation?
3. Critics have complained the Federal Reserve's actions will lead to inflation. How might that happen and why is it a concern?

World History

1. How is Western Civilization different from other civilizations? Compare and contrast to at least one other civilization.
2. Discuss the differences between the American Revolution and the French Revolution, including what sparked the revolutions, what were the underlying philosophies, and how they were effectuated.
3. On December 7th, 1941, a “Day of Infamy”, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt responded by sending most of the armed forces to fight Germany. Why?

Foreign Language

1. Translate Goldilocks and the Three Bears into a foreign language.

Ethics

1. Most of the families in a small town earn their livelihoods at a local profitable factory. One day, the owner, a local businessman, decides to close the factory and move operations oversees where labor is cheaper. Would it be ethical for the townspeople to levy a “millionaire's tax”, which would only impact the businessman, to support the newly unemployed? Discuss.
2. A hospital's nurses feel they are not being fairly compensated and that management is not negotiating with them in good faith. Would it be ethical for them to strike? Discuss.

>>> Read more!

Aberdeen's Top Earners

Across the nation, there’s been a lot of talk about the public sector’s salaries, work benefits, health plans, and pensions. And there’s no reason to exempt Aberdeen Township from the discussion.

Among the top earners, 1st prize goes to our former police chief, Joseph Kelly, who’s receiving an annual pension of $104,000. 2nd prize goes to our councilman, James Lauro. After serving our community for over 40 years, with a final average salary of $145,563.67, Councilman Lauro is earning an annual pension of $98,569.68, plus another $13,000 a year for his service as councilman and fire commissioner. (Need we mention again that he voted last year to raise his commissioner’s salary?) The booby prize goes to our disgraced former town manager, Mark Coren, who’s receiving an annual pension of $82,000 plus health coverage.

Last year, John Quinn earned $104,000 from the township and another $36,000 from Matawan. Police Chief John Powers earned $138,000 and his number two, Richard Derechailo earned $132,000. Town Manager, Joe Criscuolo only earned $122,000.

Of the township’s 35 police officers, 29 earned above $92,000, another two officers earned $88,000, and only the remaining four officers were below the highest brackets.

I bear no grudge against anyone for earning the above salaries. To my knowledge, none of the above ever threatened to endanger the township during contract negotiations and every person is entitled to honorably pursue the highest salary and benefits he can muster. Furthermore, excluding the pay-to-play payoffs, the vast majority of the township employees have performed exemplary.

However, the question for the taxpayers is whether the community can afford such generous compensation or if we can get the same outstanding service at a lower cost.

A simple resolution at the state level would be to cap the benefits of future retirees and, once the public employee has reached his cap, all further retirement contributions would be diverted to a 401K plan. Till then, the only alternative is to reduce headcount and outsource services.

On a side note, an anonymous commenter took issue with me including the salary history of the teachers union officers as one of the factors prompting tax increases, arguing their salaries are a tiny part of the overall budget. Well, I hope the commenter isn’t one of our math teachers.

The current crop of union officers saw their salaries increase a combined $162,091.60 from 2006 to 2009. During that same period, the school tax levy increased $1,407,437. Not including pension liabilities, those 12 union officers accounted for 11.5% of the school property tax increases. And, unlike the above mentioned township workers, the union officers have frequently undermined our children’s education and threatened the operation of our school district. >>> Read more!

Looking Ahead

Three years ago, Aberdeener.com was launched at a moment everything started to change. The Great Recession was getting underway and the nation was about to take a dramatic turn to the left, electing the most liberal president in history and awarding super-majorities to the Democrats in both houses of congress.

Locally, Dr. Gambino’s election to the school board shifted the balance of power and a new administration under Dr. O’Malley directed the district toward achieving objective goals.

On the flip side, the popular town manager, Stuart Brown, was summarily terminated after waging an internal battle against corruption and waste. The teachers union was picketing at school board members’ homes for higher wages. And Aberdeen and Matawan were among the top five highest taxed municipalities in Monmouth County.

Over the next three years, the Tea Party was born, Governor Christie was elected, and the country has shifted back to center-right. On the school board, only one of six Aberdeen representatives has served more than one term. In the township, a majority of the council seats turned over although every seat stayed within the local Democratic Party.

So, what will the next three years bring?

Higher Taxes
Nobody living in Aberdeen would expect otherwise. Over the past three years, municipal taxes have increased roughly 30%. The township’s “secret plan” is to offset spending increases with new development through PILOT programs. PILOT stands for “payments in lieu of taxes”.

Property taxes have to be apportioned to each tax collecting body, i.e. school, county, fire, etc. The township’s meager 17% share of property taxes from new development wouldn’t be enough to offset new spending, meaning municipal property taxes would keep rocketing upward despite the added revenue from new development. However, PILOT payments aren’t taxes so the township gets to keep the lion’s share and technically hold down taxes while allowing spending to soar.

No such luck by the school district. The township favors residential development over commercial development because developers prefer residential. Unfortunately for taxpayers, any development that attracts children is a net loss. At over $15,000 per student, any unit with a child will cost the town more than it can recoup through taxes. Furthermore, children from low-income families, on average, require more services and, therefore, cost more. COAH housing could be especially costly to the school district.

Meanwhile, the school district has never developed any significant revenue streams aside from taxes and state funding. There’s some hope of developing an autism program to attract out-of-district students but, until that happens, the focus is cutting costs. The district has already begun outsourcing – cafeteria, substitutes, custodians – and there’s more to go – transportation, secretarial, aides, guidance counselors, child study teams, etc. Classes can be cut, class sizes can increase, and more extra curricular can be eliminated. However, at some point the cutting will stop.

Meanwhile, contractual and statutory increases are on the march. Last year, prior to the budget cuts, the district projected a $3.5 million increases from salary, pension, health, and special education. The average teachers union officer saw his salary increase about 25% over the prior three years.

Some day, in the not too distant future, those annual increases will overwhelm any cost cutting measures.

It doesn’t have to go this way but we all know it will. Governor Christie’s 2% cap should help but don’t discount those wily politicians and public administrators who will use every trick in the book to take your money.

Self-Serving Politicos
The school district has a $60 million budget and the board members are paid zilch. Fire District #1 has a budget equal to 1% of the school district, yet each fire commissioner earns $5,460. As a percentage of the total budget, the fire district spends more money on each fire commissioner than the school district spends on the combined salary and benefits of the district superintendent, deputy superintendent, and business administrator.

Two of those five commissioners, Vinci and Lauro, also earn salaries from the town council as well as their state pensions from years of public service to the township. Add all that to the free land given to Vinci and the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to divert highway workers from driving in front of his house, and it’s still not enough to satisfy their senses of entitlement. In 2009, the fire commissioners voted themselves a 36.5% raise.

Ultimately, the townsfolk don’t care. Both Vinci and Lauro would likely cruise to reelection. This past year, the town elected a board member who testified against the school district in a labor dispute, played racial politics, and acknowledged voting to pay herself for working as a poll worker during a school board election.

And, at some point, Barza will regain control of the school board and appoint administrators to their liking. It won’t happen soon but it will happen. That’s because the largest pools of candidates for local elective office are the PTO’s and the sports leagues. Most of the current school board members come from neither.

School board elections are usually a luck of the draw. Placement on the ballot is determined by pulling candidates’ names from a hat (literally) and the candidates at the top of the ticket nearly always win. Whichever group fields the most candidates over time will ultimately control the board and Barza is in an excellent position to do just that.

That’s why Aberdeen has rejected every property tax increase at the ballot box for nearly a decade but still sees property taxes increase every year – either the people a) don’t think it matters who they elect b) don’t know who they’re electing or c) don’t know what their representatives are doing once elected.

While on the school board, I strongly opposed any tax increase. Had there been two other members of the nine-member board who shared my opposition, school taxes would not have risen this year.

Education Advances Slowly
The first thing that people will notice and quickly forget is that the draconian cuts didn’t undermine the students’ education.

Next, as students from the middle school who benefited from an accelerated curriculum move into high school, test scores will rise.

However, any advancement will be limited. Among the staff, there are several ideological battles underway – Should the district focus upon test scores or preparing students for post-high school? What are the skills and knowledge our students need to acquire before graduating? How do we test and grade our students? What do we do with teachers who can’t teach? How do we help our struggling students? How do we enable our stars to advance according to their potential?

Unless someone becomes a powerful and incessant advocate for moving in one direction, the district will always drift along the path of least resistance. That means the least work and the least headaches. The community won’t fight for higher standards and neither will most of the staff.

Local Reporting Will Continue to Deteriorate
The local papers lack resources for investigative reporting. As they continue to struggle, fewer town meetings will be covered. Excluding bloggers and the rumor mill, the community will continue to know less and less about what’s happening. And the opportunities for corruption and incompetence will expand.

Housing Will Continue to Struggle
Huge backlog of unsold and foreclosed housing. High unemployment and underemployment. As the economy recovers, interest rates will rise to combat inflation. Many underwater homeowners will put their homes on the market at their first opportunity to cover their mortgages. Meanwhile, high taxes will continue to depress prices and push more seniors to sell.

Most New Development Will Be Residential
It is an absolute disgrace that public education has become so expensive that it makes financial sense to deter families from moving to the neighborhood. But that’s the reality. Developers, however, prefer residential because they’re easier to finance and sell and often have higher profit margins. The town could easily encourage commercial development through zoning laws and PILOT programs but don’t expect it. The town council wants the tax/PILOT money, not to mention all the behind-the-scenes hand greasing that enriches their handlers, and care little about the burden new development imposes on the school district or the rest of the township.

Corruption Will Continue Unabated
People mistakenly believe corruption necessarily involves criminal activity. That’s not the case at all. Political corruption is the use of office for anything other than the public good. For example, taking tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions from CME Engineering and then awarding it millions of dollars in no-bid contracts is corrupt because there’s an assumption CME is not being awarded the business based solely upon price, service, and community benefit. Furthermore, when people and corporations are legitimately concerned over retribution if they don’t contribute to political campaigns, that is corruption. When people and corporations are able to use their political connections to “un-level” the playing field or seek business from third parties, that’s corruption.

Again and again, we hear about how there’s been no proof of corruption but that’s a lie. The free land given to Councilman Vinci, and how that land was kept off the tax rolls, is public record. Vinci being paid “consulting fees” to work on his own reelection campaign is public record. The county spending $400,000 to divert traffic from Vinci’s home on a dead end street is public record.

CME’s contributions and millions of dollars in no-bid contracts are public record.

Fire commissioners, who should be working for free, awarding themselves a 36.5% pay increase during a steep recession is public record.

Any suggestion that “corruption” only applies to criminal activity is morally repugnant and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the people who write the laws know how to avoid them.

The Teachers Union Will Continue Being Anti-Community
It’s astounding how teachers, the very people who have chosen to dedicate their lives to teaching and with whom we’ve entrusted our children, would repeatedly support anti-community agendas but that’s the reality.

When faced with a pay freeze or scores of colleagues losing their jobs, the teachers kicked their coworkers to the curb and then launched a fear-mongering campaign insisting the community’s children would be in jeopardy unless we raised taxes to save jobs.

Now, the union is doing the same to the bus drivers, the secretaries, and everyone else who could be outsourced.

When the school board offered to help three custodians save their lifetime health benefits, the union offered nothing to offset the costs.

Again and again, the union protects teachers who can’t teach, bars the district from enacting changes that would help students and save money, and prevents the district from rewarding outstanding teachers.

I hear the district used to recognize “Teachers of the Month” and give them prized parking spots and other tokens of thanks and recognition that cost nothing to the district. However, the practice had to stop after the union objected to the district “singling out teachers” for recognition when “all” teachers deserved recognition.

That sense of “we’re all wonderful and entitled” appears to be have become contagious as Christmas Friday Fever has swept through the district. Christmas Friday Fever is the infectious disease that hits about a quarter of our teachers every year on the last Friday before Christmas break, forcing them to call in sick and get some therapeutic shopping at the malls.

Local Blogging Will Decline
Normally, success attracts competition. Not in this case. Despite the widespread popularity of Aberdeener.com (many would say infamy), the only other local blog is AberdeenNJlife, which doesn’t do investigative reporting. Researching issues is very time consuming and won’t win you many friends. However, for those considering blogging, the experience can be quite rewarding and you truly have the power to make positive changes within your community.

As for this blog, I’m hoping someone will volunteer to manage it but, so far, no takers. However, the forces of darkness shouldn’t relax just yet. There’s still some life in this blog. >>> Read more!

When Teachers Pass as Children Fail

Although few of us would consider ourselves experts, most of us can discern between great food and garbage, an awesome movie and dreck, or a fabulous educator and dead wood. Regarding the last, what thoughts come to mind when you recall your favorite teacher or administrator? Someone engaging, caring, challenging, brought out the best in you? Well, consider this: The Matawan-Aberdeen school district’s Principal Evaluation form states “The formal evaluation process does not include school wide student achievement outcomes or student growth data.” [Emphasis mine]

In case you missed that, I’ll say it again.

The Matawan-Aberdeen school district’s Principal Evaluation form states “The formal evaluation process does not include school wide student achievement outcomes or student growth data.” [Emphasis mine again]

Think that’s crazy? How about this? Principals and assistant principals are evaluated upon “12 Performance Factors”. 12 performance factors but not one that has anything to do with whether our students are actually learning anything.

In case you’re wondering, 100% of our principals and assistant principals met this highly exacting standard.

Think that’s bad? Teachers are only evaluated in five areas - Grade Book, Lesson Plans, Implementation of the Lesson, Classroom Management and Interpersonal Skills/Learning Climate.

As for the question of whether students are learning, that’s irrelevant to a teacher’s evaluation. (Thankfully, non-tenured teachers are evaluated according to “pupil progress”, including test scores and parental feedback, but non-tenured teachers are a small minority among the total staff.)

So, how did our teachers do in their five areas of “measured” expertise? Among the 364 teachers, only 7 were found to be not “acceptable” – 3 in the high school, 3 in the middle school, and one at Strathmore Elementary. Congratulations to the other three schools that scored 100%. (Cambridge Park was too small to be evaluated.)

I strain to think of what other profession specifically excludes the very purpose of the profession from job evaluations.

Are auto mechanics judged on their ability to fix cars? Police to enforce the law? Firemen to extinguish fires? I believe so.

How about showing up for work? Should teachers be evaluated for that? Last year’s 7% absenteeism rate was double the 3.5% that school policy defines as unacceptably high.

How about the fact that a third of high school seniors were at risk of not graduating because they couldn’t score 50% on a state assessment exam? Does that suggest something about the “learning climate”?

Obviously, this is all about state law forbidding school districts from actually evaluating teachers. It’s not enough that teachers have tenure, that it’s been well over a decade since any tenured teacher in the State of New Jersey was fired, or that tenured teachers have a job for life whether they do that job or not. Teachers are even protected from being labeled as teachers that “need improvement”. That is, unless they can’t manage their grade books.

Reminds me of the days when school policy barred teachers from engaging in the tedious work of grading homework assignments. I wonder if that policy remains in force.

For me, the greatest mystery is how hundreds of teachers who plainly love their students and want their students to succeed could vigorously support a union whose policies are downright hostile to those very students. You simply cannot be both pro-teachers union and pro-child. Not in our school district.

(Note to those who our irked by my continued use of the possessive pronoun “our”: Good) >>> Read more!

Revenge of the Do-Nothings

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." - Yogi Berra

Based upon comments to the blog, it appears the Monday quarterbacking armchair analysts are seizing Dr. O’Malley’s and my departures as an opportunity to repudiate everything the Matawan-Aberdeen district has accomplished under his leadership. This party of malcontents never has anything constructive to offer but their baseless criticisms, which are immune to logic and fact.

For example, when the school district was facing a $7 million budget shortfall and the Matawan-Aberdeen community hadn’t supported a tax increase since 2001, the do-nothings were opposing steep staff reductions. Did they offer any alternative to close the budget gap? No. To this day, they’re happy to criticize the school board for outsourcing the custodians while ignoring the million dollars it would have cost each year to retain the custodians.

Another example is O’Malley’s raise. In 2008, O’Malley negotiated a reasonable compensation package in exchange for the expectation of salary increases once he proved himself. In his first year, O’Malley introduced numerous educational initiatives, made several personnel changes, and produced a budget that actually reduced year-over-year spending and didn’t raise taxes. He asked for a $9,000 raise and got it.

People were in an uproar. How could the school board pay a person more than contractually required? How could we reward someone for just one year’s performance? (To be fair, nobody was so upset as to actually attend the school board meeting, just upset enough to complain on this blog.)

Well, the following year, O’Malley did more of the same and didn’t get a raise beyond his contract guarantee. Every taxpayer and district parent can see the changes O’Malley has wrought, from special education to legal fees, to writing curriculums, to the academies, to testing and data analysis, to accelerated math curricula, to a renewed focus on college preparation, to safer schools, to restrained tax increases, and so on.

Nobody argues that O’Malley would have done more without the raise and we’ll never know if he would have done less. All we do know is that the board was absolutely correct in assuming O’Malley was a flight risk; Edison, New Jersey’s 5th largest school district, recruited O’Malley with a $25,000 salary increase.

Once again, what would the malcontents have done to retain and incentivize exceptional talent? Absolutely nothing.

Of course, now the malcontents want to argue that the raises were a waste of money because O’Malley is leaving anyways. Nonsense. That’s like saying you should only wear seatbelts prior to certain types of accidents, as if such things could be predicted. The school board did its best, within reason, to encourage O’Malley to do the best job he could and to remain within the district. That’s all the school board could do and it was right to do so.

People complained that eliminating the Director of Security position would endanger our children (the same complaint made when the district outsourced custodial services). Instead, our schools continued to become safer.

The special education department objected to Mr. Schweitzer’s appointment as Director of Special Services. In fact, the special education department under his direction has improved dramatically and saved the taxpayers more money than it ever had in the district’s history. Out-district placements are decreasing, special ed lawsuits have virtually disappeared, and parental complaints are way down.

Our school district is under constant pressure to improve academics and reduce the tax burden but the do-nothings never have a single substantial idea to move our district forward. Instead, their strategy is to complain about everything and then, at that one time when by pure chance they happen to have been right, they can holler to the skies “I told you so”.

These do-nothing malcontents are bankrupt of any leadership or accountability. They jeer from the sidelines and cheer when you stumble but they’ll never get off the bench and play ball. >>> Read more!

The Aberdeener Grievance

For the past six months, the Matawan Regional Teachers Association (MRTA) leadership has been spreading a rumor that they filed a grievance against me. The implication was that not only were they fighting back but that I must be guilty of something.

The truth is the MRTA filed an unfair labor practice against the school board in a shameless attempt to silence me. Either they were too cowardly to charge me with a violation or they knew they had no case and I would respond vigorously.

The union must have believed they could file this baseless charge without repercussions since they were free to quietly smear me and threaten the school district with costly legal fees while keeping confidential the actual complaint since grievances are normally exempt from OPRA.

But they were wrong.

New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act excludes “Any grievance filed by or against an employee”. However, the MRTA’s grievance doesn’t list a single employee, position, staff duty, compensation, or contractual obligation as a subject of the complaint; the grievance is solely by and for the union’s organization and doesn’t fall within the exemption.

I kept the grievance sequestered at first because of litigation and later because of the media blackout during negotiations. However, the grievance has since been withdrawn and there is no media blackout due to the union’s declaration of an impasse.

So, here it is, the Aberdeener Grievance.

Before I respond point-by-point, allow me to provide a quick summary. The MRTA’s legal position is that school board members are not allowed to criticize the teachers union or its leadership. Furthermore, the MRTA argues, the school board has an affirmative obligation to monitor its members’ speech and repudiate any critical comments. For relief, the MRTA requested the school board ask me to shut my mouth or resign.

The case’s wanton silliness is demonstrated by the fact that even if the MRTA won this unprecedented legal argument and got all the relief it requested, I would still have been allowed to retain my board seat and continue writing on my blog exactly as I had before the complaint; nowhere did the union request an order for me to cease and desist. So, even the teachers union implicitly concedes I acted within my rights.

What makes the charge truly ironic is the MRTA alleges the school board violated N.J.S.A. 34:13A, which forbids “Interfering with, restraining or coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed to them by this act [or] . . . Dominating or interfering with the formation, existence or administration of any employee organization.”

That same statute also states “Employee organizations, their representatives or agents are prohibited from interfering with, restraining or coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed to them by this act.”

That must be news to the MRTA because the union openly and regularly interferes, restrains, and coerces employees in the exercise of their rights. To give just one example, here is an open letter from the MRTA to the district staff instructing them to “not apply for extra curricular positions that are currently being filled by our members.” That same letter further states “If you have concerns regarding fellow workers and their job performance, don’t go to an administrator.” In other words, the union will choose who gets the stipends and the union will handle all personnel complaints. Or else.

We also need to question the MRTA’s priorities. The union wouldn’t contribute one penny towards saving three longtime members’ lifetime health benefits but was prepared to spend thousands in legal fees for a baseless claim in hopes of garnering a public reprimand against a local blog.

So, without further ado, here is the Aberdeener Grievance. My responses are in red-italics.

The Matawan-Aberdeen Regional Teachers Association is the recognized majority representative for, among other professional and support staff titles, all non-supervisory certificated teaching staff members employed within the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional Board of Education.

The Matawan-Aberdeen Regional Board of Education is a public employer within the meaning of the New Jersey Employer-Employee Relations Act and is subject to the Act's provisions.

The Matawan-Aberdeen Regional Board of Education (hereinafter the "Board") and the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional Teachers Association (hereinafter the "Association") are parties to a collective negotiations agreement covering the time period between July 1,2007 through June 30,2010. The parties are presently negotiating a successor collective negotiations agreement.

Joseph Warren (hereinafter "Warren") is a member of the Board of Education and has been a member of the Board since approximately April, 2009.

Board member Warren maintains a blog; i.e. the Aberdeener, that this Board member has used, in part, to both criticize the leadership of the Association and to attempt to negotiate a successor contract by his efforts to convince teaching staff members and support staff represented by the Association to repudiate the contract proposals regarding contract negotiations that have been submitted by the Association's Negotiations Team.

The following are summaries of only some of the many blog entries of Board member Warren that have been critical of the Association's leadership and that have also divulged confidential contract negotiation positions of the Association to members of the public:
What follows is the MRTA’s strongest evidence that the school board, not I, acted illegally.

Board member Warren called the Association's Union President Carl Kosmyna a liar and referred to the Association's "ludicrous claim" that the Association had offered a pay freeze and that this proposal was rejected by the Board of Education. (April 12, 2010 blog entry).
I have never called Kosmyna a liar. Nor have I ever claimed he isn’t. As for the “ludicrous claim” comment, I’m happy to see the MRTA finally acknowledge they did make this ludicrous claim of having offered the school board a pay freeze.

Board member Warren referred to the Leadership of the Association as "rodeo clowns" and referred to the Association's responses to threatened layoffs as being representative of the Association's "latest antics and utter incompetence". (March 25, 2010 blog entry).
I proudly stand by my comments.

Board member Warren stated, in part, that "the Union has orchestrated political theatre from heckling Board members at a public meeting to frightening the community into believing the District will replace our beloved custodians with pedophiles". (March 25, 2010 blog entry).
I sure did say that. Remember those school board meetings or the fliers warning parents the school board was endangering their children?

Board member Warren maintained that "the Union has not offered any concessions or suggestions on how to cut costs and save jobs" and maintained that "Union Officers receive full pay for reduced work load to permit extra time for Union activities". He also stated that "the Union has filed a slew of grievances demanding extra pay which, if victorious, will result in more job losses". (March 25,2010 blog entry).
Once again, I said it and it’s all true.

Board member Warren, in continuing his vituperative and defamatory charges against the Association Leadership, concluded one of his blog entries with the following statement: As every rodeo clown knows, you can distract the bull, deceive the bull, and avoid the bull, but stick around too long and you will get trampled. The Union leadership can no longer distract, deceive or avoid the public or its membership. (March 25,2010 blog entry).
Yeah, that rodeo clown comment really stuck them. I guess the truth hurts.

Board member Warren published the salaries of Union Executive Board members over the past four years and attacked the negotiating of what Board Warren referred to as "a bewildering array of stipends", while he consciously omitted the fact that the salaries he reported in the blog included coaching salaries and other negotiated stipends.
So, let’s see. I claimed the staff received a “bewildering array of stipends” and neglected to mention they were receiving stipends. Ooooh, I’m so bad.

By the way, district salaries are public information.

To date, the Board of Education has taken no action to prohibit Board member Warren from his malicious attempts to replace the existing association leadership and to coerce the Association into contract concessions by disseminating misrepresentations about the terms and conditions of employment of Association teaching staff members and support staff. The Board therefore has supported the efforts of Board member Warren to dominate and/or interfere with the existence and administration of the Association in violation of N.J.S.A. 34:13A-5.4(a)(2).
Here’s that legal ninjitsu – by doing nothing, the board was illegally interfering in the union’s business. Also, notice how it was perfectly acceptable for the teachers union to picket in front of former board member Ken Aitken’s house and spend thousands of dollars to prevent his reelection but my personal comments against the MRTA leadership is “malicious”.

The actions of the Board in refusing to repudiate the statements of one of its Board members, Joseph Warren, has also engaged in actions designed to interfere with, coerce and restrain employees represented by the Association in violation of N.J.S.A. 34:13A-5.4(a)(l).
More legal ninjitsu. Doing nothing constitutes “actions designed to interfere with, coerce and restrain employees”. Is that like teachers who do nothing are still considered to be teaching?

WHEREFORE, the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional Teachers Association seeks an Order from the New Jersey Public Employment Relations Commission:

(A) Finding and declaring that the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional Board of education has violated the of N.J.S.A. 34: 13~-5.4(a)(l) and N.J.S.A. 34:13A-5.4(a)(2);
I.e., by doing nothing, the school board has coerced and restrained employees.

(B) Finding and declaring that the actions of individual Board member Joseph Warren, as supported by at least the majority of the Board of Education, represents efforts to illegally dominate and/or interfere with the existence and administration of the Teachers Association;
Since Joseph Warren, acting by himself, constitutes a majority of the board, of course.

(C) Finding and declaring that the Board has acted to interfere with, restrain and coerce employees represented by the Association in the exercise of rights protected by the New Jersey Employer-Employee Relations Act;

(D) Requiring the Board of Education to repudiate in writing all of Board member Warren's defamatory & hominem attacks on the Association's leadership and his consistent misrepresentations about the content of and status of contract negotiations and pending Association grievances;
How childish. Should the school board have also given me a timeout and taken away my circle time?

(E)Requiring the Board of Education to advise Board member Joseph Warren to cease and desist from including any comments in his blog, the Aberdeener, that relate to ongoing contract negotiations issues and other personnel and labor relations matters involving the Association and the Board or, in the alternative, request that Warren resign as a Board of Education member;
Should the state also require the school board to say pretty please?

(F)Requiring the posting of appropriate Notices to Public Employees advising said employees of the Board's illegal conduct;
Why stop there? Let’s have a mass mailing to the entire district. The cover page would say the “Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District, without commenting upon the truth or accuracy of Mr. Warren's statements, repudiates all of the following” and then staple it to a copy of all the offensive blog articles.

(G) For such other and further relief as the New Jersey Public Employment Relations Commission deems to be appropriate under the circumstances.
Like ice cream for all the union leaders whose feelings were hurt.

Teachers, welcome to your union representatives. I hope the rodeo is worth your money and your colleagues’ livelihoods. >>> Read more!

I Know What You Did Last Winter

In honor of the Matawan Regional Teacher’s Association latest negotiation tactic, a blunder so incredibly stupid that one wonders if the union leadership should be placed on suicide watch, I’d like to dedicate the Bedroom Intruder newscast and its accompanying music video to our dear Rodeo Clowns.

As part of negotiations, the union and school board had agreed to a media blackout – neither side would make any public statements regarding negotiations – so long as neither side declared an impasse. That is why I refrained from attacking the union leadership on this blog.

Recently, the school board changed its entire negotiating team (yes, there’s a story there but I’ll save it for later in case Fearless Marty chooses to run again) and hired a new negotiating attorney. At this point, the only items successfully negotiated were the rules of negotiation and some meeting dates. Not a single contractual item was ever discussed.

So, what happened at the very first negotiations meeting with the new team and the new attorney, before anything is even negotiated? The MRTA declared an impasse.

That means the media blackout no longer exists and school board members are free to discuss negotiations or the lack thereof.

For example, the school board is free to discuss the sweetheart deal it offered the teachers union last January to save the custodial positions, an offer made before the board realized how desperate the district’s financial situation would become. Or, better yet, the ridiculous counter-offer demonstrating the union leadership cared more about themselves than their members. (And the counter-offer was made in writing should the rank and file care to see it.)

Or we could discuss the custodial negotiation session in April when the union leadership had the outsource bids in their hands. They knew the district would save over a million dollars a year from outsourcing even though the school board was only requesting half of that in concessions to save the custodial positions. Regardless, the union offer (also in writing), fell so far short that the school board voted unanimously to outsource rather than waste more time in bad-faith negotiations.

Or maybe we could discuss some of the ludicrous labor grievances that were also part of the negotiations?

Or how about the union offering the district virtually nothing to save three long-time union members from losing their lifetime health benefits.

I’m tempted to post everything online but these are the types of shots that can only be fired once, so I’m going to let this play out a bit more. Let’s see if the union attempts to intimidate board members’ children, picket at their homes, or try to frighten the community again.

I’m also tempted to see what the union membership will do. Scores of jobs are potentially at stake next year. Bus drivers, secretaries, teachers aides, child study teams, and guidance counselors can all be outsourced. Without increased funding from the state (unlikely at best), there will need to be more cuts through either outsourcing or reductions in force to cover increases in salary, healthcare, and pensions.

As for the teachers union leadership, I leave you with this quote from the Bedroom Intruder Song – “You don’t have to come and confess. We’re looking for you. We gonna find you. We gonna find you.” >>> Read more!