2 Comments:

 Anonymous said...

Hi has there been any word about how Cleveland is doing in the tiny Pruitt school building, and are they ever going to get to go back?

Wednesday, September 20, 2006 5:11:00 PM

 

 Anonymous said...

these three articles were filed by Giegerich. The Irons story was in yesterday's paper. The second one did not appear in the PD yesterday----I am betting the third one appeared today.

1.Ex-coach sues head of School Board
By Steve Giegerich
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/20/2006

Deposed Vashon High School basketball coach Floyd Irons and former NFL player Demetrious Johnson have filed suit against St. Louis School Board President Veronica O'Brien, accusing her of defaming their character and falsely alleging that they had harassed and threatened her.

The civil action filed in St. Louis Circuit Court seeks $25,000 on each count and claims O'Brien's actions have caused them emotional distress. Irons also is seeking damages from former School Board member Amy Hilgemann for defamation in connection with comments she made about him on a local radio station.

Irons' and Johnson's attorney, Jerome Dobson of St. Louis, accused O'Brien of conducting a "whispering campaign" linking his clients to an unsolved homicide and other misconduct.

O'Brien declined to comment directly on the suit.

2.City schools chief pares some reforms
By Steve Giegerich
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/20/2006

St. Louis schools Superintendent Diana Bourisaw said Tuesday she is paring back an ambitious reform effort rolled out earlier this year by her predecessor so the schools can make achieving accreditation a top priority.

In a presentation to the monthly meeting of the School Board, Bourisaw reiterated the points she made in a districtwide memo last week, noting that the strategic plan proposed by former Superintendent Creg Williams exceeds the district's financial capabilities.

It also detracts from the push for accreditation, she said. The state awards accreditation to districts posting at least 70 points based on criteria including attendance and test scores.

In 2005, the city schools had accumulated only 39 points toward accreditation.Advertisement
Bourisaw said Williams' initiatives, which included single-gender academies, smaller schools and an increased emphasis on college-level courses, would set the district back $71.4 million in 2006-07 and $528 million had it been fully implemented in 2011.

"It is a plan that, at this time, we cannot afford," she said.

There is further evidence, Bourisaw added, that the five-year strategic plan that Williams unveiled in March did not address attendance and graduation rates, two key areas the district must address before it can meet the state accreditation standards.

Williams resigned under fire from the board majority in July.

The city schools opened last month with some of Williams' reforms in place.

Some high schools now offer specialized areas of study, such as communication arts and health sciences. And freshmen at other schools are now enrolled in ninth-grade academies.

Bourisaw on Tuesday said the district needs to put aside wholesale reforms to concentrate on improving academic achievement, raising ACT scores and other factors that the state figures into accreditation.

To help the district meet its objective, Bourisaw on Tuesday introduced "school scorecards."

The city schools are currently the focus of a state advisory committee charged with examining issues of stability in a district that this summer hired its sixth superintendent in a little more than three years.

State Education Commissioner Kent King said last month that the district's inability to move toward accreditation could enter into a decision about a possible state takeover of the schools.

Board Vice President William Purdy said: "If we don't reach accreditation, we won't exist. That doesn't mean we shouldn't concentrate on other goals. But we have to meet accreditation."

3.Bourisaw vote was a surprise to the board
By Steve Giegerich
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/20/2006

FILE PHOTO: St. Louis City Schools Superintendent, Diana Bourisaw
(Sam Leone/P-D)

As a closed meeting of the St. Louis School Board wound down last week, a final and unscheduled item of business came up: a contract that installed Diana Bourisaw as the district superintendent.

Four members of the board said afterward that they did not know they would be voting on Bourisaw's contract until that moment. Another said he learned of the pending vote three hours before the meeting.

One key player, however, was aware of the matter all along.

Board President Veronica O'Brien acknowledges that she orchestrated dropping "interim" from Bourisaw's title behind the scenes. It was discussed prior to the meeting, she said, with Bourisaw, board attorney Kenneth Brostron and, casually, with two other board members.

The three members of the board who did not support changing Bourisaw's title were not informed. Nor was the public.

O'Brien called the secrecy consistent with board policy regarding personnel matters.

"The board operated the way a board should operate," she said.

Board members Robert Archibald and Flint Fowler disagree. They say the exclusion of three members of the board - along with the public - circumvents the democratic process.

"As an elected representative of the people who put me there, I have a responsibility to learn about information ahead of time so I can make an intelligent decision about it," Fowler said.

The board majority voted at that meeting to remove "interim" from Bourisaw's job title to erase the perception of impermanence when the district applies for grants.

"I mainly talked to (Bourisaw) about it and said, 'Let me see what I can do, let me get a feel for it,'" O'Brien said this week. "I didn't feel it would be a problem getting the votes, so I risked it."

Except for her title, the terms of Bourisaw's contract remain the same. The superintendent and board have an option to end Bourisaw's relationship with the district given 60 days notice.

The board opposition - Archibald, Fowler and Ron Jackson - are bothered by the way the change came about. Jackson was so irritated he stormed out of that meeting without voting.

Archibald said, "I am not copied in to e-mails. I'm not informed of telephone conversations. I don't know if they are having other meetings. I just know when I see these things, it's a done deal."

The school district has not complied with a request the Post-Dispatch filed under Missouri's "Sunshine Law," asking the district to provide e-mails and correspondence among board members and district administrators regarding Bourisaw's contract.

O'Brien said the board majority did not meet or talk by telephone or e-mail in connection with Bourisaw's employment.

Fowler said, "They must have had some idea of what was going on because they didn't present any resistance (to the contract) or open anything up for discussion. It was pretty much a rubber stamp."

St. Louis University law professor Peter Salsich said the board is within its rights to discuss and act on personnel issues in private.

But to push through a major contract without the full board's knowledge, he added, "is not the way an organization that is trying to work together would usually operate."

Said Fowler: "If you're going to have an effective team, then you need trust to make it work. Even if the law has not been violated, it has been violated in spirit."

Board member Peter Downs said he received a "heads up" about the contract a few hours before the meeting. "I'm not sure why it was done in closed session. I guess it was justified because it was a personnel matter," he said.

Downs said public input will be appropriate if the board decides to consider contracting with Bourisaw for an extended period of time.

Bourisaw was hired as interim superintendent at an emergency meeting on July 14, the same day former Superintendent Creg Williams resigned under pressure from O'Brien and the board majority. Jackson, Archibald and Fowler had not met her prior to that meeting.

O'Brien said she turned to Bourisaw because she believed the district needed a qualified educator in a time of crisis. Bourisaw previously headed the Fox School District in Jefferson County and worked with the state education department

The manner in which the board hired Bourisaw and then amended her contract, board Vice President William Purdy and O'Brien said, is turnabout as fair play.

They maintain that the previous board majority excluded them from decision-making.

Fowler said, "The feeling is that they may have felt the same thing about the previous majority. But at least they were allowed to be part of the conversation."

Thursday, September 21, 2006 9:40:00 AM

 

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