Updated, 3:17 p.m., PowerPoint added.
NORWALK, Conn. – The rebuilding continued at Norwalk Public Schools with a vote Tuesday evening to approve Norwalk Superintendent Manny Rivera’s central office reorganization plan, with a strong emphasis on Special Education.
The vote came despite the protests of three Board of Education members who said they wanted more information and more transparency.
“This is continuing the process of rebuilding a damaged system and I think making it better than it was even before,” BoE Chairman Mike Lyons said. “I also appreciate the fact that a lot of these central officer positions are oriented in another direction. These are not simply paper pushers in headquarters. These people will go out into the school system.”
The vote to approve the extensive plan was 5 to 3, with Lyons, Heidi Keyes, Jack Chiaramonte, Artie Kassimis and Mike Barbis voting in favor and Shirley Mosby, Rosa Murray and Migdalia Rivas voting against the plan. Sherelle Harris was not present.
“I do have concerns that we have taken quite a bit from the schools and just haven’t a balance in place,” Murray said. “Here we are looking at some positions that I think could be more creative. I think we are going from one extreme to another.”
The plan comes as part of the continuing response to the 2012-13 budget cycle which resulted in many cuts. The school’s central office was “decimated,” Lyons said.
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Rivera’s plan includes turning three full-time administrators of special education into four Special Education instructional supervisors — a net gain of one position — and turning a Human Relations executive secretary and an HR assistant into three full-time HR specialists. The net gain overall is 2.8 positions.
Rivera said the board had previously approved money for HR. That money and the cost of former Chief Operating Officer Elio Longo’s salary added up to $980,000, he said. The plan spends all but $574 of that, he said.
One position is in support of a grant that hasn’t been announced yet – the Dalio Foundation has awarded NPS $1.1 million, according to a memo Rivera sent the board. That will be spent over two years, Rivera said Tuesday. It is directly targeted to improve reading scores by the end of third grade, he said. The position is funded by the grant.
One goal of the plan is to reduce out-of-district special education costs. Rivera said he had talked to principals from Meriden and Bridgeport last week; Meriden has reduced the number of special education students being bused to other districts from 150 to 68, “saving millions,” he said.
“We want to look into creating our own programs that can serve some of our own children without sending them on buses,” Rivera said. “We have a plan to get that under control. We think it can reap substantial savings over the next few years. There may well be some start-up costs in the next budget associated with some of these programs, but, in the long term, it will save money.”
That would be achievable with hearing-impaired children and with those diagnosed with autism, he said.
“We are under contract with an outside agency,” Rivera said, referring to autism. “That outside agency actually hires behavioral specialists — I think they’re called AB — they hire behavioral specialists. We pay a fortune to them to hire AB specialists. We could be operating our own classes for children.”
Mosby said information provided to the board should have included salaries for the new employees, as well as the raises Communications Director Brenda Williams and Chief Financial Officer Rich Rudl will receive when their positions are expanded, as defined under the plan.
She made a motion to table the item for two weeks. Rivas seconded it. They were the only ones to vote for it.
This drama repeated itself several times over the course of the meeting. Mosby and Rivas advocated for a cause, receiving no debate other than brief comments from Lyons. They then made a motion based on their cause only to have it go down in flames. Murray voted with them once and abstained on other occasions.
Mosby also objected to the process of approving the plan. Rivera’s plan was listed in the agenda under information and reports, not under actions.
“(I think it’s wrong to) put it under information and reports and then push quickly to possible action without even involving the public, without giving them the opportunity to hear what is going on, to digest what is going on,” Mosby said. “It’s pushed through without salaries and all of that stuff. … I would understand if this was something were all inclusive and we had discussion and we were on top of this, but this is just coming down at the 11th hour.”
Rivas agreed.
Lyons answered those complaints. “I can think of a dozen examples where we have had discussion under possible actions without objections of board members,” he said.
He cited one example from earlier in the meeting, the approval of a five-year contract with Whitson’s Culinary Group.
“We have been talking about this reorganization since the time we had the board retreat and talked about it,” Lyons said. “It’s been in the strategic plan, it’s been presented on multiple occasions by Dr. Rivera … and it’s in our budget. All of these changes are in the budget that the board approved. All we are doing is going through a very systematic, very logical process. Then you get down to the nitty-gritty of contract approvals. I think the way Dr. Rivera has been doing this has been consistent with all the other changes we have made.”
Rivera explained that the plan will enhance school operations.
“We have been operating fairly thinly and we really have not, and I will tell you very frankly, we have not spent the kind of time in the schools that we should be,” Rivera said. “We have not spent the time really out in the field providing support and guidance, the higher level of oversight that we ought to have in our schools. We do not have standards in place, quality standards for our schools.”
The plan includes a third-floor receptionist who will greet families as they come off the elevator and prevent them from wandering around confused as they do now, Rivera said. The new chief academic officer will enforce curriculum quality standards as Common Core State Standards are instituted and allow Rivera and Deputy Superintendent Tony Daddona to focus on leadership. HR has been “way understaffed,” Rivera said.
Kassimis lauded the plan. “I especially like what I see with the Special Education Department,” he said. “I know none of us are going to forget the CREC (Capital Region Education Council) report.”
Barbis said the changes are needed.
“Some of our teachers have not gotten the support they needed from human resources, especially teachers on maternity leave who were berated and kind of abused in HR,” Barbis said. “These are teachers that work for us, there is a lot going on in their lives. … We should be supportive. Not returning phone calls, not giving information on insurance – it’s not acceptable.”
Chiaramonte referred to “horrendous budget seasons” that “caused us to chop up our staff and jerrymander” positions. “Things got lost,” he said, calling the plan “well thought out.”
“I very much appreciate what you have done,” Chiaramonte said. “You’ve gone to other districts you’ve seen what works and what doesn’t work. As long as the money is well spent and you find ways of spending money that is more efficient, that’s exactly what this district needs.”
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