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The Greek Myths of Clarkstown
Posted On Sep 30 2011
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No one can
trace the origins of the classic Greek myths.
They originated as stories told from one person to another for the
purpose of reinforcing a particular belief or set of beliefs. Clarkstown has its own “Greek” myths, which
relate to Dr. Keller-Cogan’s time at the Greece Central School District before
coming to Clarkstown. The origins of
these stories also cannot be traced, yet are told over and over to reinforce
the belief that Dr. Keller-Cogan destroyed Greece before coming to Clarkstown
in order to wreak more destruction.
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Though, no one has called her Dr. KRAKEN-Cogan…yet…
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To hear the
mythical narratives, Greece was a district in upstate New York filled with
happy people without a care in the world.
Then, Dr. Keller-Cogan rose to Superintendent, and through…well,
depending on the narrator…
A)
…”utter
incompetence”…
B)
…”sheer
arrogance”…
C)
…”pure
malice”…
…she did
bring upon the district a great strife, with massive infrastructure bonds,
fiscal mismanagement, EEOC complaints, lawsuits, divisiveness and all kinds of
mean, nasty things. Here’s just one example
(as written) of the various Greek myths that are circulating in the comments
sections of online news reports:
“She has been nothing but decisive the moment she was hired,
or should i say dumped on us from Greece. Check out http://www.theemploymentattorneys.com/docs/articles/discrimination/GreeceSchool Board to Fire Chief.pdf. Seems
like we are not the first to have issues with her. I have said it before and I
will say it again, she is not a good manager and thus not right for the job.”
Keep in
mind that these Greek myths continue to this day – that post (where I’m sure he
meant “divisive”, not “decisive”) was made last month! By all means, take a look at that link in the
post, because it is usually the link provided to support all
the Clarkstown Greek myths. Really, take
a look at that article. Now, the
chronology of events that led up to that evening of January 20, 2006 are not as
exciting as the Clarkstown Greek myths, but it does truly serve as a cautionary
tale of what happens when a slim majority of a Board takes actions while conducting entire debates in private and withholding information from the public.
It’s a safe
bet that the narrators of the Clarkstown Greek myths never read the second page
in that link. If they had, they would
notice that Dr. Keller-Cogan was the Greece Superintendent of Schools for less
than three months when the Board - by a commanding 5-4 majority that appears
to have been the margin in all their actions - voted to suspend her. Since this was during the summer break, she
was actually on the job for a mere 45 days, and she was suspended just five days into the new school year. It is simply not possible, even if one were the
Kraken, to wreak that kind of havoc in so short a time.
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That’s not even enough time to break
in her office chair…
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So, what
really happened in Greece?
Background:
In
1999/2000, the Greece Central School District was the eighth largest non-city
district by student enrollment (it is now third), the Superintendent was Steven
Walts, and Dr. Keller-Cogan was an assistant superintendent. That year, Mr. Walts helped drive the effort
for a massive capital improvement project that would encompass every building
in the district, a scenario similar to the 2009 Clarkstown Infrastructure Bond
proposal. The work in both proposals was
extensively researched for more than a year, and each was scaled back in scope
before being put to a public vote. Like
Clarkstown, Greece’s $119.5MM bond was the largest of its time. Unlike Clarkstown, however, the state would
reimburse 80% of the costs of the Greece project, not the 55% in
Clarkstown. Also unlike Clarkstown, the
voters of Greece approved the bond.
Moving now
to 2004, work approved by the bond is well underway, and Dr. Keller-Cogan has
been promoted to Deputy Superintendent for Student Learning and Accountability,
still reporting to Mr. Walts. In April
2005, Mr. Walts announced he would depart the Greece CSD in June for a similar
post in Virginia.
At about the
same time, there is much discord in Greece.
People are outraged at the “overspending” in their $70MM tax levy (it
was a $140MM budget, but half their operating funds come from the state…to this
day). It is worth noting that a large
segment of the population was employed by Eastman-Kodak…or I should say, were
formerly employed by Eastman-Kodak.
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It’s been a rough stretch for Kodak |
The people
of Greece elected tough fiscal conservatives who promised transparency and
accountability, and secured a slim majority in the 2005 elections. However, before the newly elected Board
members took office, the existing Board tapped Dr. Keller-Cogan to replace the
departing Superintendent. Notably, prior
to becoming the newly elected President of the Board of Education, Mr. Ken
Walsh had been rejected – twice – for the position of Assistant Superintendent
in the Greece CSD. Let the pandemonium
begin!
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Supporters of the new Board of Education President, we surmise…
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EEOC Complaints, Lawsuits and the
Firing…erm…Resignation:
Many people
were upset that the prior Board decided on the Superintendent as some members
were on their way off the Board. Additionally,
in the summer of 2005 the district was blind-sided by the revelation that the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruled that complaints of age
discrimination and failure to accommodate disabilities had merit. Five teachers filed these complaints a year
and a half earlier (that’s early 2004).
In
September 2005, the new 5-4 Board majority suspended Dr. Keller-Cogan and two
other administrators and actually banned them from district property while a
three-week review was conducted, ostensibly to prevent interference with the
review. Three weeks turned into three
months, with the Board disclosing no conclusion of wrongdoing or providing any
indication of what actions they were taking.
In October 2005, the EEOC gave four of the five teachers a notice of
right to sue the district because the Board refused to resolve the disputes
through mediation within the required time period. According to Board President Ken Walsh at the
time, the Board decided not to proceed with mediation until its own investigation was complete.
The
district’s attorneys hired Berry Consulting Services to conduct this investigation.
The Greece BoE received the results of the investigation, dubbed The Berry Report, on Dec. 21, 2005. They
refused repeated requests, including FOIL requests, to release the report or a
summary of its conclusions to the public.
They could not have been pleased with the report or the legal advice
they were receiving, as they fired the law firm that hired the
independent evaluators. With a
new law firm, the Board majority pursued an apparently predetermined goal to
fire Dr. Keller-Cogan as Superintendent.
When no basis could be found for firing her, they instead negotiated her
resignation because, as quoted in their press release, they could not achieve a
“mutually supportive relationship between the Board of Education and the
Superintendent of Schools”.
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Goodness knows they tried to give her
enough chances to fit in…
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Once the
Berry Report was finally released in 2009, one former member of that 5-4 majority
said that in seeking Keller-Cogan’s resignation “the Berry Report, in itself,
while relevant, actually played a very minor role in that decision.” He did not, however, say what did play a role in that decision. On the other hand, the President of the Board,
Ken Walsh, said at the time of the 2006 vote that the Board’s decision was “a
direct result of our understanding of the EEOC determinations, the Berry
Report, and advice from counsel.”
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Apparently, there was some confusion in their understanding… |
The Aftermath:
Upon
acceptance of her resignation, the Greece BoE issued this (under) statement:
“Dr. Keller-Cogan helped to lead the improvement of instructional programs,
services and programs for students with special needs, the quality of our
school facilities and ultimately, unprecedented improvement in student
achievement results.”
In fact,
among other things, Dr. Keller-Cogan was charged to work with the Teachers’ union
to develop the teacher evaluation and improvement system. The Board gave the impression that this
system, itself, was the entire basis of the EEOC complaints. Yet the Berry Report clearly said that this
teacher evaluation and review process was "pedagogically valid and fair in
its design" and “may be regarded as a model to be replicated”. It went on to say: “Many see this very
rigorous system of instructional analysis and teacher accountability as moving
the District forward.” With regards to
the five individuals in question, the report found that the evaluations in all
cases were valid and that there was no evidence of most of the teachers’
charges. It did conclude, in four cases,
there were some actions taken by immediate supervisors that could be viewed as
treating those teachers “unfairly”.
One could
see that the Berry Report would have had, indeed, a very minor role in the
decision to oust Dr. Keller-Cogan, since it completely exonerates and praises the
system that she developed!
So what
about those EEOC complaints? Again,
while the EEOC found merit in four of the complaints, it pursued none. In the source link of the Clarkstown Greek
myths, these four teachers filed individual lawsuits against the district the
week before the Board vote against Dr. Keller-Cogan. The fifth, whose claims the EEOC did not
support, made other allegations that compelled the EEOC to refer the case to
the Justice Department, a move her lawyer characterized as “an extremely rare
step.” Such a step did not mean the
allegations were valid, of course, and the Justice Department declined to take
action. She later filed her own lawsuit. In response, the Greece Teachers Association
began arguing against the evaluation system that they actively worked to develop.
None of the
lawsuits apparently had a specific complaint against Dr. Keller-Cogan, and she
wasn’t even named in the largest one. In fact,
Dr. Keller-Cogan had never met three of the teachers in question and had met
the other two only incidentally. By
December 2008, all the lawsuits were settled.
Three lawsuits by the teachers who retired in 2004 were settled for a total of
$125,000. The fourth
settled for $235,000 and the last settled for an estimated $140,000. These two teachers returned to work for the
district, and retired this year. The settlements were
mostly for lost wages and other compensation.
It was the Board’s decision to reject mediation in 2005 that resulted in
these costly settlements in 2008.
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Good call, eh?
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Fiscal Mismanagement
The Office
of New York State Comptroller performed an audit of the Greece CSD’s internal financial controls from 2005-2007 and issued its
report in February 2008. It condemned
the financial management of the Greece capital improvement project under Steven
Walts and blasted the Board of Education for its lax
oversight. The audit determined that the Greece Boards improperly gave
Walts a “blank check” to use $2,497,487 in unauthorized general funds to
complete the capital project, allowed Walts to accept $25,000 for vacation days
in a fiscal year during which he was employed for one week, and generally
failed to monitor project and operational expenses. The Board hired its own auditing firm, and in
December 2008 they also blasted the Board and largely agreed with the state report. Dr.
Keller-Cogan is not named in either of these audits.
There is
absolutely nothing to indicate any wrongdoing by Dr. Keller-Cogan through the entire
real story of Greece. Indeed, every
indication is that the programs under her direction in the school district were
hugely successful and thoroughly validated.
In reviewing the reality of the history in Greece, we find:
- Dr. Keller-Cogan’s programs were independently
found to be valid, effective and models to be replicated.
- The Board
fired a law firm well versed in educational law to hire another law firm specifically to find cause to fire Dr. Keller-Cogan.
- Her qualifications and record of accomplishment
withstood this serious and no doubt biased scrutiny.
- The Board’s
efforts to remove her were entirely political and without merit.
- The Board
basis to demand her resignation was simply their refusal to work with her.
- The Board
withheld information, paid for by the public, which utterly refuted their
efforts.
- The Board
clearly had no criteria to assess her performance or a successor. The lack of focus and direction from the Board may be
why Greece is on its sixth Superintendent since January 2005.
- The Board’s
decisions prevented a timely and certainly less expensive resolution to
the EEOC complaints.
- The Board
has consistently failed its duty to provide effective fiscal oversight of
the district.
In reviewing the
Clarkstown Greek myths, we find one simplistic point:
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"We don't like her." |
The
realities offer many lessons. Information should be shared in any way
possible with the public. Ideas should
be discussed openly with the goal finding commonalities to bridge across
differences. Personal issues have no
place in such discussions. Board members
must focus on their role and remember that each must respond to the entire
district, not merely their own neighborhoods or interests. Parents and residents must take an active
interest in the entire district, not merely their own schools. Not everyone will be happy about everything,
but maybe all of us can be satisfied with most things.
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There's a little of this in all of us. |
These
lessons may be summed up by the blog that was largely the voice of the
anti-Keller-Cogan forces in Greece in 2005/2006. In July 2010, they wrote of Dr. Keller-Cogan:
“Today, it appears she has really settled into her new school community. Her most recent budget got passed easily (as have most since her move there) when 69% of registered voters supported it by a two to one margin. Also, her teacher's union just settled a new 5 yr. contract that agrees to an 18 month pay freeze during these times of economic uncertainty. Her paycheck totals $225,000/yr. Looks like it was Greece's loss after all.”
The
Clarkstown Greek myths are totally busted. When the realities are examined, one must
wonder why anyone would want to compare the current environment in our district to those
furious days in Greece. One must hope
that the residents of Clarkstown learn from that history and avoid falling into our own
Greek tragedy.