In my last blog I expressed annoyance with the Des Moines School Board for its apparent lack of knowledge of and, more specifically, concern about the troubling accreditation report issued by the Iowa Department of Education. I concluded by calling the School Board an impotent body. It appears I was wrong to single out the School Board. Unfortunately, the Department of Education does not exactly stand tall with competence either.
My blog caught Superintendent Nancy Sebring’s attention. Convinced my sole source of information had been the Des Moines Register, she invited me to coffee to lay out the facts saying “you need to know that there were serious factual errors in their reports (and editorial) regarding the accreditation report.”
I accepted the invitation immediately. We spent nearly two hours reviewing the Iowa Department of Education’s findings, the school district’s responses, the School Board’s involvement and the Register’s coverage.
Dr. Sebring acknowledged the 19 specific areas of non-compliance in the report. We went through most of them in detail and discussed how the District was addressing or planned to address each. She wanted me to know the District was taking the matter very seriously. However, the primary errors she pointed to were not made by the Register, but by the Iowa Department of Education.
Let me be clear, Dr. Sebring told me she believes the Register’s stories and editorial border on slander. Dr. Sebring carelessly tosses around accusations of slander and conspiracy, but I do not immediately dismiss her charges. In fact, they demand discussion and I will write more on this later. Today, I am going to focus on the Department of Education.
One error made by the Department of Education rises above the rest. Listed in the findings of the Department’s official report the District received on June 22 was Item 11 in the section titled Areas of Non-Compliance: Chapter 12 mandates Des Moines Schools. It said the District had yet to submit a signed assurance from the superintendent that two people who were teaching had been “removed from the assignment of teaching…and not paid for the teaching assignment” as of “April 7, 2011, the date the district was officially notified,” because neither person was “endorsed or certified to teach.” Officially notified? Perhaps not.
According to Dr. Sebring, an exhaustive search of District Email and paper files, and extensive discussions with staff and former staff indicate the Department never notified the School District two people had to be removed from teaching. Further, Sebring told me she was baffled as to why the District was cited at all in the case of an assistant teacher who was teaching Chinese in an elementary school. She claims the District had received oral approval from a state education official to utilize this person as a teacher before the school year began.
It seemed implausible the Department of Education would demand two people be fired without documenting each step of the process. So, I asked the Department of Education for the dated transmittal documents and the original official demand the individuals be removed from teaching by April 7. Surprisingly, there are no such documents.
The document the Iowa Department of Education provided as proof it had mandated two people be removed from teaching in Des Moines classrooms.
The Department sent me a copy of the preliminary report the Department claims was transmitted to the District and a copy of a hand-scrawled, undated note from a departing Education employee to her superior. The note explains where on a computer the preliminary report was to be found and that, “This is the document given to Mike Munoz on 4/7/11.” Munoz was a District employee who has also left his job. The note was signed “Julie.”
Holy cats! Thousands of dollars and countless man hours went into compiling an accreditation report showing 19 disquieting deficiencies in the Des Moines Schools. In response to the findings, the Department demanded the District fire two employees without notice and the main documentation the Department can provide is a nearly illegible internal note proving nothing.
It’s a classic he said/she said argument of incompetence.
The Department’s apparent lack of internal documentation and controls in this case give credence to Dr. Sebring’s assertion the District might have received oral consent from the Department to hire the uncertified Chinese language teacher in the first place. After getting a look at the shoddy way the Department of Education keeps records it seems possible.
I have been told Jason Glass, director of the Iowa Department of Education plans to attend tomorrow’s Des Moines School Board meeting. No word on if he will address the report or the District’s accusations, but it seems likely. One can only hope both the Department and the District will learn oral agreements and off-the-record chatter cannot stand-in for documentation and controls.
One has to wonder why the District didn’t demand something more than a handshake when seeking an exemption from state law to use an uncertified teacher in the classroom and why the Department would think the District would act on a document so clearly marked draft, even if it was handed to a District administrator as the Department purports.
But, let’s remember, one entity’s ineptitude does not excuse another’s. The fact the Des Moines School Board had not received or read the State’s report did not stop one board member from saying, “I believe the school district is addressing each and every one of these issues.”
The School Board did not read what the Department of Education had written, and the Department apparently does not put in writing that which needs to be documented.
Looks like education officials in Des Moines and Iowa could both use a Viagra type infusion of competence.
###
Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.
