TalkToCCSD.com
08/11/2011
I-Team: Witness Speaks of CCSD Police Employees Drinking with Teens. CCSD poliece drinking with students. One of the students gets drunk and kills someone in a traffic accident. Then comes the cover up (as usual.) http://www.8newsnow.com/story/15251922/i-team-witness-speaks-of-ccsd-police-employees-drinking-with-teens#.TkY8ficLO8Q.facebook
05/09/2011
No doubt you have been watching the news and seen only the news generated by the CCSD PR machine lately. It's a sad state of affairs but due to the economy the main stream press seems unable to take the initiative to look into the "Stories" generated by the school board and it's assistants. As I mentioned below there is a huge spending campaign going on and nobody but the Las Vegas Tribune has reported it. Here is the link.
(Fans of political correctness; please excuse my quotes in the is article. I feel that you don’t get it if I use the politically correct and ambiguous words. So I have quoted some old fashioned terms… so that you understand what I am saying…)
In addition to the squandering stated below CCSD just gave contracts for "Design Build" of two "Special Ed" schools. this is again to somehow (Absurdly) attempt to force the hand of the governor and the legislature to give them more money with one hand while refusing to cough up money that it does not need to spend on the other hand. So why is CCSD building unneeded seats when the entire district is running well under capacity?
Yes you correctly understood. Under capacity means that as an example elementary schools are running 30% under capacity according to what voters were told in order to get them to vote for the 1998 bond election...
They are building unneeded seats for two reasons that I can prove. I can’t say what one is the saddest. First they want to quickly spend the money before it gets handed over to the state. Although the voters voted to build $35. Billion in schools during the 1998 bond election the school board actually sold 5 billion. So they somehow got more money than you and I thought that we voted for. Now the governor wants to take that morally unauthorized money and use it to make the budget work. Rather than negotiate getting that money back as operations money the school board is spending it any stupid way that they can.
The second reason has to do with our educational system failing to adequately teach “Special Ed” kids. To understand why follow the following shenanigan: Failing No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has many reasons. If a school flunks in a few categories then it fails completely. One big excuse for schools failing is because we don’t have a program to educate Special Ed kids. So when a school fails one of the reasons that it fails is typically a failure of Special Ed. The current plan to raise the success rate with Special Ed is to take kids who need a little extra help and refuse to grant them any extra tutoring (like staying after class to get extra help) unless they enroll in under the “Special Ed” designation. This takes the worst performers in “Regular Ed” and moves them off the Regular Ed rolls thereby raising the “Regular Ed” grade averages. It also takes a bunch of kids who are just normal “Slow learners” but not mentally or physically disabled and moves them into a category that most parents think of as being for mentally or physically disabled. So, frankly, this is able to “Cheat” both sets of scores up. The main casualties of this shenanigan are the average kids who some teacher didn’t bother to teach one year and so they got behind. Those kids will have to explain why they spend years in Special Ed to any institution of higher learning that they apply to. This is no more than the usual callous disregard for some kids than we see on any given day at the school board.
So even though we don’t need any additional seats the school board is building two “Special Ed” schools because that will further cheat the statistics to pass NCLB. What” you say!!! Are we going to have Special Ed busses driving all over town taking them to special schools? Yes we are.
So what is the current educational thinking on Special ED? Well it is called “Mainstreaming. This means educating the Special Ed kids in association with the others and if it will work together. That way the kids can learn how to deal with each other and realize that just because some kid is in a wheelchair doesn’t make him/her a pariah.
So maybe you think that this is a class size reduction thing. Having all of “Them” in one or two places? Nope. We could consolidate them into already built school rooms in the schools that we have already… and the busses wouldn’t have to go as far either. It may be true that some true Special Ed classrooms are underutilized and that moving kids from a nearby school would put one classroom out of use while fully utilizing another. But, if that is correct, there is still no need to build a whole school.
This scheme actually costs tax payers more because running more schools actually costs more money!!! Of course in the ivory tower that the school board lives in normal mathematics of the cost of running another campus is concealed in fancy accounting. Operating another building, lights, principal, assistant principal, janitor, cutting the lawn and running the air conditioning are thought to be normal costs of operation and unavoidable. This is untrue.
Moreover, somehow the costs of school buses are accounted for differently and they look at it like they are coming out of “Someone else’s” pocket. Of course that “someone else” are taxpayers too.
So if this money was burning a hole in the school boards pocket and they had to spend it fast without knowing what they needed of wanted… but just had to squander it fast before it goes into the general fund… then what should they do? Land acquisition for future school locations. Yes, the main lie that the school board and planning department tell to excuse their building schools out in the middle of nowhere when they need schools near town was lack of property. Now that virtually and land in the county can be had for fifty cents or less on the dollar they don’t want to plan ahead (again). That would reduce operating costs today and reduce the cost of bussing tomorrow. Advance planning to save money is of no interest. Besides that they have other reasons for wanting to build schools where they can pay part of nearby developers costs for infrastructure such as roads and water mains.
Unfortunately, for tax payers to consider paying higher taxes for schools they will have to become convinced that the money that we gave them already is being well spent. If you see and competence in the management plan above please drop me a line…
Ken Small
02/26/2011
Having seen no changes to this web site since December you may inaccurately presume that I have given up or that things are improving. Actually with the election of 3 new board members and the appointment of Superintendent Jones I have decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.... for a short while. As you know, most of the districts problems come from the prior boards and their illegal and self serving antics. However, everything listed in this web site still holds true as far as I know... and if the new board and 'sup' fail to remedy some of the problems then the benefit of the doubt will end and we will go back to putting up new problems. Of which there are many!!!!
Currently
I attended the Bond Oversight Committee
meeting in January and the BOC decided to build another job "Cost Plus"
thereby squandering more of the public's money. They admitted that the
cost of the $31 million job was $3 million MORE. Due to the method of
hiring contractors (non-competitively). So the fact that the district
is being crushed by the mismanagement of the bond money still has not
resulted in better management. At recent public appearances
Superintendent Jones has said that "CCSD cannot cut its way out of its
problems..." Neither can you squander your way out of the problems
either Mr. Jones. Head of Facilities Paul Gerner is the big advocate
for procuring building construction under what he mis-terms CMAR.
However, this is just a way to conceal Facilities ineptitude and failure to
decide anything... sometimes until after it gets built wrong. (or worse....)
We hear that some of the school principals are fed up with Paul Gerner. All I can say is that it took long enough. He has been around for over 6 years and still can't buy a clue about educational issues. The guy who used to run the school development program before Paul took over had the knowledge down pat before 5 years. Paul just used all the stimulus money to build electric panels on schools. Maybe he could have used that money to support education at the same time? The facilities department rush to squander the $31m above is just the tip of the iceberg. Again, 6 years ago the guy running things at CCSD facilities would have been ahead of the game and been ready to bid this job early. So the one thing that the planning department can't add after the fact is competent planning. Of course, neither can the school board. Our trustees are doing the "Deer in the Headlights" thing with the state legislature and Governor... trying to at least use the excuse of budget cuts to cover themselves for failure to manage.
My first public observation of 'sup' Dwight Jones was at the "Super PAC' meeting which was MC'd by Edwards. This spectacle was back to the SOS with a new face. For those of you who don't know it, the school district is not supposed to have "Political Action Committees". So never mind the term PAC... they say it means something else. Joyce Haldeman sat directly in front of Jones doing her usual Blackberry and ventriloquist routine more than I had seen lately with ex-superintendent Walt Rulffes. Edwards asked how many of the participants were CCSD employees since the BS speech from Jones was somewhat well received. Many of the CCSD employees that I recognized there did not raise their hands... wonder why??? I spoke with a few people there who supported me during the election and found out that principals had recruited PTA presidents and the like to attend. Jones, sadly said that they were looking to reforms already underway to fix things. WHAT??? I wondered if he was referring to the school voucher program.... since no reforms that CCSD is undertaking have any chance of doing anything but tinkering around the edges. Jones then left without taking questions. Yes, that is how two way communications works at the board and 'sup' level. Edwards then took comments and with the exception of the usual comments only one citizen who wanted to do something specific with the board to make changes spoke. He was immediately ushered to staff so that the audience could not hear the whole story that he was talking about. This is the typical treatment for those who try to reach out to the board.....
MOTS = More of the Same
By Ken Small
12/14/2010
Name One Fix For Clark County School District
By Ken Small
During the election Carolyn Edwards agreed with the public that there are some bad teachers and that some of our bad teachers need to go. This week we read in the Sun the first of the excuses of why this cannot be done. Through close relationships, the Sun has a way of predicting what the school board’s position will be in upcoming excuse making. This time is was a need for some expensive fancy software to figure out who is doing a bad job. (As though the principal at the school and the other teachers don’t know.)
None of this is any surprise to parents or taxpayers who follow the shenanigans that the school board does daily. We know that Edward’s reelection campaign was substantially funded by the teachers union and that they did a lot for her. If you know some of the methods of that union then you will also know that, on the suggestion of the union, others gave her money or would not have if she didn’t make certain commitments to the union. Edwards is not planning to get rid of any teachers unless they have done enough to get arrested. This is how it has always been in the school district. Shall it continue?
I must tell you that the reason why some teachers are “Bad” is that the school board and its incompetent management have made them so. After so many years of disappointments and promotion of others by internal politics as opposed to performance, some teachers just give up or lose their zeal for teaching. This is the fault of bad leadership. Other school district staff are simply in the wrong positions. In the business world this would be a “No Brainer”. Competent management would realize that this person does better or would do better with younger, older, special (whatever) students than the ones that they have now. In this situation we should simply talk about incompetent teachers.
I have spoken with many retiring principals and asked them what I could do for them if I was on the school board. Somewhere within the top two requests was: ‘Allow them to get rid of bad teachers’. They told me that the bad teachers are disheartening to everybody else. So since we know that the school board has never been able to handle this before and that their position will be that they can’t do this without fancy software then I think that a good TEMPORARY solution is to allow principal discretion. Principals could direct bad incompetent teachers to positions where the principal thinks that they can succeed or fire them.
While this should eventually (say ten years ago) be done through some mathematical quantification, that will take time. Teachers correctly say that any teacher will likely flee a low income school because it is harder to succeed there and that being there increases chances of getting fired due to lack of performance. Any solution should include comparing “Value added” and not comparing teachers educating poor students to those who have the advantage of well educated parents, and wealth. Also, comparing teachers in comparable situations would be the way to go in that context.
You wouldn’t expect the manager of a store to succeed if he had no discretion to dismiss underperformers or move their positions. You wouldn’t expect a professional sports team manager, coach etcetera… to work without being allowed to get rid of under-performers. Why do we think that the principals should not be allowed to do this? We don’t. We have just elected officials who have other commitments than to taxpayers and kids.
12/12/2010
The Light At The End Of The Tunnel For The Clark County School District
By Ken Small
Over many years of incompetent school boards and some members who gave up on helping kids and only looked to help their political careers, the CCSD educational system slowly sank from an average educational system to a bad one. Fast growth enabled administrators who weren’t too competent themselves to cover their own buts by hiring competent subordinates. Of course incompetents don’t think that way. They hired many people who are also unqualified so that the old leaders could protect themselves against subordinates that knew more. In fairness, they may not really have intentionally done this. People just like to hire subordinates that are like minded. And the same thing goes for the school board who picks its replacements.
After many years of putting off the necessary and postponing the inevitable and borrowing against the future the handpicked replacement trustees are in an unenviable position of seeing that the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.
So what is the solution? It won’t be an uptick in the economy because that will not come fast enough. It won’t be a steep climb in property values for the same reason. So throwing money at the problem is not an option.
It turns out that once we have elected officials that have something this totally screwed up there is not “A solution.” As time permits and as issues arise I will recommend some solutions.
11/21/2010
As of today the most recent school board meeting to be posted to the CCSD web site was October 14. This is because they don't want the public to be able to go back and look at the entire story on any issue currently before the board. They typically get their spin into the mainstream press and then people will come here to see what is going on. After the public is no longer interested in what was in the news then the Trustees let the CCSD web site post the meeting where it occurred. This is purposefully done to discourage parent involvement. Yes that does not mean that they don't want parents to volunteer to help watch and teach the kids. They just don't want them to come complaining about the board.
09/29/10 Here is the video on the vote for the next superintendent. Some analysis was provided by the Las Vegas Tribune.
08/28/2010
Looks like Carolyn Edwards has made the owner of the best local TV station pretty irritated. He wrote Edwards a letter telling her his opinion.
Jim Rogers is supported by a petition of parents for the position of superintendent replacing the soon to depart Walt Rulffes. Edwards apparently went to visit Rogers and told him that there was a back room deal to make Edwards the President of the school board after the election. Edwards doesn't get to run the meeting s very often because the current president Terri Janison is not absent much. But the public and Kevinn Donovan got a taste of what it will be like recently and Jim Rogers had an opinion on that too. Rogers example of Edwards behavior is representative of how I have been treated by those running the board sometimes.
When the school board tells tax payers that parents don't have an interest in education. Take a look at the school board's interest in the opinion of parents!!! See if you can figure out why parents have given up on them!!! The letter is here
07/16/2010
The Las Vegas Tribune posted another article regarding the school districts deliberate flagrant attempt to misrepresent to the pubic that it is complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The article was in the printed version but is not online yet. I'll post the link so that you can read it over the weekend. www.lasvegastribune.com
07/10/2010
This is important even if you don't care
about students and members of the public with disabilities
because it shows how their illegal activities waste the bond money
that you and I will have to repay. Think of the same
question as it relates to everything...
“Was the money, thus far, well spent?”
Sadly the answer is a resounding NO. Upper level
management has to regain the public trust.
06/24/2010
Here
were a couple of items that I spoke on during this school board meeting. The
first is about the superintendent search process. As usual the
Trustees want what they want and disregard the law to get it. Since
Trustee Janison has been President and for a long time before, I have asked
the school board to cease their illegal activities. They don't care
about violating the law because there is no discipline in the system for
them... other than not getting reelected. The second video addresses
the fact that they finally got some federal stimulus money and decided not
to put it to use in improving education!!! Yes it is true. There are
plenty of opportunities to spend capital improvement money where it will
actually help students learn. In this case they chose to spend the
money on photovoltaic (electric panels) to save money. This is an
example of laziness by the facilities staff who don't want to think hard to
accomplish both goals and the school board Trustees who don't want to think
about education being the primary issue and primary problem.
05/27/10
Tonight's School Board meeting was another fine example of how the Trustees "Manage" our School District. It ran very long and nothing changed from the past. This time I brought Suzanne Thomas to meet the board. Have a listen to the board meeting and you will hear that the Trustees have intentionally been into many illegal activities. The top 3 mentioned at this meeting would be: 1. Paying contractors for work not done. 2. Bid rigging the architect selection process and...
3. Systematically, intentionally, violating the rights of children and employees with disabilities (actually everyone under the Americans With Disabilities Act). Setting aside such things as having a conscience and complying with federal law, the school board blew off Suzanne's request for a future agenda item to discuss the topic and her offer to help them learn to comply for free. These School Board leaders, particularly Janison, Edwards and Moulton have real guts. Facing down people who have evidence that you are deliberately violating federal law is one thing... but don't you think that trampling the civil rights of disabled kids gets you an automatic "A" ticket to hell?
Sadly what is important is almost a sidebar to the other (ADA) major stupidity going on. The Trustees reaffirmed their commitment to feed kids junk for after school today. I posted this as an update to the TalkToCCSD 004 video series. They are sticking to it....
5/26/2010
Hi everybody! So far I have been able to resist putting any election stuff on this web site. That is because it was originally set up to tell the TRUSTEES what they need to fix. After I figured out that the Trustees had no intention of fixing anything that I reported I set up my election site www.KenSmallBigChange.com. I have not made any new content in a long time for this site because the other one takes so much time. However I have already prepared many videos which are coming up one at a time. now I'm going to break my own rule and post a line to the LAS VEGAS TRIBUNE because I think that the paper has an insight into what the overarching problem is. Ken
5/25/2010
If you can't stand sitting through the self-congratulatory hoopla at the school board and can't see the tiny screen that they broadcast on their web site then you probably don't see many school board meetings. I recommend that you watch the whole meeting on the 27th. It will be interesting.
5/07/2010
I KLAS Channel 8 had an interesting report on the school board last night. This is a link.
This story is about how the Trustees called for "Shared Sacrifice" for all CCSD employees while giving the top 5 staff a big bonus.
04/15/2010
There was a great news article in the LVRJ regarding the Trustees plan to hire a replacement for Walt Rulffes before the next election. Hurry and lock in the failed policies of the past before the voters do something about it!!! http://www.lvrj.com/news/board-leaves-options-open-90817769.html
04/07/2010
Bid
rigging the architect selection process. What it there was a way to
make sure that some people were winners and others losers in procuring
government contracts? What is the Sherman Act? don't ask the
Trustees. They have no idea.
Link to the evidence.
Here is the first part in the series detailing the ongoing architect bid rigging that has gone on for years at CCSD PART 1 More parts have already been uploaded and will be released shortly. As of 4/07 it was reported to me that CCSD staff has contacted architects privately to see if those architects want the change their proposals after the submission deadline. That deadline was over one month ago. Is a private conversation between the procurement staff and applicants allowing changes to the bid after submission allowed? No never.
03/18/2010
This morning I was interviewed on KRLV radio 6:30 AM March 18, 2010 1340 AM. I expect to have the audio to post here very soon.
03/18/2010
CCSD
is, in my experience, a top down governed parent unfriendly school district.
This means that the Trustees have created an atmosphere of disinterest in
parent concerns. Such things as having painters destroy the artwork
installed by parents, students and teachers as volunteers is commonplace. As
it is impossible to take a picture of artwork that has been painted over, I
have shown here some simple examples of policy driven failure to address the
concerns of parents.
Part 1
Part 2 (Part
2 Revised 3/22/10)
Part 3
03/11/10
I just found the audio recording of Trustee Dr Young asking to have the item about the contracts put on the agenda for 3/25/10. Trustees Janison, Moulton and Edwards apparently want to block it. Hear for yourself and draw your own conclusions. (as of the 18th they moved this link.... guess it was too interesting?)
03/12/2010
This morning I was on News Radio 840 KXNT at 6 AM. Alan Stock was reporting on the perks given to the top 5 staff at the district and asking how they could give out bonuses to them while asking for cuts in the classroom. He was also aware of the LVRJ reported information about the huge numbers of layoffs. I told him that these scare tactics by the Trustees will not come to pass in this magnitude. The Trustees just want the public to be fooled into thinking that the Trustees are doing them a favor when they are not. Download it now.
03/11/2010
Today an article in the LVRJ by James Haug wrote some interesting things about this situation. He also quoted me. So I'm going to make you go there and read what he wrote. However, the more important point is that posted to the LVRJ article is a recording of Carolyn Edwards reading the decision into the minutes. So I went to the school board tonight and asked the Trustees why the District F newsletter says that CE had nothing to do with this and that it was done in 2006 when I had the contracts and they are dated 11/2009? Naturally, there was no answer. The Trustees want you to think that its illegal for them to speak to you on non-agenda items... I was just joking about my "Interesting Quote". What you need to do is read it and hear her. If seeing is believing then hearing is pretty good too... Link to the article Here is another take on this from NPRI Karen Gray
03/10/2010
A now departed CCSD
director level administrator once taught me what “Inexplicable” means to the
top dogs at CCSD. Unlike you
and I, who usually go with the dictionary definition, they can make up their
own definition. So what does
“Inexplicable” mean to the big and powerful at CCSD?
Inexplicable – means that there is an explanation, but you wouldn’t want to
be on the witness stand explaining it!!!!
Maybe you saw the
Las Vegas Tribune last week
(03/01/2010) or heard on the other news that there was another acrimonious
CCSD Board meeting where members of the audience called for Trustees to
resign etc…. The issue that has
brought so much anger from Teachers, CCSD (unprivileged, normal) staff,
parents and activists is that of “Sneaking” a few extra Bucks to Walt (over
$50,000) and more for his top 4 staff.
While giving the top 5 staff in the school district a back door raise
the Trustees were telling children that they were about to cut services
AGAIN. Teachers & staff were
told that there would be layoffs or salary reductions and more.
Meanwhile, the Trustees managed to get some money to Walt and the
gang without public notice prior or recording it in minutes.
In this month’s
newsletter distributed By CCSD for Trustee Edwards she states that this was
all done before she took office.
I have been given the contracts.
They are dated November 2009. See the Proof:
Item1
Item2
03/02/2010
Here
is how the bond money is being spent!!! At last a simple example of
the kind of shenanigans that go on....!!! Today's lesson is how
to get rid of our excess money! "What!!" you say? Yes if your
intention is to spend more for a product then it is actually worth then the
best way to do that in a bid is to only allow one product to be used.
That way the manufacturer can charge whatever he wants or whatever price has
been agreed to privately. So at Clark County (not CCSD) they bid two
carpet fibers (this same two) to get competitive bidding. At CCSD they
wrote such a narrow focus specification that only one manufacturer can make
the fiber. Why have a bid then? Because they think that the
public can't figure it out.
You will see multiple bidders. but they are
INSTALLERS. What is the result? No matter what bid is low CCSD
gets the same product. Is this carpet so incredibly special that they
can't allow another ? Ha Ha HA!!!!
Part 1 of 1
This is the link
to the documents given to the County Commissioners
To those of you that asked questions, here are some answers:
1. Here is the information showing that the two fibers are equals. This is a "proprietary specification". A specification where the only equal is disallowed.
02/23/2010
Part
of the incredibly bad planning that the CCSD Trustees endorse is that of
using portable classroom buildings in place of real school buildings.
This leaves neighbors who thought that they moved into a single family
detached home neighborhood looking at a trailer park. It leaves the
kids in the trailers with substandard educational facilities. There
are many other illegal and detrimental conditions that are related to this
practice. These videos show a few ideas of the problems that are not
so obvious. The worst part of it is that there are plenty of
schools without them. So the money spent buying these eye-sores was
wasted. CCSD continued buying/renting additional more portables well
after you and I knew that the economy was going down and people were leaving
Clark County. 4 Parts Total.
02/16/2010
You may be looking for this link.... As of February 2010 I have announced that I am running for Trustee District F. This web site will not be the campaign web site. The site below is for my campaign and offers more information. I will continue filling this site with more facts until the time required for the campaign takes my time away. If you or someone you know wants to volunteer to take this site over or help with this site please let me know. I have already created another 20 videos for YouTube and content for this site comes from the school board meetings and emails that people send me. More to follow: www.KenSmallBigChange.com
02/16/2010
This morning I got the email from Kevinn Donovan. He is one of the activists that the school board is trying to ignore. His argument has mostly to with accounting. Ignoring accounting is one of those things that brings big disaster eventually. Too bad they were not listening last year. His comments follow.
Dear Elected Officials,
For those of you that haven’t been watching the news and reading the papers,
I thought I would share three articles of shocking and surprising
information with you.
Overtime Article on CCSD employees:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jan/07/district-dozen-hit-jackpot-overtime-pay/
News Article on the bloated salaries of CCSD administrators (there is a
video too):
http://www.kvbc.com/Global/story.asp?S=9717903&nav=menu107_2_2
News Article on under utilized schools:
http://npri.org/publications/heads-in-the-sand
This is just the tip of the iceberg of how our tax dollars are just simply wasted
02/11/2010
If
you attend enough school board meetings, an outstanding hallmark of how
business is conducted is avoiding blame.
While you or I would think that the “Buck Stops” with the Trustees,
they think the opposite. The
biggest part of how they conduct themselves is avoiding the taking of any
responsibility. Voters
supposedly thought that these people were elected to assume responsibility
but delegation and excuse making are the two step process for refusing to
accept responsibility most of the time.
This set of videos explain how the “Weasel Methodology” works and how
to spot it. This is what
happens when the voters elect officials to do something and they can’t do
it. Now years of mismanagement have brought all of the chickens home
to roost on the same day.
Voters should be asking why… 3 parts in this video
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
02/07/2010
Here
is Ken Small before the Clark County Commission during February 2010.
This is Ken's second report to the Clark County Commissioners.
Ken explains that although the voters may have thought that they authorized
$3.5 Billion in bond sales for schools during the 1998 Bond election...
that is not what actually happened. During multiple times
over the last 3 years the Trustees decided that skyrocketing real-estate
values would support selling more bonds. Today they have
reported selling over $5 Billion. Not all of the money
went to schools.
This is one 3 minute video.
02/05/2010
Here
is a simple example of how the system works.
Posturing from the Board overstates what the district is doing for
students. Trustees then spin
what is going on for political advantage.
Some Trustees just repeat the party line that the top level
bureaucracy 'ventriloquists' into them.
Taxpayers believe what they are being told.
Parents who attend the school board meetings know that what is said
there is not the reality in the schools.
And so the system of
‘governance by wink and nod’ exists and rules. It is a 4 part set of
videos:
02/03/2010 11:21 AM
Yesterday I member of our firm asked the NSBAIDRD
if the CCSD RFP was illegal and if we should include the rate schedule in
our proposal. The following was
provided.
Illegal activities at CCSD?
Go figure!
02/02/2010
.JPG)
After
the public voted to give CCSD $3.5 Billion in 1998 the district has now sold
$5.1 Billion. More than a reasonable voter would have expected when
they voted. So has that money been spent to build schools?
Certainly, but also for road building, rainwater detention ponds, a 36"
diameter water main and many more things besides schools. So why is
the School Board using the school building money for those things with one
hand and telling parents, tax payers, students and teachers that they don't
have enough money to do what needs to be done for schools? Is the
money being well spent? Records of what was built on these
example projects are kept at the CCSD facilities department. This is
public information. If you decide to go be sure to ask to see the
addendum and change orders on these schools because much of this work was
added during construction. Contractor extras were paid for that. This is a set of 14 YouTube Videos that
explains where the misspent school building money goes. The following
are links to the 14 Parts:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
01/28/2010
After
viewing the first video, which is an introduction, Ken presents the initial
concept of why Nevada is not known to be the 50th of 50 states. Although
this is part one the next part will not be posted next as some other
evidence will be needed as a basis to support what is said here and to set a
basis for part two of why we are 50th. Here you'll notice the
"No F Minus" icon that is the TalkToCCSD icon when you copy its link to your
favorites. Of course you will recognize the circle with a line through
it means to ban something. The F-minus is of course the letter grade
equivalent of dead last. Absurdly, the rating group graded Nevada D+.
This is because they gave no A's. So the bell curve also eliminated F.
This is the third group. I skipped the second group while someone is
evaluating it. CLICK ON THE WHITE PICTURE!
01/26/2010
I
decided to go to the County Commission to let them know what is going on
with CCSD! the county is pretty well involved in some of these things
but I don't think that they are the perpetrators. they can do
something about it though. The county operates the "Safe Key" program.
This is basically a child watching service at the schools both before and
after school. Safe key has a few flaws. Mostly because they have
to work in schools. The County also appoints commissioners to be on
the Debt Service panel. That is the group who allows CCSD to sell more
bonds. Of course everyone in Clark County is provided schools by CCSD.
So there is plenty of reason to tell the commission what is going on.
You should know that the main reason why I don't say so many specifics is
because there is a 3 minute limit. I have to hand it to the
commissioner. they will sit quietly and let you speak. The
school district presidents seem to be counseled to ignore the First
Amendment. (Remember freedom of speech?)
01/19/2010
Today I reported on CCSD shenanigans to the Clark County Commission http://clark.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=7&clip_id=1732
01/05/2009
Today the LVRJ published an article on illegal activities in the architect selection process. http://www.lvrj.com/news/bidding-process-criticized-80686167.html#blogcomments?submitted=y
There is more than meets the eye here. The choice of making the architects do something illegal to APPLY to do work for the district pretty much tells the tale... a good start??
12/19/09
Tell your friends that you read it here first with no surprise.
The school district is again up to illegal activities in the architect selection process. As there is no modern memory of a fair, honest and legal architect selection process having been conducted by CCSD, I feel it is only fair that they now be allowed to plead ignorance. It has been so long since they tried to do it right... they forgot how! Fair, honest and legal is a high bar to set for them. Maybe just two out of three would be a good start?
My Absence
Hi Everybody! It's been a little while since you saw an update form me on this site. I have updated but Microsoft Expression Web 2 has decided not to share. I definitely know why but decided to buy an upgrade rather than to try to continue to fight software that posts the updates "Hit & miss". Please keep checking and you'll get some improvement in the next week or so. Take a look at the news Page for an interesting link to Karen Gray's latest work.
11/25/09
What part of shut up and sit down is confusing? (Don't think talk to the hand...)
Time fly's when your having a monarchy run things. No I haven't forgone speaking to the board just because Terry Janison admitted from the dice that my civil rights had been suspended on item 4.2!!! God knows that the school board president trumps the constitution when they have their own police force to toss you out. Just ask Rose Moore! If you have been reading the news reports the Trustees are working on trying to get the public to shut up. What part of they don't want to hear it is confusing you? They have some things that they want to accomplish and all of this bring up honest and fair dealings over and over is ANNOYING THEM!
We are approaching the end of the first year for the new board members. Nothing much ever gets accomplished during December so I think I can call it from here. NOT A DAMN THING HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED BY THE NEW MEMBERS IN THE FIRST YEAR. All that big talk and hot air during last November has been stifled. The bureaucracy has a way of stifling any movement. Policy governance does too. But really its the same old back room deal process that we have seen for years. The Board seems to magically know what each other are thinking and almost always think the same. Barber and Mason were the lone dissenters for a long time but Barber had enough and left. Mason seems like he's had his fill and ready to go too. I guess that when the fall back position is always to rubber stamp anything that the bureaucracy wants then there's no need to have a conversation?
Now in all fairness I can't honestly say that nothing has been accomplished. MOTS would be a better judgment. More of the same. However, this year things have brought the history of the Board rubber stamping the decisions and excuses that have already been decided in the back room. And as the system continues in that long term scenario all the chickens have come home to roost. Of course everyone knows that we don't have much downside risk because this district is 49th in the nation. (That is why my icon is F- F MINUS) F minus is 49th out of 50. In attaining that dubious distinction the hierarchy of the district has continually mortgaged the future with the expectation that as the economy goes up borrowing against the future would work out. Guess how well that worked out? Do they now decide to start good planning and trying to fix the ongoing mistakes? No! In such a situation they stick to their guns and try to jamb their bad planning down the throat of the public twice as hard.
Have you heard that they are going to have a new architect selection process again?
Anyway it seems like just yesterday when the Facilities department violated the law by not following their own rules to "Fix" the architect selection process. But, actually it was more then 2 years ago. Remember that it was a selection for two years? Well of course the 2 year thing was just a joke. If you're not laughing then the joke was on you.
So anyway I paid my $3 bucks to get the public information downloaded on the architect selection process last week... and there they go again. This time more guts then last time. Has anyone actually read the NRS on architect selection? That is rhetorical because from that day it came out many of the architects who got "Left out by design" last time have mentioned this to me. I guess that they were going to try to claim that incompetence as opposed to the usual shenanigans is at fault because the whole thing is written so badly. They refer to consultants as subcontractors and there is no mention of the form of the submittal that caused problems last time. This is a good part of what happened last time when they had some confusing requirement for a number of tabs in the binder. Then they decided not to evaluate all of the tabs. They also want any information on any litigation unrestricted. So are the architects to report about their clients that have been turned over to collection agencies for collection suits? divorce? Traffic accidents??? Shouldn't this be a little narrower like "where architectural malpractice is alleged"?
This time they want a list of only 5 projects that you did previously. That way the jury can't count how many jobs experience you have and score the total.
Don't worry about architect selection too much. It's not going to be real important going forward. During the last bond there were 4 architectural firms that got $50 million EACH. 5 firms got over 80% (maybe over 90%) of the total fees while the remaining 30 or 40 firms got the remainder. There goes the cream off the top of that $5 billion bond sale. Why would the facilities department want to play around with that? It's only a little over $200 million. Not really big money when your top Facilities guy is making 5 figures. Right?
The Trustees and head of Facilities are out with their trial balloons trying to see if a new bond election of any kind will fly. Those ideas are all still born. The public has no stomach for the waste and mismanagement that just went under the bridge. Too bad because they could have done a lot better with all of that money... before. As for the School Board and Facilities they can't un-bungle the plan after the money is spent now.
11/14/2009
I've missed a few school board meetings
while I went to the CEFPI National Conference and some other things. Thanks to those of you who have inquired about my well being. I'm just fine and have not forgotten CCSD either. So... today I came into the office to put a little time into this web site and couldn't decide where to start. Should it be the CCSD Board illegally directing that a public health clinic be built in the Winn School Neighborhood? Should I report on the activities of the facilities department or follow up on the 'feeding kids brownies thing'?
The head of Facilities once referred to it as a "Target Rich Environment".... and so it is.
For some strange reason out of the blue I decided to go to Google and search on "Nevada Corruption" just to see what came up. and there it was 6th on the list! Isn't intuition great?!
So appropriately on the page entitled "Nevada Corruption" there is a story of the secret meetings that are being held regarding the architect selection process.
http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Nevada_government_corruption
Now I always thought that delegating complete authority to decide issues and just rubber stamping their decisions was "Disenfranchising the vote" a violation of the United States Constitution. So I've never spent much time thinking about the little things like secret meetings with staff and the BOC. so here is the report on another CCSD violation of the Nevada Open meetings laws.
As I know that staff regularly meets in secret with vendors who are then put on a preferred vendors list and that the Trustees seem to omnisciently know things from discussions that never were reported in public things like the BOC being involved in meetings not public noticed is hardly news.
Have a look at the BOC page for more.... Bond Oversight
11/14/2009
Please enjoy the story on the Wynn Medical clinic on the BOC page too... Bond Oversight
10/15/2009
Here are a couple of items regarding Free Speech from NPRI. http://www.npri.org/publications/speak-no-evil and the comments section. Also, this is interesting from Wikipedia.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech..."
10/08/2009
This item was heard on this board meeting and it is apparent from the comments of Board President Janison prior to calling me that the Board is refusing public comment on this item going forward. During this meeting Janison allow3ed me to complain about this item and they made no reply. Karen Gray was also allowed to speak. Her comment was that she found speaking on this item necessary because she and the public were not provided specific items that should have been given to the public prior to the items being heard. This didn't appear to carry and concern for the Board either.
10/03/2009
Here is an interesting one for you. Please recall that the board just had a meeting regarding the public speaking issues and that there have been news reports of issues regarding the public's frustration and civility. In order to curtail discussion that Board has rewritten its typical item 4.02 to curtail public comment. It used to say...
"4.02 RESPONSE TO PUBLIC COMMENT. At this time, discussion may be held on issues raised by the public under Public Hearings of Agenda/Non-Agenda Items. (According to Governance Policy: GP-11: Public Hearings)"
But now it says
" 4.02 BOARD RESPONSE. At this time, discussion may be held by members of the Board on issues raised by the public today under Public Hearing on Agenda Items. (According to Governance Policy: GP-11: Public Hearings)"
Perhaps the Board is not too subtly explaining that your constitutional right to speak is suspended on this item? \Or should I say MY right to speak?
"We've heard enough sass out-a you boy!"
10/01/2009
I have been contacted by Eric Huey who has a new blog site. Although it looks like his site is very similar to this one I feel that he is on the right track. So here is a link to his site http://vegasvalleyview.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-blog-about-ccsd.html
Please have a look.
09/08/2009
Here is a recent report on a nice phased replacement school. http://www.lvrj.com/news/57691842.html
Labor Day 2009
Kevinn Donovan, a Henderson parent and member of the construction community sent me a couple of emails last week. These are both from broadcast emails that he sent out recently.
From: Donovan
Sent:
Wed 8/19/2009 4:34 PM
To: ken & others....
Subject: news you can use
I made this chart today. The cost savings CCSD is getting will leave
enough money to pay for what they "need".
Ken's Comments: This type of chart gets interesting from many different perspectives....
From the WAAK-UP (West Prep) perspective. Here is a chunk of money not attached to anything, Yet.
From the perspective of budgeting the prototypes. I think it is fair conjecture that some of the prototypes would not have made their budgets had the construction economy not gone through the floor. It depends upon if you figure bid plus 11% or 67% to get to the budget of dollars during the day that the budget was set.
You should know that bond money can't go to school supplies or teachers or things like that, it is illegal. Of course there is imperial data proving that quality facilities reduce absenteeism.... And reduced absenteeism in turn increases test scores.
Here is a link to another one of his insightful analyses. Because it relates to wasting bond money on schools we don't need... I put it on the Bond Oversight page.
Welcome to a
new school year at CCSD.
While the year
is just at it’s start I’ll
move my original opening letter down and tell you a few thoughts about what is
up with this site.
As I started
this site through frustration and aggravation I did not have any particular
direction that I intended to take it except to let the public know what was
happening with CCSD. To my never
ending torment I am in the midst of a cast of characters that would lead to a
good novel but I do not aspire to be a writer.
Among the cast is Chip Moser who’s writing is an acquired taste but I
have a taste for it now… although it took considerable time. And I’m no chip Moser type writer and
he’s got that corner covered anyway.
Also for
whatever reason I’m out of patience and too pissed off most of the time to do as
good a job of discovery and reporting of data as Karen Grey who writes for www.
npri.org.
So you won’t find me combing through emails or statistics forever because
that is neither my forte nor do I have time.
If you have
occasion to hear me speak at the Board Podium then you know that I could learn a
thing or two from Marzette Lewis. Marzette and a
few others from WAKK-UP have a talent of making the viewer see how angry they
are and send it to the Board like burning arrows.
Up until now I just concentrated on trying to get my point out during the
2 or 3 minutes before they cut someone off and that drove the process.
I attend these
events with the idea of getting some ideas to act upon into the public domain.
There are quite a few things blocking success from my approach since 2005.
So I’ll list a few here…
- The main job of the top 1/3rd of the
management side of CCSD seems to be to fill the school board with “The Mushroom
Treatment”. (Fed BS and kept in the
dark.) Some of the old board members seem to be actually trained to repeat
phrases like taking credit from how the other school districts can learn from
their invention of such “Unique Ideas” as k-12 schools and using the (USA) GSA
330 form to select architects. This is either simple “Parrot Training”
or their ignorance of anywhere but inside CCSD.
- Past Boards have set up rules as a defense to
avoid dealing with issues. This could
have been from defense of ignorance or to support shenanigans that they didn’t want to be hearing about
publicly. Two examples would be their
parliamentary procedures and “Policy Governance”.
- The public gets to speak and then staff usually
ignores them. But in the event that
staff rebuttals there is never any opportunity for discussion… except to come
back in two weeks or one month and reply then if anybody recalls the subject.
So in 2006 I
used to think that I would collect many of these things to report upon during
the 2008 election season. By the
time it came I realized that half the topics that come up before the Bond
Oversight Committee and much of what comes before the Trustees is either ½ the
truth or the truth and a half.
Someone can rebuttal almost every presentation made at almost every meeting and
be more truthful or insightful than what the public hears. And teachers and other CCSD staff were
pointing out the fallacies but were afraid or unwilling to speak up. So there was no point in holding back
because there was no concern for running out of ammunition.
It appeared
that the term limits were going to do the job for the public and I. Many
candidates all talking a good game.
Lots of maverick talk and talk about changing things. So I held most of it thinking that the
situation would resolve itself.
However here we are 8 months later and the 2 newer Trustees from the prior
election have ta
So anyway…. I have decided to post whatever information would be useful to
anyone to make up their mind about what is going on. I would also encourage others to do the
same. That is why I set up a blog. Many people who I don’t know have spo
Ken
Hello Everyone,
My Name is Ken Small. Most of all I am a parent of a normal CCSD
stu
Sadly, while many
teachers go into teaching simply for the love of doing it, the top administration of
some departments lives solely for the purpose of keeping themselves in a job. They live for getting off work after doing as
little as they can to get the paycheck. In 2005 I began contacting
top administrative personnel to explain bad behavior and how it works against the
taxpayers and the kids. I then went up
the line to bosses and later to board members and people running for the board.
Of course you wouldn't be seeing this if anything had resulted from this effort.
So in 2007 I began making presentations to the board about things that
are not right. In private conversations I was asked many times
if I had any evi
Along the way I have
learned that the information that I have learned is public information
that many people know. It is not a
secret. I have been approached over time
by many teachers who don't want anyone to find out what they are telling.
There are persons from the contracting community who have figured things out.
There are members of the press and the public too. It's just that the mainstream press refuses to
report it. So I have decided to set up this site to collect the scattered
data and post it for your review.
For your communication pleasure I
have a blog. Please Click
here to comment
or read the comments of others.