Tavares, FL - Lake County - Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014
Today, the Lake County School District Supt. Dr. Susan Moxley held a press conference on the ongoing Class Size Falsification Fiasco for the press, answered their questions, and then the press interviewed Stuart Klatte, head of the teacher's union regarding the issue.
You can watch our video of today's press conference in two parts, or you can scroll down to background info and links to articles providing background. I won't try to recap all the background - read one of the press reports linked below. Following that is our recommendations on the issue.
Part 1 - Today's press conference with Dr. Susan Moxley
Part 2 - The press interviews Stuart Klatte, head of the teacher's union.
Overview of the Press Conference
- The reporters really seemed frustrated at the lack of action by the Superintendent.
- After many earlier questions, Moxley announced today she will hire an independent investigator to review all the falsification incidents and provide an independent report.
- It became clear that the Superintendent preferred to downplay the actual number of class overages by stating "only 47 FTE or .1 percent of the total FTE was involved "(Full Time equivalent - i.e. one FTE = one full time student in attendance for six periods). However, reporter Erica Rodriguez asked how many actual INCIDENTS of classes exceeding student counts (watch part 1 for explanations) had occured. That is because EACH class with more than allowed students is 1/6 of an FTE for each excess student, thus if one class was actually over state limits by one student, that is 1/6 of an FTE. Thus if you multiply the stated number of 47 by 6, you actually get 282 times (my calculation) of student counts exceeding state allowed limits due to class size limit regulations.
An Overview of the Falsification Fiasco
About two weeks ago, the Lake County School District Superintendent Dr. Susan Moxley read a statement at a Board retreat about an investigation that found 6 or more School Principals (or staff) falsified class size data required on Florida State forms.
The issue was not on the agenda, and FiscalRangers.com sent out a copy of the statement to various parties and press, since NO press were at the retreat meeting except FiscalRangers. You can download the original statement from Jan. 21 here:
Download 2014-01-21 Moxley statement on Class Size manipulation
The press picked up the issue and we were interviewed by Channel 9 TV HERE.
More came out in press reports
- Orlando Sentinel reporter Erica Rodriguez provided added details to original reports and her article is at the bottom of this page.
- Orlando Sentinel columnist Lauren Ritchie wrote a good article HERE with new info on the falsified reports. And, she had another column yesterday on the issue of fireing responsible officials HERE.
- Today, Daily Commercial reporter Livy Stanford wrote an update on the issue HERE. Her story contained statements from three of the five Board members calling for strong actions for those that falsified the data. Then, after today's press conference, Stanford published this update.
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Our Opinion and Recommendations
- It is good that the Superintendent, after two weeks of questions, decided to announce an independent investigation.
- Three of the five board members have issued statements ( Bill Mathias, Tod Howard, Debbie Stivendere) calling for punishment (See linked Daily Commercial article above) for the transgressors, but the other two Board members, Kyleen Fischer & Rosanne Brandeburg, have not made statements. Board member Kyleen Fischer has been on the Board the longest and has not announced a position on this issue (that we have seen). Her daughter, Leah Fischer, is a Principal at an elementary school and Kyleen is running for re-election which is now contested by newly announced candidate Nancy Muenzmay. We expect folks to ask her and Board member Rosanne Brandeburg how they didn't know the falsification was going on, and what is their position on it.
- The head of the Lake County Teacher's Union (LCEA) indicated at the press conference that other teachers had contacted him about mis-reporting at OTHER schools, so the investigation may find more school Principals and staff involved. Columnist Lauren Ritchie raises the issue how all the separated schools seemed to use the same method to falsify records. Was there central direction on how to falsify the reports? Supt. Moxley frustrated reporters at the press conference by saying things like Obama would about Benghazi - "I had not been told about that...) etc.
- No one will say what the possible fines for the falsification of the reports will be. Dr. Moxley will say it could be discounted to 50 or 25% of the maximum fines, but never tells what the maximum fines could be. One source told me the maximum fines could be $250,000, so 25% would be around $62,000. This problem of class size limits is so convoluted, that some school districts just pay the fines, rather than create costly new classes when only a few students will be in them. (i.e. if a class is limited to 25 students, and they have 28 needing the class, they either have to create a second class for the 3 extra students, or pay fines. And some Florida school districts pay the fines, claiming it is cheaper.)
Recommendation:
- Allowing falsification of documents is not ethical, and the transgressors need to be punished once the independent investigation is complete. If falsifications are allowed in one type of document, what else is being falsified?
- I agree with Board member Tod Howard - punishment should be significant. Perhaps not firing, but his recommendations of 20 days suspension without pay seems a good minimum punishment level.
Vance Jochim
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Here is a copy of Erica Rodriguez's Early Jan. 25, 2014 Article on the Issue - The Sentinel now restricts many articles to paid customers, so I am including it here for those who are not subscribers: