Contract of the Day: Program Development

The Emery School District and the City of Emeryville is entering into many contracts with consultants and builders for the Emeryville Center of 'Community' Life.  The money spent on these contracts is public and the public has a right to know.  Large contracts and small, the ECCL Contract of the Day will highlight what your money is being spent on.

Today's Featured Contract(s):

 $208,800 to National Equity Project, Children's Aid Society, MIG, and Partners in School Innovation 

for program development

approved February 2012.

In January of 2012, the School District's then-Director of Youth & Community Engagement presented a proposed contract in the amount of $194,900 for an "ECCL Program Design/K-12 Incubation Process."  This proposal was met with outright anger from City Council members as they received the information at the January 2012 City Schools Committee meeting.  Councilmember Ruth Atkin, in particular, expressed the view that they had done this work already for years and, from the documents presented, she could see no reason to do such work again.  "Back sliding", she called it.

The proposed contract contained some items only a long-time public consultant could dream up.  First item on their list was a "Listening campaign" to take 15 days, including planning time, and to cost $22,500.  The Tattler might be better known for talking than listening, but at a rate of $1,500/day, even we could be persuaded to simply sit and listen to people talk about the ECCL.

Then there was $38,600 for "Transitional Leadership Team: Development and Capacity Building" and another $40,800 for "Organizational Capacity Building."  It's unclear what all this "capacity building" was supposed to be about, but apparently the District needed $79,400 worth of it.  The Tattler has long had concerns about the capacity of the ECCL site, given all the buildings the District plans to put on the site, but there is reason to doubt that this was the sort of capacity problem the consultants hoped to address.

After a thorough drubbing, the District staff assured the City Schools committee that the message had been heard loud and clear and a revised proposal focused on critically needed services would be presented to them at the February meeting.

It takes a special kind of hubris to do what the District staff did next.  They returned to the February meeting with a group of four contracts for "Program Development" that totaled $208,800--more than the contract amount proposed in January!  These contracts provided for $57,600 to National Equity Project, $72,000 to Children's Aid Society, $32,000 to MIG, and $47,200 to Partners in School Innovation.

The services described and the deliverables in each contract are virtually identical, and each so trivial or devoid of meaning as to leave one uncertain whether a deliverable has ever been delivered.  For example, Page 8 of the Partners in School Innovation contract shows that they are paid roughly $4,000 per day to sit in a room with other people and "collaborate" and "comment as requested" on the design components of the over-arching program.  Each of the contract's deliverables contains "relationship building."  How does one know when a relationship is sufficiently "built" so as to be "delivered"?

Why does the District need to pay someone thousands of dollars so that District and City staff can sit in a room and talk to one another?  Are we so dysfunctional that we should also bring in boxing gloves and a referee?  And isn't the "program" of the ECCL largely to educate students?  Do we not already know how to do that or at least have in-house expertise on how to do so that wouldn't be so costly?

At this February meeting, the School District's Deputy Superintendent, Anakarita Allen, spoke at length to the Committee on the pressing need for these contracts, without ever mentioning to them that she serves on the Board of Trustees of the National Equity Project.

The City School Committee was beaten down by the District's insistence that this was the only way for them to plan for the ECCL and approved the use of joint City and School District funds for these contracts.  Enjoy these ECCL Contracts of the Day!

Anonymous Tattler Writer Sparks Furor

An anonymous written comment to a Tattler story about the School District last week has the town abuzz with speculation over the identity of the author but more pressingly, the allegations of corruption contained within it.  The writer seems to be an insider at the School District, with an extensive knowledge of the workings there.  In addition to stirring up much consternation around town, the written comment has drawn in at least one council member according to sources close to City Hall.  The unnamed council member is indicating the need to "firm up disclosure standards" at the School District in the event that the allegations made by the anonymous commenter are found to be true.  The writer of the comment piece is invited to contact the Tattler privately to help investigate these allegations, with the pledge that their anonymity will be respected if so desired.

The original Tattler story  dated February 15th, should be read first.  Here then is the anonymous comment piece dated February 16th:

     .             .             .             .

During the search for a new [schools] superintendent, Emery Unified School District (EUSD) staff asked the School Board for someone who would give the district a fresh start.  They were tired of the old ties and backroom politics. Instead, the School Board hired a superintendent who came in the door pushing through a $200,000 contract for the National Equity Project (NEP), formerly known as the Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools, i.e. BAYCES - the same group that was here just a few years ago doing school improvement work that failed.  Keyword: “FAILED.”  Who got blamed?  The same people who asked for a fresh start: EUSD staff. The School Board doesn’t care about their morale. 

So what do they care about? Reinforcing the same old ties, the stinking crap we’ve lived with for years.

[Former Emery school Superintendent] Tony Smith worked for NEP when he came to EUSD after the State of California took over [running the School District].  The Emeryville Center of Community Life is his legacy.  As a superintendent, he left behind a mess.  Three superintendents later and this small community is still struggling to make sense of that over-sized project.  According to NEP’s website, John Gooding, the architect of Smith’s appointment as superintendent, has been an NEP board member since 2004.  Anakarita Allen, Emery Secondary School Principal, has been on NEP’s board since 2006.  Current superintendent Debbra Lindo also served on NEP’s board up to the point when she was hired by EUSD.  Do you see the ties?  Obviously the School Board wasn’t interested in a fresh start or hiring a superintendent capable of leading change.  If they were, they would expect Lindo and Allen, the two highest paid “educators” in the district, to apply what they’ve learned from NEP instead of our having to pay “their” organization $200,000.

Let’s add up the cost of this scam game: $200,000 contract to pay NEP for school improvement; $170,000 (est) Superintendent Lindo’s salary and benefits; $140,000 (est) ESS Principal Allen’s salary and benefits; and $110,000 (est) AYES Principal Lathan’s salary and benefits.  That’s roughly $620,000 to pay administrators and consultants to improve school culture in a district that serves less than 750 students at two sites that sit three blocks apart.  Although Lathan doesn’t appear to be involved in this scam game, her salary matters in the overall scheme of things.

Here’s an alternative: spend $200,000 to hire a kick ass K-12 school leader who knows what they’re doing, who can build trust by giving the district the fresh start it deserves, and $120,000 to hire someone to assist them.  That’s an annual savings of $100K in administrator salaries alone.  Forget the $200,000 in consulting fees.  That money would be better spent on a community bonfire of the whole ECCL project.

Einstein said it best folks: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”  If bringing NEP back to EUSD isn’t doing the same thing all over again, what is?  It would be different if NEP was productive during their last stint at EUSD.  They weren’t!!!  How much did EUSD pay in consulting fees for NEP when Smith was here?  That’s why none of the officials, including Ruth Atkins, who authorized the new NEP contract, who’ve been shoving ECCL down our throats for years any way they can, can complain about anything.  It’s all one big pile of stinking crap and all of their hands are in it!  The only way we can get beyond this era of insanity is to elect people who will put education first, who are free of these old ties or at least willing to end them once and for all.  Until then, [what] we should expect is failure.

It’s time to revolt. Enough is enough!