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 FCAT Scores 7 July 2010
| The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) results for 2010 were just
released. According to the Sarasota County FCAT score data for 10th
graders:
•61% are below grade level in reading
•62% are below grade level in science (this is for 11th graders)
•27% are below grade level in mathematics
If you read the local media you get a different picture. Headlines say
the district mean scores are better than the state average and in some grades
the mean scores improved. True enough but that is not the whole picture and
does a disservice to our students. I suggest we focus on those students who
fall below level 3 on the FCAT as the true measure of the district's success or
failure. When this many students cannot achieve at the minimum level of
performance in core subjects then the district is in deep trouble.
As Florida TaxWatch points out these 10th graders will never catch up. They are
doomed for life and will never achieve their full potential. Harsh words, yes,
but true.
FL DOE
Posted By Editor
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School District Paid 2 Million Dollars Too Much? 14 May 2010
| The Sarasota School District paid $12 million for a computer software program
from a company that may have skirted the law and could be headed for
bankruptcy, according to a lawsuit filed last week.
The lawsuit filed by two partners in the Orlando-based firm Crosspointe.net
also claims that another partner in the company paid $31,500 to Bob Hanson, the
school district's former IT director, as a possible thank you for helping
facilitate the sale.
The allegations come amid an FBI investigation into another high tech purchase
by the district -- the $13 million the district paid for electronic white
boards for classrooms. Hanson has been implicated in that investigation, too.
The lawsuit was filed May 6 by Larry Plasil and Jim Barako, software engineers
whose companies own a 50 percent stake in CrossPointe. In it they accuse Joan
Keebler, who owns the other half of the company and was the main salesperson,
of gross negligence and possible illegalities.
Plasil and Barako are seeking to recover payments they say were made to Hanson
without their consent and to investigate "any improprieties or illegal
conduct." Hanson was the school district's chief negotiator on the CrossPointe
contract.
The lawsuit claims that Crosspointe is in deep financial trouble because of
Keebler's loose spending and asks an Orange County judge to appoint an overseer
for the company.
The lawsuit also claims:
That Plasil was supposed to approve all company expenditures, but did not
approve a $31,500 payment to Hanson made through the Florida Association of
School Administrators, where Hanson now works.
"Keebler's concealment of the company's payments to Hanson through FASA are
troubling, and they raise issues about whether the entire procurement of the
Sarasota School District contract was tainted by some arrangement or
understanding between Keebler and Bob Hanson," the lawsuit states. "If the
process of procuring the Sarasota School District contract was in fact
compromised by Keebler's misconduct then Plasil and Barako agree that the
Company should pay the Sarasota School District back the Company's ill-gotten
gains."
That Keebler offered Hanson a job at CrossPointe in October 2009, as he was
leaving the school district, but backed off after Plasil and Barako objected.
The pair were "concerned with the unseemly appearance of hiring the individual
most responsible for securing the Sarasota School District contract."
That Crosspointe was willing to accept $10 million for the software program
before the district offered $12 million in December 2008. Keebler "bragged that
she was able to extract an extra $2 million."
That Jim Warford, director of the Florida Association of School
Administrators, was paid $2,000 by CrossPointe for each Florida school official
he recruited to attend technology conferences sponsored by the company.
The company has paid Warford more than $100,000 since December, according to
copies of invoices and canceled checks attached to the lawsuit.
Hanson, Keebler and Warford all dismiss the claims contained in the lawsuit as
unfounded.
Responding to questions via e-mail, Hanson denied ever receiving direct
payments or a job offer from CrossPointe. He said he talked to the company
about employment but a job offer was never extended.
Hanson was hired by FASA in December to help school districts use technology
more effectively.
Keebler dismissed the lawsuit as "sheer nonsense" and said that she is the
aggrieved party in the company.
Plasil has taken CrossPointe software, repackaged it and sold it without
turning revenues over to the company, Keebler said. The lawsuit was filed after
she confronted Plasil over selling CrossPointe's software under another name in
Illinois, she said.
"This is what's precipitating his blackmail," Keebler said, referring to the
lawsuit.
Warford acknowledged that he has been a paid consultant for CrossPointe for
about a year, work that is allowed under his contract with FASA. He denied
being paid a $2,000 "bounty" for each school official he got to come to a pair
of education technology conferences sponsored by Crosspointe and other
companies.
The Sarasota school district bought the software program from Crosspointe about
six months after the company had been formed. The program brings student
performance, school budgeting and management all under one Web-based program.
Despite the court fight between CrossPointe's owners, installation and testing
of the program is proceeding satisfactorily, said Al Weidner, the school
district's budget director, who had not seen the lawsuit.
The system is behind schedule, but the management portion is expected to be
online in August and the district expects that in a year parents will be able
to use the program to check on the progress of their children, Weidner said.
The school district and Hanson were named in March in an FBI subpoena for
information relating to the district's $13 million purchase of 3,000 electronic
white boards, or Activboards, for classrooms. The subpoena also sought
information relating to former school superintendent Gary Norris and the
Activboard's manufacturer, a British company called Promethean.
The FBI is also investigating the purchase of Activboards by the school
district in Waterloo, Iowa. Norris took the Waterloo superintendent position in
2008 after leaving Sarasota and later hired Hanson as a consultant.
Source: May 14, 2010
www.heraldtribune.com
Posted By Editor
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