John Gudvangen rips Labor Union & D11 teachers (But only behind their backs)
D11 board president John Gudvangen has not earned much respect for himself since being elected to the school board in 2005. His ability to turn any board discussion into a soliloquy on himself and his whiny demeanor have been a big turn-off, even to fellow anti-reformers. His lack of honesty when dealing with the public has also been a major problem for this weak board member.
Gudvangen was elected to the school board through the vote purchasing power of the teachers' labor union. The labor union threw over $200,000 of its member dues into the 2005 election to elect board members who would do the labor union's bidding, which is to say that they would do nothing to improve D11. Gudvangen was a huge supporter of the 2006 recall campaign to oust ex-board members Eric Christen and Sandy Shakes. He made numerous behind the scenes promises to community members to do "big things" in D11 if only the meanies were out of the way. As to be expected with people like Gudvangen, he had no intention of keeping his word.
Many recall supporters have been sorely disappointed in the performance of Gudvangen's board since December. A very prominent and vocal supporter of End the Chaos, (the group that was formed to run the recall), met with Gudvangen to express his/her displeasure with Gudvangen's lack of leadership. I also met recently with this same Chaos supporter, who I will refer to as "CS" so he/she does not receive the full force of hate that would surely come upon him/her from the Chaos community.
During the meeting between CS and Gudvangen, the issue of the East closure was discussed. During the time that the reformers were on the board, Gudvangen had constantly told his anti-reform supporters that the reformers were trying to close D11 schools, and that he would never allow this to happen on his watch. He was not even willing to allow board discussions on the topic of closure or re-utilization. This is a matter of public record. The question that CS had for Gudvangen was, why the sudden rush to close East Middle School? Gudvangen told CS that he was pushing for the hard decisions that the reformers left on the table. Since CS has been very involved in D11 for many years, he/she knew that what Gudvangen was saying was pure nonsense. Gudvangen talked to CS about the budget issues that would be helped by the closing of East, and CS pointed out that the biggest part of the operational budget for any building is teacher pay. CS asked Gudvangen if he was saying that the East teachers would then be laid-off since the school would no longer be in use.
Gudvangen's response to CS was a response that Gudvangen would never have the courage to say in public. Gudvangen is terrified of upsetting his labor union handlers, so he would never jeopardize his good-standing with the labor union bosses by standing up for the tax payers.
Gudvangen told CS that the district could not lay off the East teachers and that the district had to place these teachers in other D11 schools because that is what the labor union demanded that the district do with the teachers. Gudvangen went on to say that this was a shame because East was nothing but a warehouse for poor teachers. Gudvangen then blamed the labor union for the warehousing of teachers at the troubled middle school.
This illustrates a major problem that exists in D11 and other similar school districts. When you have weak and timid board members purchased with millions of labor union dollars, these weak board members will never do what is right for the parents who fund the school districts in the first place. Here you have a case where the board president realizes that there is a major problem in his district, yet he openly admits that he is afraid to address the problem because his union handlers will object.
By state statute, the school board makes all final decisions on employee hirings and firings. State statute trumps bargaining agreements, so the Master Agreement cannot be used as an excuse for having to keep underperforming teachers on the payroll. D11 is facing a budget squeeze, and rather than eliminate teaching positions due to the elimination of a school building, Gudvangen and his fellow anti-reform union puppets on the board chose to keep squeezing the budget by simply shuffling these teachers around. While the school board, as representatives of the tax payers, is supposed to be in charge of the school district, Gudvangen admitted that this is not the case under his watch. The labor union, a private organization, is pulling his strings. What a surprise.
What Gudvangen said about warehousing at East is probably a true statement (a rare occurrence from the lips of Gudvangen). This highlights a sad reality in D11. East was a very low performing middle school. Rather than push to help the students of that school by placing highly competent teachers in the building, the administration simply wrote off the students in that area and assured that they would receive a minimal education by, according to Gudvangen, placing poor performing teachers in the building.
D11 parents should now be concerned about which D11 school will be designated as the next "warehouse."
Gudvangen was elected to the school board through the vote purchasing power of the teachers' labor union. The labor union threw over $200,000 of its member dues into the 2005 election to elect board members who would do the labor union's bidding, which is to say that they would do nothing to improve D11. Gudvangen was a huge supporter of the 2006 recall campaign to oust ex-board members Eric Christen and Sandy Shakes. He made numerous behind the scenes promises to community members to do "big things" in D11 if only the meanies were out of the way. As to be expected with people like Gudvangen, he had no intention of keeping his word.
Many recall supporters have been sorely disappointed in the performance of Gudvangen's board since December. A very prominent and vocal supporter of End the Chaos, (the group that was formed to run the recall), met with Gudvangen to express his/her displeasure with Gudvangen's lack of leadership. I also met recently with this same Chaos supporter, who I will refer to as "CS" so he/she does not receive the full force of hate that would surely come upon him/her from the Chaos community.
During the meeting between CS and Gudvangen, the issue of the East closure was discussed. During the time that the reformers were on the board, Gudvangen had constantly told his anti-reform supporters that the reformers were trying to close D11 schools, and that he would never allow this to happen on his watch. He was not even willing to allow board discussions on the topic of closure or re-utilization. This is a matter of public record. The question that CS had for Gudvangen was, why the sudden rush to close East Middle School? Gudvangen told CS that he was pushing for the hard decisions that the reformers left on the table. Since CS has been very involved in D11 for many years, he/she knew that what Gudvangen was saying was pure nonsense. Gudvangen talked to CS about the budget issues that would be helped by the closing of East, and CS pointed out that the biggest part of the operational budget for any building is teacher pay. CS asked Gudvangen if he was saying that the East teachers would then be laid-off since the school would no longer be in use.
Gudvangen's response to CS was a response that Gudvangen would never have the courage to say in public. Gudvangen is terrified of upsetting his labor union handlers, so he would never jeopardize his good-standing with the labor union bosses by standing up for the tax payers.
Gudvangen told CS that the district could not lay off the East teachers and that the district had to place these teachers in other D11 schools because that is what the labor union demanded that the district do with the teachers. Gudvangen went on to say that this was a shame because East was nothing but a warehouse for poor teachers. Gudvangen then blamed the labor union for the warehousing of teachers at the troubled middle school.
This illustrates a major problem that exists in D11 and other similar school districts. When you have weak and timid board members purchased with millions of labor union dollars, these weak board members will never do what is right for the parents who fund the school districts in the first place. Here you have a case where the board president realizes that there is a major problem in his district, yet he openly admits that he is afraid to address the problem because his union handlers will object.
By state statute, the school board makes all final decisions on employee hirings and firings. State statute trumps bargaining agreements, so the Master Agreement cannot be used as an excuse for having to keep underperforming teachers on the payroll. D11 is facing a budget squeeze, and rather than eliminate teaching positions due to the elimination of a school building, Gudvangen and his fellow anti-reform union puppets on the board chose to keep squeezing the budget by simply shuffling these teachers around. While the school board, as representatives of the tax payers, is supposed to be in charge of the school district, Gudvangen admitted that this is not the case under his watch. The labor union, a private organization, is pulling his strings. What a surprise.
What Gudvangen said about warehousing at East is probably a true statement (a rare occurrence from the lips of Gudvangen). This highlights a sad reality in D11. East was a very low performing middle school. Rather than push to help the students of that school by placing highly competent teachers in the building, the administration simply wrote off the students in that area and assured that they would receive a minimal education by, according to Gudvangen, placing poor performing teachers in the building.
D11 parents should now be concerned about which D11 school will be designated as the next "warehouse."
posted by Craig Cox | 2:14 PM
12 Comments:
I was on the LRSUS committee with Gudvangen. He was adamantly opposed to any type of school reutilization at the time. My subcommittee recommended it, and he gave an impassioned speech opposing it. If he is saying that the last board somehow prevented him from taking action on the underperforming, underutilized schools, he is delusional.
I agree that he is not the most principled or courageous person I have ever met.
Good grief, did you learn nothing in your three years on the board? "State statute trumps bargaining agreements"? That's an overly simplistic (and largely incorrect) statement,especially in this context. You must know full well that the number of teachers hired in the district is based more on the number of students, not the number of schools. They may have closed a school, but those students have been moved to other district middle schools who, with their newly increased student populations, get more teachers. How many times did you sit through explanations from Glenn Gustafson that closing any school wouldn't result in costs savings on teacher salaries, but it would mean that you could have some personnel cost savings due to the elimination of building administrator and office staff positions in the closed school.
Oh, I learned plenty, apparently much more than you did. When there is a conflict between statute and the bargaining agreement, statute takes precedence. That is called a fact.
I sat through many a Gustafson speech on closures. If D11 had a steady student population, then what he said would be valid. Unfortunately, since your side has been running the district for so long, the student population has been declining dramatically for over a decade. The district has never made staff reductions corresponding to the student loss. This would have been a chance for the district to make some of those reductions to give the budget some needed relief.
The 2000 mill levy question called for D11 to maintain a student-teacher ratio of 22-1. Do the math if you are able and tell me what the current student-teacher ratio is across the district. It is around 16-1. The fact that some classrooms in the NE have more than 25 students in some classrooms is a sign of poor employee management, not a sign of too few employees.
By the way, any savings on administrators have been completely wiped away by the continuing growth of central admin. For whatever reason, you continue to defend that.
Does Anonymous think that we readers were mathematically educated by District 11? We've lost approximately 5,000 students from our rolls, but our teacher population has remained static! It appears that Anon would rather castigate you than admit, ever, that the All Mighty District could make a mistake, little or huge.
Gudvangen is a man of many faces. He wants to be a politician more than anything and riding on the backs of little children to get where he wants to go is not unnacceptable to him.
It is to me and I hope he is trounced in the next election. He's a mealy mouthed yellow bellied sniveling coward who, for the gigantic size of his pate, has NOTHING to offer the children of District 11 beyond the Old North End boundaries. As long as he keeps any East kids out of their neighborhood he's gold with the snobs of D-11.
John is big into his personal status. He does well with his North End liberal crowd.
Notice that if you accept Anonymous's view on staffing, then he/she would have explained why the district ADDED employees simply because 2 new schools are being built. If staffing has nothing to do with the number of facilities, then why on earth did D11 hire more staff to man the 2 new buildings? We lost 500 students last year alone due to poor performance, and East only had 280 students who were shuffled to other buildings. This anonymous math genius can't explain the disconnect.
There have been districtwide cuts to the teacher workforce due to declining enrollment districtwide. The closing of East in and of itself shouldn't decrease the number of teachers, because "the teachers follow the students" as Glen Gustafson has said on many occasions. As to the two new schools being added, those schools will require building admin and staff, so yes, those totals should increase. Adding two new schools and eliminating one existing school should yield a net decrease. But no, that doesn't take into account any new hires in central admin, which are rightfully the subject of scrutiny. Maybe they're needed, maybe they're not; maybe they're good people, maybe they're not. Reserving judgment until more is known about those new hires isn't making a blanket endorsement of those hires, it's merely a willingness to stay open-minded as opposed to being knee-jerk naysayers.
By the way, Mr.Cox, didn't you vote in favor of Dr. Bishop as superintendent? Are you going to issue a Sandy Shakes-type mea culpa, admitting that you made just a horrible mistake there, which allows you to change your position (can we say "flipflop?) without repurcussion?
So adding 2 new schools requires an increase in staff, but subtracting a school doesn't require a reduction in staff. Good for you if that makes sense in your mind.
I see you are showing a sense of humor. That is something not normally seen in those of you on the anti-parent side of the house. Claiming that you are not a knee-jerk naysayer is downright funny. Your ilk were naysaying from the day we were elected. We still got quite a bit done despite your type. That says something about your lack of relevance.
Go back and re-read your little post and see if you can point to your own contradictions. Why would it be flip-flopping for me to have criticisms of Bishop even though I voted to hire him? Maybe he was going to be good, maybe he wasn't; maybe he was good people, maybe he wasn't. Isn't that called reserving judgment until you see how a person does? Isn't that what you want? We did the right thing by not handing him a $750,000 golden parachute like your side did for Sharon (motorcycle) Thomas. The only flip-flopping that has been done is by Bishop himself. The fact that he said that he would do X, Y, and Z if hired, and the fact that he laid out a 25 point plan, and then did almost none of it, that leaves plenty of room for criticism.
As for your support of the central admin hirings, those positions were not needed. There is no need to withhold judgment on that. I have said the same thing for over 3 years. Those positions have not been justified by Bishop or anyone else. They won't improve the performance of D11 one bit. Those positions were created to hand big incomes to friends of those in power. Your incompetent board won't do a thing about it.
I know that the new schools have hired within district only to this point. Although it does not decrease the number of teachers, it does not increase the number either. Only now can positions that aren't filled be filled from out of district. I happen to agree that central admin is getting too big and some teachers who are not stepping up to the requirements of their job need to go. It all boils down to making tough decisions that will hurt, but in he long run will benefit the district (i.e. closing East).
I felt that there were way too many politics happning around that issue. Bottom line...school that is built for 800 with an enrollment of less than 300. It doesn't make sense to keep buildings that are this under utilized open. Let start making these hard decisions and leave the politics at the door.
That is good to see that there haven't been any unnecessary increases in employee hiring at this pointg with regards to the new schools.
I don't disagree with you at all on your assessment of East. When people say that there were too many politics, I have to ask for clarification. What does that mean? The school board is a political body. If you are saying that the anti-reformers were out of line for not being willing to make the hard decision simply because the reformers made the suggestions, I agree with you. The Gudvangens and Tejas and their allies did a lot of harm to the district with their antics and delaying tactics on this issue. We weren't afraid to lay the hard decisions on the table for discussion. They spun up the emotional propaganda machine each time we brought anything to the table. If that is what you mean by political nonsense, I agree.
It is what I mean. The constant bickering and the circus that ensued (i.e. parading kids up to speak to the board)should have never happened. It boggles my mind as to why test scores were even brought into this particular topic (although I do give test scores their due value). This should have been a simple enrollment number decision in my opinion.
Can't argue that, either.
Have to assume Anonymous will square off with Charlie Bobbitt over Longfellow.
With the two new schools up and running, Longfellow's utilization is even less than East's was.
Does anyone wonder why over 350 kids lived in the East boundary but attended other middle schools?
If they had a good school, bet they'd have gone there. Systematic suffocation to arrive at preconceived desired results.
And the marionettes are all too willing to "play" along. (And I don't mean accordion!)
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