More Truly Bizarre Family Foundations Academy Stories Surface

More stories from Family Foundations Academy are coming to light, and strange doesn’t even begin to describe them.  All sources who have provided these stories have elected to remain anonymous for their own reasons.

One educator advised they did donate part of their paycheck during the school’s “troubled financial crisis” back in 2008, but never received their two promised personal days off.  In fact, the school discouraged employees from taking their state allotted 10 days off.  When teachers were out, their classes of 30 or more were cut in half and put in other classes, which would give classroom sizes of 45 or higher!

A certain office assistant from many years ago sure liked money.  The school had a company they contracted for school pictures.  Apparently, this company would grant those pictures for free to employees of the school.  This office assistant would tell the company certain parents were employees when they weren’t, charged the parents, and kept the money for their own benefit.  This same employee was also in charge of collecting lunch money, but I imagine the amount of food going out was a lot higher than the money coming in.  When called out on this by an admin, another admin came to her defense because this employee also served as a “liason” arranger for this admin in setting up “rendezvous” meetings with the other admin.

At one point, the school arranged for a trip to The White House.  As a brother in the infamous fraternity the school is associated with, the school used the frat brother’s bus company for the trip.  The bus broke down, and had to return to the school.  The bus company agreed to reschedule the trip for free, but an admin charged parents again for the field trip, and kept the money.

The school received funding from Race To The Top, and spent some of this money on a company called Tutoring Works.  Would you like to take a wild guess what fraternity is part of the owner of that company’s profile?  Would you believe only fraternity brothers and one admin were allowed to perform these Saturday tutoring sessions?

Some of the charges by the school have been confirmed.  At one point, the school charged parents and students for a trip to a 76ers game, with a promise of the bus ride, the game, and a dinner.  Unfortunately, hungry parents and children only received a hot dog in tin foil, no drink, and not everyone got a hot dog…  One admin sure loved Arizona Iced Tea, and would purchase many cases of it from a certain wholesale club.  As well as other lots of treats and goodies.

Apparently “motels” was a popular word in texts between parents and certain employees at the school.  So much so that jealousy soon caused considerable rifts.

When FFA was administering the DSTP tests, one teacher would block all the windows with paper and would place candy on the correct answers while the students were taking the test.  This teacher would NOT open the locked door until all the tests were done and in their bag.

Apparently many teachers who were fired or quit due to tyrannical control by admin, many teachers went to the Christina School District.  One admin actually left FFA for the day to see all the teachers at the different schools.  Apparently these were insane moments…

I’m sure there will be more stories that come out, but in the meantime I have not heard back from anyone at Family Foundations Academy about my formal request for a seat on their board.

In the meantime, parents, teachers and concerned citizens, please make formal public comment with the DOE.  Please include your name, and any witnesses to these events.  There are certain laws against retaliation, and the more of you that speak up, the stronger the statements.  I have no clue what will happen with this school in terms of any DOE decision on their charter renewal, but all the allegations and stories about them clearly show this is a school that was run by people who did not have the best interest of students in mind.  If they are to stay open, any admin, staff, or board member associated with any of these allegations needs to be terminated.  As well, any connection with any vendor affiliated with “the frat” needs to be eliminated as a vendor and all future vendors should be on a contract through the state contract system.

 

 

Kowalko’s Wrath Against Schwartzkopf Causes Severe Climate Change In Delaware

As I write this, snow is falling fast and furious.  The only news I was able to read yesterday was the deliberate removal of Delaware State Representative John Kowalko from the House Education Committee by House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf.  I had no idea where this freak storm came from.  I firmly believe Kowalko is so pissed off at Schwartzkopf that he literally affected weather here in the 1st State.

As Delaware blogger Kavips pointed out very early this morning, hell hath no fury like a Kowalko scorned!

We need John’s voice now more than ever.  Having it bottled up in a committee where he is the lone dissenting vote, thereby silencing him for months from the public’s eye, would bode ill for all Delaware’s children… He is now free, (with no strings to hold him back) to plaster the Markell administration with tons of truth sticky-notes  Truths which will tie Markell up as he is forced to defend; something that has not happened yet in his six years.

This removal is probably the best thing that could have happened.  What will happen in the committee will still get relayed to John, he will continue to be on top of it, who can then relay it to Allan at noon and night… A much smarter move for Schwartzkoph would have been to have kept him on that committee, Tied down, bedazzled, and worn thin….

As far as its intimidative effect, that depends on what John accomplishes now as Delaware’s children’s advocate.  If he (and we), can make it so unacceptable to be viewed Schwartzkoph’s butt- clone, very few legislators will fall in line for fear of being voted out of office next election, This can easily happen  (No legislator votes for something he knows will get him fired in the next election)  now that children in Delaware finally have a advocate.

To read more of Kavips brilliant analogy, please read here: http://kavips.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/firing-of-john-kowalko-off-the-education-board/

Not sure if it’s snowing down in Rehobeth, but Dover looks like a Winter Wonderland.

I Need Readers From China, The Stans, Greenland and Africa

 

WordPress, in your blog statistics, gives you a nice colored map of the world showing different colors for the amount of readers from each country.  Some of them aren’t colored in yet!  The biggest ones are China, all the Stan countries except for Pakistan, and Greenland.  Please help me to fill the gaps.   I also only have about 1/3rd of Africa colored in as well.  And then there is that pesky country in the middle of South America that needs to start reading special education blogs in Delaware!

Exceptional Delaware cannot conquer the world without readers from every country!  So let’s get on it world!

Smarter Balanced Field Test Scores: Most IEP Students Will Fail!

According to a report released by The Advocacy Institute, students with IEPs had a wide gap against their non-disabled peers in the category of 1, the lowest level you can score on the Smarter Balanced Assessment.  The gaps show an average of well over 30 points in English/Language Arts and Math.

The largest gaps, over 40 points, seems to occur in the 7th grade.  The lowest, at 28 points is occurring in 3rd grade.  The IEP students who scored a 4 on the field test averaged well below 5% of the entire IEP student population.  With an average somewhere between 65-70% for all students with special education scoring at a 1 on this Common Core test, and an average for ALL students scoring at a 1 or 2 around 60%, the facts are undeniable.  This test sucks.

So I will say once again: Opt Out Now!  It doesn’t matter if your kid has an IEP or not, because the odds are in favor your kid will fail this test.  This test he/she has been preparing for since the beginning of the school year.  What a colossal waste of time and money and resources.

For more information about these percentages for each grade level, please go to: http://www.advocacyinstitute.org/blog/?p=582