I thought about it!
And what disturbs me the most, that causes me to post these e-mail exchanges between another community member and myself - is the fact that the sender said to use the info - but keep their name out of it!
This has been a recurrent theme recently in Plainedge, unlike it ever was before. Many have been wanting to speak more often, but are afraid to do so, and rightly afraid to do so - for fear of retaliation against their children in school.
What is left unsaid are the private challenges and pointed questions to the school administration. Some of us who have been outspoken have had car windows smashed, cars egged. etc.
What pit has Plainedge decended into?
Is it time to purge ourselves of the source of that fear?
The first e-mail exchanges happened a year ago and were sent to me following the recent post about soffit and door repairs. In my reply I tried to point out that the often "friendly messages" promulgated by the Administration as the only source of truth in the District - did not quite answer a responsible adult's question.
While the answers given might be suitable to satify the needs of a child - they often raise more concerns in any thinking adult who is having large amounts of their money spent - and not getting adequate results from that spending. Nor are they getting consistent answers to their questions.
School facility repairs and expansions are not the only topic - we have still not had answers to why Massapequa's Administration's cost per pupil are half what they are in Plainedge, or why we only spend 70 cents on the dollar for children's programs - when other districts spend 80 cents on the dollar.
Hard questions not asked because of fear??? Trite answers not challenged
How sad for us.
Here's the e-mail reply I passed to one person that shows a way how simplistic, trite and pat answers should be challenged.
Ed
******************************************************The year ago e-mail exchanges recently sent to me:
How's this for evidence?
Use as you will, without my name.
-----Original Message-----
From: Richman, John [mailto:jrichman@plainedgeschools.org]
Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 10:33 AM
To: Anon
Subject: RE: Coffee Hour
Good Morning -
The $1,000,000 is not an "extra" amount of money. You may not be aware that when we bid the middle school, the bids came in $5,000,000 over budget. As a result, we had to take other projects off the board (blacktopping, soffits, etc) and cut $5-M from the building. We made lots of engineering changes.
Then we held the contractors accountable for everything. By keeping our hands in the project and reducing change orders, contingencies and allowances, we were able to recoup the $1-M.
I hope this is helpful
Dr. John A. Richman
Superintendent of Schools
Plainedge Public Schools
241 Wyngate Drive
North Massapequa, New York 11758
office: (516) 992-7455
fax: (516) 992-7446
-----Original Message-----
From: Anon
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005
To: Richman, John
Subject: Coffee Hour
Dear Dr. Richman:
Thank you for hosting the coffee hour last night. It was quite informative. I am sorry that I missed the others that took place earlier in the year.
I did have one follow up question, though, that I didn't feel appropriate to ask last night. We discussed the maintenance of the other school buildings and you explained that there was an extra $1,000,000 remaining from the bond to put towards some of these repairs.
Is that really true? $1,000,000 extra. How could that be? Did the contractor come in under budget by that much? Was the initial estimate too high? Can you expand on that information.
Thank you again for your time
Anon
******************************************************My response to the "evidence" e-mails:
Anon,
I don't know how to use this as "evidence" except to say once more to the community that this source of information is untrustworthy and often counter to the facts of the matter!
The way to look at the full information is that the School filed late with Albany and by missing the filing deadline did not qualify for as much State aid as initially requested. The initial proposal request to the State was based upon bids and estimates received for work requested. As you can readily see from the background and experience of all concerned in Administration and the BOE at that time, there was no one qualified to make a reasonably accurate budget before getting bids.
With less State support available, the scope of the initially proposed work had to be cut back to match the reduced funds and keep the Bond money to be raised close to the original amount approved by the public.
And, by the way, the Administration never "bid the middle school" - they did no bidding - they requested bids from contractors! Sloppy use of words reflect sloppy thinking on the whole topic - inexcusable at the level of performance we are paying for. (Yes! I am picking on the Administrator - the "standard" he sets is too low in my opinion!)
As to "holding contractors accountable for everything" we now have post-facto realities and information that proves that this was not done! Just shout "Air-Conditioning" any time this subject comes up! The impressive words and phrases are often used by the Administrator - the actions and results do not follow!
"We made lots engineering changes" is a pure play on words - there is no "engineering skill" required to cut out blacktopping, soffits,, etc., jobs. To realize what a given task costs and eliminating it from the scope of the work is not engineering - it's living within your ability to pay.
Besides, as an example of sloppy thinking again:
If "we (the Administration) made lots of engineering changes" - what were their qualifications to do so? Where were their Engineering Licenses that permitted these changes to approved plans? Who signed off on the changes and is now responsible for the performance to requirements and codes? How safe are the changes for our children? What were the changes from the scope of the work initial approved by the public? There are a myriad of questions opened by just this statement alone.
It is one thing to make ever changing claims - it is another to be truthful, consistent and responsible!
And, pardon the rational thought process, how can one "recoup the $1-M" that one never had? By only spending $49-M instead of $50-M one does not "recoup " anything. One simply spends less - and gets less!
This reply from Richman is, to put it in its best light, nothing more than amateur word smithing. It the vernacular - Bull sheet!
Let me think about posting this information for awhile. It is only worthwhile if the community in general becomes as fed up with the distortions and twists of truth as we two are. So far, there seems to be little really hard-assed adult exchanges with the spin doctor in his BOE meetings and "coffee hours"! They seem to prefer to listen to the stories.
Ed.
******************************************************