Concerned Parents Expose Issues at the New Patterson Mill Middle High School
May 13, 2008
The new Patterson Mill Middle High School should be the pride of Harford County. Thanks to the decision to forward fund several schools, Patterson Mill was the first in a string of long overdue construction projects intended to launch our students into the 21st century. Patterson Mill boasts many state-of-the-art features on the inside, but on the outside at least, someone clearly dropped the ball.
With several big ticket projects in the works, namely Bel Air and Edgewood high schools, Deerfield and Youth’s Benefit elementary schools, not to mention two brand new schools in various stages of development, the Patterson Mill experience may serve as a cautionary tale to the thousands of parents and other taxpayers who want to ensure that their school facilities are planned appropriately and delivered as planned.
School officials were in a hurry to open Patterson Mill by the first day of school in August, 2007. Considering the size of the project and the crush of time, it’s not surprising that some areas were initially overlooked. Parents, while delighted by much of what Patterson Mill had to offer, also made note of potential safety hazards, incomplete work and inadequate designs, assuming that reasonable concerns would be addressed. Parent Joe LaFleur first contacted school-based administrators nine months ago to bring attention to several issues. When he didn’t get action, he went to the board of education in September, expecting they would follow-up. He never even got a response.
This meant that damaged utility boxes with exposed wires sat on the site for months, despite parents’ efforts. One box was removed only after LaFleur and another parent, Dan Fuhrman, literally walked the grounds with the building engineer and pointed it out. Not that the box was hard to find, near the sidewalk along Patterson Mill Road and accessible to students and anyone else who happened to be passing by. The box is now fixed, but an open ditch was left behind and another broken box still sits not 3 feet from the upper parking lot.
Sharp drop-offs, one more than 6 feet deep, pervade the outdoor physical education areas and border active ball fields that are used not only by the school but by Parks & Rec coaches, players and fans. LaFleur, Fuhrman and other parents asked for fencing or infill at crucial locations before the spring sports season began. Their vigilance will be little solace to the first player who literally goes off the deep end chasing a fly ball.
Some of the fencing that is in place is too low, backstops are too small and the grading of many of the fields is visibly off kilter.
Overall grading problems allowed erosion, ruts and poor drainage to plague the entire site. Many students are walkers to the school, but the material used for walkways has scattered, leaving dirt paths that turn to mud trails when it rains.
Windows in the press box don’t open, so officials can’t talk to announcers if there’s an emergency or simply to convey information about the game. The building’s pitched roof doesn’t accommodate filming, the ticket windows are poorly placed for crowd control and the two small windows in the concession stand only open part way and put handicapped customers in a narrow lane up against a fence. The whole structure, while attractive from the outside, seems like it was designed by someone who’s never even been to a football, soccer or lacrosse game, let alone tried to work at one.
Finally, items that appear on the original site plan such as a walkway across the upper parking lot, never materialized. Sidewalk steps abruptly end so that students heading out from the school to the fields must decide whether to walk into an active parking lot, on marshy grass or on a narrow dirt path wedged between the stadium fence and a drop-off.
School personnel did identify some issues on their own, like the mind-altering noise in the cafeteria, although that one was hard to miss. But parents, athletic boosters and PTA members had to pepper the school system with e-mails, phone calls and requests at meetings just to get these other items on the radar.
In all, concerned parents compiled a list of 31 items (pdf file) and distributed it to the principal and to central office staff. Most of the issues involve the outdoor facilities, but they are the ones in plain view and open to the entire community. It makes you wonder about the stuff you can’t see.
Parents continued asking administrators for action all through the fall, winter and early spring. Finally, the widening circle of parents asking questions stirred the principal to arrange a walk-though of the property on April 10th. School-based administrators, central office staff and representatives from Parks & Rec were reportedly in attendance. But when LaFleur, Fuhrman and other parents offered to attend, they received no response. And when LaFleur asked central office staff for access to the site plan back in September, he was told to file a request under the Freedom of Information Act. Fuhrman, an engineer by trade, wanted to see the site plans to determine which items were the responsibility of the school system and which might be the responsibility of contractors. Site Resources Inc. was the civil engineer and landscape architect on the project and Urban N. Zink was paid about $5 million for the site work. Both Fuhrman and LaFleur eventually got a look at the site plan in April and did indeed find some discrepancies which they reported back to staff.
Rather than embrace parents who volunteer their time and their expertise, too often school officials cast these parents as trouble-makers, reject their input and end up wasting valuable time.
In this case, the group doing the walk-through in April found many of the same issues identified by parents last September (pdf file). Why did it take seven months of pressure to get people to do their jobs?
At least school officials are finally “looking into” these items and have promised a response sometime this week.
And where was the board of education? Instead of ensuring that the superintendent and her staff were addressing concerns, on March 10th the board approved a transfer of $140,000 out of the Patterson Mill capital account as “excess”. That was before the parent-inspired walk-through by school officials and before parents raised questions about the differences between the site plan and the completed project. Fortunately, there’s still $1.7 million left in the account if adjustments have to be made. But over the next several years, as the board spends millions more on future projects, the question remains: who will keep their eye on the ball?
A Failure of Leadership: CSSRP Under Fire Yet Again
April 28, 2008
A long-awaited independent review of the high school reform plan known as CSSRP was provided to the Board of Education by Leadership Capacity, Inc. at the board’s work session Monday, April 21st in Bel Air. The board received a 300-page report reiterating many of the issues brought to the board’s attention by teachers, parents, students and administrators as far back as 2005.
Particular interest was sparked by focus group reports indicating a low level of support among teachers for many aspects of CSSRP ranging from the block schedule to the mandatory class “Living in a Contemporary World”.
Board president Tom Fidler wasted no time concluding that this reflected of a “failure of leadership” on the part of Superintendent Jackie Haas and senior staff members Dave Volrath and Gerry Scarborough. Continue reading A Failure of Leadership: CSSRP Under Fire Yet Again
“First, do no Harm” - Councilman Slutzky Questions the Merit of Board of Education School Reform
March 17, 2008
Read the ‘Erroneous and Malicious’ Comments that Forced the Board of Education President to Announce He’s Leaving Office
Public frustration with the Comprehensive High School Reform Plan (CSSRP) prompted the Harford County Council to make an unprecedented address to the Board of Education at its meeting tonight (Monday) in Bel Air.
The half-hour presentation delivered by county councilman Richard C. Slutzky, a veteran educator of 39 years, reflected questions raised by parents, students, teachers and administrators who had contacted the council as a result of what they believed was a lack of response from of the board since CSSRP was presented in 2005 and implemented in the fall of 2006.
Before councilman Slutzky was able to begin his presentation, board president Thomas Fidler, Jr. announced that he will not seek a second term and wanted to clear the air about “erroneous and malicious” comments made on a website regarding the scheduling of the county council’s discussion.
Slutzky began by commending the board for their efforts at reform, but noted that an evaluation was necessary to determine whether the “good intentions” of the board had actually been carried out by CSSRP. Using the board’s original rationale for reform as a framework, Slutzky posed questions which he said would assist the board in determining whether intended results were being achieved and what unintended consequences have resulted. He also suggested areas for future exploration.
Why the Board of Ed Doesn’t Want You to Know About the Harford County Council Visit Monday Night
March 16, 2008
UPDATE: At tonight’s (3/17) Board of Education meeting, board president Thomas Fidler, Jr. announced he will not seek a second term on the board. Stay tuned for details.
You might not know by looking at the agenda released by the Board of Education, but The Dagger has learned that the Harford County Council is expected to raise a series of serious questions Monday night regarding secondary school reform in the Harford County Public School system.
Prompted by public concern over the Comprehensive Secondary School Reform Plan (CSSRP), County Councilman Dick Slutzky is expected to make a presentation on behalf of the entire county council during the Board of Education meeting Monday, March 17 at 6:30 p.m. in Bel Air.
As rare an occasion as it would be to have most, if not all, of the Harford County Council in attendance for the Board of Education meeting, Slutzky’s presentation has been curiously dubbed “County Council Discussion” and buried 2/3 of the way down the agenda under General Public Comments. Continue reading Why the Board of Ed Doesn’t Want You to Know About the Harford County Council Visit Monday Night
A Survey With Sense: Harford Students and Parents Weigh-In On Constrictive School Reform
March 14, 2008
Remember that bogus survey with the $46,000 price tag, all about high school reform in Harford County?
The Dagger just received another survey that’s full of questions the folks who got paid the $46,000 didn’t even think to ask. The new survey was created by a local high school teacher who wanted to know more about one of the Concepts of Comprehensive Secondary School Reform (CSSRP) - the one theorizing that students should choose a “career pathway” in high school, because students would be more interested in school if they had “coursework with an exit purpose.”
So let’s find out what kids really think about picking a career path when they are still freshman in high school and what happens when students are, as one of them put it, “pigeon- holed” into taking certain classes.
Continue reading A Survey With Sense: Harford Students and Parents Weigh-In On Constrictive School Reform
“A Republic, If You Can Keep It” - Part II
February 11, 2008
You have to wonder what Del. Mary-Dulany James and Del. Dan Riley really think about the people they represent. Maybe we could get them on “Moment of Truth”, that new reality show where people are hooked up to a giant lie detector and then asked embarrassing questions such as:
Do you think your constituents are incapable of electing their own board of education?
That would be one way to get at the truth. Or we could just take a look at HB 806, the legislation James and Riley put together to thwart the elected school board bill being sponsored by the rest of the Harford County delegation. Continue reading “A Republic, If You Can Keep It” - Part II
What do we really get out of the Board of Education’s budget spending? Survey says…
January 23, 2008
It’s budget season in Harford County, when public hearings are held, pleas for funding are made and grumblings about taxes waft through the air. At one such hearing last Wednesday night, Harford County Public Schools were a hot topic. But don’t you wonder what the Board of Education does with its money? Let’s look at one example.
A few years back, the Board of Education approved a series of high school reforms known as Comprehensive Secondary School Reform (CSSRP). One of the core concepts behind reform was that students would be more engaged in school if they could take more electives, which also meant that students would spend less time in classes covering math, science, English and social studies.
The idea was that something had to be done to improve student achievement; and this was definitely something. Despite warnings from teachers, parents, students, a few brave administrators and a boatload of research, the Board of Education approved the change. In light of those same warnings however, the board promised an independent review by the end of the first year of implementation. Continue reading What do we really get out of the Board of Education’s budget spending? Survey says…
“A Republic, If You Can Keep It” - Part I
January 3, 2008
In a self-serving act of eyebrow-raising proportions, the Harford County Board of Education is seeking to thwart school board elections as part of its legislative platform for the upcoming General Assembly session.
Despite the fact that most school board members in Maryland and 95% of boards across the country are elected, the Harford school board is fighting to remain one of the few appointed by the governor and thus insulated from the public it serves. The board contends that elections would inject politics into the process. So elections are political, but political appointments are not political? Please.
Then what do you call it when unknown supporters give a quiet nod to select individuals who are granted power to set public policy and dispense public funds without the approval of the public? Continue reading “A Republic, If You Can Keep It” - Part I
