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Monday, September 22, 2008
OUSD CONSULTANT GETS A HELPER CONSULTANT
ORANGE Unified Schools INSIDE
a news service of Orange Net News /O/N/N/
Independent insight into OUSD
OUSD CONSULTANT GETS A HELPER CONSULTANT
In March 2006 the Orange Unified School Board approved $10,000 to pay business consultant Bob Sadler to conduct a three day workshop ($3,333 a day) for OUSD administrators and community members that led to the creation of the OUSD 3 year Strategic Plan. Among the plan's goals was a Facilities Bond Election for this November. Amid the state and national economic meltdown, a local Facilities Bond polled poorly and is at this time a no go. High priced consultant Sadler however is back, and his fee on the September 25, 2008 OUSD Agenda appears this time to be “only” $8,500 this time around. Could it be…a reduction in fees to local taxpayers? No, sorry. Following the Sadler $8,500 fee on page 13 of the OUSD Agenda is also a $5,500 fee for his “helper” Candace J. Simpson. The total hit to OUSD taxpayers for three days of the consultant duo is $14,000. That’s $4,666.66 a day in educational tax dollars for a three day workshop.
Sadler is an associate of consultant guru Dr. Alan Weiss who bills himself as the “The Million Dollar Consultant”. Weiss wrote the forward for a Sadler collaborative article that appears on the Weiss website (see links below) as one of Weiss’ Million Dollar Consultant Hot Tip articles. Weiss is the ultimate consultant; he is the consultant to the consultants! His advice includes advising consultants on how to get their “clients” to buy into the exorbitant consultant fees and how to consultant on “practically anything at any time”. He doesn’t boast being the “Million Dollar Consultant” for nothing.
Of course, the OUSD Trustees don’t do the direct negotiating with the high priced consultants, that is the job of the OUSD Administration. The OUSD Trustees just vote without question to continually spend the OUSD educational taxpayer money on these “million dollar consultants”. While new Superintendent Dr. Drier’s name is on the consultant request in the OUSD Board Agenda item, this is clearly parting shot to OUSD Taxpayers from former Superintendent Dr. Thomas Godley. Time will only tell if Drier buys into the ongoing taxpayer rip-off Consultant Culture that has seen OUSD Trustees vote to waste millions in educational tax dollars for at best mediocre state testing results that failed to produce any significant gains above the norm for Orange County or the state, while most other Orange County school district’s that did not invest their educational tax dollars in a Consultant Culture continue to out-performed OUSD on state testing.
For more information CLICK ON the web addresses below:
Bob Sadler article (with Weiss forward) on Weiss website:
Sadler Article
Weiss: How to Consult about practically anything at any time:
Consult on anything
Weiss: That’s more money than we budgeted
Bust the Budget
Weiss: Addressing Fee Issues in Sensitive Environments
Information on Alan Weiss “Million Dollar Club” meeting
At the Four Seasons Resort, Island of Nevis only “seven figure annually” are invited to the $15,000 per person:
MILLION DOLLAR CLUB
Weiss: From Six Figures to Seven workshop for consultants (with at least 2 years experience) to move up to million dollar salaries
Million Dollar Salary
Greater Orange Community Organization Metro Views editorial on Sadler fees: Metro Views
Bob Sandler’s Blog on his Cancer treatments:
Sandler Blog
INSIDE the September 11th OUSD Board Meeting
OUSD Administrative Presentation on Scores lacking
At the Orange Unified September 11, 2008 Board of Trustees Meeting, the OUSD Board and Greater Orange Community got the “spin” on the latest released 2008 California State testing scores for Orange Unified. While the presentation went over the details of slow progressive growth of OUSD scores, the presentation left out or glossed over some major issues facing OUSD. For starters, the graphs used by the OUSD Administration to compare OUSD to 10 other “compatible” Orange County districts failed to include the two top rated Orange County school districts- Los Alamitos Unified and Laguna Beach Unified. Using the OUSD Administrative “compatible” numbers, in English Language Arts and Math testing scores, OUSD is ranked 7th out of 10 in federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) scores. However, add the thousands of students in Los Alamitos and Laguna Beach (yes both in The OC, California, and the USA) and OUSD drops to 10th out of the 12 Orange County unified school districts, only slightly ahead of Garden Grove Unified and Santa Ana Unified, or in the bottom 20% of all Orange County unified districts.
Another fact not mentioned was that while in 2007 OUSD failed to meet 3 of 6 AYP Grade Span Criteria in English Language Arts and Math, in the latest 2008 AYP Grade Span Criteria for English Language Arts and Math, OUSD failed in 5 of the 6 criteria (for the state report CLICK ON: OUSD REPORT ).
While other omissions were evident in the OUSD Administrative report, the most glaring omission was no reporting on the 9 OUSD schools (representing 21% of the 43 OUSD schools) now identified by California as Program Improvement Schools. In Orange County unified districts (“compatible” or fully inclusive of all districts), only Santa Ana Unified has more state identified Program Improvement schools than Orange Unified. The presentation also failed to mention that this year’s scores from OUSD’s Taft Elementary now qualify it for the first time as a state identified Program Improvement School. The presentation also did not report that this year’s OUSD scores failed to remove any of the other 8 OUSD schools from the Program Improvement designation, including five OUSD schools that have been in Program Improvement since the millions of educational tax dollars spent on the failed OUSD Focus on Results consultant program. The never mentioned Program Improvement schools and the time as Program Improvement are: Elspanade ( 5 years); Fairhaven (5 years); Handy (3 years); Lampson (3 years); Prospect (4 years); Sycamore ( 5 years); Taft (1 year); Portola (5years); Yorba (5 years).
Lissa Smith vs .Steve Rocco: ROUND THREE
OUSD Trustee and Board Vice President of the Board Lissa Smith continued filling in for an ill Board President Wes Poutsma and continues spar and provoke lame duck OUSD Trustee Steve Rocco. When Rocco questioned the duties given to Superintendent Dr. Drier in a Consent Item that would appoint Drier as “Board Secretary”, Drier answered that it was a technicality. Pressing Drier, Rocco found it hard to believe it was a technicality as Drier repeated it was a technicality. Rocco asked for clarification from the on-the-clock OUSD Attorney Spencer Covert sitting in the audience, but was shut down by Smith who refused to let the attorney earn his keep by as she lectured Rocco that he got his answer. Later, Smith kept her recent record of abruptly adjourning the OUSD Board meeting as Rocco spoke. This time it was over Rocco’s monologue about his lawsuit appeal loss to OUSD over the Rocco Censure.
INSIDE the September 22, 2008 Board Meeting
Agenda Item 9 D (page 3): Walk to School Day Proclamation- read more about it CLICK ON: WALK TO SCHOOL
Consent Item 14L (page 50): Authorizing to pay the ill Wes Poutsma for missing the Sept 11th, 2008 meeting.
INSIDE the OUSD Budget
INSIDE’s EDUCATIONAL TAX DOLLARS WATCH 2008:
$789,000 Total
2008 Attorney Fee Tally:
6/19/08 Parker & Covert $ 60,000
6/05/08 Miller, Brown & Dannis $ 40,000
6/05/08 Parker & Covert $150,000
6/05/08 Parker & Covert $200,000
2/07/08 Parker & Covert $100,000
11/15/07 Parker & Covert (for 1/08 to 6/08) $200,000
TOTAL $750,000
2008 Consultant/ Speaker Fee Tally:
7/24/08 Dr. Parker 40 pt Consultant $ 10,000
4/17/08 Dr. Kenneth Stichter Speaker Fee $ 6,500
3/7/08 Dr. Kathleen Weigel Speaker Fee $ 8,000
9/25/08 Bob Sadler Consultant Fee $ 8,500
9/25/08 Candace Simpson-Sadler Helper $ 5,500
$ 39,000
2008 TOTAL $789,000
Former Superintendent Godley’s “golden handshake” bonus total (beginning 8/2008):
$3,630*
* The Godley Retirement Bonus presented here is an estimate of the amount in “bonus retirement” accrued since the Superintendent’s retirement on 6/30/08 using a 6% lifetime formula calculated at $1210 a month since 8/08. The actual retirement plan the former OUSD Superintendent opted to take is not public information and the figures presented are only as an estimate of the taxpayer costs after the OUSD trustees voted against an amendment to exclude Godley from the retirement program. The on-going estimated figure is presented as a reminder to the community of the high cost in educational tax dollars the OUSD Board vote to allow the former Superintendent to participate in the 6% retirement incentive cost the OUSD education community in tax dollars. Godley retired from OUSD on June 30, 2008 after he worked for the school district for a little over five years.
Total for Watched Tax Dollars approved in 2007: $704,090.00
2007 Consultant/ Speaker Fee Tally:
4/30/07 Debra Ford Speaker Fee $ 4,090
4/30/07 Danny Brassell Speaker Fee $ 3,500
3/8/07 Dr. Daggett Speaker Fee $ 9,000
9/27/07 Dr.Daggett Speaker Fee $ 35,000
11/15/07 OCDE High Priority Consultants $115,000
Total $166,590
2007 Attorney Fee Tally:
1/18/07 Parker & Covert (1/07 to 6/07) $175,000
(6/07-12/07) $200,000
2/08/07 Miller, Brown, and Dannis $ 7, 500
2/22/07 Parker & Covert $ 45,000
5/10/07 Miller, Brown and Dannis $ 50,000
7/19/07 Parker & Covert $ 60,000
Total $537,500
2007 Administrative Conference/Travel: hidden since 6/8/06**
**JUNE 8th, 2006 Trustees VOTE to Give OUSD Superintendent the power to APPROVE Travel Requests taking this item OUT of the PUBLIC AGENDA
Total for Watched Tax Dollars approved in 2006: $849,717.00*
2006 Consultant Fee Tally: Total $176,400
2006 Attorney Fee Tally: Total Approved $655,000
2006 Administrative Conference/Travel: Total $ 18,317 *
* JUNE 8th, 2006 Trustees VOTE to Give OUSD Superintendent the power to
APPROVE OUSD Travel Requests taking this item OUT of the PUBLIC AGENDA
Total for Watched Tax Dollars approved in 2005: $978,300.00:
Total 2005 Conference Administrator/Board Fees: $ 7,500.00
2005 Attorney Fee Tally: $730,600.00
Total Watched 2005 OUSD Consultant spending: $ 270,200.00
Next OUSD Board Meeting September 25th, 2008
for more information CLICK ON: OUSD Sept 25
OUSD CLOSED SESSION STARTS 6:30 PM, Regular Session: 7:30 pm
For more information call the OUSD Superintendent’s office at 714-628-4040
For budgeting questions call Business Services at 714-628-4015
ORANGE Unified Schools INSIDE
Independent insight into OUSD
is an independent news service of /O/N/N/
Orange_NetNews@yahoo.com
“Independent Local Insight”
Ecast on the
INTERNET COMMUNITY GROUP i/))) cg
A 21st Century Communications System
Produced by the
Orange Communication System /OCS/
For more information on the current issues of defending media freedom in the electronic world visit:
The ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION link at www.eff.org.
a news service of Orange Net News /O/N/N/
Independent insight into OUSD
OUSD CONSULTANT GETS A HELPER CONSULTANT
In March 2006 the Orange Unified School Board approved $10,000 to pay business consultant Bob Sadler to conduct a three day workshop ($3,333 a day) for OUSD administrators and community members that led to the creation of the OUSD 3 year Strategic Plan. Among the plan's goals was a Facilities Bond Election for this November. Amid the state and national economic meltdown, a local Facilities Bond polled poorly and is at this time a no go. High priced consultant Sadler however is back, and his fee on the September 25, 2008 OUSD Agenda appears this time to be “only” $8,500 this time around. Could it be…a reduction in fees to local taxpayers? No, sorry. Following the Sadler $8,500 fee on page 13 of the OUSD Agenda is also a $5,500 fee for his “helper” Candace J. Simpson. The total hit to OUSD taxpayers for three days of the consultant duo is $14,000. That’s $4,666.66 a day in educational tax dollars for a three day workshop.
Sadler is an associate of consultant guru Dr. Alan Weiss who bills himself as the “The Million Dollar Consultant”. Weiss wrote the forward for a Sadler collaborative article that appears on the Weiss website (see links below) as one of Weiss’ Million Dollar Consultant Hot Tip articles. Weiss is the ultimate consultant; he is the consultant to the consultants! His advice includes advising consultants on how to get their “clients” to buy into the exorbitant consultant fees and how to consultant on “practically anything at any time”. He doesn’t boast being the “Million Dollar Consultant” for nothing.
Of course, the OUSD Trustees don’t do the direct negotiating with the high priced consultants, that is the job of the OUSD Administration. The OUSD Trustees just vote without question to continually spend the OUSD educational taxpayer money on these “million dollar consultants”. While new Superintendent Dr. Drier’s name is on the consultant request in the OUSD Board Agenda item, this is clearly parting shot to OUSD Taxpayers from former Superintendent Dr. Thomas Godley. Time will only tell if Drier buys into the ongoing taxpayer rip-off Consultant Culture that has seen OUSD Trustees vote to waste millions in educational tax dollars for at best mediocre state testing results that failed to produce any significant gains above the norm for Orange County or the state, while most other Orange County school district’s that did not invest their educational tax dollars in a Consultant Culture continue to out-performed OUSD on state testing.
For more information CLICK ON the web addresses below:
Bob Sadler article (with Weiss forward) on Weiss website:
Sadler Article
Weiss: How to Consult about practically anything at any time:
Consult on anything
Weiss: That’s more money than we budgeted
Bust the Budget
Weiss: Addressing Fee Issues in Sensitive Environments
Information on Alan Weiss “Million Dollar Club” meeting
At the Four Seasons Resort, Island of Nevis only “seven figure annually” are invited to the $15,000 per person:
MILLION DOLLAR CLUB
Weiss: From Six Figures to Seven workshop for consultants (with at least 2 years experience) to move up to million dollar salaries
Million Dollar Salary
Greater Orange Community Organization Metro Views editorial on Sadler fees: Metro Views
Bob Sandler’s Blog on his Cancer treatments:
Sandler Blog
INSIDE the September 11th OUSD Board Meeting
OUSD Administrative Presentation on Scores lacking
At the Orange Unified September 11, 2008 Board of Trustees Meeting, the OUSD Board and Greater Orange Community got the “spin” on the latest released 2008 California State testing scores for Orange Unified. While the presentation went over the details of slow progressive growth of OUSD scores, the presentation left out or glossed over some major issues facing OUSD. For starters, the graphs used by the OUSD Administration to compare OUSD to 10 other “compatible” Orange County districts failed to include the two top rated Orange County school districts- Los Alamitos Unified and Laguna Beach Unified. Using the OUSD Administrative “compatible” numbers, in English Language Arts and Math testing scores, OUSD is ranked 7th out of 10 in federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) scores. However, add the thousands of students in Los Alamitos and Laguna Beach (yes both in The OC, California, and the USA) and OUSD drops to 10th out of the 12 Orange County unified school districts, only slightly ahead of Garden Grove Unified and Santa Ana Unified, or in the bottom 20% of all Orange County unified districts.
Another fact not mentioned was that while in 2007 OUSD failed to meet 3 of 6 AYP Grade Span Criteria in English Language Arts and Math, in the latest 2008 AYP Grade Span Criteria for English Language Arts and Math, OUSD failed in 5 of the 6 criteria (for the state report CLICK ON: OUSD REPORT ).
While other omissions were evident in the OUSD Administrative report, the most glaring omission was no reporting on the 9 OUSD schools (representing 21% of the 43 OUSD schools) now identified by California as Program Improvement Schools. In Orange County unified districts (“compatible” or fully inclusive of all districts), only Santa Ana Unified has more state identified Program Improvement schools than Orange Unified. The presentation also failed to mention that this year’s scores from OUSD’s Taft Elementary now qualify it for the first time as a state identified Program Improvement School. The presentation also did not report that this year’s OUSD scores failed to remove any of the other 8 OUSD schools from the Program Improvement designation, including five OUSD schools that have been in Program Improvement since the millions of educational tax dollars spent on the failed OUSD Focus on Results consultant program. The never mentioned Program Improvement schools and the time as Program Improvement are: Elspanade ( 5 years); Fairhaven (5 years); Handy (3 years); Lampson (3 years); Prospect (4 years); Sycamore ( 5 years); Taft (1 year); Portola (5years); Yorba (5 years).
Lissa Smith vs .Steve Rocco: ROUND THREE
OUSD Trustee and Board Vice President of the Board Lissa Smith continued filling in for an ill Board President Wes Poutsma and continues spar and provoke lame duck OUSD Trustee Steve Rocco. When Rocco questioned the duties given to Superintendent Dr. Drier in a Consent Item that would appoint Drier as “Board Secretary”, Drier answered that it was a technicality. Pressing Drier, Rocco found it hard to believe it was a technicality as Drier repeated it was a technicality. Rocco asked for clarification from the on-the-clock OUSD Attorney Spencer Covert sitting in the audience, but was shut down by Smith who refused to let the attorney earn his keep by as she lectured Rocco that he got his answer. Later, Smith kept her recent record of abruptly adjourning the OUSD Board meeting as Rocco spoke. This time it was over Rocco’s monologue about his lawsuit appeal loss to OUSD over the Rocco Censure.
INSIDE the September 22, 2008 Board Meeting
Agenda Item 9 D (page 3): Walk to School Day Proclamation- read more about it CLICK ON: WALK TO SCHOOL
Consent Item 14L (page 50): Authorizing to pay the ill Wes Poutsma for missing the Sept 11th, 2008 meeting.
INSIDE the OUSD Budget
INSIDE’s EDUCATIONAL TAX DOLLARS WATCH 2008:
$789,000 Total
2008 Attorney Fee Tally:
6/19/08 Parker & Covert $ 60,000
6/05/08 Miller, Brown & Dannis $ 40,000
6/05/08 Parker & Covert $150,000
6/05/08 Parker & Covert $200,000
2/07/08 Parker & Covert $100,000
11/15/07 Parker & Covert (for 1/08 to 6/08) $200,000
TOTAL $750,000
2008 Consultant/ Speaker Fee Tally:
7/24/08 Dr. Parker 40 pt Consultant $ 10,000
4/17/08 Dr. Kenneth Stichter Speaker Fee $ 6,500
3/7/08 Dr. Kathleen Weigel Speaker Fee $ 8,000
9/25/08 Bob Sadler Consultant Fee $ 8,500
9/25/08 Candace Simpson-Sadler Helper $ 5,500
$ 39,000
2008 TOTAL $789,000
Former Superintendent Godley’s “golden handshake” bonus total (beginning 8/2008):
$3,630*
* The Godley Retirement Bonus presented here is an estimate of the amount in “bonus retirement” accrued since the Superintendent’s retirement on 6/30/08 using a 6% lifetime formula calculated at $1210 a month since 8/08. The actual retirement plan the former OUSD Superintendent opted to take is not public information and the figures presented are only as an estimate of the taxpayer costs after the OUSD trustees voted against an amendment to exclude Godley from the retirement program. The on-going estimated figure is presented as a reminder to the community of the high cost in educational tax dollars the OUSD Board vote to allow the former Superintendent to participate in the 6% retirement incentive cost the OUSD education community in tax dollars. Godley retired from OUSD on June 30, 2008 after he worked for the school district for a little over five years.
Total for Watched Tax Dollars approved in 2007: $704,090.00
2007 Consultant/ Speaker Fee Tally:
4/30/07 Debra Ford Speaker Fee $ 4,090
4/30/07 Danny Brassell Speaker Fee $ 3,500
3/8/07 Dr. Daggett Speaker Fee $ 9,000
9/27/07 Dr.Daggett Speaker Fee $ 35,000
11/15/07 OCDE High Priority Consultants $115,000
Total $166,590
2007 Attorney Fee Tally:
1/18/07 Parker & Covert (1/07 to 6/07) $175,000
(6/07-12/07) $200,000
2/08/07 Miller, Brown, and Dannis $ 7, 500
2/22/07 Parker & Covert $ 45,000
5/10/07 Miller, Brown and Dannis $ 50,000
7/19/07 Parker & Covert $ 60,000
Total $537,500
2007 Administrative Conference/Travel: hidden since 6/8/06**
**JUNE 8th, 2006 Trustees VOTE to Give OUSD Superintendent the power to APPROVE Travel Requests taking this item OUT of the PUBLIC AGENDA
Total for Watched Tax Dollars approved in 2006: $849,717.00*
2006 Consultant Fee Tally: Total $176,400
2006 Attorney Fee Tally: Total Approved $655,000
2006 Administrative Conference/Travel: Total $ 18,317 *
* JUNE 8th, 2006 Trustees VOTE to Give OUSD Superintendent the power to
APPROVE OUSD Travel Requests taking this item OUT of the PUBLIC AGENDA
Total for Watched Tax Dollars approved in 2005: $978,300.00:
Total 2005 Conference Administrator/Board Fees: $ 7,500.00
2005 Attorney Fee Tally: $730,600.00
Total Watched 2005 OUSD Consultant spending: $ 270,200.00
Next OUSD Board Meeting September 25th, 2008
for more information CLICK ON: OUSD Sept 25
OUSD CLOSED SESSION STARTS 6:30 PM, Regular Session: 7:30 pm
For more information call the OUSD Superintendent’s office at 714-628-4040
For budgeting questions call Business Services at 714-628-4015
ORANGE Unified Schools INSIDE
Independent insight into OUSD
is an independent news service of /O/N/N/
Orange_NetNews@yahoo.com
“Independent Local Insight”
Ecast on the
INTERNET COMMUNITY GROUP i/))) cg
A 21st Century Communications System
Produced by the
Orange Communication System /OCS/
For more information on the current issues of defending media freedom in the electronic world visit:
The ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION link at www.eff.org.
