School Board Moving Towards Firing Notter?
BY BUDDY NEVINS
School Superintendent Jim Notter may become the first victim of the über-critical Grand Jury.
School Board Member Pat Good this week will ask her colleagues to do an interim evaluation of Notter.
“Based upon the Grand Jury Report, The School Board deems an interim evaluation of the Superintendent of Schools is appropriate, states the item Good put on the School Board agenda.
A poor evaluation would make it easier to fire Notter.
Because this is the School Board, the evaluation won’t happen tomorrow.
Good’s proposal bizarrely gives Notter a big role in developing his own evaluation. It states that Notter suggest ways to create “the interim evaluation process, criteria and instrument at a School Board workshop agenda within a month.
The evaluation would take place in May and June after Notter has issued a “comprehensive response to the Grand Jury.
Although much of the wrongdoing cited in the Grand Jury report was begun under the previous Superintendent Frank Till, Notter did little to change the atmosphere at the Board.
Instead, the reaction of Notter has been to circle the wagons.
That was also the initial reaction of the Board. Just after the Grand Jury report was issued on Feb. 18, members sat behind Notter at a news conference to show their support for the embattled superintendent.
It was an ill-conceived move.
It gave Notter political cover before the Grand Jury report had a chance to sink in. It was particularly wrong for three of the four new Board members elected in November as reformers — Laurie Rich Levinson was the only no show to appear at the conference.
The proposed evaluation is an effort to correct that early mistake. It is designed to show the public that the Board is really concerned about the Grand Jury report. It is designed to show the Board is dedicated to change.
The item is set for discussion at 2:15 p.m. Monday at the K. C. Wright Center.
March 20th, 2011 at 3:49 pm
Notter is not as important as his assistants.
Threaten him and order him to get rid of these assistants. If he doesn’t, then fire him and hire somebody who will clean house.
March 21st, 2011 at 6:09 am
The school board primary focus is unions not kids. The unions help put the members back in power to continue to misuse the funds they receive. Notter is just a easy target, the district is set up to fail, too many people other than teachers are getting the pie. Simple, good teachers create good students.
March 21st, 2011 at 7:22 am
Allow me to take Shaw’s famous quote and tweak it: School superintendent’s, school boards, school board headquarters’ directors, top administrators, and diapers should be changed frequently, and for the same reasons.
March 21st, 2011 at 9:48 am
Good for Good! Notter is Bad Bureaucrat Defined (check Websters if you don’t believe me) to the umpteenth degree.
Buddy, I wouldn’t put much into who develops the interim evaluation methodology format. I think if one of the old board members has it in ’em to join the new 4, Notter is toast.
I do agree the Board, especially the new 4 Board Members, should not have stood with Incompetent MediocreIntendent Jimbo at the press conference; he deserved to stand alone or with any of the ignorant Old guard 5 Members who would dare to stand with him.
Notter is the main cause of the School System’s woes. As corrupt and/or ignorant as some the Current Old 5 Members and oldies but goodies like Gallagher, Parks, Rubinstein, Hope, Carter…were/are, the gargantuan amount of woes in the school system was mainly due to an incompetent, antiquated, way too large, out of control, lack of controls in place, system that was tattered, weathered, behind the eight ball, with a bureaucratic mindset and a propensity to survive, not innovate and improve. Carter, Garretson (R.I.P), Chris O (don’t know how to spell his name), Dennis Herman….and many more, were/are horrors and much of their favoritism didn’t come from just School Board Members but their own personal favoritism and set in their ways ways….
Hail Ms. Good and let me tell you know Old Guard of 5, if you want to get re elected, get behind Ms. Good and hopefully the other new 3 and show Mr. Notter the door, let him walk out, and slam it behind him and don’t look back!
and that is the bottom line because Yours Truly says so!
March 21st, 2011 at 11:04 am
This grand jury, and the one before that, and the one before that, had similar complaints. There were three different superintendents and many different board members during that time frame. The only constant was the staff. Get rid of Notter and bring in a new sup, but if you have the same staff, you’ll have the same problems. Not all of them, but the incompetent/corrupt ones. Of which there are quite a few.
Notter’s problem is that he didn’t clean house when he came in. To his credit, he didn’t feel he could because he didn’t have the support of a majority of the board because the majority was “old guard.”
This evaluation should be a wake up call to him to finally clean house. I bet he now would have a majority of support of the newbies and several of the “old guard” who are skittish because of the latest grand jury report.
If they fire Notter, who would they make interim? The problem with Notter, and the board discussed this for the last four years, is he has no succession plan in place. There is no one that could be a competent interim. Plus, by the time they do a search and hire a new person, the staff would be running amok. Plus the new superintendent would not know the players and who to get rid of.
No, the best move is to scare Notter into finally cleaning house and doing the right thing and holding the staff’s feet to the fire. Notter either wasn’t aware of or looked the other way while many of the things the current Grand Jury complained about occurred. Best bet is to scare him into doing his job the way he is able to do it. And I think the majority of the board would do that.
March 21st, 2011 at 1:13 pm
to “Notter can be rehabilitated”:
Amigo(a?), Notter is too old school, too not move forward, too much of the same, too can’t pull the trigger, too not clean house too can’t get the car out of neutral,…..
your heart and mind is in the right place, BUT Notter has got to go because Stone Cold says so!
March 21st, 2011 at 3:17 pm
@ stone cold I concur.. as taxpayer we have been patient long enough. Its time for notter to go. If his wasn’t stong enough before to let people go he isn’t going to be strong enough now he should have at least tried even if he didn’t have the vote.
March 21st, 2011 at 3:29 pm
OK, but who in the system now could possibly take over as interim? I wouldn’t trust any of them.
March 22nd, 2011 at 12:14 am
The first name that comes to mind is Michell Rhee of Washington DC. Hey Governor Rick I could even do better than this piece of trash…..
March 22nd, 2011 at 7:19 am
Will say it again. The school district building needs an enima. The purging must start from the top and go well through the entire organization. They should actually set a goal to fire or replace at least 80% of the current staff working centrally within the next year. Only this will produce a change in how they do business.
It cannot happen with the existing people. They need new, more talented, less evil and for certain many fewer people working centrally. They should eliminate 60% of the jobs centrally and give these to the principals and assistant principals to perform. An assistant principal should be training to become a school CEO, not monitor lunchtime and bus pick up.
They also need to replace many if not most of their principals and replace them with managers who can actually run schools. The old time board members must go. When they do these things they will find the money to run the system well and properly pay teachers.
It must start at the top and works down. I doubt very seriously that it will happen because the evil in that building is much stronger than the goodness in the newcomers.
March 22nd, 2011 at 11:36 am
People aren’t understanding all of this!
Most if this corruption and stupid Construction things were done under Dr. Frank Till’s watch as Superintendent, NOT Notter!!!
They need to go back and double-check all he did. Infact, when Frank Till was hired, the Board members got a “SYMPATHY” card in the mail from California where he was hired from.
People should know that, so Buddy is right about all of it.
March 22nd, 2011 at 12:09 pm
@Git R Done: It doesn’t matter. The both played the same tune as instructed during their times and what is needed now is a 360 degree change in direction. They need new horses to compete in that rodeo it is just that simple. They all need to go and bring in a fresh team to kill the monster once and for all. From there public education in Broward may (I say that advisedly) just may have a chance to succeed.
March 22nd, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Till was not the greatest leader. Frankly he opened the doors to the unions and gave them everything they cried for then some.
A lot of this mismanagement was under Till’s watch and Notter like Obama was handed the bag of crap to clean up!
I will say that Gottlieb and Dennin are plants on the board for the betterment of BTUseless not the schools or our students.
The time has come to rid the board of all the do nothing members and start new. A new broom will sweep clean but it has to start at KCW and go all the way downt to the school level.
Remember all the do nothing jobs that “pals” were given that pay 75,000 and more!
March 22nd, 2011 at 3:34 pm
@ Yet again say’s:
I guess you’re probably right on certain aspects, especially since Notter allowed a school to be built for Gottleib in Hollywood for thousands of dollars the School District didn’t need to spend because most of the schools around Hollywood are UNDER-ENROLLED. Hopefully the 4 new horses brought in will be able to do that, BUT, they definitely need to get rid of Dinnen, Bartleman, Gottleib and Williams, then we MIGHT SEE SOME CHANGE!
March 22nd, 2011 at 10:03 pm
ATTENTION: Notter, Gottlieb, Murray, Dinnen and Williams — it is time to face the music. You have assembled a group of three gentlemen to bring back prefabricated recommendations to the board on ethics and other high profile issues. Now there is a new set of three gentlemen from the DOE who are under a microscope. That makes it hard for them to do what has been asked of them. It is even harder for them to do what they have been asked when the Commissioner of Education has just resigned. These are strange times for the power brokers in Broward. They have no point of reference to now, because they have all been protected over the many years in the past. Now it is time to pay the piper. Bartleman…beware, you are on a short chain and could easily end up in the same boat as the others. Gottlieb’s judge husband cannot stop the momentum of what his wife’s bad decisions have led to. It is time for the whole power structure to decide when to hold them and when to fold them.
It is time for new blood, a new plan and some “real” managers to execute the board’s vision. It is so evident that the current high level staffers have developed too many bad habits to break. The only answer is a Broward Cleansweep. Notter should not even get the job that he has held in suspended animation for selfish reasons at McFatter Vo-Tech. That means that Crawford helped him out at Dave Thomas Ctr. with the Oliphant hire and now Boegli is helping him out by holding down 2 jobs at Sheridan and McFatter to keep the slot open for Notter when he “steps down on his own terms”.
Williams is so indebted to Notter and the board that he won’t even admit that Murray made an ethnic slur — even when she admitted it. That is the epitome of circling the wagons. Too bad there are more aggressive attackers than usual. This is an historic time in Broward. With what just happened down in Miami-Dade with Alvarez is only the beginning of the revolt that the arrogant group has unleashed. The only way to slow down the carnage is to hear the revolt and step down. Notter step down. Dinnen step down. Murray step down. Gottlieb step down. Williams step down. Bartleman step down before the truth about you is exposed for the sake of your children. It is the only civil thing to do.
Finally — get rid of the staffers who have enabled, not caused the chaos as Marty Rubenstein is spewing. Remember that sloppy book-keeping means “fraud” and “staff brought the agenda items forward” is code for “Board members have no finger prints on it” — but they have all forgotten that there are no secrets in the broward county school board.
March 23rd, 2011 at 7:29 am
Look what they did with Miriam Oliphant now, despite the grand jury report. Nutter and the board are both stupid and arrogant. Hopefully, they’ll have this resolved before the end of the school year, when this woman is able to retire from the Board and collect a retirement check. Those top administrators at the Crystal Palace should be replaced with capable and competent people. As it stands, most of those jobs are filled with friends/relatives of the Board members. The list of qualifications for each of those positions was written with those people in mind. Then they held interviews that were a total farse, because as usual in Broward, that job had been promised to someone long before the vacancy was posted. This is the way business is handled in Broward Schools. It starts at the assistant principal level and it works right up to the superintendent’s level. This is the main reason why the schools are in total shambles. The people in charge are not only incompetent; they’re there just to breathe and cash two checks at the end of the month. They don’t care about our children. And to top it all off, for the most part, they have nasty attitudes to cover up their lack of qualifications. I propose the following steps in order to get a grip on things: a) a long overdue and thorough cleaning of the house is in order, b) to draw new school geographical boundaries in Broward, c) move the Crystal Palace to an underutilized building in a central location, d) put up for sale the school buildings in Broward that are either underutilized or not needed, including the new Montessori school that was not wanted or needed in Hollywood. Those 4 moves: cleaning house, redistricting, moving the Palace, and selling certain buildings can begin putting Broward on the right track.
March 23rd, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Get rid of 50-60% of NON school based employees. That should free up quite a sum of $ for the students and teachers. Stop busing children to schools. More $. Then, start adding personnel IN THE schools. That’s where the need is.
March 26th, 2011 at 7:23 pm
In my opinion….. Jim Notter is the worst Superintendent in the history of the School Board. Stephanie Kraft got him in, she needed a puppet, and Till, who continuously stood up to her was outsted. Unitl her arrest, Kraft called the shots. He came in as a micro manager, not trusting his executive team to do their job, he had his hands in everything. It was do what he said or lose your job …. like working for the mob.
I do hope the new Board gets rid of him and get a Superintendent who does the best for the system, not his paycheck. Oliphant is another gleeming example of his work. He knew very well she was being hired back at $75k a year; yet in today’s SS, he is having his HR dept look into it. No one can be hired without his approval, it’s kind of like the ” I don’t remember Kraft and the Chait brothers!” Bye Bye JFN