posted by Tom Moertel at 10:29 AM /
Updated 2010-10-27 11:00 with follow-up from Mrs. Stang.
Last week when Sadie Stang received her son Niko’s evaluation report from the Mt. Lebanon school district, she couldn’t believe how many mistakes it contained. In one paragraph alone, her family found no fewer than six spelling errors. More troubling, portions of the report were hard to understand, in places almost incomprehensible.
“These evaluations are done every three years by the school district. They should be of the utmost importance. If this report was put together so carelessly, how can I trust that it is an accurate assessment of my child?” she said.
Mrs. Stang said that her family has received other reports from the school district that also contained obvious errors. But this report was riddled with them.
“I have never seen anything quite like this one,” she said.
Rather than address her concerns to the school district, Mrs. Stang decided to do something else. She went public.
On Thursday, 21 October, 2010, she wrote about the report on her blog, “PJ’s and clay and autism... oh my.” In a post called Say it ain’t so, she presented her readers with a single page of Niko’s re-evaluation report. Her 18-year-old daughter, Alexandra, a recent graduate of the Mt. Lebanon school district, had proofread the page, circling the errors. The page was littered with circles.
Shortly after the post appeared on Mrs. Stang’s blog, word began to spread, soon reaching the school district. Within hours, the school superintendent himself, Dr. Timothy Steinhauer, emailed Mrs. Stang about the report, echoing her dissatisfaction and promising a corrected version shortly.
The email, however, did not have the intended effect. Its opening words were “Dear Ms. Stand.” Mrs. Stang’s name had been misspelled. It was an innocent mistake, but hard to ignore, given the circumstances.
“It put salt in the wound, to say the least,” she said.
Dr. Steinhauer quickly followed up with an apology, but the first impression had taken hold, with Mrs. Stang forwarding his email to the entire school board and posting a copy on her blog.
The school district, citing confidentially requirements for personnel and student matters, declined to comment on the specifics of this story. A spokesperson, explaining the evaluations in general, said that evaluation reports are presented to parents in draft form and then finalized during meetings that include parents, teachers, and relevant administrators.
Mrs. Stang said that the report she received was not marked as a draft.
And that’s where things stand at present: one family, angry and frustrated; one school district, not looking its best; and one community, watching to see what will happen.
If there’s a lesson to be drawn from all this, it’s that email and blogging have altered the balance between schools and parents. In the past, aggrieved parents had little choice but to follow the arcane policies of schools and governments to have their complaints heard. Now parents have a new option: go straight to the public.
In this case, exercising that option drew a speedy response from the school district’s superintendent – effectively the CEO of a $100-million company. That’s more than most parents with similar problems could have hoped for ten years ago.
Will that response be enough? As of this writing, Mrs. Stang is still waiting for that corrected report from the school district to arrive. When she gets it, what will it say?
My guess is Mrs. Stang won’t hesitate to let us know. Just watch her blog.
Update (Wednesday, 27 October, 2010)
In the comments for this story, Mrs. Stang has written to Blog-Lebo with an update about the whereabouts of the revised report she was promised. She says that she learned this morning that the report was emailed on Friday – but not to her.
“You’re never going to believe this one. This important document was emailed to the wrong email address,” she writes.
She’s now concerned that her son’s evaluation report, supposedly confidential, may have been sent to a complete stranger.
Last week when Sadie Stang received her son Niko’s evaluation report from the Mt. Lebanon school district, she couldn’t believe how many mistakes it contained. In one paragraph alone, her family found no fewer than six spelling errors. More troubling, portions of the report were hard to understand, in places almost incomprehensible.
“These evaluations are done every three years by the school district. They should be of the utmost importance. If this report was put together so carelessly, how can I trust that it is an accurate assessment of my child?” she said.
Mrs. Stang said that her family has received other reports from the school district that also contained obvious errors. But this report was riddled with them.
“I have never seen anything quite like this one,” she said.
Rather than address her concerns to the school district, Mrs. Stang decided to do something else. She went public.
On Thursday, 21 October, 2010, she wrote about the report on her blog, “PJ’s and clay and autism... oh my.” In a post called Say it ain’t so, she presented her readers with a single page of Niko’s re-evaluation report. Her 18-year-old daughter, Alexandra, a recent graduate of the Mt. Lebanon school district, had proofread the page, circling the errors. The page was littered with circles.
Shortly after the post appeared on Mrs. Stang’s blog, word began to spread, soon reaching the school district. Within hours, the school superintendent himself, Dr. Timothy Steinhauer, emailed Mrs. Stang about the report, echoing her dissatisfaction and promising a corrected version shortly.
The email, however, did not have the intended effect. Its opening words were “Dear Ms. Stand.” Mrs. Stang’s name had been misspelled. It was an innocent mistake, but hard to ignore, given the circumstances.
“It put salt in the wound, to say the least,” she said.
Dr. Steinhauer quickly followed up with an apology, but the first impression had taken hold, with Mrs. Stang forwarding his email to the entire school board and posting a copy on her blog.
The school district, citing confidentially requirements for personnel and student matters, declined to comment on the specifics of this story. A spokesperson, explaining the evaluations in general, said that evaluation reports are presented to parents in draft form and then finalized during meetings that include parents, teachers, and relevant administrators.
Mrs. Stang said that the report she received was not marked as a draft.
And that’s where things stand at present: one family, angry and frustrated; one school district, not looking its best; and one community, watching to see what will happen.
If there’s a lesson to be drawn from all this, it’s that email and blogging have altered the balance between schools and parents. In the past, aggrieved parents had little choice but to follow the arcane policies of schools and governments to have their complaints heard. Now parents have a new option: go straight to the public.
In this case, exercising that option drew a speedy response from the school district’s superintendent – effectively the CEO of a $100-million company. That’s more than most parents with similar problems could have hoped for ten years ago.
Will that response be enough? As of this writing, Mrs. Stang is still waiting for that corrected report from the school district to arrive. When she gets it, what will it say?
My guess is Mrs. Stang won’t hesitate to let us know. Just watch her blog.
Update (Wednesday, 27 October, 2010)
In the comments for this story, Mrs. Stang has written to Blog-Lebo with an update about the whereabouts of the revised report she was promised. She says that she learned this morning that the report was emailed on Friday – but not to her.
“You’re never going to believe this one. This important document was emailed to the wrong email address,” she writes.
She’s now concerned that her son’s evaluation report, supposedly confidential, may have been sent to a complete stranger.
Labels: community blogging, dr. timothy steinhauer, mt. lebanon school district, sadie stang
29 Comments:
I think that this is a very serious matter. Did her child receive the proper attention and instruction in that program, or is the evaluation a representation of the quality of the services that were delivered?
Tom,
This is Niko Stang. My mom and I thank you. She said she loves me to the moon and back and I love her very much.
Niko and my best friend Mom Sadie Stang
Nicely done, Tom. And how many of you out there had tears in your eyes, like I did, when reading Niko's comments?
Working with children with special needs was Mt. Lebanon's saving grace. Now what do we have left? Are we doing anything right anymore? As I have said before, a little less time with architects and lawyers and a little more time concentrating on education, Folks. Get your priorities right.
Elaine Gillen
Niko's comment is the best thing I have read in a long time.
Joe Wertheim
If Ms. Stang doesn't get satisfactory ACTION from Steinhauer then it's going to be really tough to think of a reason to keep him on our payroll - contract or not.
The "confidentiality" the superintendent refers to is a clause in the teachers contract that says the school board will not criticize a teacher in public.
We appear to have an "exceptional" teacher writing an IEP for an Exceptional Child. Dr. Allen what is your response to this shameful behavior of a teacher under your supervision? Should we buyout your contract?
I suppose that the emailed "apology" to Mrs. Stand (sic) from Timothy J. Steinhauer, Ed.D., Superintendent was also a draft. The teacher responsible for the evaluation should be dismissed, and someone (maybe one of the board members who recently gave him a raise and extended his contract) should suggest to Dr. Steinhauer that he proof read his correspondence.
Joe Wertheim
Let’s not be too quick to pass judgement on Steinhauer. Didn’t he, the very top of the school administration, respond within hours? Didn’t he own the problem and promise a fix? Isn’t this the expected response?
Yes, he misspelled Mrs. Stang’s name – an embarrassing mistake – but how much should we read into it? Is it evidence that the school system is broken from its foundation all the way up to the superintendent’s office? I doubt it. (Further, I suspect that this misspelling was actually caused by – irony time – the spell-checker “correcting” Stang to Stand.)
The error-filled report, however, does suggest that something has gone wrong in the review process. The most charitable interpretation is that somebody sent out a report before it had been proofread. Not good, but not damning, either. The most cynical interpretation is that the report is representative of the care that goes into the reviews and the culture that predominates in our school district’s special-education programs. If that’s the case, it’s troubling because that report had problems.
The truth is probably somewhere between those two ends of the spectrum.
Regardless, the spotlight is now on the review process. If something there is broken, I suspect it’s likely to get fixed – and soon.
Tom,
This is a very serious matter. My fear is that this evaluation is symptomatic of a much deeper problem.
I think that the Board should demand a thorough independent third-party audit to determine if these children are receiving the proper attention and care in their program. The results of the investigation should be publically presented to the community by the auditor.
Actually the irony is that this re-evaluation was to suggest a different educational placement for our son. We were hoping and praying to have him moved to ACLD Tillotson where I believe he would have received a more appropriate education. However, based on THIS worthless evaluation I have in my possession, Tillotson denied his acceptance. In my opinion, the only thing MTLSD did correct was to make sure they would not have to pay the private tuition and transportation fee for Niko. On page 14 of the report, it states, "At this point in time, the district recommends continued placement in the life skills supoort program within the Mt. Lebanon School District." Keep in mind folks, shouldn't an autistic student be in an autistic program. Again, Tom, thank you for this publicity. I don't care who gets dismissed, removed, reprimanded, just start providing the education my son needs and deserves!
Sadie
Tom,
As of yesterday, Sadie has heard nothing. Our parents were friends, and I have known Sadie her whole life. She is fair and passionate about her beliefs. If she says there is something wrong, there is something wrong. This "draft" was written for a pivotal event in Niko's education. As a result, Niko is the one who will pay the price. There are no two ends of the spectrum here, Tom.
Elaine Gillen
As promised to keep you updated:
A short while ago I received a phone call from Mr. Brian McFeeley, Principal at Mellon. He is sincere with his apologies, and he also seems to truly care about this situation. However, he asked if we received the revised evaluation via e-mail that was supposedly sent on Friday. I asssured him we did not and you're never going to believe this one, this important document was emailed to the wrong email address. Even though my husband has saved emails from the teacher, the principal and Connie Lewis, they apparently only ever hit reply and did not make sure the email they were sending was to the correct address. Am I nit-picking? Absolutely, because they themselves said they would never release a students information yet someone with the email of k.stang received it or it should have come back as undeliverable.
Again, thank you Tom! The publicity was well received in the school district. My phone has been ringing off the hook, Brian McFeeley, Connie Lewis and Tim Steinhauer have all called today. Finally, AUTISM SPEAKS. I can only promise all of you that "Ms. Stand" will continue to take a stand for all of these children and I will make sure they receive a proper education. Because of you, the sun is shining a little brighter for Niko and all of his beloved friends!
This could have all been avoided if the SD had just spent $113 million on a new high school...No, wait a minute...that wouldn't have mattered...Sorry, my mistake.
But on a more serious note, here we go again. Does the School District go out of its way to do dumb things just to garner attention? Do we really need the attention? I had intended to rail on against Dr. Steinhauer, the Board, et al. But I now realize that's redundant.
Tom, Dr. Steinhauer may have responded within hours, but he did not really “own the problem” as you suggest. In his short apology he continued to use the word “draft”, implying that it is acceptable to have all these errors when they appear in a “draft”. I disagree. We pay our teachers exceptionally well, and I believe that we can expect them to have a basic grasp of spelling and language. Whether the report to the parents was a draft or not (and if Mrs. Stang had not made an issue of this does anyone really think that a final report would have followed?), the fact that we employ a teacher who would send out an evaluation like this is an embarrassment, and should not be tolerated.
As to Dr. Steinhauer misspelling Mrs. Stang’s name, you are right, it is not “evidence that the school system is broken from its foundation all the way up to the superintendent’s office” as you suggest (a bit of hyperbole on your part), but they way I view it is that the superintendent did not take this issue seriously enough to proof read his response. And, by the way, spell check does not recognize “Steinhauer” either, so he should be very familiar with ignoring the recommended “correction” of proper names.
And now we hear that the "revised evaluation" was sent to the wrong email address, just another example of those in the district not paying attention. I wish that I was surprised, but unfortunately this is the norm. After all the phone calls from the administrators it seems that they can talk the talk, but can't walk the walk.
Tom, I do agree with your suggestion that this may be "representative of the care that goes into the reviews and the culture that predominates in our school district’s special-education programs." And is it just limited to the special education programs, and teachers, or might it be wider spread?
Joe Wertheim
Joe, thanks for your response.
I understand what you’re saying, but you’re missing something. There are two plausible explanations for the report’s condition. The first is that the report’s authors were not up to the task of writing the report. The second is that they were, but somebody screwed up and sent the report before it had been edited.
The first is a serious problem. The second is a clerical error.
Your argument presumes the first explanation; Steinhauer’s email claims the second. The question is, which explanation matches reality?
Without more evidence, we can’t say. So unless you know something I don’t, it’s too early to make the call on whether there’s a serious problem.
We need more evidence.
So I’m with Mr. Kendrick on this one. There ought to be an inquiry. It’s the only way to discover what actually happened and, ultimately, to restore the public’s trust.
Cheers,
Tom
Please remember that you have all only have seen 1 page of this evaluation. It is not just riddled with spelling mistakes, page 11 of 17, I have a Physical Education teacher reporting that Niko never reads assigned chapters, never analyzes the problem before trying to solve it, does not have good study habits, does not use the internet effectively for schoolwork, does not take careful notes during lectures. This is the gym teacher folks, shouldn't he be stretching, running, walking, learning basketball skills? Next they will tell me he didn't have the option of N/A. This entire evaluation is priceless! Please continue visit my blog for updates on Niko, I am still using the comedy material that was handed to me on a silver platter. We are making headway, we will be personally meeting with Dr. Steinhauer on
Friday. Bottom line, yes, there is a serious problem and this mother is going to have it fixed. Do I want anyone to lose their job? Absolutley not. Do I want the school district held accountable for the negligence in this entire program? You bet. I'm certain there are many more stories but as I've been told, I had ther courage to come forth. I'm a changed person, I used to worry about stepping on peoples toes, now I think about how many I can step on.
Did someone during citizens comments recently refer to the District leadership as "boneheads" ?
Is there a major lawsuit in the making ?
Yeah, lets all stay tuned !
Bill Lewis
"The second is that they were, but somebody screwed up and sent the report before it had been edited." (from Tom's earlier comment)
Tom, there is no way to excuse the "draft" of the evaluation. Draft, or not. Edited, or not. The number of errors is unacceptable. If we are employing a teacher whose vocabulary is that poor then we have a serious problem. What's next? I don't know the current count, but a couple of years ago the district hired coaches for teachers, something I questioned at the time and never received a valid explanation as to why this was needed. Is the next step to hire editors for the teachers? There is simply no valid explanation that can excuse the quality of this correspondence between a teacher and a parent.
Sadie, stomp on those toes!!
Joe Wertheim
Joe,
You’re conflating two issues. The first is, Is the draft report acceptable? The answer is, of course, no way. It’s unacceptable, no excuses accepted.
The second question, the more important of the two, is, Based on an inspection of the draft report, what can we infer about the school district and its programs? Here we must consider other evidence about how these reports are created.
Looking at the report, it’s clear to me that it’s a compilation. My best guess is that it’s created in three steps: (1) dump information from a variety of sources into a template document; (2) whip the document into shape; and (3) send the document, now called “the draft,” to the parents for review.
For this type of document, we would expect it to be pretty rough after step (1). So, what we can reasonably infer from the draft that Mrs. Stang received depends greatly on whether it represents work before or after step (2). If it’s before, we have a clerical error; if it’s after, we have a serious problem.
I don’t have enough evidence yet to make the call. But I do have enough evidence to question whether there’s a serious problem and, therefore, to demand that further evidence be gathered.
Cheers,
Tom
Tom, this is the last I will comment on this, but I can say with absolute certainty that I have never written anything, draft,compilation, final copy or whatever one might call it, that has as many errors as this report to Ms. Stang, and if we have teachers in the system who communicate like this and are responsible for teaching children then I am going to take the leap and say that this is a problem, not a clerical error. This needs to be addressed immediately and seriously. And don't forget, step two in this turned out to be the district sending the edited?, corrected? report to the wrong email address. Just another fine example of the (lack of) care being taken by someone in the district.
Joe Wertheim
Tom,
This situation is not the only unsolved problem for this administration:
1) The District sued a mom for filing a right to know request, and
2) The MDT omitted zoning from the list of Design Criteria for the High School and the District sued the Zoning Hearing Board instead of solving the problem.
3) There are too many spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors on the District website. The misspelling and punctuation errors are not limited to the special education department.
4) The special education department does not function properly even though it is under the supervision of the academic superintendent who is being trained to be an inspector in the Baldridge Criteria for Performance Excellence in our schools. Our last Report told us Lebo scored only 38 points out of 100 in the Baldrige score - that was after three years of effort.
5) President Kubit quoted twenty-year enrollment projections in a letter to residents even though those projections never existed.
6) A former director was criticized for late filing of financial disclosure statements only to find that other current board members statements had to be amended because they were incomplete or inaccurate. The District never checked them.
7) In January the finance director unknowingly presented an unbalanced budget where expenditures were larger that revenues.
8) The District refused to release a copy of the five-year Budget Forecast tonight.
How much more evidence do you need, Tom, to confirm these Administrators are “boneheads?”
John (Ewing),
I don't remember making any claims about the school district in general, just this one particular issue – the error-ridden report and what we can reasonably infer from it.
If you want to say that the report is one more piece of evidence to add to a growing pile that suggests the school district is lax in many of its responsibilities, I won't argue with you.
Cheers,
Tom
Yes Tom, there is more evidence that the SB is *lax* in many of its fiduciary duties.....it just accepts, rarely questions or challenges the staff or hired retainers...adding just a couple to Johns list for illustration :
9)telling the public how expensive it was on average to respond to a typical Right To Know request..$2,600...without any apparent questioning....only to find out (but not reveal to the public) that the District was being charged and paying with our taxes$2,000 of the $2,600 total for 10-hours of forensic legal investigation and analysis at $200/hour. No kidding, for a letter, e-mail, report record ? Maybe even a handfull of items...no kidding;
10) Dr. Steinhauer told the public and was quoted in the P-G in Feb. that justification of the HS project included the *fact* that all the existing roofs had to be replaced...without question...without a doubt. However, just a couple of weeks ago came the results of an inspection (that should have occured a year or more ago) that said several roofs did not need to be replaced, saving $600,000.
Yes, there are examples.
Bill Lewis
Bill,
10. con't. The architect update on 10/11/2010 where Tom Celli says there are at least ten more years of life in those roofs.
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/10/11_Architects_Update.html
I had pointed out to the SB, that on the MTLSD website, there was a document dated July 2006 signed by George Wilson under "Student Support." The Special Education Report was just updated with the June 2009 report. http://www.mtlsd.org/district/stuff/2009/specialeducationplan.pdf
I feel like I am enabling them. At some point, people need to start doing the jobs they are getting paid to do.
Elaine Gillen
Not sure how many times I can say it, but thank you folks, thank you blog-lebo, you have truly helped bring attention to this matter. The district is responding, they have since updated the website for the Special Ed Plan, (we are now in 2009!) Dr. Steinhauer extended and welcomed a meeting with my husband and I today. There is much to be fixed, and it will be a very slow process but I think I've proven that I won't back down. (And I know how to point and click!) I welcome the help they are extending, we will work together to make sure Niko gets what he and his buddies deserve. More meetings are scheduled next week. I still feel the wrong people are being held accountable, and even point blank asked Dr. Steinhauer if Deb Allen is still employed by the school district. Apparently she is but seems to have learned how to be kept from the public like former Vice-President Dick Cheney. (Not a political remark, don't want to start that, but don't you remember always wondering why we never saw him?) And yes, I will keep stompin' on those toes! I'm gonna be so good at stompin' that soon, I'll start making my own wine!
AUTISM SPEAKS
(through the power of a mom)
Niko's Mom
(Sadie)
Mrs. Stang,
Have you considered organizing and leading similarly situated Lebo parents in a *full court press* on the District to get their entire act together for once and for all ?
I have known and heard of many families who have had somewhat similar experiences over the years that in frustration and disgust have just moved out of Lebo rather than fight "the system" alone.
Bill Lewis
This is off topic with Ms. Stang's original post, but relates to the 10 points offered by Mr. Ewing and Mr. Lewis here.
Make this number 11?
From the DeJong sessions:
MT. LEBANON HIGH SCHOOL FACILITY UTILIZATION STUDY delivered in 2006 on page 22.
PARKING
• Adequate and separate parking facilities should be provided for visitors and staff
• The school site must provide adequate areas for entering and leaving, parking, and play fields
• Consider covered walkways from car and bus drop-off areas
• Comply with regulations for handicapped access
In 2006 the district spends $100,000+ for a utilization study that highlights parking issues.
Four years later the district ignores the study's finding and spends $19,000+ on legal fees to defend "NOT HAVING ADEQUATE PARKING."
Dean Spahr
Sadie,
Please let us know if your child's needs are being given the proper attention and if you are receiving ACTION from the school board or the Supt.
I'd also like to hear from other parents who have children with these needs, if they wish to comment.
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