From: "Smondrowski, Rebecca K"
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 23:47:10
To: Lyda Astrove
Subject: Re: Rock Terrace School
Thank you for your thoughts on this. I appreciate it.
I hope you are well.
Rebecca
**********************************************************
What Ms. Smondrowski was responding to:
On Jul 8, 2013, at 8:42 AM, "Lyda Astrove" wrote:
I'm sure you all have seen the article in today's Washington Post concerning alleged financial mismanagement at Rock Terrace School.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/montgomery-special-education-program-under-investigation/2013/07/07/edb65292-e589-11e2-a11e-c2ea876a8f30_story.html
I understand that an investigation is currently under way by Human Resources.
While I appreciate that aspects of this situation are personnel-related, that is only one piece of the problem.
The students and families are owed an accounting of how much money their students earned, and what happened to the rather large sums of money that were withdrawn from the accounts.
I renew my suggestion that a forensic accountant is necessary to investigate the financial liability of MCPS to individual students. By now, the Board of Education should realize that this situation has been going on for many years, and cannot, and should not, be swept under the rug, and will not be resolved quickly. MCPS must go back to at least 2004, and contact all students who have been enrolled at Rock Terrace, and ascertain how much money they earned, whether it was placed in bank accounts, whether w2s were generated, etc.
A public meeting for all the affected families would be a good place to start.
Lyda Astrove
Typical mealy mouthed politician's response. Of course, for someone who ran for office as a "special education advocate" it is extremely disappointing that she gives such a non-committal answer. But, then again, her previous record suggested that she was using special education as a platform and had no actual previous advocacy interest or experience.
ReplyDeleteI have been involved in special education advocacy for over 15 years, on both a local and state-level, participated in multiple committees, advocacy organizations, etc etc. I never met Ms. Smondrowski until she ran for office.
ReplyDeleteThis is basically an out-of-office response. It may as well say: "I will not be available to read, or respond, to your message... ever."
ReplyDelete