Different Public School System, Same Outside Companies Involved: SUPES Academy, ERDI, Digital Promise, League of Innovative Schools, Broad Academy

Baltimore County 2.0: Parents File Suit Against Washington State School District with Baltimore County Schools’ Ties

..Among the school systems’ similarities are superintendents who worked as consultants for controversial education consulting firms, SUPES Academy and the Education Research and Development Institute (ERDI). Both graduated from the SUPES Academy Richmond cohort, two years apart.

Both districts also have connections to Digital Promise, League of Innovative Schools and professional development company, Modern Teacher, whose founder also created the National Center for Digital Convergence (NCDC).

Watts, and at least two Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) employees have had positions on the NCDC’s advisory board.  BCPS’s executive director for the Department of Innovative Learning, Ryan Imbriale and his wife, director of Enterprise Applications, Jeanne Imbriale, disclosed the positions on their financial disclosure statements, documents obtained by The Baltimore Post.

Some Kent School advocates say they see the relationship between their school district having a Modern Teacher connection, and a superintendent that served on the NCDS’s advisory board, as a clear conflict of interest.

Baltimore County schools has paid out over $1 million to the vendor, which goes by eSchool and various other names, records obtained through a Maryland Public Information Act show. Books by Modern Teacher are required reading for Kent Schools administrators, according to advocates there.

Along with the questionable vendor relations, Mrs. Bettinger said that, with the addition of the Broad Academy where Watts received his superintendent training, that the school system lacks any “evidence that (those companies) bring any type of positivity to our school districts.  I’m not finding a lot of logic and reason in what is happening in our school districts,” she said...

https://thebaltimorepost.com/baltimore-county-2-0-parents-file-suit-against-washington-state-school-district-with-baltimore-county-schools-ties/?fbclid=IwAR2NJcJGq4HdldFFvsNxqgn__gyS0TKUtJT-rPayzCxy0cCU35YF3UkUXw4

Former Balt. County Superintendent Dallas Dance released from jail, Tweets apology

Former Baltimore County Public School superintendent, S. Dallas Dance, has been released from a Virginia jail after serving four months  for perjury charges after failing to report nearly $147,000 of income on his financial disclosure statements. Upon his release early this morning, Dance took to Twitter to apologize...

...But prosecutors found that Dance did not report nearly $90,000 from work he did for SUPES and its sister company, Synesi Associates.  The rest of the unreported income was earned through speeches, professional development and consulting services in other school districts and organizations.

Dance brought a $875,000 contract to Baltimore County schools after he began receiving payments from SUPES and Synesi, records show.

Dance was indicted in January on four counts of perjury for failing to report the income he earned as he led the country’s 25th largest school district. In March, he pled guilty to the charges. In April, he was sentenced to serve six months in a Baltimore County detention center. He was granted a transfer to Henrico County Jail West near his home in Virginia and served four months of the six-month sentence...

https://thebaltimorepost.com/former-balt-county-superintendent-dallas-dance-released-from-jail-tweets-apology/

MD v. Dallas Dance: Statement in Support of Plea of Guilty

   Maryland v. Dallas Dance - Statement of Facts in Support of Guilty Plea by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland on Scribd

Dallas Dance Led Principal Training Academy for California School System While Employed by Baltimore County

Seven months after an ethics panel found former Superintendent S. Dallas Dance in violation of his contract for consulting for now defunct Chicago-based educational consulting firm, SUPES Academy, the former Baltimore County Public Schools education leader entered into a $42,501.06 contract with Pasadena Unified School District to provide leadership training for the system’s existing and aspiring principals.

Through his limited liability company, Deliberate Excellence, LLC (DELLC), Dance signed a four-month agreement with the California-based school system totaling $38,000, including an additional $4,501.06 in reimbursements for travel and other expenses. The training included a system-wide leadership speech as well as in-person and virtual (Google Hangouts) personalized leadership development, coaching, mentoring, and support for up to 15 Pasadena principals and aspiring leaders, between February 1 and May 30, 2015...

http://thebaltimorepost.com/dallas-dance-led-principal-training-academy-california-school-system-employed-baltimore-county

Balt. Superintendent Dallas Dance and the Richmond Job Opening (Previously MCPS candidate) (Joshua Starr Lunch Buddy) (Supes Academy ethics investigation)

As supporters and opponents of the Richmond School Board’s split with Superintendent Dana T. Bedden clashed online in the days after his exit was announced, another name was on many lips: Dallas Dance.

The 36-year-old chief executive of Baltimore County Public Schools in Maryland had broadcast his own abrupt departure just four days before Bedden’s was revealed, also without explanation.

“People are talking about it,” Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, said of the timing. “It’s on social media, it’s everywhere; I’m hearing it.”

The move would be a homecoming of sorts for Dance, who graduated from Armstrong High School, attended Virginia Union and Virginia Commonwealth universities, and got his start in Henrico County Public Schools, alongside Bagby.

But it would be unwise to rush into filling Bedden’s shoes, cautioned Cathy Mincberg, president and CEO of the Center for Reform of School Systems in Houston, which provides training for school boards and superintendents.

Dance’s name has surfaced in board discussions, but a timetable for replacing Bedden in an interim and permanent capacity has not yet been announced.

Neither Dance nor Bedden responded to interview requests Monday...

http://www.richmond.com/news/local/city-of-richmond/when-it-comes-to-bedden-s-replacement-there-s-one/article_f46acdd4-7fb9-5ad3-9e73-282a00516bc7.html

WBAL: Superintendent did not disclose income from 2 side jobs, panel finds

The Baltimore County School Board's Ethics Review Panel has found that Superintendent Dallas Dance failed to file financial statements about two jobs he has had on the side.

http://www.wbaltv.com/article/untitled-content-1479509370/8341190

Balt. Co. Auditors want Answers on School Spending on Laptops

Baltimore County auditors are pressing the public school system for answers on its laptop-per-student program, as well as the schools’ overall spending and other priorities for next school year — including whether parents could be given “an ‘opt-out’ alternative to digital learning environments” for their children.
In a May 16 memo from the Office of the County Auditor to Baltimore County Schools Superintendent Dallas Dance, auditors asked BCPS about the schools’ technology initiative, with planned “total costs” of $285 million in the first several years...

http://towsonflyer.com/2016/05/18/county-auditors-seek-answers-bcps-budget-tech-initiative/

Baltimore County school board member wants vote on Dance contract delayed

The Baltimore County school board is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a new contract for Superintendent Dallas Dance, but one member is seeking a delay after an ethics complaint was filed Monday against Dance.

[...]

Miller said she wants the board to hold off on the vote because a former teacher filed a complaint against Dance on Monday with the school board's ethics panel.

The ethics complaint filed by William Groth, a county resident, alleges that Dance violated the terms of his contract by offering his availability for paid speaking engagements at educational conferences. Groth sent a screen shot of a speakers bureau website showing Dance and listing his availability and a $5,000 speaking fee.

"There is an increasing trend for more speaking engagements by the superintendent and other BCPS staff," the complaint states. "The more extensive his speaking engagement schedule becomes, the harder it is to justify a legitimate school system benefit."

Full story at:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/bs-md-co-dance-vote-contract-20160509-story.html

Superintendent Jack R. Smith Can Have Outside Employment

In the contract for the new MCPS superintendent we find that once again the contract allows for outside employment.  Parents might think that the job of the MCPS superintendent is full-time, but in actuality the job allows for outside, paid employment.  The MCPS superintendent, as has been shown by past superintendents, it really just a figure head position.  
MCPS has more than enough administrators to run MCPS without a full-time, actively engaged superintendent. 

The Superintendent may engage in other employment or professional activities for compensation during the term of this Contract, so long as said activities do not interfere with his official duties and only after prior written approval of the Board, with such approval not to be unreasonably withheld. The Superintendent may accept and/or earn honoraria or compensation for such outside activities.

   MCPS Superintendent Contract-Jack Smith-20160308 by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

CPS Sues Byrd-Bennett, SUPES Academy For $65 Million

CPS Sues Byrd-Bennett, SUPES Academy For $65 Million: The Chicago Public Schools have filed a lawsuit seeking to recover $65 million from former CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and SUPES Academy, the principal training firm at the center of a kickback scheme that led to her guilty plea on corruption charges.

Secret Source says Dallas Dance and Renee Foose among candidates

...S. Dallas Dance, schools superintendent in Baltimore County, and Renee A. Foose, superintendent in Howard County, are among candidates who could be in play as the process heads into a critical period in the coming months, according to a person familiar with board discussions who requested anonymity to speak freely about a sensitive personnel process...

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/montgomery-schools-superintendent-could-be-selected-as-soon-as-march/2016/01/10/046dd5a2-b3e4-11e5-9388-466021d971de_story.html

Corruption conviction of disgraced ex-Chicago Public Schools CEO illustrates the potential dangers of no-bid contracts

...The corruption conviction of disgraced ex-Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett illustrates the potential dangers of no-bid contracts while highlighting another potential pitfall: The problems that can arise when school leaders consult on the side for for-profit educational companies...

 http://catalyst-chicago.org/2015/10/superintendents-elsewhere-caught-up-in-supes/

Supes Academy in the news: Federal authorities have been investigating one of those contracts — a $20.5 million no-bid deal for principal training, the largest in recent memory

Even before she was hired to run Chicago Public Schools, Barbara Byrd-Bennett set up a scheme to get a 10 percent kickback on all the CPS contracts she could steer to a former employer, in part to set up a college fund for her twin grandsons, authorities said Thursday.
The feds found damning, detailed emails between her and her ex-boss, Gary Solomon — apparently so damning that Byrd-Bennett will plead guilty in the case involving $23 million in CPS contracts. U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon, in an unusual move, announced Byrd-Bennett’s intention to plead as he announced the charges.
“I have tuition to pay and casinos to visit (:” the feds say Byrd-Bennett wrote in one of many emails discussing the alleged kickbacks.
 Byrd-Bennett, 66 — who was handpicked to lead CPS in October 2012 by Mayor Rahm Emanuel — was charged Thursday with wire fraud and mail fraud in a 43-page indictment. Also charged were the owners of two businesses that got more than $23 million in no-bid CPS contracts — Solomon, 47, of Wilmette, and Thomas Vranas, 34, of Glenview. They also face charges of bribery and conspiracy to defraud the United States, and two of their companies, The SUPES Academy LLC and Synesi Associates LLC, were indicted, too.
 Byrd-Bennett becomes CPS’ first chief executive officer to face criminal charges in connection with her job. Federal authorities have been investigating one of those contracts — a $20.5 million no-bid deal for principal training, the largest in recent memory — for more than a year. The investigation came to light in April when subpoenas landed at CPS, forcing Byrd-Bennett out. By then, CPS had paid SUPES all but $7.7 million.
...By June 2013, weeks after Byrd-Bennett closed 50 neighborhood schools, saying the district couldn’t afford them, she presented the $20.5 million no-bid deal for principal training to the board. It was unanimously approved by six present members...

 http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/7/71/1019851/bennett-charged-kickback-scheme

Governor: Baltimore County must account for un-air conditioned schools

Gov. Larry Hogan and Comptroller Peter V. R. Franchot plan to summon Baltimore County leaders to Annapolis to explain why school children are still sweltering in classrooms without air conditioning.
The governor called the situation "absolutely disgraceful and unacceptable" and said "there's no excuse" that the county had still not installed air conditioning in more than four dozen in schools.

The pair said during Wednesday's Board of Public Works meeting that Baltimore County Schools Superintendent Dallas Dance and Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenentz need to be called to account.
The demand for a public explanation on why so many classrooms still lack proper cooling follows years of complaints from teachers and students. Already in this new school year, Baltimore County schools has three times shortened the school day or canceled after school activities to keep students out of the heat.

Fifty-two schools in the district - about 30 percent - lack air conditioning. While county officials say they have a plan to install it in nearly all those schools within the next six years, Franchot and Hogan say it should have been done already.
Franchot pointed out the county collected $27 million in state funds for school improvements over the past six years, and said the county could have chosen to spend that money on air conditioning.
"Clearly, it's not a question of resources," Franchot said. "It's a question of leadership, management and priorities ... They seem completely disinterested in dealing with this problem."...

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/bal-hogan-franchot-demand-explanation-on-sweltering-classrooms-20150916-story.html

Auditors critical of Baltimore County schools' contract process

A legislative audit of Baltimore County's public school system released Friday found that officials haven't always followed purchasing rules that would give the system the most competitively priced services and contracts.

In a review of about 10 contracts, the Department of Legislative Audits found instances in which the school system had decided to "piggyback" off other government contracts rather than use the more common process of asking for bids from multiple companies.
 
"These contracts were issued by other governmental entities that allowed other jurisdictions to use the contract terms and prices," said the audit, which covered fiscal years 2013 and 2014. "However, we found that BCPS did not use the contract terms and prices established by the other government entities, but negotiated their own unique contract terms and prices."

Among the contracts the auditors criticized was a $875,000, three-year contract with SUPES Academy to train principals. The contract, which has expired, became controversial because Superintendent Dallas Dance was found in violation of the ethics policy for working for the company without getting school board approval.
The audit said the county did not provide good reasons why the SUPES contract and others should not be competitively bid.
In the future, auditors want school officials to provide further analysis to school board members before they vote on contracts. George Sarris, the school system's executive director for fiscal services, said they agreed with the audit's findings and "have created an analytic procedure with a check list that we will use."...

 http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/sun-investigates/bs-md-sun-investigates-audit-20150711-story.html

"...many of us have lost trust in the administration because of the way business has been handled..."

 ...A good example are the particulars involved in the digital conversion and 24-hour learning via personal technology devices. While there is certainly an upside to this vision, there are significant downsides that have never been discussed, such as data mining.

What company is capturing and storing our children's data and for how long? Is it shared? How are the children's activities tracked and how will such information impact their academic future? Above all, what about their privacy rights?
Another issue is the forced reliance on even more technology when many parents are consciously limiting screen time in favor of their children building relationships and participating in the community. Was this ever even considered? It all happened way too fast, without regard for the unintended consequences of such a massive overhaul of the way our children will be learning...

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bs-ed-dallas-dance-20140829,0,2890508.story#ixzz3C7HIDRIK

Superintendent Controversey Needs Investigation

Here is a copy of an article that recently appeared in The Baltimore Sun as a Letter to the Editor.

 

Baltimore County Superintendent of Education Dr. Dallas Dance received a job from SUPES Academy after providing that same company with an $857,000 contract with Baltimore County Schools. This action has the appearance of a conflict of interest and violation of the ethics laws. I have filed a formal request for an opinion by the Ethics Commission which could be followed by an ethics complaint.

Dr. Dance receives a salary of $260,000 a year and presides over a school system in turmoil. Baltimore County is in the process of implementing a number of new programs including The Common Core Curriculum, change in teacher evaluations, redistricting school zones, instituting a new high school schedule and producing a 10 year facilities plan.

 With the activity and chaos we have in our school system, to the point where teachers have filed a grievance, Dr. Dance should not have any spare time to devote to another job. The SUPES Academy which is under investigation in Chicago was chosen by Dr. Dance as a non-bid contract.

The decision by the Superintendent to drop his job with SUPES is a minor concession. The $857,000 contract the Superintendent forced onto the shoulders of the County taxpayers is a real problem. Moreover, the agreement is designed to train principals and prospective principals. To my knowledge, Baltimore County has a tradition of in-house training for their principals. Dr. Dance, who graduated from SUPES Academy and is considered to be a qualified instructor, should use his skills to train county principals and save the taxpayers $875,000.

It never seems to amaze me how school boards agree to provide Cadillac level contracts that allow educators to undertake outside income producing ventures when they should be totally dedicated to their own school systems. The Board needs to revise the Superintendent's contract and prevent him from wandering off the farm.

My confidence in politically appointed school boards disappeared a long time ago. There have been a whole series of incidents dating back to the reign of Dr. Joe Hairston and beyond, where the actions of the board have left the public scratching their heads or holding their nose. This failed system needs reform. I have introduced legislation that will create an elected hybrid school board that consists of 7 elected members, 1 from each Council district and 4 at-large appointed by the County Executive. Faraway Governors should not be selecting Baltimore County's educational leaders.

The government closest to the people governs best. Baltimore County teachers, parents and children deserve better.

Serving the People,

Delegate Pat McDonough

410-238-0025

Delegate Calls For Ethics Probe Of Baltimore County School Chief - WBFF FoxBaltimore - Top Stories

Delegate Calls For Ethics Probe Of Baltimore County School Chief - WBFF FoxBaltimore - Top Stories

State Delegate Pat McDonough is calling for the state's ethics board to investigate a consulting contract given to Baltimore county superintendent Dr. Dallas Dance by a company already doing business with the school system. McDonough told FOX45 he wants the $15,000 payout from a company called SUPES Academy investigated for possible violations of the state's ethic's code. "It's a very serious issue and I've sent a letter to the board," Del. McDonough told FOX45. "Dr. Dance's contract has to be revised, no outside work; we have a lot of work to do in Baltimore County." McDonough added, "Under the contract that Dr. Dance has with the board he's supposed to report these things but its written so vaguely...It's obviously quid-pro-quo, it's a conflict of interest and it's an ethical violation at least." The Baltimore Sun reported that Dance was hired by the firm to train principals in Chicago after it received a $875,000 training contract from the county school system to train administrators.

Read More at: http://www.foxbaltimore.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/delegate-calls-ethics-probe-baltimore-county-school-chief-24058.shtml#.UrBlO_RDuJ6

...decision to quit a consulting job with a company that does business with the county schools was the right one...

Dance's conflict [Editorial]

Baltimore County Superintendent Dallas Dance's decision to quit a consulting job with a company that does business with the county schools was the right one. His explanation for why he's quitting, though, is all wrong, and it underscores the importance of the school board's plan to have a private talking-to with him on Tuesday night. Here's what the board members need to tell him:
Whether he meant it this way or not, saying that he's quitting his $15,000 consulting job with the Illinois-based SUPES Academy because the issue had become "a distraction" conveys the message that the problem was not with anything he had done, but with those who would question it. The board needs to make clear to Mr. Dance that the issues involved are not trivial and that he did not exercise good judgment in how he handled the matter.
SUPES Academy provides training for school administrators who want to become principals or superintendents. Mr. Dance is one of its alumni, having received training from the company in 2011 when he was a top administrator in Houston. Upon the request of the Dance administration, the board approved a contract with SUPES on Dec. 4, 2012, to pay the company $875,000 over three years to train up to 25 prospective principals per year.

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-dance-20131216,0,2685918.story#ixzz2ngEhhvAm

Examiner: Baltimore County schools superintendent altered written questions

Dr. Dallas Dance, Superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools, and Lillian Lowery, Maryland Superintendent, had the opportunity Thursday night to make minor amends at an MSDE-sponsored informational meeting after a three-plus year information blackout on Common Core, the new federal curriculum for Maryland schools.

Instead, Dr. Dance added insult to injury by screening, omitting, and editing parents’ questions.

Entire article at:

http://www.examiner.com/article/exclusive-video-school-supers-have-parent-arrested-from-common-core-meeting