Micromanagement is a bad thing?

From the Charleston (WV) Daily Mail. "Board President micromanagement"... Hmmm...

State may be on the verge of taking over another school system
by Ry Rivard Friday November 14, 2008

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The state may consider a takeover of the Randolph County school system after an audit found a laundry list of problems.

The cited problems include the county's decision to keep several hundred thousand dollars in an uninsured account, its persistently low test scores, its non-compliant hiring practices and a school board president attempting to micromanage the system.

Randolph County school officials say they are trying hard to correct the problems cited in the 151-page report by the state's Office of Education Performance Audits. They also said some things the county is written up for are not violations of state law or are simply not true.

County school administrators came to the state Board of Education meeting in Charleston this week to respond to some of the allegations in the report. Because of a technical error, many board members had yet to read the audit. So the board delayed taking any action until at least December.

"The worst thing is they can come over and take over Randolph County," said county school board president Ed Tyre.

The auditing team visited the county in late February and into March. When they came back in October to check progress, they found many problems remained uncorrected and discovered others. They found a series of personnel hiring, posting and transfer practices that were inconsistent with state requirements, financial problems, and deteriorating conditions at school facilities.

Among other financial problems, auditors found that the county left nearly $700,000 in uninsured bank accounts. Generally, the county treasurer or banks catch and correct such a situation.

The auditors also concluded that the school board, primarily board president Tyre, "is attempting to micromanage" the school system. Tyre "encourages persons with problems/issues to contact him rather than the central office." The auditors based that conclusion on interviews, documents and observations.

Tyre said the auditors attended only one board meeting.

"I do question things and the people elect me and I will question things," he said. "If they think I'm going to sit there and be a rubber stamp, they're crazy."

Tyre said he tells people with problems to use the chain of command. He also thinks he's been on the losing side of more votes than other board members.

The auditors think Superintendent Susan Hinzman does not advise or guide the board "in critical moments when leadership needs to be shown." They say Hinzman also failed to take actions to correct many of the school system's problems, though some "had just been taken or were being taken" during the week in October when the auditors came back to visit the county.

In general, the school system central office is "too loosely organized" to support school improvement, the report found.

The central office has seen some turnover in recent years, Tyre said.

The team also found:
# Only two of the four high schools offered Advanced Placement classes. When the auditors returned in October, the other two schools offered AP classes, but nobody was enrolled in them.
# Graduation rates decreased while dropout rates went up, though both met state standards. The report says that despite county board member concern about both, school system administrators did not prepare a plan to deal with the situations.
# The county listed the value of its land, buildings, equipment and vehicles in way that was not compliant with state education department standards, and that means the county did not properly safeguard its assets and increased the risk of loss.
# The county was unable to show it had competitively bid beverage and snack contracts or the $24,000 purchase of a van.

In general, the auditors found "no evidence of preventive maintenance" on school buildings by the county or individual schools.

Board president Tyre said the county has an $800,000 surplus and most of it will be set aside for maintenance.

Among problems the auditors found in Randolph County:
# The fire alarm system at Elkins High School was inoperable during the team's first visit.
# Stained ceiling tiles at Beverly Elementary. When auditors came back months later, crews had spray-painted the tiles and failed to fix the leaks. Ongoing roof leaks at Jennings Randolph Elementary were also not addressed.
# Lighting levels at George Ward Elementary were too low for reading. The county failed to submit a plan to correct that and other problems there, including poor temperature control and ventilation. When the team returned, it still found temperature and ventilation problems. The county said it would add windows to the poorly lit classroom.
# Elevated carbon dioxide levels at several schools.
# Several facilities did not have appropriate safety measures and provided unrestricted access by the public to their facilities.

The auditors also observed some errors that "could have a big impact" on how the county finds the most qualified applicant for a position.

The county administrator in charge of personnel is doing two full time jobs, the auditors found. Donna Simmons is both director of special education and the personnel administrator. The auditors said this was "unrealistic for two highly sensitive legal areas." She receives a $500 monthly pay supplement for handling personnel matters.

The report says Simmons was not trained to be personnel supervisor before taking on the duties in July, which was after the auditors' first visit.

Simmons says it's not unusual for a director of special education to have several responsibilities in the same county.

"It's very rare, unless you're in a larger county, that you have one person doing one job," she said.

State officials say the county has ongoing problems meeting standards set by the federal No Child Left Behind initiative, even though it has taken corrective measures for the past two years to bring up scores.

The county saw a decline on the statewide achievement test in three of six groups. The largest drop was a nearly 6 percent decline in math ability among elementary students.

It's not clear what the state might do. The agenda for the school board's Wednesday meeting called for some action on the accreditation status of the county, though it was not certain what the auditors would recommend. In the report, auditors concluded that conditions within the structure and operation of Randolph County "are not ordinary."

Principal David Roth of Elkins Middle School told the state board that the auditing report should be fundamentally about improving schools instead of "making a list of what is wrong." He said auditing "inevitably leads to demoralizing" those who need to improve and is not conducive to success.