Check This Out
From the AJC. Great letter that brings up a lot of good questions.
Get to the bottom of school system accusations
As a longtime critic of the largest school system in the state, I must admit even I've been somewhat taken back by the seriousness of the allegations being leveled at the school system, on gcps.blogspot.com, by what appears to be a group that includes the previous chief financial officer of the school system, Jeff Weiler. ("D.A. looks at blog accusations; Web journal says schools leaders guilty of malfeasance," AJC Gwinnett News, Dec. 3)
I'm even more amazed at what seemingly appears a lack of interest in these accusations by the Gwinnett County District Attorney's office, the lack of reporting by the media and the silence by the school system.
... I believe that taxpayers in Gwinnett County have been more than generous in providing financial support to our public school system, as can be witnessed by our recent approval of extending our special purpose local option sales tax for yet another time.
We deserve to know the truth regarding how our school system has managed the funds with which we have entrusted them. After all, we're paying for it at the tune of well over $1 billion a year. So let's get to the bottom of this mess, and let the chips fall where they may.
JIM DUMOND Buford
posted by The Truth Will Set You Free @ 12/10/2006 11:29:00 PM
13 comments
13 Comments:
Wilbanks = CORRUPTION
Davis = MISMANAGEMENT
School Board = INACTION
Let's do something about this.....
We all need to send Letters to the Editors to both The AJC and The
Gwinnett Daily Post now.
Keep this story in front of the publics eyes !
I wonder if the director of transportation could answer “NO” to any of these questions?
Round 2
1. Do you have /or have you had other persons under your direction been given a position that were not approved?
2. Do you have drivers who you allow to drive their bus home outside the county?
3. Do you allow drivers to park their bus greater than 10 miles from their assigned work?
4. Do you allow drivers to park their bus greater than 20 miles from their assigned work?
5. Do you allow drivers to park their bus greater than 25 miles from their assigned work?
6. Do you pay for drivers to drive their bus home to and from work?
7. Do you pay your office staff overtime on a consistent basis?
8. Do you pay/ or have you ever paid any of your “exempt” staff overtime?
9. Do you pay driver “incentive pay” just to come to work?
10. Do you pay your “exempt” staff “incentive pay” just to come to work?
11. Do you pay other “incentive pay” to your employees?
12. Are any drivers given an office space?
13. Do any drivers have county issued computers?
14. Do you have permanent consultants who work for you?
15. Do you pay more than $1 million a year for those consultants?
16. Have you ever paid for a consultant to do power point presentations for you to use to promote a product paid for by the county?
17. Have you ever allowed a consultant to travel with you to do these presentations?
18. Have you ever travel to help promote a vendors product when the vendor pay for the travel expenses?
19. Have you ever worked on presentation that your travels were paid by the vendor, while you were on county time, using county equipment?
20. Have you ever had any of your staff work on presentation and gather information for the above travels?
21. Do you have drivers who are paid over 40 hours a week?
22. Do you have drivers who are paid over 50 hours a week?
23. Do you have drivers who are paid over 60 hours a week?
24. Do you have drivers who you have even paid to work over 100 hours a week?
25. Do you pay drivers not to drive routes?
26. Do you pay drivers that are not assigned a bus?
27. Do you pay drivers to work in other departments?
28. Do you pay drivers to do HR?
29. Do you pay drivers to do puppet shows?
30. Do you guarantee drivers a 40-hour workweek?
31. Do you pay for the Training Coordinators son extra money to cut grass even though he is an employee of the school system?
32. Have you ever made the statement “ That’s what they make overtime for”?
33. Have you or any of your upper management staff solicited products or services other than the ones approved by the Board? Such as raffle tickets, girl scout cookies?
34. Have you ever gotten the school system sued to the toon of $170,000 for not allowing your driving group to do the same thing you allow your managers to do?
35. Have you ever stated, “ We’ll just go back to doing what we were doing when the heat is off”?
These are just a few questions that I bet he could not answer “NO” to. There are many more in the area of waste. All it would take is for the board to do the same. Just ask.
A word of advice to all that plan to attend the BOE meeting.
"DON'T LEAVE after speaking"
"STICK OUT THE ENTIRE MEETING"
Wilbanks is notorius for making comments to the press regarding public dissention once everyone leaves.
Remember each reader of this blog holds a little responsibility for what is going on now in GCPS. It is our responsibilty to research the topics on the blog. To inform our friends and relatives about this Website so they can do the same. Finally to ask the questions that need to be answered about these issues in our own unique way. This for the sake of the kids in GCPS schools....
Be proactive!!!
Great Letter Jim.....
I honestly believe if Ms. Diamond of the AJC gets dozens of e-mails and letters from ex-employees and employees of GCPS as well as from concerned citizens with some these incidents fleshed out with dates,schools and people involved. She will do an investigation and another article.
So please if you want to see change
get in touch with The AJC now!
ldiamond@ajc.com
FIGHT AND STOP ALVINGATE NOW !!!!
Author: Donald F. Valtman
Subject: Re: Will he just ever shut up?
In reply to: jim 's message, "Will he just ever shut up?" on 07:44:20 12/11/06 Mon
Excellent letter to the editor! Unfortunately, expecting some local/state mover-and-shaker to voluntarily undertake a professional investigation and "let the chips fall where they may" is an unrealistic expectation. They will offer all kinds of excuses for inaction such as 'I didn't know anything about these allegations'; 'if they (Wilbanks et al) did break any laws, they didn't mean to do so'; 'the whistleblowers are malcontents and miscreants, therefore they're not to be believed' (even though whistleblowers were/are central to virtually all cases brought against corporate executives by government agencies); etc.
Other than the Gwinnett DA, the rest of the "movers and shakers" have been conspicuously silent. To counteract their use of any of the above excuses, interested Gwinnettians/groups need to (1) collectively write elected or appointed local/state/federal officials and organizations, (2) advise them of the existing charges and the seriousness of the charges, (3) remind these officials and organizations of their oaths of office, job duties, missions of their respective divisions/departments, (4) their campaign promises (if recently elected), and (5) DEMAND that they actively promote a professional investigation into this situations so as to assure Gwinnett voters that their tax supported public education system is being operated in a law-abiding manner. A partial list of who to write might include:
Governor Perdue
Lt. Governor Cagle
Georgia Attorney General
Georgia Auditor
Inspector General, Federal Dept. of Education
Internal Revenue Service
U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood, Jr., Chair, Education &
Workforce Sub-Committee
Chairs - Georgia House Education Committee
Georgia Senate Education Committee
Georgia Superintendent of Education
Georgia Professional Standards Commission
Your Gwinnett County state Representative and Senator
Gwinnett County Grand Jury
Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners
Gwinnett County School Board
CCs to:
AJ/C Gwinnett News
Gwinnett Daily Post
ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC Investigative Reporters
Neal Boortz
Georgia Gang
Lastly, send any "dear john" responses you may get to the CC group. And remember such "dear john" responses come the next election.
Please take the time to write your legislator and tell them that you support the bill to elect the Superintendent of Schools rather than to continue allowing the BOE to appoint whomever they want as the Superintendent. If this bill passes, a large part of the GCPS' problem will be resolved in an election. Then, we can focus on recalling/electing a Board that works for the children by doing what they have been elected to do - "oversee the administration/superintendent of the school system" to ensure a quality education.
Please read last week's article from the GDP:
The state would give voters a chance to elect local school superintendents under legislation prefiled in the General Assembly this week by a Gwinnett County lawmaker.
A constitutional amendment sponsored by Rep. Clay Cox, R-Lilburn, would allow members of local legislative delegations to request a local law providing for elected superintendents in their areas.
Electing school superintendents was the norm in Georgia until 1993, when the state Constitution was changed to require local school boards to appoint their superintendents.
Allowing superintendents to be elected would make them more accountable to the public, Cox said Thursday.
“Someone who has to get out and knock on doors to earn a vote, that is the ultimate accountability,” he said.
Cox said many of the voters he spoke to as he was campaigning for re-election this year said they would like to see the election of school superintendents restored.
“It was an extremely prevalent comment when the topic of education came up,” he said. “There seems to be a disconnect between parents, teachers and administrators in school districts.”
But Tim Callahan, spokesman for the 69,000-member Professional Association of Georgia Educators, said there are better ways to make school superintendents more accountable than putting politics back into their decision making.
He said many voters aren’t attuned to issues affecting schools because they don’t have school-age kids.
“Across the nation, the percentage of people with children in public schools has dropped below 30 percent,” he said. “They have to rely on what they hear in the news media, which tends to focus on the aberration, not the routine.”
Gwinnett Schools Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks said most of America’s successful school districts feature an elected school board and appointed superintendent.
“This arrangement allows the superintendent to focus on public education, not politics,” he said.
Callahan suggested that school boards already are holding school superintendents accountable.
“The average tenure for superintendents is three years,” he said. “If that’s not accountability, I don’t know what is.”
If the person who is putting information on the blog only knew how Grant runs his department in transportation.
He does not believe he has to go through a bid process for anything. It is HIS money to do as he pleases. So he can have the biggest army. The bigger his army the more money he makes.
Why are there a select 100 or so of us drivers allowed to work all the overtime we want, and other can't even get 30 hours. I was told this would be a 6 hour a day job, yet if you are like you can go work at safety and training getting over 40 hours overtime a week. Yes that is right 40 hours overtime. I can't even get the 6 I was promised, and my pay has been cut.
Maybe if we stop letting all the supervisors drive the county cars like it is their personal car. I live in Gwinnett and have to drive my car to get my bus, why can supervisors drive cars, they don't even pay taxes on 20-40 miles outside the county, and as my supervisor has said, she uses hers to do what she wants, since no one lives anywhere near her.
Misuse of all transportation equipment and a waste of county money for the management staff.
The School Superintendent is being held accountable everywhere but Gwinnett County. Mr. Wilbanks tenure is like 12 years. He controls the School Board, the School Board does not have any influence over him. Backwards in Gwinnett County! Lets take our schools back....
I know for a fact that the Gwinnett County School Board knows about falsified classroom number documentation. They also have the highest number of incompetent and absent administrators of any county in Georgia (costing taxpayers $100's of thousands of dollars).
It is and always will be the "good old boy" system in Gwinnett County, for Mr. Wilbanks has set the standard by which this system works for him.
I wonder if the U.S. Department of Education knows that federal money is being misappropriated in Gwinnett County and Mr. Wilbanks is laughing right in their faces.
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