Fredericksen: Are We Going To See A Repeat Performance Of Minnesota

Joe,

At this point the blame no longer belongs with Fredericksen. It belongs with the board or more specifically with board members Elmore, Dodd, Bly and Chase. It really doesn’t matter who said what about whom or who did what to whom. The board was oblivious to Fredericksen for his first four years and so they got what they deserved and we suffered. Now, it is different. Four years of incompetence and weirdness have led to the time for contract expiration and those four board members have a very clear picture of what is going on at this point. They should be the ones held accountable now and going forward for the decisions that are made.

What factors would a board consider when making a decision to hire or renew a superintendent? Certainly, anyone, even these board members, could agree on simple ones like past experience, instructional success, leadership, and political and community engagement. Fredericksen’s past experience is that his own district in Minnesota twice rejected him to be their superintendent. First in 2005 he was rejected as an internal candidate (attached) having served there since 2001including a period as acting superintendent (attached). Apparently, that board only needed 4 years to understand he was unacceptable. In less than two years the position was open again and once more the board rejected Fredericksen in favor of the other existing assistant superintendent without giving him any consideration (http://www.pressnews.com/articles/2006/05/24/osseo-maple_grove_press/news/dist279suptfinalist.txt).

That board evidently was a little more perceptive than ours. Maybe they spent time with him and noticed his offensive strangeness or maybe they had less tolerance for ill-conceived ideas. He also had floated the four-day school week there too and that board dropped it when “it hit the fan big time” (http://www.startribune.com/templates/Print_This_Story?sid=19184514).

Evidently, he sticks with bad ideas and travels with them to Maryland. We are told on our website that he came here to be close to family. However, before deciding to be close to family, one month before our board hired him he was rejected as superintendent in River Falls, Wisconsin (http://www.thisweek-online.com/2008/february/6westerhausupdate2.6.8.html). Maybe he has family there too or maybe there is more to it. Maybe Wisconsin does background checks and knew that there, like here now, he had become involved in suppressing the disclosure of public information and lying on court affidavits. In the dispute in Minnesota with a parent-employee group he lied in an affidavit about when the board would vote on the 2008-9 budget (he said June 17, 2008/ http://fiins.district279united.com/fiins/investigation/documents/Court%20Order%206%205%208.pdf). It turned out that the board actually approved the budget on June 3, 2008 just as the parent-employee group there had argued in court (http://district279.org/who/SchoolBoard/BoardMinutes/documents/2008_Minutes/060308_Minutes.pdf). Maybe as assistant superintendent of administration he truly didn’t know when the board was approving the budget or maybe he didn’t mind lying for his boss since he was already on his way here. She thanked him for his service at the next board meeting and wished him well (http://district279.org/who/SchoolBoard/BoardMinutes/documents/2008_Minutes/0617_Regular.pdf). Maybe she meant to wish us well too.

Either way, we got him. If past experience and reference checking is not important to our board, maybe student learning might be. In Fredericksen’s four years with us WCPS has been identified as a failing school system on state assessments; a fact that had to be pointed out to him and the board by the State Superintendent. Worse yet, we are headed in the wrong direction with no instructional plan and no hope. The only thing that exceeds Fredericksen’s lack of knowledge in curriculum and instruction is his lack of interest. He has managed to attend only one Race to the Top meeting ever and as he left early commented to the committee how much he had learned and how he might need “to break away more often to attend these instructional meetings.” Break away from what?

So maybe the Board is focused on budgeting and capital resources. The capital budget fiasco has been documented enough already. In terms of the general budget, the Department of Legislative Services reports that our county is -27.8% down in funding over the past three years (page 6 of attached DLS report). The next lowest county board of education is -9.4% and most are much better. Maybe this is due to Fredericksen’s stellar abilities to engage our elected officials. He does even worse with the public in general and employees particularly. Anyone who spends more than a passing moment with him dislikes him. Most people immediately get to “he’s weird” and many end up at “he’s a liar.” There seems to be some concrete evidence for that in Minnesota and plenty of circumstantial evidence here. In terms of promoting improvement, he has established a climate of complete fear and distrust among employees which the board has completely ignored. No attempts to survey staff, no attempts to interview the two retired superintendents (Field and Greenwood) he’s had working there for a year, no evidence that they care what the employees think or feel.

A better question than what has he done might be how does this board measure success in a superintendent? If not ethics and legal compliance or student learning or aligning resources or climate among employees and community, then what? What is the standard they have in mind for a superintendent? Shouldn’t the question not be IF they will renew him but WHY would they even consider it at all? On what basis? If there is even some truth to the allegations about Wright, Fitzgerald, and Willey, then we know why they would vote for him. If he goes down, then it’s a matter of time before they do too. But Elmore, Dodd, Bly, and Chase can and should be accountable. Going forward everything should be about them and not about Fredericksen. They are now responsible.

PS - By the way, despite the Fredericksen’s press release on the fire in the technology office being simply small, minor, and already investigated, doesn’t it appear from the facilities parking lot that it is still taped off? Has that investigation actually concluded? That whole thing is as strange as Fredericksen.

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