Comments on: Despite AB 114, MDUSD doesn’t plan to restore cuts

By: wait a minute

wait a minute — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 19:43:28 +0000

Its time to point something out people.

This “Anon” who began posting all over the CC Times blog to defend the MDUSD leadership and try and shift blame to anyone else started doing this at the same time as Sue Brothers was hired and is none other then SUE BROTHERS herself!!!

Her posts have been shown to a couple of dozen of her former colleagues from West Sac/Roseville and all agree its Sue’s writing. By the way, comments about Sue ranged from vile, manipulative, incompetent egotistical control freak to many that are unprintable.

So why is she doing this? Because of the 3 reasons she went to MDUSD: #1, West Sac became (to quote Sue herself) “no longer a comfortable place” for her and her M.O. #2, her benefactor Steve Lawrence hired her to try and quash the CVHS Charter. #3, she has also been hired to fight the info war here on the CC Times to try and protect her savior Lawrence.

Some other interesting information has also come up.

Sue extensively lied in her interviews with Theresa Harrington. She claimed she was only making $125,000 at West Sac when she was at the top of the pay scale there at $145,000 plus benefits. She claimed she spent lots of time in classrooms and sites (when she rarely left the administrative offices until the new Super Dr. Gilleland made her get out last year and start regularly visiting sites/classrooms).

In fact, Sue spent the better part of her 5 years in smallish West Sac building up a personal empire. In her Dpt of Ed Services she had 2 “Directors” at $110,000 each (one of whom was infamous in that district for having been caught having sex at a school site with one of the custodians and whom Sue tried to replace one of West Sac’s best principals with when her Directors position was cut!). Sue also had at least one other administrator and several “Teachers on Special Assignment” as well as 2 secretaries. So her Dpt had well over 1 million dollars in salaries/benefits in a 1 HS town until the budget cuts of last year. In fact, Sue was famous for manipulating hiring in West Sac. She decided who would be hired ahead of time and represented panel interviews were conducted only to go through the motions.

Her record in these matters is less then stellar. A Super of HR who was forced to leave his former district for having conducted a blatant affair with a colleague and having unlawfully fired a teacher was hired by Sue to be a reliable and unethical hatchet man who proceeded to drive up litigation costs to exceed the rest of the districts in that county combined! She also replaced the well respected and successful Continuation HS principal with an incompetent personal friend of hers that took that school from safe to dangeous and ended up expelling like 20 kids in an over-correction.

Meanwhile Sue claims she is this zen-like coach to all the principals in matters like discipline. Well that explains why West Sac’s River City HS had a student riot in late 2009 that was so bad that the Principal suffered severe head injuries and missed months of work. To make matters worse both Sue And Stevie Lawrence lied to the board and called the riot just a food fight and this lie ended up in the Sacramento Bee!
This incident is a main reason that Stevie fled to the MDUSD and now Sue has followed him as she has her whole administrative career.

Sue also said that West Sac has a good relationship with charters. It has only had this since Lawrence left.Sue and Stevie opposed every Independant charter trying to come into West Sac and they both constantly raved about how bad charters were so Anon/Sues post #11 represents Sue’s true feelings about charters, hated competition that puts pressure on a district to reform bad management.

So that explains how she summed you up G, see Sue is a “legend in her own mind”!

And by the way Sue, Chevron doesn’t represent modern management like Google and many of the newer companies that use a everyone-is-equal team approach with much less layers of management unlike Chevron or the MDUSD for that matter.

By: g

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 04:26:45 +0000

Geesh…Anon—I said all that? Wow, I’m good!

By: anon

anon — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 02:54:02 +0000

So you believe that corporate America is wrong and the MDUSD is correct with their manager/employee ratio? Interesting. The MDUSD is more efficient and smarter than corporate America. I don’t believe that I have heard that argument before. Thanks for clarifying.

By: g

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 19:40:28 +0000

Anon, it seems to me that if the District can expect one teacher to manage 25 nearly feral kids in a classroom, they should be able to expect one very highly paid manager to oversee 25 educated, mature adults!

By: anon

anon — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:27:37 +0000

Dr. J,

You are finally absolutely correct on one point. Chevron would never tolerate this level of inefficiency. Chevron, like most of corporate America, has established an efficient and effective model of management. That model includes between 2.5 and 3 times the number of managers to line employees that MDUSD has. MDUSD had always pledged to cut away from the classrooms first, but they took that promise too far. MDUSD is operating at a level of 4.2 managers per 100 employees. That’s a level that is far below corporate America and far below surrounding districts. That is why MDUSD struggles to accomplish all of the necessary leadership tasks. Until the district gets serious about hiring back managers to run the district, things will continue to be more than challenging. Of course if they do staff management positions at reasonable levels, all of you will bellyache about that… The saga and the rhetoric continues.

By: John Q

John Q — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 16:11:26 +0000

Didn’t that Pepperdine survey show that tiny WCSD has the most efficient administration in the county?

By: Theresa Harrington

Theresa Harrington — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 02:37:19 +0000

Smaller districts do have more administrators than some feel is necessary. This is why a few people have questioned whether it is really necessary for Lamorinda schools to be served by separate elementary districts for Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda, as well as the Acalanes Union High School District, which also includes the portion of Walnut Creek served by the Walnut Creek school district.
Some have argued in favor of one Lamorinda Unified district. I’m not sure if proponents want to include half of Walnut Creek.
Interestingly, some Acalanes district people say Las Lomas HS in Walnut Creek “brings down” test scores for Acalanes (which also includes Acalanes, Campolindo and Miramonte high schools). Yet, Northgate HS in Walnut Creek (which is part of MDUSD) strives to catch up to Las Lomas.
Most Lamorinda residents appear to agree: Why mess with something that is working so well?

By: Doctor J

Doctor J — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 23:54:14 +0000

MDUSD is inefficient not because of size but because of poor leadership with no plan and no vision. Chevron is a huge corporation but would not tolerate the kind of inefficiency of MDUSD. Why do we think a teacher who then becomes a curriculum director, and then a Supt of a 4000 child district for a couple of years, can all of a sudden manage a $370,000,000 budget which because of shrinking revenues requires organizational and management restructuring, increasing efficiencies, and public accountability ? Where is the accountability for the SIG Grants approved of $15,000,000 and zero follow-up by the Supt who signed off on the grants and PROMISED in writing he would ensure compliance with the grants? I would add the same for a lot of positions. Human resource directors for large corporations are highly trained in human resources — not MDUSD, former teachers. Facility management directors do not usually come from the janitorial staff. We are seeing it right before our eyes with Pete Pedersen’s estimates on the size of his Measure C construction management team doubling, and now tripling in just a year. If he had a clue about managing such a large project, he would have had a plan at the beginning and known what he needed and who he needed. Now, its just shoot from the hip which is MDUSD Standard Operating Procedure — that needs to change. If MDUSD was a company traded on the stock market, would you invest in their stock with the current management ?

By: John Q

John Q — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 21:42:59 +0000

The reality is that MDUSD has grown so big that it is inefficient, and those departments seem to be swamped and struggle to get the job done. The superintendent doesn’t send bi-weekly newsletters; payroll has had its issues over the years; we hear from many schools that maintenance is slow, not to mention cutting down the wrong trees; finance doesn’t provide numbers to Theresa, and the list goes on. The district could divide in two, with 3 high schools each, or there are other possibilities which would not increase admin. Obviously Walnut Creek could finally join the Walnut Creek School District, that would reduce the size of MDUSD and increase the size of WCSD, making each a better size without forming a new district. The same for Pleasant Hill which could join the Martinez School District. Or how about both!

By: AnotherMom

AnotherMom — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 20:11:42 +0000

Regarding breaking up the district, let’s say, theoretically, it divides into 2. Then there will be 2 superintendents to pay, 2 payroll departments, 2 maintenance departments, 2 finance departments, etc.

So still many people needed to administer the same number of students/schools in the district and possibly more? (more cost?)

I’m not in favor or dividing or not dividing, BTW. Just making an observation.