it is the administration that originates out of clara ave. that drives this discussion jeff so you can relax. unless you are here to defend incompetence.

Stop bitching and shadow an administrator to get a real world view of what they do before throwing them under the bus. Dollar for hour, they work harder than teachers for the money they earn.

my gawd you could write a book on this school board. still wonder why an investigative journalist doesn't run with it.

You mean Tysinger...the rising star of Nascar...until he came to Florida , was a complete waste, and dumped off on the School Board, right after his wife left him? At least he still has the superduper cool mustang to pick up the chicks with. The wannabe tough guys like the hair dresser and the skeleton? Or the kelly girl who gets to park his county car at Tomoka, because it's closer to his home, and costing us taxpayers money...you have to be more specific when you talk about PEG's handpicked experts!...Still waiting to hear how skeletor trashed a quarter of a miliion dollar chiller unit that NASCAR gave the school board for scrap.

Still haven't fixed the organizational chart that is under Dr. Smith's heading on the out of state paid for (no jobs for you locals....or work for the thousands we spend on IT staff). Two scenarios: Nobody from the school board reads these blogs, and they are to stupid, lazy, or incompetent to fix it. Or they do read these (and an inside source tell me they do, and they are in a tizzy), and they are to proud to fix it as it was pointed out by one of the "stupid voters". Either scenario shows the caliber of people that are entrusted with our tax monies, and our children's welfare. Fix the lock situation yet Russ, or are we going to wait until something happens and you are liable?

Rumor has it the guy who sank the lawn mower has had NUMEROUS safety violations, and complaints filed against him, but the guys complaining would get written up, guess it helps if you sister is an AP (the one accused of stealing a bra), and a brother in law who is a principal, and yes folks, he's still working around our children. Also ask why they are sending guys across the county to work out of hub hurst (poor planning) meaning 1 1/2 hours travel time out of a 8 hour day (1/2 hour lunch, 2 15 minute breaks) so you get 5 1/2 hours work time a day, great planning Maintenance gurus! Your tax dollars at work folks.

This is ABSOLUTELY a place to write about and voice concerns over the problems at the School Board because changes will not happen until our community becomes openly vocal.

And vocal we will be.

It is easier to remain quiet when the effects of poor decision making are not affecting lives, but the decisions that are being made ARE affecting lives.

In the past, people who came to work for the School Board stayed forever and kept their mouths shut regardless of what they would see.. but those days are over.

Let's look at the Maintenance Department.. the rumor is that they have a guy who was fired by the Daytona Speedway, and another guy with perfect hair and a little bit of a military background both leaning on a guy for answers that came originally to the Volusia County School Board as a Kelly Girl, and using another guy as backup that has Napoleon's Syndrome claiming to be a Navy Seal because he can scuba dive for a lawnmower, all running the show.

Whatever their background.. they are making poor decisions and they are being rewarded for it by this Superintendent, Margaret Smith.

The email addresses of people that "should" but do not want to hear from us are located here:

http://myvolusiaschools.org/superintendent/Pages/Superintendents-Staff.aspx

.. and here:

http://myvolusiaschools.org/school-board/Pages/default.aspx

Paul Hale @ http://OURvolusiaschools.org

Maybe we write to get things off our chests.

Maybe we write because we have written the spineless ones already and been ignored.

Maybe we are hoping someone, at any newspaper, will do an indepth look into the waste.

Maybe we are writing just to entertain you.

This is not the place to write.... If there is a problem don't you think this paper would write about it????

Paul Hale can you get the email addresses to these scumbags? Maybe this paper may list them for us to flood with emails???

"amen!!! a few of you understand because you have been there. keep pushing."

"Too many people with the authority to spend money with no accountability.

After cleaning out the resistance, I'd personally start with a procurement specialist from the outside that isn't afraid to play hardball and start going over the obscene amount of vendor contracts and renegotiating them.. while looking for skeletons.

Paul Hale @ http://OURvolusiaschools.org"

amen!!! a few of you understand because you have been there. keep pushing.

The resolution is to hire 123 teachers to meet the class size ammendment. This is the bare minimum suggested by Dr. Moll. 123 new positions, but no mention was made that we already have teachers who are not in classrooms (TOA's-some are funded by federal money and can't be moved), before you waste more of our tax dollars by hiring 123 new positions put the ones we are already paying back into the classroom, then hire what you need. Then figure out who is own the payroll who you can do without, and use their salaries, to hire new. When you have an employee making 100k, and that salary could go to 2 new teacher positions, do it. Dismantle every "special" program this regime has created in the past 10 years that does not put a teacher in the classroom, and use the money where it belongs. Mark my words taxpayers, this 123 hires is smoke and mirrors so PEG and her cronies can come after the taxpayers next November crying poverty, asking for the mill tax increase again and saying, "It's for the children". No it's not, they have the internal monies to get teachers in the classroom, they just need to stop wasting it. More education for the money, not more money for education.

Thousands spent on an out of state based website, thousands more spent on an internal IT department, and their organizational chart on the website still shows a deceased board member, as well as one who was voted out of office in November, yet people are paid to maintain these things. Another prime (and embarassing) example of our school board as a whole. If tax monies are being wasted on small examples like this, what's going on with the big ticketed items?

Spineless has been proven by all of the elected school board by being forced to pass a resolution, as pointed out here, to actually comply with the law, rather than pointing their fingers at Dr. Smith, and Dr. Moll at the meeting and saying, "We employ you so this does not happen, explain to the electorate where you failed in your primary responsibilies." Where else in a taxpayer funded position can you fail three times, on something you had ten years to prepare for, downgrade a district from A to C, and still recieve a salary higher than the govenors, along with great evaluations, and bonuses? Let our elected leaders start calling THEIR employee, Dr. Smith and her appointees, on the carpet for their failures (costing the taxpayers money that should be going to our children's education) and we will stop calling them spineless.

mr. strickland asked "Is Candace Lankford as spineless as she appears or don't the children really matter to her?" yes i think she is spineless, i don't think the children matter to any of them and she is also clueless. nice enough, but clueless.

Where is the millions and billions of dollars from the Florida lottery money going, thought it was for education. Probably in the pockets of the politicians again.We'll never learn.

Obviously there has been no Strategic Plan with contingencies in Volusia County since this amendment was passed years ago. The other counties are not having a problem with compliance. Did Volusia School Board have other motives that failed at the ballot box last November? If this is truly about our students why not create a holistic education plan that encourages students to attend other avenues of education that are offered through state virtual school, private, charter and homeschooling. Didn’t the school board decline all of the charter school applicants last year? I believe all of these options would alleviate all or part of the overcrowding issue. Or we could keep paying $7 million dollars (upfront cost) to solve a $2.8 million problem. Must be government taught math.

Newly elected Board member Linda Costello says:

"Let’s stop defending failure and implement a solution".

Newly elected Board member Ida Wright says:

"I pledge to represent our District 2 Community with a high degree of integrity. Each decision made will be thoughtful and backed by extensive research".

We are watching and waiting optimistically.. show us what you are made of, ladies. Don't be intimidated, don't be brainwashed, and please don't let us down.

I worked for a privately held multi-billion dollar corporation that began with one man, a dream, and a whole lot of blood sweat and tears.

The owner of this company was given much respect for many reasons, and of course his accomplishments demanded respect, but primarily it was because he gave respect.

A man at the height of success who (if you happened to walk by) would corral you into his office and engage you to great lengths without ever checking his watch. It was sincere, and it was without prejudice.

Fiscally the man would spend millions if he was convinced it was the right thing to do. He would not spend a penny it he was not. In order to spend money, you had to answer one of the questions.. "How does this add value to our company, how does this add value for our employees, OR how does this add value for our customers?"

In stark contrast..

We see the underlings at this Volusia County School Board treating a Superintendent as a queen (embarrassingly so) in search of favor and it actually works for them. That's the culture.

Results based on facts do not matter in that expensive and expanding inner circle, obviously.

So much bureaucracy and with the special layer created by the Cronyism/Nepotism Department that they don't even know where the money is going, or they do not care.

I'm surprised there isn't a Deputy Superintendent in charge of Cronyism/Nepotism.. that's a busy place.

Too many people with the authority to spend money with no accountability.

After cleaning out the resistance, I'd personally start with a procurement specialist from the outside that isn't afraid to play hardball and start going over the obscene amount of vendor contracts and renegotiating them.. while looking for skeletons.

Paul Hale @ http://OURvolusiaschools.org

Is it me, or is this article simply people who get paid a lot of many saying, "We didn't know"? Don't we pay you to? Ever hear "expect the worst"? Hire enough teachers to meet the class size (you know, as you are supposed to, under law)...then if you have less kids, and you already budgeted for the teachers, take the best and brightest and train them as upcoming principals. Not rocket science. Why are we, as the taxpayers gettng hit with this fine, we, or our children did not fail, Dr. Smith, Dr. Moll failed. Our school board has failed by continuing to employ these imbeciles, who have not met class sizes three years running, and have our district at a 'C' level. A good leader said, "The buck stops here", those in charge of our schools whine and say, "The buck stops with the state, and the dumb voters". I call upon Govenor Scott to mandate that any school district, rather than be fined, be audited to find out why they cannot meet basic requirements, with part of the cost of the audit to be paid by those responsible.

She is just spineless, she has no reason to care for the kids. She has to find out how many kids show up the 1st day of school to do her job!!!!

sorry, should be "ourvolusiaschools.ORG", it's an eyeopener, and humorous at the same time.

I understand your position, but I hope you realize that if the fat and waste was cut from the Administration, as suggested by the people who always seem to post here we probably could have afforded to have the right number of teachers (you know, the ones on the lower end of the payscale, but affect our children the most)in the first place and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Don't blame the voters for having the children's best issues at heart, blame the spineless politicians who can, but won't, meet the wishes of the public...and are never held to account for their failure to do so.

The school board voted for a resolution to meet the standards? You mean they voted on a resolution to comply with the law they were already subject to. What's next, a resolution to not rob a bank? Smoke and mirrors for Peg when she comes begging for more taxpayer dollars "we had to hire". Look on their website (you know the one outsourced to North Carolina, at our expense), and the threats to cut programs to our children are still there, yet not one word about streamlining and cutting administration, cutting the $90k a month contracts to an outside vendor, cutting half the private attorneys on reatainer, cutting Peg's precious TOA program (excluding those funded by federal dollars, it amounts to pairs of teachers driving around teaching other teachers, and "pets" acting as A.P.'s), the waste inflicted on the County by Tysinger's Hub based program, and removing site based custodians, creating custodial supervisor positions (the jury is still out, but my bet is it's going to cost us money).

Seeing as how this is the third time we have been out of compliance, and we've gone from an A district to a C district, isn't there a way to dock the pay of those responsible? We pay these people bigs bucks to safeguard the public monies, and these failures have to be someone's responsibility. Time to own this one Dr. Smith, all of your highly paid Deputies, and by extension, our elected (and spineless) School Board, who for some reason ignore the taxpayers wishes that we meet class size rules, proviide a quality education for our children, and oversee the Superintendent, not the Superintendent overseeing them. Put the rubber stamps away folks, and started fulfilling your elected responsibilties. Head on over to : OURvolusiaschools.net for more of the waste, and as far as I know the school board has yet to answer his question about the 14 million (1) dollars in written off equipment, somebody should be fired if they cannot account for every penny! I will vote for a tax increase when Dr. Smith promises a true 30% cut across the board for Administrative positions, and salaries, remember, as they say, "Everything we do is for the children".

P.S. Still no comment from the schools on how safety and security has been severely compromised on orders of the Maintenance department, guess it's not that important to them.

Hey Pat, I am by no means a fan of the School Board or these pathetic Administrators, but we must put the real blame where it belongs. The voters voted this class size amendment in. The Administrators had this bestowed to them by the people that voted for this.

Amazing the Superintendent never addresses the issue of having too many administrators, Teachers On Assignment, and the poor decisions the School Board has made with issues such as trash pick up when the topic of budget comes up. The blame is always put on taxpayers not approving a tax increase and on the State. Yes, the State might be in the wrong in how it divies up money but why doesn't Smith and Moll accept responsibility for the poor leadership they have shown and start tackling the real issues.

The real problem is that we have all these people in society that vote for things that they want other people to pay for. Let the parents of the students pull their wallet out and pay for the extra teachers. After all, YOU voted for it......YOU can pay for it!

Completely ridiculous that we would put a "Fake" fine on schools for something like this. No one wants to fund this, but they want to vote for it!

How counterproductive it is to take more money away from the school system because they didn't have sufficient funding to hire the needed teachers in the first place. This law should be modified to be average class size rather than individual class size. For example, under the present rule, if all math classes has the maximum allowed pupils, but science classes had less than the maximum allowed, when a new student enrolled who needed a math class, a new teacher would need to be hired for just that one student! The school should be in compliance if the ratio of students to teachers meets the guidelines.

More teachers teaching and fewer administrators administering administration would be the appropriate solution. Time for the double dipping Superintendent to resign, retire or just hit the road.

Is Candace Lankford as spineless as she appears or don't the children really matter to her?

"Only time will tell", really that is what highly paid administrators whose job it is to forecast enrollments and manage the system come up with. I think residents deserve better.