The head of the Portsmouth teachers union, Joseph Cassady, released a letter to Portsmouth Patch this morning in response to the School Committee's e-mail to all parents on the status of contract negotiations. Tonight at 7pm at PHS, parents will have a chance to be heard, and I would encourage everyone to show up and support our schools.

Among the key points Cassady makes:

Seniority: "A most misunderstood concept," says Cassady. "The process is there to protect the individual from personal agendas and grudges that may have nothing to do with teaching."

Funding: "How disingenuous is it to complain about lack of funds when it was a conscious choice to underfund the schools."

Benefits: "[T]eachers agreed to increase our co-share and were actively seeking alternative plans. The teachers even agreed in principal to an HSA plan that was suggested by the School Committee only to have it withdrawn when we suggested we share the financial benefits of said plan. In addition, after that plan was rejected, we proposed a three year plan where we agreed to move to 20%, but that has not been announced."

The Cost Difference: "We [...] agreed to take no increases for the fourth in five years. It is interesting that a group that has been so maligned in public is given no credit for taking next to nothing for half a decade."

Cassady's conclusion bears repeating at length:

"PCC-like behavior (or Tea Party) has shredded this community. They have so valued tax decreases that they have devalued everything else. Our schools are the backbone of our community. To suggest that anything else takes precedence is to forget how much we depend on our next generation. They are the future. We will depend on them and in return we have an obligation to them. Teachers are one of our most valuable assets and Portsmouth has the best. No one is honestly arguing that they are not. Instead they shroud their points in vague comments of how bad Rhode Island is or, worse yet, how unprepared our kids are. None of this stands up to scrutiny, but fear-mongering is not meant to be provable—only terrifying. Enough of the fear, time for us to stand up and take back our schools."

You can read the rest of Cassady's note on Patch, and you'll want to click through to the PDF on contract negotiations.

Hope to see you at Portsmouth High School tonight.

Full disclosure: I am married to a member of the Massachusetts NEA. But my record of opposing the PCC-crowd's cuts to education goes WAAAAY back.

Last night, Supt. Susan Lusi released a note from the Portsmouth School Committee on the district listserv outlining the current status of contract negotiations and inviting parents to attend a forum on Monday, April 11 at 7pm in the Portsmouth High School auditorium.

Here's how the Portsmouth School Committee described the situation:

"As you may know, the Portsmouth School Committee has been engaged in contract negotiations with our teachers, represented by NEA Portsmouth (NEA P), since July of 2010. Both the School Committee at that time and the current School Committee have negotiated in good faith for many months. Unfortunately, negotiations have not progressed during this time; and we, the members of the Portsmouth School Committee, believe that it is important to explain the status of negotiations to our employees and our community at this time. A written explanation is below, followed by a shorter “At a Glance” summary. Further, we invite you to attend a public forum for further explanation and discussion of these matters on Monday, April 11, at 7:00 PM, at the Portsmouth High School auditorium."

Read the attachments here:
Portsmouth School Committee Letter on Teacher Negotiations
Teacher Negotiations at a glance

Editorial note: I'm running this because it is news, but I would caution readers to note that this information was released by the School Committee, in the middle of negotiations. As a journalist, that certainly inclines me to read it in context. Last summer, there were howls from the PCC and their fellow travelers when Dr. Lusi used the listserv to distribute information on the budget. Where's the outrage now? Qui tacit consentire.

You can bet I'll be there on Monday night, and if you care about the quality of our schools, I hope you'll be there too.

The Portsmouth School Committee voted unanimously tonight to appoint 11 community members to a search committee for a new superintendent of schools.

In a brief meeting that followed a lengthy executive session, the committee discussed the mandate for the search team, and appointed Emily Copeland, Mary Correia, Michael Daly, Jeff Goss, Jerry Hobbs, Al Honnen, Bob Kiley, Kathy Melvin, John Robitaille, Eric Spiegel, and Laurie Stone.

"I would like to thank the many community members who submitted letters," said chair Cynthia Perrotti, adding that she was impressed by the "depth of folks with experience."

The actual charter of the team will be worked out jointly with the school committee, Perrotti said, but there was agreement that the task would be to bring forward three candidates, in unspecified order, for the full committee to consider.

To speed up the process, which Perrotti said they aimed to have complete by July 1, the committee intends to engage an executive search firm to do the initial screening.

"And the search committee is not going to operate in a vacuum," Perrotti said, suggesting that they would seek input from town residents. "We want the community to be involved in order to help get the right criteria."

The Portsmouth School Committee will be meeting this evening at about 7:30pm in the High School library to establish the charter for the Superintendent search subcommittee and pick members, according to the posted agenda.

If you're one of the reportedly 50 community members who sent in a letter of interest (THANK YOU!) this is a meeting you might want to attend.

The meeting will follow a Finance Subcommittee meeting which begins at 6:30, so the time is approximate. There's also an executive session posted, but it doesn't say whether that's before or after.

An anonymous reader sent me a link to a new local blog called "An Educated Patriot," which is currently featuring on its homepage what purports to be an e-mail exchange between Portsmouth school committee and town council members.

I am not going to quote the content of these e-mails, because there are litigious people in this world. I will just say that if you want to read it, you better do it fast, because I can see a takedown notice coming.

Editorial note: I have nothing to do with this site, I have no idea who did it, and I have no idea about the authenticity of the material contained. I'm only passing along a link that someone sent me.

PORTSMOUTH -- Given recent actions by the school committee to address concerns raised by their actions at the January 11 meeting, local blogger John McDaid has notified the RI Attorney General that he is withdrawing his Open Meetings complaint. The e-mail below was sent this morning to the Attorney General's office and School Committee chair Cynthia Perrotti.

Since the Portsmouth School Committee has taken action to address and remedy the concerns raised by their actions at the January 11 meeting, I am withdrawing my complaint.

My aim has always been simply to ensure transparency and open government, with this accomplished, further pursuit of this action would serve no public interest.

Formal notification will follow by mail.

I'd like to thank the committee for taking steps this week to address the concerns raised in the complaint.

Publicity has effectively achieved the goal of public notice, and with the deadline for volunteers extended and an official channel provided for submission, the issue is moot. Therefore, I feel it's in the community's best interest to withdraw the complaint and not waste time and legal fees.

Full disclosure: In the 2010 election, I was a candidate for Portsmouth School Committee.

This e-mail just went out on the Portsmouth School Department listserv with an open call for volunteers to serve on the Superintendent search committee. And guess what? Submissions now go to school department admin assistant Patti Cofield.

Dear Members of the Portsmouth School Community,

The Portsmouth School Committee is seeking volunteers to serve on the Superintendent Selection Subcommittee. If you are interested in participating and would like to be considered for this subcommittee, please send a brief email to me at cofieldp@portsmouthschoolsri.org that includes your role in the community (parent, interested citizen, business owner, etc.), a few sentences explaining why you would like to participate, and if you have executive search experience.

Please submit your email to me by noontime on Tuesday, January 25th.

Sincerely,

Patti Cofield
Admin. Asst. to Supt.
Portsmouth School Dept.

I'm sure the stories in Patch, the Daily News, and the Providence Journal had nothing to do with this.

PORTSMOUTH -- Local blogger John McDaid has filed a complaint with the RI Attorney General's office over actions taken by School Committee Chair Cynthia Perrotti at last week's meeting.

The complaint focuses on the announcement of a search committee to replace the departing Superintendent, and identifies three specific issues with the agenda item, which was posted only as "Appointment of Subcommittee."

The complaint argues that appropriate notice was not given because of the wording, that inadequate time is allowed for public response, and that the use of a private e-mail box for submissions raises Open Records concerns. The full complaint is attached.

Download PDF of the complaint.

Video from the School Committee meeting on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmtA5w1ua6E

Full disclosure: In the 2010 election, I was a candidate for Portsmouth School Committee.

Last night was a Portsmouth school subcommittee mini-marathon, with meetings by the policy, facilities, and alternative revenue groups. Most of the school committee members attended, as did Supt. Lusi and schools finance director Mark Dunham.

The facilities committee (David Croston, Jon Harris, Thomas Vadney) discussed the recommendations of the RGB report and alternatives. They set out a series of guiding principles for their work (safe, effective buildings, possible space for full-day kindergarten, room for the administration, etc.) and considered several scenarios for consideration: renovate and extend Melville and Hathaway, renovate Melville and build a Hathaway replacement, or build a single elementary.

For next steps, the committee voted to recommend to the full school committee the creation of a "Stage Two" fund, referring to the second stage of the RI Dept. of Education (RIDE) approval process. The first proposed use of the fund would be to hire a consultant (archictect or cost estimator) to validate and price out the options.

Next, the alternative revenue committee (Croston, Marilyn King, Angela Volpicelli) reviewed the efforts to date in establishing the proposed "Aquidneck Island Math and Science Academy" (AIM), the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) "school within a school" at Portsmouth High. While the grant proposal to the Newport County Fund was unsuccessful, Croston described plans to pursue other foundation and private funding to get the project off the ground, with a goal of possibly entering the first class (probably freshmen only) in 2012.

The committee went into executive session at 8:35 to discuss preparations for the Little Compton bid.

Editorial note: The policy committee met at 5:30, but I couldn't make it. Sorry, next time.

NBC News Overnight, the irreverent late-night 1983 news show which presaged techniques familiar to any fan of Jon Stewart, began its final broadcast with this intro from co-anchor Linda Ellerbee. "Republicans have reason to be elated tonight. The reason? They believe that they are eliminating something that has been a real political troublemaker to them," she said, and barely paused. "Unemployment."

Anyone who had watched the edgy, intelligent news show a few times understood that the final word in that sentence was not the one written nor spoken.

At tonight's school committee meeting, Republicans had reason to be elated, because they believed they were eliminating something that has been a real troublemaker. As chair Cynthia Perrotti put it, "The era of home-made cupcakes is coming to an end."

Anyone who has paid attention to education in Portsmouth will understand that the important business tonight was not the health committee edging closer to establishing standards for "non-food celebrations" in our classrooms.

The real story, albeit untold, was Supt. Susan Lusi's decision not to seek another term. And while we will all agree, in public, to accept the polite fiction that Dr. Lusi felt it was time to move on and pursue other challenges rather than renewing her contract when it expires at the end of June, no one who knows the words and music should be fooled.

Management changes were, after all, one of vice-chair Jonathan Harris's campaign promises.

I will miss the tremendous intelligence and energy Lusi brought to the job for these past few years. She stepped into a district in a fiscal quagmire, endured a Tent Meeting and Caruolo action, and managed the district into fiscal health. She made key hires that stabilized finances and facilities, among others. And she thought big: she created a local Basic Education Program when the state's was still incomplete, and on her own initiative, convened 100 members of the community to map out a strategic plan for the district. She fought -- and many of the budget sessions over the past years can only be characterized in such antagonistic terms -- for the students and the teachers, for the quality of Portsmouth's schools.

And she did it with a calm presence and grace under pressure that never cracked. If I had a staff of interns logging tape like the Daily Show, I would put together a montage of her saying, "With all due respect, Mr. Fitzmorris..."

Of course, I can't be objective. I began covering Portsmouth in September of 2006, and spent countless hours after meetings asking questions of Dr. Lusi. She was unfailingly helpful, patient, and candid. I worked with her on the Facilities Committee and the Future Search workshop. Throughout, I have found her to be a truly dedicated public servant and a fearless advocate for our kids.

Portsmouth is a better place because of her work, and we will miss her.

And because final words are always important, to close the circle, here's the way that last broadcast of Overnight ended, way back in 1983. Ellerbee had the outtro. "The final quote is from Mark Twain, discussing the young missionary who went out among the cannibals. Said Twain: 'They listened with the greatest of interest to everything he had to say. And then they ate him.'"

And so it goes.

Editorial note: Chair Cynthia Perrotti announced a call for interest in being on the search committee for Dr. Lusi's replacement. "Some big shoes to fill," said Perrotti. Anyone wishing to be considered should send a letter to cynthia.perrotti@gmail.com by Thursday, Jan. 20.