Showing posts with label Robert W. Runcie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert W. Runcie. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

So here we are, South Florida, now in 2018, asking the very same kinds of questions as 2014: Supt. Robert W. Runcie - What happened to the 💰💰💰? What happened to the #SchoolHardening at #Broward #Schools that taxpayers/parents were promised? Where ARE the actual #results? #SoFL


So here we are, South Florida, now in 2018, asking the very same kinds of questions as 2014: Supt. Robert W. Runcie - What happened to the 💰💰💰?
What happened to the at that taxpayers/parents were promised? Where ARE the actual ?
Continued inability of Schools & Supt. Runcie to take public criticism, respond appropriately;











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Friday, January 29, 2016

#OpenGov -Since facts still matter... Blocked, but not bowed. Or even the least bit dismayed, since being Blocked on Twitter by govt. officials continually engaged in unethical & unprofessional behavior is almost like being given a medal... @browardschools and Supt. @RobertwRuncie are still unable to take public criticism and respond appropriately. Don't hold your breath that will change!

#OpenGov -Since facts still matter... Blocked, but not bowed. Or even the least bit dismayed, since being Blocked on Twitter by govt. officials continually engaged in unethical & unprofessional behavior is almost like being given a medal... @browardschools and Supt. @RobertwRuncie are still unable to take public criticism and respond appropriately. Don't hold your breath that will change!
Above and below, July 13, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier, looking south at the Broward County Schools HQ, 600 S.E. Third Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved


















To quote myself about the following news I was, admittedly, somewhat surprised to receive this morning from Angela Greben at Stanford Law School...
"At times like this, it's very hard to recall that Supt. Runcie works for us, not the other way around.And I remind you that I was a Runcie supporter initially, but at some point you have to admit that it's not working out the way you hoped."

 http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/broward-schools-supt-robert-w-runcies.html
Above, Supt. Robert Runcie after a public meeting of his Listening Tour at the City of Hollywood's  Fred Lippman Multi-Purpose Center, which was the second time I'd heard him speak in-person, having previously heard him in March at Hollywood Hills High School, also in Hollywood. May 14, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. 


Tweets below are in sequential order:








In case you might've somehow missed those last three posts, the most recent of several dozen over the past 9 years, they are:

OCTOBER 22, 2015
Since facts still matter... Important facts & context NOT revealed in Sun-Sentinel's account of Broward County School Board 
hiring Leo Bobadilla from Houston to head its "troubled $800 million bond program." Charlotte Greenbarg, Buddy Nevins & Ericka Mellon help me connect some dots on the 'bigger picture' and what it reveals is NOT positive about Broward School Board members' public accountability. Surprise!


JUNE 3, 2015
Broward County residents increasingly dismayed by brazenness of Broward County Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie & Broward School Board's Ann Murray and Rosalind Osgood's actions re bond $$ transparency & oversight; @Florida_Bulldog @Buddynevins
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2015/06/broward-county-residents-increasingly.html

MAY 13, 2013 
Spring 2013 Observations re Broward School Board: controversial District 1 member Ann Murray gets a challenge from someone who'll go right at her, Felicia Brunson -will a third viable candidate join them by 2014?; Broward School Auditor Patrick Reilly finds more appalling evidence of School system's waste of taxpayer dollars, and as usual, Broward civic activist and Audit Comm. member Charlotte Greenbarg is 100% correct in analyzing the situation and saying it's what we think, too -it's the usual toxic combination of insubordination, entitlement and longstanding incompetency
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Thursday, October 22, 2015

Since facts still matter... Important facts & context NOT revealed in Sun-Sentinel's account of Broward County School Board hiring Leo Bobadilla from Houston to head its "troubled $800 million bond program." Charlotte Greenbarg, Buddy Nevins & Ericka Mellon help me connect some dots on the 'bigger picture' and what it reveals is NOT positive about Broward School Board members' public accountability. Surprise!

Since facts still matter... Important facts & context NOT revealed in Sun-Sentinel's account of Broward County School Board hiring Leo Bobadilla from Houston to head its "troubled $800 million bond program." Charlotte Greenbarg, Buddy Nevins & Ericka Mellon help me connect some dots on the 'bigger picture' and what it reveals is NOT positive about Broward School Board members' public accountability. Surprise!




South Florida Sun-Sentinel
District hires $185K executive - School board vote brings aboard head of embattled bond program in Texas
By Brittany Shammas, Staff writer
October 21, 2015

The Broward County School Board voted Tuesday to hire the leader of an embattled Houston school district bond program to oversee its own troubled $800 million bond program, which is being used renovate aging schools.

Leo Bobadilla, chief operating officer at the Houston Independent School District, will earn $185,707 as Broward's chief facilities officer. He'll be responsible for overseeing the construction and design of new facilities, as well as maintaining, repairing and renovating existing facilities

Read the rest of the article at:

 Broward Beat
Slammed In Last Job Because Of Bad Audits, Now Hired By Broward Schools
By Buddy Nevins
October 18, 2015

The Houston school executive chosen to manage Broward’s school construction was slammed for running a program that overpaid contractors and allowed lawful spending caps to be circumvented.

Leo Bobadilla, chief operating officer of the Houston school system, is due to be hired on Superintendent Robert Runcie’s recommendation on Tuesday.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.browardbeat.com/slammed-in-last-job-because-of-bad-audits-now-hired-by-broward-schools/

 Do I even need to point out that this week, per the above matter, we saw YET ANOTHER 
embarrassing vote on the Broward School Board by SE Broward's member, Ann Murray, who showed all over again that facts and context never really matter to her as long as she and the other School Board insiders can keep common sense accountability and reform from coming into play before even more kids and parents abandon the Broward public schools? 
Apparently so.

But if you were hiring someone for an important position of public trust, wouldn't you want to know as many salient and relevant facts as possible about their past experience, good and bad? 
Probably so.
The problem is that Ann Murray doesn't.

This is hardly surprising, given Murray's consistently unimpressive track record on behalf of the public and public education, which I have cited 44 times in the past 7 years on my blog, most recently, back in June:
Broward County residents increasingly dismayed by brazenness of Broward County 
Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie & Broward School Board's Ann Murray and Rosalind 
Osgood's actions re bond $$ transparency & oversight

Supt. Robert W. Runcie wants Leo Bobadilla? 
Okay, that's good enough for Murray to say yes.
Just like the guys from Chicago that Runcie also said he needed to hire to fix things for him who never quite worked out. 

At times like this, it's very hard to recall that Supt. Runcie works for her and us, not the other way around.
And I remind you that I was a Runcie supporter initially, but at some point you have to admit that it's not working out the way you hoped.

Below, a relevant fact about this matter from my friend Charlotte Greenbarg, longtime Hollywood and Broward civic activist and education reformer, now making a big difference over in Lutz, in Hillsborough County.
(Yes, Lutz. Which, admittedly, I had never heard of before Charlotte moved there, since it sounded more like an App than a real place in Florida.)

Makes you wonder why the fact that the Houston audit was apparently going to be released the next day wasn't mentioned in the Sun-Sentinel article, no?
Really, the Broward School Board couldn't even wait 48 hours?

FYI: The abc13.com link below has a video about the story, too.


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This is the article from the Houston Chronicle. The Broward School Board didn’t think it was important to wait for the audit. Wonder why? 
They hired the Houston person the day BEFORE the audit was released.

Charlotte Greenbarg, President
IVBE, Inc.
Lutz, FL




 
TED OBERG INVESTIGATES
Audit: HISD's inflation claims as cause for $211M shortfall are false
A just-released audit contradicts claims by HISD officials that "rising inflation and construction costs" were to blame for a $211 million budget shortfall.

By Ted Oberg and Trent Seibert
Wednesday, October 21, 2015 06:46PM

HOUSTON (KTRK) --

 An audit released Wednesday contradicts claims made last month by Houston Independent School District officials that "rising inflation and construction costs" were to blame for a $211 million shortfall in the school district's failure to complete all school projects promised to the community.
Read the rest of the article at:

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Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Broward County residents increasingly dismayed by brazenness of Broward County Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie & Broward School Board's Ann Murray and Rosalind Osgood's actions re bond $$ transparency & oversight; @Florida_Bulldog @Buddynevins












Florida Bulldog
Broward School Board backs Runcie on keeping public off selection committee
By William Hladky, FloridaBulldog.org
May 26, 2015

In the face of public suspicion, a majority of the Broward School Board last week allowed Superintendent Robert Runcie’s move to exclude the public from sitting on a committee that will select companies to manage $800 million in voter-approved construction projects.

The suspicion: that Runcie and Derek Messier, his chief facilities officer, want to get around contracting reforms imposed after a scandal in order to control who gets the lucrative management
contracts.

The selection committee’s members will be school board employees only.
School officials have said the public will be able to observe the process, but will not participate.

 Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2015/05/broward-school-board-backs-runcie-on-keeping-public-off-selection-committee/

 In many parts of the country, both urban and rural, African-American School Board members often provide a powerful voice for needed reason and basic fairness within the larger community, and frequently, even provide a much-needed moral/ethical backbone and force-multiplier for people and groups who are routinely marginalized by parts of society.
And when they are the superintendents, well...

As we all know, though, in upside-down Broward County, it's Broward taxpayers and citizens in favor of reform and accountability who are consistently marginalized and not just taken advantage of, but played for suckers, by incompetent and corrupt elected officials and agencies. (Over-and-over again.)

But it looks like those particular facts, self-evident to me and so many of you receiving this email, are news to Broward School Board member Rosalind Osgood, someone whom I warned you all about many years ago when she first ran and I discussed her strange notions of conflicts of interest, sense of entitlement and Good Government.

This Florida Bulldog article from earlier this week makes it abundantly clear that Osgood -along with SE Broward's own ethical/moral burden and blemish, Ann Murray- wants to be a voice for keeping the public in the dark as much as possible about how hundreds of millions of dollars are dividied up.
Yes, the better to help her loyal corporate friends!

As this article makes clear, simply by reciting the simple facts and chronology, once again, Broward County's top educators are revealed to be both an outlier to any notions of Best Practices, and an acute embarrassment to the very citizenry they're supposed to represent and the children they are supposed to serve.

It's just as my friend Charlotte Greenbarg and I -and many others- predicted, and told anyone and everyone who'd listen in the months prior to the vote on the Broward School Board bond issue.
The Broward School Board and its smug, unctuous army of highly-paid and self-confident bureaucrats are like the scorpion in the fable of the scorpion and the frog.
They can't help themselves -it's who they are. Surprise!
Except it could not be clearer that it's Broward taxpayers who are being stung!

 Some predicates for the above:
MAY 13, 2013
Spring 2013 Observations re Broward School Board: controversial District 1 member Ann Murray gets a challenge from someone who'll go right at her, Felicia Brunson -will a third viable candidate join them by 2014?; Broward School Auditor Patrick Reilly finds more appalling evidence of School system's waste of taxpayer dollars, and as usual, Broward civic activist and Audit Comm. member Charlotte Greenbarg is 100% correct in analyzing the situation and saying it's what we think, too -it's the usual toxic combination of insubordination, entitlement and longstanding incompetency
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/spring-2013-observations-re-broward.html

NOVEMBER 13, 2012
More business-as-usual at Broward School Board is NOT good news for students, parents or taxpayers; Why the need by Broward Schools officials to impose omertà on school volunteers in Broward?; the very curious Hallandale High School roof situation reveals much about School Board's culture; Why is South Florida news media largely ignoring Broward Schools Diversity Comm. and their Audit Comm.?
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/more-business-as-usual-at-broward.html


Dave
Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth
https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/HallandaleBeachBlog
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Monday, May 13, 2013

Spring 2013 Observations re Broward School Board: controversial District 1 member Ann Murray gets a challenge from someone who'll go right at her, Felicia Brunson -will a third viable candidate join them by 2014?; Broward School Auditor Patrick Reilly finds more appalling evidence of School system's waste of taxpayer dollars, and as usual, Broward civic activist and Audit Comm. member Charlotte Greenbarg is 100% correct in analyzing the situation and saying it's what we think, too -it's the usual toxic combination of insubordination, entitlement and longstanding incompetency



Red Broward YouTube Channel video: "Michael Putney: Ann Murray Has To Go" -Veteran Channel 10 reporter and fave of the blog, Michael Putney, their Senior Political Correspondent and longtime host of their popular "This Week in South Florida" Sunday morning public affairs program, chews up and calls-out District 1 Broward School Board member Ann Murray for her unacceptable words and behavior, saying she "has to go." Uploaded March 29, 2011. http://youtu.be/EL0S6YSYi-s
Spring 2013 Observations re Broward School Board: controversial Broward School Board member Ann Murray gets a challenge from someone who will go right at her, Felicia Brunson -will a third candidate join them by 2014?; Broward School Auditor Patrick Reilly finds more appalling evidence of School system's gross waste of taxpayer dollars, and as usual, Broward civic activist and Audit Comm. member Charlotte Greenbarg is 100% correct in analyzing the situation and saying it's what we think, too -it's the usual toxic combination of insubordination, entitlement and longstanding incompetency
Broward Beat
School Board Member Who Used “N” Word Draws Black Opponent
By Buddy Nevins

May 7, 2013
School Board member Ann Murray, who was reprimanded for making a bigoted statement using the “N” word, has picked up a re-election challenge from a black elected official.
Vice Mayor Felicia Brunson of West Park holds her kick off fundraiser tonight.

I mentioned Felicia Brunson's candidacy to unseat southeast Broward incumbent Ann Murray to some of you hereabouts a little over a month ago, via emails or in conversations, when I asked if you'd been contacted yet by Brunson, either by email, phone or direct mail,
since I know that, quite logically, Brunson views Hallandale Beach as prime pouncing territory for her, given Ann Murray's disastrous time in office and complete disregard and contempt for HB and its kids, parents and taxpayers in every way that counts for anything -like actually showing-up at a public event in HB once in a while, besides ones where Supt. Robert W. Runcie is around.


That is, except for Murray's PR stunts like the one last year at the Broward School HQ, where Joy Cooper and Anthony A. Sanders showed-up for a School Board meeting to be thanked by Murray for all the city -them!- do for the kids!

I have that whole thing on videotape and trust me, it's quite a scream watching the three of them -Murray actually left the dais to stand with them- to compete and try to out-do one another in the Flattery Dept.
A scream, that is, except for it being so damn dishonest and despicable, given the true facts-on-the-ground since she has been in office.

My many previous blog posts about Ann Murray are located here:
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Ann%20Murray

I would not be at all surprised if another candidate gets into the District 1 race, and frankly, I hope that one will, esp. if that is someone who's savvy enough to keep publicly hammering home the true facts about what should be happening instead of what is happening with Broward Schools.

Like being able to discipline or fire perpetually insubordinate employees who continually disregard explicit instructions from their bosses -Supt. Robert W. Runcie and the School Board- and in this particular case, have cost Broward taxpayers over a million dollars. 

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Audit: Broward schools paid $1 million for canceled project
By Karen Yi, Sun Sentinel
May 4, 2013
Broward schools paid more than $1 million toward a construction project that had already been terminated by Superintendent Robert Runcie, according to a new audit report that found the payments were for work never completed.
The $4.8 million project to construct maintenance offices in Pembroke Pines was scrapped last January after the work lagged for more than three years, failed to meet state standards and proceeded despite an expired contract, prior audits show.
"Both the board and Superintendent directed that this project stop. In spite of this fact, over $1 million was paid," said audit committee member Charlotte Greenbarg. "We have a situation of gross insubordination on the part of staff members."
Reed the rest of the article at:

The audit report is here: http://www.broward.k12.fl.us/auditdept/facilityreports/2012-13/ac_2013_0502_current_status_fcm_000917_zone_4.pdf

A Broward School Board candidate who will talk-the talk and  walk-the-walk about aggressively work for more public accountability and aggressively ridding the Broward School system and taxpayers of the army of bad, incompetent and insubordinate employees that continue to plague it, whether front line workers, administrators or teachers, is precisely the sort of person that I will happily support and vote for every time.

In spite of the fact that the Broward School Board and Supt. Runcie directed the project to stop and nothing more be done, the Deputy for Facilities, Tom Lindner, his staff and the General Counsel ignored the directive and Royal Concrete Concepts was paid more than $1 Million.

See also:
Broward schools facilities chief resigns under pressure
By Scott Travis
December 4, 2012
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-12-04/news/fl-broward-administrator-shakeup-20121204_1_superintendent-robert-runcie-broward-schools-facilities-chief-tom-lindner

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Monday, February 25, 2013

Important day of reckoning for Broward County Schools, taxpayers and parents is at hand: Wednesday's coming clash in Plantation between Broward County's eastern schools and western schools on boundaries -and which schools, if any, need to be CLOSED or consolidated due to costs and students leaving for charter schools; BCPS Public Hearings to Discuss 2013-2014 School Attendance Areas, Usage Recommendations

Above, screenshot of Broward Schools Superintendent Robert W. Runcie, from a May 2012 Channel 10/WPLG-TV newscast on the necessary budget cuts and changes that he needed to institute throughout Broward to make the school administration more accurately reflect the smaller student population and need for paring the budget.

Important day of reckoning for Broward County Schools, taxpayers and parents is at hand: Wednesday's coming clash in Plantation between Broward County's eastern schools and western schools on boundaries -and which schools, if any, need to be CLOSED or consolidated due to costs and students leaving for charter schools; BCPS Public Hearings to Discuss 2013-2014 School Attendance Areas, Usage Recommendations

I received the following very important message this afternoon via email from the City of Hollywood that should be of more than passing interest to the residents, taxpayers and parents of Hollywood, Hallandale Beach, Dania Beach and other communities in eastern Broward County, who for so long have complained about the Broward School Board's expenditures flowing to the western part of the county that were growing in population, even as the eastern schools were being "neglected" from their point-of-view.

In Hallandale High's case, it not only was demonstrably true, but well-documented, as I've made perfectly clear in the past here on the blog, thanks to the diligent and thankless efforts of a few, including my hard-working friend, Catherine Kim Owens.

Well, that looming date for a battle over which Broward schools are doing well enough to be kept largely as they are, and which ones that are consistently under-performing, for so long, an academic question with a date far in the distance, seems to finally be at hand.
As all who follow education policy hereabouts must admit, many Broward schools are increasingly empty, since as of May of 2012, Broward Schools has lost 35,000 students in the past 5 years, many to private schools and Broward's charter schools.

It's Wednesday.
Don't doubt for a moment that some very unpopular lines may finally be drawn in the sand and made permanent.
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The Broward County School District has scheduled two public hearings to discuss 2013-2014 school attendance areas and school usage recommendations for all elementary, middle, high and combination schools. The District will hold the at the Plantation High School Auditorium at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 27, 2013 and Wednesday, April 3, 2013.

WHO: Broward County School Board Members, Superintendent, 
          Demographics and Student Assignments Staff, District Staff, 
          Parents and Community

WHAT: Broward County Public Schools Public Hearings on
           2013-2014 School Attendance Areas and School Usage  
           Recommendations 

WHEN: Public Hearing I – Wednesday, February 27, 2013 at 5:30 p.m.
           Public Hearing II – Wednesday, April 3, 2013 at 5:30 p.m.

WHERE: Plantation High School, Auditorium
             6901 NW 16th Street, Plantation 

The Superintendent’s final 2013-2014 school boundary recommendations based on community and School Board input can be viewed at the Demographics & Student Assignments website (http://www.broward.k12.fl.us/dsa). For additional information, contact Jill Young, director, Demographics & Student Assignments at 754.321.2480.
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