Submitted by BOE member Joel Schwartz: In light of the recent article posted on The Lakewood Scoop regarding, “Lakewood Schools Get Mass Rejection of Professional Development Funds,” I felt a personal obligation as a member of the Lakewood Board of Education as well as a local member of the community to speak out.
When facts are laid out, they are unarguable as facts can be proven with hard evidence and opinions can be argued upon. I would like to take this opportunity to provide the Lakewood community with hard facts on the topic discussed. I feel that providing the public with factual knowledge more people will be educated on the events that are going on.
The professional development that is being described in the article are federal grants, specifically Title I professional development and Title IIA professional development. These specific grants are allocated per school based on the enrollment of Lakewood resident students who are eligible for Title services. Federal grants have clear guidelines that must be followed, failure to comply with the grant guidelines are strictly penalized in audits. In the year 2014 the Lakewood district underwent a Title audit for the fiscal year 2011, resulting in countless findings on the misuse of Title I and Title IIA professional development grant money, these findings resulted in the district owing back millions of dollars to the federal government. These millions of dollars that are being paid back to the federal government are coming from district funds although the misuse of money was from grant funds, the money used to pay the federal government back are district funds. District funds come directly from the local tax payers. This money that is currently being paid back is limiting other benefits the local tax payers would receive such as courtesy busing. The district had to create a corrective action plan describing how they will rectify the mishandling of the professional development grant money to avoid future findings. The nonpublic community was not approached to repay or explain the misuse of the funds and therefore they do not understand the implications of what has been done wrong in the past and the extent this damage is causing to the district.
Professional development is for the purpose of ongoing teacher training throughout the year, so that our students can advance in their academics and raise the education level in our schools. The district can only process requests that come into the grants office, the schools have been limiting the use of the funds hoping the district will let them go back to the way the grants have been misused in the past. The district placed a deadline on professional development requests for end of March to ensure the schools have an opportunity to use the funding, as the schools should have been utilizing their grants all year.
However, majority of the requests for professional developments were received on the designated deadline as a rush to put through before the grant year is over (June 30). Many of the requests that were submitted did not follow the new regulations set forth under the corrective action plan which was sent out to the schools countless times. Each request was reviewed extensively by a review committee consisting of multiple qualified district employees. The requests that were denied were based on extensive review, and were deemed that they do not comply with the grant guidelines.
The point being made here that there was a mass denial sent out, was solely because these professional development requests were submitted to the district all at once, creating an appearance of a mass denial being sent out. The district is continuing to protect the local tax payers money to ensure the grant funds are being utilized correctly, as well as ensuring proper professional development is being administered in the nonpublic schools.
Sincerely;
Joel Schwartz
Member
Lakewood Board of Education
UPDATE 5/22/2015 from Joel Schwartz:
“The professional development that is being described in the article are federal grants, specifically Title I professional development and Title IIA professional development. These specific grants are allocated per school based on the enrollment of Lakewood resident students who are eligible for Title services. Federal grants have clear guidelines that must be followed, failure to comply with the grant guidelines are strictly penalized in audits. In the year 2014 the Lakewood district underwent a Title audit for the fiscal year 2011, resulting in countless findings on the misuse and mishandling of Title I and Title IIA professional development grant money. These findings along with others resulted in the district owing back millions of dollars to the federal government. Although the misuse and mishandling of money was from grant funds, the moneys used to pay back the federal government are district funds that come from the local tax payers. This money that is currently being paid back is limiting other benefits the local tax payers would receive such as courtesy busing. The district had to create a corrective action plan describing how they will rectify the mishandling of the professional development grant money to avoid future findings. The nonpublic community was not approached to repay or explain the misuse and mishandling of the funds and therefore they do not understand the implications of what has been done wrong in the past and the extent this damage is causing to the district.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Lakewood Board of Education.”
Is it the Public Schools or the Private schools that misused the Title 1 and Title IIA Money and Grants?
Thank you Mr. Schwartz for clarifying the situation. finally a true voice of reason. Good luck
Thank you for clarifying the issue and for protecting the tax payers!! Why are the schools not asked to pay back for fraudulent use of funds if in fact they are deemed to be so? Was it the BOE’s fault for not ensuring that the funds were utilized properly?
As an old time member of the Lakewood community, whose children are grown, I find myself very confused when reading TLS posts about what is going on at the BOE. I feel that I’m just ” not in the know” and I generally don’t understand these articles. This article in which Mr. Schwartz says he will present the facts, just seems to be another article written for people “in the know” who can understand exactly what is being said. I, for one, do not understand what is being alluded to in this article. If Mr. Schwartz and any other writers of posts regarding the BOE would be more clear in their explanations, that would be most helpful. I’d really love to know what’s going on at the BOE these days!
that since the board of ed allegedly misused the funds(according to the audit) in 2011, now the taxpayers have to suffer the reduction in services we would have otherwise qualified for?
finally someone protecting our tax dollars!
That’s ridiculous! Why should we as taxpayers be required to pay back funds that a private institution misused?
Why can’t the District extend the deadline and let the schools redo their applications?
Thank you Mr. Schwartz for explaining to us the facts and clarifying what’s going on. It’s a whole different story by.
The people who mishandled the grant money should have to repay it! Why should I pay to line their pockets and then again to bus my kids to school!
I agree that the taxpayers should not be held accountable to pay back to money that was misused by in this case the private schools. However the way the law is structured is that the BOE is the custodian of these funds I.e. they were out in charge by the State and Federal government to oversee proper spending and are given clear guidelines on how they are to approve requests from private schools for the use of these funds. The proplem arises from the fact that since the private schools are not belt accountable they constantly put pressure on the BOE to approve questionable requests. The BOE has to protect itself as well as the taxpayers from future audits which has hurt them in the past( because oflaclack of oversight from previous people in the grants office) and will hurt the taxpayers in the future if the BOE does not follow the State and Federal guidelines. This is not an issue of the BOE withholding funds that can be used for professional development. Its an issue of how the requests are submitted, and they are not being submitted in accordance with the Federal and State guidelines. Some people complain that this was they way it was always done. While that is true, look at what happened as a result of the past baf practice, an audit costing the taxpayers millions of dollars, but no one seems to be talking about it and the private schools dont want to take responsibility for their mistakes. Its our money after all and we are entitled to answers.
to #8 follow the rules the first time and the grant wouldn’t have been denied. It seems that in the past many grants were rushed through and now the board is being vigilant
so essentially we are still blaming previous administrations? how about doing something other than choking the mosdos or relinquishing all control to the state?
#8 thats why its called a deadline
Thank you Mr. Schwartz for this information. While I appreciate your service on the board, do you expect us to believe that EVERY private school misused these funds, and all somehow colluded to submit everything at the last minute? I find this hard to believe. Maybe there is another side to this, and I hope the private schools will write a response. Either way, thank you for shedding some light on a mess.
Here we go again. Blame the victims.
Here are the real hard facts:
The Lakewood District and the BOE repeatedly failed to monitor use of these funds, failed to monitor the third-party service providers, failed even to look at let alone review the vendors’ invoices to ensure the services billed were actually provided, and did not bother to ascertain students’ attendance nor progress. All these facts are well-documented in the State Audits. Read the Audit Reports.
Who gets scapegoated? The private schools.
Who gets punished? The children and the taxpayers.
Who gets a pass? The District employees and the Vendors.
Mr Schwatz, with all due respect, Did the BOE try to appeal the audit as they are allowed to do? The answer is they did not. They just figured will push it on to the taxpayers. You did not do your best to get these funds back.
As long as the most qualified are kept at the bottom of the organization and the most inept are in command, the BOE will continue to dig its own hole.
I never respond on line but I feel I have to respond. Mr Schwartz , I’m somewhat involved and , unfortunately you are not correct from my point of View. There have been numerous schools that have been in touch with the grant office, over the yr. There have been constant changes to the rules. And even after the school thought they got it figured out , there were more changes.I personally have been told one thing from the grant office, did what we agreed upon. And the next day they back tracked. They themselfs do not have it totally down pat. They are extremely overly cautious , to the extent that they admitted that to me. They admitted to a few ppl that the coming yr they will try to be MORE CLEAR and not give somewhat vague instructions.
To claim that the non public school tried to run the clock and force the issue is totally false.
Mr Schwartz. Pls go back and reread the audit, The audit clearly showed that some gray and very gray areas were used both in the PUBLIC and non public schools. Pls do NOT try and pin it on one secter. As one employee from the boe told me. We are trying to make sure there is NO MORE GRAY only black and white. In order to avoid any questions. There is no question that the boe is trying to make it work and we appreciate their effort. But they are checking that every “T is crossed and i is dotted” and therefore they are somewhat behind.
#19 if your so involved and know so well, why dont you post your name like Mr. Schwartz did?
It’s very easy to hide behind the anonymous posts, but if you want to have so credibility, put your name up.
What are tyou so afraid of?
any one in the know will tell you that it was the BOE who is responsible for misusing the funds not the private schools.
please dont make it look like this is all the schools fault.
I sure hope we hear a response from the private schools (although they probably won’t bother). This makes no sense and is full of very misleading information.
The audit is not the way he says it here. It is not all the private schools fault as he wants us to believe.
Did all the schools who were denied put it at the last minute? And even if yes that’s no excuse! Hire more people if you can’t do the job! Did they all not follow the rules. That just does not make any sense to any thinking person! Why wouldn’t they do it right? I spoke to someone in the school system who told me the amount of back and forth they did with the grant office this year to follow the (unrealistic and unfair) rules they were told to follow (which they did) and then at the end just denied anyways was frustrating beyond belief. How do you expect us to believe that all the denials were because the schools just can’t follow the rules?
From what I can read, this money was never intended to actually benefit children. Your child will not gain from this ‘professional development’ provided.
So this is an issue between the schools and the BOE, not relevant to Joe citizen. Except when they are on the hook for past misused money. Future grants do not help us, and we should not be bothered or requested to lose out on courtesy bussing or something we do perceive as important, in order that the institutions make some money on ‘development’.
Reading these posts from people involved in the education system, I think I’ve figured out the problem. Half of these posts are written with such sloppy grammar misuse of vocabulary that they probably couldn’t understand the guidelines when they read them.