Left to their own devices

Dear readers...

SP-EYE has seen much improvement of late...largely attributed to an engaged, functioning school board.

We even decided to give the district some alone time.  We laid up and observed.

But guess what?
The district administration simply cannot get out of its own way.
The bear sleeps and they opt to poke it.  That never ends well.
If there's a way to screw things up, it seems that they can find it.

It's sad, but it's also long overdue for new leadership in this school district.

There's still a need for SP-EYE.

Does SPASD have 50% Turnover in 3 years?

We've been hearin' t'ings.

Coerced resignation?

We've heard several reports that the district has an interesting way of removing folks....permanently.  The story goes that one is called into Human Resources (with no pretense given)>  The conversation allegedly goes down something like this:


HR:   "We're terminating you.   Or....you can resign."
Employee:  "Can I have some time to think about it?"
HR:  "No.  you need to resign right now or be terminated."

And when the unawares soon to be ex-employee agrees to resign, a sheet of notebook paper (notebook paper!!!) is whipped out and the employee is told to write down exactly what they are told.
Et voila...a resignation is created.

We happen to get a hold of one of these letters and learned of the existence of at least one more.
Sensing a pattern, we made an open records request asking to inspect all resignation and retirement letters received by the district over the past 3 years.  Of course we needed to broaden the scope to protect the identity of those folks that are very frightened of the power wielded by Culver et al.

This was the response received:

Tim Culver wrote:

To locate all records that might comply with your request will  require review of over 500 stored personnel files of ex-employees, which is estimated to take a secretary between 16 and 18 hours.    Therefore the cost to locate all such records that might exist is estimated to be between $336 and $378.  That is the actual, direct and necessary cost of locating such  records.  Please let me know if you wish to proceed with this request and incur such a fee(which will be finalized after the location effort  is complete, but will not exceed the maximum estimated).  After all  such records are located, if you wish to have copies following your inspection, there would be the customary copying fees for copies more than 10.

If you wish to modify your request and/ or make it more specific, we will be happy to recalculate the fee for locating records under different parameters.
If you wish to proceed with your original request please let me know.

Sincerely,

Tim Culver

So....one has to look through 500 employee personnel files to find resignation or retirement letters?
Retirements are usually about 25 or so a year.  That makes 75 total.
Does that mean we have 140 other people leave each year?

In a district of about 1000 employees, if they have to search through 500 employee files, doesn't that mean 500 leave over 3 years?  Doesnt that mean at least 50% turnover over 3 years?

Do we have a human resources / employee retention issue?

For a district that prides itself on its technical prowess, are you telling us that we don't have a database that can be queried for resignations?  retirements? over a specified timeframe?

And if we do...is this "charge" of $336-$378 simply a tool that Culver uses ...now... to discourage the public from seeking information?

Has the sun set on Sun Prairie?  Is transparency dead?
And is coerced resignation the way we do business?

All good questions.