Saturday, May 2, 2020

Bad Education - The Movie on HBO About the Roslyn School District on Long Island

The other day my sister told me I needed to watch this movie that was just released on HBO titled, "Bad Education".

My sister was right. The lack of oversight of district credit card usage in the Long Island school district brought back memories of Fox when I asked Fox's BOE if they were getting credit card statements in their board packets.

The movie spotlights the importance of your school board and the need for good oversight by the people serving on your school board.

I highly recommend watching this movie. For even more details about what happened in the Long Island school district, the 2004 New York Magazine article is a must read.

If you don't have HBO, sign up for the free trial just to watch this movie.

"Bad Education" was inspired by the true story of an admired superintendent of the Roslyn, Long Island School District.

The movie was directed by Cory Finley, who grew up in the St. Louis metro area.

The screenplay was written by a student who attended middle school at Roslyn when the story occurred.

Student Reporter Raises Questions About School District Budget
The movie has a student reporter who was assigned to write a story about the school budget. As she starts asking more questions, she gets push back from the business manager. The student reporter tells the school's business manager that it's public record. So, the student reporter is allowed to go look at the records in the basement. In doing so, she finds a purchase order for a pizza oven that should be at her high school but isn't. She asks about the pizza oven and is told it's at the middle school. This prompts more questions which leads to reviews of check warrants which leads to phony companies, etc.

After watching the movie, I found a very in depth article in the New York magazine that was written in 2004. It's well worth the read. It talks about how the school board handled things as a result of the superintendent's input.

The Bad Superintendent - New York Magazine (September 2004):
https://nymag.com/nymetro/urban/features/9908/


Grandview School District went through a similar situation in 2017.

Former Grandview district business manager sentenced to more than five years in prison - Leader Publications (October 2017):
https://www.myleaderpaper.com/news/police_fire/former-grandview-district-business-manager-sentenced-to-more-than-five-years-in-prison/article_f5f7dd24-b06c-11e7-8734-736a1afc182c.html

There's also an article from 2005 detailing the findings from the New York State Comptroller's audit of the Roslyn School District. The audit was a result of what happened at Roslyn and it led to audits of other school districts in the state:
http://www.parentadvocates.org/nicecontent/dsp_printable.cfm?articleID=5525