Welcoming In 2017 By Looking Back In Time

2017 has arrived and Fox C-6 students don't have to go to school today like they did in 2012 when New Year's Day fell on a Sunday and students had to go to school on the Monday following New Year's Day. In fact, this year students don't have to go back to school until Thursday January 5, 2017.

So, it's a nice start to the new year having an extra day to spend time with the family. It would have been even nicer if it hadn't already been raining at 6AM while getting ready to go for a run. So, in the meantime I thought a quick post was in order to welcome the new year and reflect back on some of the changes that have occurred in the district since 2005 when Dianne Brown began her tenure as superintendent of the Fox C-6 School District.

One of the first things that came to mind was the opening paragraph from the Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, ..." I'm sure you can find a few things that may relate to the phrase above and the past decade of our school system.

I've spent a lot of time over the past 6+ years writing about some of the problems and issues that have plagued our school district for a number of years hoping to bring about change within the district by waking up the community as to what was going on. The community certainly wasn't alerted to any problems by what was documented in school board meeting minutes as to what I was questioning the board about at school board meetings during Public Comments. School board meeting minutes would document my comments as, "Concerns within the district".

Thankfully, things have greatly improved for the students and families in our school district since former superintendent Dianne Brown Critchlow "retired" on October 31, 2014. However, everyone will always remember the fact that Dianne Critchlow received a $130,299 payout for leaving the district. Luckily, her husband was fired and didn't receive a payout as well.

At the time of Critchlow's retirement, her base salary for the 2014-2016 school year was $267,468 as reported by the Post Dispatch in June 2014. In just a short time, Critchlow had risen to one of the top salaries in the state of Missouri for school superintendents thanks to the overly generous group of former Fox C-6 School District board members. They thought she was doing a great job and they rewarded her well. Critchlow's "retirement" salary was a far cry from where she started when she was hired as superintendent to succeed Jim Chellew when he retired after the 2004-2005 school year.

Critchlow was having one of those "best of times" situations in terms of salary when she retired.

The community, on the other hand, was having one of those "worst of times". The community wasn't happy about the amount of salary that the board had approved over the years. And, it was one of the most embarrassing moments for our community in the history of the district after the internet scandal became public in May 2014.

The salary and the internet scandal along with the hiring of a former board member's daughter as director of food service were some of the things that led to the "worst of times" for the many former board members who had been on the school board since Dianne Brown (prior to becoming Critchlow) had been promoted to the position of superintendent in July 2005.

It took several years for the community to wake up and vote out those board members who seemed to believe that they worked for the superintendent rather than the other way around. Critchlow's "retirement" and the removal of the long standing board members was one of the best things for our students, staff and the community.

It just took a long time for the community to realize that they weren't getting their money's worth. Dianne Brown / Critchlow did an exceptional job of hiding information from the public and was very good at making generalized statements at board meetings and to the press that gave the appearance that the district was doing great.

Improvements in Transparency
During Dianne Critchlow's reign as superintendent, getting access to school board meeting minutes, board packets and bill payments was a painful task. On top of that, the district billed me to obtain copies of those documents which should have been made available to the public on the district website like they are now. However, by keeping them off the website, the public was easily kept in the dark. Today, the district uses BoardDocs which makes school board meeting documentation and board member votes easily accessible and available prior to board meetings.

So, in that regard, transparency has greatly improved since the Critchlow era and the community now has a much better ability to monitor what's going on in the district and hopefully keep things from getting as bad as they did during Critchlow's heavy handed rule of the district.

Still Seeking Accountability
One of the major wishes for the community this year is to see former superintendent Dianne Brown Critchlow be held accountable for her actions during her tenure as superintendent. Taxpayers want more than just having Critchlow repay the taxpayer dollars that she used improperly or paid out improperly to her and her husband as documented in the May 2016 State Auditor's report. Taxpayers want to see justice served and not just a slap on the wrist like they've seen thus far.

It's very easy for anyone to find the numerous articles documenting the many wrongdoings of former superintendent Dianne Critchlow and her husband using Google. Hopefully the St. Charles Prosecuting Attorney will review the many articles and documents when reviewing Critchlow's case. Not providing credit card statements to the school board to review in their board packets or refusing to provide them to the public certainly raised "red flags".

The internet scandal is what really helped open everyone's eyes as to what had been going on in our school district for quite some time. Traffic to all of the problems I had been documenting for years on my blog all of a sudden shot up dramatically when it was linked to by the Post Dispatch. It was difficult for most people to believe that this was the way that some administrators in our school district had been handling things. But, our district is not alone in this sort of behavior. I have been contacted by others over the years who have had similar issues of being bullied by their districts as well after reading my articles. Bullying is just one way of keeping things status quo and from being held accountable.

Looking Back in Time
For the new year, I thought you might find it interesting to look back in time at the Fox C-6 School District by reading the article referenced at the end of this post. In a February 2014, I documented how to use the Internet's Wayback Machine to look at snapshots of websites over the years.

It's quite interesting to look back in time to see how Fox's website has changed over time. The Wayback Machine allows you to look back at snapshots of the Fox C-6 website dating as far back as 1999. Fox's website has radically improved since Dianne Critchlow "retired" and the district hired a communications coordinator.

2004 - Brown Hired as New Fox Super
One of the most interesting things to note from my February 2014 article was a reference to an Arnold-Imperial Leader article written by Kim Robertson on November 24, 2004 that was published on the district's website back then. The article was titled, "Brown hired as new Fox super". The article talked about assistant superintendent Dianne Brown being hired to be the district's next superintendent after Jim Chellew retires on July 1, 2005.

The 2004 article mentioned that Dianne Brown will be paid at least $135,217 for the 2005-2006 school year. That's a long way from the $267,468 base salary that Dianne Critchlow was being paid when she retired in October 2014.

Below is a link to the article I wrote in February 2014:

A Little Digital Archaeology Documents Fox C-6's Spending Spree

A Little Digital Archaeology Documents Fox's Spending Spree!

How would you like to become a Digital Archaeologist and peer into the past of the Fox C-6 School District from the comfort of your home? It might not be ancient history. But, it's a historical record that allows you to look back into what's been happening in the Fox C-6 School District over the past 16 years. It's a window into our district's past that not too many people know about and it's an interesting one at that.

For example, you can go back in time and read articles that were published on Fox's website or view pictures of past administrators or school board members or old board meeting minutes as far back as 2001 simply by using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine is a digital archive or snapshot of websites at the time the snapshot was taken. It's your portal to the past. It allows you to see a snapshot in time. You can find information that would have been difficult or maybe impossible to find or too expensive to obtain using Sunshine Law requests. Some of the information might even shock you. Wait till you find out how much our district our district was spending each year when Superintendent Critchlow became Superintendent compared to what we are spending now.

The Wayback Machine gives you the ability to travel back in time just like Google Earth gives you the ability to view older satellite imagery allowing you to see how things have changed over time in your neighborhood or just about anywhere on the planet.

I've already posted quite a few interesting links to older Fox C-6 website pages on the Fox C-6 Watchdog Twitter page which you can find here:

https://www.twitter.com/FoxC6Watchdogs

Traveling Back In Time

The Wayback Machine is a website much like Google's search engine that allows you to look up and review snapshots of websites by typing in the domain name for the website into the Wayback Machine. In order to see previous snapshots of Fox's website you'll need to go to the Internet Archive's website (http://web.archive.org) and type in Fox's web address or URL which is: www.fox.k12.mo.us. Or you can click on the link below to be taken directly to the Wayback Machine's historical record of the Fox C-6 website.

Fox C-6's Website on the Wayback Machine

Once you arrive at the Wayback Machine, you'll see a timeline at the top of the page which shows vertical lines on the timeline for each of the snapshots taken of Fox's website. The very first snapshot was taken in 1998 and the most recent one in 2014. In order to view one of the snapshots simply click on one of the vertical lines on the timeline and the Wayback Machine will transport you back in time to an archived version of the district's website. Not all of the links, images or documents may have been captured from that time. However, there's a lot of information that has. It allows you to review what happened back then and compare it to what's happening now in our district. It gives you an easy way to see if the district's been doing what it said it would do. Has Fox been a good steward of our taxpayer dollars? Or, have they been able to find ways to increase spending without anyone really noticing that the district has nearly doubled the amount of money being spent each year over the last 8 years?

2005 - Fox Approves $88 Million Budget
2013 - Fox Approves $137 Million Budget

Using the Wayback Machine to pull up snapshots of Fox's website from 2005, you will find an article written by Kim Robertson for The Leader titled "Fox Approves $88 Million budget" which talks about the board approving the 2005-2006 budget for $88 Million dollars. The budget that was just approved last year for the 2013-2014 school was approved for $137 Million dollars. That's quite an increase in just 8 years given the fact that the school district's student count has remained roughly the same over the past 8 years. The district's student count for this year was in the 11,000's as it was back in 2005. It's scary to think that the cost of education has increased that much over the last 8 years. 

So, how has Fox been able to increase it's amount of spending so much in 8 years?

According to records obtained from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's website (MO DESE), Fox had the 2nd Highest Average Administrator Salary for the entire state of Missouri last year. Fox also had the 4th Highest Paid Superintendent Salary in the entire state of Missouri. But at the same time, Fox's average teacher salary was the 2nd Lowest Amount of the 9 District's of Distinction that Superintendent Critchlow compared our district to in her annual State of the District address to the board last fall. There are a lot more teachers than there are administrators in the school district, but over time Fox has increased the number of administrators in the district significantly while the number of students remained nearly the same.

Board Members Are Elected Officials and Don't Get Paid

School board members are elected officials and they don't get paid for their work in overseeing the district. This could also be one of the reasons why so many things have been getting the "rubber stamp" of approval from our school board over the years. It takes a lot of time to review board packets and look at the thousands of checks that the district writes each year. That is a lot of work and over time I believe the board has just come to trust that Superintendent Critchlow and her assistants are doing what they are supposed to do without question. That can lead to problems like we have now.

It also helps the superintendent to have happy school board members. It makes them much more willing to go along with her decisions. One great way to help influence board member decisions is to make sure that the board members feel like they are doing a great job for our district and for our kids. She tells the community repeatedly that they are doing a great job and thanks them at all of the board meetings. There's no better way to say thank you to a school board member than the promotion of their spouse or the hiring of their daughter in law to a high paying position in the school district. School board members aren't allowed to vote on decisions where there might be a conflict of interest. So, they step out of the room when votes are taken that involve their spouses or family members. This way everyone in the community knows that the decision made by the board does not give even the slightest hint that there was any possible conflict of interest.

Board Members With Benefits

In 2006 while Mr. Dave Palmer was the president of the Fox C-6 School Board, his wife was promoted to the district head nurse position. She received a 75% pay increase for that promotion. However, her new promotion required her to work more hours. In the past, head nurses only worked on a 9 month contract. Gee Palmer's new contract was a 12 month contract instead of a 9 month contract which made up for that 75% pay increase. The 25% increase in contract length was able to justify the 75% increase in pay.

Also, let's not forget that back in 2012 while Linda Nash was the president of the Fox C-6 School Board, her daughter in law was hired to be the new Food Nutrition Director. That position paid $65,000 per year and was able to be filled by a person with a high school diploma because she had worked at McDonald's for 17 years and had become an assistant manager. Since she didn't have the degree or the certifications that the district was looking for at the time, Superintendent Critchlow and Assistant Superintendent Todd Scott were willing to give her 2 years to obtain her degree and certification because Linda Nash's daughter in law was very enthusiastic about the job. However, in order to help her out with her new job duties the district had to promote to more people in the district to cover what was used to handled by one assistant in the past. So, there was a little more expenditure than expected due to the lack of experience in running a public school district's food nutrition program.

More interesting things to see on the Wayback Machine for Fox?

In Praise of the Board of Education

It was interesting to read former Fox C-6 Superintendent Jim Chellew's 2004 article titled "In Praise of the Board of Eduction". In his article, he mentioned that "Board members are some of the most accessible elected officials." Really? I'll have to disagree with Mr. Chellew on this point. Superintendent Critchlow tends to control access to our school board. A person isn't allowed to mention names during Public Comments at school board meetings. She's told the board not to speak with people. She's sent out Cease and Desist letters to individuals who try to bring things to the school board's attention. I have spoken at many school board meetings over the past several years and have sent emails and letters to our board and hardly if ever receive a reply. It doesn't appear to me that our school board is very accessible. 

So, I find Mr. Chellew's article quite humorous after trying to work with our school board over the years. I know it's the school superintendent's job to promote their school district and tell the public what a great job the district is doing in educating our kids. But, telling the public that the board is accessible when the public knows otherwise is sad.

Brown Hired as New Fox Super

Another very interesting article is the November 2004 announcement of Dianne Brown being chosen as the next Fox C-6 School Superintendent. The 2004 article titled "Brown hired as new Fox super" was written by Kim Robertson for The Leader newspaper. The article states that "The school board advertised the position only within the district, and Brown was the only candidate. The school board interviewed her Monday and voted unanimously to hire her. Chellew said he had hoped Brown would get the job."

Superintendent Salaries Then and Now

The above article also mentions that Superintendent Brown (now Critchlow) would be paid at least $135,217 for the 2005-2006 school year. Her salary as superintendent back then pales in comparison to the $256,131 that she is now being paid for the 2013-2014 school year.

Some More Interesting Links from the Wayback Machine

2007 Photo of Fox C-6 Central Office Administrators

July 2001 Fox C-6 School Board Meeting Minutes - No Tax Increase Bond Issue and Dianne Brown appointed as Section 504 Coordinator

Photo of Fox C-6's 2005-2006 Board of Education

2005 Version of Fox C-6's Board Policies and Regulations

So check out the Wayback Machine and see what else has gone on in our school district over the years. You might be surprised at what you can find. It might even make for a good research paper for some of our students. It's similar to digging up the time capsule that was buried under the flag pole next to the administration office back in 1976. It can reveal a lot about our district's past. Hopefully the information can help steer our district down a better path in the future.

Will You Be Earning More Than $15,000 Per Month For LIFE When You Retire?

Will You Be Earning More Than $15,000 Per Month
For LIFE When You Retire?

That's how much money Fox C-6 Superintendent Dianne Critchlow will be getting paid when she retires thanks to our School Board's generous salary raises over the last 7 years. Your taxpayer dollars pay for educator salaries and retirement benefits. Currently, educators contribute 14.5% of their salary to their retirement and the school district contributes an additional 14.5%.

The problem here is that the Fox C-6 School Board has nearly doubled Superintendent Critchlow's salary since she became Superintendent in July 2005. Her salary has increased from $137,589 for the 2005-2006 school year to $246,824 for the 2012-2013 school year!

Prior superintendents were making roughly 25% more than assistant superintendents. Currently, Dianne Critchlow is making 55% more than the next highest paid assistant superintendent. Our school board sets her salary. Our school board is supposed to represent the community that elected them. I think you will have a tough time finding anyone in our community that would have ever approved of paying our superintendent the salary she is currently getting paid.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch recently published the 2012-2013 Missouri Educators Salary information on their website. You can select Fox C-6 and then choose between Position types such as Admin, Supervisor, Principal, Teacher, Aide, etc.:

2012-2013 STLTODAY.COM Missouri Educator Salary Lookup

Is Dianne Critchlow really worth $246,824?

Many people that I have talked to don't think so! In fact, I believe that Superintendent Critchlow has done far more damage to our district than good by far. Ask any teacher or employee in the district that isn't related to her or aren't one of her close friends what the morale is like in our district. They may not tell you for fear of losing their job. But morale is certainly not as good as it should or could be. I know there are employees in our District that appreciate any and all efforts being done to bring about a positive change to our District. So, your help is needed by contacting and speaking with our school board.

I think the best thing our school board could do for our school district and our community would be to relieve Superintendent Critchlow of her duties and hire a new Superintendent. That one change alone would be probably be the best thing to have happened to our school district and community in the last 10 years!

So, how much will our Superintendent's retirement benefits cost you?

Based on full retirement benefits, Superintendent Critchlow will be earning at least 75% of the Average Salary Amount of the 3 Highest Consecutive Years of Salary Earned. That salary amount includes employer paid medical, dental and vision health premiums. Therefore, she will be earning at least $15,000 per month for LIFE when she retires and those benefits will increase with a Cost of Living Adjustment.

Superintendent Critchlow's 

Highest 3 Years of Salary Earned So Far!
2011 - $215,276

2012 - $228,573

2013 - $246,824

Ask your school board what Superintendent Critchlow has done for our district to deserve those pay increases?

You can find details on page 6 in the Missouri Public School Retirement System Brochure on Missouri's PSRS website regarding the formula for retirement.

On page 2 of the Missouri Public School Retirement System Brochure you can see more benefits of the PSRS.

Lifetime Retirement Benefits With Five-Year Vesting
As a PSRS member, once you have earned five years of credit with PSRS, you are vested and can receive lifetime retirement benefits when eligible. In most cases, the retirement benefits paid to PSRS members greatly exceed the funds they contribute to the System while working.

In fact, most PSRS retirees recover all their contributions within the first five years of retirement.

If an educator works for more than 30 years, they will receive a slightly higher amount than the 75%. If an educator works more than 3 years beyond normal retirement, they have the option of a one time lump sum payment with reduced lifetime benefits.

There was a recent article written by James Shuls of the Show-Me Institute titled, "Salary Spikes Boosts Pensions, But Cripples Taxpayers" that was re-published in EducationNews.org. His article discusses how the recent hiring of recently retired Wentzville Superintendent Terry Adams by the Rockwood School District as interim superintendent for $250,000 will boost Mr. Adams retirement benefit by $15,000 per year for life. So, over the next 20 years, Mr. Adams will receive an additional $300,000 thanks to his extra year of work at Rockwood.

So, how does your retirement compare to what our school board is going to be providing to Superintendent Dianne Critchlow when she retires?

The school district didn't publish the administrator's salary schedule in the last board meeting packet like they did last year. So, we don't yet know what Superintendent Critchlow will be making for the 2013-2014 school year yet.