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Letter to the Editor - May 2, 2008
Frankly Speaking
May 2, 2008 - 9:59AM
Teacher, Hesperia Unified School District
I am the kind of person who ponders life and then speaks one's mind. I try to speak intelligently though I too fail. However, I often find that people like Chris Bentley speak without the real facts. Both my wife and I were ExCEL trainers. In fact, my wife was one of the founding members of the ExCEL training.
She along with others went uncompensated in the creation of a training process that helped Hesperia Unified School District improve achievement and better meet the needs of all of our students. They served many hours during the summer and other non-paid time sharing their passion for kids with other schools around the country. After spending long hours away from their families they began to get compensated for their time. If a trainer trained during a work day, the inviting school paid for their sub-time as part of their professional development. The district gave the trainers a stipend of $250.00 for their service. After paying self employment taxes and other state and federal taxes, the stipend diminished to approximately $150.00. Now consider that travel time was usually during non-working hours and time was spent away from family. Call us foolish, but we figure that we are worth our time. End the end the money was only a token of what our time was truly worth.
Furthermore, it is important to keep in mind that when trainers served schools within our district they did this without any stipend.
Mr. Bentley continues to question the pay we have received. Because of people like him, an Institute that not only helped other schools but actually made money for grants to teachers in our district, is now defunct. Mr. Bentley, have you ever asked to meet with the trainers. You are ready to have the school board penalize our retirement for serving our district and other others in a very positive way. On what basis do you speak?
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Reader's comments
| Thank goodness Hesperia has an articulate, intelligent citizen like Chris B. He blows me away with the information he finds out. I also attend school board meetings and usually I go for the entertainment value. Chris, keep going and keep these administrators honest. Derek Castillo has got to be one of the most ill informed people around. |
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| Concerned mom - May 08, 2008 04:42:45 PM | Remove Comment |
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| Oh don't rile the little man, bentley's working on the All Kirks for all Hesperia campaign. He's running out of programs to destroy anyway. Maybe he'll take up a different hobby after he helps run Mark Kirk's city council campaign. |
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| Riley - May 07, 2008 09:52:38 PM | Remove Comment |
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| The photoshop and other in house services sounded like a good idea, after all who wouldn't want to add additional sources of revenue to the district. If they had all been profitable we would be praising the idea. Since the purpose of HUSD is education, I think the district would have been better off taking the extra cash from the good years and buying land for future school sites. Instead of spending money in an attempt to create other sources of revenue, ie. ExCell, photoshop, printshop etc, the district should have been spending money on land and new schools. |
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| LBO - May 07, 2008 03:40:17 PM | Remove Comment |
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| Can any of the EXCEL trainers or teachers explain to me why students that went through EXCEL in grade and middle school arrive at high school and still read at a 2nd grade level, comute math at a kindergaurd level, and write at a first grade level. Not to metion the fact that hundred of these students are put right back into SDC classes or RSP classes. |
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| notinamillionyears - May 07, 2008 11:54:54 AM | Remove Comment |
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| Dear Teacher can you name one business in the community that could operate at a self reported deficit of over 800,000 dollars? The Photo Shop was only able to do this because HUSD used money from the general fund to cover these losses. That money is supposed to go to educating our students to cover the losses. And by the way we are not in business to support a business venture even if it is a good idea. We are in business to provide the best education for our students. How many jobs would be saved if we used the Photo Shop money for staff to work with kids? |
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| HUSD teacher - May 07, 2008 11:01:38 AM | Remove Comment |
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| Have you even read the business plan teacher? It is fiction. David Long's plan presumed, and these are his projections not mine, that every student in the district would purchase pictures. Ridiculous. This was never a good idea and it has cost the district over a million dollars in just 22 months. Labor costs alone ran 43,000 dollars in March of this year. That is for one month and it just includes labor, nothing else. HUSD is pink slipping teachers yet paying this kind of money for photo services, which can be provided to parents and students at far less cost than what HUSD is doing it for. Nothing about this is innovative, it is a costly boondoggle. There is absolutely no educational benefit to this costly program. NONE. George Landon and Carmen Becker have fiduciary responsibilities to the district and this program, to my knowledge, was not even discussed during the rounds of budget cutting idea meetings. They know how much money this thing costs, yet they said nothing. That is irresponsible management of public monies. Nobody ever precluded this program from reaching its full potential, it had plenty of support. But they have failed to produce any kind of tangible results in the form of profits and dollars going back to schools. And they have had two years to do so. Quite the opposite has happened, it DRAINS money, LOTS OF MONEY, from HUSD coffers. The nonsense regarding 4 internships for students, only since February, is absurd for that serves less than one one hundreth of one percent of the student population. Talk about a ridiculous waste of money. Yet you defend it simply because I oppose it. Present an argument in its defense. Defend the costs and existence of the photo shop while laying off TEACHERS. Please make that argument sustain any reasonable amount of scrutiny. |
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| Chris B. - May 07, 2008 09:43:23 AM | Remove Comment |
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| Now they're going after the photo shop. They wouldn't let photoshop follow the business plan, so they we're able to get their head above water, so now we're going to lose another innovative program. Why are people like Bentley and Kirk so emotionally crippled that they can't let someone else's good idea be okay? A good idea is a good idea, it's neutral, so why close it down like they did ExCel? Chips on their shoulders, I guess. |
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| Teacher - May 07, 2008 07:52:50 AM | Remove Comment |
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| Actually, it was a pretty simple question. You claimed the union has benefited everyone. The person asked what the union has done for him since he is not a teacher, member of the union. |
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| Simple Question - May 06, 2008 06:11:27 PM | Remove Comment |
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| Geez is a rank defender of the three at all costs. What's the relationship? Bentley publicly accused the former and 2 current board members of criminal misconduct. There actually is enough against him to move, but what will they get? Half of an income he doesn't earn? Maybe he'll stop being the attack dog for his buddies the Kirks and the evil arm of the union. We'll see. |
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| Hesperia Parent - May 06, 2008 03:53:46 PM | Remove Comment |
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| Could be it's just not worth a comment! |
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| geez - May 06, 2008 12:40:54 PM | Remove Comment |
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| Geez, you were asked a question from the April 25th Letter to the Editor. Are you going to provide a response or duck the question all together? |
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| Curious - May 06, 2008 10:43:14 AM | Remove Comment |
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| Talk about a frivolous lawsuit! What earthly claim can Derek Castillo have against Mr. Bentley? This is too funny for words. |
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| geez - May 05, 2008 10:30:41 PM | Remove Comment |
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| Mr. Castillo, have you considered a law suit against Bentley? If so, there are numerous people that would be willing to help pay for your attorney. |
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| go castillo - May 05, 2008 08:28:31 PM | Remove Comment |
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| The Excel program is alive and working in our schools. This is just the same old rhetoric from the anti crowd. It amazes me that these people resort to maligning Mr. Bentley's character and his employment status. If this were a stay at home mom would these people question her employment status? Think we have some gender bias here? It is irrevelant whether Mr. Bentley is employed or not. The issue is that he helped ferret out the mismanagement of the EXCEL INSTITUTE. |
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| geez - May 04, 2008 06:56:11 AM | Remove Comment |
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| Once again you are not being truthful. The SELPA plan and those school visitations to our district were to observe the Excel plan NOT the Excel Institute. No matter where the money comes from it is taxpayer money and the Excel Institute was using taxpayer money that was supposed to go to educate our children not prop up a non-profit. |
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| geez - May 04, 2008 06:23:32 AM | Remove Comment |
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| Why argue with Bently? You'd get more results aguing with a brick wall. He is someone who just doesn't get it and never will. Trust me, if you ever met the simpleton in person, you'd realize he's not worth it! What program will he try to take away next? He'll do anything for a little attention. And with all the time he has on his hands sense he is unemployed, you can bet he'll find some other program to steal from our kids. |
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| teacher - May 03, 2008 09:18:43 PM | Remove Comment |
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| Why does Bentley rant so much about ExCel. He has no idea what it is. Ron Powell of SELPA originally came out with the idea of finding ways to begin intervention with students before they were labelled "disabled." Other districts came to some schools in Hesperia to see how things could work. Schools in Hesperia received awards and presented their ideas at various places throughout California. And if Bentley is worried that Hesperia paid for it, funds came from Sacramento. So if this was so bad, why did the people from Sacramento send districts to us. Did all the schools in Hesperia participate. no. Union hated the program, even though it's not a program. Why? Was it too much work for them? Their hatred of this just piggybacked on their hatred of district officials. Hate is a strong term, but I've heard some of the rhetoric from the union, and it isn't pretty. So Bentley, stop the raving and stop listening to your union buddies. |
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| disgusted with B - May 03, 2008 08:44:21 PM | Remove Comment |
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| It has been stated again and again that the Excel Institute and the Excel program in the schools were two different entities. The Excel programs in the schools are developed and implemented by the staff. The Institute DID sell our pacing plans and benchmark tests to other districts as part of its package. The Institute had no oversight and as a result owes our district over $200,000 and we will not be able to recoup any of it. I wish Ms. Bergen well but what she and her cohorts did to HUSD thru the Excel Institute is indefensible. |
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| geez - May 03, 2008 05:47:43 PM | Remove Comment |
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| RTI is the current federal guideline for the way we approach kids that may have learning disabilities. The process of ExCEL fits perfectly within these guidelines. I'm not sure why Chris, with all his research into everything, doesn't realize that RTI did not go out the window a long time ago. In fact, it is the most current federal guideline. Some might also be interested to know that the process of ExCEL, now under a different name, is still in high demand from schools throughout California who desire training in this process to better meet the needs of their students. It is ALL ABOUT students, and Mrs. Bergen is busier than ever working with schools. She is just not associated with our district anymore. |
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| another teacher - May 03, 2008 11:22:04 AM | Remove Comment |
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| The part that Mr. Bentley does not understand is that the process of ExCEL has absolutely nothing to do with benchmarks and pacing plans. It is true that those products were sold by the Institute. The process of ExCEL was originally developed to meet the needs of all students, from those needing remediation to those performing well above standards, in the area of reading. Students were scaffolded into groups according to their reading level, and instruction was based on their needs. Students were moved from group to group as their needs changed. Since the test our students take each spring is based on the California State Standards for each grade level, I guess you could say we teach to the test since we are expected to teach the standards. I'm not really writing this for Mr. Bentley, but just in case anybody else reads these blogs, it is important to understand that ExCEL is NOT about pacing plans and benchmarks. Those documents were created by teachers in our district to help us pace out all the standards we must teach, and the benchmarks were designed to measure what we have taught in each six week period. We use the information we get from our students' performance on the benchmarks to reteach skills as necessary. Just so you know. |
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| former trainer - May 03, 2008 10:54:58 AM | Remove Comment |
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