Five members of the School Committee decided they wanted to visit Mr. Ely's school system, which has 10,300 students and 1,700 employees, while four opted to visit Mr. Wood's, four opted to visit the Milford school system, and four wanted to visit schools within their own system.
School Committee member Mary Ellen Prencipe — who said she supported visiting Mr. Wood's and Ms. Cataldo's school systems — voted against visiting all four systems. The School Committee members discussed the logistics of the site visits after the meeting adjourned.
Mr. Ely, 50, has come under fire in Schenectady after the recent sentencing of former school department Facilities Manager Steven Raucci. Newspapers in the Schenectady-Albany, N.Y., area have reported Mr. Raucci was convicted of arson and weapons possession for leaving explosive devices at the homes and cars of his perceived enemies, including some district employees. Mr. Raucci has been sentenced to 23 years to life, according to various media reports.
Mr. Ely, whose contract expires in 2012, said he has done nothing wrong and he presented the news media with a letter from the school department's legal counsel stating that. Newspapers in eastern New York have reported that Mr. Ely allegedly tipped off Mr. Raucci about an investigation into his actions, but Mr. Ely said yesterday that was inaccurate and people in the area and school district were aware of the investigation before he reportedly testified about the matter in court.
Mr. Ely has been an unsuccessful finalist for school superintendent posts in Pennsylvania, Montana and Arlington, Mass., in recent months. He said he is looking elsewhere because four recently elected members of the seven-person Schenectady School Board have said publicly they would like to see him replaced.
“I can do that math,” said the former mathematics teacher.
SCHENECTADY -- Eric Ely, the city's embattled schools superintendent, has lost another bid for a job with another district.
Ely was a finalist for the top job in the Mansfield, Mass., school district, but the district's board of education announced on Tuesday that neither Ely nor the other finalist, Mansfield Senior High School Principal Brian Garverick, would be considered for the job, according to the Mansfield News Journal.
In Schenectady, Ely has faced strong criticism for his management of ex-facilities director Steven Raucci, who was recently convicted of felonies for targeting enemies with bombs and graffiti. Witnesses at Raucci's trial testified that they informed the district about their concerns about Raucci, but the district seemed to do nothing to stop is on-the-job conduct.
Ely has said that it might be best for him to leave the district. An new school board elected in the wake of the Raucci trial is expected to consider whether to force Ely out of his post when they take office next month.
Both Ohio districts have now turned Ely's down. One decided to go with an interim candidate for a year.
Let's see if the Schenectady School Bored, with all the alleged reformers, has the guts to finally pull the trigger. Don't be shocked if they refuse to follow the will of the people or fork over a large check to leave. They might need his "institutional knowledge"-lol,
Instead of Arlington, maybe he should have applied in Springfield MA:
Quoted Text
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- The school superintendent in Springfield, Mass., has taken responsibility for tests given to the district's 11th- and 12th-graders that were rife with spelling, grammatical and factual errors.
Two tests given in May to about 2,600 students contained about 100 errors combined.
The mistakes included the phrases "truning around" and "For God's skae," as well as a note on one test that read "This is the end of the Test," when there were two more pages.
Get find Graham! How do ya sound better after 35 years?
Logged
Both Ohio districts have now turned Ely's down. One decided to go with an interim candidate for a year.
