Last week Talk of the Sound published an email exchange in which New York State Regent Saul Cohen confirmed the existence of a letter sent by the NYSED Department of Assessment to New Rochelle High School Principal Don Conetta regarding evidence of gross improprieties regarding my son’s Chemistry Regents Exam. Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak has repeatedly stated that no such letter exists including denials made to members of the New Rochelle Board of Education. In sending the letter today, the Board of Education President Sara Richmond has now confirmed what I have said all along, that Organisciak has been lying and that there is such a letter.
NYSED letter dated August 25, 2008 & the NRBOE letter dated December 7, 2009
The letter accompanying the NYSED letter from the Board of Education reads as follows:
Dear Mr. Cox
The members of the Board of Education have reviewed the e-mails you sent us last week. Based on the information you provided, we were able to locate the letter you referenced. A copy of the August 25, 2008 letter sent from Meg Overrocker to Donald Conetta is attached herewith.
We would appreciate if you would forward to the Board, at my attention, a hard-copy of the e-mail from Regent Saul Cohen, which you referenced in your e-mails.
I trust this resolved the issue of production of this letter by the District.
Sincerely,
Sara M. Richmond
President
Board of EducationSMR/ls
Enc: 1
CC: Hon. Members of the Board of Education
Mr. Richard E. Organisciak, Superintendent of Schools
My reply is as follows:
Dear Ms. Richmond,
Confronted with a letter from a member of the New York State Board of Regents that shows I have been lied to for a year, the Board of Education now tosses me a bone and you wonder if that will suffice. I trust you will be not be surprised to learn, my answer is “no”, it does not suffice.
In fact, the document you sent today raises more questions than it answers.
The document clearly indicates that what you sent is a cover letter and that there were additional documents enclosed in the letter. This is what I understand the the word “enclosures” to mean at the bottom of the NYSED letter to Mr. Conetta. In other words, even now, the district continues to withhold portions of the NYSED reply and you ask whether this resolves the issue of the production of letter. The only way to resolve the issue of the NYSED reply would be to produce the entire reply.
This is the first time I have seen this letter. I can now see that the letter is not a reply to my request for a full investigation by the Department of Assessment as I had hoped but a a reply to a very narrow request by Mr. Conetta as to whether a particular question was graded correctly. I now know I still do not have a reply to my request for a broader investigation to the many allegations of improprieties I have made. I also do not have a copy of the request sent by Mr. Conetta. As remains the case I want every document in my son’s file.
You are apparently unaware of a federal law called the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). A parent or eligible student is entitled to education records maintained by the school. You might to read about as it is the law which the District has violated over and over again in refusing to turn over the letter you sent to day and which you continue to violate by not turning over the enclosures which came with the letter. Given this you may not be surprised to know that I do not consider the district today admitting that they have been lying for a year and still continue to lie a “resolution” of the issue.
I can see no legitimate reason for your request for a “hard copy” of my email exchange with Regent Cohen. In any case, there is no such thing as a “hard copy” of an email. Regardless, my purpose in reading and then publishing the exchange was to force the district to admit that the letter they have repeatedly denied exists does, in fact, exist. With that accomplished, the exchange with Regent Cohen is entirely beside the point as far as I am concerned. I have published the exchange. You can see what it says. Based on the reaction of board members when I read Mr. Cohen’s reply to me last Tuesday night it was quite clear many board members are well-familiar with Mr. Cohen. Recall I asked if the board knew of Mr. Cohen, several board members nodded their heads and Ms. Reddington said aloud “of course”. Given this I find your request for a “hard copy” very odd indeed. You have it within your power to pick up the telephone and simply ask Mr. Cohen to forward you the email. I would think that doubters on the board, misguided as they might be, would find receiving the letter from him far more convincing than receiving it from me. In either case, you know full well that the letter you sent me comports with the Cohen email in every detail therefore I find your request for a “hard copy” disingenuous at best and more likely yet another attempt to muddy the water.
If remain stumped as to how to contact Mr. Cohen, let me assist you in that regard with the following information.
Mr. Saul B Cohen
14 North Chatsworth Avenue, Apt. 3E
Larchmont, NY 10538 | Phone: (914) 834-0615
RegentCohen@mail.nysed.govI am generally willing to chalk up most attempts at deception by the District to the bad behavior of the administration and the lawyers at Kehl, Katzive & Simon who are the hatchet men (and women) for the District. Even now, I would like to believe that a KKS lawyer wrote the letter you sent today and to that extent it was “ghostwritten” for you. How else to explain the cleverly worded and entirely misleading claim that “based on the information you provided” the Board of Education was able to locate the letter from Meg Overocker. The sentence which precedes this claim says you have “reviewed the emails you sent us last week”. Your letter is designed to suggest that it was only after I provided you a copy of the email exchange with Regent Cohen that you were able to “locate” the letter. In other words, it is my fault that the district repeatedly denied the existence of the letter!
This is precisely why I requested an INDEPENDENT investigation into the improprieties with my son’s test and refused to turn over copies of the answer sheet. I know from past experience that your lawyers will use the two answer sheets to concoct some story that in the end tries to blame my son for his teacher’s actions or some such nonsense.
The language is also a classic lawyer’s trick. One the one hand it is meant to suggest that it is my fault that the letter was not provided to me because I did not give the district enough information and that once I provided the information you were able to “locate” the letter. On the other hand, the letter does not say that the “information you provided” is the information contained in the email and could included ANY information I provided prior to last week and so if additional information comes to light you can always shift gears and claim that you used information provided prior to the publication of the Regent Cohen email.
It is my understanding that you and the entire board know that Mr. Organisciak wrote to me on November 3, 2008 providing a sanitized version of the information contained in the letter. Clearly he knew of the letter because he references it in his November 3rd letter. I have repeatedly identified the letter including over the past two months the exact date of the letter. Like all high school students, my son had a file at New Rochelle High School. The letter was sent to the NRHS Principal. In attempting to “locate” the file, did anyone bother to look in his file?
The District has known of this letter since the day it was received. I would also note that every letter like this that I have ever seen from the District is stamped “Received” with the date received stamped on it. Why is that not the case here? Let me suggest that this letter was buried from the beginning and never filed with my son’s NRHS file. And please tell Mr. Organisciak not to bother spinning back the date on the stamp, manufacturing a version of the letter with a time stamp and then turning that over. This sort of thing gets tiresome after a while.
I do not see how you can expect the matter to be resolved when the District conspires to withhold documents and continues to pile lie upon lie. I certainly do not consider the matter closed at all. Until then, you might try John 8:32.
Let’s try this again:
1. I want to inspect all files and folders and any other documents for my son covered under FERPA including the enclosures to the 8-25 letter and the letter to which it responds.
2. I have requested to appear before the board in Executive Session after the next board meeting. I think given the pattern of lies and deceit this is the least you can do. Further, I wish to appear before the board only without Mr. Organisciak, the clerk or any other employees of the district or lawyers working for the district as I intend to discuss their bad behavior.
After I received all of the documents and had a chance to discuss the numerous false statements made to me and about me over the past several years will I even consider answering a question about whether the matter is resolved.
Sincerely,
Robert Cox
The letter itself, as it turns out, is not a response to my request for an investigation by the State into my allegation that the teacher purposely deducted 10 or 11 points from my son’s exam, the existence of two versions of the answer sheet or that numerous protocols were not followed in grading my son’s test. Instead, it is a reply to a very limited and very different request from Principal Conetta that the NYSED Department of Assessment “re-rate” the test; something I had also requested IN ADDITION to a more comprehensive investigation.
The letter also contains new information about additional errors on the grading on the two answer sheets but because the investigator did not see (or even ask for) both copies of the answer sheet in my possession.
Part C on both the “Raniolo” answer sheet and the two-initials version of the answer sheet state my son got 17 points on that part.
The letter states that “SED raters” scored Question #65 as correct. The two-initials version of the answer sheet has #65 marked incorrect. The tally sheet indicates that for Part C my son got 17 point points when, if #65 is marked correct, he should have gotten 18 points.
This is how we know that the tally sheet on the two-initials test was obtained not by tallying up the points on the answer sheet graded by the two teachers whose initial appear but by copying the tally sheet from the “Raniolo” version of the test (unless your believe two NRHS teachers were not capable of counting to 18).
The letter also identified an entirely new issue. The State says that Question #78 should have been marked incorrect. Both the “Raniolo” version and the two-initials version of the answer sheet marked #78 as correct.
The letter shows that there are TWO mistakes in grading my son’s test but that they cancel each other out. I guess that makes it OK then.
The letter from the State Investigator is sent only to Don Conetta, no one else including me is copied on the letter. That is because the State is not responding to my complaint but rather the district’s request which is confined to simply re-rating the test. If this is still not clear, it is part of the cover-up. In order to mollify me and try to have plausible deniability and otherwise muddy the water, the district made their own request to the NYSED Department of Assessment but only about the issue regarding Question #65. By doing this, if challenged, the District can later claim that they fixed one of my complaints about the test by crediting him back 10 points that were improperly deducted from his raw score total and went the extra mile by asking the State to look into my concerns about the test.
Don’t believe me?
Between August and November of 2008 I made repeated requests for a copy of the letter sent by the State. I received one reply, from Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak dated November 3, 2008.
Dear Mr. Cox
We were unaware that the New York State Education Department had not communicated with you directly regarding your son’s Chemistry Regents examination results.
The information provided to New Rochelle High School confirmed that Owen had earned a Final Score of 74 on the June 2007 Chemistry Examination which was the same score as had been calculated previously.
Since Owen’s score of 90 on the Chemistry Regents administered in August 2008 exceeded the original score of 74, the matter was deemed to be moot by the District.
Sincerely,
Richard E. Organisciak
Superintendent of SchoolsREO: pv
cc: Members of Board of Education
Donaold Conetta, Principal – New Rochelle High School
Organisciak engages in precisely the sort of deceptive behavior described above. Here is telling me only that the State found that my son’s score was “the same score as had been calculated previously” when the issue I had repeatedly raised was that Question #65 appeared to have been marked “incorrect” when it should have been marked “correct”. Organisciak fails to mention that the State AGREED that Question #65 was marked incorrectly. He also fails to mention that the State found a SECOND ERROR on Question 78 (the first I heard of this was today). Question #78 was marked as “correct” but should have been marked “incorrect”. Instead of sending me a copy of the letter, he exploits the fact that two errors cancelled each other to make a true statement — that the final score was a 74 — without explaining why.
To the point of what has occurred today, whatever other claims they care to make, on November 3rd 2008, Organisciak had the August 25, 2008 letter from Meg Overocker. He, Conetta and the entire board (except for Jeffrey Hastie) knew of the letter, that I wanted the letter and knew that the State had not sent me a copy. They have known that all along. So in the many months afterwards, as they have continued to stonewall me, they have piled more lies upon more lies. Now they want to act like the first they heard about this issue was last week.
Even after all this, I still do not have the entire letter only the cover letter.
What about Organisiack
So, what happens to Richard Organisciak now? Ok, he lied. Not the first time in his short tenure. Does he get a promotion? Afterall, NRED administrators do not discipline employees EVER. They are incapable. So for ruining a parent or student, they get tenure or a promotion.
example – special student falls and breaks arm at Isaac; student taken to nurse; nurse does nothing; someone else calls parent; parent comes in and is upset; told by nurse to take student home; mother takes student to emergency room in a taxi; student has two broken arms; Nurse gets nothing and still works and gets her annual raise. Family wants an apology; families gets none; family sues district; will soon collect a lot of money.
example – student is scolded by teacher at Isaac and told that if he doesn’t behave, teacher will call immigration on his parents (student is a US Citizen, but is hispanic); parents are upset and complain (parents are legal); no apology provided; teacher continues with increase in salary; no disciplinary action.
example – custodian at Jefferson has history of being unruly, mean, threatening, menacing, racist & sexist commentary, lots of write ups, but never disciplined – even disobeys administrators and principals; finally disciplined; union says he’s an angel; he’s still working for the district. Do you hear him cursing down the hall at NRHS?
We’ve all hear of Vito Costa getting paid by the district for a no-show job. The district refers him to the District Attorney. Ok, this is good, but what about the supervisors responsibility? Who signed all the payroll time sheets? Who approved his pay? Who checked his work? Who signed his time sheet? Is anyone being disciplined for this? NO!!
Is anyone minding the store? Does anyone in the North End of New Rochelle care?
And of course this does not answer why 2 tests
There still is no answer as to why there is a second exam. To me this is the reason for the charade. Two answer sheets means that all of this is for the District to cover the incompetent and unethical educator who filled in this 2nd test in the first place.
I guess it’s easier to defraud a parent and a student than to discipline a teacher in the all powerful Teacher’s Union.
Who cares about the students? They are only a means to an end.
NEA General Counsel Bob Chanin:
“That is simply too high a price to pay.” Doesn’t that say it all… Notice the reaction of the audience too…
Test scores
Can you clarify, because this is getting complicated, what your son actually got on the Chemistry regents the first time he took it? Then what grade the school gave? If he got the 74 in the first place, he would not have had to take the test again, I think.
Test Score clarification
My son took the Chemistry Regents Exam in June 2007 and given a grade of 67. The test counted for 20% of the grade. There is more to all this but the bottom line is that his final grade according to the district was 63.7. The actual score was a 74 which would have made his final grade a 66.6. In fact, the problems with the teacher were not confined to the Regents grade and if all the points improperly deducted had been added back he would have had about a 70. At NRHS, an Honors grade get a 10% bonus so he should have had a 77 or higher for purposes of calculating his GPA and class rank for college apps.
I believe Marissa Raniolo’s sought to fail my son to derail a deal agreed to by Don Conetta, principal of NRHS and Yvette Goorevitch, Director of Special Ed which was offered to me. I did not like the deal but was willing to accept that my son would re-take the test and, if his grade improved, that the grade would count as 100% of his grade for the year with the proviso that the course would be dropped from Chemistry Honors to Chemistry Regents, a lower level course. She got her wish. The deal fell apart and we ended up in a 9 month hearing which, I am told, cost the district $150,000 in legal fees. And, they ended up giving us exactly what we asked for all along plus a few other things like tutoring and a reimbursement for services they failed to provide which we sought privately.
In fact, the teacher did a number of things wrong during the year including giving my son a zero on many of the chem labs because he did not complete them during class time. My son had an IEP which by law entitled him to extended time for in-class assignments. I believe the labs were 10% of the grade each quarter. There was also a problem with a chapter test she mis-scored and some other problems. All of this is secondary to the problems with her day to day teaching in which she failed to provide him his “accommodations” (preferential seating, extended time, copies of class notes). Just to be clear, parents do not decide what “accommodations” a student gets; the district writes an Individualized Education Plan or IEP which spells them out. The IEP is required under federal law and it is a civil rights violation to not provide services and accommodations called for in an IEP.
That year there were problems with two teachers. Ms. Vestal in Math Honors and Ms. Raniolo in Chem Honors. There is whole other story about Ms. Vestal not providing accommodations also and my son getting an F in her class in the first marking period but that problem was resolved by moving my son to a different Math Honors class and he ended the year with, I think, a B- or something like that. Other than thees two classes, my son had all A’s and B’s, scored 1,300 on the SATs was accepted at Notre Dame and given a full scholarship. So, my son is very smart. The problem he had in 10th grade was running into two teachers who believed that they could chose whether or not to follow the IEP. Rather than follow the IEP, Ms. Vestal sent us a note saying our son did not belong in her class (meaning in a Math Honors class). In a face-to-face meeting, Vestal told my wife it was her opinion that students with IEPs did not belong in an honors class. In other words, she wanted my son excluded from her class because he has a learning disability. You are welcome to count all the ways that is illegal.
Today, for the first time, I learned that all along the New York State Department of Assessment never investigated the complaint I filed in June 2008. Instead, when I asked about it and they told me they had sent a letter to the district I asked the district for it…and kept asking for 16 months. Now I find that the letter was in response to just one small aspect of my complaint — whether question #65 was correctly graded (it was not) and not based on my complaint but the more narrow complaint filed by Conetta.
Rest assured I will be in contact with the New York State Department of Assessment tomorrow.