Profiles in Cowardice: Mike Kenny at New Rochelle High School

Part 1 in our new series, Profiles in Cowardice

Mike Kenny is the Director of Guidance of New Rochelle High School. He is one of those people of no particular significance in life outside a public school system, who gets little respect even from his peers and yet can have a dramatic negative on a child’s future.

In 2006, my son was scheduled to take the PSAT Exam, the practice exam given by the College Entrance Examination Board or “College Board”. As a “classified student” my son was entitled to extra time on exams including standardized tests like Regents Exams, AP Exams, SAT Exams and the PSAT Exam. This was never an issue with tests given by his teachers; they left a copy of the exam at the testing center at the high school and he sat for the exam. Some people imagine that the extended time testing accommodation is some sort of luxury. It is not. For a child without a disability maybe but for my son it was entirely necessary and entailed sitting in a testing center for many hours — four hours taking a two hour final exam or eight hours on a four hour exam, not exactly and kid’s idea of fun.

In the weeks before the date of the PSAT Exam, I was looking for a document from the College Board confirming that my son would receive extra time on the PSAT. The letter never came. Days before the exam, my wife called Mike Kenny to ask about it at which point Kenny stated that the College Board had denied the request for extra time for my son (the district makes the request, the parents approve the request). This set of a flurry of phone calls and emails to get an explanation from Kenny as to why. His only answer was that the College Board was being more stringent on granting extended time to classified students and that was why my son did not get extra time on the test. Knowing that he needed extra time, we elected to pull him from taking the test with an eye towards taking on the issue when the time came to take the real SAT Exam.

The following spring, my son took an AP Exam given by the College Board. The proctor gave my son extended time to complete the exam. After my son had spent many hours on the exam, Mike Kenny learned that the proctor had given my son extended time. Kenny then called my house to say that there was a problem with my son’s test because the College Board had again not approved my son for extended time but the proctor had given him extra time in error so a report had to be made to the College Board with the likely result that the test would be deemed invalid. My son would have to retake the AP Exam at a later date.

Needless to say my son, my wife and I were extremely unhappy — both that once again my son was being denied extended time when it should have been granted and that when it was not granted we were not informed so that through no fault of his own, he was given extra time when he should not have been. In short, because Mike Kenny and his staff had screwed up, my son (as usual) would be the one made to suffer the consequences. Mike Kenny made all sorts of excuses all while repeatedly pointing the finger at the College Board.

Kenny’s behavior is typical of the sort of screw-ups who work for the school district. He is tenured so, short of raping a student and being caught in the act on video tape, he has a job for life. He knows he can count on administrators like New Rochelle High School Principal Don Conetta and Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak to cover his tracks. And he knows that the parents will have no way to get access to the sort of information that would contradict his claims.

In this case, however, Kenny miscalculated.

What no one working for the school district knew — and I did not waste the call on a practice SAT Exam — is that the General Counsel at the College Board is a childhood friend. I do not like to bother my friends with this sort of thing unless absolutely necessary but listening to Kenny’s various, shifting explanations I finally had enough and picked up the phone. The next I got a call back. Surprise! Mike Kenny had been lying from day one.

The General Counsel of the College Board informed me that the College Board had never denied a request to grant extended time to my son. The problem was not that the College Board has rejected my son’s application for extended time but that Mike Kenny had never filed one. Confronted with this information, Kenny finally admitted that my son’s name was not on the list sent to the College Board to get extended time for the PSAT Exam or AP Exam but he did not know why. Kenny also revealed that my son’s name was not on the list at the New Rochelle testing center either. In fact, he was not on any “extended time” list anywhere.

Now this was a real puzzle. As a classified student he was entitled to extra time yet no one had him on any list as getting extended time all while the proctors at the testing center and the proctors had been giving him extended time for every exam. Tune in to next week’s installment of “Profiles in Cowardice” to learn why my son was not on the New Rochelle High School testing center list as a student entitled to extended time even thought everyone at the high school was under the impression that he was on the list.