NEW ROCHELLE, NY — Over the past year, New Rochelle Board of Education President Jeffrey Hastie has done a lot of big talking but when it comes to transparency, as the nred.org website shows when it comes to providing information from school board meetings, townhalls and sub-committees, it has been nothing but hot air, a big #fail.
Hastie runs the school board meetings and town halls, the Facilities & Finance Committee and the Culture & Climate Committee. Updates and responses from these four meetings are a combined 517 past due, an average of 129 days. The remaining four committees, not run by Hastie, are a combined 101 days past due, an average of 25 days.
Facilities & Finance Committee*
Last Updated 10/24/18 (157 days)
Town Hall Updates*
Last Updated 11/14/18 (136 days)
Culture & Climate Committee*
Last Updated 11/28/18 (122 days)
Board of Ed Follow Up Questions*
Last Updated 12/18/18 (102 days)
Advocacy & Community Outreach Committee
Last Updated 2/13/19 (45 days)
SAVE Team (School Violence)
Last Updated 2/15/19 (43 days)
Policy Committee
Last Updated 3/20/19 (10 days)
RESCUE Committee (Facilities Health & Safety)
Last Updated 3/27/19 (3 days ago)
This failure rate is more pernicious when you listen to these meetings (in the cases where there is audio). Members of the public have asked loads of questions and either get no response or a false or misleading response. In many cases those false or misleading responses are streamed or broadcast over and over again to an unsuspecting public.
At the February Town Hall on Security, I submitted a simple question the week before: what was being spent with the three investigation companies (T&M, Guidepost Solutions, Alteris) and what budget line item was used to pay them.
Hastie doubled-down on a knowingly false statement by Interim Superintendent Dr. Magda Parvey that the District did not pay for the T&M investigation into the Apex Grade Fixing Scandal (they both ignored answering at all about Guidepost and Alteris). I challenged these false statements during the meeting but was asked to send an email with my question (I already had the week before). I was told after that this and all my other questions would be answered in Q&A posted on nred.org. I have followed up a dozen times since. Not only was no answer ever posted but the video depicting Hastie and Parvey making KNOWINGLY false statements was posted on the nred.org home page next to the woefully incomplete Q&A page (just 3 questions from the entire event were addressed, none of them mine).
My questions about the board proposes to address video of false statements presented without annotations have gone unanswered and were not acted upon.
Talk is cheap, as Hastie has demonstrated over and over again.