Please send this link to your contacts who may be interested in this topic. Link: http://wp.me/p2jPFe-1OT

Abysmal Graduation Rates, Crooked Teachers and Self-Serving School Board, $42 Million Budget, NYS Mandates for Anti-Bullying Training, a New State Law, the Dignity Act, and…

Still Violence in the RCS Schools. WHY?

But it Does if you’re a
Student in the RCS Schools

That’s an important point of investigation that is very likely to be made when the facts of a recent Notice of Claim come before the courts, and the Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk Central School District has to cough up an explanation Why? after a history and a pattern of student-on-student violence, attacks, ambushes, even suicide attempts have been allowed to continue!

An outraged parent recently served a complex Notice of Claim on the RCS-CSD asking just those questions and demanding, among other things, answers. Seems that a school district with a budget consistently larger than that of local municipalities combined and the biggest employer of morons in the area should be able to come up with the right answers. But looking at what we have to deal with in terms of teachers (if Martin Case or Matthew Miller or Brian Bailey are to be taken as examples) or support staff (like Rocco Persico, a school psychologist on the RCS payroll) or even principals like Pam Black or  Brian Bailey, well-liked (Why? Because he’s a dolt! A wingnut! That’s why he was made assistant superintendent for curriculum: to get the dolt, the wingnut out of the school! Wake up!), the causes are obvious.

Before the most recent board of education elections when the board was literally drowned with new teachers-clique members by re-electing of all people James Latter (known best for his abuses and breaches of confidentiality), Peter Brown of the Mary Partridge-Brown/Matthew Miller odd-couple (Now it appears it’s a threesome. Patrick E. Brown, of Brown & Weinraub, an Albany law firm, Mary Miller’s — Oops! Brown’s — husband, was elected but we know all too well who’s really on the RCS board of education: Matthew Miller, double-dipping teacher and teachers union rep), and newbie Jason Hyslop, a space-occupying lesion on the board, similar to a Edward “Teddy” Reville (drowsy-dog; and his name is not “Teddy”). So out of 9 seats on the school board, 6 are now occupied by teachers or member married to a teacher, or teacher tools (Brown & Hyslop). Can you tell where this board is heading? Does Latter’s wife or Miller’s wife get the principal’s position they’ve been hankering for but never got because they’re incompetent?

Well, back to the Notice of Claim… (Click here to read it in it’s entirety: Polyak Notice of Claim polyak_redacted; see also Village of Ravena, Town of Coeymans Police Department Served with Notices of Claim).

For six years Mr John Vadney and his colleagues on the Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk Central School District board of education fought against the teachers clique on that school board to redirect attention from the administrators’ and teachers’ pockets to student safety and education.  While the teachers clique had the majority on the board under the closet guidance of the teachers union, New York State Teachers United (NYSUT) and its local representative, Matthew J. Miller, a high-school science teacher, who at the time was double-dipping to the tune of $18,000 a year from the school budget and on a reduced teaching load (and still is) so that he could (and still can) do his union work on the school budget tab, members James Latter, Alice Whalen, Howard Engel, and previously Gerald Deluca and Cathy Deluca (subsequently voted off the board) saw to it that the teachers and administrators were well taken care of while graduation rates in the RCS high-school plummeted and school violence thrived.

Once the non-teachers were voted into the majority, positive things started to happen in the RCS school district and Mr John Vadney and his team were able to make considerable progress in getting rid of the incompetent local teachers’ choice superintendent Elizabeth “Betsy” Smith and hiring Dr Allen R. McCartney to come in and clean things up. Matthew Miller and the teachers clique vehemently opposed McCartney’s hire but were overruled by those with the best interests of the district, Vadney, Robbins, Sylvester, Krzykowsky, and Lukens.

Total lies; total business as usual for the teachers union and the teachers clique.

The teachers clique and their moles on the Coeymans police department (Gregory Darlington, Kerry Thompson (Darlington’s brother-in-law, and Gerald “Dirty-Hands Jerry” Deluca) attempted everything to discredit the non-teachers on the board of education from framing the then board president, John Vadney, to intimidating Jeff Lukens when he came to his son’s defense (as any father would do), to libeling and slandering Rodney Krzykowski for exercising his civil rights, to even inciting bullyism or retaliation on the children of board members. Readers will certainly recall how one student thug ambushed and injured Mr Vadney’s son as he entered the high-school—but that was kept neatly under wraps and, when Vadney’s wife filed a Notice of Claim for the incident, the “Friends of RCS” the teachers clique electioneering arm, the Delucas, Mary Partridge-Brown (wife of lawyer Patrick Brown, now a RCS board of education member) spread the misinformation that Vadney was suing the school district. Total lies; total business as usual for the teachers union and the teachers clique. For the “Fiends of RCS” if it’s illegal or immoral or unethical, it’s OK. And they were elected to the majority on the board of education and promptly took full credit for all the good that Vadney, Sylvester, Robbins, Krzykowski, and Lukens were able to get jump started—such as improving the graduation rates and getting school safety underway, complying with state mandates for anti-bullying programs and training, etc., financial responsibility, accountability, and transparency — all opposed by the teachers clique, James Latter, Alice Whalen, Howard Engel, Edward “Teddy” Reville, on the board and now joined by Patrick Brown (that is, Matthew Miller and NYSUT) and James Hyslop!

The Vadney board was student-centered, not teacher-centered as it is now. The Vadney board focused on keeping students on track, and above all, safe! But the teachers clique, getting more and more defensive and desperate as time went on, unanimously opposed anything the non-teachers proposed, And it’s not as if no one ever heard of the bullying in the RCS schools or of the Dignity Act passed by the NYS legislature in order to make school personnel accountable and responsible for preventing bullying. Anyone with two eyes to see with and two ears to hear with couldn’t possibly have avoided the regular pleas of Mr Laszlo POLYAK at almost every RCS board of education meeting pleading with the superintendent, the teachers, the administrators to do something about the violence in the schools. Mr Polyak was a regular speaker addressing the superintendent and the board asking when they were going to comply with the requirements of the Dignity Act (principals and school administrators were dragging their feet when required to start-up training programs and enforcement of the Act in the RCS schools).

And then Mr Polyak’s own daughter is brutalized during a recess period while supposedly under the supervision of an aid. And she was attacked and injured by a well-known offender who was known to have done the very same thing a number of times in the past!

So, readers, when gentle, then in-your-face New-York-style persuasion doesn’t work and you’re ignored, your child is injured, it’s time to take some serious in-your-face New-York-style legal steps. And that’s what Mr Polyak was forced to do when he filed his Notice of Claim. The violence in our schools must stop and if it takes a $10 million lawsuit to do it, What the hey! Go for it if it’s the only think this school district understands (besides its $10 million the teachers union and the crooks in the school system won’t get their dirty hands on!)

The Vadney Board made it happen and got the wheels rolling but the Vadney board didn’t have enforcement powers in the schools, the administrators, teachers and principals had that. Nor did the board have police power or the authority to compel the local police, the Coeymans Police Department, to do their job and get proactive in terms of prevention of the violence and enforcing or collaborating (with what?) in compliance with the Dignity Act! If the RCS schools were non-compliant, slow to implement the procedures, indifferent to the violence, the Coeymans Police were just as guilty. Some of the duties of the town of Coeymans Police chief Gregory Darlington, according to his job description, are:

• Administers and directs the operation of the police department;
• Recommends organizational changes to the Town Board and directs necessary procedural changes;
• Keeps Town Board abreast of major developments in law enforcement that affect department activities;
• Represents the department at conferences and meetings;
• Thorough knowledge of New York State Penal Law, Criminal Procedure Law, Vehicle and Traffic Law and all local laws and ordinances, regulations pertaining to police work.

Now we don’t think it’s stretching it when we ask: When the Coeymans Police Department has to respond to student-on-student violence, kids with guns in the trunk of their cars in the school parking lot, suicide attempts on school property, known bullying, coaches’ abuse of athletes and parents, violations of FERPA confidentiality (right James Latter?), reports of kids being denied boarding school buses and having to walk along Route 9W to get home, etc. wouldn’t you think the police chief would wake up and smell the coffee—the blood? Wouldn’t you think that the police chief would take the initiative and get proactive with acknowledging the problem? Wouldn’t you think the police chief would reach out to the board of education, to the school district with a plan? Wouldn’t you think the police chief would make an appearance at school board meetings to reassure the public that the problem is a priority for the local police? Maybe. But not in the Coeymans Police Department and not with police chief Gregory “DoDo cop” Darlington. And not with Gerald “Dirty-Hands Jerry” Deluca lurking and, together with teacher/union rep Matthew “Matt-the-Mutt” Miller,  harassing local women at BoE meetings.

DUH! Wadda I do?
The Coeymans PD’s Response

So the Coeymans Police Department is included in the recent Notice of Claim and rightly so.  If the Coeymans Police Department would act more like a community public service  organization rather than a Gestapo police state band of thugs hell-bent on retaliation, intimidation, and violation of protected civil rights, maybe the Coeymans Police Department and its police chief could avoid being named in lawsuits. Nah! That would require a Coeymans Town Board that did its job, that is, supervise the Coeymans Police Department and it’s police chief, Gregory Darlington, and do some disciplining where needed. But then, if the Town Board started coming down on the Coeymans Police Department, the board members and their families wouldn’t get special consideration and treatment, the felonies and misdemeanors wouldn’t disappear, would they?

 So what’s the deal Coeymans town supervisor Stephen Flach, board members Peter Masti, Thomas Boehm, Thomas Dolan, Dawn Rogers? When are you going to start doing your jobs and ensuring the Coeymans Police Department and its wimpy chief, Gregory Darlington, are doing their jobs, or else?

Mayor John Bruno and councilwoman Nancy Warner are too busy harassing the Teen Center and bitching about kids congregating around the Pulver Street gazebo

And then there’s the village of Ravena. The RCS middle and high school are in the jurisdiction of the village of Ravena, aren’t they? So what’s mayor John Bruno and village of Ravena councilpersons Nancy Warner, Martin Case (himself a teacher at the high school!), Rocco Persico (a school psychologist at the high school!) or William Bailey doing while all of this is going on? ANSWER: Not a damned thing! CORRECTION: They’re too busy whining about their water treatment and sewer bills from the town of Coeymans. Mayor John Bruno and councilwoman Nancy Warner are too busy harassing the Teen Center and bitching about kids congregating around the Pulver Street gazebo; they’re too busy cruising the gazebo at weird hours of the nite and getting the Coeymans police in a feeding frenzy over the “No Loitering” law (the subject of another Notice of Claim because the law is unconstitutional and unenforceable!). That’s the extent of the village of Ravena’s response to the violence!

See the recent article (click on the link):  Village of Ravena, Town of Coeymans Police Department Served with Notices of Claim.

More parents should take control and follow Mr Polyak’s lead

 We have already provided a link to the complete Notice of Claim served on the Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk Central School District and the Coeymans Police Department. If you’re interested in reading it, just click on the link above. We’ve redacted the minor student’s name from the NoC but it’s in all other respects complete as filed. More parents should take control and follow Mr Polyak’s lead. Maybe then the RCS CSD, the town of Coeymans, the Coeymans Police Department, and the village of Ravena will take these important matters more seriously.

You need to do it NOW!
The Editor