The Dagger has obtained the following memo to the members of the Harford County Education Association from President Randy Cerveny, outlining the events leading up to the filing of a grievance over the Association’s use of the Harford County Public Schools e-mail system. The grievance was filed by the HCEA with Harford Schools Superintendent Robert Tomback on January 20, 2010. According to Cerveny, Superintendent Tomback has ten days to respond to the filing.
In the memo, HCEA President Cerveny writes that he was notified by the school system on the morning of January 11 that e-mails he sent to HCEA members regarding upcoming board meetings were considered “an abuse of the contractual agreement” between the HCEA and the board of education. Cerveny was instructed not to send any future e-mails without first getting approval for “appropriate content.”
The memo doesn’t offer details of the alleged abuses or discuss the content of the e-mails that triggered the warning. But the board meetings at the time involved budget hearings on a proposed 2% salary cut next year for school system employees. In fact, on the evening of the same day Cerveny was notified of the supposed violations, teachers packed a planned school board meeting and Cerveny and several teachers spoke in opposition to the cuts.
Cerveny’s memo goes on to say that he contacted legal counsel and was advised that his e-mails were not in violation of the negotiated agreement.
On the morning of January 12, the day following both the notice from HCPS and the board budget hearing, Cerveny writes that he was unable to access his HCPS e-mail account. Cerveny then contacted the HCPS Help Desk and was told that his e-mail account had been “disabled.”
Cerveny writes that after attempts to resolve the situation directly with Superintendent Tomback, HCEA filed a grievance.
Cerveny declined to offer further public comment on the matter, citing the grievance process now underway.
Here is the full text of Cerveny’s memo to HCEA members:
Sounds like Tomback plays to win, regardless of the rules. That’s not setting a very good example for the students.
I wonder how he feels about his grading system being (temporarily?) suspended.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-aim0126,0,7960281.story
It doesn’t seem that Tomback is at all interested in “setting a very good example for the students”. He is mostly interested in “covering his a%%” and any all of his employees’ a%%’s if they make a mistake. What the heck every happened to, “I’m sorry, I made a mistake. This is what I’d like to propose to make it right:…”?
I am really starting to wonder what is up with Dr. Tomback. He had no experience coming into this job and it really shows. Maybe he has inherited the management style of the superintendent of Baltimore County. He is learning on the job on the backs of Harford County taxpayers at $190,000 + great benefits. More than the Governor, HCC President and anyone else in this county. This county deserves much more “bang for the buck” as the school system likes to say.
He was certainly the least qualified of the candidates when the hiring process was in full swing. Maybe he is the proverbial hatchet man – hired solely to do the bidding of the board, only to be “fired” at a later date with a full buyout.
Grotsky, part 2.
I think is was randall’s political left-leanings with inappropriate comments that may have got his emails stifled. Like when he called all the folks at a county council meeting “teaXXXXXXers.”
Has anyone heard anything else about this or has it just all blown over?