Former principal alleges
school board over-budgeted f
or Life Skills classroom

The Yorktown Board of Education plans to spend $150,000 to create a Life Skills class in the high school, but former principal John Sullivan contends the district discreetly over-budgeted money for the project.

Sullivan contends that the $50,000 the school board put into the 2007-08 budget back in January 2007 was intended to cover the full cost of renovating a classroom in the high school for the Life Skills program.

When the board decided to use an additional $100,000 of a $1.34 million state EXCEL (Expanding our Children’s Education and Learning) grant for the classroom, Sullivan said he told the superintendent he was being dishonest about the figures because the original estimate hovered around $50,000 for the classroom.

The superintendent and board of education dismiss Sullivan’s claims, saying the $50,000 placed into the budget last year was “seed” money, not intended to cover the full cost of renovating the classroom.

The Life Skills program teaches students with disabilities basic cooking and hygiene skills, and the school plans to renovate a classroom in the high school with the necessary plumbing and electrical hook-ups and appliances: kitchen, washer, dryer, and bathroom.
Superintendent Ralph Napolitano pointed to an e-mail he wrote to faculty on Oct. 17, 2007, following a presentation about the EXCEL grant in which he outlined the reasons for allocating $100,000 to the Life Skills classroom project.

The e-mail states that the architects contracted for the project estimated the cost to renovate the room to be “somewhere between $100,000 and $200,000,” Napolitano wrote in the email. “They decided to use an in-between figure of $150,000.”
Napolitano continued: “If the room specifications, appliances and furniture cost less than this amount, the budgeted moneys can be put toward another project.”
In response to the e-mail, Sullivan said the architects’ estimate make it sound like the school district is building the room from scratch.

“You have an existing room,” Sullivan said. “All you’re doing is putting a hole in the wall. It must be the most expensive wall and sink in the history of mankind.”
Sullivan said truth will come out when the district goes to bid on the projects.
In a guest commentary in the North County News on April 16, Sullivan wrote that one of the reasons he believes he was fired was for blowing the whistle on the the money allocated to the Life Skills program.

“Why wouldn’t the board want the public to be informed of these over-budgeted funds,” Sullivan wrote in the commentary. “Could it be to have access to an additional $100,000 through the EXCEL grant for other projects that the board and Dr. Napolitano didn’t want the public to know about when they voted [for the EXCEL grant].”

Board of Education Trustee Karen Corrado said the board put $50,000 in the 2007-08 budget to get the ball rolling since the students in the classroom had already been held back a year in the middle school.

“We knew that this was coming, so we put $50,000 into [the budget], saying we’ll adjust it for next year,” Corrado said.

The state must first approve the projects the school district has planned to fund with the EXCEL grant. After that, the school district will go out to bid to hire a contractor to renovate the classroom. Taxpayers voted to approve the EXCEL grant last fall.
In the April guest commentary, Sullivan said he believed placing the Life Skills class in the high school would further overcrowd it, and suggested the high school move from an eight- to nine-period day.

Napolitano said he discussed the scheduling with high school staff, including the assistant principal, and that he did not believe it would be a problem, and that the school did not have to go to a nine-period day.

Sullivan also contended that trustee Karen Corrado was instrumental in getting the Life Skills classroom moved into the high school. She has a child in the program.
“She was a prime mover for getting [the Life Skills class] into the high school,” Sullivan said. “She chaired the committee that played a major role in getting the class into the high school.”
Corrado said she sits on the steering committee that oversees the entire EXCEL grant, and that the committee had directed the architect and district’s director of operations and maintenance to handle the logistics of placing the classroom in the high school. However, Corrado said there was no other committee for the Life Skills program and the special education department has handled the program.

Mike Rosen, supervisor of elementary special education (pre K-5), said the district has always intended for the Life Skills class to progress from the elementary to middle to high school level like any other class since the program began 10 years ago.

“Ethically it makes sense to keep the kids closer to home, and fiscally it costs more to educate kids out of the district,” said Joe Cassarini, supervisor of special education (pre-K-12).
The parent of a child in the Life Skills program, Barbara Diana, said the parents pressured the district to put money in the 2007-08 budget so the students wouldn’t arrive to an empty classroom, as was the case when the class graduated from Crompond Elementary to enter a middle school classroom devoid of tables, chairs or books.

Diana said she purposely chose to put her child in the school district because the former director of special education had assured her it would continue its Life Skills program throughout the grades and not “yo-yo” her daughter between school districts.
In past years, one or two students graduated from the Life Skills program at the middle school at a time and were sent to school districts around the county because the high school had no program for the students.

Now, five students are ready to leave the middle school program after at least four years in the middle school, and the special education department believed it made financial sense to build a classroom in the high school to accommodate the students.
Educating students in their home district is also the recommendation of the state commissioner of education. The state regulations on special education states:
“Placement shall be as close as possible to the student’s home, and unless the student’s individualized education program requires some other arrangement, the student shall be educated in the school he or she would have attended if not disabled.”

Educating students with special needs in other districts costs approximately $115,000 per student annually, according to Assistant Superintendent for Business Tom Cole. To send the five students to other districts would cost the district more than $500,000 this year, Cole added.
The district plans to hire a total of 3.8 employees to staff the Life Skills classroom, including one 1.2 full-time teacher, two teaching assistants, and 0.6 of a social worker. Cole estimates the 3.8 employees will cost the district approximately $152,000 in salary and benefits this year.

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