Roseville Community Schools
It Ain't What You Know, It's Who You Know.
Vote Matt Fletcher May 5, 2009
"Qui male agit odit lucem.” (He who behaves badly hates the light. - John 3:20)
Student Teaching
This is a long story but I will be as brief as possible and it is a perfect illustration of the vast inequities that exist in Roseville Community Schools.
I taught a class when I worked for General Motors/EDS and enjoyed it very much.
I quit that job working in marketing division at General Motors to go back to school to be a teacher.
I was one of those people who wanted to "make difference" in the world. I was accepted to Wayne State University in the graduate Master of Arts teaching (MAT) program and became certified before completing my MAT degree at Wayne State. My overall GPA was 3.86 and I worked a part time job while going to school full-time.
Click here
to see my degree. Click on all the blue letters on this page to see the linking documents. AFTER the images come up, click on it AGAIN to make the image larger for better reading.
After I became certified
I did my student teaching at Patton Elementary and received a nearly
perfect score
for my efforts and I was still working the part-time job to pay the bills.
Andrea Quain-Glynn gave me
this letter
of recommendation.
I also volunteered to do some extra work for the district on my own time and received
this outstanding dedication award
from Joe Steenland at a school board meeting. I was still working the part-time job to pay the bills.
After finishing student teaching in December I spent the rest of the year as a substitute teacher
in Roseville Community Schools and other districts. Eventually, I was given a long term assignment as a sub
at Kaiser Elementary. I did a good job and Wayne Johnson gave me
This letter
of recommendation and Mr. Johnson recommended me for a summer school teaching position in Roseville. Wayne Johnson and Andrea Quain-Glynn were the only
two Roseville administrators to bother observing me teaching. I thought that was odd since all the Roseville teachers told me that all the hiring is done from
the administration office on Church Street. Some school districts let the school Principals do the hiring because they are actually in the schools and see what is going on. How could the administrators on Church Street know who the best teacher candidates were if they never observe you?
That summer I had two different offers to teach summer school in Roseville. I was first asked to
teach forth grade.
Then,
Tom Lutostanski
asked me to teach sixth grade math. I taught the summer school sixth grade math and kept working my part-time job. That fall I landed a job teaching in a
Detroit charter
school making $35,000.00 per year. Two weeks into the school year I received a call from Mark Andrzewski and he asked me if I
would be interested in coming back to RCS as the building trades Paraprofessional.
The Paraprofessional job only paid about $13,000 per year which meant I would have to work a second job.
I wanted to come back to RCS because I lived in the district, student taught there and up until then, my
experiences in the elementary schools had been very positive. I told Mark I would "think about it."
Then, I received a call from Tom Lutostanski and he also
wanted to know if I would be interested in the job. I told him I would come by and look around, meet Mark Andrzejewski
and then decide. Mark Andrzejewski told me that he had just interviewed for the
Vice Principal position at the middle school, had not gotten it, but would not be the building trades teacher forever.
Mark seemed to think he was on the short list for an administration job. Tom Lutostanski told me essentially the same thing.
They made it sound like I would get the building trades job when Mark Andrzejewski got an administration job.
Tom and Mark both told me that the last two people who had the building trades paraprofessional position had BOTH been promoted into
better paying jobs. They said Mark Lehey was hired to teach at the high school and did not yet have his certification.
I thought, "Well
I am a hard worker, intelligent, certified, I will be able to get SOME SORT of a teaching job out of this situation."
Coming Back
I quit my job at the charter school making $35,000.00 per year and came back to RCS for less than half the money and worked a weekend job to pay the bills.
After awhile, Mark Andrzejewski's story changed somewhat. He said he didn't want an administration job because he didn't want
to have his weekends and evenings interrupted by going to football, basketball and other events that administrators had to attend.
However, Mark said he had been trying to get administrators to add another building trades teacher. He wanted administrators to
divide the class because 25-30 students in a building trades class was just way too dangerous. Mark said he wanted me to take the
first year students and work with them in the shop while he took the second year students outside to work on a house.
My attitude was, "okay, fine...but I can't be the paraprofessional forever because it doesn't pay enough." I was already
certified to teach elementary school so I started taking classes
to become a building trades teacher and I kept working my part-time job to pay the bills.
At the end of that year I received a perfect score on my performance appraisal. See the
front here
and the
rear here
I received a perfect score.
I also received
an excellence award for never missing work.
That summer I began to wonder if I had made a mistake in coming back to Roseville Schools and looked for a job in another district but could not find one. In my second year as the Vocational Paraprofessional I received another perfect score on my evaluations.
See the
front here
and the
rear here.
I also did some volunteer work with some high school kids for a marketing project called
DECA
not once but
two years
in a row. I was also a volunteer three years in a row for the student MITES events for Vocational Education.
Tom Lutostanski also asked me to teach after school reading and math programs at Roseville Junior High and at kaiser Elementary. I also kept
working my other job to pay the bills.
Everybody knew I wanted a teaching position because
the subject came up often. I had no desire to remain the $13,000.00 per year paraprofessional. However, I did not beg for a job.
I knew a female elementary teacher who lived in Roseville and student taught in Roseville. She told me that she actually
went to the administration building and begged for a job. Call me proud if you like but I can't do that....I can't beg,
it simply isn't in me to do something like that.
Poor Me
In the fall of 2004 the district had decided to build not one, but two houses with the vocational students. One day, just before Thanksgiving I was working on one house
with students while Mark Andrzejewski was working on another house.
Some students had stacked some plywood cantilevered over the joists of the unfinished house in an unsafe manner.
I did not notice and as
I was talking to a student, I waked on the plywood, and it flipped over with me and I fell 9.5 feet onto the concrete basement floor below.
I was nearly knocked out by the fall. The wind was knocked out of me, it was difficult to breath and I couldn't speak. Everything was spinning and I was seeing stars.
Students fetched
Mark Andrzewski from the other house and he immediately took the camera out of my pocket and handed it to a student named Tony Maggio. Mark told Tony to take
this picture.
That is Mark Andrzejewski in the picture pulling the blue hat down over his face.
I could not get up. My back was killing me and my elbow was split open and bleeding. Having the wind knocked out of me I still couldn't talk. Someone asked if I needed an
ambulance and I nodded yes. The Roseville Fire Department came and strapped me to one of
those back boards, put a neck brace on me and took me to the hospital. At the hospital, they wheeled me in the ER, cut all my clothes
off catheterized me and wheeled me off for cat-scans. They said I had not broken anything. However, I couldn't sit up without the room spinning so, they
kept me five hours until I was able to sit up.
An OSHA investigator showed up and the school district work site and
fined Roseville Schools
for a "serious" safety violation, and blamed the "personnel in charge" for unsafe work conditions. Roseville Community Schools was also cited for not having
a written accident prevention program.
Becoming The Enemy
Because my back still hurt, I went to my own doctor three days later. He didn't do an
x-ray because he said the hospital had and said I seemed fine. I went home but my back kept hurting and at times I thought it was actually getting worse instead of better.
Since I was hurt at work, I went to the school districts Workers Compensation doctor. She told me to bend over, side to side and noted
that I had a lump on my back where I said it hurt.
They had me fill out
this form as part of their evaluations.
The doctor said I had strained muscles and said I needed physical therapy. I went through physical therapy for several weeks
which included a large pregnant woman taking the heal of her hand and putting most of her weight on the lump on my back until it hurt so bad that I yelled out in pain.
This went on
for several weeks and my back still hurt...even worse. I ran into a friend of the family who is an medical doctor and they told me that workers compensation doctors
"are paid to NOT find things wrong with people" to save money for the insurance company. My Doctor friend told me to go to a doctor outside the Workers Compensation network and that is exactly what I did.
I had to convince the new doctor to do some tests because he thought that all the other doctors must have known what they were doing, and I must be wrong.
He ordered a bone scan on my back and that test indicated that I had a broken back.
exactly where I said it hurt
My doctor ordered an MRI and Roseville Community Schools Workers Compensation representative did not want to pay for it because about
three months has passed since the accident and she insinuated that I was faking my injury. The Workers Compensation representative said she
would MAIL me a form to complete and after I completed it, MAIL it back to her. I told her "how about she FAX me the form and I will FAX it back" to save time.
I said, I have an appointment for an MRI, I am not waiting for her approval and I will just put the MRI on my credit card if I have to. She thought I was bluffing. I was my impression and opinion
that the workers compensation company and Roseville Community Schools were actually trying to prevent me from getting treatment. They were very unhelpful and threw up excuses and roadblocks at every turn. I had become the enemy.
The
MRI bill
Was $1,075.00 on my credit card.
Click
here
to see my actual MRI.
Click
here.
for another view.
I had a severe compression fracture to my T-8. The bone was crushed by 1/2 inch on the front side. My symptoms were pain and swelling in the area of the break. I looked up the symptoms on the web and they were "pain and
swelling in the area of the break." I had a text book case. How it was overlooked....I don't know. Since then, doctors have told me everything from, "you will make a full recovery" to
"you will have problems with it the rest of your life." It is my understanding that if I ever become disabled from the injury I will get 75% of my
paraprofessional pay of $13,000.00.
My back still bothers me. Sometime it is the weather, sometime it is because I was on my feet too much, other times I haven't a clue
why it hurts. But I have always kept working. I haven't collected one dime from workers compensation and I only missed one day of work because of my back.
I did't know it was broken so I kept coming to work...in pain so that I would stand a better chance of being hired as a teacher. I THOUGHT I may stand a chance of being hired as a teacher, looking back, I can't believe how stupid I was. Fair treatment is not an option in Roseville Community Schools.
I took so much aspirin and Tylenol 3 that it
ate up the lining of my stomach and had to take medication for that. My blood pressure went from 120 over 80 to 168 over 92 and my doctor said it was from being in pain all the time. I started taking high blood pressure medicine and had an allergic reaction which put me in the hospital for 24 hours. After that, I stopped taking all medications. instead, I do yoga and modified my diet to bring down the blood pressure and take Tylenol 3 occasionally.
The Bills
As I said, the Roseville Fire Department took me to the hospital in an ambulance and they sent me a bill. Roseville Schools paid that bill immediately!
The Emergency room bill was over $9,500.00 and I received a call from the Roseville Community Schools administration building a few days after the accident and asked
how the bill was paid for. I told them that I had my Blue Cross card in my wallet and they took that out and charged everything on that. I was told buy the secretary
at the administration building that since I was hurt at work, the bill should have been covered by their workers compensation policy and to send the bills to the attention
of Becky Vasil. I did that....many, many, many times. Months went by and I kept getting bills, then over-due notices, then collection notices.
The collection notices looked
like this
and like
this one
I fell and was treated on November 23, 2004 and, apparently, by May of 2005 no one from Roseville Community Schools had contacted the hospital. In April or May of 2005 I received some sort of
bill summary from Blue Cross stating I still had deductibles to pay.
I called to see if Roseville Community Schools had ever contacted them to let them know about the mistake in the billing.
I told Blue Cross was hurt at work and the bill should have been paid by Roseville Schools Workers compensation policy and not Blue Cross.
Blue Cross knew nothing about the accident. Blue Cross was VERY
interested in what I had to say and connected me to the fraud department. Blue Cross told me that they had paid all of my medical bills except for the deductibles, when in
fact Roseville School's insurance was supposed to pay since it was a work related accident and it was clear to them that Roseville Schools had no intention of paying the bills. All of those phone calls between myself and Blue Cross transpired between April and May of 2005. On June 9, 2005 I got my lay-off letter.
The Blue Cross fraud department asked me for my cooperation and records, theycontacted Roseville Schools and got their money back from the hospital and sent me
this letter thanking me for my help.
In June of 2005 I received my
layoff letter.
It is a fact that companies and school districts generally do credit
checks on people before they hire them. If I had poor credit that could prevent me from finding a job. My biggest concern from the unpaid medical bills was the damage
it may do to my credit and prevent me from finding another job. Not only had I broken my back for RCS but now they were indifferent about wrecking my credit! Naturally I was angry about this.
At times my back bothers me and sometimes it doesn't.
I have tried
all of these
medications over the years but stopped taking all of them except for Tylenol 3.
Short Review
1. I student taught in Roseville and received nearly a perfect score on my evaluations.
2. Taught summer school in Roseville for two years.
3. Taught after school programs at Roseville Junior High
4. Worked as a paraprofessional for two years making about $13,000.00 per year and received PERFECT scores on all performance appraisals.
5. No top administrators from Church Street every observed me teach and could not have possibly made any sort of assessment of my ability except for my written
performance appraisals done by others. I had perfect scores
on my written employee evaluations from those who did observe me teaching.
Instead of being treated in a fair and equitable manner, I saw the friends and family of "Roseville Royalty" get hired in front of me.
6. I literally broke my back for the district and couldn't get a job, or even an interview for a teaching job which paid a living wage. I couldn't help but notice that members of the Haugh family,
Steenland family, Lafeve family, Hedemark family, Kment family...and their friends & in-laws slid right into positions even when they were not certified.
7. I live in Roseville and have a vested interest in the community. By contrast, many of the "Roseville Royals" don't actually live in Roseville but their mommy, daddy, or aunt Becky have enough influence to get them jobs.
8. I was never offered a teaching job, in fact, when I inquired about openings, I was told there were none. I NEVER got an interview for one of the many openings. But I did get
this
great coffee cup!
Pretend For A Moment
Pretend you are the Superintendent of Roseville Community Schools and one of your employees broke his back in an accident that OSHA said was the school
district's fault. Which would you do?
1. Step up the safety in the Vocational Education programs of the district.
2. Send the Vocational Instructors to additional safety training and review current procedures.
3. Require smaller classes and/or more instructors working with the kids to ensure better safety and learning experiences.
4. Lay off all the Vocational Paraprofessionals in the district so that there will be less supervision in the classrooms and thereby make
the dangerous situations even more dangerous. Never mind that there are dangerous tools and situations in vocational classes.
And, after the school district received $110 million dollars in bond money, you strangely don't
call back the laid off paraprofessionals but do hire several new teaching assistants for other programs.
Think about it. Why on earth would anyone pick number four? It has always been my opinion that John Kment and Becky Vasil laid me off because of the accident,
the OSHA fine, the nearly $10,000 hospital bill they tried to get out of paying, and the Blue Cross fraud investigation
which I cooperated with.
I also think they laid off the other vocational paraprofessionals just to get
at me and make it "look good" so that I could not make a case against them. I think they are so sinister and uncaring that they would lay-off classroom staff and endanger kids through less supervision in vocational classes without blinking an eye. I just hope a vocational student isn't injured or killed due to a lack of supervision.
That is my opinion and many Roseville teachers like Marty Quinn agree that
Roseville administrators are vengeful and spiteful people harass employees who dare speak out against them. Marty told me that as a teacher
union representative, he saw multiple instances of unwarranted administrator harassment of teachers.
I recount this story not because I want your pity. I tell it because you should know what kind of people are running your school district and because it illustrates
the vast inequities that exist between regular hard working folks and the "Royal Families" of Roseville. If I had been a Steenland, Kment, La Feve, Haugh, I never would have been treated so badly. Also, Based on my own
personal experiences with my accident, I think the people running our distirct will lie, cheat and steal and then try to make others look like the bad ones.
I never knew educated people could be so selfish and ignorant.