| P E Y T O N W O L C O T T |
| Conservative Commentary - Don Atkinson, principal (Jefferson Elementary/Great Bend USD 428) (Kansas) |
How we take back our children's education: one person, one question, one school at a time. |
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| Copyright 1999-2008 Peyton Wolcott |
"Walk softly and carry a big stick." -- Teddy Roosevelt "Trust but verify." -- Ronald Reagan |
| Just because you can doesn't mean you should. |
| However righteous or correct your cause, too often parents and taxpayers don't stop to consider the resources of their opposition. Our local school districts are well-oiled and well-funded, all with our tax dollars, PR machines. Our superintendents and administrators attend education conferences and trainings and seminars where they are coached in how to deal with disapproving parents and taxpayers. Our local schools also have apparently unlimited access to lawyers, whom they have demonstrated time and again that they will use all legal assistance available. Are you willing to take out a loan to pay your legal bills? |
| What's your motive? Are you taking action because you're offended that the district is violating rules and/or someone there is stealing? Are you motivated by the principle of the thing or do you want to achieve results and make real changes in your district? |
| More questions... |
| KANSAS Veteran administrator charged with stealing PTA, student council $41,000 By Peyton Wolcott Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 1:08 a.m. Updated Thursday, March 27, 3008-6:31 pm |
| Tom and Dwight, here's a specific example of how posting Great Bend's check register will help your community -- and how, had the check register been posted with some degree of detail in the past, your PTA and student council might be $41,000 richer today, without having suffered the embarrassment your district has just experienced in your community and nationally, not to mention the bother of filing insurance claims and involving local law enforcement. Let's use the example of an administrator such as a high school principal pocketing the PTA's or student council's money donated for a specific item such as a television for the high school, then turning around and asking the district to purchase an identical television but with district funds. Had Great Bend already been posting its check register online, folks in the community would have noticed the sheer number of TV's being purchased by the district. Posting Great Bend's checks online will help your employees -- including the best and most veteran and trusted -- to continued to do the right thing and be honest with funds entrusted to them. So you're doing everybody a favor. I suggest that Great Bend include a listing of all monies donated to the district and for what purpose with its monthly check register, and include for-what-purpose notations. |
| Questions for Great Bend supe Tom Vernon Tom, these are not "gotcha" questions. I ask them because the problem you've just experienced... keeps reoccurring all across America and every time the super- intendent vows to tighten internal con- trols. The $41,000 -- or whatever the final amount is -- repre- sents a great number of car washes and bake sales. My questions: 1. As an experienced public school super- intendent you have had both extensive training to prepare you for the superin- tendency plus likely attended a fair amount of taxpayer- funded education conferences presumably designed to enlarge your scope of expertise. At any point in any of this did anyone point out to you that trust and the careful handling of money are two entirely different entities, best kept far separate from each other? You are quoted by Adam Everett Marshall at KWCH as saying, "Incidents like these involve trust. And the violation of that trust you just don't expect." 2. Satanta, Kansas schools have voluntarily posted their check register online as a great first step towards transparency. Given the spot you and your schools are in, in terms of negative PR in your community, would you be willing to voluntarily post Great Bend's check register online? Other superinten- dents in other districts have done so this past year. I will be happy to help walk you through this process; it's very easy and could really help your situation. |
| Tom Vernon |
| the till. “It's a crime of trust," he said. "You put your trust in people and it's just devastating that things like this happen.” The school district says it is improving internal controls. (SOURCE--KSN) Great Bend is a great example of a school district which would benefit from posting its check register online. At the very least citizens would have noticed the sheer number of TV sets being bought. Here are my questions to Tom Vernon: |
| Despite being one of only 21 Kansas school districts recognized by Standard & Poor's for best use of district resources -- per the Kansas School District Efficiency Study* -- Great Bend USD 428, located in the heart of Kansas, somehow appears to have lax enough internal controls at its elementary school that former principal Don Atkinson, 54, has been charged with pocketing $41,000 in money collected by his school's student council and PTA. That's a lot of lollipops. |
| Don Atkinson (PHOTO--Great Bend Tribune) |
| According to district officials, who spoke on condition of anon- mity, here's what appears to have happened: school groups would have fund raisers for, say, a |
| new television for a classroom at the elementary school, then present the cash to Atkinson, who would apparently pocket it then ask the school district to pay for a new TV set for that classroom. Without secure internal controls, the equation was, "Money donated for a TV = a TV shows up," so no one noticed. Prosecutors say Atkinson stole the money between 2002 and 2007; he resigned last November after PTA leaders, following a training course in accountability and responsibility, took their con- cerns to school administrators, who called authorities. Atkinson had worked at the district for 28 years, 12 of them at the elemen- tary school. (SOURCE--Kansas News-Leader) |
| Great Bend super- intendent Tom Vernon's reaction was typical of most on learning that a long-time employee had allegedly robbed |
| Jefferson Elementary School |
| While congratulations are in order to Kauffman as they are to anyone doing anything to help our beleaguered American public schools, Great Bend has come to my attention this week via a series of news articles, it strikes me that a district with sufficiently lax internal controls such that a veteran principal could make off with $41,000 in PTA and student council monies isn't very efficient. Based on my experiences elsewhere, I'm wondering whether something like the following occurred: The Study focused on percentages and aggregated numbers, as generally occurs in public ed, with insufficient attention to internal controls including but not limited to embezzlement and theft issues. Was Kauffman's input to S&P only from its education department or did your financial group also contribute? |
| The Kauffman Foundation responds: |
| Standard and Poor's conducted the study to determine how well or how efficiently school districts are spending the dollars apportioned to them based on the academic results they are achieving. The study did not look at internal controls of each district nor did it look at how individual schools are spending or using their dollars. Copies of the reports and explanations of the methodology are available through the Standard and Poor's website. To further address any questions you may have regarding this study and the practices of the Great Bend School District, I have cc'd on this email Michael Stewart from Standard and Poor's who led the Kansas study team, Jeremy Anderson, Policy Advisor to Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Dr. Tom Vernon the superintendent of the Great Bend District. |
| Standard & Poor's response: |
| According to the Associated Press, the principal in question is suspected of taking PTA and student council funds. However, Standard & Poor's performed an analysis of the Great Bend school district's expenditures, not the accounts of a particular school's PTA or student council. Moreover, Standard & Poor's is not an auditing firm, and was not engaged to audit specific financial transactions or to inspect district accounting controls. Rather, Standard & Poor's was engaged to measure the efficient production of student learning; i.e., the relationship between the district's average per-pupil expenditure, and the extent to which the district's test scores fell above statistical expectations in light of the percentage of its students that have socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, limited English proficiency, or disabilities. (These factors can place students' academic success at risk, and frequently require additional financial resources to meet students' educational needs.) The district as a whole - and not any one particular school within the district - was found to be among the most efficient districts in the state in this regard, notwith- standing the suspected conduct of a particular school employee. |
| My next question As S&P "is not an auditing firm," and it "was not engaged to audit specific financial transactions or to inspect district accounting controls," why didn't Kauffman engage an auditing firm to do the Study? |
| KANSAS: Then-Jefferson ES principal Don Atkinson (L) with PTA president Pamela Kurtz |
| KANSAS More re elementary principal alleged theft By Peyton Wolcott Monday, March 31, 2008 - 1:08 a.m. |
| Remember the whistle blowers in the $11.2 million Roslyn, New York loss? There were two: someone who started the ball rolling with an anonymous letter, and the other an alert clerk at a Home Depot an hour from Roslyn who questioned why someone would be using Roslyn's credit card so far away from the district when there were other Home Depots closer to Roslyn. As it turns out, there were folks in Kansas, too. In 2006, then-Kansas PTA president Laura Kaiser, serving the second year of her two-year term, visited central and western Kansas PTA officers and administrators, along with Patti Jurich, a PTA vice president representing NE Kansas. "It was a challenge preparing for a trip of that scope, she said, "But it was important to make the trip," she says. "Although national PTA offers such good training, including online courses, and we have a state conference every year and excellent resources, because we're all volunteers busy with our own lives we recognize that not everyone is able to take advantage of the trainings available." Kaiser says that the trip enabled her and Jurich to focus on the basics such as good money handling, loss control and risk management procedures, plus informal question and answer sessions. Kaiser also presented local presidents with comprehensive notebooks they'd prepared for principals to use. |
H o w w e t a k e b a c k o u r c h i l d r e n ' s e d u c a t i o n: o n e p e r s o n , o n e q u e s t i o n , o n e s c h o o l a t a t i m e. Copyright Peyton Wolcott 2003-2008
| HAPPIER TIMES IN KANSAS Then-Jefferson Elementary principal Don Atkinson with Jefferson PTA president Pamela Kurtz |
| Colorado Springs |
| Given the heavy redactions in the copy of Don Atkinson's employment application I ob- tained in May from Colorado Springs, the district that hired Don after he resigned, rather than "retired" as stated on the application, in November after 12 years as Jefferson Ele- mentary principal--the applica- cation in its present form posed more questions than it answered, a good example being the "personal references" section below: |
| NEW READER SURVEY! What are your thoughts on Don Atkinson? Great Bend superintendent Tom Vernon? Colorado Springs #11 supe Terry Bishop? Don's the former trusted Kansas elementary principal (below and left) who recently sought employment at a Colorado school district before his trial on 63 counts of theft by deception (PTA and other school funds) begins in Kansas. Should Great Bend supe Tom Vernon have exercised tighter internal controls? Should Terry Bishop have hired Don Atkinson? Do you have any solutions for challenges like this which we face in varying degrees in all of our public schools? Please email me by Sunday night. Be sure to mention whether you are speaking on or off the record. I'll post at least a few of the most representative responses Monday. |
| 2. Are criminal charges currently pending against you? "No" |
| HOME |
| David Meter |
| All four individuals named above are Great Bend, Kansas USD 428 employees. David Meter, for instance, is assistant principal at Great Bend High School. In fairness to the individuals named I contacted all four by email and by telephone (where numbers were available) in order to give them an opportunity to clarify whether they had given permission to Mr. Atkinson to use their names in his applications for employment, whether they knew he was applying for a position in another school district in another state, etc. |
| When I pointed out to CSSD 11 that the identities of the four references were not confidential information, the district sent the four names. The four individuals named as personal references by former Great Bend, Kansas USD 428 elementary principal Donald N. ("Don") Atkinson in his employment application to Colorado Springs School District #11 dated February 15, 2008 are, in the order listed by Mr. Atkinson: |
| o David Meter o Janis Link o Carla Maneth o Alvena Spangenberg |
| Subject: RE: S&P KS schools efficiency study/Recipient: Great Bend Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 From: "Stewart, Michael" (Standard & Poor's) To: "Margo Quiriconi" (Kauffman), Peyton Wolcott cc: Joy Torchia (Kauffman), Dennis Cheek (Kauffman), Jeremy Anderson (Kansas Governor's Office), Tom Vernon (Great Bend USD 428) To all concerned: According to the Associated Press, the principal in question is suspected of taking PTA and student council funds. However, Standard & Poor's performed an analysis of the Great Bend school district's expenditures, not the accounts of a particular school's PTA or student council. Moreover, Standard & Poor's is not an auditing firm, and was not engaged to audit specific financial transactions or to inspect district accounting controls. Rather, Standard & Poor's was engaged to measure the efficient production of student learning; i.e., the relation- ship between the district's average per-pupil expen- diture, and the extent to which the district's test scores fell above statisti- cal expectations in light of the percentage of its students that have socio- economically disadvan- taged backgrounds, limited English proficiency, or disabilities. (These factors can place students' academic suc- cess at risk, and frequent- ly require additional finan- cial resources to meet students' educational needs.) The district as a whole - and not any one particular school within the district - was found to be among the most efficicient districts in the state in this regard, notwith- standing the suspected conduct of a particular school employee. Michael Stewart Director of Research & Analytics Standard & Poor's 55 Water Street New York, NY 10041 www.SandP.com |
| SUMMARY: Last November Donald ("Don") Ned Atkinson (R), a 28-year employee, resigned as Jefferson Elementary School principal in Great Bend, Kansas after PTA leaders at his school took their concerns regarding his cash-handling practices to their district's administrators. Don moved to Colorado and applied for a job at Colorado Springs School District 11 (see application below) on February 15 where he worked for a few months. When Don was indicted in March on 63 charges (17 felonies, 46 misdemeanors) arising from the theft of $41,000 from his school's PTA and the student council, he turned himself in to Kansas authorities and posted $25,000 bail, then returned to Colorado. His wife, also a long-time Great Bend educator, continued working at the district until the end of the school year at which time they sold their house and moved to Colorado. Don was sentenced to 60 days in jail on Friday, October 10, 2008, repay $41,000 plus court costs, and serve at least two years' probation afterwards. |
| Indictment/Arrest |
| Questions re GB & 2007 award |
| Jail |
| Don's next job: Colorado Springs SD 11 |
| Great Bend USD: Were top administra- tors too naive? Too trusting? Lax? |
| Standard & Poor's explan- ation for how they studied Kansas schools' efficiency without conducting audits |
| Query to Kauffman My query to the Kauffman Foundation in Missouri: |
| In 2007, the same year that Don Atkinson was arrested, Great Bend USD 428 was honored by Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius for having "100% efficiency" in its education delivery. How such a proclamation came to be made without an audit is a mystery. The study was conducted by Standard & Poor's and supported by the Kauffman Foundation and Sebelius, a Democrat. |
| Q: What does this say about the S&P study? |
| How unlucky could one school district's HR dep't be in just 2 days? |
| First CSSD 11 substitute teacher Lloyd Clark, Jr. was arrested on February 14, 2008 for attempting to solicit sex from a male student, then the very next day the district hired Don Atkinson -- without first doing a federal background check. |
| Lloyd Clark, Jr. |
| Clark, a 40-year teacher, was arrested after "a 15-year-old boy told police that [Clark] offered to pay him $1,000 to allow the teacher to perform oral sex on him, according to an arrest affidavit. Police later had the student call the teacher and taped the man arranging a time and place for him to meet the student and pay him $20 for sex. (SOURCE--The Colorado Springs Gazette) |
| DON ATKINSON'S CSSD 11 APPLICATION |
| Atkinson gets 60-day jail sentence Great Bend Tribune PAM MARTIN pmartin@gbtribune.com 10/11/2008 9:44pm Former Jefferson Elementary School Principal Donald N. Atkinson was led from the Barton County Courtroom in handcuffs Friday, on his way to the Barton County Jail to serve a 60-day sentence. Telling those gathered in the courtroom her sentence was based on mandatory sentencing guidelines for the state of Kansas, District Court Judge Hannelore Kitts sentenced Atkinson to 60 days in the Barton County Jail, 24 months of supervised probation and 48 months of jail time if Atkinson violates his probation. He will serve no house arrest. Atkinson had pleaded guilty to six counts of theft by deception, three felonies and three misdemeanors, stemming from 63 original theft-by-deception counts. The victims were the Jefferson Elementary Parent Teacher Association and the student council. The thefts took place from 2002 to 2007. Atkinson also agreed to pay $41,107.56 in restitution, which is to be paid within 120 days after he is placed on probation. "I'm not taking lightly what I heard (today) and reviewed in your file," Kitts told Atkinson. It is hard for people to understand how an educator awarded such accolades and praise could end up standing here today in front of me, Kitts said. "It's difficult to understand and how you went about it is difficult to understand for these people." Atkinson was also charged court costs, processing fees, and a $100 DNA fee. Because Atkinson, who now lives in Colorado, was charged in Kansas, he will have to apply to Colorado to serve and report for probation in that state rather than Kansas. During the proceedings, Atkinson read from a statement, talking to Kitts, who told him to turn around and address the courtroom. He did not, however, look at PTA members sitting on a front-row courtroom bench. Atkinson said he was not denying the allegations and "was truly sorry for what I did." During counseling, which he entered after charges were filed against him, Atkinson said he learned people have idols and his was money, which drove him away from friends and co-workers. "I had an alcoholic dad who was abusive," Atkinson said, breaking down and collecting himself to continue. "I know I hurt and angered a lot of people," he said. "I hope someday people will be able to forgive me for what I did." Atkinson said he promised nothing like this would happen again and that he had turned over his license to teach. During the sentencing proceedings, Pam Kurtz, who was president of the Jefferson PTA when the theft was discovered, spoke to the court, asking for a punishment the kids would understand and talking directly to Atkinson at times. "This was a crime not just about money," she said. "It will be repaid. What we can't get back so easily is trust." As the PTA was planning events, Atkinson was planning ways to deceive them, Kurtz said. Kurtz asked Atkinson how he could sit in their meetings and scheme on how to use their money for himself, endorsing school checks to his own account, "not just once or six times, but many, many more." "You took advantage of a group of volunteers," she said. Kurtz asked the judge to consider jail time. Three individuals spoke on Atkinson's behalf: Anna Faye Hensley, former Jefferson Elementary School secretary, Dale Carpenter, former teacher and guidance counselor, and Atkinson's sister. Hensley said she had known Atkinson for 30 years on a day-to-day basis. Saying she had worked with him side-by-side, she admitted she "didn't know the Don Atkinson that's been accused." Hensley said Atkinson and his family had suffered, that he had made a mistake and lost his reputation. She asked for "hearts to soften." Carpenter also spoke of Atkinson as a respected administrator and said Atkinson was a "good person who's done something bad." Atkinson's defense attorney Randy Henry spoke of Atkinson's former achievements, saying the fact he committed a criminal act should not diminish the fact he's done great things for the community and kids. Atkinson has lost his job, community and teaching certification. "He's been punished beyond anything the court can do to him," Henry said. During his comments, Barton County Attorney Douglas Matthews said Detectives Rick Popp and David Paden spent hours investigating the crime. "We wouldn't be here today without their work," Matthews said. Although he said the state stood by the plea, Matthews did take exception to some of what defense attorney Henry said in his remarks. "This individual came here with the highest ideals and lost them," Matthews said. "He misused the authority placed in him over an extended amount of time." Speaking to the difficulty of understanding why Atkinson embezzled funds, Matthews said they found no financial reversals, no drug addictions, none of the expected reasons. "The only conclusion we can draw is that for the better part of 10 years the defendant took that money simply because he wanted to." |
| 4. Have you ever resigned from any job where you were advised that you would be terminated if you did not resign? "No" |
| Personal References |
| Reason for leaving: "Retired" |
| PERSONAL NOTE: Thank you to Rochelle Wolfe and Elaine Naleski of Colorado Springs School District #11 for their quick response in producing the application, and special gratitude for their being willing to produce it electronically. |
| David Meter |
| TROUBLING: o that Colorado Springs School District #11 would employ someone -- especially someone from out of state -- to work with children in any capacity without verifying their status against the national databases available to them. o that CSSD 11 did not call Don Atkinson's former bosses, only his coworkers. o that Don Atkinson was still employed by the district a week after the district received a negative FBI report based on his fingerprints. o that Don continued to be employed at CSSD 11 until I telephoned and started asking questions. It was only then that the district began to take action. BOTTOM LINE: Here's hoping CSSD 11 will tighten their employment practices. |
(Last updated October 14, 2008)