A couple days ago we questioned the number of non-work-related boards of director meetings Jefferson County Public Schools superintendent Sheldon Berman has attended in the recent past.
We filed an open records request with JCPS and today received a response. Keep in mind, however, that our request did not question any personal travel dates outside of board meetings and didn’t seek to determine the amount of time Berman spends out-of-district on JCPS business.
So let’s take a look at Berman’s travel to non-JCPS board meetings:
- On Friday, December 14th, 2007 he attended the Campaign for Civic Mission of Schools Steering Committee in Washington, D.C. Meaning he could have traveled to D.C. on the Thursday before missing a total of two days of work for the meeting.
- On Thursday & Friday, January 10th & 11th, 2008 he attended the National Center for Learning and Citizenship Board meeting in Denver. If he traveled on Wednesday, he missed three days of work.
- On Monday, May 19th, 2008 he attended the Center for Applied Special Technology Board meeting in Boston. If he traveled back to Louisville on Tuesday, that’s two days of work.
- On Monday, June 2nd, 2008 he attended the Educators for Social Responsibility Spring 2008 Board meeting in Boston. Back on Tuesday, that’s two days of work.
- On Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 he attended the National Center for Learning and Citizenship Board meeting in Austin, Texas. If he traveled to Austin on Monday and returned home on Wednesday, that’s three days of work missed.
- On Thursday, September 25th, 2008 he attended the Center for Applied Special Technology Board meeting in Wakefield, Massachusetts. There on Wednesday, back on Friday = three days of work.
- And on Thursday, January 22nd he again attended a Center for Applied Special Technology Board meeting in Wakefield. Another possible three days of in-district work missed.
Berman’s office tells us no school district funds were spent on travel. But that’s a total of 18 missed work days for non-JCPS-related meetings. May not seem like a lot to the average person, but that’s 18 days throughout the school year. And some of those missed days ended up costing JCPS money in the form of district-wide contracts for software and services.
If he were any other state employee, Berman would be in a heap of trouble with Ethics and other investigative agencies. So you folks still wanna tell me the appearance of impropriety doesn’t exist?
There’s more to this story, so stay tuned.
5 responses so far ↓
1 jcpshope // May 1, 2009 at 2:17 pm
resign now and take arthur and martin with you.
2 ToddSmith // May 1, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Question- To whom exactly does he answer to?
3 Bruce Maples // May 1, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Sorry, Jake — I’m absolutely in agreement with you on the VHS conflict of interest (and gave you credit when I blogged about it), but I think you’re off on this issue. Berman’s an exempt employee — which means he’s not on a time clock. If he misses work one day, he’s supposed to make it up some other day. And considering the nights, Saturdays, and even Sundays he probably puts in, missing those days for board meetings is Not A Big Deal. If no JCPS money was spent for travel, then I don’t think there’s anything there. (Although, I didn’t get the reference to cost of “district-wide contracts.” Can you elucidate a little more on that?)
The other stuff — yeah, let’s keep looking at it. But attending board meetings on your own time and dime is not an issue.
4 jake // May 1, 2009 at 8:57 pm
If it’s during the week, it’s hardly on his own time.
District-wide contracts = the virtual high school contracts he pushed on JCPS from the board upon which he sits. So far it’s just two high schools, but just wait.
Over the next several weeks we’ll be examining all of Berman’s time away from the job, time permitting.
5 Mona Lisa // May 27, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Have we checked to see what country the superintendent is in currently on PD with his running partner in tow? You might be interested in this.
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