Open Letter to Interim Superintendent McCartney
בס”ד
Welcome, Mr Superintendent, to the Troubled and Dysfunctional Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk School District!
Dear Dr McCartney:
We welcome you with open arms, although you’ll find most hearts and minds (what few functioning ones there are) in this district closed to anything new or positive, which might threaten the chronic stagnation here, and we would like to take this opportunity to offer some well-intentioned advice and provide some caveats.
First of all, the way has been paved for you with broken glass and rusty nails, thanks to the vociferous group we have aptly baptized the Coeymanazis. The Coeymanazis are a loosely knit group of self-serving, nay-sayers who will brutally attack anything not part of their narrow-minded and myopic agenda and anyone who might expressly or impliedly differ from their backwoods and Neanderthal opinions. Their idol is Mammon and they celebrate the cult of mediocrity.
Liberty Weeps!
Main Street Ravena is the result of their mentality and may the gods help you if you’re a businessperson in the RCS district with any notion of freedom of speech. Take for example, the bipedal bovine Donna Leput-Hommel, who promised on the Pieter B. Coeymans PTO FaceBook page to “punish them with our checkbooks” if they voted against the 2012-13 school budget. (She is the infamous one who had to be asked to leave a business persons’ meeting because she was out of order, and her behavior less than adult.) As for residents and parents who dare exercise their Constitutional rights, there’s been plenty of coercion, retaliation, intimidation, and bullying to ensure silence and acquiescence. Under past superintendents, who simply hitched a ride and jumped ship when it was convenient, the rule was business as usual.
You’ve already had a taste of the typical welcome offered to anyone who even remotely threatens the status quo of deceit, harassment, hypocrisy and backstabbing that has become the trademark of this district.
Under past boards of education, the same applied because the teachers union and the teachers clique on the RCS CSD board of education ensured the the game rules were their own. There was plenty of graft and corruption and plenty of favors to go around. After all, they controlled the purse strings, that is, until the auditors recently caught up with them.
Modus Operandi
The present RCS CSD board of education is now split between the minority teachers clique and the majority RCS business-group. It’s important from the outset that you understand that the Coeymanazis back the teachers clique, and stop at nothing to ensure that every appearance is made of dysfunction. That way they can always count on the local rag the Albany Times Useless to report on the scandal, enlist the aid of the local sociopaths to provide strikingly personal and toxic comments on the Times Useless blogs, and so ensure that the RCS Central School District remains a backwater dysfunctional laughing stock plagued with scandal, corruption, and retaliation.
You’ve really stepped into a nest of vipers, Sir, but your record is one of a stalwart, intrepid, competent, and progressive executive who takes no shortcuts to clean house and run things by the book.
The district is plagued by corruption and retaliation. The Coeymanazis have in the past made many promises, never were able to keep them, but because they’re made of non-stick plastics, thanks to sitting BoE member James Latter’s connections with Sabic plastics, they have managed to stay relatively unscathed (this is due in part to the unprofessional and disrespectful conduct of the teachers clique on the BoE and the unwashed in the gallery). The fact that the last superintendent, Elizabeth R. Smith, was one of them didn’t help, and the fact that the job was absolutely bigger than she was almost lethal to the district. (That’s why no one in the media points out the fact that she was hired to a job that was beyond her competence only to enhance her pension! Being in the club has its perqs.)
Dirty-Hands Jerry Deluca
You’ll soon learn the names of Cathy Deluca, Gerald “Dirty-Hands” Deluca, and others in the Coeymanazi clique. Matt “the Mutt” Miller, president of the RCS teachers association, known teacher bully, past double-dipper, close ally of the teachers clique on the RCS BoE is one to keep your eye on. Your athletics coaches like Ron Racey, Gary Vanderzee and their minions have a less than desirable reputation when it comes to student and parent abuse. 
Organizations who thrive on the implied endorsement of the RCS CSD like the so-called RCS Sports Association and the RCS Bottle Blitz need to be tightly monitored and controlled. (In fact we demanded that a public statement be made by the district distancing itself from the two maverick groups but Smith never dared take that step.) FaceBook is where both Coeymanazis and vipers feed and nurture each other on sites like Save the Arts at RCS, RCS Sports Association, RCS Friends and More, and the Times Union Blogs. (In all fairness, the Save the Arts, Sports Association, and Friends and More sites are populated by some very dedicated and caring people, but regrettably the sites are frequently misused and become soapboxes and grandstands for the Coeymanazis, too!)
Matt “the Mutt” Miller
In the past year, this district has been subject to every conceivable indignity possible: It is delusional and thinks a 77% graduation rate is superior (it is to small minds). The corridors, classrooms, and playing fields are playpens for bullies; the bullies are not just students but include teachers like Matt “the Mutt” Miller, sports coaches like Ron Racey, Gary Vanderzee and his sub-human assistant coaches. The administrators are worse still and have done practically nothing in terms of facilitating the provisions of the Dignity Act. In fact, recent weeks have brought to light outrageous misconduct and student abuse at the hands of even transporation personnel! Bullyingat all levels is alive and well at RCS. This is due, in part, to the incompetence and indifference of the last superintendent.
We sincerely hope that the parents of those suffering at the hands of teachers, coaches, and students will come forward either publicly or confidentially to apprise you of the scandalous situation here in the RCS CSD.
The norm has been to go after the kids to punish the parents. Yes, it is cowardly, but it is true. That’s one of the many reasons why the district is facing numerous lawsuits.
You’ll have to learn to live in harmony with the local wildlife, as repulsive as that may first seem to anyone with a whit of integrity. But you are faced with the major task of taking control of a pack of starving rats, corraling them, culling the rabid ones from the pack, and re-training the rest. You are faced with the daunting task of establishing new standards–there are no old standards to re-establish–for accountability, responsibility, and transparency. You are about to confront the challenge of your rich and rewarding career in that you are going to have to identify and mark the wolves in sheep’s skins, traitors and saboteurs in this district and render them ineffective. Once that is done, you can then address the unwashed and educate them–that’s going to be a handsome task given the years of literal brainwashing to which they’ve been subjected by the Coeymanazis.
Bottle-Blitz Cathy Deluca
You will be sickened for certain by the delusional detachment of most residents, a deplorable group of parents who feel that they are entitled to daycare services (the A.S.A.P. program headed by whiner-in-chief [with the support of the Coeymanazis], Alice Christiana, for example) so that they can avoid parenting and continue as working parents, with the assurance of knowing they don’t have to be with the kids. (See our article, Attack and Backpedal! Teacher’s Clique Bites and Backpedals!) Yes, Sir, that’s apparently what they believe: That they are entitled to after-school activity programs from the schools here, and expect that the program operators need not pay rent or pay for the use of the facilities. It’s all part of the RCS dementia disorder, the political agenda and misinformation that calls this district home.
You have entered the realm of lawlessness and the land of never-comply-with-policy/procedure. It’s a literal Twilight Zone and Rod Serling would have been proud to have penned it! You will have to undertake a review not only of internal accounting practices in the district, taking into account the recommendations of recent audits, but you will be called upon to enforce existing policies and procedures. Be assured the opposition will be merciless and relentless, they’ve been too corrupt for too long to give up their stranglehold easily.
The positive side to this base-metal coin is that you will be welcomed by a largely silent majority. Once you have established yourself and you have convincingly reached out to the majority who have been suppressed for literally decades, when you can establish yourself as the chief executive in this district and call it back to order, when you have taken command of the helm of this floundering ship and control its rudder, only then will you be able to do the magic you did in your many years at Vorheesville: bring the graduation rate up to the high 90s and streamline the district.
Now if you haven’t hyperventilated in panic or already jumped an express train to get out of town fast …
You will have our support and the support of the majority in this district, despite the foul-mouthed disrespect and unprofessional rantings of the Coeymanazis and the teachers clique. There will be scepticism but it will be manageable once they see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Good luck, Sir, and Godspeed!
The Editor
בס”ד
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We welcome you with open arms, although you’ll find most hearts and minds (what few functioning ones there are) in this district closed to anything new or positive, which might threaten the chronic stagnation here, and we would like to take this opportunity to offer some well-intentioned advice and provide some caveats.
Albany NY a.k.a. Smalbany 
Very Concerned Parent
October 24, 2012 at 8:48 am
I have a student in RCSMS that has over the last 2 yrs been bullied and treated like crap by the lunch aides in the MS and try and let the child explain his/her side of the story…doesn’t matter…the RCS teachers/staff are ALWAYS right and the students are always wrong. Kids are treated with the utmost DIS-respect in the RCS School District and doesn’t seem like that will EVER change…even when parents go in taking their kids side…the teachers/staff at the RCS MS will not allow the parent to take the side of their child and they try and minipulate the parents into agreeing w/the teachers/staff…because the meeting(s) are always 1 sided and that’s the teacher’s/staff’s side because they are always right…LOL! Boy has RCS come a long way since I graduated from there and it’s not coming a long way in a good way…the RCSCSD just sucks and as long as we have crooked staff and board members things will NEVER get better! Shoulda moved out of the district many years ago…could had only been a blessing to my child where education and teaching respect is concerned…cause Lord knows no good happens in the RCSCSD!
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RCS Confidential
October 24, 2012 at 11:40 am
Dear Very Concerned:
First of all, we are at a loss why you find it necessary to address two comments using two different e-mail addresses and two different pseudonyms.But we would prefer if you were to use one e-mail account and one name only. While such practices don’t adversely affect our statistics or tracking, it is misleading for our readers. Such conduct is apparently common practice on the Albany Times Union blogs but we do not toleratd it here. If we are mistaken, please let us know a.s.a.p.
Now, back to your comment: You are not alone. We receive regular communications from parents with similar concerns and we give the same advice over and over again: Get together because alone they’re eating you up.
To be very honest, the last superintendent was a total loss. She was not right for that sort of job and should not have been hired in the first place. First of all, she was a company gal. Her history and loyalties were with the teachers and the administrators. Period. As long as the crooks and the teachers were in charge, everything seemed, SEEMED to be going smoothly. Why? Because it was going THEIR way, according to THEIR agenda. As soon as the new majority took their seats after the last election, after the teachers clique and the crooks pushed through their $42 million budget, certainly hoping that they would continue in the majority, they found themselves in the minority, holding the bag for all their hastily made promises (which they couldn’t have kept in the first place). Now, all they want to do is dis the new majority whose very first steps were to clean up the most obvious crooks, get things legal, and enforce policy, procedure, and rules of conduct. They were scandalized, defamed, libeled, personally attacked (look what they’re doing to board president Vadney and his family, look what they say about boardmember Lukens and his partner). Nothing is sacred to that bunch of crooks and self-interested buffoons.
So, you think they’ll treat you and your children any differently. Of course not! Do you think the administrators, principals and teachers will take you seriously when the 3-member personnel committee on the RCS board of education is made up of two teacher and administrator sympathizers (Howard Engel and Edward Reville (Engel’s brother-in-law!) with only the chairperson being a civilian board member, Jeff Lukens)? And the policy committee is headed by a teacher and consists of all teachers clique members (Chairperson: Howard Engel, Committee Members: Alice Whalen & James Latter)? I have at least four families who have experienced bullying of their children to get at the parents. You have a gang of four (The policy committee! Whalen, Engel, Latter, Reville) who are the most vicious, disrespectful, vengeful, unprofessional hate mongers you’ll chance to find, and they have no qualms about trashing anything the civilian majority table. They have no qualms about hanging their dirty laundry out during public sessions and feeding the rage and frenzy of the ignorant in the crowd. That’s how they do business.
But do you think for one stinking minute that they’d be civil and discuss student abuse or bullying in the schools? Or illegal concessions? Or how money is being handled? Or how the deficiencies found during the audits are being corrected? Or the outcome of the voting irregularities or voting fraud investigations?
Maybe, just maybe, this new Superintendent Dr McCartney will turn over some tables and start kicking some ass. Don’t let the scandalous media and the Coeymanazis distract you from the great things he did at Vorheesville. Think for a moment why they hate him so much here, and why they started early to trash the man. They are scared shitless of him and what he’s going to do when he revs up his engines and starts looking under the carpets and in the closets! He’s already asked why are there so many complaints and lawsuits in this district? He’s aware of what’s going on. He’s spent his profesisonal life dealing with creeps like ours in RCS.
I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it: Teachers or close relatives of teachers have no place on the board of edcuation.
Don’t despair! Get together with other parents who have similar problems. Ask your children if they know of any other children who are experiencing the same thing. The kids know more than the principals and administrators do, and many times don’t bring it home unless asked directly.
And don’t get distracted by cheap, and I really do mean CHEAP distractions and propaganda like the goody-goody Bottle Blitz and the holy Sports Association. They pull at heart strings to get what they want so don’t be fooled. If you’re not one of the inside club group, you’re an outsider. But you already know that all too well.
I’d make an appointment to have a meeting with Mr Vadney and Mr McCartney as soon as possible to discuss your problems. Get in there early and be factual, don’t go off track, don’t get personal, just give the facts, names, dates, etc. Be professional, don’t get overly emotional. I can’t emphasize enough: write everything down with dates, times, names, circumstances. Memories fade. Memories start getting creative as emotions heat up. Once you make notes, they’re credible.
Contact us privately if you have any questions or need support.
Thanks again for your comment. And good luck! We’re here to help.
Peace!
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Fran Pasquini
October 22, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Bravo! Couldn’t have said it better myself!
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RCS Confidential
October 23, 2012 at 6:53 am
Thank you, Fran! But why don’t you try 😉 I’m sure you’d do just fine kickin’ some butt or just telling a story. When things start getting better under Dr McCartney, we can even start a more upbeat thread.
Thanks again for your comment!
The Editor
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