Report Inappropriate Comments

"So far, he said D’Agostino hasn’t produced a plan." This, in a nutshell, describes Dr. D'Agostino. He has been in the Superintendent position since 2012, and has shown no vision and little competence. The online Aspen portal that he describes has been a total flop, as the program itself is of poor quality. It is so lousy that at my friends' school, (Gorton), 80-90% of the teachers choose to pay $50 out of pocket each year to buy a better program that gives parents better online access to their kids grades. The two attempts at closing schools have been a complete disaster. He could have easily gotten the closures either time if he and those around him had the slightest competence and political savvy. All they had to do was go to the public meetings, present a reasonable and detailed plan, and then listen compassionately. You sit, listen to the anger, take the shots, and be understanding. You say something along the lines of, "Thank you, I understand how emotional and difficult this is for the community, we will carefullly consider your comments." Chances are, once everyone's emotional energy is spent you will be able to go ahead and do what you want anyway.

What you don't do is what the Superintendent D'Agostino and his fellow administrators did at the school closure public hearings:

-Show a powerpoint presentation where all of the numbers and figures are too small for the audience to read and keep pointing to it and saying "as you can clearly see," then acknowledge that no one can read it, and then angrily tell them that they all should have downloaded and printed out the powerpoint and brought it with them.

-Show a powerpoint presentation where the screen image is never changed from the title screen, and the superintendent and other administration read an incomprehensible script to the upset parents and taxpayers for over an hour.

-Make ridiculous claims that everyone knows is not true, like "It only takes 10 minutes to bus a student from Oakland Beach to Tollgate," and then not understand why everyone is upset.

-Get angry and yell at the audience for not believing him.

-When he is called a liar, puts the head of the City Council on the spot in the middle of the public hearing, and asks if he has ever lied to her. Dumbest political move I've ever seen in a public meeting. For the record, Donna Travis's response was "Up until now."

-Present a plan that is woefully incomplete, with almost no details as to how the closures and the transferring of students would actually be done. The planning basically amounted to "we will monitor the situation." Compare the plans they put forth to other districts that have made complex school closures, and you will be shocked at the difference.

-Talk all about money, and nothing about students, parents, and quality of education. Actually say that larger schools and class sizes could be beneficial.

-Not even plan enough to be able to tell parents how the district lines would be drawn. Not anticipate that a parent might ask the question "What school will my child be going to next year." Respond with "We will tell you after we approve the plan."

-Act in a clearly condescending and dismissive manner towards any questions asked by women. Give a "Now you listen here young lady" type attitude to these women. (I've actually had a conversation with a female school district employee who said that before meetings female employees would give their questions to their male counterparts to ask, because if they asked, D'Agostino would simply ignore them.)

D'Agostino is part of the old boy's club that has been running the Warwick school district for decades. They show no care for the students, parents, teachers, and taxpayers of this city. The previous Superintendent was paid off and asked to leave for undisclosed reasons. D'Agostino became the acting superintedent, then the interim superintendent, and then without any search or fanfare, was declared the actual superintendent. There were serious questions about pay, as it appeared that D'Agostino was actually being paid as the director of special education, and as the superintendent at the same time. When a young man asked at a school committee meeting how much D'Agostino was making, D'Agostino refused to answer and said it is public record, go look it up. When the man went to request these records from the school department, he was told that it would take hundreds of hours to put the information together, and that he would have to pay for that. He was told that when he gave them a check (it was over $500 dollars), they would give him the public information.

As a taxpayer, I am outraged by this. D'Agostino has no respect for the people who pay his salary, to the point where he thinks a citizen should have to pay to find out what we are truly paying him. Something is quite rotten here.

He is sitting on top of a rotten pile- look below him and you have the Director of Secondary Education, Dennis Mullen. Right under him is the Coordinator for Math and Science, who is Ryan Mullen. Nepotism, at an in your face kind of level.. Ryan was pink slipped as a math teacher and was going to lose his job, when this position became available. He was a young teacher and did not meet the minimum requirements of having a master's degree that the job required. The job description was rewritten so that it no longer required a master's degree, and Ryan interviewed and beat out a field of highly qualified candidates to get the position. Now he works for his dad. It is unbelievable that such a seemingly clear case of nepotism was not even questioned in Warwick. A real superintendent would have questioned this, and not allowed his district to be tarnished by such bald-faced illegal activity.

Dr. D'Agostino, though, is not a real superintendent.

It is time that we had a real superintendent.

Thanks for reading,

Ed.