Perhaps "the most prudent path" might have been to get legal advice before establishing the foundation.

Halleluiah! and Finally!

well done, new board!

Thank goodness...once under some sort of grant of immunity for testifying, ACPS staff/teachers will come forward with tales that will astound Alexandria's public!

I'll be very interested to see what results from this. From my personal experience dealing with John Cafferky at Blankenship & Keith, the school board and ACPS' outside attorney, I won't expect much. He didn't strike me as particularly sharp or aggressive, but I would like very much to be proven wrong here. If the board is looking for ways to fire Sherman for violations of his employment contract so they don't have to pay a termination fee, then I hope that they are successful.

Thank goodness! I don't trust Sherman as far as I can throw him. I'm so glad that the Board seems to be onto him and how he operates. Let's hope that they are successful in thwarting needless spending of taxpayers' money. I also hope that there will be no more "programs" thrown at the teachers. Our children deserve more than empty "programs". By the way, a former colleague of mine is telling me that for one of those "programs" there are NO resources, no books. Teachers are just supposed to teach without resources. Go figure.

It's sad that problems with ACPS can linger on, for so many years, without citizens getting totally up in arms and getting 'mad', like Peter Finch's character, Howard Beale, in the movie Network. Part of the problem is that Alexandria's population is mostly made up of people who don't have children, and those who do, a large amount of them go to private schools, thus, the percentage of students going to public schools in Alexandria is very low, in comparison to the overall population. If there are obvious 'problems', the newly-elected Alexandria City Public School Board needs to jump into the breach and grab the bull by the horns and work to resolve long outstanding issues, which, on the surface, look like trouble in a system that appears to be dysfunctional. But, well, we all know this is sleepy old Alexandria, who will just plod along, and not do anything in regards to schools, or trying to resolve any issues with Dr. Mort Sherman. God forbid anyone trying to question anything involving City of Alexandria Public Schools. What a joke. Let's hope the new school board takes care of problems the old school board left behind.

It is good to see the School Board performing the duties they were elected to do. Asking questions, giving deadlines for information, and following through when the Superintendent does not meet the requests he was asked to provide. There are many in the community that have seen this behavior for his entire tenure. It is good to see role reversal for the School Board - making the Superintendent responsible for his actions.

Once again the leadership of ACPS finds itself bogged down in a quagmire of its own creation. Not ten months ago ACPS leadership had to address questionable decision making and mismanagement of CIP funds. During that fiasco the superintendent blamed the actions on "some staff". Those staff members are now gone and now a new issue has reared its ugly head. Who will receive the blame for this mess? After the mismanagement of CIP funds and subsequent audit, where was the action backing the Superintendent's words to the public that "internal documents and procedures" would be "updated and made more rigorous?" Did that pledge not apply to this set of internal documents and procedures impacting our school system and students? Were the superintendent's words merely a false promise to quell public outrage? One of the troubling aspects, among many, is that this foundation is the superintendent's pet project and even as such is rife with mismanagement. If the superintendent can not properly oversee the operation of his own pet project, how can the public be assured that he can properly oversee the operation of our city's school system? If there is concern that the superintendent's pet project may be out of compliance with the Code of Virginia, how do we know that all areas of our school system are in compliance with state code? It appears as thought the "dysfunctional environment" highlighted in the spring audit may extend well beyond the division's budget office.

The real sin in all of this is the waste of millions (yes, millions) of dollars of taxpayer resources that did nothing to benefit the youth of our city. If the general public knew of the amount of money expended to perpetuate the Success for All reading program, if taxpayers knew how shoddily constructed it is, and how it has usurped quality curriculum, Morte would have been shown the door long ago. Incredibly, he remains as does Gwen Carol Holmes who, unbelievable as it sounds, is the former CFO of Success for All. Lying openly about the nature of the relationship between Johns Hopkins and Success for all, we, as Alexandrians, have been thoroughly fleeced. Some of the damage is beyond repair as thousands of faultless students have endured countless hours of mind numbing 'instruction.' God help you, Morte.

The law firm representing the Alexandria School Board as it investigates Mort Sherman's "foundation" also represents Mort Sherman personally in other matters. I am calling upon the school board to replace the firm of Blankenship & Keith, preferably with an Alexandria based firm so as to keep dollars in our city, in order to prevent any potential conflict of interest.

http://www.alexandriagazette.com/news/2013/jan/31/former-school-budget-director-files-discrimination/

The actual lawsuit can be found here:
http://www.alexandriagazette.com/documents/2013/jan/31/federal-lawsuit/

How many times does Mort need to get sued before someone figures out he's a fraud and a charlatan?

Contact the school board from this link. Ask them to replace Blankenship and Keith and to fire Mort Sherman.

http://www.acps.k12.va.us/board/contactsb.php