FRIENDSHIP, Maine — The Regional School Unit 40 board gave its unanimous backing Thursday night to its superintendent amid claims that she simply took the strategic plan of another school district and passed it off as her plan for the district.
The board vote came after an approximately 90-minute closed-door session with Superintendent Susan Pratt.
A motion was made by board member Tod Brown that the board had “no doubt” that the plan she submitted was a first draft as she had said and that she now would work to include the input provided by the community.
At the public comment session of the meeting, residents pointed out that the proposed RSU 40 strategic plan submitted by Pratt two weeks ago was nearly word-for-word the same as the one developed by RSU 21 in the Kennebunk area in November 2010.
Resident Hugh Magbie of Warren said he came to the meeting with a heavy heart and said he could not understand how the two plans could be so similar and not include the recommendations from the public and staff at a forum in March. RSU 40 includes Waldoboro, Warren, Union, Friendship and Washington.
“It’s incumbent on the board to explain why we have a cribbed plan from another RSU,” Magbie said. His comment was greeted with applause from many of the approximately 35 people at the meeting held at the Friendship Village School.
Teacher Melissa Barbour said if her son had done what the superintendent had done, he would have been castigated and possibly expelled from school.
Following the conclusion of the 90-minute closed-door session and the vote of support for Pratt, the board voted to go into another closed-door session at 10 p.m. to discuss negotiations with teachers. The teacher contract expired at the end of the past school year.
Pratt was going into that meeting and said she would not be able to call after the session to comment on other issues, noting how late it would be.
Magbie noted that even the letters from the superintendents introducing the strategic plan were identical except for the names of the districts and the names of the superintendents.
One example from the superintendents’ letters that were exactly the same was the following: “In these pages you will find an honest reflection of where we are, where we hope to go, and targets by which we will measure our achievement. We have tried to be visionary while appreciating our current realities, and we have set aggressive goals while remaining cognizant of the challenges that threaten our progress.”
Wow. So the school board endorses plagiarism ? What as long as it is sincere ? Come on ms superintendent do everyone a favor and step down you got caught at least try to salvage some dignity. Unless you told the board when you got hired that you would do exactly for this school district that you did for Kennebunk. Of course unless you lifted that one too!!
Just to clarify…she did not work in the Kennebunk school system. She STOLE this document which was written by Kennebunk’s superintendent. If you saw the two documents you would find it difficult to understand how the MSAD Board can possibly back her on this. Her cover letter that has HER name on it is nearly verbatim to the letter written by the other superintendent, as is the entire document (minus a few photos and a nice plug for the great work his teachers do). This is a horrible message to be sending students, the board should be ashamed, and as far as many are concerned, her credibility is now zip.
Yikes your right I misunderstood! I guess on some level she had done the work and than was just lazy and passed it off as work done for the current school system. Holy smokes so she out and out plagiarized the whole thing!! So was the idea that this was a first draft was to see if she got caught?? So why doesn’t the board just fire her? It would only be like the third one in 3 years!! What’s up with that??!!!!
The word draft was not included on any pages of the document, which should be standard practice if it is being distributed to others (and is indeed meant to be a draft). It is interesting that you mention the revolving door…it makes you wonder if the Board has turned a blind eye because if they admit that it was wrong—and take appropriate action—they will need to conduct another search.
Did sh have anything to do with the one, “developed by RSU 21 in the Kennebunk area in November 2010”?
The Superintendent of RSU 20 (Belfast) also plagiarized his strategic plan as well from another state and presented it to the school board as his own without acknowledging the source he used word for word. I was taught not to copy someone else’s work. What are these Superintendents teaching our students?
If I remember correctly, the RSU 67 (Lincoln) superintendent plagarized something too. I bet if we all looked closer, a lot of stuff is copied from one superintendent or school to another but just never gets uncovered as such.
The picture of Brian Floyd (above that keeps popping up) should be removed. This young man has passed on. A little respect would be nice. I’m sure his family would appreciate the gesture.
So it’s ok for the educators but not the students?
I don’t know of a single entity, private or public, that doesn’t use a “template” from a good plan to develop their own. What planning board, for example, was not savvy enough, even encouraged by the DEP, to use a plan for a similar town to develop their comprehensive plan to prevent “re-inventing the wheel?” It saves time and money! Would you rather hire a consultant for $20-30,000 to develop one from scratch (few if any district has the where-with-all to spend the time and effort it takes to do this.) I’m no fan of Supt. Pratt, but it appears that she acted in a fiscally responsible manner and it also appears that part of this attack is due to “negotiation tactics” by the MEA – what’s the matter – things going bad at the table? Can’t wrap your collective brain around the “performance for pay” concept? Goodness, its enough to make you vomit!
Just curious, have you in your lifetime, copied someone else’s personal cover letter, word for word, except for editing a few specific personal details, and passed it off as your own when say submitting a resume with a “personal” cover letter supposedly written by yourself? This is what I see when I look at the “cover sheet/letter” in both the Kennebunk 2010 document and Ms. Pratt’s 2012 Strategic plan! It is wrong.
I agree that similar entities may use a template for a good plan to jump start their own strategic plan, having worked in a world class, large, trustworthy company here in Maine for 17 years. However, the facts in this case do not show this to be what the current Superintendent was attempting to accomplish! Current facts support the fact the author of the 2010 Kennebunk Strategic Plan did not grant permission and was not contacted for the use of this document or the photos in the document. The Cover Letter for both documents is virtually (only edited to switch school name specific information) identical
only the authors name was removed and our current Superintendent inserted her own.
It seems inexcusable that at least a new cover letter was not created speaking specifically to MSAD 40 2012, not someone else’s letter signed by someone who did not author the contents.
Isn’t it odd that there must be so much controversy over what is now being deemed a First Draft of an approximately 30 page 5 year Strategic Plan, because it was not distributed with any clarity as to the fact it was or may be a First Draft? It is a large offense and huge oversight on the Superintendent’s part not to make this fact abundantly clear from the beginning to everyone receiving this virtually copied document.