Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

A Hopeville Elementary School teacher who resigned in September in the face of test tampering allegations will collect a $38,131 yearly pension.

State Teachers Retirement Board Administrator Darlene Perez confirmed this week that former Hopeville reading teacher Margaret Perugini qualifies for a $3,177 monthly pension. From the city, she will also receive retiree health benefits and a $41,215 payout for unused sick time.

She was to have earned an $82,431 salary this year.

http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2011/10/24/news/local/594257.txt

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School Employees Exonerated After Cheating Scandal

Six of the 17 placed on leave will return to work this week

Tuesday, Sep 27, 2011� nbcconnecticut.com

Six teachers will return to the classroom after a cheating scandal at Hopeville Elementary in Waterbury.

The Chief Operating Officer said Monday that six of the 17 staff members placed on administrative leave will return to work this week, reports the Republican-American.

A state investigation found that students were improperly coached to change their wrong answers on last spring's Connecticut Mastery Test.

It said Principal Maria Moulthrop and reading teacher Margaret Perugini were behind the widespread test tampering.

The district started termination proceedings against both last week.

School officials have now exonerated six of the other staff members who were placed on leave.

"We don't believe anything in the (state) report or anything else we uncovered has them culpable for anything we've been looking at," Schools Chief Operating Officer Paul Guidone told the Rep-Am.

School officials are still looking at how to proceed with the remaining employees on leave and hope to have a decision by the end of next week.

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Waterbury-School-Employees-Cleared-Cheating-Scandal-130626583.html

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Teachers And Staff Suspected Of Cheating At A Waterbury Elementary School State investigation follows rise in cheating scandals nationwide.

By Diane Orson - WNPR Published: Aug 05, 2011

An investigator for the State Department of Education has begun to question teachers and staff at a Waterbury elementary school about suspected cheating on the 2011 Connecticut Mastery Tests. This is the latest in a string of cheating scandals nationwide.

17 teachers and other employees at Hopeville School in Waterbury have been placed on leave as an investigator looks into possible test tampering. A preliminary review showed many wrong answers on this year�s CMTS had been erased and corrected.

Mark Linabury is a spokesman for the State Department of Education. "The investigator will be conducting interviews of teachers, administrators and staff, and if necessary interviews with students whose test booklets are suspected of alteration. After those interviews are conducted a determination will be made whether there was any involvement of misconduct."

Waterbury�s investigation follow widespread cheating scandals uncovered in the District of Columbia, Baltimore and Atlanta just this year.

Jason Stephens is an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut. He says the rise in cheating by teachers and school staff parallels the rising pressures kids face with high stakes testing. "So essentially they�re operating under the same high stakes system that now students are, whereby if you don�t meet AYP you�re going to be put on notice and ultimately possibly fire all the staff, close the school and reopen it under new management. Its really just teachers and administrators I think just crumbling under that pressure."

State officials say its likely that some Waterbury students will have to retake this year�s CMTs.

For WNPR, I'm Diane Orson.

http://www.yourpublicmedia.org/content/wnpr/teachers-and-staff-suspected-cheating-waterbury-elementary-school

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Stiffer Penalty Proposed For School Employees Who Fix Test Scores

Under Proposal, Teachers Would Face Financial Liability In Addition To License Being Revoked

August 03, 2011|By VANESSA DE LA TORRE, The Hartford Courant

HARTFORD � � School employees in the state who cheat on Connecticut's standardized exams could be held financially liable for retesting and investigation costs under a proposal from Acting Education Commissioner George Coleman.

Current state law requires the state Board of Education to revoke the teaching license of educators who are caught fixing student scores on the mastery tests.

But "as a token of how incensed I am" over the alleged misconduct at Waterbury's Hopeville Elementary School, Coleman told the board Wednesday that he also wants to make them pay � literally.

Coleman plans to request that lawmakers expand the statute to give the board and state Department of Education wider authority in sanctioning teachers, including "recouping costs incurred as a result of testing improprieties." He also wants the department to have the power to remove local school staff suspected of cheating, pending an investigation.

"Fantastic foundation," said state board member Ferdinand Risco Jr. of New Haven, "but I think the resolution should clearly and unequivocally delineate that it is a personal liability � if you violate your ethics and integrity."

The Connecticut Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, did not comment on the proposal Wednesday. Coleman said the department will work on developing formal legislation.

An investigator hired by the state will begin interviewing Hopeville staff on Thursday, Coleman said, and the state also will have to re-administer the Connecticut Mastery Test to students if cheating is confirmed at the school, which posted unusually high scores this year.

In addition, Waterbury will be on the hook for unbudgeted costs if the school needs to hire substitute teachers to replace those on leave during the investigation. The first day of school in the city is Aug. 29.

State education officials would not delve into specifics of the case, but the Waterbury Republican-American has reported that the school system placed 17 Hopeville employees on paid leave Monday, including teachers in grades 3 to 5 and the principal, Maria Moulthrop. The newspaper reported that a preliminary state review showed that many wrong answers were erased and corrected.

If untainted, the scores on the high-stakes mastery exam, which measures student progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, would suggest that Hopeville is one of the best urban public schools in the country and a model for closing the achievement gap.

Last year, 56 percent of third-graders at the school reached the goal in reading, according to state data. On the exam taken in March, 90 percent of this year's third-grade students achieved mastery.

Ninety-two percent of fourth-graders met the reading goal and 100 percent did in math this year.

In fifth grade, the school posted 100 percent mastery scores for both reading and math. In the exam's writing portion, a modest 55 percent of students met the goal.

http://articles.courant.com/2011-08-03/news/hc-waterbury-cheating-0804-20110803_1_connecticut-mastery-test-substitute-teachers-school-employees