The Dark Side
It Can't Happen Here
but sometimes it does...
Wayland school employee accused of stealing from petty cash (Click to read MWDN article). Previous examples of theft in Wayland can be found here.
This page is devoted to all those things we'd rather not think about. Things like: Fraud ~ Embezzlement ~ Malfeasance ~ other nasty things
Do these things occur in Wayland? Let's hope not. But at the same time, let's not keep our heads in the sand. As this recent example shows, it would be foolish to live in denial.
Former Superintendent from Hadley, Massachusetts Armand Fusco is the author of "Stopping School Corruption, A Manual for Taxpayers." Before getting scared off by that "C" word, please read his definition:
"School corruption can be broken down into three levels: 1) cheating and deceit, 2) waste and mismanagement, and 3) fraud and stealing."
Clearly, long before this recent theft, there was plenty of reason to believe that #2 above applies to Wayland (examples), especially considering what the author says next:
"As a result of my personal experience as a former school superintendent and the corrupt acts I have uncovered and documented, I believe that some degree of corruption is festering in all school districts. "Now that we can add #3; Fraud & Stealing to the list of things that can happen here, we need to be especially concerned. Of course the administration and School Committee will downplay this as an isolated incident that one individual committed, and we should all hope that they are right. But what if they are not?
More significant than this specific theft is the culture and environment that exists in which this type of thing could happen. According to Mr. Fusco's manual, as well as everyday common sense, there need to be systems in place where this type of thing could not occur, or would be extremely difficult to pull off. We seem to be lacking in that regard.
If you click on the cover of the manual above, a new window will open with a PDF of this 11 page manual. It outlines 10 questions we need to ask our school administration if we are serious about streamlining our schools.