Well, sh*t. Just when you thought it was over.
If you watched FOX 29 last night (it's okay, I get my news from the Internets), you may have seen the FOX 29 Investigates about Methacton School District. Again. But it's okay, it's nothing new, just the same ol' Quinn-n-Barrie story we love to tell our kids at night. Except, y'know, Methacton sealed the report of the investigation in the rusty filing cabinet down in the basement at the Farina building (probably). And they never did tell us how much of our tax dollars they burned double-checking that Quinn and Barrie did have an inappropriate relationship.
Philadelphia News, Weather and Sports from WTXF FOX 29
Methacton was content with just sweeping it under the rug and hoping no one would ever mention it ever again--like most things that happen in our district--until Jeff Cole at FOX 29 investigated how much it's costing us, the taxpayers. Watch the news blurb above. If you can't, click here.
First off, am I the only one that thinks its funny that Quinn and Barrie were flirting with personal emails with school district provided iPhones? Really? You know those things come with texting, right?
Anywho, Eckert Seamans, a law firm from Pittsburgh, investigated "Superintendent Issues" from November 2012 to April 2013 (NOTE: that's after Quinn and Barrie announced their resignations), and got paid $54,177.89 and Methacton has nothing to show us? Bartle charged the school district $27,465, and we still get nothing? Glad to see times have changed.
(My favorite part, is after spending $87,000, MSD isn't going to report Quinn or Barrie to the Pennsylvania Department of Education "unless required to by the law" and gave both of them a "neutral letter of recommendation". Really.)
Even better; Methacton paid Quinn over $21,000 for "compensation of unused vacation time" and would give Barrie almost $400 per day that she didn't use hers (Barrie doesn't resign until June 13th). That's a bunch of crap, considering that Quinn and Barrie should have been fired for their actions and given nothing but a door slamming in their face for their actions, but instead Methacton pays them to get the hell out and have the chance to get a job elsewhere(!!!).
Which, it's Methacton's fault in the first place. Lancaster Online had an article on Timmy Quinn back in 2007 about him resigning after six months on the job. I'm sure a school board member would be able to get more background on a superintendent than a 19 year old with Google, so they would have heard the rumors going around about Quinn, uh, not keeping it in his pants, so to speak.
Then, in the middle of his contract, Quinn demands an extension--or he would walk. I didn't know that kind of threat would work when a contract is, you know, legally binding, and usually requires a huge payout with an early exit. As Janice put in her current blog post about the issue (shout out to her for seeing Janice on TV!), they could have given Quinn his 180 day notice that they won't renew his contract, and call it a day.
But there is where the problem lies--Methacton refuses to look at problems in the eye and take them on head-on. MSD is content to sweep this issue under the rug and let it be forgotten by the general populace, except for Jeff Cole dragging it out of the locked up filing cabinet. The Board was content, during that March meeting, to drag the meeting on for two hours before giving a statement that took five minutes. They would rather close their eyes, pretend that the Quinn/Barrie debacle never happened, and let Jeff Cole embarrass them, then to look everyone in the eyes, give us the details on what happened, bury the issue, and move forward. With Methacton's inability to deal with issues head on, they set themselves up for this kind of failure. So now we have another black eye to go with the one FOX News gave us about those students showing up to prom drunk.
Gotta love Methacton.
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