Arlene Ackerman seeking unemployment benefits
by Erika Owens on Nov 29 2011 Posted in Latest news
The Daily News is reporting that former superintendent Arlene Ackerman has applied for unemployment benefits.
The District cannot contest the filing due to Ackerman's separation agreement. The agreement states in section 3 A.:
The District agrees not to contest any claims which Dr. Ackerman may make for unemployment compensation benefits ...
The District paid Ackerman's full $905,000 buyout in early September. Highlights from the separation agreement include that the District will make payments towards a life insurance policy and that Ackerman is to be notified if anyone requests to view the separation agreement.
Ackerman would be eligible for an undetermined benefit amount maximum benefit of $573 per week. Josh Cornfield of the Daily News updated the story to say that pension benefits could reduce Ackerman's unemployment compensation, according to a spokesperson from the state Department of Labor and Industry.
We'll update this as additional information becomes available.
Comments (44)
Submitted by James (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 14:07.
This is the most incredible and sad news I've heard in a while. The Daily News said it best: "Apparently the $905,000 in public buyout money wasn't enough." Unbelievable.
Submitted by Susan DeJarnatt (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 14:13.
Just when I thought I could not despise her more!
Submitted by melanie mckendry (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 14:22.
my child was a VICTIM of 3 years of bullying UNDER HER WATCH!! she makes me SICK!
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 14:18.
Not her fault. The problem is she was allowed to ruin the district for personal profit. This is nothing compared to her leading an organization that can't predict staffing and laid off hundreds who also collected unemployment only to be rehired (yes, I am one and would payback that money to not have had the stressful summer)
Blame right now should be directed at Corbett who has the audacity to comment on Penn State's lack of action while claiming he doesn't know enough about the SRC after a year in office because none of his appointees are there yet.
She should have been fired for gross misconduct.
Submitted by melanie mckendry (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 14:25.
its not her fault that she is filing for unemployment??? MAYBE she should of DID HER JOB RIGHT! or maybe she should handle her money better OR better YET GET ANOTHER JOB!!
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 17:31.
I hope you didn't misinterpret my comment as me being pro-Ackerman...I'm not! While she is a disgrace, you have to remember that she had a boss and I think attention needs to be placed on the people who put her in power and let her ruin things. I'm not angry at Ackerman for taking advantage of the system and collecting unemployment (most people would do the same), I'm furious with those currently in power who allowed it to happen and are doing nothing to make changes.
It seems as if the media doesn't make things an issues, nobody cares.
-Why has it been okay to not figure out how these disasters happened?
-Why has there been no discussion of a new super?
-Why has the PSSA cheating scandal disappeared while talk of new teacher ratings go on and this year's test fast approach?
-Why has Pizza as a vegetable made international news but the fact that we throw away tons of food daily to make the "breakfast grade" gone unnoticed?
Ackerman was terrible but she is not the one to blame (fully at least). Right now, I blame Corbett for most of this and I'm blown away by his comments regarding the SRC whilst he has the nerve to critique things like the Penn State scandal. It's a complicated system and I don't have all the answers but I just want the story to go to the root causes ($$$$$$$$ as always!) rather than focus on one person who is putting her interests in front of the collective people.
But Gov. Tom Corbett says he wants to keep the commission, though he concedes, nearly a year into his term, that he doesn’t know much about it. “I do not have a member on the SRC,” Corbett told reporters. “I don’t have satisfactory information of what the SRC has been doing until my members are confirmed and they can get that information for me.”
Gov. Tom Corbett said today that he is "personally disappointed in the lack of action" by Penn State University officials.
Now, i don't want to make this a comparison to abusing children but robbing thousands of a proper education and effectively stealing tax payers money to make an incompetent employee rich is pretty bad too and I'm wondering where the "action" is in the PSD.....
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 11/30/2011 - 09:08.
Thanks for your comment. I agree totally with you. It is in my recent memory that I was discouraged from criticizing any of the policies, specifically WSF, put out by Ms. Ackerman, because she was held so much on a pedestal. If there had not been improprieties that made the news, I still would have been frowned on for using my critical faculties. Why are the SACs still there btw - empty, duplication of what should be Home and School? This is not a "thinking" district by any means.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 11/30/2011 - 23:04.
Corbett will implode due to the Penn State issue. Mark it down. I agree about Ackerman and Corbett too. Corbett is a dangerous, uncaring, bigot whose budget has effectively destroyed the lives of our kids, at least until he gets his sorry butt booted. Ackerman as incompetent as she was, was small potatoes compared with Corbett.
Submitted by melanie mckendry (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 14:21.
I think this is a DISGRACE... how does she even remotely think she is entitled to unemployment? I personally know people who applied for unemployment 6 weeks ago and still are waiting for an approval mean while they are seriously rubbing nickels together to feed thier families let alone worried about Christmas and this selfish woman feels that 905,000 plus the 86,000 is not ENOUGH to live on!! HOW ABOUT GET ANOTHER JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This whole thing makes me so angry! Leave the unemployment for people that REALLY NEED IT..Is she going to apply for an access card next! She makes me sick!!!
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 18:58.
I LOVE U
Submitted by Dave (not verified) on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 10:09.
Because the idiots on the school board put that into the contract!! lol Clean house all of them
Submitted by Erika Owens on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 14:29.
It's Our Money has started an Ackerman haiku fest.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 23:17.
Some of those are amazing! I guess it's good to laugh, because otherwise while I'm buying my own reams of paper and packs of pencils I might cry.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 14:59.
SHAME!
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 15:11.
I originally thought that she should have had the separation agreement reneged because she badmouthed Masch but then i thought about court fees. Now i think that we should do it! I believe that the union should be involved in this!
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:22.
she will never work in a school district again
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 17:34.
She made the Drudge Report. Shame, shame and more shame!!!
Submitted by Arlene's Serf (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 17:37.
Arlene was a woman who, prudent and kind,
Enriched each curricular area;
A boss and a muse we were lucky to find -
And I am the king of Bavaria.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 19:13.
No, I am.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 20:36.
Stellar writing acumen!!!!!! I love it!
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 17:51.
Is there any way that the public has access to her w-2s. I bet she s still getting a paycheck from somewhere
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 18:33.
Why would Ms. Ackerman need to be notified of anyone who wanted to read/review the seperation agreement when that agreement was a matter of public record and was posted in the newspapers and here on The Notebook, I believe, as well, and it is on the internet as well. This makes me wonder if there is a second seperation agreement that the general public does not know about....Hum....
Secondly, when one reads the seperation agreement and reads that the SD would not stop her unemployment benefits if she choose to file for them, that should have been a clue to EVERYONE that she would be filing for unemployment, since it was written in the seperation agreement as a condition of her leaving.
All I can say is this, those who live the longest will see the most....I hope that if Ms. Ackerman does in fact receive unemployment compensation that it is a matter of public record and if she is denied, I hope that is a matter of public record as well.
Hopefully, the money that she is receiving from pensions and other sources will be factored in to whether she receives the entire unemployment benefit. If she is receiving money from various sources and identifies those sources, that would mean that she would get less in unemployment compensation, right?
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 18:43.
Ackerman is BROKE--you read it here first. Lots of mismanagement, lots of payoffs, lots of secrets and troubles that we all have. By the way, technically, she is entitled to unemployment just like you and me. She will also get another superintendent's job before the close of June, 2012. Mark it down.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 20:36.
She may be broke. But I'd be somewhat doubtful she'll get another superintendant's job. Not necessarily because of her ineffectiveness, but rather because of the way she can't work with anyone. While she wasn't a model of cooperation in SF, there she was ousted after her supporters lost their positions on the school board. There was at least some reasonable interpretation of that situation that maybe she just lost a political battler. In Philly, she made it clear that it was ideological lines that turn people against her. It was the fact that she alienates even her supporters.
By the time she was done in Philly, she had lost the support of everyone, from the mayor to the SRC. And then to fight with them in public made chances that someone would want to deal with her again even lower.
If you are a board looking for a pot-stirring "reform" superintendant, there are plenty of MIchele Rhee types, who, while certainly agenda-driven, don't have the level of aloof incompetence that Ackerman brings, nor the unnecessary division [Michelle Rhee, etc. have enemies, but they also usually leave with a strong array of supporters that is roughly the same as the people who wanted them in the first place. By the time Ackerman was done in Philly, her only supporters were a marginal group of random people that may have been directly orchestrated by Ackerman].
In short, if you want someone to shake things up, there are a lot of people with far less baggage, more political skill, more tact, and probably much cheaper than Arlene Ackerman.
A mayor with strong mayoral control would probably want her -- she, for all of her incompetence, doesn't seem to be very inclined to take directions from someone else
And I can't imagine what would drive a school board to hire her after the stuff she said about the SRC before her firing (it may have been accurate, but how tactless do you have to be publicly complain about an SRC that has supported almost everything you've done?)
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 20:50.
Tea Party Nuts like Corbett love the Queen. She'll do anything as long as she gets paid handsomely.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 21:08.
You are so right. People like Corbett call the shots not Nutter and his underlings. They're minor league brokers, crooked but minions. Big money talks and always has.
Submitted by A district employee (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 20:44.
Arlene Ackerman has no conscience. Nothing she does surprises me.
Submitted by Andrew Saltz (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 21:13.
I wonder about the last two comments....I can't see why she would do this unless she really needed the money. Ackerman clearly wants to be part of the industrial education movement (charters and corporations), you can see it through her letters in the Inquirer and statements on radio. Why would she obliterate her shred of credibility?
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 21:23.
You're speaking out of both sides of your mouth and still missing the real issue------SHE NEEDS THE MONEY. Credibility and charters have no business in the same sentence and she knows it. Follow the money and believe me, she needs it and has for several years. Her debts are enormous and rampant, a bad combination.
Submitted by Andrew Saltz (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 21:37.
Perhaps I wasn't clear: I agreed with the other two comments. It makes no sense for her to ruin her reputation (more so) unless she really needed it.
Except I was clear: "I can't see why she would do this unless she really needed the money."
Either way: I'd be very interested in her "enormous and rampant" debts. Being as though you cannot provide your name, I assume you cannot provide evidence. Is it weird that we agree?
Submitted by Chris Hitchens (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 21:52.
Andrew--She will have a new Sup. job by June. Christopher Hitchens says, a claim without evidence is a claim easily dismissed. Feel free to do that but I tell you true. The Government, State and Fed. have been after her for years but that's hardly the end of it.
Submitted by Andrew Saltz (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 22:12.
Chris,
You may have information I don't. Time will tell.
I'm having a hard time wrapping around my head around it. How could a political agent in the Age of Austerity possibly hire someone who is fleecing Unemployment? Unless Herman Cain is accused of bestiality, I'd bet this makes national headlines. It reeks of corruption (bad) and abuse of the social welfare net (worse, somehow).
You may be right, but the only three possible scenarios I see are: (1) she's greedy beyond human comprehension (possible), (2) She needs rent money, or (3) she is so disconnected that she didn't think this would matter.
Submitted by Chris Hitchens (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 22:57.
Andrew------No matter how much money you have, if your debt surpasses that amount, you is in trouble. People who need money desperately, are desperate. I've been there, obviously, you have not and I am glad you haven't. It is my clear and present understanding that she needs the money and every dollar counts, no matter how much bad PR it creates. I am NOT a fan of hers but desperation makes us do desperate things. Where Herman is concerned, nothing would surprise me. I wonder if he knows Arlene?
Submitted by Andrew Saltz (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 23:09.
Madness. Good thought.
Submitted by Chris Hitchens (not verified) on Wed, 11/30/2011 - 00:08.
Thanks for speaking with me, Andrew, Good Night.
Submitted by Teach (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 21:14.
Arlene had a little scam
her heart as cold as snow.
All expectations she's surpassed
When it comes to sinking low.
Submitted by jo (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 21:17.
no comment
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 23:19.
That's it. Ackerman is a cartoon super villain.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 11/30/2011 - 12:51.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!!!!!
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 11/30/2011 - 14:18.
Arlene Ackerman:
HAVE YOU NO SHAME?
Anyone who says they support this because of the "principle;"
What principle? The principle that you should steal from children and the lowest paid workers in the school district (never mind the tax payers)?
Submitted by Invictus (not verified) on Wed, 11/30/2011 - 21:06.
SHAME. I know many people who after they got laid off the District contested their UC saying there may be a chance that they may get called back. A month later they are devastated due to bills. SHM
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 11/30/2011 - 21:42.
You HAVE to log onto the AMERICAN RENAISSANCE website and read what they say about Arlene, and the comments made about her there. WOW!!!
Caution: This is the "racist" website strictly banned from SDP's computers and condemned by the Pennsylvania Congressional Black Caucus. It is also the site that a self-defined black activist threatened on the Notebook to close down several weeks ago - after having its contributors arrested - for suggesting that much of Philadelphia's "black problem" is due to black misbehavior and a lack of self-discipline.
It's strong stuff, to be sure, and NOT for the easily offended. But they actually quote Philadelphia Notebook comments and they provide information about Arlene that I certainly never knew. So if you can stand the heat (and the vitriol), you might want to check it out.
Submitted by Shantay (not verified) on Wed, 11/30/2011 - 22:53.
American Renaissance is the reason why I'm such a strong supporter of internet censorship. There is no damn way that these comments should be allowed.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 12/01/2011 - 06:33.
Wow
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