Reading, PA School District’s HR Department Comes Under Fire

A consulting company hired by the Reading School District to investigate its human resources department was recently released. The report released totaled 66 pages and had a 20-page summary that showed the results of an audit that took place from May to September of 2011.

From the report, a major issue includes, “A poor overall relationship between management and labor.” Labor, in the report, is defined as faculty and support staff.

School boards are made up of officials who are elected to serve as volunteers. This means that for the most part, these people lack the necessary credentials to deal with the elite of academia. Most school board members are manipulated by the elite of the academic world.

Administrators of schools tend to come and go quite often, never staying long enough to take accountability for their actions while also justifying their compensation as executives.

The desired outcome is the absence of continuity. Dysfunction within a human resources department serves as a block to the paper trail ever becoming public knowledge.

A human resource department appoints an acting administrator each time another one resigns from his or her post. The new appointee usually does not have the credentials to work in the post they have been appointed. Because of the sense of urgency surrounding the board, the human resources department looks to fill the open position as quickly as possible.

A new human resource director was recently hired by the Reading School District. It has been reported that the new human resource director has spent a long career working in school related human resource departments. Those positions include director of human resources for the Berks County Intermediate Unit (BCIU).

It was never mentioned if the new human resources director has a degree in human resources management. The resume calls the position with the BCIU as a stint, not permanent employment.

There is a current crisis within the Reading School District, as five administrators have recently left the district. Many feel that this mass exodus was done to embarrass some of the board members while the academic elite try to acquire the balance of power within the district.

Now people within the district are wondering who will be running the district. It will either be the newly elected directors or those working for the state’s governor under new proposed legislation.

If the school district wishes to be run by the state, the academic elite will need to create the idea that the district is inoperable.