As many journalists do, with his permission, I recorded my interview with Mr. Levenson on Wednesday, April 4. Because of space constraints, I paraphrased two statements he made in the interview. The following quotations are excerpts from that recording, not included in the Globe piece.
First, the story states: "Levenson has also taken advice to bring in mediators and consultants, at a cost of $5,000, to bridge the communication gap with Ottoson staff." I used the terminology of "communication gap" because Mr. Levenson, himself, said:
- "I have done a lot of reaching out to a lot of groups who felt left out. There is one group I have not connected with yet and that is the Middle School staff. And I am well aware of that and it saddens me that we never connected. I mean there are certainly individual teachers, but on the whole my relations with the middle school staff has been strained and part of my mission as we move forward is to make an extra effort to get to know them and for them to get to know me. "
Beyond that, in talking about the various vendors that will be called in to help the school, Mr. Levenson said, "We want to make sure it's someone grounded in the middle school philosophy and at the same time is a neutral third party to keep what will be emotional discussion…um…on less emotional land. The staff has passion and that's a good thing, but it can't stop a good, civil discussion either."
Given this statement and others on the tape, using the phrase, "communication gap" is proper and accurate.
In the story, I wrote, "Among the issues now being discussed, Levenson said, is the need to raise standardized test scores and to improve special education programs at the Ottoson." Mr. Levenson and I spoke at length about his desire to continue improvements with special education services district wide. Mr. Levenson explained that Ottoson will be included in work with the Walker Partnership, a consulting firm that specializes in special ed programing. We also spoke about improving common assessments and testing students. During our conversation about common assessments Mr. Levenson described unclear expectations, or an unclear message at the Ottoson:
- "Some of those messages have been delivered well in many of the schools, but not all of them. Again, I come back to, the Middle School has been where we have had the least success and I will certainly share in only half the blame of not connecting and not being as well understood as I need to be. I will put the other half on the middle school that they have been somewhat fearful of what the message might be. But hopefully we can meet somewhere in the middle."
Finally, in the story I characterized Karen Schwartzman as a publicist. I believe it is pretty self-explanatory that Arlington has hired a public relations professional and she is doing her job. When I called the School Department requesting an interview with Mr. Levenson, Ms. Schwartzman returned my call to discuss the story. One may call her a communications consultant or a public relations consultant, but I think that categorizing her as a publicist is synonymous, fair and accurate. When I asked Mr. Levenson about Ms. Schwartzman's services he said:
"We used Karen a number of months ago we had a serious communication piece…so the district is using Karen when it was becoming clear that our message getting coming out. Given that level of emotion it made sense for me to get some help."
I hesitate in responding to Mr. Levenson's comments only because I hate to turn this into a he-said she-said issue. I do fear my credibility was called into question and wanted to put out the additional facts for people to consider. For the record, I have not received any direct correspondence from Mr. Levenson questioning the story in any way.
Upon reviewing my notes and the tapes, I stand by the story 100 percent.
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