Offense for Sale
Former West Springfield football coach is selling record breaking spread offense online.

By Reed S. Albers
Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Defeat your rival! Win your conference championship! Never be outcoached again!

For $197 former West Springfield High School Head Coach Bill Renner is hawking a football playbook that promises to help a coach reach these goals.

Renner, who resigned from West Springfield after the 2008 season to watch his son Bryn play football at the University of North Carolina, now is assistant head coach at Lake Braddock Secondary School. At West Springfield, he led the Spartans to three back-to-back Patriot District titles with his five wide attack spread offense. He also broke two regional playoff offense records.

Now Renner’s 160-page playbook and 10 instructional DVDs, including game footage of West Springfield playing W.T. Woodson High School, are available on the Web site www.playqb.com.

The Web site sells multiple playbooks including the Tom Brady Quarterback Training System.

While it’s not uncommon for coaches to sell instructional guides on the Internet, Fairfax County Public School administrators are investigating who owns a team’s intellectual property — the coach or the school?

“It’s an ongoing issue and we’re taking a look into [who owns the playbook],” said Bill Curran, Fairfax County Public School’s director of student activities and athletic programs. “Right now, we just don’t have an answer.”

The group investigating the issue isn’t just looking at playbook ownership rights, but also if teachers can sell lesson plans on the Internet.
According to Curran, the group has been deliberating for a year and might have a decision on the issue in the coming year.

Currently, a school can decide whether a coach can sell his or her playbook or take it to another school, Curran said.
“It’s tricky,” Curran said. “The schools reserve the right to [the playbook], but it is up to the school [to determine] if the coach can take it.”

Renner, a Fairfax County high school coach for 20 years, declined to comment for this story until after the current football season.

West Springfield Offensive Line Coach Steve Fox said he isn’t worried that opponents will solve his offense by buying Renner’s playbook.

“We’ve modified [the spread],” Fox said. “It might pose some problems [for other teams that use Renner’s offense], but we’d know their offense, too. If [other teams] don’t know what’s coming, it’s very hard to stop.”

While West Springfield players say they’re not upset about seeing the team’s playbook for sale on the Internet, some parents object to the use of players in YouTube ads promoting the offense.

“I have no problem with Renner [selling the playbook],” West Springfield parent James Linear said. “But when he uses the kids in advertisements, that’s when it gets a little shady. When you go to the Web site and look at [the YouTube video], all you see is West Springfield kids.”

According to Curran, game film is considered public information and can be taken by and used by anyone.
“If someone wants to film a game, they’re welcome to,” Curran said. “There are no guidelines against filming a game.”

Whether or not Renner is breaking any ethical guidelines by using the game film in his ad is “something that we can’t determine at this time,” Curran said.

WHILE COUNTY officials investigate playbook ownership rights, Curran questions the playbook’s competitive advantage.

“I just don’t know that it’s anything original,” Curran said. “[Renner] didn’t invent the wildcat or the spread offense. I’m not sure this playbook is really that groundbreaking.”

Fairfax High School Head Coach Chris Haddock agreed.
“The truth is [having the other team’s playbook] doesn’t make a big difference,” Haddock said. “Most [coaches] in the area already know what their opponent is going to try and do. You can maybe pick up a signal call or audible [from the playbook], but you can’t get in the huddle. Even if you could, you still have to stop the play.”

Lee High School football Head Coach Robert Everett, a Patriot District rival to Lake Braddock and West Springfield, said he was aware that Renner’s playbook was on sale and joked with his staff about buying it.

“The [five wide attack spread offense] moves the ball down the field so well,” he said. “There are some positives to [buying it], but you still need to learn how to recognize [when to use the plays] and the book doesn’t teach you that.”

Everett agreed that the book would not give a team a competitive advantage.

“[The playbook] would give you a good overview of [Renner’s system],” Everett said. “But I’m not sure you can buy [the playbook] solely to shut it down.”

Although Haddock said he would not sell his playbook, he pointed out that playbooks from college and professional teams are easily available online.

“You can go online and look up any playbook you want, but football is a game of fads,” he said. “The spread offense is what’s in right now. Ten years ago, it was the wishbone and wingback.”

Everett said that he wasn’t comfortable with selling a playbook in any capacity.

“I just don’t feel comfortable making a profit off of something that the kids execute,” Everett said. “I know we don’t get paid that much [to coach], but I don’t think I need to sell my playbook.”

Regardless of what playbook a team faces, Haddock said, strong fundamentals and athleticism are more important than plays on paper.

“At the end of the day, [football] is always going to be about blocking and tackling,” he said.

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Barbara Hollingsworth: Alternate assessments are better for educrats than students

By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Examiner Columnist
September 29, 2009

Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Jack Dale referred to my Sept. 22 column on inflated tests scores as “inaccurate” and “unsubstantiated” in his Sept. 27 letter to the editor (”Column on test scores misleading, inaccurate and unsubstantiated”).

But if that’s the case, Dale himself is to blame. The data I cited, which was sent by FCPS to the state Department of Education, shows an exponential explosion in the use of the Virginia Grade Level Assessments in Fairfax County schools.

For example, the number of students taking VGLAs instead of Standards of Learning tests at Poe Middle School more than doubled this year from 75 to 165 — after the alternative assessment program was fully implemented.

Same for Key Middle School, where 51 VGLA students last year increased to 107 this year. Is it a coincidence that both schools’ pass rates also increased by double digits?

Because neither DOE nor FCPS report separate SOL and VGLA scores - both combine them to calculate a school’s overall pass rate - it is disingenuous for Dale to deny that the VGLA affects test scores. Data submitted by FCPS show that 14 of the 20 elementary schools with the most VGLA portfolios posted 100 percent pass rates this year; four more were at 98 or 99 percent, and only one was below 90.

It’s ridiculous to argue that the massive jump in scores since 2006 - the year before the VGLAs were approved for students with learning disabilities and those still learning English - has nothing to do with the 1,200 percent increase in VGLA participation.

If Dale can explain how Lynbrook Elementary got a 100 percent pass rate (up 30 percentage points in just three years) when three-fourths of its students are non-English speaking without factoring in the 103 students (40 percent of third- through sixth-graders) who took the VGLA, he should be running the U.S. Department of Education himself.

Data released by DOE also shows that the grading of VGLA portfolios is unreliable and subjective. In spring 2007, work from 61 Fairfax County students was audited and 24 were rejected for a 39.3 percent overturn rate.

Same thing in spring 2008: 178 portfolios out of 590 audited were tossed, for a 30.2 percent error rate. This spring, 265 of 885 portfolios - 29.9 percent - didn’t make the grade.

The fact that almost a third of all audited VGLAs are rejected, with no substantiating evidence to the contrary from Dale, makes it pretty obvious that these tests are not equivalent to the SOLs. But while higher scores make Dale and his administrators look good, they are actually quite harmful to the students who really do need help.

There are 32 Title 1 schools in Fairfax County with high percentages of disadvantaged students, for which FCPS gets federal funds for additional instruction in language arts and mathematics specifically to help these students pass the SOLs. If a Title 1 school fails to meet its annual yearly progress goals for three years, parents are entitled to “pupil place” their children in another school under No Child Left Behind.

When a high percentage of at-risk students are steered into doing VGLA portfolios instead of taking the SOLs (all of the top 10 VGLA schools are also Title 1 schools), the final test numbers are skewed.

But that’s not all. If enough students in a particular Title 1 school “pass,” all the students in that school forfeit their right to additional tutoring and/or pupil placement under NCLB, especially worrisome during a time of deep budget cuts.

The charade continues until parents figure out that the chief beneficiaries of the “alternative assessment” are really Dale and his staff of educrats, not their kids.

Barbara F. Hollingworth is The Examiner’s local opinion editor.

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  FYI,
 
Bill Curran seems to think he owns these high school baseball fields and has sole discretion of how they are to be used, when they will be used and by whom. Curran needs to know that these fields were built and are maintained by taxpayers funds and should be used by the public not just HS teams for three months.

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Bill Curran is closing  high school  90 foot baseball fields so that adult and house league players have no place to play. What a guy.

Yet he allows high school feeder teams practice time on the same fields he is closing for use by other groups. Some high schools have as many as five feeder teams.

Sounds like Curran has two set of rules to me.

Mike Grasso

www.fairnessinschoolsports.org/

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Fairfax teacher arrested after being found with 15-year-old
September 21, 2009 - 5:07pm

FAIRFAX, Va. - A Fairfax County school teacher was arrested Sunday after being found in a car with a 15-year-old boy.
Twenty-seven year-old Valerie Roseler of Alexandria was charged with being drunk in public and contributing to the delinquency of a minor after an officer found her and the boy in the 7900 block of Gunston Hill Lane around 2 a.m. Sunday morning.

Roseler is a teacher at Hayfield Secondary School in Alexandria. She is on unpaid administrative leave as a result of the incident.

The boy was not a Fairfax County Public School student. Police say Roseler and the boy met earlier this year.

WHEN WILL IT END

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Mr. Curran, tell me what you have done over the last year to correct out of control players and coaches? Based on your track record, I would think nothing.

Have to sent out any memos? Have you talked to coaches? What about HS AD’s?

Show me what you have done?  

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Catherine Lorenze – FAIRGRADE Communications Director
Phone: Home: 703.448.1026 Cell: 202.744.2758
Email: clorenze@verizon.net
Teachers’ Unions & Parent Advocates Call for Reform In Superintendent Review
Say School Board Can’t Make a Fully-Informed Decision Under Current Rules
Fairfax County, VA –Thursday, September 3, 2009—

An unprecedented number of influential parent advocacy groups including FAIRGRADE, SLEEP, FairfaxCAPS, Fairfax Zero Tolerance Reform (FZTR), the Fairfax County Association for the Gifted (FCAG), the county’s two largest teachers’ unions, the Fairfax Education Association (FEA) and the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers (FCFT), and the President of the FCCPTA joined forces today in calling for greater School Board transparency and the inclusion of public input when considering renewal of the FCPS Superintendent’s contract.
The School Board is currently scheduled to discuss and vote for an extension of the
Superintendent’s contract at their regularly scheduled meeting on September 10th.
“To date, there has been limited information provided to the public that would enable the
community’s participation in this important evaluation process. So it is difficult to comprehend how the School Board can make a fully informed decision on this contract extension,” said FAIRGRADE President Megan McLaughlin.
Some School Board Members have told constituents that the School Board uses concrete,
measurable standards upon which to evaluate the work of the Superintendent, student
achievement and operational expectations. Success in those two areas and success of the
Superintendent are considered “to be the same” according to the School Board’s Strategic
Governance manual. FCPS officials also say that, as a rule, the School Board has not sought public input or comment on the renewal of the Superintendent’s contract.
This lack of public input, parent advocates and teachers say, is the reason why the Superintendent contract renewal process needs reform.
“Like it or not, the School Board has to face the fact that many of us in the community have
legitimate concerns about this Superintendent and this current review process. It’s all about
confidence and this review process needs to change,” said Mark Glaser, President of the
Fairfax County Federation of Teachers.
SLEEP Co-founder Phyllis Payne said, “Parents shouldn’t have to organize by the thousands in order to be heard on issues that are critical to the success of our children and our school system. Inviting the public’s participation in the Superintendent’s contract renewal process might be one step towards restoring faith in FCPS’ leadership.”

Leonard Bumbaca, President of the Fairfax Education Association (FEA), said the coalition
of parent and teacher groups is also concerned that any contract extension could tie the hands of future School Board members.
“We will have a newly elected School Board in 2012. If we bind future School Board members
with a lengthy contract extension that lacks public support, and new School Board members
decide to terminate that contract, the FCPS system and taxpayers could potentially face high contract severance payouts,” said Bumbaca.
Scott Chronister, President of FairfaxCAPS suggested that the School Board also give greater notice about Superintendent contract renewals. “It’s clear the School Board was trying to suppress public concerns about Dr. Dale’s performance when they originally brought this issue up in the dead of summer. In the future, let there be ample public notice so the community can review and provide comment about the Superintendent’s performance,” said Chronister.
FCCPTA President Michele Menapace said community input should be a key component of
the review process, “I’m hearing suggestions from both parents and teachers that the School
Board review and amend the current performance standards by which any FCPS Superintendent is measured.“

We would like a better understanding of the current standards and annual baselines used to measure the Superintendent’s performance so we can determine what the School Board likes or doesn’t like about that performance. We’d also like to understand how those standards are tied to specific goals,” said Caroline Hemenway of Fairfax Zero Tolerance Reform.
The coalition of parents and teachers said they will notify their respective members about the
September 10th School Board vote and meeting.
“Our coalition of groups will be there to respectfully show our unity about this process with a
focus on creating more transparency and improving the Superintendent evaluation process with public input,” said President Grace Chung Becker from the Fairfax County Association for the Gifted.
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Additional Contacts:
Megan McLaughlin, FAIRGRADE Phone: 919.623.8244
Phyllis Payne, SLEEP Phone: 703.207.9277
Sandy Evans, SLEEP Phone: 703.538.2783
Leonard Bumbaca, Fairfax Education Association Phone: 703.401.0720
Mark Glaser, Fairfax Co. Federation of Teachers Phone: 703.451.6840
Michele Menapace, Fairfax County Council of PTAs Phone: 703.329.8236
Scott Chronister, FairfaxCAPS Phone: 703.999.1865
Caroline Hemenway, Fairfax Zero Tolerance Reform Phone: 703.648.2435
Grace Chung Becker, FFX County Association for the Gifted Phone: 703.851.0194

www.fairnessinschoolsports

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