There was no discussion about competing programs; no comparison quotes or competitive bids, either. No one asked for data about AVID’s impact on students, or set benchmarks to measure the program’s success. No one mentioned that then-superintendent Phil Ertl had already signed the AVID contract, prior to the board’s approval.
And no one mentioned AVID was compensating the husband of Wauwatosa assistant superintendent Kristin Bowers, whose department recommended and would oversee the program.
A FOX6 investigation including more than 500 pages of public record emails, invoices, contracts and voicemails, along with interviews with current and former Wauwatosa School District employees, reveals Bowers spent years championing the vendor that compensated her husband, even after the district received legal advice calling the relationship a “potential conflict of interest and appearance of impropriety.” Employees hesitant about the program say they felt they couldn’t speak up, with one calling AVID “completely and disingenuously oversold.”
Notes and links on AVID in Madison.