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Thursday, June 19, 2014

PROPAGANDA AT THE SCHOOL BOARD MEETING

This week I attended the Kings School District board meeting.   The room was packed and many people were standing in the hall.   The front two thirds of the seating area was filled with teachers wearing red shirts.   I would guess that these rows arrived very early so that they were visible to the board and Michael Clark of the Enquirer.     I am sure it was staged as an intimidation move toward the board.

The union currently does not have control of the Kings School Board.   The voters elected three members that are not indebted to the union.   At least one retired Kings teacher is on the board and she does not wield the power that she has had for many years.   She is now on the minority.  Her voice is still heard and her opinions voiced.   

Kings Board Member, Kim Grant

One of the new board members is Kim Grant.   She has been following the district for ten years.    People do trust her with information that has been kept from the district's citizens for years.    Before she was elected she requested documents pertaining to a special education teacher that was seriously abusing her students.   The only reason she found out about this travesty was because of a "whistleblower" that could not get the administration to correct the situation.    I have written about this in another essay.   In order to obtain the information, she had to obtain the services of an attorney.   This step should not be required.

Kim is a mother and has had children in the district.  She says in an Enquirer op-ed that "she has attended board meetings, delved into the budget, has kept apprised of issues in the district."   In other words, she has been a good citizen.   Like me, she believes that "one person can make a difference."   In her case she made a huge difference to the children in Ms. Kitcho's class.   


Ms. Kitcho

The administration prefered to give the abuser a letter of recommendation and sweep the whole issue under the rug.   Sadly, the superintendent, assistant superintendent, principal and school board knew the facts of the case and did not bother to advise the parents.   It would have been better if the administration had attended the situation and perhaps seen to it that the teacher receive help.    After all, I would assume that she went into special ed because she cared about the children.  Instead the district is facing a federal lawsuit. 

A comment made at the meeting on Tuesday, June 17, 2014,  just blew my mind.  "We don't want to air our dirty laundry."    I have heard that comment many times.   When I was on a school board I was advised not to look into any of the scandals that were reported to me by parents.     One example is that the district had a huge drug problem that was never addressed.   They denied that there were any illegal drugs at any of the schools.    A parent called me and reported that her daughter was selling LSD at the high school and that no one would do anything about it.   Yes, she called the principal and he denied that it could happen. As part of the "propaganda" stand each and every district portrays themselves as "the best." Everything is perfect, all schools are "Lake Wobegon."

Instead of bothering to address problems, the union and administration prefer to always white-wash any problems.   Therefore, the problems fester and get worse.   

At the time that I served on a school board we were recruiting a new superintendent the rest of the board wanted to allow the superintendent to pick his replacement.   Of course he would pick one that would not expose the failures and financial mistakes of his predecessor.   He wanted to bring in someone that he could trust to keep his secrets.  This is the case most of the time because there is a "superintendent pool" that moves from district to district just ahead of the revelations of their mistakes and connections.    There rarely seems to be an investigation of the money that is missing or misspent.   

The Kings School Board tried to hire an interim superintendent.   A man who had been a superintendent at Kings, a man who has had national recognition and awards, a man that just retired from the superintendency at the Warren County ESC,  John Lazares.  Having Mr. Lazares there would give the board time to evaluate resumes for the permanent position.  By the way, Mr. Lazares agreed to work for exactly $1.00.    

Well,  the union went berserk, they would have no decisions being made without their approval.   They filed legal action against Mrs. Grant, they filled the board meetings with protests.   The circulated a petition to have Mrs. Grant recalled from her recently elected post.    The union wants the power and they will not accept board members that are not endorsed and selected by the union.    

Tuesday night was a perfect example of a rogue union.   A union that thinks they can do and act however they please.     The leader and speaker for the union stood up to the microphone,   as he started to speak all of the red shirts stood up with a loud noise.   The floor made a cracking sound and the red shirts stood at attention the entire time their leader spoke.    The whole "ceremony" was extremely intimidating.   After the union leader spoke many other teachers repeated similar ideas.   How dare the board make a decision without letting the union know what was going on?   They even had a lawyer there giving his threats of prosecution and recall.   I would describe the entire evening a "bullying session."  

This is how the union operates and this is an example of how the true character of the event is never reported by the press.      Propaganda at it's finest.

This is the crowd on May 21, 2014
Visualize a sea of red on June 17, 2014
They were organized.



2 comments:

  1. Where do I start? First, THANK YOU for being eyes and ears for those that don't have time to go to all these dictatorial/abusive meetings. Long ago I was an algebra / biology teacher and cheer leader adviser at Kings High School along with a cousin, who was the counselor and basket ball coach and many other GREAT educators. What a wonderful group of students and teachers back then (Holiday was superintendant and Maylerwein was principal - great team)...there was a UNION back then (early 70's) but teachers were NOT coerced (let along FORCED) into joining... In fact I really was hardly of aware of it's existence except I noted that the WORSE the teacher, the more likely they were in the UNION. The same with the Federal Govt. during my 30 years working in DC (after teaching at Kings). Usually the few that joined the UNIONs were the ones that did not like to work so were protected. They KNEW they could NOT get fired no matter what they did or did not do (even the child predators). The rest of us had no need to join any union because we knew we were going to do a good job and NOT molest anyone... Anyway, many years later (after Federal career) I headed back to Ohio and started noticing the schools had administrators to the administrators to the administrators for every position possible, even the coaches) ... you get the picture of waste upon waste (When I taught we had ONE secretary and the business students worked with her in the office for experience. I started asking questions and then found out belonging to unions was NOW MANDATORY(AND they NEEDED LOTS OF MONEY (MORE TAXES from property owners... I could NOT believe. it. Then I started seeing LEVIES upon LEVIES upon LEVIES... I suppose to PAY for all the admin fluff and palatial school buildings. Then I started noticing how the U.S. of America now ranked 26th among major nations in education. I could go on and on... but parents better wake up and not be manipulated any longer - head to these dog and pony shows and stand UP for the STUDENTS and GOOD teachers. The Unions seem to now have all teachers by the short hairs and they now have to follow along like little sniffing dogs (in red shirts)... how demeaning. Teachers should be smarter and more talented that to be lead by the nose by Unions.. So glad to see there are some that are standing up. So glad I taught when I did - when we could do things to REALLY teach - I used to bring in fetal pigs for each student to study for several weeks and dice for study of probability and go on real fact finding field trips to find fossels in Flat Fork,,,, they loved it all and learned so much... all while watching the EiffelTower at Kings Island being built... Try to teach Algebra with THAT going on....yes , the algebra class faced the NEW Kings Island!!

    Wake up folks - our kids and grandkids deserve to be number ONE, not number 26 and descending....

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  2. Anonymous thank you so much for telling your story. So many of todays parents do not see what is happening in the schools. They want to believe that they have their children in the best school ever. The sad truth is that so many of our schools are not providing a decent education for our children and the cost is beyond belief. I hope you will keep adding your observations. It is great to get another point of view.

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