"Those who make the rules get to break the rules"

Superintendent Dr. Casey Wardynski answers questions from the press following Thursday night's Huntsville school board meeting. (The Huntsville Times/Michael Mercier)

Did the Huntsville City Schools Board of Education violate it's own naming policy, and does the local  news media even care?

If get all your news from AL.com, or the local television stations, you are aware of the J.O. Johnson High School closing/renaming controversy, and calls for the resignation of school board representative Laurie McCaulley.  If you've been reading this blog, or The Geek Pavaler's blog, you would know that in their haste to treat the taxpayers of District 1 like second class citizens, the HCS BOE violated it's own naming policy.

Last night the Huntsville City School Board of Education violated their own policy on the Selection of School, Facility, and/or Property Name (Policy 2.9, presented September 5, 2013) by concluding the process and voting on the new names approximately three weeks before they were allowed to do so.
On September 5, 2013, the board met and discussed during their work session a new policy entitled, “Selection of School, Facility, and/or Property Name” (Policy 2.9). This policy was necessary to ensure that the process of receiving new names for schools would be as open to the public as possible. Laurie McCaulley, who was at that time serving as the School Board President, assured the public present that evening that the public would have every opportunity to “have input on these changes.”

Now you would think this would be breaking, front page news, but there's not been a mumbling word about this in the mainstream media. I wonder why?  Usually the news media is all over it when students, principals,  parents , teachers,  coaches,  and  support personnel  violate HCS/ BOE Policies.

I  wonder why the media is silent when the school board violates it's own policy?

Culture of fear of reprisal develops in which teachers, principals, staff, even parents feel afraid to speak up against the policies of the district or the superintendent.

Ballooning of the central office at the same time superintendent makes painful cuts to schools and classrooms.

Superintendent attempts to sidestep labor laws and union contracts.

Superintendent lays off teachers for questionable reasons.

Your school board starts to show signs of Stockholm Syndrome. They vote in lockstep with the superintendent. Apparently lobotomized by periodic “school board retreat/Broad training” sessions headed by someone from Broad, your school board stops listening to parents and starts to treat them as the enemy. (If you still have a school board, that is — Broad ideally prefers no pesky democratically elected representatives to get in the way of their Supt's and agendas.)

 Local newspaper fails to report on much of this.

 Local newspaper never mentions the words “Broad Foundation.”

 Broad and Gates Foundations give money to local public radio stations which in turn become strangely silent about the presence and influence of the Broad and Gates Foundation in your school district.

 “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
― Edmund Burke

An Open Letter to the Huntsville City Schools Board of MisEducation

Dear Members of the Huntsville City Schools Board of Education,

In the Sunday, January 29,2012, edition of The Huntsville Times, school board member David Blair is quoted as saying the superintendent is doing what he was hired to.  That may be true, however, the current members of the Board of Education aren't doing what WE THE VOTERS hired YOU to do.  

I recently attended a community luncheon where table conversation turned to the  sad, sorry, state of the Huntsville City School System.  Adjectives such as cold-blooded, Hitler, mean-spirited, harda$$, Gestapo and clueless are just a few of the adjectives used to describe HCS superintendent Casey Wardynski.  To make a long story short, we didn't hire YOU for you to hire someone like this.

We didn't hire you so you could hire someone who would privatize public education and wage war on public school administrators, teachers and support personnel.  Board President Laurie McCaulley is also quoted in the article saying she has heard positive feedback from some of the principals in the district.  Oh really?  What Principals?   

We didn't hire you so you could hire someone who would close down the Fletcher E. Seldon Progress Center and fuel the cradle to prison pipeline.

Red flag alert: “Students would be referred to the program by a designated representative of the school system.” Really. I wonder which socio-economic and racial populations would land at Pinnacle. Would you expect a program that chooses its participants by “a designated representative of the school system” rather than through publicly available guidelines to be equitably available to all?

We didn't hire you so you become real estate brokers and sell off valuable property for "in-kind services" to nonprofit agencies.

We didn't hire you so you could balance the budget on the backs of our children.

We didn't hire you so you could hire someone who would double our legal fees while cutting special education funding and not keep their promises.

We didn't hire you so you could refuse to address our concerns, or answer our questions.

We didn't hire you so you could hire someone who paid the former superintendent almost $300,000.00 to sit at home while continuing to hire aides for himself.

Casey Wardinski  may be doing what you hired him to do, but you aren't doing what we hired you to do.

I have a strong feeling ALL of YOU will be FIRED in the near future.  That's not a threat.  It's a promise.    It's not wise to ignore  your employers.

Sincerely,
RedEye


PS  Huntsville Times reporters, how about asking Laurie McCaulley to name names of the principals who support the plan?  How about talking directly to the taxpayers and see what they have to say about the present state of the school system?  How about talking to the students and see what they have to say?  Is it too much to ask for some fair and balanced coverage of the HCS system?  

Happy Days with Tax Payers Dollars

According to a  Watchdog Report by The Huntsville Times,   former HSC Superintendent Dr. Anne Roy Moore earned her $99,000 consulting fee,  in addition to her $198,000 annual salary,  by working at home, and providing background information on the firing of Hampton Middle Schools former principal.  Nice work if you can get it.

The reason Moore was paid a consulting fee, in addition to her annual salary, was because theSchool Board  didn't have a valid reason not to renew her contract and replace her with Casey Wardynski,  so he could, according to a comment at al.com,   "restore the school system to it's former glory."

To make a long story short, the school board  paid our money to Anne Roy Moore to avoid a law suit she would have won.  This at the same time they are cutting special education funding and making other costly changes at taxpayers expense.

This is history repeating itself with the same cast of characters.

And we wonder why we keep getting the same results?

Trick or Treat?

Hide your kids, hide your wife! Herman Cain has some splannin to do.

During Herman Cain’s tenure as the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, at least two female employees complained to colleagues and senior association officials about inappropriate behavior by Cain, ultimately leaving their jobs at the trade group, multiple sources confirm to POLITICO.

The women complained of sexually suggestive behavior by Cain that made them angry and uncomfortable, the sources said, and they signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them financial payouts to leave the association. The agreements also included language that bars the women from talking about their departures.

And how does Cain's camp respond? By whining of course. Clarence Thomas is that you?

Peter Kilgore, who was the National Restaurant Association’s general counsel when Cain led the group from late 1996 to mid-1999, and remains in that position today, declined comment, saying he cannot discuss personnel matters, Politico reported.

“Inside-the-Beltway media have begun to launch unsubstantiated personal attacks on Cain,” spokesman J.D. Gordon said in a written statement to the AP. “Dredging up thinly sourced allegations stemming from Mr. Cain’s tenure as the chief executive officer at the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, political trade press are now casting aspersions on his character and spreading rumors that never stood up to the facts.”

Asked if Cain’s campaign was denying the report, Gordon said, “Yes.”

“These are baseless allegations,” Gordon said in a second AP interview later Sunday evening. “To my knowledge, this is not an accurate story.”

It looks like the gop front runner has all kind of tricks (no pun) up his sleeve. Yep, it's turning into a scary Halloween for the Cain Campaign. Snicker

Long before Herman Cain chief of staff Mark Block was appearing in the most mocked campaign ad of the presidential campaign so far, he and deputy chief of staff Linda Hansen started a Wisconsin corporation that the Journal Sentinel reports illegally helped the GOP presidential candidate get his campaign off the ground.

According to sources and documents obtained by the newspaper, Prosperity USA, founded by Block and Hansen, footed the bill “for tens of thousands of dollars in expenses for such items as iPads, chartered flights and travel to Iowa and Las Vegas - something that might breach federal tax and campaign law.”

Can you say The Cain gop Train is off the tracks? You Betcha!

The GOP failing miserably at its gamble to "fight fire with fire," being left to wonder how come they couldn't at least split the black vote with Cain as a candidate. "Gee, I thought those blacks always supported blacks no matter what." (And for further evidence to the contrary, see Artur Davis.)

Either way, even with Mittens being pushed onto the stage while Cain gets yanked offstage with a shepherd's crook, the GOP still stands a huge chance of losing in 2012. I think I need another refill of this here popcorn...

What's that you say? There is a Scam in the Alabama State House? I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you! NOT. Scams are OK in the State House if you are a republican. Snark

House Speaker Mike Hubbard (R-Auburn) made news recently with reports that he plans to write a book called Storm in the State House, about the Republican Party's 2010 takeover of the Alabama Legislature.

A follow up report, from Bob Martin of The Montgomery Independent, indicates Hubbard might want to change the name of his tome. Scam in the State House probably would be a more appropriate title.

If Hubbard's ethics looked shaky in the initial article, they look positively Nixonian in the followup.

I wish I could say I was surprised by the response to MY post, expressing MY opinion, on MY own damn blog, from the ATTACK MACHINE regarding Hampton Cove Elementary Principal Fillis McGhee, but I'm not. This is who they are and this is what they do to defend and protect the status quo from some teachers, administrators and parents.

I'm waiting on the ATTACK MACHINE to ATTACK THIS

In five months, Dr. Wardynski recommended spending just shy of one million dollars on programs supported by The Broad Foundation.
That’s not bad for a five month tenure, is it? While it’s not clear how much The Broad Foundation has spent “training” Dr. Wardynski, if the “training” for Teach for America is any indication, it’s likely in the $20,000 range. In exchange for this investment, Dr. Wardynski has already returned $410,000 in five months. In all likelihood at some point in November the rubber stamp board will approve spending $550,000 for Teach for America to hire 110 teachers who haven’t been trained to teach.

New Rules

I invite anyone who wishes to comment on this blog to do so. I enjoy the comments, whether you agree with what I have said or not. But some people want to abuse the right to comment, and since this is my blog, I have decided to lay down the following rules.
1. Any comments that includes name calling, personal attacks or insults will be deleted. Attack the issue not the person. Tolerant people can agree to disagree without being disagreeable.

2. Any comments by anonymous, different anonymous etc. will be deleted.

3. Any comments that include the educated black man Walter Williams quote will be deleted.

4. Any comments not on topic will be deleted.

Happy Haunting!

The High Tech Lynching of Fillis McGhee

I wish I could say I am surprised a Huntsville Judge ruled in favor the Huntsville City Schools, against former Hampton Cove Elementary Principal Fillis McGhee, but I'm not. I can tell you from personal experience the judicial system and the school system work hand in hand to legally lynch parents, teachers and administrators who....challenge the status quo. The little guys and gals can't win or get a fair break.

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- A judge this afternoon ruled that the Huntsville school board was justified in firing Hampton Cove Elementary's principal on accusations of nepotism and fraud.
Fillis McGhee was placed on administrative leave in August after Dr. Casey Wardynski, Huntsville's new superintendent, accused her of submitting fraudulent teacher evaluations to the central office, lying about her 2-year-old niece's age to get her into the district's pre-K program and using her position to secure her sister a job as an instructional aide.

If anyone believes the reason McGhee was fired for submitting fraudulent teacher evaluations to the central office, lying about her 2 year old nieces age to get her into a district's pre-K program, and using her position to secure her sister a job as an instructional aide, look no farther than the al.com comment section to see who the Judge really ruled in favor of.

The allegations against McGhee were hashed out in court. Allegations bought forth by Jackie Walker, coordinator of the pre-K program, Laura Chisler, the pre-K teacher at Hampton Cove, special education director Amy Sledge and Onin Staffing, a temporary employment service.

Sledge testified Wednesday that McGhee also tried to have her niece evaluated for special education services. Sledge said she told McGhee she couldn't evaluate the girl because the girl's score could be skewed by the age discrepancy. At that point, McGhee became angry, asking, "Why is everyone in my business?" Sledge said."It was a little intense," Sledge said.During cross-examination, Jake Watson, McGhee's attorney, seemed to imply that Sledge might be testifying out of fear of losing her job. He asked if she'd heard rumors that her job might be cut by the new superintendent.Sledge, appearing startled, said she hadn't heard those rumors.

The atmosphere of intimidation and fear of retribution is real.

My sources confirm there was a special interest faction associated with Hampton Cove Elementary who did not want an African American leader at the predominately white school because she was approving too many majority to minority transfers.

The Court is helping Wardinsky do what he was hired to do.

Casey you have to break the mold and prove you're not afraid of minorities, democrats, liberals, aclu types and the entire entitlement crowd! Do that, and you'll be doing the job you were hired to do! Oh yeah, not to mention striking down all racial transfers. And that includes allowing not allowing whites to racially transfer either. If you don't like where your child goes to school, move to where they can be zoned into a school of your preference, that's what I had to do!

Lynching Complete.

Next!

The Huntsville City Schools Broad Civil Rights War~ Update

Civil War Stories and Diaries

 Let's recap.

In a 3-2 vote, the The Huntsville City School Board of misEducation fired the previous Superintendent, Dr. Anne Roy Moore, replacing her with retired Colonel Casey Wardynski, fondly refereed to as The Polish Hammer by the dumbest human being ever allowed to have a talk radio show. But I digress.

According to comments at al.com Wardinsky is doing the job he was hired to do. Keep the public schools segregated and go around the tenure laws.

Casey you have to break the mold and prove you're not afraid of minorities, democrats, liberals, aclu types and the entire entitlement crowd! Do that, and you'll be doing the job you were hired to do! Oh yeah, not to mention striking down all racial transfers. And that includes allowing not allowing whites to racially transfer either. If you don't like where your child goes to school, move to where they can be zoned into a school of your preference, that's what I had to do!

Remember my post, How to tell if your school district is infected by the Broad Virus? Casey Wardinksy is a Broad Fellow.

The Broad Superintendents Academy was started in 2002 by entrepreneur and philanthropist
Eli Broad to transform urban school districts into effective public enterprises. The Academy is a program of The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems.

The Academy identifies and prepares prominent leaders—executives who have experience successfully leading large organizations and a passion for public service—then places them in urban school districts to dramatically improve the quality of education for America’s students.

The Academy is run like an executive training program. Participants attend extended weekend sessions over the course of 10 months, while continuing to work in their current jobs.

Are Davis Hills Middle School teacher Jo Ann Thompson, Grissom High School Football coach Keith Henderson, and Hampton Cove Elementary School Principal Fillis McGhee, the first casualties of the Broad Civil Rights War? I report. You decide.

Principals are treated like pawns by the superintendent, relocated, rewarded and punished at will.

A rash of Astroturf groups appear claiming to represent “the community” or “parents” and all advocate for the exact same corporate ed reforms that your superintendent supports — merit pay, standardized testing, charter schools, alternative credentialing for teachers. Of course, none of these are genuine grassroots community organizations.

Culture of fear of reprisal develops in which teachers, principals, staff, even parents feel afraid to speak up against the policies of the district or the superintendent.

Ballooning of the central office at the same time superintendent makes painful cuts to schools and classrooms.

Superintendent attempts to sidestep labor laws and union contracts.

Superintendent lays off teachers for questionable reasons.

Your school board starts to show signs of Stockholm Syndrome. They vote in lockstep with the superintendent. Apparently lobotomized by periodic “school board retreat/Broad training” sessions headed by someone from Broad, your school board stops listening to parents and starts to treat them as the enemy. (If you still have a school board, that is — Broad ideally prefers no pesky democratically elected representatives to get in the way of their supts and agendas.)

Davis Hills Middle School teacher Jo Ann Thompson is a victim of the Huntsville City Schools calendar. About nine years ago, someone had the big bright idea to build a "fall break" into the school calendar instead of instituting a year round school year, so the affluent could take a vacation,creating an unnecessary hardship for parents and teachers. Per LiA blogger countrycat

When this fall break business first started,
I had just stopped working full-time.
And I remember thinking at the time "What the heck will families with two parents working full-time (or more!) or single parent families do?"

Previously, my husband and I would trade off vacation days during spring break and school holidays - or send our daughter to some local camp or museum program for half days.

BUT, that worked because we both had relatively flexible work arrangements that included generous vacation time (I got 3 weeks and he had FOUR!) and we could afford the day camps.

Lots of people work full-time without vacation benefits or even sick leave. I have no idea how they cobble together child care arrangements for short breaks like this. I really feel for them.

Public School teachers and public school parents have the same problem. . If Huntsville City Schools had year round school, or, if all schools in the state had the same start date tax payers wouldn't have this problem scheduling vacations,  child care, etc.

This is an example of political parental involvement. The politically involved parents are the ones that pushed the Fall Break agenda, AFTER they fought a recommendation that all Alabama public schools have the same start date and end date. I guess they were against it because AEA was for it.

I'm surprised school board member David Blair voted to fire Hampton Middle School Principal Fillis McGhee based on allegations of falsifying documents in light of the fact during his previous tenure on the board he moved from the district he was elected to represent and lied about it. Looks like Fillis McGhee is a victim of Fall break too.

District 2 suffered low voter turnout for the runoff, with just 14 percent of the 29,737 registered voters in the district casting a ballot.
By 2 p.m., more than halfway through the 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. voting period, just 150 people had voted at the polling place at Covenant Presbyterian Church.
"I expected it to be slow, but not this slow," said Nick Leone, inspector at that precinct. "I'd anticipated about 500 voters."
Leone said he believes area schools' fall break played a part in the low voter turnout.
"The timing was bad," Leone said. "You have fall break, and a lot of people just aren't that interested."

If anyone believes the firing of Fillis McGhee is about falsifying documents, I have some swamp land in Alaska for you to buy. Lest we forget the Hampton Cove school was built and opened without a clearance from the DOJ  because  it just skipped the mind of the school board attorney.  Snark  In exchange for this little faux pax the School board agreed the school would be 20% African American.

He pointed to Hampton Cove Middle, another new school in a white neighborhood. There the school board agreed to aim for a student body that is 20 percent black. The black transfer students will bus in from north Huntsville.

FACT,The Huntsville City School system is under a federal court order to desegregate the school system.

In 1970, a federal judge ordered the official end of a dual school system in Huntsville. The order said no school in Huntsville should appear intended for students of a certain race. Yet, in 2003, 10 city schools are more than 90 percent black.

FACT, this is how the majority members of the present HCS board feel about desegregation.

David Blair says the court order is holding back progress, preventing city schools from experimenting with a system in which students choose a school based on what they want to study instead of where they live.

"I would love to see us challenge the desegregation order," said board member Jennie Robinson, who represents south Huntsville.

The Justice Department, which monitors compliance with the court order, recently refused approval for a second southeast high school. At Grissom, the only nearby high school, less than 4 percent of students are black.

The Justice Department's action limits growth near the Tennessee River, Robinson said. Plus, she said the court order ignores that there are more than two races here. Last year, Huntsville had almost 600 Hispanic students and almost 600 Asians. Most Asian students attended Grissom or its feeder schools.

She also said some studies show children learn better from teachers of the same race.

Board member Topper Birney said the city school board could better operate without federal approval for every new building.

Resegregation is a new word for a new circumstance.

"I don't see a problem with the demographics so long as they are the result of the unfettered exercising of freedom of choice," said Mo Brooks, a member of the Madison County Commission. "I don't think it's a case of east or south or west Huntsville excluding minorities so much as it's a case of minorities wanting to live in close proximity to their centers of influence, those being Oakwood College and Alabama A&M University."

Stay in your zone is code for stay in your place

HUNTSVILLE, AL -- A leader in the Madison County Republican Party has written a letter to federal officials stating that disparities between white and black students in Huntsville's school system exist because "life is unfair."
"If there is unfairness, it is because life itself is unfair. The unfairness is not manmade," said Hugh McInnish, at-large member of the county's Republican Executive Committee.

This is war.  Let us march on until victory is won.

New Huntsville City Schools Chief is Judge, Jury and Executioner

I return from my vacation to find the new School Chief, Dr. Casey Wardynski re enacting General Sherman's march to the Sea, firing teachers and Principals left and right, armed with S. 310, the Students First Act, sponsored by Sen. Trip Pittman and Rep. Chad Fincher. Don't let the name Student's First fool you.

The Students First Act would allow school leaders to operate schools efficiently and effectively. Citizens demand elected and appointed school leaders be accountable to the public so they must have the authority required to operate schools to meet student needs.

Translation, school boards can fire and hire tenured teachers without going through that pesky old Teachers Union (AEA).

Make no mistake: AEA wants to preserve the status quo and is targeting the very heart of Students First in an effort to remove “deference” from the employer decision. S.310 provides a full due process hearing before any termination decision can be made by a school board. The superintendent has the burden to prove that an employee should be terminated for cause. After the decision, a hearing officer would consider an appeal and give deference, or weight, to the school board’s decision which is based on the evidence presented at the hearing. In other words, the hearing officer can not substitute judgment or disregard the employer’s decision, but determines whether or not the school board’s decision is justified and proper.

Which brings us to the dismissal of the Davis Hills Middle School teacher Jo Anne Thompson, and Hampton Cove Elementary School Principal, Fillis McGhee.

Thompson, who according to my sources, is not only a fine person but is an effective language arts teacher at Davis Hills Middle School, was fired for, get this, taking time off during the first week of school to attend the Baptist Church national convention with her pastor husband as she's done for the past NINE years.

Wardynski previously told The Times that Thompson had gone on her trip despite being denied permission by both him and new Davis Hills principal Kirus Johnson. Thompson allegedly told Wardynski she had already purchased her airline tickets and that she'd been allowed to take the time off for the convention for the last nine years.

The allegations against Fillis McGhee are more serious.

The school board voted unanimously to cancel the contract of Fillis McGhee, who was accused of nepotism and fraud by Wardynski. Wardynski said that McGhee had used her position to secure a job for her sister and had falsified documents to get her 2-year-old niece in the system's pre-K program.
Wardynski also said McGhee falsified professional learning plans for several of her teachers, including forging the teachers' signatures on some of the documents. The principal also allegedly charged parents for an after-school tutoring program and had them make the checks out directly to herself.

Note I said the allegations against McGhee are more serious. Under the old law the school district would have to prove the allegations are true. Under the new law, allegations are enough to get you fired.

My sources confirm there is a special interest faction associated with Hampton Cove Elementary who do not want an African American leader at the predominately white school because she was approving too many majority to minority transfers.

Both Thompson and McGhee are fighting their dismissal and this will be the first test of S.310.

According to this comment at al.com Wardinksy is doing what he was hired to do.

Casey you have to break the mold and prove you're not afraid of minorities, democrats, liberals, aclu types and the entire entitlement crowd! Do that, and you'll be doing the job you were hired to do! Oh yeah, not to mention striking down all racial transfers. And that includes allowing not allowing whites to racially transfer either. If you don't like where your child goes to school, move to where they can be zoned into a school of your preference, that's what I had to do!

So now we know why Wardinsky was hired, and what he was hired to do.