Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch: 03/04/2007

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Much better, Orlando. I have hope for you. You sound like you have guts, which is rarer than ability to use commas.

Here's what you should do: Contact your School Board member and demand that he/she reform the hiring process in the administration. Awarding $100,000-plus buddy/sycophant jobs results in dummies at the top, and their decisions match their brains. Don't ask one time. Ask and ask and ask and demand an accounting of what the Board member has done about this problem.

The second thing you can do is to demand of all School Board members that they assign the first hearing slot at Board meetings to the system's teachers and that the Board not insult them with unreasonable time limits. This slot will give teachers with a shred of guts the chance to tell the Board what they see as right/wrong with the schools. Everybody--including this Board--praises teachers with pious asseverations, but they don't show this respect in their actions. Demand respect. Don't let the Board get away since delivering pious piffle about how they esteem teachers but do nothing about their low pay while they pile on $262,000 plus perquisites to a superintendent who politicked her way into the job and does not have the credentials or administrative savvy to do it satisfactorily.

The Board treated the teachers who went to protest Elia's ukase that they teach an extra class free of charge disrespectfully. This is an elected Board. Its members have long rubberstamped the administration because nobody bothers to protest or is afraid to. The CTA is in bed with the administration. Teachers need a new union. (I served as president of mine when I taught college English.)

What good is having the First Amendment if people are too gutless to use it? Use your Constitutional right to reform the hiring practices of administrators and to fight the Board's mistreatment of teachers. You sound as if you may be a candidate to do that chore, so get cracking.

I am guarding your back, and I am a person any man with a lick of sense will go over the hill with. I opened the police and sheriff's departments to women thirty-five years ago. That chore required tenacity and effrontery. I have both.

And never forget this: don't let the administration intimidate you with the Professional Standards Abu Gharib. Defy them. They can't punish you for using your First Amendment rights. They can only bluster.

lee drury de cesare

From: Orlando Goodwin [mailto:Orlando.Goodwin@sdhc.k12.fl.us]
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 3:41 PM
To: lee decesare
Cc: Bryan.Burgess@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Mary.Ibarra@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Richard.Shelburn@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Michael Caballero; Mary.Jackson@sdhc.k12.fl.us; June Showalter; Martha Carson; Christellyn.Johnson@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Lisa Sigmon; Johnny Cassiano; Robert.Jordan@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Martha Sinclair; Judy Charlton; Willie.Jordan@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Joseph Sipp; Carissa.Chatham@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Caryn.Juntunen@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Terri.Smith@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Don.Cherry@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Wanda.Starling@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Marilyn Connors; Elaine.Lambrianakos@sdhc.k12.fl.us; William.Crawford@sdhc.k12.fl.us; aunee.Laskowski@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Althea.Stirling@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Jonathan Culpo; Trent.Strauch@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Oscar Cunningham; elliot.Levine@sdhc.k12.fl.us; David.Suarez@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Patricia Davis; Long.Leroy@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Cathy.Susar@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Marc.Delaportilla@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Sylvia.Lufriu@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Gerald Susar; Carlos.Diaz@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Maria Luna; Gary Tubb; Fred.DiGenova@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Barbara.Lutz@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Raquel.Tucker@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Eric Dolby; Vickie.Massmann@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Ricky.Tyson@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Letha.Maxey@sdhc.k12.fl.us; John Vecellio; Mayo.Jonathan.Elly@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Christina@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Rodney.Walden@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Rania.El-Sioufi@sdhc.k12.fl.us; shannon.McGoorty@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Lorna.Erwin@sdhc.k12.fl.us; don.middleton@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Elizabeth Waring; April.Fiore@sdhc.k12.fl.us; sophie.McKenzie@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Peggy.Watts@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Jennifer Fiore; Mieder.Kimberly@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Robert.Westman@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Nicole Franchini; Irish Miller; Yolanda.Whitehead@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Elizabeth Freeman; Melissa Miller; Yvonne.Wiliams@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Garland Mitchell; Daniel.Wilkins@sdhc.k12.fl.us; roger.mitchell@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Kevin.Williams@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Jeffrey.Mobley@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Linda.Wilson@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Joseph Morales; Jean Wiser; April.Morris@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Andrew.Wood@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Susan.Nieto@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Alan.Zale@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Lanness.Robinson@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Virginia.Diaz@sdhc.k12.fl.us; 'George.'; Raymond.Bonti@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Charles.Moehl@sdhc.k12.fl.us; 'James'; 'Craig.'; Dorraine.Freiermuth@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Tom.Fisher@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Ian.Mooney@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Warren Rachels
Subject: Re: SPAM: RE: FW: Is the Education Foundation Underwriting Job Discrimination at

Now that school is over and I have more than between bells and lunch I have read through what you wrote. Since there is a level of joust to these EVERYTING IS NOT POLITICAL. Ms. Elia don't know her never met her but as a parent and teacher I know what her job is. The section on Nomination for We-Deliver Award has some specific facts that are alarming if true. But sometimes the messenger can distract from the message. You have a creative style and I see you like writing. Credibility is also critical for someone who doesn't know you or your style it can turn them off then the message is lost. Grading a person's speech or paper is a stunt that distracts from the purpose. Based on what they read they consider the source. To be effective you have to know your audience. And insults and threats and other games can be amusing but they get the job done. Some just talk to be talking ( or write to be writing) some just love to hear themselves talk (or write). My question to you is based on what you have found out what is it you would like for me or anyone else to do. What action should result from this. Words without action are rhetoric.

By the way I'm not a great typist I don't use commas in email and don't use spell check. I communicate and hope the person on the other end can look past all my personal email flaws and get my message. Also although I'm new at this teaching thing, inner city high school and all the bad stuff you hear. I can communicate with students here and I can teach them. They may not get to you perfect but they will get to you wanting to learn. You can polish them off. Anytime you want to assist in mentoring or tutoring a child I'm associated with a lot of organizations that get get you well grounded. Not to say that you are not but If there is any point that you carry from this, let it be that your skills and knowledge can be put to use helping kids.

(I did use one comma so I'm coming around as a school teacher I don't get paid enough to make every email a term paper, maybe I should get an administrator job)

still need a little humor and lighten up, everybody is not as bad as you think

Much better, Orlando. I have hope for you. You sound like you have guts, which is rarer than ability to use commas.

lee drury de cesare

Friday, March 09, 2007

You may be the only person in the US whom an idiosyncratic spelling of the Arab-US torture prison bothers--the prison that I heard one of my Georgia relatives call "the jail of them A-rabs" at the last homecoming.

As for comparing the school system's Professional Standards hell hole--which is in no way professional and whose standards are qualitatively sadistic in line with the administrative whim of the day-- to an infamous prison, you show a lack of appreciation of satirical metaphor, Ms. Cobbe.

What are you up to today: buttering up Heggarty or bucking to replace him by defending the indefensible status quo at the ROSAC Emporium for Fun and Games?

Your devotion to orthography is admirable, but your tacit approval of teachers' being demeaned and invalidated in Kipley's "Professional" Standards Abu Ghraib (did I hit all the consonants that time?)--in Bart Birdsall's case at Ms. Elia's behest--does you no credit. I bet you have never written to Ms. Kipley or Ms. Elia to question that problem.

I infer from your spelling and metaphor rebuke, my dear, that torturing teachers doesn't offend you but that misspelling the infamous prison in Iraq in which Americans tortured Arabs does. You have an all-American jingoistic hierarchy of values.

Where in your job description does it say your duties include lecturing citizens on the appropriateness of their metaphors? Stick to the job we citizens pay you to do, young lady, which is to provide us information about the internal workings of the school system that the Sunshine Law requires y'all to disgorge.

The which reminds me that I have asked Ms. Elia twice for the list of people on the "We Deliver" prize committee---the one that the Education Foundation is supposed to cough up the money for some time in the future as the result of Ms. Elia's charm offensive and which I shall report to every single CEO on the roster if its members give a nickel to this gimcrack project to deflect attention from Ms. Elia's poor performance as superintendent.

Since your huffy email to me will ingratiate you to La Elia, get the list from her as your job duty and send it to me, pray. Such is your job.

lee drury de cesare

lee drury de cesare

From: Linda Cobbe [mailto:lcobbe@sdhc.us]
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 7:51 AM
To: lee decesare
Subject: Re: FW: monkey biz

It bothers me how you consistently misspell "Abu Ghraib," not to mention the outrageousness of comparing professional standards to a prison. No need to reply.

Linda Cobbe
External Communications Manager
Office of Communications
Hillsborough County Public Schools
901 E. Kennedy Blvd.
Tampa, FL 33602
813-272-4602
813-272-4510 FAX

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Ms. Faliero: I write in response to your message below.

I have observed you to be a Board member who colludes with the administration in terrorizing the school family into acquiescence by supporting Linda Kipley's Abu Gharib Professional Standards gauntlet.

There is nothing professional about that office. It is an instrument of the administration to keep school employees in line so that it can continue to wield power over others, especially the financial power of the purse of taxes that the school system gets from the public.

Ms.Elia catalyzed a witch hunt against Bart Birdsall because he opposed the exclusion of gays from the county library and wrote emails from his home on his sentiments. Ms. Elia was doing a favor to some buddy at the County by putting the screws to Bart via her Lucco Brazzi Kipley. Ms. Kipley's function, one infers, is to terrorize and humiliate school employees to keep them abased so that the administration gets no negative publicity. Kipley terrorized and humiliated Bart as she has terrorized and humiliated many others in that job. Bart found the experience with Kipley with Ms. Elia's backup and the union's collusion so traumatic that he has gone to counseling.

One notes that Ms. Elia's sentiments favor the bigots of the community: the homophobes, the rednecks who opposed Muslim holidays, and most recently homophobia again in the student-parent notification issue, an issue on which you and La Elia did an obscene little pas de deux in which you leafleted all the bigots in your Rolodex. They didn't show up, one notes. But the kids against notification turned out in force.

Elia's mind is not large. She does not have the intellectual and cultural breadth to lead a school system; yet you played along if not collaborated with lowering the degree requirement for the job to her level and hired her despite other finalists' all surpassing her preparation to be superintendent. What could be more injurious than hiring the worst candidate--noxious to the students, the faculty, all the people who clean the bathrooms and mop the floors, the entire school family--not mention trusting taxpayers who rely on Board members to keep their interests uppermost in superintendent selection? Talk about destructive tactics, you make me look like an amateur.

If I compared you to a potted plant in the past, that was a mistake. I should have compared you to a volunteer to the Jewish Councils in Poland during WWII, who supervised the incarceration of other Jews in the death camps. They did the paper work for the Nazis. I should have said that you would have done bed checks for the Nazis if you were in Auschwitz to curry favor with the Nazi guards. Goebbels would have pinned a medal on you. He was the propaganda chief married to the nutty woman who killed her six beautiful children before committing suicide with her equally nutty husband shortly after Hitler committed suicide. Frau Goebbels could not imagine a world without der fuehrer. There are people floating around like that in the Bay Area. Some work in ROSAC.

You rubberstamped the hiring of buddies and sycophants for the $100,000-plus jobs in the administration. Maybe you weren't directly involved in Kipley's going from making béchamel sauce in home-ec class to the principalship of HHS and from thence to the Professional Standards sinecure with no competition. But you would have gone along with it were you on the Board at the time of those outrages. You didn't grease the path of Connie Mileto into a $120,000 lobbyist job with kindergarten credentials during a time when the halls of ROSAC reverberated with gossip about the unorthodox way she whizzed past other candidates with better credentials. But I believe you were on the Board when Heggarty got his job despite not having a major credential cited and whose writing was such that he is unable to serve as an adequate ghost writer for Elia, who's marginally literate in that she has no idea where to put a comma or how to make a pronoun agree with an antecedent. Elia picked Heggarty despite every single finalist in Heggarty's job's beating him in credentials. I think Elia thought his reporter history would immunize her to bad press.

But you didn't say diddly when Ms. Elia concocted a make-work job for Hamilton at $132,000 recently and put the Jimbo's name on it before the job was even on the books. I asked you once why you allowed unfair hiring since it violates all rules of equal opportunity. Your response: that the Board could not do a thing about it since its members hired Elia but that she hired the staff. Say what? A Board member can corner Ms. Elia and say, "Listen, Maryellen, if you don't stop creating jobs for your buddies at $132,000 a pop to the taxpayers and if you don't stop passing high-paying jobs around to buddies and sycophants, I am going to make it my business to bring the issue up time and time again until the Board fires you.

Your not doing so represents another Auschwitz bed-check citation for you, Jennifer. You are a natural collaborator with whomever in your zone you identify as the source of power. Goebbels would have patted you on your empty little head every time he ran into you in the death camps.

I spotted you early as unfit for the Board. When you were contemplating hiring the new superintendent I asked you at Tiger Bay if you would require the candidates' terminal theses as part of the employment application. You said you couldn't see that the theses of the candidates had a thing to do with the job. That's when I knew you were a dimwit, not fitted for a place on the Board.

I would still like to see Dr. Hamilton's thesis. I asked for it once when he spoke at Tiger Bay. He claimed he didn't even remember what it was about. Had he written it, he would remember what it was about. Writing a thesis for a Ph.D. is a taxing job. Of course, there are many in administrations across the country, including the Bay Area, who bought their thesis. I could make that distinction by the forensics of Dr. Hamilton's ridiculous lucubration on what new Board members should know and the style of his thesis if you will ask him to produce it. One's writing is as individual as a fingerprint. Dr. Johnson said, "Let me hear the man speak so that I may know his mind."

I not only write, Jennifer; I talk too. I will be glad to show up in person for colloquy with the Board. But I don't accept cut-off at the mike. Give me an open mike and my bare brains,and I will mop up the floor with you and everybody else on the other side of the mike. Count on it, my dear

lee drury de cesare

From: Jennifer Faliero [mailto:jfaliero@sdhc.us]
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 7:19 PM
To: lee decesare
Cc: Stephen Hegarty; MaryEllen Elia; tgonzalez@tsg-law.com
Subject: Re: FW: FW: Is the Education Foundation Underwriting Job Discrimination at the

When I first was elected to the school board in 2002, I read your emails and took your messages seriously. You offered me several tips on grammar that I use. You corrected some of my writing and rightfully so. You have a lot to offer other than grammar usage. You claim to be for the underdog, that you support women in positions of power and boast of the progress you made in the police department. So, my question to you is why do you tear me down? You refer to me as potted plant; you compared me to a Nazi wife who gave her children then herself cyanide and died in a bunker with her children. You will win in a writing war every time; but something I have noticed is you will not engage in these destructive tactics so vehemently in person. You are someone who hides behind the pen.

Over the years your delivery has lost its effectiveness. Mostly because of the faulty insinuations and personal insults you hurl at me and other inncocent people. You are disrespectful and mean to people. You don't need these theatrics. You are clearly a worldly, mature woman who can make a difference. If you want me to take you seriously, find the caring woman I see in photographs and in person; go back to your southern roots and clean up your act. Enough is enough.

Jennifer Faliero, Vice-Chair
Hillsborough County Public Schools
School Board Member, District 4
813.272.4052 (School Board Office)
813.740.4549 (Fax)
813.662.3644 (District 4 Office)
JFaliero@sdhc.us

All correspondences including email sent to School Board members or School District staff are considered public records, per Florida Statute 119.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

From: lee decesare [mailto:tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 7:24 AM
To: 'joe.gates@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'anabel.machin-fajardo@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'steve.fortier@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'cynthia.wells-casey@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'gary.marx@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'eddie.jones@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'gerald.smith@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'karen.waechterl@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Leigh.Dallas@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'marta.lopez-harrison@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'sylvia.santana@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'ernie.lisi@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'wendy.conley@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'dorothy.bevel@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'patricia.henderson@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'mirella.brummage@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'lucy.stewart@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'elaine.williams@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'eileen.schutz@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'barbara.blasband@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'annmarie.cupoli@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'judith.thom@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'stephen.durance@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'jennifer.spooner@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'rufus.floyd@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'maria.broome-levinus@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'ginny.millett@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'judy.klispie@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'vera.davenport@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Daphne.Reddick@sdhc.k12.fl.us'
Subject: FW: Is the Education Foundation Underwriting Job Discrimination at the Hillsborough County School Board?

From: lee decesare [mailto:tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 5:02 PM
To: 'mhkeen@educationfoundation.com'
Cc: 'justice.charlie.web@flsenate.gov'; 'dicks.john.web@flsenate.com'; 'dodsen.billweb@fl.senate.com'; 'victor.crist.web@flsenate.com'; 'michael.sciontiweb@house.gov'; 'culp.faye@flsenate.gov'; April Griffin (april.griffin@sdk12.fl.us); Dabonich@aol.com; edgecomb (doretha.edgecomb@sdhc.k12.fl.us); Edith A Tobul (edt@ncweb.com); faliero (jennifer.faliero@sdhc.k12.fl.us); Frank Sanchez (pacojs1@aol.com); Jack Lamb (Jack.Lamb@sdhc.k12.fl.us); montolino (montolino@aol.com); Tiger Bay Club of Tampa (tigerbay@tampabay.rr.com); valdes (susan.valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us); Warren Rachels (WRACHELS@tampabay.rr.com); 'justice.charlie.web@flsenate.gov'; 'rlong@hcc.cc.fl.us'; 'candy.olson@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'carolynAdams-Wallace@hcc.cc.fl.us'; 'waltellis@hcc.cc.fl.us'; 'ericjoost@hcc.cc.fl.us'; 'Tami Simms-Powel'; 'paultash@sptimes.com'; 'johnhill@sptimes.com'; 'letitiastein@sptimes.com'; 'mdjean@msn.com'; Susan Valdez (susanvaldez@tampabay.rr.com); 'Patrick Manteiga'; 'genenj1@yahoo.com'; 'joyner.arthenia.web@flsenate.gov'; 'JudithChambers@hcc.cc.fl.us'; 'JimMajor@educationfoundation.com'; 'gregoryComnes@hcc.cc.fl.us'
Subject:

Mr. Keen, Education Foundation, pray deliver a copy of this email to all members listed on your Web site of the Education Foundation. Thank you. lee drury de cesare tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Late news: I have learned that the secret donor of Ms. Elia’s “We Deliver” prize is non-existent. A plot is afoot to make the Education Foundation or some other sucker corporation money bags for the $10,000 prize.

I will write to the CEOs of any of the local affiliates in the Education Foundation roster to complain about the misuse of corporate money to underwrite administration and School- Board abuse of the Foundation for Ms. Elia’s prize scam to cover over the suppurating sore of the rotten practices of the administration in hiring and in other ROSAC skullduggeries.

The business community must not underwrite malpractice in education that corrupt hiring practices represent. These award top $100,000-plus jobs to buddies and sycophants with no advertising for superior candidates. This jobs scam deprives the citizens of good value for their tax money and deprives the students of top-quality administration talent that tax money should buy for the school system. Local corporate representatives underwriting a debased administration hiring policy would be bad for the students and bad for the integrity of the honorable role of education in a society.

lee drury de cesare

tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

This is what the Education Foundation says it does: The Hillsborough Education Foundation is an independent not-for-profit organization whose purpose is to help the School District of Hillsborough County teachers and students excel in programs that are not funded by public tax revenues. Led by a volunteer Board of Directors made up of business, education and community leaders, the Foundation has raised $52 million since its inception in 1988.

This Education Foundation, listed on the School Board Web page, appears to be a corporate-school-bureaucracy flimflam.

If the Education Foundation cared about education, its members’ would have examined how the Hillsborough County School Board deals with the entrenched administration’s members’ using their positions in a jobs racket and the School Board’s toleration of the situation.

For years the choice of superintendent has been a Board-administration jobs-program manipulated by a cadre of in-house power appropriators that maneuver to name an on-site superintendent to continue hegemony over the school system’s lucrative control. This cadre ignores better-qualified outside candidates who apply for a nationally advertised job the faux advertising of which costs $35,000 to tax payers for the superintendent. The superintendent appoints other top jobs to buddies and sycophants while the School Board looks the other way.

Greedy, power-hungry, grammar-punctuation-challenged insiders have already insinuated Ms. Elia into the supervisor’s job. Her supervisory experience was in the Hillsborough County building department, where she overlooked real-estate misdoing while she overbuilt classrooms. Her academic background is mediocre, and she can’t handle grammar and punctuation in her writing. The Board colluded with the administration powerbrokers to appoint Ms. Elia, even lowering the degree requirement.

Administrators in this jobs scam want the top administrative slots not for love of education but for love of the power of dispensing the taxpayer budget and its perquisites.

Two $120,000 administrators are presently home-ec- and kindergarten- trained.

Ms. Elia makes $262,000 a year plus perquisites. The below writing sample’s announcing her gimcrack prize to divert attention from her incompetence and the level of her literacy skills is revealing. The superintendent of Boston makes less than Ms. Elia. He is literate and leads one of the most prestigious school systems in the Number-One state in education in the country. Massachusetts has a state law that requires all administrative candidates including superintendents to take the same language tests as teachers take. That law in Florida would have weeded out at least half of the upper administration $100,000-plus jobs at ROSAC.

If only one of these flossy Education-Foundation businesses pressed the Hillsborough County legislative delegation to pass a law similar to that of Massachusetts, the members would hop to it, and Florida would have fewer marginally literate administrators the bloated salaries of which eat up tax dollars that should go to students’ education.

Such incompetence at the top explains the source of why corporations complain about getting job applicants who can’t write. If the superintendent makes $262,000—more than the Boston superintendent—with such feeble literacy as she demonstrates below, why should she care about students’ graduating with such language deficiencies as I saw entering my college freshman English classes? At their entry, county students were unable to write and punctuate a literate sentence much less an essay.

The corporate world should not complain about illiterate job applicants if it colludes with the corruption of the local school administration and the Board’s supporting it. Corporations should not preen as good community citizens if their representatives sit on a school foundation that underwrites such corrosive practices that undermine the high purpose of education.

lee drury de cesare

POLICY of School Administration Rubberstamped by the Board is routinely flouted. The superintendent passes around administrative jobs with bloated salaries to sycophants and buddies with no advertising. Board plays deaf and dumb. No wonder Florida is low in national standing. Voters don’t get top personnel for these bloated salaries; they get 2^nd- and 3^rd-rate people in jobs that they don’t have the credentials or the brains to deal with.

Excellence comes from the top. The Number One state in national ratings is Massachusetts. A Massachusetts state law requires that all administrative candidates must take a language test just as the teachers do to get their jobs. That

901 East Kennedy Boulevard, Tampa, Florida 33602 USA –

Top of Form

I am nominating:

First Name: Maryellen

Last Name: Elia

Work Location: ROSAC Hot-Air Palace

Job/Position: Ultimate Decider and Bad Punctuator

My Information:

My Name: Lee Drury De Cesare
My Phone: 727-398-4142

Email:tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Web Page:http://www.leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com

I am a:
Student
Parent
Community Member and
Hapless citizen

Nomination for We-Deliver Award

La Elia Delivers Piffle

Whopping superintendent hubris makes the We-Deliver prize a slam dunk for La Elia.

Ms. Elia fantasizes that people are too dumb to notice that this bread-and-circuses gimcrack aims to divert attention from her sorry record.

Ms. Elia exploits teachers by treating them as coolies, not professionals.

Not only did Ms. Elia pass off as a bona fide raise at the beginning of the school year the accumulation of neglected past raises for teachers, but she now orders teachers to take on extra classes without pay to balance her budget while she gets $262,000 and perquisites for shoddy performance. Her effrontery comes from her conviction that teachers are too scared of her Professional Standards SS terror machine to stand up and say, “Enough!”

Elia’s administrative performance includes ignoring real-estate fraud in the building department. She also overbuilt classrooms while there and later scrambled school boundaries as superintendent to cover up this incompetence while uprooted and

sobbing tots clung to their mothers’ skirts.

Superintendent Elia flouts vaunted “We-are-an-equal-opportunity-employer” Web slogan and has turned the hiring process into a jobs racket by hiring unqualified sycophants and buddies without advertising for jobs for which they lack credentials.

Linda Kipley, who sports a Paleolithic home-ec degree, reigns Professional Standards Cell Block Lucco Brazzi, getting $120,000 for sadistic treatment of the unfortunates with better credentials than hers who come within her power. That Kipley sinecure got no advertising.

Most recently La Elia rammed through for Dr. Jim Hamilton a $132,000 boutique perch. He got the job before its description posted. The old huffer and puffer prances ROSAC Rasputin to tell La Elia what to do while being unable, the record shows, to distinguish between "your" and "you're."

To top off the reasons for La Elia’s meriting the We-Deliver certificate is that, despite being the least-qualified candidate, she filched the superintendent job through labyrinthine ROSAC politics even though every other finalist was better qualified than she.

Finally, Elia merits We-Deliver champ status because, at the top of a school system dedicated to instilling literacy in the young, she can’t punctuate and handle grammar at the level students need to achieve to graduate. See her award text below for confirmation.

Ms. Elia requires the $10,000 We-Deliver prize to add to her bloated salary for walking-around money to treat Rasputin Jimbo and other layabout administrator-C-students to chocolate-covered truffles while teachers labor gratis and bus drivers get third-world wages and broken-down buses in which to transport students.

The district must fork over the “We Deliver” award to La Maryellen Elia for sustained performance in ripping off faculty, hiring as bloated-salary administrators academic weakling buddies and sycophants, mauling grammar and punctuation, promulgating hanky-panky, employing smoke and mirrors, and churning out spin, spin, spin ‘till Daddy Takes Her T-Bird Away.

******

Prentice-Hall is the hefty, expensive-for-taxpayers text for English classes. Ms. Elia’s We-Deliver text shows that she not only writes without felicity but that she also messes-up on basic grammar and punctuation that students must know to graduate.

******

Maximum-leader Pronunciamento:

Grammar-Punctuation Errors Flagged—Excellence in Education Indeed

At the annual back-to-school news conference, I announced an employee Hyphen: hyphenate two-or- more words before a noun acting as a single adjective--Prentice Hall 747. recognition initiative to celebrate the fact Inexact diction: "miracles happen every day" is not a fact. that miracles happen every day in Hillsborough County Public Schools. We will give a cash award to the district employee who best exemplifies the spirit of “we deliver” miracles Close quotation marks after “miracles” every day.

We have formed a broad-based committee Easiest comma-rule error: Prentice Hall 694 and now we are soliciting nominations. With my input, the committee will select a field of finalists whose contributions we will celebrate.

The winner will get a check for $10,000.

It will be hard to pick five finalists. It will be harder to pick just one winner. This is a symbolic recognition – and a significant reward.

The point, of course, is to highlight some of those employees who are committed to do all they can. I know that our employees deliver miracles every day. Not everyone seeks recognition for what they Pronoun-antecedent agreement problem: Prentice Hall 600 do for our students and the district, so

if you know someone like that, please fill out the nomination form.

Anyone and everyone in the district is Prentice Hall 592 eligible to win. Either the compound subject represents a subject-verb agreement error, or if “anyone” and “everyone” parse as one person under a little-used, abstruse rule, then the author subsequently falls into pronoun-antecedent error. This dilemma in grammar parlance amounts to being caught between Scylla and Charybdis as they say in Plant City or as struggling between a rock and a hard place as Cambridge dons put the problem. Prentice Hall 592 All they need to do is make a difference, give it their all, and deliver miracles every day for the children, Redundant Comma: Prentice Hall 694 for the taxpayers and for the community.

Nominate a co-worker, supervisor, or even yourself. You can include your name on the nomination form, or you can remain anonymous. Keep in mind that the winner will be decided on the merits of the nomination, not the number of nominations he or she receives, although we will make note of that.

Parents, students, business partners and others in the community are also welcome to submit nominations. If a teacher, secretary, custodian, principal, aide Comma: Prentice Hall 696 or other staff member has gone above and beyond their Pronoun-antecedent disagreement--Prentice Hall 600 job description, that’s the person we’re looking for.

School Board members, district and school staff Comma: Prentice Hall 696 and I will surprise the winner at their Pronoun-antecedent disagreement--Prentice Hall 6 00 work site on Friday, May 11. The winner will be presented with a $10,000 check in their Pronoun-antecedent disagreement--Prentice Hall 600 name that they Pronoun-antecedent disagreement-Prentice Hall 600 can use however they Pronoun-antecedent disagreement--Prentice Hall 600 wish. Click here to access the online form. All nominations must be received by Monday,

April 2, 2007.

MaryEllen Elia,

Superintendent of Schools

********

Extracting public information from government people supposed to render it up to a citizen according to the Sunshine law requires a sturdy refusal on the part of the citizen to be turned aside. A citizen keeps asking the official sitting on the information to yield it up in accordance with the Sunshine Law until the bureaucrat buckles.

There is always a reason for an official’s keeping secret public information—in this case the source of the We-Deliver prize money. I have some surmises about why in this case the source of the prize funds is secret. If it redounded to the credit of the secret-keeper, Ms. Elia, the information would appear instantly. If it doesn’t, there is a tug of war between the citizen and the reluctant tax-paid functionary. The latter reason has this citizen's vote. The information that the Foundation or some other corporate sucker was supposed to deliver the money in time to award the $10,000 prize flummoxed me. Apparently, Ms. Elia violates the maxim that says you don’t count your corporate-sucker chickens before they hatch the golden egg.

A citizen is bound to win who hangs on; he or she will in the end get the data. The law and ethics are on the citizen's side.

lee drury de cesare

*****

Second request

Ms. Cobbe: What is the source of money for the We Deliver award? Who generated the idea? I would like to have that information and any material accompanying its generation as public documents. Thank you.

lee drury de cesare

2/22/07

There are no documents related to this, other than the text of the superintendent's back to school news conference speech. It was her idea. The money is from private sources.

2/22/07

Who are the private sources?

lee drury de cesare

Ms. Cobbe: What are the names on the "broad-based" committee to pick the winner? Thank you. Lee Drury De Cesare

From: lee decesare [mailto:tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 3:11 PM
To: 'Linda Cobbe'
Cc: 'Tom Gonzalez'; 'letititiastein@sptimes.com'; 'jhill@sptimes.com'; 'patrickmanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com'
Subject: RE: public information Gene, call this to Patrick's attention.

From: Linda Cobbe [mailto:lcobbe@sdhc.us]
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 1:47 PM
To: lee decesare
Subject: Re: public information

I don't know the source or sources.

Linda Cobbe
External Communications Manager

Ms. Elia does. Ask her. And if the superintendent declines to give the name of whoever donated the prize money for the We-Deliver prize, then ask the school attorney for an opinion on the secrecy of this source as it relates to public information since it has to do with public business--a prize involving the whole school system and even the community.

The source of the prize money should not be secret. If it is self-promotion of her superintendence by Ms. Elia, we in the public should know that information.

lee drury de cesare

***

ROSAC functionaries are reluctant to ask Ms. Elia a question. There is the inchoate fear that they will lose their jobs for their effrontery at asking for facts. Thus, the citizen should step up and ask Elia herself to protect the bureaucrat from administration habit of retaliation. Elia doesn’t answer emails. I believe that is due to her knowing that that her writing skills are sub-par. Her suspicions are correct. But this superintendent manqué registers the question and passes it back to the public-affairs people. Sooner or later, you will get an answer if you pound away.

Ditto for emails to Board members. They go into hiding once elected, believing that they have been elevated to the purple, not to public service. The secret to eliciting responses from the Board is to repeat the query as many times as necessary to draw the members out of their caves for a response.

***

April Griffin (April.griffin@sdk12.fl.us); Edgecomb (Dorothy.Edgecomb@sdhc.k12.fl.us); Jack Lamb (Jack.Lamb@sdhc.k12.fl.us); Susan Valdez (Susan Valdez@tampabay.rr.com); 'candy.Olson@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'letititiastein@sptimes.com'; 'patrickmanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com'; 'genenj1@yahoo.com'; 'jhill@sptimes.com

Ms. Elia: Ms. Cobbe of the Public Information office does not know this information. Pray provide it as public information. 1. Who is the source of the We-Deliver prize listed on the schools Web Home Page? 2. What are the names of the people on the award committee? Thank you.

lee drury de cesare

Mon 3/5/2007 8:50 PM

(maryellen.elia@sdhc.k12.fl.)

April Griffin (april.griffin@sdk12.fl.us); edgecomb (doretha.edgecomb@sdhc.k12.fl.us); faliero (jennifer.faliero@sdhc.k12.fl.us); Jack Lamb (Jack.Lamb@sdhc.k12.fl.us); Tiger Bay Club of Tampa (tigerbay@tampabay.rr.com); Susan Valdez (susanvaldez@tampabay.rr.com); 'candy.olson@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'letitiastein@sptimes.com'; 'Patrick Manteiga'; 'genenj1@yahoo.com'; 'Tom Gonzalez'

Ms. Elia: This is the second public-information request that I have sent you for the source of the money for the "We Deliver" auction. You announce the contest on the School Board Web page and use the school imprimatur to authenticate its legitimacy, so it is school business.

The school system is not your private plaything, ma'am. The Web page announces school, not private, business. You must respond to a citizen's request for public information about your activities related to the school system. If you are not sure about the status of your we-deliver prize's source, ask the school attorney for an opinion.

Pray send me the public information requested.

lee drury de cesare

Ms. Elia: Second request: What are the names of the people on the “We Deliver” prize committee?

lee drury de cesare

tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

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