Shame in the schools that reflects the administration and board's lax morals, harassment of teachers and staff, and double standards

Sun 1/6/2008 10:27 AM

steve hegerty (steve.hegarty@sdhc.k12.fl.us); 'linda.cobb@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'candy.olson@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'doretha.edgecomb@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'april.griffin@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'susan.valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'jennifer.faliero@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'jack.lamb@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'carol.kurdell@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'tobin@sptimes.com'; 'degan@tampatribune.com'; 'MBrown@tampatrib.com'; 'hooper@sptimes.com'; 'Stein@sptimes.com'

amanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com; Anita J Henriquez; Ann C. Davis; Barbara Stein; Cathy & Doug in SCW; Dabonich@aol.com; Anita J Henriquez; Ann C. Davis; Barbara Stein

School Board Members: My blog leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com got almost 4,000 hits last month. That means that school people--mostly teachers, I infer--are reading it and reacting with comments such as the blue one below.

The comments are anonymous. People are afraid to use their names for fear of retaliation. The board knows that Ms. Elia uses the Professional Standards office to cook up charges against people who emit a whiff of criticism of the administration. The lawyer Tom Gonzalez knows it. I know he does because I told him about it. He promised to author a booklet for teachers trapped in the Abu Ghraib of Professional Standards cell block. He lied. He had no intention of authoring such information for teachers and staff. He is committed to using the patina of his lawyer status to shill for the board and administration's abuse of the rest of the school family. I have filed an ethics charge against Mr. Gonzalez's firm to see if the Florida Bar's Ethics Commission thinks such behavior is unethical. Its opinion will tell us whether it itself is ethical and concerned about the ethics of bar members.

The comments below outline how malignant and paranoid the atmosphere is for some--and I suspect most-- teachers and staff in the schools.

They live in fear of the administration's targeting them for harassment or firing if they give their frank opinion about how the administration with board collusion runs the schools in accord with the administration's lust for power and to satisfy its greed to bloat its salary and perquisites out of the tax dollars meant for use of the schools.

One notes that one of the charges that Mr. Erwin won in his case of crucifixion by the board and administration was that they suppressed his free-speech rights. The board and administration suppresse free speech routinely, and the Gonzalez law firm condones this abuse of the school family's and the public's Constitutional rights.

Mr. Gonzalez's behavior must call to mind that he is a no-bid recipient of fourteen years, during which his firm has extracted almost ten million dollars as well as I can figure (he won't send the financial information I asked for since he thinks he is not liable for the public-records law).

The board can't be proud of the comments from school employees below. These comments fly in the face of the board's hypocritical concern for teachers and students when its only concerning is bowing to the superintendent's bad management. Or it doesn't care what teachers think, just pretending to care at election time; it appears that the board's rolling over for the administration's every whim is business as usual. Board members' only concern seems to be maintaining their incumbency and to hell with teachers, students, staff, and taxpayers. These are neglected constituencies that a board member mimes caring about about at re-election time with fingers crossed behind backs.

And if any board member so much as asks for an item to come off the agenda for public discussion such as April Griffin recently did, corrupt, colluding board members such as Carol Kurdell and Candy Olson jump on that board member, who, as Board Chair Femme Fatale Jennifer had already told Ms. Griffin in a workshop, has not learned the rules of curtsying to the administration and should resign the board. God forbid that a board member look out for the taxpayers' interest and the welfare of teachers and students.

One expects Ms. Kurdell on the hustings to explain her attack on a fellow board member who dared ask a question about the no-bid gravy train that Ms. Elia uses as patronage device to reward her buddies and sycophants out of taxpayer money.

Board Chair Jennifer, who claims to be a conservative Christian, does not think that herself's having sparked an adulterous affair with the chief public-information-officer Mr. Hart represents grounds for quitting the school board, however. She thinks instead that a board member's asking the administration questions about its policies is lese majeste. Asking questions in Ms. Falliero's weird scheme of morality should lead to the questioning board member's resignation so that harmony can reign once again with all members of the potted-plant board gaggle who bow to the superitendent. Adultery on the job to La Jennifer is a mere trifle, one of the perquisites of a lusty board member who can pick and choose among the male administrators for sexual distraction. The poor male administrators at ROSSAC sound like a school-board version of the Vestal Virgins.

Ms. Falliero has a weird sense of morality. Adultery on school property is ok, but a board member's asking questions on behalf of taxpayers is treason.

Apparently board members found Ms. Falliero's adultery acceptable behavior but the questioning by Ms. Griffin of a no-bid contract subversive. Both Olson and Kurdell were on the board that punished Doug Irwin for pointing out waste; they are the two who jumped on Griffin for asking for information about an obscene no-bid contract to one of Elia's former administrator buddy who didn't have a phone with a person's answering it and did not return voice mail. The taxpayers were also subsidizing his first job for his start-up.

One infers board and administration consider adultery just swell but asking questions about a buddy contract at the taxpayers' expense unacceptable since the board named Ms. Falliero board chair when its members all must have known about her long-running adultery escapade. And they all knew the no-bid recipient had just retired as administrator, yet all but Griffin and Valdes voted for his getting the gravy-train no-bid $148,000 from the school tax kitty.

Teachers in far-off schools knew about the ROSSAC adultery. So must the board have done. They also must have known that this adultery destroyed the administrator's marriage and caused injury to his two young children. But what of the misery of children? Children's misery for this gang is inconsequential. If the board and administration could cover up the stench of Faliero's behavior, all would hunkydory. It's not reality that counts to the board and administration; it's the see-no-evil-speak-no-evil they use to cover over a malodorous situation so that nobody knows about it.

That the board named Ms. Faliero chair, knowing about her vile behavior and tolerating it until the board and administration got scared it would come out in public, shows board members have about as much respect for the board its members serve on as Bill Clinton's Monika frolics in the Oval Office showed his contempt for the presidency.

Election looms. Happy day! The voters may ditch one or even two of the potted plants. Incumbent candidates running for another season on the board must tell the electorate in the name of transparent government what they did about adultery in the ROSSAC bunker, how board members justify firing the administrator on a charge of drunkenness when the real reason for firing him was to cover up the adultery long tolerated by the administration to indulge Femme Fatale Jennifer's erotic inclinations, and why board members think the voters will swallow without question the board-administration hypocrisy. The re-election politiking board members must explain also to voters how they uphold the highest standards of morality in the schools by savaging a band leader for voice mails while indulging the vile behavior described above and the vile behavior toward teachers and staff described below.

lee drury de cesare

The comments to Casting-room Couch reflect the reality that unfolds in the schools that I have no access to. So I have promoted these comments to front-page positions as valuable insights from the front-line troops.

What strikes me about these revelations such as the one below is how sadly different is the reality of betrayal, duplicity, and cruelty that the comments picture from what most citizens believe is the benign atmosphere of schools.

People outside the twisted reality in schools that the comments reveal have a hard time believing that such behavior exists. Most people romanticize schools and all their participants. This situation makes the despoiling of the schools by the power-and money-hungry administration supported by a corrupt board possible because nobody believes such malignant atmosphere exists.

One wonders how the behavior described in these comments came to be; one puzzles about who or what was the origin of the malignant atmosphere now afoot in the schools. That's the sad mystery for me.

lee

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Be a watchdog of the Hillsborough County School Sy...":

The point should be made that screaming loudly and kicking will not overcome proper paperwork.

The supervisors and higher levels know that the bottom line is what can be proved in documents. They monitor every incident that rises to a level of notice. The first thing they do is ascertain "what can be proved in court". The battleground is in the paperwork.

Too many honest, trusting employees, and parents, do not understand that this is high stakes for the school system. No matter how wrong the actions may be by the school people, unless there is paper work on record from day one, the lower level and parents will lose. It is common practice in some areas of the district to simply fabricate documents to show a false timeline.

Everyone that finds themself in a bad spot thinks it is just them. This "isolation of information" is by design. How many teachers work in fear of finding out the rumors are true?

Too many employees turn to the system for help and are sold out.

Someday, with new technolgy that amplifies screaming and kicking, people may realize why the long time entrenced power people within the system are where they are.

There are a few people who are trying to bring about honest changes. If they can last long enough.

Publish this comment.

Reject this comment.

Moderate comments for this blog.

Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 7:53 PM

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post " The comments to Casting-room Couch reflect the r...":

I hope the school board members are reading these comments. They want to believe the school district officials are above reproach, yet if they read most of their personnel files, they will see the top officials usually have no qualifications for their jobs, and what school board members don't understand is that the district officials will always be nice to them and make the board members think they are nice people. They need to interview and talk to the officials' underlings. There are so many stories about how Elia threw her weight around as she climbed the ladder. I have never met a person who has known her who likes the woman. Maybe some of her peers and those who worked above her before she became Superintendent like her, but those who worked under her say they hated working with her.

Publish this comment.

Reject this comment.

Moderate comments for this blog.

Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 6:35 AM