The biggest lie has always been to keep quiet; and the best life-enhancer is to provoke, unsettle, rile – in short, to make people face the truth.
Gore Vidal
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Good ol' Tom Gonzalez is in the thick of the effort to run Erwin crazy, of course--just doing what comes naturally to Le Tom.
That's what the taxpayers pay the 37-year lawyer to do: run people whom the administration and board target for annihilation nuts. I understand that Board Member Newsome went about calling Erwin "crazy." That's SOP when a group of sadists are trying to run a person crazy: they begin by labeling him crazy. I think Newsome is the guy who got a bundle of money recently from selling the Board a parcel of land for a school.
The Dark Side has called me crazy so many times that I have begun to answer, "Hebephrenicschizophrenic at your service." I was a psychiatric nurse and read every word Freud ever wrote so know all these abstruse names for states of craziness. It's a good tactic to throw out an exotic one such as "hebephrenic " to educators because their immediate response is to quit the field of battle and run for a dictionary.
Speaking of Romeo Tom Gonzalez, I saw him and Kipley hug at the 15th meeting. Should I alert the National Inquirer? I thought him a devotee of the pole girl. It begins to appear that Le Tom is a ladies' man. There needs to be at least one of that phylum at the board-room podium. But one wishes he were prettier.
The following gives you insight into how these group administrator-board terror tactics work on a person. These people are relentless and sadistic in torturing people this way. It seems they enjoy this activity.
My distinct impression from watching my friend Bart Birdsall react to the manufactured case against him by Kipley and Elia is that such relentless pressure harms a person either physically or mentally or both. Bart went to therapy for a while even though Elia and Kipley with Gonzalez's help could not lay anything serious on him. I did my best to help him fight the fiends.
The original charge was that he had used the school mails for political purposes. It turns out that he had posted a notice on the community bulletin board announcing the gay protest against the shutting down of the library to gays by Ronda Storms when she was county commissioner. That's the sort of thing community bulletin boards are for.
This attempted destruction of Doug Erwin was much more vicious. He was pointing out how badly the administration runs the schools. I wonder if an honest administrator's being put in charge of the transportation debacle would not have listed some of the same kinds of things that Erwin listed in the maintenance department. lee
Here is a sample of the crazy-making conduct the administration and board conducted against Erwin:
3 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Lee, Bart's case is complicated b/c it involves two sets of emails. One set was his private AOL emails that he sent to Joe Stines, director of the public libraries complaining that Stines was not supporting his librarians and libraries from Ronda Storms attempting to ban gay pride book displays. Those were private emails sent to Joe Stines as a citizen, and Bart had every right to send those as a citizen from his private email account. The other set of emails consisted of 3 emails he posted onto the school district "Media Specialists" bulletin board. He logged onto the system from his home computer on his own summer vacation time, but he did use the district email system from home to alert other school librarians (media specialists) about the issue. This was a library issue of concern to most librarians b/c even school librarians face public pressure to rid their media centers of any books with gay characters in them sometimes. Bart thought he was going above and beyond the call of duty. The American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights says that good librarians alert other librarians to censorship issues in their area. So those are the two separate sets of emails. He was called into Professional Standards on a technicality of the school district emails. Linda Kipley stated that was "political and personal use" of the school district email system. She said that Bart could not do that and that the meeting was a warning. She said there was no punishment. That should have been the end of the whole thing. If it had been, I believe Bart would not have freaked out. Then, she proceeded to open files. One had a newspaper article and Kipley stressed that she spoke to the school board attorneys and Bart had his 1st Amendment Rights, but she wanted to make sure he knew that the Superintendent MaryEllen Elia gave her the newspaper article which identified Bart as gay and also as a school librarian. Then, she opened another file and said she had the Joe Stines emails (AOL emails that Bart sent to Joe Stines which Stines somehow gave to Elia). Kipley stressed that Elia gave those to her also and used dramatic pauses and looks. To this day Bart believes that Kipley did not bring him in to talk about the school district emails which were used as a ruse and a technicality to have a legal foothold to pull him into Professional Standards. He believes he was brought in to be scared about the emails he sent to Joe Stines. Basically, he believes the whole meeting was an attempt to say, "Hush up, gay boy!" During the meeting Kipley also volunteered the reason why she found his school district emails. She claimed that his media specialist emails "clogged the system" and they had to go "unclog" the system and that's when they found the emails. Well, I told Bart that was a lie, because emails sent to an electronic message board can not "clog" a system. Bart believes she volunteered this reason to make him think he was not being singled out. Bart had found on the internet that companies and organizations can chastise or punish employees for misuse of email systems, but they are not supposed to single an employee out. The rule has to be consistently applied. Well, he told CTA that before his meeting with Linda Kipley, and the CTA rep met with Kipley before Bart did, and when they all met together suddenly Linda Kipley volunteered the lie about how she found the emails that she claimed were the reason she pulled him into Professional Standards. Since all this happened Bart has been making note of all the emails that he sees on the school district email system of teachers announcing births of children, grandchildren, as well as some emails that have borderline political issues. He plans to use these emails if he is ever pulled into Professional Standards again to show how he is being singled out about his misuse of the email system when many others (including administrators at ROSSAC) misuse the system. To add to the whole mess Bart received 3 different explanations about why he was investigated and will probably never know the full truth. The only thing he has ever wanted was an apology and has asked the school board and MaryEllen Elia for one, but they will not give him one. He believes that these people would apologize if they simply stepped on a stranger's toe, but they won't apologize to Bart for putting his professionalism up to question which is a worse situation. Two teachers who were friends of Bart's dropped him like a hot potato, because they are gay and did not want to be associated with Bart since the Superintendent was mad at him. Another spread rumors at his school that he was about to be fired. The ROSSAC administrators have no idea the little complicated issues that spiral out of a "scare" meeting they concoct against someone. Bart began to wonder why he was being singled out and if his previous activist work to get school board members to see what glbt teens face in schools were the root of the problem or what. He wondered if they had been out to get him. He wondered if they put cameras in his office or a bug on his phone to see if they could "get" him on other things. He became paranoid and thought that the district was out to "get" him. He had so much anger toward the Superintendent and school board members that he finally decided to go to a counselor to try to move on and enjoy his work again, because he really does like what he does. Bart once told me, "They stole something from me they can never replace. I loved my job and that is a priceless thing, and now I don't because of what they did!" This broke my heart. Bart has been molested by a doctor when he was very sick, dealt with his only sibling's death, and now this. When he reads about other cases like Doug Erwin or Debra Satchel or Pat Barton or anyone else, he gets sick and has to go do yoga to get his mind off of it. He can not believe that school board members allow the district to treat teachers the way they do. I wanted to clear up the sets of email. Bart has advocated that minor infractions of email should be handled by the principal or supervisor directly above the teacher and not by Professional Standards. Being called into Professional Standards has a stigma attached to it, and co-workers whisper and gossip about it. Through it all many teachers who work with Bart have come to him and showed support, and that has kept him from going crazy. Even people who did not work at Bart's school have heard about his case, and they have expressed sympathy when they meet him. I think Bart is doing well now, and he's trying to move on with his life, but from time to time he gets upset when he hears about another case of the ROSSAC administration bullying a teacher. He believes that people do not change from when they are children. The bullies are still there when you grow up. Tim
3 comments:
Lee,
Bart's case is complicated b/c it involves two sets of emails. One set was his private AOL emails that he sent to Joe Stines, director of the public libraries complaining that Stines was not supporting his librarians and libraries from Ronda Storms attempting to ban gay pride book displays. Those were private emails sent to Joe Stines as a citizen, and Bart had every right to send those as a citizen from his private email account.
The other set of emails consisted of 3 emails he posted onto the school district "Media Specialists" bulletin board. He logged onto the system from his home computer on his own summer vacation time, but he did use the district email system from home to alert other school librarians (media specialists) about the issue. This was a library issue of concern to most librarians b/c even school librarians face public pressure to rid their media centers of any books with gay characters in them sometimes. Bart thought he was going above and beyond the call of duty. The American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights says that good librarians alert other librarians to censorship issues in their area.
So those are the two separate sets of emails.
He was called into Professional Standards on a technicality of the school district emails. Linda Kipley stated that was "political and personal use" of the school district email system. She said that Bart could not do that and that the meeting was a warning. She said there was no punishment. That should have been the end of the whole thing. If it had been, I believe Bart would not have freaked out.
Then, she proceeded to open files. One had a newspaper article and Kipley stressed that she spoke to the school board attorneys and Bart had his 1st Amendment Rights, but she wanted to make sure he knew that the Superintendent MaryEllen Elia gave her the newspaper article which identified Bart as gay and also as a school librarian.
Then, she opened another file and said she had the Joe Stines emails (AOL emails that Bart sent to Joe Stines which Stines somehow gave to Elia). Kipley stressed that Elia gave those to her also and used dramatic pauses and looks.
To this day Bart believes that Kipley did not bring him in to talk about the school district emails which were used as a ruse and a technicality to have a legal foothold to pull him into Professional Standards. He believes he was brought in to be scared about the emails he sent to Joe Stines. Basically, he believes the whole meeting was an attempt to say, "Hush up, gay boy!"
During the meeting Kipley also volunteered the reason why she found his school district emails. She claimed that his media specialist emails "clogged the system" and they had to go "unclog" the system and that's when they found the emails. Well, I told Bart that was a lie, because emails sent to an electronic message board can not "clog" a system. Bart believes she volunteered this reason to make him think he was not being singled out. Bart had found on the internet that companies and organizations can chastise or punish employees for misuse of email systems, but they are not supposed to single an employee out. The rule has to be consistently applied. Well, he told CTA that before his meeting with Linda Kipley, and the CTA rep met with Kipley before Bart did, and when they all met together suddenly Linda Kipley volunteered the lie about how she found the emails that she claimed were the reason she pulled him into Professional Standards.
Since all this happened Bart has been making note of all the emails that he sees on the school district email system of teachers announcing births of children, grandchildren, as well as some emails that have borderline political issues. He plans to use these emails if he is ever pulled into Professional Standards again to show how he is being singled out about his misuse of the email system when many others (including administrators at ROSSAC) misuse the system.
To add to the whole mess Bart received 3 different explanations about why he was investigated and will probably never know the full truth.
The only thing he has ever wanted was an apology and has asked the school board and MaryEllen Elia for one, but they will not give him one. He believes that these people would apologize if they simply stepped on a stranger's toe, but they won't apologize to Bart for putting his professionalism up to question which is a worse situation.
Two teachers who were friends of Bart's dropped him like a hot potato, because they are gay and did not want to be associated with Bart since the Superintendent was mad at him. Another spread rumors at his school that he was about to be fired. The ROSSAC administrators have no idea the little complicated issues that spiral out of a "scare" meeting they concoct against someone.
Bart began to wonder why he was being singled out and if his previous activist work to get school board members to see what glbt teens face in schools were the root of the problem or what. He wondered if they had been out to get him. He wondered if they put cameras in his office or a bug on his phone to see if they could "get" him on other things. He became paranoid and thought that the district was out to "get" him. He had so much anger toward the Superintendent and school board members that he finally decided to go to a counselor to try to move on and enjoy his work again, because he really does like what he does.
Bart once told me, "They stole something from me they can never replace. I loved my job and that is a priceless thing, and now I don't because of what they did!" This broke my heart. Bart has been molested by a doctor when he was very sick, dealt with his only sibling's death, and now this.
When he reads about other cases like Doug Erwin or Debra Satchel or Pat Barton or anyone else, he gets sick and has to go do yoga to get his mind off of it. He can not believe that school board members allow the district to treat teachers the way they do.
I wanted to clear up the sets of email. Bart has advocated that minor infractions of email should be handled by the principal or supervisor directly above the teacher and not by Professional Standards. Being called into Professional Standards has a stigma attached to it, and co-workers whisper and gossip about it.
Through it all many teachers who work with Bart have come to him and showed support, and that has kept him from going crazy. Even people who did not work at Bart's school have heard about his case, and they have expressed sympathy when they meet him.
I think Bart is doing well now, and he's trying to move on with his life, but from time to time he gets upset when he hears about another case of the ROSSAC administration bullying a teacher. He believes that people do not change from when they are children. The bullies are still there when you grow up.
Tim
Lee--
We just got an email from the Trib--editorial will be in Sunday paper. Thanks SO much--we couldn't have done it without you!!!
Lee--
Does this guy running against Kurdell have a blog or anything? I want to read what he SAYS he's going to do.
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