Thursday, October 02, 2008

Shame on the School Board Dilletantes


School Board members Faliera, Edgecombe, Griffin, Valdes, Lamb, Kurdell, Olson:

If you would mount a blog, each one of you could be getting unexpurgated information from the taxpayers such as the two following comments to my blog leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.

You don't want to hear from the public. You give public commentators only three minutes at the mike and gavel them down mid-clause if they have not finished a sentence.

I have repeatedly asked the board to give teachers and students a slot on the agenda. I personally addressed a request to board members April Griffin and Susan Valdes to work for a slot for teachers and students on the board agenda. They didn't even bother to answer me. I had been both's supporters when they ran for the board, encouraging them and giving them considerable money donations. If this is the way they treat a supporter, one can only imagine how they treat other taxpayers. I would support neither again. The board needs members who instead of jumping when Elia gives them an order jumps when a taxpayer makes a request.

You will not allot teachers and students a time slot on the agenda so that they can comment on such things as Elia's loading another class on teachers with no warning, forcing teachers to dummy down grades so that Elia will be eligible for yet another "bonus," and allowing Elia to buy a 30-million-dollar Spring Romper Room gimmick without alerting the district teachers, who will have to implement it or, apparently,not alerting the board as well since Griffin offered the inane suggestion that there be a workshop on Spring when teachers finally found out about the Spring purchase and raised Cain about it.

What good would a Workshop be after Elia had signed the Spring contract and made the board legally liable for it?

The board lacks information.I don't believe it wants information. I doesn't do its homework and read the board agenda's back-up material.That's plain from the board performance. The board meetings at which the board chews the fat about trifles is a sleazy cover-up for its not knowing about, caring about, or discussing the real issues that whiz by on the consent agenda.

This is a shameful betrayal of the board's promises to the citizens to work to make the schools better for their children. The board's spending thousands of dollars on gaudy trips to such places as Las Vegas and Alaska while legions of children in the district can't afford supplies to participate in class projects defines the board's ethics. You all should be ashamed of yourselves.

I encourage all my readers that they, instead of writing to me, mount a blog and give the board hell for the lousy job it does to make the schools of the county vehicles for excellence in education, not money pits for the administration and board to fiddle faddle away taxpayers' education dollars to the children's detriment. And they should send copies to press to make sure that it knows the situation from another angle: that of the teachers and the students.

Lee Drury De Cesare

From: Anonymous [noreply-comment@blogger.com]

Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 8:50 PM

To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Protest, Protest, Protest.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Protest, Protest, Protest":

The school district is constantly saying it has to cut the budget, but there is no hesitation in spending taxpayer dollars when the Superintendent wants to retaliate against someone.

Money for children or teachers? Hell no!

Money to burn and waste on a court case to retaliate against a teacher? Yes, as much as they have to spend all the way up to the Supreme Court.

What a bunch of hypocrites the school board members and the Superintendent are!



Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 4:09 AM


From: Anonymous [noreply-comment@blogger.com]

Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 6:32 AM

To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on It's Only Taxpayers' Money.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "It's Only Taxpayers' Money":

We don't have to rehash how Elia gets more money for every child going into AP/advanced classes, and Spring Board is just a college prep type curriculum. So she is prepping ALL students to go into AP courses, so her bonus money goes sky high. Most CEOs would be fired for such conflict of interest.

Someone should also look in to see if Elia has invested in the SpringBoard. If so, she is making a profit that way too.

The school board is too ignorant to realize that this is a conflict of interest. They go along with it all, and they think they are doing a great job. In reality they have no financial management experience and they oversee millions of dollars. They should have a background in finance. But if you look at all the financial institutions in the U.S. right now, you see how they can't even manage their finances. I bet all of the head of these financial institutions are Republicans. They are greedy as hell and in the end they get theirs, but they take EVERYONE down with them too....that is the bad part.

It would be interesting to know what party each board member belongs to, since it is run so badly. Probably the majority are Republicans. Democrats would be making decisions for the children's sake.

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 3:31 AM


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It is disgusting that the school board members sit by and allow Elia to get away with this Spring Board scheme to fill her pockets with more bonus money. How can they possibly think this is ethical? It is such a conflict of interest, and the board members simply turn a blind eye. What hold does Elia have on them? Does she had pictures of Candy Olson (a stripper's name if ever there was one) or Faliero or whoever having some affair? That is the only answer. Why would they go along with what Elia wants all the time and to hell with the children? It doesn't make sense.