Wednesday, February 13, 2008


Ms. Elia:


Tom Gonzalez complained about “those blogs” at the February board meeting. He said they were not accurate. I felt he implied we lied or exaggerated.


We of the blog phylum try to be accurate. But we have a heck of a time getting information from some of the school people. Tom, for example, has not sent us the information on how he got his job, how many competitors he had for the job, how much money his company made for the Doug Erwin case and the records of that case. Lord knows what else we asked him for that he has never produced. Then he has the nerve to say our blogs are inaccurate.


I asked Ms. Cobbe to find out how Tom got to keep all his own employment records, if there were some privilege in writing that one could see that gave school lawyers this right. I haven’t got that. You must have those data. May I have a copy of this special-privilege clause for Mr. Gonzalez? Is it common to other board-attorney positions in Florida? Is it in the school statutes?


You get a “bonus” for teachers’ work in raising student scores. May I see a copy of the logic for that exploitation for teachers’ work? Ms. Olson was supposed to have helped you as the board representative with your latest contract. Did Ms. Olson raise any objections to your exploiting teacher work for your financial gain? Did she observe that your $300,000 salary is excessive?


Whatever happened to the administrator who manufactured a job for a favorite in the health-care field? Did she get fired? Or under the mess-up-move-up shibboleth, did she get promoted? Did you sign off on that job for the favorite? Did any member of the board raise questions about the job, or did the job simply sail through on the consent agenda with no scrutiny from the board? How is the favorite filling her work day since the consensus was that the job was unneeded in an already overcrowded field? Have you had somebody check on her activities? Tom Gonzalez claimed you couldn't break the contract, but he didn't say you couldn't fire this supernumerary and save the taxpayers some money. Have you fired the favorite?Has any one of the board members bothered to ask you about this job's status, or is the board content to let this money drain from the taxpayers' subsidizing the school with the attitude of "it's only the citizens' money, after all."


Did Tom Gonzalez examine the contract that Ms. Valdes must have generated for the school that had parts of the school building fall down after completion? If so, did he put in writing a warning to the board of the need for catastrophic insurance? May I see that warning if it exists?


Your salary is the highest I have been able to find for the superintendent position in the country. All the other superintendents have PhDs. You don’t. Can you justify this bloated record salary since you lack a terminal degree and can’t handle basic grammar and punctuation? What is your target salary before you say it is enough? Do you think the board will rubberstamp whatever salary amount you put in front of them?


We bloggers are trying to be accurate about what we put in our blogs. Your providing information requested will assist us in that goal.


I have never received an answer from any email I have sent you. I have long suspected that this silence was due to your lack of confidence in your writing ability.


Will you continue this no-response policy or begin a new one of transparency for the sake of open government? How much more money would the board have to add to the whopping $300,000 you get now to insure that you answer emails?


Last question:Have you any plans to sign up for a remedial English course soon in the nearest high school to ROSSAC?

Blogger lee drury de cesare



Monday, February 11, 2008

WE'VE GOT MAIL!

From: Anonymous [mailto:noreply-comment@blogger.com]
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 11:23 PM
To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com
Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on <!-- GoStats JavaScript Based Code --> Tom, plea....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post " Tom, plea...":

Not bechamel sauce. She probably doesn't know what that is. She probably made hamburgers and hot dogs or pork chops.

This is a woman who would not be accepted in European circles or anything beyond middle class standards.

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 8:22 PM

Now you are in for it from Galahad Tom, who says we are picking on Kipley. lee

From: Anonymous [mailto:noreply-comment@blogger.com]
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 11:32 PM
To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com
Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on <!--[if gte vml 1]> ....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post " ...":

I wonder what motivates people like Linda Kipley and Tom Gonzalez. They sound like cruel people.

I have worked with Bart, and he is a joy to work with always bending over backward to help his co-workers. I wish he still worked at my school. He always greets people with a smile. He also makes everyone laugh. He is an asset to any school.

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 8:31 PM


I have the theory that because Bart is so nice, they thought he would be a good practice target to whet their skills on for further adventures in sadism. The baby seal declined to be clubbed, however, and fought back. Things like that always cheer me up.


Why are there sadists? I don't know. Auschwitz is the summary of the breed. But we have a few Hitler hires at ROSSAC. lee



Tom, please consider this an official deposition. Speak directly into the mike and keep your voice down so as not to wake up the dog. lee

You said at the February 7th board meeting that Hillsborough County's Professional Standards office was "a model" for the rest of the state. Could you document that assertion with bibliography and footnotes and answer the following questions since you complained that we blog people never get things accurate?

1. Do the other envious
Florida schools Professional Standards offices yearn for a Professional Standards head who has a home-ec degree and can make béchamel sauce without lumps?

2. Do they wish they possessed the sadism to make a teacher do sorting chores just as Linda Kipley did as she vacillated for days with aim of producing maximum anxiety in a teacher before Kipley would say the teacher’s time of punishment was up?

3. Do these admirers of
Hillsborough County’s Professional Standards “model” wish they could be cruel enough as was Kipley to deny a teacher trapped for not crossing a "t" on a field-trip application the right to attend her class's graduation exercises, which reduced her to tears since she loved her students?

4. Do they envy Ms. Kipley her anti-free speech crackdown of telling a teacher in Professional Standards lock-up that the teacher could not tell anyone outside about what she was undergoing on in Professional Standards Abu Ghraib?

5. Did you rubberstamp Elia's and Kipley's set-up of Bart Birdsall of Elia's doing her buddy Bean a favor by crushing a little worm of a media specialist who had the nerve to object to the county library's shutting down gay library rights a la Rhonda Storms?

2. Did La Kipley check out punishments with you and get your OK to proceed with police-dogs attacks, hoods, and teacher nude human pyramids if things weren’t ducky in Professional Standards with all targeted teachers in the throes of psychiatric angst?

3. Are you one of the stars of
Hillsborough County's Professional- Standards glory around the state? Could you provide us doubters with citations that laud you?

If you can't satisfy the above questions, can you just admit that you were blowing smoke at the school-board community-perception showdown?

Doing so might speed things up to the time that even brain-dead board planted pots see the handwriting of their demise on the wall unless they start serving teachers, students, and community instead of Elia and the administrative cartel.

lee drury de cesare






Casting-room Couch Got a Bokay

Number One Fan has left a new comment on your post " We've Got M...":

Lee,


You rock our world. You defend honesty and honest education. You call a spade a spade, and let the chips fall where they may.

I'll have you know, I am in the process of writing a letter to Crist, as you encouraged. I am a teacher in this debauched county and feel the same way you do. Keep up the good fight.

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Posted by Number One Fan to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 6:19 PM

I swear that letters push buttons. When my old man was mayor for ten years of our little beach town, he would ponder and worry over a voter letter for weeks. I'd say, "What are you thinking about?" "That letter," he'd respond.

The old conscientious dear says politicians at all levels take letters seriously. So write, write, write and get other teachers to do the same. If you can't sign your name, say you fear retaliation and write anyway.

Maybe I am hallucinating, but I see a little crack in the sadistic Professional Standards armor.

Kipley has abused so many teachers with her relish for psychological sadism that she should get the sack immediately, but I fear she's Elia's best bud.

And Tom Gonzalez is her knight errant, God save the mark. He says that that HC's Professional Standards Abu Ghraib is a "model for the state" and that we devotees of teachers' humane treatment are just picking on Ms. Kipley.

That's exactly what Kipley deserves: big-time picking on. Put me down for the Kipley-picking-on Squad.

Tom hasn't brought up the charge of extortion against me that he cited a couple of meetings ago. So I guess I won't get to star in my own courtroom drama as a felon. He's now putting all his energy into defending Abu Ghraib Kipley.

I tell you the truth. I feel neglected. lee





Tom, you said at the February 7th board meeting that
Hillsborough County's Professional Standards office was "a model" for the rest of the state. Could you document that assertion with bibliography and footnotes and answer the following questions since you complained that we blog people never get things accurate?

1. Do the other envious
Florida schools Professional Standards offices yearn for a Professional Standards head who has a home-ec degree and can make béchamel sauce without lumps?

2. Do they wish they possessed the sadism to make a teacher do sorting chores just as did Linda Kipley as she vacillated with calculation of producing maximum anxiety in the teacher before Kipley would say the teacher’s time of punishment was up?

3. Do these admirers of
Hillsborough County’s Professional Standards “model” wish they could be cruel enough as was Kipley to deny a teacher trapped for not crossing a t on a field trip the right to attend her class's graduation exercises, which reduced her to tears since she loved her students?

4. Do they envy Ms. Kipley her anti-free speech crackdown of telling a teacher in Professional Standards lock-up that the teacher could not tell anyone outside about what she was undergoing on in Professional Standards Abu Ghraib?

5. Did you rubberstamp Elia's and Kipley's set-up of Bart Birdsall as Elia's doing her buddy Bean a favor by crushing a little worm of a media specialist who had the nerve to object to the county library's shutting down gay library rights a la Rhonda Storms?

6. Did La Kipley check out punishments with you and get your OK to proceed with police-dogs attacks, hoods, and teacher nude human pyramids if things weren’t ducky in Professional Standards with all targeted teachers in the throes of psychiatric angst?

7. Are you one of the stars of
Hillsborough County's Professional- Standards glory around the state? Could you provide us doubters with citations that laud you?

If you can't satisfy the above questions, can you just admit that you were blowing smoke at the school-board community-perception showdown?

Doing so might speed things up to the time that even brain-dead board planted pots will see the handwriting of their demise on the wall unless they start serving teachers, students, and community instead of Elia and the administrative cartel.

lee drury de cesare

Sunday, February 10, 2008


We've Got Mail!

“In fact, it [the pamphlet for teachers] is done.” (Quote from Tom Gonzalez's comments at the board meeting on January 7th)

Dr. Lamb: Tom Gonzalez said the above phrase in his comments at the last board meeting. Could you ask him for a copy of the pamphlet he says "is done" on teachers' protecting themselves in Professional Standards so that you can review it? ldd

Thank you.

lee drury de cesare



Why is Tom Gonzalez in a snit over something you said about someone he knows? I have never understood this type of logic. Why be mad at someone for saying something about someone you know? We are all grown ups. That person can defend herself/himself. Tom does not need to dislike you because of the situation.

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 12:36 PM

I don't know what ails Tom. I think he wants to be a good person but misses the mark big time. lee

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post " Annual Dinner on the Grounds at the Drury Family...":


Bart has left a new comment on your post " We've Got M...":

Lee,

You say you also wonder at Gonzalez's resistance against the letter. I believe it is because he views it as a game, and he wants to win the game. My receiving the letter I want symbolizes my winning in his mind, and he does not want me to win. He wants to win.

Ironically, I have already won. I look myself in the mirror and know I have done what I believe to be right by myself, by the district, and for other teachers.

I am not sure he can do the same, in my opinion.

People who are motivated by an inner desire to do what is right and to make the world a better place for others like themselves are not ruled by their job or money or anything besides their personal values. They do what they believe is the right thing to do, not what is necessarily appropriate, legal, or obvious.

So I have won regardless of the letter. I have won my self-respect. I hope that Tom Gonzalez will learn this valuable lesson one day. All the money in the world and a job or keeping important people as friends means nothing at the end of the day. You want to die knowing you did what was right and knowing you helped others. Otherwise, there is no point in life.

He doesn't understand that the letter is a symbol. In the end the important thing was that I spoke about an injustice done to me and others and attempted to prevent that injustice from continuing by appearing at the board meeting. I hope some suffering teacher out there will see my appearance and that it may help him or her.

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Posted by Bart to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 6:31 PM

Bart, you know more than I do. Tom's behavior astonishes me. But there has to be a reason for it. Pascal said, "The heart has its reasons that the reason does not understand." lee

Lee,

Your new posting hits the head on the nail. I never thought about these things you discuss.

But did Elia fire Mark Hart? I thought it was Lennard who had him fired. I thought Steve Hegarty was already about to take over when Elia took over.

Bart

I don't know; and I don't care. It's Lennard or Elia, the Bobbsie twins of cruelty. Lennard was not honorable, in my opinion; but my inference is that Elia is even less so.

If you asked for the information on the firing, you wouldn't get it. I recall only that Mr. Hart told me the personnel guy Valdez did the dirty work of summoning Hart to his office and informing him that it was taps for him, saying that things would "get ugly" if he didn't resign. These ROSSAC thugs have a tendency to talk like extras in B movies. So Hart resigned.

I wish he had said, "The hell you say. I am going out into the lobby to tapdance and hand out pamplets spilling the beans to one and all." Then you would have seen an administration mega-scamper to propitiate him. They would have promoted him and doubled his salary for his silence.

The ROSSAC stormtroopers keep all information that they can in lock-down, especially about their foul deeds. Knowledge is power.

Then Tom Gonzalez complains about the inaccuracy of "these blogs." He has refused to send me the information regarding his relationship with the board that I have asked for and that I need to be accurate and that state law says he shoul.

Accuracy, hell. Throw darts if they don't send you the information you ask for is my method.

I had to laugh at Tom's forlorn lament about "those blogs." When I got home, I started doing a buck and wing, singing, "Those blogs, those blogs, those damn blogs; now hear the word of the lord."

A school person told me months ago that the blogs would finally undermine the bullies of ROSSAC. I begin to believe him. lee

It boils down to the fact that Tom Gonzalez is a big baby. His attempt to talk the school board out of doing something ethical for an employee says it all. How mean spirited can one be? Yet he is holier than thou because you said something mean about someone he knows. You hit the nail on the head. He can be mean to people, but he can't take it.

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 12:41 PM

Tom does seem to arrogate to himself a superior position amongst us more ordinary specimens of humankind. If I were in my parlor psychology mode, I might pronounce him insecure. But since I am merely old and tough and mean when somebody spits on justice, I'll settle for saying that Tom needs to stand in the corner for at least an hour.


Bart has left a new comment on your post " Annual Dinner on the Grounds at the Drury Family...":

At the board meeting Tom Gonzalez made it sound like I was asking for something special by requesting the letter I did and made what I feel to be a comment implying I am a bit nuts. He told Doretha Edgecomb he did not think this letter would be a problem because he can't imagine another person wanting the letter. In my opinion, he was implying that I am crazy and only Crazy Bart would want the letter. I don't feel that is professional of Tom Gonzalez to say publicly about me. Besides, why wouldn't someone want a letter that was promised to him from the date of the meeting with Kipley and then promised again by Gonzalez himself? Most people simply don't have the nerve to keep asking for it, but they would still want it. I am not asking for a special letter. He should know that by now. I am asking for what I was told I would get in the first place. I think it is strange that Gonzalez says on the one hand that this letter would not cause the board any problems, because he doesn't think anyone else would want one, yet he doesn't think the letter is a good idea because employees should not get a special letter. If he doesn't think anyone else would ever want one, what is the problem with writing ONE then? It seems like he is talking out of both sides of his mouth and is not making any sense. To me it seemed like he was coming up with any side argument he could to convince the board against the letter. He's saying it is no big deal to write the letter, yet it is a big deal to do so. Strange. I consider that faulty thinking and logic.

I passed Logic (an elective) with flying colors years ago to my shock. I am a very emotional and artistic soul, so I did not think I contained much logic, but when I passed logic easily while others had trouble, I realized I can be very logical, and I often find that my thinking is much more logical than people I originally assumed would be more logical than I am.

Linda Kipley distinctly told me at the end of my meeting with her on June 2005 that the meeting ended satisfactorily and that I would be receiving a letter stating that it ended satisfactorily. She made it sound like it was a good letter for me to get, so I waited for it, and I received a horrible certified mail letter instead because I simply asked her to clarify her "reason" for investigating me in an email. That must have angered her, so I received a nasty letter instead of the one she said I would receive.

I want the letter promised to me from the beginning. Why shouldn't I want that? If his own child had been treated as I have, he would want his child to receive that letter. I am sure of this.

He also says Professional Standards in Hillsborough is a model for the state. If the head of Professional Standards lying to a teacher during an investigation is a model for the state, it shows us how low the state's standards for Professional Standards is.

He also states that the letter most people received would be, "Thank you and don't do it again." I have the letter Kipley sent me, and it is not a "Thank you...." letter. It is quite crisp and threatening, in my opinion, and it is not what I was told I would receive. He candy coated what people received by saying people receive a "Thank you and don't do it again" letter. In my 11 years in the district my meeting with Linda Kipley was the most unprofessional meeting I have ever experienced in my career. I find it absolutely shocking that he claims this is a model for the state. If it is, I thank God I am not in another county, but that doesn't mean this county doesn't need cleaning up as well. Apparently, all the professional standards offices need cleaning up big time in that case as well as whoever rates these departments.

Notice that the letter became the main point of conversation when I wanted them to also consider exit interviews. By having an independent person or group interview detainees in Professional Standards I think the department would automatically clean itself up. Whenever there are checks and balances, you have a safer, more fair, and more professional organization.

I actually think it is to the board's credit (at least Edgecomb, Faliero, Griffin, and Valdez who all spoke up) that the board wants me to receive the letter, so I can move on. That shows they are capable of compassion, and I do think that is the right way to go for the school district. I have thanked them via email. I still am not 100% sure I will get it, because I feel I have gotten the runaround for so long, but I hope that I have at least made them aware that there are problems that need to be looked into. I hope so. I don't want any other teacher to go through what I went through. That is my main goal.

If the district would stop viewing criticism as a bad thing and viewing it as a chance to improve the system, the district would see that the red pen markings on their papers help the district to get better.

There is an opera singer who is singing so lousy that it is shocking that she is performing around the world in high profile assignments. Her voice is falling to pieces. I believe she has nothing but "Yes" Men around her who tell her she is wonderful all the time. You have to have people around you who will tell you like it is. That is the only way to improve. The school district views your blog and your admonitions as a fight that they want to win against. Why don't they simply look into things and try to see if they can use your criticisms to improve? You are doing them a favor. You have to be cruel to be kind....that's the saying......



Posted by Bart to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 1:12 PM

I too wonder at Tom's resistance to your getting this letter. lee

Our old bulldog, Obie: gone but not forgotten He was the dumbest, bravest dog on the planet.

Chair Faliero:

Your performance at the school-board meeting January 7th requires comment.

First, let’s deal with your usual rebuke to me during my podium time about “personal attacks” and avoiding names when I said the board should fire Tom Gonzalez because he got the job no bid without advertising or competition; that he had lied about getting a letter of closure from Linda Kipley for Bart Birdsall; and his telling me at least three times that he would author a pamphlet telling teachers how to defend themselves in the Professional Standards gauntlet.

You weren’t able to define “personal attacks” for me. If you forbid something, you should have a ready definition of it. I think you invoke much that you don’t understand in this job as chair, one that you are unfitted for on several fronts. Forbidding someone from using a name in his or her comments is irrational and unconstitutional. I don’t see how people can avoid using names. What are they supposed to do—refer to the targeted wrongdoer as “a certain humanoid,” a blob of protoplasm,” or “Hey, you!”?

Your discourteous, reception of Ms. Sue Saffira who followed me during the citizen’s forum is unforgivable. You were unpleasant to the point of hostility. One compares your treatment of Ms. Saffira with your saccharine reception of the man who headed the pedophile program. You chirped a big hello and smiling welcome to him but sneered at Ms. Saffira, a mother of children in the school system and an officer of the PTA in her children’s two schools. Where is your sense of propriety, Ms. Falliero?

Your fawning over the pedophile-stopper guy and sneering at the mother tells me that you are one of those women we feminists call a “man-directed woman,” one who does not think she is important enough to stand on her own but must have some man validate her for her to feel worthwhile. These poor creatures flatter just about every man who appears on their horizon.

Last board meeting you were flirting with poor old Tom Gonzalez, who wouldn’t respond to Helen of Troy unless she could give him a cash-producing case of spousal cruelty against Menelaus for preventing her from running off with Paris to frolic at Troy and bring that city down. Hussies either in ancient times or sitting as chairs of a school board are never up to anything wholesome for the human race.

Last meeting you made eyes at Tom Gonzalez; this week you zeroed in on the pedophile stopper guy. This behavior lends support to the belief that you lured Mark Hart into adultery; that you broke up his marriage; damaged his two children thereby; and that such is your modus operendi. It’s not enough that you have managed to become a school -board member; you continue to solicit men’s approval—not excepting soliciting attention from the podium of the school board in public view of your pitiful need for male approval. Yours is a sad commentary on women’s taking advantage of the opportunities that women’s rights advocates have eked out for women.

This flirtatious behavior in a public woman is embarrassing to women who aspire to be taken on their merits as men are. As long as some women act like floozies, misogynists will feel free to treat all women as sluts.

This behavior is gradually dissipating as more and more women object to it. You will note CNBC’s Mathews and Schuster’s being under the gun now from their bosses for converting all women into the hussy ilk. Matthews has made constant sexist digs at Hillary, and Shuster even said the Clintons were pimping their well-raised child, Chelsea, in the presidential race. Your being nice to the pedophile-stopper guy and discourteous to women at the podium does not help women erase the malignant whore-Madonna myth that cripples their advance in the world outside the Freudian bifurcation of kitchen or brothel. Stop this contemptible conduct in the name of decency and women’s progress, Ms. Falliero. including that of the girls in the school system over which you unfortunately preside.

Think what a difference the school-board chair’s being courteous or even charming to parents such as Ms. Sue Saffira, who come before the board, would make. What if you had not sat on your board-chair throne and glowered at Ms. Saffira? What if you had instead used some of the charm you lavished on the pedophile-stopper guy and said, “Welcome to the board-comment period, Ms. Saffira? I understand you are an officer in not one but both of your children’s schools’ PTAs. This board is grateful for your support. You must limit yourself to the three minutes we have allocated to citizen-comment time. We look foreword to your comments”?

Would being polite like that kill you, Madame Chair? Would not making honorable mothers like Ms. Saffira feel like a worm begin to supplant the board’s reputation for indifference to and even cruelty to the parents anxious for the board’s cooperation in seeing to their children’s wellbeing in the schools?

What ails the psyches of the board members that they don’t see their churlish behavior toward parents augments the board’s reputation for indifference and even contempt to the population it promised to put first—students, their teachers, and parents?

What if at the end of the three minutes instead of your busting in to bark, “Stop! Your time is up!” you possessed the intelligence and grace to say, “Thank you for these valuable comments, Ms. Saffira. I am sorry that we must observe the 3-minute limit that applies to all our visitors. Please come see us again to give us the benefit of your observations”?

And the board should have the PR sense to add an extra minute on to a comment time when the person asks for it. Would that shrink the board's amour propre to extend this grace to people whom board members suck up to during election time with the hope that they never see them again until re-election looms?

Would the ROSSAC bunker's mode of shutting out the world and sneering at the very people who undergird education in the county collapse if the board chair were polite to people outside of ROSSAC? I don’t think so. Such behavior from the board chair would do much to attenuate the way people perceive the school board and administration as hostile to the public--even to the parents and beyond. The board is also hostile to teachers and students, who are what schools are about. So great is the antipathy of the board to any but the denizens of ROSSAC that it has cut teachers and students off and dishonored them by refusing to assign them a slot on the board agenda and welcoming their comments. Instead, the board makes it impossible for teachers and students to believe that the board and administration value them as human beings and as the reason why there exist schools in the first place.

You demoralized this mother, Ms. Falliero, with your churlish treatment of her in contrast to your fawning on the pedophile-preventer man. We see from your fulsome greeting to him that you can be welcoming. You just don’t choose to welcome anybody but your fetish objects—men.

I doubt Ms. Saffira will want to return to address the board, and I wager her friends who she said told her not to come can say, “We told you so” when she returns to her community. Such is the perception of the school board in the community it putatively serves. Such are the board members’ board decorum after they who work hard at election time to snocker voters on the hustings to convince the electorate that they deserve to remain on the board.

You treated Ms. Saffira with so much contempt that my mother genes kicked in so that I intercepted her on her exit to tell her she did just fine. And she did. Any lummox of a chair would have recognized the worth of this young mother’s intelligent comments about the value of change and would have treated her with dignity. But not you, Ms. Falliero. You wouldn't know an intelligent comment from a mother from a hole in the ground. You have no business as the chair of a school board that cares a whit about its reputation of commitment to children and of serving the voters and not the superintendent’s regime.

An ethical board would not tolerate an adulteress chair who fawns over a male guest and treats so ill a mother of two children in the school system who serves as an officer in the two schools of her children’s PTAs

By temperament and by skills, you have no business being school board chair. You don’t have control of your agenda, getting mixed up in processing mere linear items; needing someone to tell you who is next on the speaker list; asking repeatedly so that the audience hears you ask again and again, “Who’s next? Who’s next?” This dithering does not add to your authority.

But most of all, you should not be board chair because you have no feel for the dignity of people and have, instead, an hypertrophied opinion of the importance of male figures who appear before the board, making a fool of yourself with your excessive bonhomie toward guys, but not women.

I asked my husband about your telling Board Member Griffin to hurry along and wind up her comment. My husband was mayor in our little beach town for a dozen years and chaired a board with our intelligent lawyer’s help. My old man says a presiding officer is ill advised to tell a board member to wrap it up. He says the rebuked board member should respond “point of order,” remind the chair that she speaks for her constituents and does not accept the curtailing of her right to do so. My husband says a presiding officer who tries to cut off an elected official on the board shows little judgment and scant talent for leading. He says any elected official is clothed in the validity of being the person the voters put in the position to speak for them. He said that validity trumps the chair’s wishes.

I hope that the next time you interrupt Ms. Griffin or any board member and tell him or her to hurry along that the rebuked party will follow my husband’s protocol or mine—mine being to tell the chair to go to hell.

I often disagree with my Republican husband, who has in this election thrown his hands up on the Republicans and now supports Hillary for president while I support Obama, to whose campaign I have sent all my dress-and-shoe money since he began his noble quest. But I was glad to get this fellow's comment whom I married fifty-one years ago on an issue involving Roberts Rules because he has lived them for fourteen years as a public official. These data may merit him chicken and dumplings from his domestic political adversary.

I note that you didn’t rebuke Board Member Olson for conjugating the universe ad infinitum as is her wont but that you, in contrast, rebuked the board member whom you had previously advised to resign if she couldn’t fall in with the Elia agenda and become a rubber stamp for Ms. Elia as you, Ethridge, Kurdell, Olson, and Lamb are. That fact makes your board-chair conduct look biased, Ms. Falliero, and just plain mean-spirited. And let me here repeat my belief that Ms. Elia’s firing Mr. Hart on a trumped-up charge of drunkenness was to cover your adultery up and to ensure for her a servile, dependable vote on the board. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to discover that you two had a strategy session in which Ms. Elia said, "OK, Falliero, vote my way a hundred percent of the time, and I will fire Hart to protect your board seat." And you said, "It's a deal."

The which brings up this question that Suzy Cream Cheese has posed to you on her teacher blog The Wall and which I second: Why don’t your engaging in on-the-job adultery with a married man, ending his marriage, and savaging his two young children while agreeing with Elia that firing him to protect your “reputation” provide basis for your resigning your job on the school board?

As an indignant American asked Joe McCarthy, “Have you no shame, ma’am?”

lee drury de cesare

c: Ms. Sue Saffira

Ms. Safira, the blogs that giver an alternate view of the Hillsborough County school board and administration are mine, Suzy Creamcheese’s The Wall, Sisyphus, the Rock that Keeps on Rolling, Eskay Express, and Goader. We are the blogs that speak truth to power on school issues.

I don't know who your board member is. Find out and have the member come to a meeting with interested parents in your district. If that board member can't climb down off the dais and go out and talk to parents, what good is he or she? Not showing up will signal that your community needs to form a committee to work for the election of a new board member to replace an indifferent one.

The potted plants of the board will never stop serving Ms. Elia and her minions instead of the students, teachers, and the public until voters decline to put them in office. When these board ROSSAC addicts catch on to the penalty of their indifferent and even contemptuous behavior when it comes to parents, students, teachers, and the rest of the school family, they will mend their ways or get kicked out by the voters. lee

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