Saturday, August 23, 2008

Wisdom from Grass Roots

Freud's Couch: Let's buy one for ROSSAC

Copy to all members of the board from leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com

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

Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2008 12:56 PM

To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on I've Got Mail!.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "I've Got Mail!":

You might not know about this. The Superintendent in her infinite wisdom has had new air conditioning installed in some schools, and the air can not be turned down lower than a certain number. Not sure what temperature. Well, some old schools were built before air conditioning, and the humidity is incredibly high and teachers can't even punch holes into their papers, b/c the papers are so damp. There is mold growing outside hallways and inside rooms. Anyone who has studied science knows that there are life threatening molds, molds that make people sick, and molds that ruin books and supplies. In her attempt to save money for the district she is probably endangering people's health. Students will have to visit the clinic more often causing less academic learning. Teachers will have to take more sick days and go to the doctor costing the district more money.

This is a direct result of what you speak about in your blog. Top positions are filled by incompetent people who don't know how to build schools or renovate schools, and then when they attempt to save money by revamping the air conditioning, they actually lose money in another way. This is an administration that does not know what it is doing. You are so right that they are C students and early childhood people who should never have stopped teaching 1+1=2.

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

Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2008 7:34 AM

To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Realpolitik at ROSSAC.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Realpolitik at ROSSAC":

Come on everyone, you know the only reason Linda Kipley lies and intimidates the teachers she deals with is to keep her administrative cover-up skills sharp. Give her a break, she is highly motivated and dedicated to being the worst there is.

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 4:33 AM

Linda Kipley is a home-ec sadist. She enjoys her job of torturing teachers and lower staff. She reminds me of the nurses I used to see during my fifteen years of hospital nursing who gravitated to the pediatric ward to abuse the kids. I swear there's that type of nurse, God help us. Sadists are everywhere.


The thing is that the board knows all about Kipley's dirty work and pretends it doesn't. Kipley gets all Elia's retaliation work and does it with glee. That's why her husband, with not even a college degree of any kind, got the job when there were people who applied for it with excellent credentials that exactly fitted the job description. I imagine Goebells was Hitler's favorite boy too.


Tom Gonzalez promised me three times (he used to like me until I filed the ethics charge against him with the Florida bar) to write up a pamphlet to alert people entering the Professional Standards hell hole to their rights and resources. He stalled and stalled and stalled. Then when I brought up the missing pamphlet in the public forum he claimed he worked for the board, not for Ms. De Cesare. I asked the board to require Gonzalez to fulfill his promise because the teachers needed that information to protect themselves.


Board members sat unmoved and did nothing. The Professional Standards cell block needs hosing down with a citizens' and teachers' committee reviewing it and setting standards for change. But most of all, it needs a new director with appropriate academic credentials not acquired amongst the pots and pans. This is one job that cries out for a psychiatric evaluation before the person is hired. I am not talking about the Minnesota Multiphasic; I am talking about a bona fide clinically adept psychiatrist--the kind that the courts have interview serial killers--to interview the candidate to detect any sadistic tendencies before he or she gets the power to frame and torture teachers and staff.

Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 7:43 AM

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

Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 11:59 PM

To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on I've Got Mail!.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "I've Got Mail!":

The board members who were there when Doug Irwin was pushed out should be ashamed of themselves. They had a chance then to clean things up, and they did not. They probably didn't want to rock the boat. Yet how would they feel if they were in Irwin's shoes and could not get anyone to help? I wonder if these board members are capable of feeling shame. Probably not. They are demonstrably shameless.

My scanner is on the fritz, and I must get it fixed to post my last three documents of the Irwin files that I copied. The court files show that the board members were interviewed for the trial. They all knew about the obscene activities that went on and were aware of the torture of Erwin. The leaking, water-logged new schools suggest to me that there must have been payoffs at the board level. If you go to the financial filing for Kurdell, for instance, you see developers and architects listed in the contributors. Why would they contribute to a school-board member running for office? That does not look well. I wrote Kurdell and told her she should turn down such redolent contributions. Something tells me she won't listen to me.

Lamb, Olson, and Kurdell were on the board during the Irwin scandal. They knew what was going on and let it continue-- the rape of the taxpayers by the fixed bids, shoddy school construction, and outright theft. They follow the lead of the ROSSAC collaboraters always. They remain mum to keep their incumbency intact. I do not judge the characters of the new board members--Ethridge, Griffith, Faliera, and Valdes--strong enough to oppose outright murder in the foyer to the board room much less criminal behavior in the ROSSAC inner sactum of skullduggery.

I hope that Gorham beats Kurdell. But he has existed in the HCC Gordon Keller crime cell without blowing any whistles, so my hopes are not high. But he represents the only possibility for change, and his wife is a teacher in the school system. She knows the score, so he must too. He knows where to dig for the bodies.

Knowledge is not enough. I have worked in my professional life in a college environment filled with smart people. But they were not gutsy. I was the designated hit man for them when it came to attacking the administration for behaving badly. Courage is the most rare of qualities. For somebody to get up and say, "Hey, wait a damn minute:this is wrong" is a miracle. These people are usually known as crazy. And considering the guts scale in the world, they probably are. If we could get just one person with guts and a conscience on the board, that would be a turning point. lee

Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 6:25 PM

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

Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2008 7:34 AM

To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Realpolitik at ROSSAC.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Realpolitik at ROSSAC":


Friday, August 22, 2008

I've Got Mail!

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

Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 7:29 AM

To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Realpolitik at ROSSAC.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Realpolitik at ROSSAC":

Linda Kipley is a liar. Any teacher called to Professional Standards should take a lawyer. Do not count on CTA. Take a lawyer.

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 4:29 AM

I agree that Linda Kipley lies. She did when she and Elia cooked up a case against Bart Birdsall to punish him for speaking out against the discrimination against gays that Rhonda Storms's ordinance caused. She lied when I got kicked out of the board room on Falliera's ad hoc "rule" that a speaker couldn't use a name. I filed a charge against the monster head of the internal police for being rude and threatening to call the police. Kipley shot down my complaint stat. Ms. Kipley usually strings out the Professional Standards punishment for maximum sadism. But she delivered my decision overnight. I don't know what that means.

Ms. Elia has shown signs of customary bigotry against gays by supporting Falliera's attempt to make the schools tell parents of gay children's belonging to gay clubs. Thank God the students showed up in numbers to support no notification as well as notables from USF and the ACLU. So Faliera and Elia lost that one to the Minions of the Light.

Ms. Elia is not a progressive thinker in any area that I can detect. She's a regulation fascist in her administration thinking. The only area that she is adventuresome in is devising ways to get a bigger salary. The grade inflation and Spring efforts both contain ways Ms. Elia can get "bonus" money. She did not consult the teachers about these issues, and the board sat potted plants as usual and let Ms. Elia run wild.

Ms. Elia lied to me and Bart Birdsall at Tiger Bay when she first got her job. Bart asked her why she sent the emails that he had written Stine from his home computer to Linda Kipley when Stine forwarded them to her. She lied and said she didn't know how to read the "to" and "from" of the emails so that she couldn't tell that Bart produced them from his home computer. An occupant of a job in education cannot get by with that whopping lie. Apparently she expected us to believe this hooey. The bottom line is that Ms. Elia lies fluently even when she knows people will know she is lying.

Lying is a bona fide occupational qualification for Ms. Kipley's job. This skill explains why Ms. Elia values her so. Kipley has no scruples about manufacturing cases against anyone Ms. Elia fingers, and she has no hesitation in torturing teachers in her vile punishment cycles. What amazes me is that the teachers take her punishment and don't go out in the street and scream bloody murder. That's the atmosphere in which the Nazis murdered six million Jews.

Reading the Erwin report will convince anybody that the ethos of ROSSAC is to lie as a matter of policy. The morphology of the drill is that the superintendent sets the parameters of reality in ROSSAC and frames the official story line, and anybody who wants to keep his or her job tells that story no matter what the reality is. That's like one of the Bush operatives telling the press that the press doesn't know the real score since the White House operates in its own theater of reality.

I think Kipley's husband recently got the job he was not qualified for--not even a college degree--because Elia owes Kipley for doing so much dirty work that Elia wouldn't dare turn Kipley's husband down for a job even if he were a high school drop-out. God forbid that the board ask how such relative hiring accords with the signs plastered all over the Web page and internal documents, "We are an equal-employment-opportunity employer." The board is in on the fix. Its members know exactly what is going on.


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

Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 7:29 AM

To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Realpolitik at ROSSAC.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Realpolitik at ROSSAC":

You say that the school board doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings by firing him/her. However, the district and board thinks nothing of dismissing teachers. It is a double standard. Someone in ROSSAC could murder someone, and they would cover for the person, but if a teacher lets out a squeak they haul her/him into Professional Standards.

You are right. I should have qualified that tenderness of the board for people's feelings and said that, oddly enough, it omits teachers from its solicitude. The administration backed up by the board treats teachers pretty much like dogs. They won't give them a place on the board agenda to air their views. They won't review the Professional Affairs sadism practiced against teachers even when asked to do so as I have done. Tom Gonzalez promised me three times he would complete a pamphlet to give to teachers entering Professional Affairs for investigation with information that outlined their rights and resources. Then he refused in a board meeting to fulfill the promise, saying he worked for the board, not for me, a mere citizen. None of the board asked him to complete the project even when I asked them to order him to do the job he promised to do. They are all--administration, board, and attorney, in this stonewalling together. And Professional Standards is the official tool to keep the teachers and staff cowed and afraid to say boo. The board is perfectly satisfied that the Professional Standards Abu Ghraib terrifies teachers and treats them like dogs. If its members weren't happy with the situation, they would do something about it.

What teachers need to know is that the board is not their friend. It is not students' friend either. The only time the board manifests interest in students is when it hauls a group of winsome youngsters in to a board meeting on some pretext to use them as props for the board's lie that it values students. The board habitually coos and purrs over these winsome children at these shows of faux love for the students. It's show biz.

Nor is the board taxpayers' friend. It rips off taxpayers with flossy travel for its members; it signs higher and higher salaries for Elia; it lets her manufacture jobs for her buddies and sticks the taxpayers with the bill as with the recent case of Dr. Hamilton. It allows her to buy million-dollar programs such as Spring that have failed in other venues. It does not insist that she involve the teachers who will have to implement the program in the classrooms.

The board, in fact, is the source of the problem. It does not do its job. It does not master the material it should know to make rulings. It does not ask the administration questions. It lets decisions ride by on the consent agenda without review. It keeps the public ignorant of what is going on by rubberstamping the consent agenda and not bringing its content to the board in the open so that the public can see how decisions are reached. This is not open government. I don't think the board knows or cares about what is on the consent agenda. Its members want to give the appearance of being involved without being involved at all, leaving everything up to Ms. Elia's rule. The board, in fact, does not do anything but sit in ceremonial slots at board meetings and attend hoedowns around town.

Other than that, it ponders which cities it would like to go to on its members' next tax-paid travel extravaganza.

Until voters turn out these current members and elect some decent people interested in the welfare of the schools instead of pretending they are serving the schools when they are merely feeding their egos, the schools will be no better, and ROSSAC will still be the Twilight Zone with an agenda of lies as its program.

When I first met county teachers who came to protest the class that Elia downloaded on them without warning, I got the impression that the teachers thought the board would rescue them. They were babes in the wood. The board members are politicians; they care about themselves and their political incumbency. The teachers are simply bodies to get tax funds to them. I think the teachers have since wised up to the fraud of the board's concern for education, teachers, and students.

Teachers have to make the board members know that ignoring teachers' needs and wishes will cost them their jobs. The only ways I know how to get the board members to accept that concept is for teachers to ignore their fear of the board and administration and go to board meetings and protest so that the public learns what's going on and to form political groups that can call the board to task. Teachers must educate the voting public on the fecklessness of this board.

If a teacher makes him- herself conspicuous by protesting, that acts as armor for him or her has been my experience. I protested at HCC from the day I arrived until I retired. A trustee told me I would be the hardest person in the school to fire. lee



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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 4:28 AM


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Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 2:29 AM

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Subject: [TheWall] New comment on TIME OUT?.

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Thursday, August 21, 2008

Realpolitik at ROSSAC

Response to two reader comments below:

My read on the schools' employment situation is that it is the most attractive part of administration perquisites besides the right to set its salaries at the top of the bloated scale.

The board gives Elia the patronage privilege of crony hiring of buddies, sycophants, and--in Linda Kipley's husband's case--the relatives of administrators. It washes its hands of responsibility by plastering "We are an equal-employment-opportunity employer" on every available surface. The intellectual sophistication of the board is not high; its courage quotient is even lower.

Every once in a while a case pops up in which some 3rd-tier administrator hires a pet after inventing a job that is logged into the payroll. One of these came up recently, and the board threw up its hands in bewilderment. The board sanctioned the pet's remaining on the pay roll in fact. The attorney said, to his credit, that the board members could fire the pet. But they don't want to hurt anybody's feeling when its only tax money in question that comes by the bushels. So the pet is now a bona fide employee with all benefits. And the board sits in contented potted-plant stasis.

Make no mistake about who's to blame in the crony employment circus at ROSSAC. It's the school board. Its members are too gutless and uncaring about wasting tax money to do anything but agree to the outrages that the administration presents on the consent calender that rolls by with not one board member asking for a review of the hires. The only time the board members perk up is when they are planning their itineraries of frivolous board travel.

There is no affirmative action plan because nobody has ever challenged the board and administration to present one. This situation exists all across the country--not just in Hillsborough County. It's not enough for there to be equal-employment-opportunity laws on the books.
Somebody has to invoke them as I did with the City of Tampa 40 years ago to get women on the police force and into the sheriff's department as law-enforcement personnel. I also used the requirements that federal grants have equal-employment-opportunity obligations to get the Justice Department to force the sheriff to hire women deputies. Both the City of Tampa and the county have a stable of overpaid lawyers. Not one pointed out to their employers that they needed to follow Title VII's equal-opportunity guidelines in
hiring. And nobody in public office volunteers to follow these laws. They like to use the power of being able to hire people as a perquisite. Somebody has to complain to change things.

That is what I am revving up to do by getting the needed information via public-records privilege from the schools. The government funds they get all say they should have affirmative action plans. You see what they have on the books: That weeny little comment is not an affirmative action plan. It is a ridiculous bandaid. I bet the guy appointed to see to affirmative action does nothing but sit at his desk and aim spit balls at the waste basket all day.

As for Mr. Gonzalez, his firm has held that post for 37 years and got the perch in a good ol'-boy-slap-on-the-back protocol that the town is expert in. Gonzalez fervently defends no-bid contracts because he got his job with a no-bid contract. If you read the Erwin report, you will see that Gonzalez is fully complicit in continuing things as they are. He assures the board that the equal-employment stance of the board is impeccable. The judgment of the board is such that they take Gonzalez's word as if it came down from Olympus from Zeus.

I filed an ethics charge against Gonzalez when he hinted that he would lodge an extortion law suit against me for saying in the citizens' forum that if the board didn't file an affirmative action plan, I would ask the Federal government for a compliance review of the schools' hiring practices. The SLAPP law says government attorneys can't do that because threatening a law suit is the coercion they used in the past against citizens to shut them up from criticizing elected officials.

I didn't officially win the ethics charge with the Florida Bar, but the process was rewarding. I had a good time writing it and had a good time seeing how hard Tom had to work to refute me and how disturbed he was to be on the other side of the accusation for a change. I also damned his grammar, punctuation, and writing style. He has a bachelor's in English, so there is no excuse for him. The filing makes great reading I think; I have it online here:http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5338509888038553180&postID=3895642336721423667

Reform doesn't come in matters such as these fast. It takes plugging away, especially when you have only one elderly granny wielding a shovel. There is a quatrain from
Tennyson that comes to mind that to me defines the ethos of the work of fighting skullduggery at the school board:

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.

After me there will be somebody enraged at the abuse of taxpayers, students, and teachers by the board and the administration. He or she will pick up the shovel and dig, dig, dig with it. If there were just six brave teachers who would join me today, we could wipe up the floor with both the board and the attorney. But teachers are afraid of Ms. Kipley, the home-ec teacher head of Professional Standards. They are convinced that she will draw and quarter them. Now her husband has been hired despite his being totally unqualified. I think Kipley is a fraud and her husband is Mickey Mouse.

Think about it: Terrified teachers. A Professional Standards head who leads a department whose chief should have a criminal justice or psychology degree. And this in a democracy: it is incredible.

lee

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

Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 8:36 PM

To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Meagre Affirmative Action Plan.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Meagre Affirmative Action Plan":

More evidence that the district hires incompetents who do shoddy work. Why don't they have an affirmative action plan that is thorough?

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 5:35 PM

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

Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 8:37 PM

To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Meagre Affirmative Action Plan.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Meagre Affirmative Action Plan":

Wouldn't the school board attorney be involved in making sure the school board has a good affirmative action plan? Is Tom Gonzalez asleep at the wheel and steering the school board to their doom?

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 5:37 PM

Meagre Affirmative Action Plan








From: lee [tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com]

Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 1:04 PM

To: 'Linda Cobbe'

Cc: charles.raburn@sdhc.k12.fl.us; doretha.edgecomb@sdhc.k12.fl.us; april.griffin@sdhc.k12.fl.us; susan.valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us; candy.olson@sdhc.k12.fl.us; jack.lamb@sdhc.k12.fl.us; carol.kurdell@sdhc.k12.dl.us; jennifer.falliero@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Marilynbrown@tampatrib.com; lee_decesare@yahoo.com; patrickmanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com; 'Gene Siudut'; 'Letitia'

Subject: RE: public information

Is this the extent of HCC’s Affirmative Action plan to prevent discrimination in hiring? Mr. Raburn must be this guy who has any specific affirmative action plan for the hiring of the handicapped that would have been consulted before hiring Linda Kipley’s ill-prepared husband for the job that a handicapped woman was superbly qualified for. Please ask Mr. Raburn if he has that specific affirmative-action plan for the handicapped in addition to this general and generally disregarded statement plastered hither and yon. Ask him how the school hiring protocol allows the superintendent to hire without advertising the jobs in administration particularly. Ask him what school rule overrides the Federal government in equal opportunity in the hiring of administrators. Thank you. Lee

The School Board of Hillsborough County, Florida, does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, marital status, disability, or age in its programs, services, activities or in its hiring and employment practices. School Board Policy 6.01 ensures equal opportunity for all in its personnel policies and practices.

The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the non-discrimination guidelines: Charles W. Raburn, General Manager of Employee Relations and Equity Coordinator. 813-272-4227, charles.raburn@sdhc.k12.fl.us

From: Linda Cobbe [mailto:lcobbe@sdhc.us]
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 9:15 AM
To: lee
Subject: Re: public information

Is this what you're looking for?

Linda E. Cobbe

External Communications Manager

Hillsborough County Public Schools

901 E. Kennedy Blvd.

Tampa, FL 33602

813-272-4602 (O)

813-493-6964 (C)

813-272-4510 (F)

Our mission is to provide an education that enables each student to excel as a successful and responsible citizen.

"lee" <tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com> writes:

Thank you. I am sorry to cause you extra work, but my husband required my attention last meeting.

Isn’t Mr. Valdez the head of personnel? And what is the name of the woman whom Ms. Elia put in Dr. Gregor’s spot when he left? I would like to see her personell folder. ldd

From: Linda Cobbe [mailto:lcobbe@sdhc.us]

Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 8:11 AM

To: lee de cesare

Subject: Re: public information

Yes, we had the travel information here the last board meeting because you had said you were attending. I'll gather it again for the Sept. 4 meeting.

Who do you mean when you refer to Mr. Valdez?

Linda E. Cobbe

External Communications Manager

Hillsborough County Public Schools

901 E. Kennedy Blvd.

Tampa, FL 33602

813-272-4602 (O)

813-493-6964 (C)

813-272-4510 (F)

Our mission is to provide an education that enables each student to excel as a successful and responsible citizen.


"lee de cesare" <tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com> writes:

Linda, I have asked before to see the travel folio of the school board when I come in next to a board meeting. Whenever that is, I will come by before going to the board room. I also want to see the Wynn Tye personnel folder at the same time. I believe she is the replacement for Dr. Gregor.

I have asked you for the affirmative action plan required for handicapped workers that Executive Order ll246 requires. I haven’t got a reply yet. I imagine Mr. Valdez knows where it is because he himself may have written it. If the schools do not have this required affirmative action plan for contractors, then tell me that. Thank you. Lee


Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Equal Opportunity, My Foot



To: 'Linda Cobbe'

Subject: RE: public information

Linda, this is an old executive order that I used when I filed with the EEOC to get the City of Tampa and the Sheriff’s Department to admit women as law-enforcement officers. President Johnson wrote it. Since the first executive order on equal employment opportunity, a number of others have augmented it. Your personnel person in charge should know all about these. One addresses discrimination against handicapped people. I want to see how the schools have addressed this part of equal opportunity and how it was applied in the case of Linda Kipley’s husband’s appointment to a job that he did not have the qualifications for, including a college degree, whereas a handicapped woman who had applied for the job had stellar qualifications and experience.

Also, I am still asking for that statement of Dr. Hamilton’s that he wrote in ’06, I believe, in which he told new board members how to comport themselves. All the board members got a copy; so did the lawyer. One of them will give it to you if you ask them, I am sure. I would like a copy of it, please. ldd

Executive Order 11246

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Executive Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 24, 1965 required Equal Employment Opportunity. The Order "prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do over $10,000 in Government business in one year from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."[1] Contractors are also required to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin."

The order was a follow-up to Executive Order 10479 signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on August 13, 1953 establishing the anti-discrimination Committee on Government Contracts. This order was amended by six subsequent Executive Orders - see [2]

The term Equal Opportunity Employment originated here.

The Executive Order also required contractors with 50 or more employees and contracts of $50,000 or more to implement affirmative action plans to increase the participation of minorities and women in the workplace if a workforce analysis demonstrates their underrepresentation. Underrepresentation is defined as there being fewer minorities and women than would be expected, given the statistics of the area from which the workforce is drawn. The statistics used are those minorities and women qualified to hold the positions available, not all minorities or women in a given geographical area. Pursuant to federal regulations, affirmative action plans must consist of an equal opportunity policy statement, an analysis of the current work force, identification of underrepresented areas, the establishment of reasonable, flexible goals and timetables for increasing employment opportunities, specific action-oriented programs to address problem areas, support for community action programs, and the establishment of an internal audit and reporting system.

Though the myth persists that affirmative action requires quotas, quotas are actually illegal. Other common myths are that in implementing an affirmative action plan, an employer can remove an employee from a job and replace that employee with a minority or female (the employer cannot) and employers are required to hire unqualified employees (they are not). Employers may, in fact, engage in these activities, but it is because they choose to do so, not because it is required by law. Employers who choose to engage in such actions lose the protection that the law provides to employers who are sued by those who believe they are adversely impacted by implementation of an affirmative action plan.

From: Linda Cobbe [mailto:lcobbe@sdhc.us]
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 12:44 PM
To: lee
Subject: Re: public information

Wynne Tye is the new assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.

Can you give me an idea of what we're supposed to have an affirmative action plan for? We do have statements all over the place about non-discrimination in our hiring practices. Is that what you mean?

Linda E. Cobbe

External Communications Manager

Hillsborough County Public Schools

901 E. Kennedy Blvd.

Tampa, FL 33602

813-272-4602 (O)

813-493-6964 (C)

813-272-4510 (F)

Our mission is to provide an education that enables each student to excel as a successful and responsible citizen.

"lee" <tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com> writes:

Thank you. I am sorry to cause you extra work, but my husband required my attention last meeting.

Isn’t Mr. Valdez the head of personnel? And what is the name of the woman whom Ms. Elia put in Dr. Gregor’s spot when he left? I would like to see her personell folder. ldd

From: Linda Cobbe [mailto:lcobbe@sdhc.us]

Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 8:11 AM

To: lee de cesare

Subject: Re: public information

Yes, we had the travel information here the last board meeting because you had said you were attending. I'll gather it again for the Sept. 4 meeting.

Who do you mean when you refer to Mr. Valdez?

Linda E. Cobbe

External Communications Manager

Hillsborough County Public Schools

901 E. Kennedy Blvd.

Tampa, FL 33602

813-272-4602 (O)

813-493-6964 (C)

813-272-4510 (F)

Our mission is to provide an education that enables each student to excel as a successful and responsible citizen.


"lee de cesare" <tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com> writes:

Linda, I have asked before to see the travel folio of the school board when I come in next to a board meeting. Whenever that is, I will come by before going to the board room. I also want to see the Wynn Tye personnel folder at the same time. I believe she is the replacement for Dr. Gregor.

I have asked you for the affirmative action plan required for handicapped workers that Executive Order ll246 requires. I haven’t got a reply yet. I imagine Mr. Valdez knows where it is because he himself may have written it. If the schools do not have this required affirmative action plan for contractors, then tell me that. Thank you. Lee