Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Getting Public Information: Just Be Patient and Keep Asking


From: Thomas Vaughan [mailto:noreply-comment@blogger.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 1:59 PM
To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com
Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Getting Public Information: Just Be Patient and Ke....



Thomas Vaughan has left a new comment on your post "Getting Public Information: Just Be Patient and Ke...":

I called and left a message for Mr. Valdez and he never returned my call and I work there. Guess he's too important to talk to teachers.


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You have to wonder what these Olympians do with their time on the job. Isn't one of their duties to answer the phone? Look how the Alafia mother reported that Otero's assistant said that Otero didn’t want to talk to her, that he had heard enough from mothers on Smith’s deficiencies. Here a group of mothers is frantic about their chiidren under an erratic principal, and Otero, who’s in charge of this specimen, doesn’t want to talk to worried mothers.


What are these guys doing with their time on the public dime? They are not cooking up a cure for AIDS or pondering the double helix. lee


Posted by Thomas Vaughan to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 10:58 AM


Linda, unless my mind has finally gone, I did send you the three names whose job descriptions I want. Please pull up “Smiley” in your email files and see if it is not there.

If you can’t find it, I will look for my email.

Every organization has a policy manual. For example, when I was a part-time nurse, any hospital I worked at had a policy manual on every nurse's station. The schools must have one, and I must be the first person who asked for it.

Is there any place in the Web school manual that tells people the protocol for public-affairs information? I got into fights with Tom Gonzalez on this issue. I thought he would send me stuff directly, but as I understood him, he said that if I addressed the request to him, he would send it to you.


It would not have killed Valdez as a courtesy to a citizen to respond to my email with the information that I address the request to you. What the administration lacks is a sense that the public deserves minimum courtesy. I do not get that impression from many administrators, and God knows Ms. Elia lacks a sense of courtesy to the ordinary public entirely in my view.

Under what title would I search the on-line policy manual for procedures in special-ed sections of the schools? It must be a whopper of a file. I suppose if I ever find the site, that the right title to look for would be "Special-ed procedures."

And what about my question of whether the third person from the top in the accounting list is Kipley’s husband?
lee


rom: Linda Cobbe [mailto:lcobbe@sdhc.us]
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 8:31 AM
To: lee de cesare
Subject: Re: follow-up request

I sent you an email Monday asking you to specify whose job descriptions you were requesting. Iwill see if there is a procedures manual for ESE. I'm pasting your request and my response here:

Lee, please just make your public records requests to me. That's my job, not his. Can you also provide me with the names of the "three supervisors involved in Steve Kemp's being suspended for alleged child abuse...?" I can't provide their job descriptions unless I know who they are. Also, I need you to identify what you mean by "the policy manual for the area that teacher Steve Kemp worked in before the administration suspended him..." What area is this? The entire policy manual is on the district website, so you can probably find what you're looking for there.

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"
writes:

Mr. Valdez:

I would like to have these public-information data:

The job descriptions of the three supervisors involved in Steve Kemp's being suspended for alleged child abuse of special-ed children;

The policy manual for the area that teacher Steve Kemp worked in before the administration suspended him on the trumped-up charge of child abuse; please have this manual sent to Linda Cobbe in the Public Affairs Office along with the job descriptions.

The answer to this question: There is a "Kipley" listed third from the top under the supervisor of accounting. The list documents the accounting team for Hillsborough schools. Is this the the husband of Linda Kipley of the Professional Standards Office with only a high school diploma who you assured the board was more qualified than the four candidates with an accounting degree who applied including a disabled woman accountant whom the Disabilities Act covered ? Did you make this decision by yourself, or was it an order from Ms. Elia?

You ignored my first two requests for public information. If you ignore this one, I shall inform the governor, the attorney general, the school commissioner, and the members of the Hillsborough County delegation that taxpayers are paying you a bloated salary to ignore the state public records law. Don't underestimate me, sir. I will keep on this project until I get those records, and I will attribute the evasion of the law to you.

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"
writes:

Linda, can you have a copy of the Special-ed department’s procedures manual for me to review on the date of the next board meeting? What is the status of the three job descriptions from that department that I asked for? ldd


Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Alert Reader Reports a Double Standard

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Hillsborough County Administrator Is Evading the F...":

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28507128/

"According to Hillsborough County School's spokesperson Linda Cobbe, the school district's professional standards department "will not enforce any discipline."

Want to talk double standard?

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/jan/05/051330/freedom-coach-ex-usf-star-blackwell-arrested/sports-prepsports/

http://blogs.tampabay.com/usf/2009/01/ex-usf-qb-black.html

"It's a misdemeanor and it didn't involve any students," Cobbe said.

Blackwell's future at Freedom is likely to lie in the hands of Freedom principal Chris Farkas, Cobbe said. Blackwell, an in-school suspension instructor, is a temporary employee of the school district, meaning he is working with a one-year contract.

"It's up to the principal," Cobbe said. "They can renew the contract for another year, make him permanent or not rehire him at all."

"When reached Monday morning, Farkas declined to speculate about Blackwell's future."

Perhaps Bart should have showed up dressed as a coach and pleaded "drunk" when talking to unProfessional Standards.

Not really but I'm sure you get the point.

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 6:40 PM


How interesting. I don’t think the district has any guidelines for behavioral lapses at all. I think they fly by the seat of their pants and make up rules on the fly. The only thing that gets you fired is if you have a blog. lee

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Hillsborough County Administrator Is Evading the Florida Public-Records Law

Be patient. We are sending out a giant email to the state-wide school system tomorrow to greet everyone on Teusday morning as they sit down to their desks. If the board and administration have whined about our blogs before, they will have a hissy with this one. We have compiled emails for all over the state with the whole K12 community on it. We are going to blog on down.

This first email deals at length with the board and administration’s terrible management; the next email will deal with Goader’s set up for firing because he has a blog. Lee


From: Anonymous [mailto:noreply-comment@blogger.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2009 8:36 PM
To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com
Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Hillsborough County Administrator Is Evading the F....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Hillsborough County Administrator Is Evading the F...":

Good Luck Lee. Even CTA can't seem to keep up with the smallest task.

Take the salary schedule for employees. They contend the teacher's got a 2% raise but I'll be darned if it is in MY paycheck.

Go to the CTA Website and check the 08-09 Salary Schedule.

The link may say 08-09 but the info is 07-08! It is even labeled 07-08 as though we are too stupid to realize.

For God's sake, you would think that a 2% raise would mean that each of the salary levels would be 2% higher in 08-09 than in 07-08.

They have as much commitment to clear communication as the district does!

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch

Mr. Valdez:

I would like to have these public-information data:

The job descriptions of the three supervisors involved in Steve Kemp's being suspended for alleged child abuse of special-ed children;

The policy manual for the area that teacher Steve Kemp worked in before the administration suspended him on the trumped-up charge of child abuse; please have this manual sent to Linda Cobbe in the Public Affairs Office along with the job descriptions.

The answer to this question: There is a "Kipley" listed third from the top under the supervisor of accounting. The list documents the accounting team for Hillsborough schools. Is this the the husband of Linda Kipley of the Professional Standards Office with only a high school diploma who you assured the board was more qualified than the four candidates with an accounting degree who applied including a disabled woman accountant whom the Disabilities Act covered ? Did you make this decision by yourself, or was it an order from Ms. Elia?

You ignored my first two requests for public information. If you ignore this one, I shall inform the governor, the attorney general, the school commissioner, and the members of the Hillsborough County delegation that taxpayers are paying you a bloated salary to ignore the state public records law. Don't underestimate me, sir. I will keep on this project until I get those records, and I will attribute the evasion of the law to you.



Lee Drury De Cesare




Section 24. Access to public records and meetings.

(a) Every person has the right to inspect or copy any public record made or received in connection with the official business of any public body, officer, or employee of the state, or persons acting on their behalf, except with respect to records exempted pursuant to this section or specifically made confidential by this Constitution. This section specifically includes the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government and each agency or department created thereunder; counties, municipalities, and districts; and each constitutional officer, board, and commission, or entity created pursuant to law or this Constitution.

Who else is covered? Members-elect of boards or commissions are also subject to the Sunshine Law. Private entities doing business on behalf of a public agency may also be subject to the law.


Thursday, January 01, 2009

We Are Not Weenies


We can’t give up. To do so would mean ceding the school system that is supposed to educate our children and grandchildren to some dreadful subset of crooks that the local board has allowed to spawn and has joined itself to.

We are Americans. We don’t give up to dictators of any kind be they political hooligans who pose as school board members or their myrmidons called the administrators.

We have our mouths. We have our emails. We plant ourselves squarely in the holy precincts of the First Amendment.

We have the can-do American drive. We have the state and even national political community to bring in to help us. All that it takes to rally supporters is spending enough time in front of a CRT screen. Remember that the school board is a bunch of politicians posing as supporters of education. We know different. And we can let enough people know through our blogs what is going on. Better people will challenge the crook collaborators on the board and replace them.


We can do that. Would the Founding Patriots have given up to the King George thugs? Never. Nor will we. We arm ourselves with the First Amendment that our democracy gives us and go into battle.

Lock and load.

Lee Drury De Cesare

PS: I need some help compiling the state's PTA emails. I have Hillsborough and Pinellas. Somebody go to the list of counties and get PTAs for the rest of the counties. Get cracking and send me those emails via anonymous.

From: Anonymous [mailto:noreply-comment@blogger.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 10:14 PM
To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com
Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Up and at 'em.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Up and at 'em":

You are right. No one has made a dent in the school district. It is run by the most arrogant and unethical people you can imagine. They will never admit to wrongdoing and never change their ways. These people crave power and could care less about anyone but their pocketbooks.

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 7:14 PM

From: Anonymous [mailto:noreply-comment@blogger.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 1:39 PM
To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com
Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Up and at 'em.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Up and at 'em":

Hey, Lee--
I want that T shirt!
Pam

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 10:39 AM

I got it at the Seminole Mall in a card shop. The sales women say they sold out for Christmas. I am not surprised. I have sent off for a bumper sticker that says “EVE WAS FRAMED.” She was. All those holy guys in the Heavenly Senate right up to God the Father blamed everything on Eve. lee