When in Doubt, Pull Yourself Up to Your CRT Screen

Linda, is the Steve Kemp case officially over since Mr. Kemp's blog says that he saw his name on a teacher schedule with a class-room assignment for the fall but has not received any official notification? If so, update us: who notified him and when was he notified that the end of his case had arrived and that he should appear in such-and-such classroom for teaching duty? It sounds to me that Linda Kipley's list of duties implies that she notifies the person in question.

This case's written history should now be available to the public. May I have a copy?

I would like to have a public-information copy of Linda Kipley's application for the job of head of Professional Standards. I want also the ad for this job and its venues of publication. I request as well the applications of the unsuccessful candidates. I would like the name of the person who made the final decision to hire Ms. Kipley. I will pay for copies of the requested information.

Ldd

A Grain a Day Makes the Rock Go Away

Somebody wrote me that Linda Kipley got her job in an unorthodox manner. Somebody who knows about this rumor and is fairly certain that he or she has the case down cold, let me know what happened. lee

Ms. Kurdell: I mistakenly thought you were blocking my emails when I had made an error on your address.

I include a file below that I don't think you got because I had your address wrong. I think you will be interested in reading that I commend your chair expertise.

I don't commend anything else.

I am allergic to pages of symbols such as email. It reminds me of the shudder I experience when I see a page of calculus. If I had had a secretary, I could have been somebody.

I have had the experience of having my email shut down at HCC when I was trying to rally the faculty and career employees there to fight the firing of the old book store women by the administration so that its heartless minions could bring in a Barnes & Noble contractor. The women would not have been able to get anything but minimum-wage jobs with no health insurance, and one had just had brain surgery for a balance problem.

I got the state to have HCC reopen my emails. We saved the women's jobs.

I apologize for the-shutdown mistake. lee drury de cesare

Linda, Postscript:

Several readers have pointed out that I got the Kurdell address wrong. So scratch the Kurdell email item request. But be sure to put it in your file labeled "Lee De Cesare Is a Crazy Old Lady." ldd

PS One reader wrote that you got your job in an unorthodox manner. I have to chase this rumor down. lee

I won't need Ms. Kipley's emails now that I understand the context of her receiving my charges.

She would have and been more professional had she written to me in February when she received my charges to say that she had received them but could not accept them for the reasons you stated. Her response to me when I asked for the disposition of the charges was disingenuous to put the kindest construction on it. It was misleading to put a stricter reading of it.

I think Ms. Kipley was trying to mislead me. I think this is template response to anyone's trying to get a straight answer from the administration. I don't know how the administration came to believe this is the way to deal with the public, but it's plain that this plan to fool it, not inform it, is extant for some perverse reason. ldd

-----Original Message-----
From: Linda Cobbe [mailto:lcobbe@sdhc.us]
Sent: Friday, June 05, 2009 1:28 PM
To: lee
Cc: Ken Otero; Dan Valdez; Lewis Brinson; Gretchen Saunders; Wynne Tye; Cathy Valdes; Connie Milito; David Steele; Gwendolyn Luney; Stephen Hegarty; Candy Olson; Carol Kurdell; Jack Lamb; MaryEllen Elia; Susan Valdes; April Griffin; Doretha Edgecomb; larry.mason@sdhc.k12.fl.us; phildra.Swaqger@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Alice Loeb; David Schmidt; Steven Eichhorn; Steve Vanoer; Stephanie Tamargo; steveotto@tampatribune.com; Michael Smith; don.johnson@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Mike Phillips; Charles Fleming; Nancy Lind; Henry Washington; jeaneen.down@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Henry Ballard; Karine Johns; donna.leonard@hcsd.k12.fl.us; jeffrey.bandry@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Richard Parrish; Sue.hindman@sdhc.k12.fl.us; pmanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com; Lauen@tampatribune.com; paultash@sptimes.com; stein@sptimes.com; genesiudut@lagacetanewspaper.com; tgonzalez@tsg-law.com
Subject: Re: The Steve Kemp case and Public Information Regarding It

Lee - I will assume that you sent the email below before reading the response I sent to you earlier on Tuesday. Linda Kipley never denied receiving an email from you demanding an investigation. However, there was never an investigation based on your email, nor will there be one based on the one below. I stated the reasons in Tuesday's email.

I have submitted your request for Linda Kipley's emails for the entire month of February, Mrs. Elia's job description, and the final report on Steve Kemp's investigation.

Mrs. Kipley's emails often contain confidential information, so the hundreds she received in February will have to be reviewed and confidential information will have to be redacted. Those activities will take time, for which you will be charged the hourly rate of the lowest paid employee capable of performing the work. It will take several hours to complete, so you will be facing significant charges. I will give you an estimate before anyone does any work on this part.

I must point out that you have already received the advertisement that was used in the superintendent search, which includes the job's requirements. You can also look at the policy manual online for policies and procedures related to duties of the superintendent. If there is an actual job description, I will send it 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

Linda, June 9th is the next board meeting. I still have not gotten from your office the description of the scope and purpose of the Professional Standards Office, from where the citation of these data emanates (Secretary of Education?), and Ms. Kipley's job description.

Please send those so I can review them before the board meeting. And pray answer this question separately: What is the procedure outlined in the Professional Standards literature that is the official document for the administration and board which cites the procedure for terminating a charge against a teacher such as Steve Kemp and what is the procedure outlined in the official literature for notifying him of the administration and board's decision in his case?

The administration nor board has notified Kemp that he rejoins the faculty in the fall I read on his blog. He happened to run across his name in the schedule for the fall and saw that an administrative fiat had assigned him a job.

This is a slipshod way of processing the grave charge of child abuse against a teacher. It sounds as though the administration is trying to evade revealing that it made a grave error in this case and has egg on its face. It is not professional behavior to charge a teacher with child abuse, keep him on suspension for a year with no communication to him of the progress of his case, and then without notification slip him into the following fall's schedule to avoid admitting the administration and board messed up in this instance of trying to coerce a teacher into shutting down his education blog from fear of losing his job after the sheriff had long since threw the child-abuse charge out.

Another problem that I believe comes within your jurisdiction is that I get back no-delivery notices from Ms. Kurdell's emails that I send to the whole board.

Please tell Ms. Kurdell for me, or forward her this email, that in a democracy it is unacceptable for the chair of the governing board to block citizens' communications. Thank you.

Ldd


Kurdell block message: This Message was undeliverable due to the following reason: Your message was not delivered because the destination computer was not found. Carefully check that it was spelled correctly and try sending it again if there were any mistakes. It is also possible that a network problem caused this situation, so if you are sure the address is correct you might want to try to send it again. If the problem continues, contact your friendly system administrator. Host sdhc.k12.fl not found. The following recipients did not receive this message: The following websites may contain more information to assist you: http://help.rr.com/HMSLogic/rrmail.aspx http://security.rr.com/help.htm http://security.rr.com/contact.htm Please do not reply to this message, as it will go to an unread mailbox

The Ping-Pong Game Continues

Illustration of Indian Philosophy: Dr. Lamb Come Back Reincarnated

From: Linda Cobbe [lcobbe@sdhc.us]
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 10:44 AM

To: lee

Cc: Linda.Kipley@sdhc.k12.fl.us; MaryEllen.Elia@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Candy Olson; carol.kurdell@sdhc.k12.fl; Jennifer Faliero; Jack Lamb; Susan Valdes; April Griffin; Patrickmanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com; genesiudut@lagacetanewspaper.com; Ken.Otero@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Dan.Valdez@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Lewis.Brinson@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Gretchen.Saunders@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Wynne.Tye@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Cathy.Valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Connie Milito; David.Steele@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Gwendolyn Luney; Stephen Hegarty; Sharon Morris

Subject: Re: results of my filing professional standards charges

Lee - No one has ever denied that you sent Linda Kipley an email making charges against people at East Bay High School. The email you include from Linda Kipley at the end of your email to me tells you that there are no records of any "findings," which is what you had requested. There are no findings because no action was taken.

LInda, I got no Kipley response in February when I filed the charges. La Kipley did not email that she had received the charges; nor did she inform me that I had no standing to file.

Why is that? Is the constant aim of the Professional Standards cell block to stymie people?

The first peep I heard from La Kipley was when I emailed recently to find out the results of the charge. I got back this response:

In response to your request for this office's "findings on the unprofessional conduct of the three administrators involved in the dereliction of duty" in the "Kemp-case," no such records exist.

Pray be rational when you answer that question. And don't avoid it. Am I not correct cite it as an example of ROSSAC double-speak to tread a whiff outside the line of clarity to befuddle, not to enlighten, the recipient?

It shows that despite her home-ec credentials Linda is advancing apace in Jesuitical linguistics. How would a person know from this misleading response that the office of Professional Standards did not accept my charges in February?

The reasons for that are: Use a whole sentence before a colon.

1. You have no direct knowledge of what happened related to Steve Kemp;

Nobody does but the three incompetent administrators and Steve Kemp. The students were deeply retarded and housed in a junk-filled room and had no awareness of what was going on. Kemp should file a Professional Standards charge against these three renegades and Ms. Elia as well. That he hasn't does not dilute the fact that these administrators did not do the jobs that they are overpaid to perform.

2. You have no credibility for seeking the truth, and in fact, often repeat rumors and innuendo;

I don't think you know what you are talking about when you invoke "credibility," Linda. Let's talk about the word. "Credibility" comes from the Latin "credere," meaning "to believe." An offshoot formation is "credibility gap," which means "Public skepticism about the truth of official claims and pronunciomentos." You have my sterling credibility mixed up with the Board's and administration's credibility gap.

You say I have no credibility "for seeking the truth [and that I ]"often repeat rumors and innuendo." Right-o. I do. I will also report the wisdom of fortune cookies, messages left in a stump in the parking lot, semaphore from the ROSSAC pigeons on the roof, messages washed up on the beach in a bottle outside my balcony. and codes tapped onto walls in ROSSAC bathrooms. I plan to resort to a Ouija Board shortly.

With the board and administration's nail-down of the school board and ROSSAC doings by shutting the public out of discussions of the things that affect the public that should be in the sunshine, one must resort to other avenues of information. The regular press does not eschew rumors. This week's La Gaceta says, "Last week we wrote about a rumor concerning Jim Norman...."

Does my blog deny itself the privilege to report rumors if the regular press does? Are all blogs held to a higher standard or only the blogs that report school-board-administration rumors? And isn't this higher blog standard because the board and administration want no comment on their behavior except that which comes through your office, Community Affairs, which bleaches all blemishes and puts out fairytales about board infallibility and administration nobility to make them look like the acme of all excellence?

You earn your living, Linda, by taking ugly data from the school board and administration and distorting these data so that they make the board and administration look good. If you didn't do this intellectual donkey work, you would be out of a job.

You beat up on credibility daily by these tax-subsidized distortions. You know who else did this? Goebbels. He was a master of manipulating reality to make Hitler look like the savior of Germany. Goebbels was better at his job than the Community Affairs office of the School Board. He succeeded in his goal. Hitler became the fuehrer. You at Community Affairs are only marginally successful in your language-distortion racket. You should read Goebbels' diaries. The experience would make you and Mr. Heggarty more skillful manipulators of language and reality to make the board and Ms. Elia appear more wholesome. But first Mr. Heggarty has to learn to punctuate. You do know how to punctuate quite well: the only person in ROSSAC who does as far as I can tell. Nobody can be a credible propagandist until he or she learns to punctuate.

Your school-board and administration bosses must come to terms with blogs. We bloggers have dug in; we are here to stay. I just got email from a teacher asking how to start a blog. I told her how. Now we will have one more blog light shining on the board and administration.

I have an amazingly large habitual readership on my blog. And get this: fans come from Australia, Japan, Ireland, South America, all over. I have readers around the United States. That fact amazes me. But most come from the Bay Area. On mine and other blogs, they see a different reality about the leadership of schools than the Public Affairs Office puts out.

The Tribune is moribund. La Gaceta reports that it has lost twenty-five more staff. Tampa will soon be bereft of a daily paper as many cities increasingly are. The days of the print press are numbered. I said so fifteen years ago. People will turn to blogs even more than they do now for news. Deal with it.

I have lived a life of unremitting virtue and have nothing to apologize for in the credibility gymnastics competition. I take as gospel the rumor that Ms. Elia cusses out people in her office. That rumor has moved into the solidity of fact for me. I know from personal observation that Ms. Elia is a liar. That's not a rumor: it's a fact unfolded before my eyes shortly after Ms. Elia took up her job.

That the Professional Standards Office is the wasp nest of charges cooked up against teachers to make them afraid to speak up is a fact. The cooking up of charges against teachers has happened too many times for it to be an accident. That Ms. Elia, Ms. Kipley, and Mr. Valdez file charges against teachers like Steve Kemp for child abuse with the sheriff's office because Kemp assumed his First Amendment rights gave him the right to speak out on a blog is a fact. And that the administration with board collusion allows this vile practice to continue is a fact.

I am clear on the difference between rumors and facts. I am ready to take my graduate-level orals in that difference any day you want to assemble a ROSSAC Gestapo panel to test me. I will wipe up the floor with the floor with the punks.

As for the administration and board's credibility, let's review some of their record and discover why they suffer a growing credibility gap with the public:

1. The soiled, wretched DNA of ROSSAC solidified during the Erwin outrage that saw Dr. Lennard and his thugs Hamilton and Davis attempt to fire Mr. Erwin and deprive him of his pension because he asked the board and Lennard to shut down the crime spree on school grounds, which the administration and board wanted continued because logic says they were getting money under the table from it.

The Board punished nobody after Mr. Erwin won his Whistle Blower court case against a lying administration and Board. That board members were involved in the cover-up is the reason they punished no one, starting with Dr. Lennard. The board should have fired him.

2. Both Lennard and Elia cover up of the adulterous affair that Board Member Jennifer Falliero catalyzed with Mr. Hart, head of your office, until the administration and board got scared the seamy smothered scandal would get out and that the public would come down on them. So under Elia via Valdez the administration with board collusion fired Hart on a cooked-up charge of alcoholism and promoted the resident floozy pole-girl to board chair.

3. The attack on April Griffin, who when she first came on the board tried to get the board to do away with the long-term habit of no-bid buddy contracts--often to former administrators, resulted in her having to face the buzz-saw assault from Board Members Carol Kurdell and Candy Olson--both on the board when Erwin was savaged. These two administration clones lit into Griffin with the charge that she was being "disloyal to the staff" when she asked for a no-bid contract be pulled from the agenda for public discussion. This is the open government that the board and administration fights to keep from happening. They don't want citizens to know what they are doing. Kurdel and Olson never thought to consider that board members should be loyal the voters, not to the staff or Ms. Elia. In their attack on Griffin, they blurted out the truth that they were loyal to the administration and to hell with the voters. And the legal tax bloodsucker board lawyer Gonzalez exonerated no-bid contracts with a flood of rhetoric composed of legal piffle because he got a no-bid contract from Dr. Lennard.

Griffin is not long-term courageous. She wilted from the Kurdell-Olson assault. She surrendered and rolled over and became a moribund fixture of the Elia juggernaut, even assisting Elia in saving the board and administration franchise by lobbying the Alafai parents not to speak up at the podium when they came to protest the incompetent principal of Alafai, Ms. Smith's. remaining in that position.

4. The Smith Alafai brouhaha put on display the board and administration's coddling of administrators who mess up as compared to the savaging of teachers with Ms. Elia, Ms. Kipley, and Mr. Valdez's cooking up charges to terrify them into quiescence if they show a scintilla of independence. When an administrator messes up, as did Smith and the three special-ed administrators with Steve Kemp's manufactured "child-abuse" case, Ms. Elia and the board gathers round the malefactors of the administration genus and gives them comfort, support, and tax money to bail them out. The three special-ed incompetents are probably on their tax-paid way to Paris now for R&R to soothe their fragile nerves.

Ms. Elia proposed to spend $4500 each on Ms. Smith's and her assistant principal's psychological for psychological make-over classes at Eckerd to keep Smith on the job, but the Alafai parents said no way to that. So now Ms.Smith, rumor says, bivouacs in an office in ROSSAC until Ms. Elia can find her another, better-paid job for this certified loser.

Nothing an administrator does is too bad to warrant rehabilitation. Nothing a teacher does is too picayune to merit maximum punishment. Those are the invidious rules of the board and administration, both of whom hate teachers so badly that they won't cede them and students a place on the board agenda.

5. Ms. Elia with the board's complicity steals money for teachers' work in her "bonus" at the end of each year. It is based on the performances of the students that teachers are responsible for. This thievery was begun by Earl the Pearl Lennard and passed on to Ms. Elia as if it were a venerable perquisite that started at the beginning of the world. Ms. Elia tried to burnish her tarnished public image by "donating" this money to the school booster outfit this past year. Let's watch greedy Ms. Elia when the bonus appears in down economic times this year. I bet she keeps the unearned bonus and that the board says nothing.

6. Without a murmur of dissent from the board, Ms. Elia piled another class on teachers two years ago without notifying them or discussing the move at all. Ms. Elia's fans say this move shows her financial prescience that softens the economic downturn for the schools. This move took place long before the downturn. Ms. Elia did not have anything in mind with this gesture other than asserting her dominance over teachers. Ms. Elia is the stereotypical bully, and the administrator job gives her the chance to exercise this pathology as often as her psyche needs to do so.

Ms. Elia forced teachers to inflate grades in ways that would make performance numbers go up artificially. This move vitiated students' chances to get into good colleges and insulted the professionalism of teachers. Inflated grades to cook the books means Ms. Elia gets more "bonus" money. Ms. Elia bought the Spring program that had failed in other venues. She paid millions of tax dollars for this gimcrack garbage from hustlers' trying to make a buck off education. She did not consult with the board or with the teachers who had to implement the Spring toy, which has turned out to be a loser in Hillsborough County just as it was in other places.

Ms. Elia's title would better be dictator than superintendent.

I could go on. But I have laid out a representative picture.

and

3. You have no standing to file charges.

Hold on. I want to see the Professional Standards literature that I have asked for three times before I accede to this claim.

An email from you with allegations about employees would not generate a Professional Standards investigation. Certainly, the superintendent had no involvement and undoubtedly had no idea who Steve Kemp was, let alone that he has a blog.

There is nothing that goes on in the schools that Ms. Elia is not involved in. I warrant she inventories the mop closets. Total control is her megalomania. She was hip deep in the Steve Kemp case.

People who work in schools are obligated by law to report possible abuse. Child Protective Investigations is obligated to investigate and they call in law enforcement. When CPI and law enforcement investigate an employee, Professional Standards gets involved. They would be negligent if they allowed someone to remain in a position involving children while CPI and police investigate abuse allegations. If your grandchildren were possible abuse victims, would you want the person under investigation to remain in their classroom?

This sounds mighty pious, but then one asks why do the newspapers report so often that the school people don't report abuse?

I hope that clears up your confusion. I have attached several documents related to Professional Standards procedures.

Ah, Uncle Freud was right. Diction gives us away. Your accusing me of "confusion" is a not-subtle stab at ageism. You want to suggest that Alzheimer's has afflicted me because I am an old lady.

If I thought this was malicious poignard, Linda, I would rat you out to Mother Cobbe. Mothers don't want their daughters to grow up to be mean to sweet, helpless, little old ladies such as I.

I don't see the promised Professional documents that you cite. Here is what I request under the public-records law:

1. Linda Kipley's job description;

2. The criteria for filing a charge;

2. The official outline of the Personal Standards' office's duties that Hillsborough School District uses.

3. The certifying agency: Is it the Office of the State Education Commissioner or who?

4. If so, what is the URL so that I can read how this office evolved?

Lee Drury De Cesare

15316 Gulf Boulevard 802

Madeira Beach, FL 33708

tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com

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:

Linda, I filed the charges against the three administrators involved in the Steve Kemp case of frame-up for child abuse. I don't think they filed a Professional Standards charge against Kemp. I think Ms. Elia did when she picked up the rumor. She used apocryphal information to hang a charge on Kemp because he has an education blogs, and blogs commenting on anything about the schools are an anathema to the administration and school board. I asked our office for the emails that I infer cover the time that Kipley should have received the charges from me. I await those.

My records say I filed the charges. The administration cannot get away with claiming no professional charges were filed when they were. That trick was played on me when I filed against Dr. Hamilton for using the emails for his personal pursuits. I fell for it then but have smartened up to board and administration tactics in which persiflage is a signal strategy; don't expect me to fall for it again.

I have asked three times your office to send me the literature on the Professional Standards Office. Every business has a copy of such procedures in its central procedures manual. If the school system does not have one, it's management is highly remiss in professionalism. Lee Drury De Cesare

-----Original Message-----

From: Linda Kipley [mailto:Linda.Kipley@sdhc.k12.fl.us]

Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 1:50 PM

To: lee

Cc: MaryEllen Elia; Candy Olson; carol.kurdell@sdhc.k12.fl; jennifer.falliero@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Jack Lamb; Susan Valdes; April Griffin; Patrickmanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com; geneliudut@lagacetanewspaper.com; Stein@sptimes.com; Marilynbrown@tampatrib.com; Linda Cobbe; Ken Otero; Dan Valdez; Lewis Brinson; Gretchen Saunders; Wynne Tye; Cathy Valdes; 'Connie.'; David Steele; Gwen.Luney@sdhc.k12.fl.us; Stephen Hegarty

Subject: Re: results of my filing professional standards charges

Dear Ms. DeCesare:

In response to your request for this office's "findings on the unprofessional conduct of the three administrators involved in the dereliction of duty" in the "Kemp-case," no such records exist.

Linda A. Kipley

General Manager of Professional Standards

Hillsborough County Public Schools

2920 N. 40th Street

Tampa, FL 33605

813-840-7128

813-840-7186 Fax

linda.kipley@sdhc.k12.fl.us

Step by Weary Step Do We Protect Democracy

Linda Cobbe:

Please consider this a continuation of my formal complaints against three administrators filed in February of this year (copies below).

I recollect distinctly sending these complaints to Ms. Kipley, so her denying that she got them either constitutes a breakdown in the schools' emails or another whopping lie from the head of Professional Standards.

I have asked you before for the emails of Ms. Kipley for a period surrounding these filings. I amend that request to all of Ms. Kipley's emails for the month of February 09.

I trust that these will not be tampered with, which would constitute a violation of the public-records law.

I request as well--second time--a copy of Ms. Kipley's job description.

I request also a written copy of the disposition of the Professional Standards case against Steve Kemp. The case must have come to an end without the expected hearing.

Mr. Kemp's blog says that he received no formal notification that his case was at an end but discovered his reinstatement from the classroom schedules for next year. This slovenly performance does not speak well of the administration's professionalism or the Board's guarding the rights of teachers to a full record of their school careers as dictated by the administration and Board.

All these data on the Kemp case are now public information. They should be available for other teachers' edification as well as for the public since Mr. Kemp spent a year on suspension from the Professional Standards cook-up case lodged in your office and at the Sheriff's Department.

The Sheriff threw the case out shortly after Ms. Elia dispatched Mr. Smiley to file it

at the Sheriff's office. The sheriff did not honor it with a second glance.

Once a case of Professional Standards is completed, it becomes public information. I invoke that citizen's right for 1. the data that I request on the Steve Kemp case above along with 2. Ms. Kipley's email record for February of 09 and 3. her job description.

I understand that I can resort to the Office of the Attorney General if I do not receive these documents in a timely fashion. I require them before the next board meeting. Thank you.

Lee Drury De Cesare

15316 Gulf Boulevard 802

Madeira Beach, FL 33708

tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com

To: Linda Kipley, Professional Standards
From: Lee Drury De Cesare, citizen
2/11/09

Please consider this a formal complaint against Mr. Ron Smiley, head of Section 5 of Special Ed.

In the matter of the case of Steve Kemp’s alleged child-abuse charge filed by Mr. Smiley at the Sheriff’s Department, I protest its validity on the grounds that Mr. Smiley himself bears guilt in the situation for his not rendering to Mr. Kemp the help that Mr. Smiley’s job description clearly outlines:

• Help teachers develop a strategy for the instruction and assessment of the subject area curriculum so that every student develops to his maximum potential;
• Be responsible for assisting the administration in monitoring absences and arranging coverage of classes when no substitute is present;
• To insure dissemination of information and subject area supervisors to all members of the department and to insure understanding of all directives issued;
• To assist the Principal and Assistant Principal for Curriculum for evaluation of teachers within the department and, when necessary, work with teachers to improve instruction;
• To become a trained classroom observer eligible to serve on Preparing New Educator Teams.
• To work with teachers within the department to produce the highest standards of teaching (This includes visiting classrooms, making helpful suggestions for improving lesson plans, counseling with teachers within the department, and coordinating the work of the group to achieve departmental standards.

Although Mr. Smiley visited Mr. Kemp’s classroom, he spoke not a word to Mr. Kemp in accordance with the above directives. Instead after the lapse of a week, he went to the Sheriff’s Department and filed felony child-abuse charges against Mr. Kemp for his hooking the harness one student had on to a chair while he dealt with another child.

The sheriff’s office has dismissed the felony charge, but the administration continues its baseless charge against Mr. Kemp when it is the supervisory people like Mr. Smiley who should be cited for abuse of Professional Standards.

To: Linda Kipley, Professional Standards
From: Lee Drury De Cesare, citizen
2/11/09

Professional Standards charge against Principal Marion Ross of Special Ed

Please consider this a formal complaint against Principal Marion Ross of the Special Ed division.
In the matter of the case of Steve Kemp’s alleged child-abuse charge filed by Mr. Smiley. District 5 head, at the Sheriff’s Department, I protest its validity on the grounds that Ms. Ross along with Mr. Smiley and Ms Sosa bear guilt in the situation for their not rendering to Mr. Kemp the help that the three’s job description clearly outlines:

Ms. Ross’s Job Description:

• Proactivity: Demonstrates readiness to initiate action and take responsibility for leading and enabling others to improve the circumstances being faced or anticipated;
• Organizational Sensitivity: Is aware of the effects of his/her behavior and decisions on all stakeholders both inside and outside the organization;
• Oversees and is responsible for school’s instructional program…and its results;
• Oversees and is responsible for the safety and discipline of the school’s students;
• Oversees and is responsible for the accuracy and timeliness of school’s records and reports.

Ms. Ross gave Steve Kemp no assistance that coincides with the above duties of her job in this case. The only thing she said when she entered the room with Mr. Smiley and a physical therapist was that she “didn’t want to lose her job for child abuse.” She gave no help to Steve Kemp before she threw him into a classroom of severely retarded children. Steve had no education in or training to serve this student population. Ms. Ross gave Steve no advice or orientation to help him do the job right... In this lack Ms. Ross was derelict in her duties as a principal; thus I file Professional Standards charges against her.

To: Linda Kipley, Professional Standards
From: Lee De Cesare, citizen
Date: 2/11/09

Please consider this a formal complain of breech of professional standards by Supervisor Sosa in the Special Ed division. This charge is a refutation of the charge of child abuse against teacher Steve Kemp.



Ms. Sosa assigned Steve to the substitute duty of teaching profoundly retarded children without ascertaining his training.

Mr. Kemp has no academic credentials in caring for profoundly retarded children. His education is in teaching children who have trouble reading to read.

• Ms. Sosa’s job description says that her duties include the following;
• Provide support for ESE teachers at assigned school;
• Assist teachers in monitoring the effectiveness of curriculum and materials used in the classroom;
• Assist teachers in the pre-referral process of intervention strategies, observations, and conferences;
• Provide in-service for general education teachers as needed;
• Provide program-specific orientation and training for newly hired teachers;
• Assist in developing intervention strategies in regard to behavior management and school discipline;
Provide support for parents and function as a liaison to the school, parents, and community agencies.

Supervisor Sosa was derelict in these duties when she and Principal Ross threw Steve as a substitute in a room the population of which was profoundly retarded children. Neither she nor Ms. Ross gave Mr. Kemp any orientation or comments on his conducting this unfamiliar client base, not a word. This is dereliction of Supervisor Ross’s written duties, and I protest her behavior and ask that she be subject to a Professional Standards charge. Mr. Smiley was the Judas who had turned in Steve to the Sheriff’s Office; thankfully, the felony charge of child abuse went poof in the sheriff’s hands. He didn’t buy it. What sensible person not living in the alternative reality of the ROSSAC denizens would not have the same reaction?