Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:23:09 -0800 (PST)
	"lee decesare" View Contact Details Add Mobile Alert
Subject:	Re: censorship
To:	"Linda Cobbe" Linda Cobbe, external communications manager, says that the book remains on the shelf with a cautionary sticker. She says the Armwood parent's concern will go through the procedure of convening a committee of parents, students, and teachers to recommend pulling the book or keeping it on the shelf in the library.

Ms. Cobbe: OK. I will post this. But I got a call saying the media specialists were concerned because the book was being taken off the shelf. I infer that was a false alarm. ldd



lee decesare <lee_decesare@yahoo.com> writes:
I just got a call saying the book Just Listen by Sarah Dessen that the parent complained about at the last board meeting has been pulled by someone's authority from the library shelves. Is this rumor true? Who authorized the removal of the book if so? Was it a verbal or written authorization? Did the board members approve this censorship?

Please send a copy of your response as well to the local ACLU contact, Michael Pherger; ACLU is monitoring this situation and needs this information.

Ms. Griffin was the sole board member who asked Ms. Elia to be circumspect in any action responding to this one parent's complaint. Did Ms. Griffin get notification and did she approve removing the book from the library shelves if that is what happened?

May I have a copy of the section of the board notes that catalogues the parent's objections to the book and the board's response to her objection? She spoke just before I did when I got gaveled down by Chair Falierro. ldd


lee drury de cesare

Censorship on the March in the Schools

Date:	Thu, 13 Dec 2007 09:30:54 -0800 (PST)
From:	lee de cesare
Subject:	censorship
To:	linda.cobbe@sdhc.k12.fl.us
CC:	"michael pheneger"

I just got a call saying that somebody has given the order to pull the the book from the library shelves (Just Listen by Sarah Dessen) that one parent complained about at the last board meeting

Is this information correct?

Who authorized the removal of the book if so? Was it a verbal or written authorization? Did the board members approve this censorship?

Please send a copy of your response as well to the local ACLU contact, Michael Pherger; ACLU is monitoring this situation and needs this information.

Ms. Griffin was the sole board member who asked Ms. Elia to be circumspect in any action responding to this one parent's complaint. Did Ms. Griffin get notification and did she approve removing the book from the library shelves if that is what happened?

May I have a copy of the section of the board notes that catalogues the parent's objections to the book and the board's response to her objection? She spoke just before I did when I got gaveled down by Chair Falierro. ldd


lee drury de cesare

"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."—Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

"Doretha Edgecomb" , susan.valdes@ sdhc.k12.fl.us, candy.olson@sdhc. k12.fl.us, april.griffin@sdhc.k12.fl.us, carol.curdell@sdhc.k12.fl.us, jack.lamb@sdhc.k12.fl.us
	letitiastein@sptimes.com, marilynbrown@tampatrib.com, hooper@sptimes.com, tobin@sptimes.com, paultash@sptimes.com, pmanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com billmaxwell@sptimes.com palmer@tampatribune.com htroxler@sptimes.com druth@tampatribune.com

Ms. Elia: The sentiment on the podium last night at the board meeting to pull a book from the shelves of the library concerned me. The board and administration should not succumb to the urging of one parent to ban a book. Bart Birdsall, who has won awards in the field of library integrity, has sent you and the board enough material on the issue to educate you to the larger implications of any threat of censorship by the board and the administration.

I fear your tendency is to cave to bigots or people with narrow views. That was what you did when the know-nothings attacked the Muslin children as "towel heads" in the religious-holiday controversy.

I am a registered nurse and have done quite a bit of psychiatric nursing. So Chair Faliera's tantrum last night on the podium when she gaveled down my right to free speech in a forum that is supposed to allow a citizen to approach her elected officials for redress of grievances did not alarm me.

In the hospital, we put hyperactive patients in a little canvas restraint called a camisole that crosses their arms in front of them and ties in the back. We take it off when they calm down. Maybe you should order a camisole for Ms. Faliera's tenure as chair of the board. She appears to lack self-control.

Private sex is just that: private; but when it takes place in the school environment, it is no longer private: it is public and susceptible to public scrutiny and judgment.

Had Ms. Faliera not gaveled me down, I would have continued to ask questions. For example, I would have asked you to tell if you pressured Mark Hart to resign to squelch the emerging rumors. I know how sensitive you are about sexual rumors since you blackmailed Patrick Manteiga with the threat of suing La Gazeta because I said in a column that the school administrators shouldn't have slept their way to the top. Not one member of the school board critisized your blackmailing the press's First Amendment rights.

There is no indication of why Hart left employment in his file. I reviewed it before the board meeting, and it is stripped clean. The Public Relations staff even had to send up to the personnel people to get the piece of paper saying he had resigned "for personal reasons." Correction: It had been removed by a reporter earlier I learned. ldd


The reasons for his departure were both personal and public. The reasons took place in the schools and Rossac in part. That makes Hart's and Falliera's case public business just as Mr. Clinton's Oval-Office activities were public business. And it is as well public business to know if you pressured Mr. Hart to resign and why. In a court case's deposition, you would be obliged to reveal the circumstances of Mr. Hart's leaving and any administration pressure on him to do so. And so would he. So would Ms. Falliera. People can't fudge truth in a deposition. We none can lie to the court.

Hart's file shows he graduated from Loyola magna cum laude. That is a good school and an impressive academic record. The administration does not have many people with distinguished academic degrees on its staff. The majority seem to have early-childhood degrees from undistinguished institutions. Cathy Valdez has an early-childhood degree, for instance, I saw in her file. It was she in her bloated-pay current job for which you hired her who recommended hiring a recently retired Hillsborough County administrator without bids who did not have a business phone with a person answering it. I suspect she did so at your behest.

La Gaceta's published inability to get a live voice on the so-called business phone of this retired administrator did not burnish his credentials. Nor did the fact that when I called his home, a woman with a Minnie- Pearl delivery said, "It's another beautiful day. Let's live it for the Lord!" buttress the credentials of the business. These phone contacts did not support Ms. Valdez's assertions in the board meeting that the retired administrator was highly professional and respected throughout the state.

My belief is that if Ms. Valdez had a more gravid college degree and background, that she would have had the sophistication and business judgment not to recommend the recently retired Hillsborouch County school administrator who got the $148,000 job without bids. And if you were not steeped in the malignant buddy culture that engulfs the administration, you would not have insisted on Ms. Valdez's giving him a no-bid plum contract when he had had no contracts from any source in his business history.

You should have taken measures to keep Mr. Hart as long as Ms. Faliera remains. You exercised one-sided punishment and deprived the schools of an intelligent, well-trained, honorably-degreed administrator whose abilities far outstrip Ms. Falliera's, who's hanging on to her board seat for dear life now it appears.

Poignant was the information given in one of Hart's recommendations that he is a strict practicing Catholic and devoted to his faith. His psychological misery now must be acute. He once told me when I complained about his increased salary when he came back from his brief resignation to work at some Eckerd enterprise that he and his wife had a traditional family outlook and believed the wife should stay home with the children and only the husband work. His situation with Ms. Faliera shattered this Catholic family--as it did Ms. Faliera's because she got divorced as well. Both involved children.

The psychiatric community tells us that children never get over parents' divorce--that even as middle-aged adults they still suffer the wounds of their parents' leaving each other. If you cared about children, you would have counseled both Faliera and Hart to cut out the erotic pranks on school time and lead straight married lives for their children's sakes.

And you would have monitored them to see that they did so. You know well how to monitor and have Ms. Kipley's enthusiastic cooperation in that activity. You monitor for the wrong things, however. You monitor members of the school family who say the least little thing critical of the school administration. You even manufacture cases against them as you did in Bart Birdsall's case. You monitor to injure them and possibly fire them because you lust to retain your power and want no critics in the ranks. But you could have monitored an infidelity adventure that harmed children as well. That would be a benign use of your monitoring penchant.

I also want to know whether the principal who rumor says was linked to Coach Faliera concomitantly met with punishment as Hart did. If not, why not? I see that Coach Faliera resigned shortly after his divorce. I want to know if you forced that resignation too. That's information the public has a right to know.

And I would have asked the board lawyer to say what advice he gave you on school sex with its public dimensions. When two people work for the same outfit, the inferior party can file with the EEOC against the superior party for sexual coercion. I believe that means Coach Falliera and Mr. Hart could have filed against the school board since they were the inferiors in employment to the principal and Ms. Falliera. Such cases are numerous now as more people become aware of their rights under Title VII. Madison Square Garden just paid a settlement of over 9 million dollars to one woman with three more lined up to file charges against the Garden.

It is reckless management to allow employees to engage or try to engage in sex on the job since Title VII went on the books. These peccadilloes can end up in the court with big money settlements for the injured parties.

More significant than the cases above, however, is the threat of censorship and book burning, the sentiments for which I detected support especially from you on the podium last night. No superintendent who cares about learning removes books from library shelves to propitiate a parent who does not understand the right of the freedom to read in a democracy. I have asked for the ACLU to monitor this situation and see that you and the benighted members of the board whose attitude toward freedom of information and freedom from censorship do not engage in a local book burning that injures the students and gives the community a black eye for having a crude attitude toward literature and sex.

The irony of this situation is that it's not OK for children to read about rape but that it's OK for rapes to continue and for illicit sex to find a venue in the school environment itself. The schools have a problem acknowledging sex. That's why the administration punished little girl who reported the molestation by suspending her in the recent case in which she reported that a teacher was molesting a child. I believe school people knew about the molestation and were so intent on denying it that they did not report it and punished the child who did. A pschiatrist told me that punishment for telling the truth damaged that little girl's psyche severely.

And also this: tell the board chair to instruct the board lawyer to send me the public information about his firm's relationship with the board. One of the things I want confirmed is that Dr. Lennard gave Mr. Gonzalez's firm a no-bid contract that none of the firms in town had a chance to offer competitive bids on. So Mr. Gonzalez's recent zealous comments in favor of the no-bid protocol were interested, not disinterested, and hence the board should not listen to his advice on no-bids.

The lawyer's relationship with the school board is public information. The state manual on this law says so. A lawyer can't stonewall and a board can't assist him in evading a citizen's right to the information requested under the open-records law. I don't want to have to begin to leaflet the Florida bar, the Attorney General, the governor, and the state board of education to get the Hillsborough County board attorney to obey the public-records law.

Pray see that he gets the message from the board to do so, or I will have to include all board members in my complaints about non-compliance with the open-government law if it comes to that.

lee drury de cesare
leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com

From:	"Kathleen de la Peña McCook" Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
To:	Montolino@aol.com
Date:	Tue, 11 Dec 2007 22:17:05 -0500
Subject:	Bart Birdsall letter
CC:	jennifer.faliero@sdhc.k12.fl.us, Carol.kurdell@sdhc.k12.fl.us, Doretha.edgecomb@sdhc.k12.fl.us, april.griffin@sdhc.k12.fl.us, jack.lamb@sdhc.k12.fl.us, candy.olson@sdhc.k12.fl.us, susan.valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us, lee_decesare@yahoo.com, tgonzalez@tsg-law.com, loriene@ischool.utexas.edu, LStein@sptimes.com, MBrown@tampatrib.com, hooper@sptimes.com, mphenege@tampabay.rr.com, rsteele@aclufl.org, kmccook@tampabay.rr.com

If you make the text below blue, you
can read that which spills over into
the black part of the page.  lee

Aside from the particulars this is a powerful letter from a front
line librarian. No wonder Bart Birdsall was selected as a national
example of thoughtful, passionate concern for library freedom and
service as a Library Journal honoree 2 years ago.  He is the kind of
man that will make the school district stand tall and not melt into a
puddle of turgid blandness.
--Kathleen de la Pena McCook
--

On 11 Dec 2007 at 22:01, Montolino@aol.com wrote:

Dear Superintendent Elia and School Board Members:

I watched tonight's school board meeting with dismay. One parent's
complaint about a book should NOT determine whether a book is taken
off library shelves or not. A passage read out of context should not
decide whether a book is taken off the shelf or not. Superintendent
Elia's comments made it sound like this book may very well be taken
out of all schools and that she might work with the entire state to
censor this book statewide. I hope I did not misunderstand.

As a community member and as a librarian I believe censoring
books does students a disservice. I am intelligent because I read
everything and anything I wanted my entire life with full approval of
my parents. Sheltering children from real life does nothing but leave
them unprepared to deal with life's challenges.

With that said I do not advocate putting pornography in school
libraries. I have not read this book, but I plan to read it asap. I
want to see what I think of the overriding message of this book.
For every parent such as Melissa Burt there are parents like my
parents who would NOT want this book taken off the shelf. I read the
Marquis de Sade in high school which is one of the most graphic and
bizaare writers you can read.I was allowed to read everything and
anything, and it did not harm me in the slightest.

No one has a right to deny others from reading a book. Like I
said, for every parent who wants a graphic book removed, you will
find other parents who feel the book should not be censored.
We librarians attempt to purchase age appropriate books. However,
there are many, many reading levels, cultures, and maturity levels.
We have to provide reading material for EVERY child, every culture in
our school, every maturity level. It is a daunting task. Parents who
are conservative should police their children's reading material and
not attempt to keep others from reading materials whose parents may
have no problem whatsover. My parents would have never worried about
the passage read aloud at the board meeting even if my late sister or
I read it in elementary school, and I can produce my very intelligent
parents at a board meeting if necessary to corroborate that
statement.

Before any action is taken concerning this book every single
board member and the Superintendent should read the book in its
entirety, and the decision should NOT be done by one person, one
parent, one school board member, one district supervisor, or one
Superintendent.

I will be discussing the issue with the ACLU and other community
groups, because I am very, very concerned about this issue and about
how the school board caves into a small group of parents (or one
parent) at the drop of the hat. Intellectual Freedom (please see
ALA.org and search "Intellectual Freedom") is one of the foundations
of democracy, in my opinion. We must strive to protect Intellectual
Freedom.

The passage the parent read at the board meeting was graphic, but
it probably reflects many of our students' experiences. Many are
raped, and unless you read the book in its entirety and understand
what context the passage is found, you can not make a judgment. What
if this book gives some child solace reading about her own experience
in life? It might keep her from committing suicide. We read to see
ourselves. Censoring these books often means censoring
children's/teen's experiences in life. Chris Crutcher, a well known
young adult writer, has his books taken off library shelves often,
and he says it well, "To censor my books is to censor those
children's lives, b/c I got these storiesfrom real children."

Once you start picking and choosing which books belong on a
library shelf, you start on a slippery slope, and about one half of
ALL library books in all grade levels can be challenged and removed,
if we open the floodgates, and we will not have any books on the
shelves.

This is un-American and anti-Democracy. I urge you to think very
carefully about proceeding with issues in which the district attempts
to censor books.

Currently, the Hillsborough Countyprocedure is for the parent to
read the book completely first. If the parent is still angry, the
parent can have the school convene a committee that every single
media specialist forms at the beginning of year which requires
community members as well as administrators. Then, as a GROUP the
committee decides whether it should be kept on the shelves or not.
Each school has a different culture, and a book should not be taken
off shelves without a group effort and following the procedure. A
book taken off one shelf should not be taken off another library's
shelf. If a parent can go to the board and ignore the school
procedure, why have a procedure in place?

Ihope to speak to the ACLUabout this book, and I hope that all
of you will read the book, analyze its literary value, how that
passage fits into the book, the overriding message of the book, and
whether some students may find solace in such a book.

Maybe the book has no literary value. I will read it myself and
see, but I believe it probably does, if it landed on the statewide
teen reading list.

Parents have a hard time understanding that their very own
children rights that go beyond what the parent may want the child to
have. Many children are molested by their very own parents, and they
have no where to turn sometimes except to a book on incest in a
school library that might help the child deal with the issue. Teen
pregnancy books and incest books are often stolen out of school
libraries, b/c the child does not want to check it out but
desperately needs the information. Some of these children will never
go to their parents about these issues.

We need to look at the bigger picture, people.

Books do not harm children. Adult reactions to booksdo. I would
like any proof from research studies showing that literary books harm
children. I have never come across such a research study. Before you
think about removing a book, please find research that shows stories
harm children.

Sincerely,
Bart Birdsall

Bart Birdsall
2309 W. Bristol Ave.
Tampa, FL 33609
home (813) 258-8817
cell (813) 362-7937
Montolino@aol.com

Ms. Cobbe: I post this as a correction. ldd

Date:	Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:31:18 -0500
Subject:	Re: public information
To:	"lee decesare"
From:	"Linda Cobbe" View Contact Details Add Mobile Alert

You left last night before I could give you the copy of Mark Hart's resignation form. I need to correct your assumption that it was left out of his file on purpose. I had that file in my possession after Letitia Stein had reviewed it. I know it was in there when I gave her the file to review. She must have taken that form out.

Gloria and Lee 1970

Date:	Fri, 7 Dec 2007 23:09:16 -0800 (PST)
From:	"lee decesare" View Contact Details Add Mobile Alert
Subject:	Ignoring the Needs of Minority Children
To:	doretha.edgecomb@sdhc.k12.fl.us
CC:	MBrown@tampatrib.com, letitiastein@sptimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/09Rparenting.html?pagewanted=2

Ms. Ethridge: This NYT article outlines the needs of your natural constituency--minority children. I never hear you utter a word on the podium in their behalf. Instead, I hear you dithering about exploring the cul-de-sacs of some policy like the outrageous no-bid situation on the 16th and then voting for it nonetheless.

I understand the black woman who preceded you was outspoken about the needs of minority children and had eyes raised behind her back mocking her by the board and administration bigots. Any black board member should be willing to ignore such bigots' disapproval and plow on to help the minority children, who should get a black board member's care and attention.

Another black woman who is hostile to the needs of minority children is Dr. Stephenson at HCC. She just presided over a proposal to kick out the minority children that comprise most of Head Start's long-time program at HCC. She claims the Headstart children's presence interferes with the college's "business plan."

I went to an HCC board meeting to speak against kicking out the Head Start children. It is dismaying to see Black women such as you and Dr. Stephenson get into positions of authority and then show that they are indifferent to the needs of those left behind in the ghetto. That's the situation that Gunnar Myrdahl explores in An American Dilemma. You could have been in the cast of characters.

Lee Drury De Cesare

Date:	Sun, 09 Dec 2007 12:51:12 -0500
Subject:	Re: Ignoring the Needs of Minority Children
To:	"lee decesare"
CC:	MBrown@tampatrib.com, letitiastein@sptimes.com
From:	"Doretha Edgecomb" Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert

Ms. DeCeesare,

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. As a teacher, district level supervisor, principal, and now as a board member, I have no regrets about how I get things done. I have a long history and record of advocacy, action, and support for minority students. I am sure you are aware that one's work is not always before the cameras or that one's strong and persistent voice is not always through a microphone. Yet, I have spoken up, asked the hard questions, and challenged many decisions, now and in the past, - all part of the process for getting things done! Perhaps you missed those moments.

At the end of the day what is most important and what will be valued and evaluated are the results of my actions and my unrelenting commitment. I believe those who know me well neither question nor doubt my contributions or sincerity to ensure that minority students are afforded the best education possible. In fact, I work to support quality education for ALL STUDENTS and when I do that I am also creating opportunities for students who look like me.

Doretha W. Edgecomb
School Board Member
District 5
Hillsborough County Public Schools

All correspondences including email sent to School Board members or School District staff are considered public records, per Florida Statute 119.

Date:	Sun, 09 Dec 2007 12:51:12 -0500
Subject:	Re: Ignoring the Needs of Minority Children
To:	"lee decesare"
CC:	MBrown@tampatrib.com, letitiastein@sptimes.com
From:	"Doretha Edgecomb"

Date:	Sun, 9 Dec 2007 18:01:50 -0800 (PST)
From:	"lee decesare" View Contact Details Add Mobile Alert
Subject:	Re: Ignoring the Needs of Minority Children
To:	"Doretha Edgecomb" , susan.valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us, candy.olson@sdhc.k12.fl.us, april.griffin@sdhc.k12.fl.us, carol.curdell@sdhc.k12.fl.us, jack.lamb@sdhc.k12.fl.us
CC:	letitiastein@sptimes.com, marilynbrown@tampatrib.com, hooper@sptimes.com, tobin@sptimes.com

Ma'am:

All children don't need your advocacy. The ones in Beach Park where my four children went to school don't. South Tampa parents would make the members of the administration sorry they got up in the morning if they thought the administration were neglecting their children.

It's the ones who look like you and also the Hispanic children who need your muscle on the board. It's the ones who have poor parents who don't speak English well or only one parent in a single-parent household. That's the burden of the NYT article I sent you.

Where were you when the migrant farm-worker families' children were thrown under the bus during the incompetent bus dispensation? Ms. Valdes was there. Even Ms. Elia showed up after the Times had published the outrage. You didn't.

I suspect your spiel about your dense commitment to minority children's needs would not produce any solid evidence to back it up. Give me a bibliography on your claims.

The only admirable thing I am aware of that you have done on the board is not to throw the Muslim children to the wolves in the religious-holiday fracas. The bigots emerged from the fens and the bogs of ignorance on the outer banks of Wimauma to howl imprecations at the "towelheads" for besmirching Christianity. God forbid that Jesus had to depend on these unlovely specimens. Ms. Elia buckled to the bigots instantly.

Use the bigot approach on Ms. Elia. If you are polite to her, she mistakes your decorum for weakness. So howl at her in the fens-and-the bogs mode. Fens-and-bogs dialect is the language she understands.

lee drury de cesare

My youngest grandchild, Ethan Antonio: our grandchildren are our legacy along with what we have done in our lives to fling a challenge from us Minions of the Light against the skullduggeries of the Minions of the Darkness. The administration and the school board, of course, are the Minions of the Darkness. I assume that we are all agreed on that point. lee

The email below is from George W. Seevers, Jr. His father, George W. Seevers, Sr., was my history teacher at Hillsborough High. Mr. Seevers was one of those teachers who, in Adams' words, "affects eternity."

I discovered that I could write satire in Mr. Seevers' history class. His asked essay questions on tests and flagged grammar and punctuation errors. If Mr. Seevers asked something that I didn't know, I simply wrote him a funny piece on such things as how bad the food was in the cafeteria or how ugly the football-team uniforms were.

If I could make Mr. Seevers laugh, I got an A. I did not often fail and have since used this satirical talent as Juvenal, Swift, and Dickens did to scald the hides of the wicked.

Mr. Seevers recognized my intellect. He wrote my parents to send me to college. I went to nursing school first and nursed for fifteen years before I finally returned to college to get my degrees in English when I had four children. My first college was Columbia University, which Mr. Seevers had attended years before. He said he had been so poor that he didn't buy the course books but did well by taking careful notes in the class.

This example gave me the priceless idea that one does not have to follow the crowd but can strike out on another path to pursue a goal. Mr. Seevers taught me to embrace being different. It is the people in history, as he pointed out, who have the courage to march to a different drummer who make a difference in the world. Conformists never make a difference. They condemn those who do something different and, when it is no longer controversial, follow their examples. So most of the people who change the world are dead by the time their ideas gain acceptance, but they rest in the eternal eclat of having benefitted the world. The lesson I learned from this realization is that one should never expect thanks for what he or she does to benefit society. Just wait until you are dead; then you will be a star. Not only that, but the people who opposed you and called you all kinds of unkind names will say they were there in the trenches with you from the get-go.

Let the poor chumps say what's not true is my attitude toward these late joiners. Whom can it hurt? At least they finally came around. That's better than eternal allegiance to ignorance.

Another thing that Mr. Seevers taught me at HHS and about which my knowledge has since deepened is this: Nothing beats the power of the word: not armies, not despots, not any of life's assaults. If you can write, you can make a difference. My being able to write--the idea that I first got in Mr. Seevers' history classes when I was so young--is why in my small way I have been able to change the world.

When I got my bachelor's degree from Queens College in NY summa cum laude (only six out of three thousand graduates) Phi Beta Kappa, I paid tribute to the encouragement that Mr. Seevers had given me to follow my talents.

My knowledge of teachers' importance like Mr. Seevers in students' lives and the non-importance of administrations and school boards explain my resisting the despicable behavior of the Hillsborough County School Board and administration toward the teachers of the county today.

School-board rubberstamp ciphers and administrative parasites don't affect eternity. Teachers do. ldd

Dear George--but I will always think of you as Skeeter,

I am pleased to hear from you. I didn't know Mrs. Seevers had passed away, but I didn't see her at the last HHS Hall of Fame meeting, to which she always came so I got a chance to see her then. Your parents were both dear, wonderful, ethical people. We girls at HHS all wanted your mother to die so that we could marry your father. Your father had enormous influence on my life. He always told me that I should do something with my life that was worthy of it and even wrote to my dear, unsophisticated parents to tell them that I should go to college. I eventually followed his advice and did so well that I know he would have been proud of his protege.

Your father sang at my mother's funeral. I shall never forget that.

If Carole is in the public school system, my heart goes out to her. The administration is corrupt and the board a rubberstamp. Both treat the teachers abysmally. They just loaded on an extra class with no extra pay for the high school teachers. They are pretty desperately overworked this semester. The superintendent makes almost $300,000 a year, an obscene salary compared to the teachers' beginning salary of $34,000. The union is in bed with the administration. The Professional Standards office is used by the superintendent to cook up charges against teachers and to punish them for the least little thing, threatening their jobs and keeping them terrified.

My children went to South Tampa Schools--Grady, Chamberlain, and Plant--so I am still interested in that school system. Two of my grandchildren are still in South Tampa schools. I don't have time to monitor both Pinellas and Hillsborough, but both Dr. Wilcox, of Pinellas, and Ms. Elia, Hillsborough, are marginally literate. The superintendent job is a political scam. I don't know how things got so bad. The academic weaklings go into administration and lord it over the bright people, who go into teaching. But I am fighting the Minions of Darkness. I appear at board meetings and harangue them. They hate me. Boo hoo. And I also write a blog. Maybe Carole pointed it out to you: it's LeeDruryDeCesaresCasting-RoomCouch.blogspot.com.

I have a lively traffic on this blog, and I hope it boosts the teachers' morale and encourages them to oppose the oppression of the administration and the board.

I was professor of English at HCC and was the union president there also. I got the teachers to picket the administration their first and only time when it was trying to bust the union. Your father always encouraged me to speak up, and I always have. I don't think he would agree with much that I say, but your father, I think, was a Republican like my husband of fifty-one years, and I am a Democrat.

I would like to be able to talk to Mr. Seevers about the presidential race and the incumbency of Mr. Bush. He was obsessed with the Second World War and Roosevelt's role in it and would lapse into a lecture on it at the drop of the hat. I have his book on his view of things. He signed it for me.

Tell Carole to check my blog and to buck up the teachers. They have great power if they could bring themselves to use it. I don't suggest striking: that's how your father lost his job. But there is more one can do than striking to oppose oppression.

We have the protection of the First Amenment. A person can always protest and speak out against wrongdoing and vote out the rascals from the board. Tell Carole to check http://call-in-6.blogspot.com/. It is a teacher blog--The Wall--and provides a forum for teachers to sound off. People are afraid to sign their names, but they say some pretty pungent things signed "anonymous."

I am surprised you retired: you are so young. But retirement is not a fallow time. I have been so busy since retirement that I don't know how I had time to work. It's a grand time in life.

The best wishes to you, Skeeter, and let me hear from you again. Tell Carole to come to the board meetings and help me give those rascals on the podium h-e-two sticks as my Aunt Jessie used to say.

Sincerely,

Lee Drury De Cesare, HHS Class of '51

15316 Gulf Boulevard 802

Madeira Beach, FL 33708

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

From: "George Seevers" <gseevers@reliamail.net>

To: <tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com>

Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 8:30 PM

Subject: From George Seevers' son

> Dear Mrs. De Cesare,
>
> I was recently pleased to notice your mentioning Dad's name in your
> blog. I am attempting to work my way out of a forced early retirement. :-)
> For 15 years I pastored a Reformed Baptist in North Texas. Dad passed away
> in 2001 and Mother passed away in 2006. We have been attempting to sell
> their home for over a year and a half now. The real estate market crashed
> soon after Mother died. Carole, my sister, lives in the Tampa area. She is
> a special education teacher. As you can imagine, she has a rough time of
> it.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> George W. Seevers, Jr.

> Van Alstyne, TX 75495

> gseevers@reliamail.net

Date:	Wed, 5 Dec 2007 15:21:15 -0800 (PST)
From:	"lee decesare"
Subject:	Message to School Board Chair Faliera
To:	jeniffer.faliera@sdhc.k12.fl.us, doretha.edgecomb@sdhc.k12.fl.us, susan.valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us, april.griffin@sdhc.k12.fl.us, jack.lamb@sdhc.k12.fl.us, candy.olson@sdhc.k12.fl.us, "Tom Gonzalez" , lstein@sptimes.com, hooper@sptimes.com, tobin@sptimes.com, pmanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com, ptash@sptimes.com, webster@tampatribune.com, "Mary Russell" , dpalmer@tampatrib.com, htroxler@sptimes.com, james.aulusio@sdhc.k12.fl.us, lisa.caminchos@sdhc.k12.fl.us, fred@fredburns.com

Chair Faliera:

I have requests in to the board attorney Gonzalez for a month asking for public information. He has not responded to them.

My latest request to Mr. Gonzalez is for the financial windfall his firm has enjoyed from what appears to have been the no-bid perpetual contract that Dr. Lennard awarded Mr. Gonzalez and his firm. No other of the area’s firms got the chance to bid on the job. It was done behind closed doors as is all of the schools’ business.

Mr. Gonzalez is not exempt from the Sunshine Law just because he passed the bar. He's supposed to carry out the open-records law, not thwart it because it concerns him.

The board members took an oath of office to uphold the laws. I want you to instruct Mr. Gonzalez to obey the law and send me the data I asked for, or I shall have to appeal to higher authorities to get the school board of Hillsborough County and its lawyer to obey the law.

I will appeal as many times as it takes to get the government-in-the-sunshine law obeyed by the Hillsborough County board and its lawyer. And I will include the names of the board members as scofflaws if I do not get a response from you to this email assuring me that you have instructed Mr. Gonzalez to obey the open-government law and send me the data I have requested.

I would appreciate a timely response to this request, Madam Chair. When running for office, board candidates on the stump aver their eagerness to hear from voters. When elected, however, they disappear into the bowels of ROSSAC’s bunker and don’t even answer emails. Ms. Kurdell only recently ceased returning every email sent to her with a “spam” message attached to it.

La Kurdell has been on the board for fifteen years and as silent as the sphinx in Gaza until it’s election time when she suddenly becomes animated. Her only activity on the podium during those fifteen years has been to rubberstamp the administration’s dicta on the consent calendar.

If another board member asks for an item to be pulled from the consent agenda to examine it more closely in public, Ms. Kurdell leads her buddy Ms. Olson into jumping on that board member for being "disloyal" to the administration functionaries.

At board meetings, citizens get only two to three minutes to address the board. The chair’s chief activity during this time seems to be keeping an eye glued to the time bell so the chair can shut up the speaker mid clause.

Some of the other board members look on with a sneer at the citizen petitioner. Dr. Lamb’s incumbency as board chair featured a gargoyle-visage that forbade any feeling of the speaker that his or her comments were welcome.

I will be interested to see how you conduct your chairship. I hope it exceeds in hospitality of that of Dr. Lamb, who once snarled at me to stay home when I challenged him about using his office to get the stenographic services of the school board personnel to write a letter on board stationery to Mayor Iorio to abate his condo’s water bill. He implied I was a wet back because I live on the beach.

Such arrogant behavior as that some board members and attorney exhibit validates the truism that you can tell what kind of character a person has if he or she gets a little bit of power.

Very respectfully yours,

lee drury de cesare

15316 Gulf Boulevard 802

Madeira Beach, FL 33708

tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com