Looks like I am jumping back into the fray. There are so many things to talk about, but I have to vent on this one. An incident on a bus where a disabled girl is in distress. The girl dies the next day. There is no record in the Hillsborough County Schools of this event? This is just not right.

Found Under "Retaliation" Label

I see Lee is wanting to look at the Whitehead case that went to Federal court.

Here is the Final Order.

See how many times you can find how the District obfuscated, flat out lied and basically retaliated against the parents for advocating for their son. See how they dug themselves in deeper protecting one bad move after another.


The jury award was substantially reduced by the judge. Imagine that.

What is more interesting is to read the depositions given by the Board members, who repeated stated they knew nothing of the case, yet kept voting for it to be continued.




Wrightslaw - The Division of Administrative Hearings: "State of Florida
The Division of Administrative Hearings
Special Education Hearing
Andrew K. Whitehead, et.al, Petitioner,
v.
Hillsborough County Sch. Bd. Respondent.
No. 93-4021E"

Spare The Responsible Entities And Spoil The Child

Goader writes:

We-The-People Know Best for Florida - Evanescent Commentary - Goader: "It’s as though the people representing us are deciding how they want to run Florida with little or no regard to what their constituents want."


I have attempted three or four comments on Goader's blog, but they aren't showing up, so I will comment here.

It seems like I read the Communist goals for America a long time ago, but a recent Tribune post brought my attention to them. Read them all, and see how many of them you think have already been accomplished, and how many are getting near.

The other day, I commented on Goader's blog how I thought that our government agencies, which includes schools, take over parenting instead of channeling parental responsibility.

Bad parent? The government makes it easy for them to shun their parental responsibility. Free food and free school lunch along with minimal housing payments go hand in hand with the latest electronic gadget for the whole family, and don't forget the latest shoes, rims, TV and lawn ornanment, be it urban or rural.

Bad parent? The system deals with the kid, not the parent. The system spends money on all types of resources chasing the kid, but doesn't have the money to get past no-returned phone calls and messages to the parent. The system spends huge amounts of money to provide food, clothing if needed, a full continuum of reproductive safeguards from prevention to elimination without parental notice. The system spends huge amounts of money on juvenile justice from pick-any-name suspension to serious threats of if-you-do-this-one-more-time you are going to really be in trouble.

I frequently use the caveat that when a problem rests with the proper person, the problem will be dealt with properly. Otherwise, the buck is passed more than a forest full of out-of-heat does and everybody can blame somebody as long as nobody makes anybody responsible.

Not surprisingly, the Communist goals cover it:

Communist Goals (1963): "40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents."

Perhaps an answer to Goaders question du jour can be found here:

Communist Goals (1963):

"32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc."

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

Public School Systems Live By The Numbers

It has been a while since I have mocked the numbers that school systems use to justify their existence and importance. Just check out the label "numbers."

Ms. Sherri Akerman from The Tribune dutifully reports a number provided by our local education agency as the headline of her report. As I was reading the public comments, I started to wonder what type of number all involved were really smoking.

42% absentee rate reported in Hillsborough schools today:

My averaged number crunch based on reported absentee rate by others: 72.5%

Roll your own:

Beth Hamaker , Steinbrenner - her son told her no more than 250 of 1,100 students reported for class - 77.27%

Posted by (jmk22) on 04/02/2010 at 03:32 pm. - 55%

Posted by (silver_springs77) on 04/02/2010 at 04:21 pm.: "I only had a total of about 3-5 students in any one of my classes" ?%

Posted by (mrtdm1) on 04/02/2010 at 04:50 pm. "My Grand daughter is in the IB program at Hillsborough. She said she had at the most 5 to 10 kids in her classes. One homeroom had 1 child show." ?%

Posted by (wanna) on 04/02/2010 at 07:38 pm. :"I know at the high school today where I subbed - it had 235 out of 1610 students" 85.40%


(historyteacher) on 04/02/2010 at 07:42 pm.: "To those comments who suggest that it should have been a normal day for students in the classroom I would like to add that I wish it could have been too, but when you have three students in a class normally of 24 you are really left with no option. " 87.5%


(historyteacher) on 04/02/2010 at 07:42 pm.: "My school had over 50% of students stay home." 50%+

Posted by (Gigi1182) on 04/02/2010 at 07:43 pm.: "Freedom High school's enrollment is 1900. 400 of them showed up today." 78.95%

Posted by (unvme) on 04/02/2010 at 07:46 pm.: "I am a teacher in Hillsborough county and while my attendance was between 4 and 9 students per class,.." ?%

Making the PRO looking like he understands the game: "Posted by (pvmichaels) on 04/02/2010 at 08:31 pm.

The 42% is totally wrong! We, at my school, didn't take attendance the normal way (which is by the computer). I think some students weren't counted as being absent to make the number of students at school look better!"

Posted by (hiphugger67) on 04/02/2010 at 08:42 pm. "I went into school for 1st period... where there were 3 other kids in my class. I had 2 teachers come into my classroom, one of which had 1 student present, and the other who had no students present. That's not 42%!" ?% and 100% (absent)

Posted by (historyteacher) on 04/02/2010 at 09:01 pm.: "To janeyouignorantslot - I believe you assumed that I did not teach today - In fact I along with my students (35/121).. " 71.07%

Posted by (reptaddict) on 04/02/2010 at 10:10 pm.: "One last comment. I visited my son's high school today. The absentee rate had to be at least 75%, and that's being generous. It may very well have been worse."

Leave It To An ESE Teacher To Conceptualize The Nuts (Poker Reference, for you sex-first thinkers)

I try to connect the dots.

Goader has this post:Reprint: Bonus (Performance) Pay – Shmonus Pay « Goader: "Basing a teacher’s bonus pay on a group of students’ standardized test scores, makes as much sense as basing the bonus pay of a basketball shoe salesman on how many points are scored by players wearing his shoes in a particular game."

Someone who claims to be an ESE teacher named Jenny Myers has this comment over on The Gradebook: Florida & Tampa Bay schools blog - The Gradebook#comments: "I know a better plan....tell the parents that they can not get food stamps, government subsidizes housing, or free lunch for their children unless they master FCAT THEN you might have the support of us teachers!!!
Posted by: Jenny Myers- ESE Teacher | April 01, 2010 at 04:37 PM"

I can see the dots. Just trying to connect them.

To see the dots, one must remove themselves from "the forest" in order to see "the trees." Goader and I first "met" over a Tribune article in which he staunchly defended "teachers" over a comment that I had made that "attacked" "'teachers as part of the system'". It took a couple of years before we met face to face, which has only been once. We have verbally jousted throughout the years of blogging. I have said before that Goader was the impetus for me to learn blogging, as I wanted to "get into the ring of ideas."

This post from Goader got my attention: Bad-Mouthing Teachers and Unintended Consequences « Goader: "Rather than include teachers in a larger group of administrators, parents, and students, the rallying cry of our time is, “it’s the teachers’ fault.”"

What I find noteworthy, after several readings, is that Goader, in defending teachers, did not target another entity. He simply makes the point of why not include everyone. How many of us can say that we defend our position by not attacking or blaming "someone else?" Think about it.

How many of us "represent!!!!" at all costs, which includes no introspection?


What I find noteworthy is that Jenny ties responsibility and accountability together between parents, teachers and students.

When push comes to shove between "teachers and parents", I will push and shove like hell to represent parents. Just as teachers know how "bad" (generalization)parents can be (towards the system), I know how "bad" (generalization) teachers can be (as part of the system). However, to address the real problems within our education system, we must recognize what is real "throughout the forest."


In my response to Goader's post, I spoke to how many government agencies take over the responsibility of parenting, as opposed to teaching or training for accountability of parenting.

School systems, either by choice or coercion, take on many responsibilities of parenting. I think I can provide links to where the Hillsborough County School Board members have promoted providing food, clothes, transportation and sex behavior training. Apparently, if parents don't do their job, then the government agency takes it over. What kind of message is that to our students?

I submit that what is wrong with our public education system is a reflection on how responsibility and accountability is treated by the whole group of people who vote, or don't vote, in America.

The Hair Of The Dog

Joel Chandler has started a new blog named FOGWatch. Florida Open Government Watch.


What has intrigued me about the stories that Joel has shared regarding public records requests is how similar his experience has been to that of those who try to advocate for children with disabilities. You would have to read all of his posts on IAmTroublemaker and read all of the links that give first hand information how some public school officials disregard some of the laws that they are supposed to enforce to see what I am talking about.

Today, Joel has a blog post titled "Hair Trigger". Apparently, he has been accused of "filing law suits" at the drop of a dime, or maybe it it is at the drop of $23.50.

This accusation resonates with me because, in the past, I also have been accused of "always filing lawsuits" and belonging to an organization that "all they do is file lawsuits." Those people make false accusations because they are ignorant of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)and the procedural safeguards that are written into the regulations. "State Complaints" are not "lawsuits."


Similar to what Joel speaks directly to below, IDEA also has a provision that attorney fees can be awarded to a parent that brings a due process suit against a local education agency and "wins." Similar to what Joel speaks directly to below, in order to "win" your attorney fees, you must "file a lawsuit." If a parent goes to an attorney because there is a problem with the Individualized Education Plan (IEP), the parent is going to have to pay this lawyer. Up until the point that the parent actually wins the due process, they are paying on their own. Despite how "wrong" a school district is, they, the school systems, are not faced with having this additional cost of keeping their position. Most parents are pretty vocal about their anger towards school systems, and will inadvertently let the District know that they have finally had enough and are "going to sue", at which point the District can concede some point, which starts the process over again. In the mean time, the parent is paying out of pocket attempting to obtain what should be a "free and appropriate public education."

Parents and attorneys that have years of experience see that school systems treat parents and attorneys as suckers because no one likes to "file a lawsuit" at the drop of the dime, or is it the split of a hair?

The reason I choose to say that school systems treat parents and attorneys as suckers is found in Joel's very last sentence below: "the requester foots the bill for making the custodian do what they should have done in the first place."

Hair Trigger: "It may seem to the uninitiated that we have a bit of a hair trigger when it comes to public records litigation. After all, over the past couple of years we’ve filed an average of one public records lawsuit every other month.

Here’s the logic for our willingness to file lawsuits:

•Under Florida law, requesters who have been denied access to non-exempt records have no real recourse except to ask the courts to intervene.

•Under Florida law, requesters that take legal action against the custodian of a public record that violates FS 119, are entitled to legal fees and expenses if the case is settled in favor of public access.

•Under Florida law, financial liability does not attach to the custodian until a lawsuit has been filed.

•Under Florida law, if a requester hires an attorney to try and cajole the custodian of a public record to obey the law and the custodian complies before a suit is filed, the requester is left holding the bag for the legal expenses. This happens far too often. A private citizen seeks access to non-exempt records; the custodian of the records denies access; the requester hires an attorney to compel access; just before a lawsuit is filed the custodian complies with the law; the requester foots the bill for making the custodian do what they should have done in the first place."

Citizens Have To Be Brave To Be Free - Public Agencies Just Have To Be Brazen And Not Follow Their Own Laws

The law says we, the citizens, have the burden:




The Rationale: "•According to the Governor’s Commission On Open Government Reform “In practice, the burden of enforcing violations of Florida’s open meetings and public records laws generally falls to citizens who have few alternatives other than seeking an injunction or filing suit in civil court to compel compliance.”"


Who watches us, the citizens, when we follow the law?

Joel Chandler writes:

Email to Gerald Bailey, Commissioner of the FDLE Regarding Suspected Abuse of FCIC/NCIC: ......."During our conversation I explained to Mr. Taveras that the ZPD inquiries of me in response to a public records request were not isolated events. Over the past eighteen months or so FCIC/NCIC has been accessed at least forty-three times by multiple agencies in order to run queries of my name. When the date and time stamps of those queries are compared to news reports about my public records advocacy and the public records requests a disturbing nexus becomes obvious. Of course, during this period of time I have not been the subject of a traffic stop or any other actual criminal investigation."


And then, there are those who watch from afar:

Everyone Is Welcome to Visit www.FOGWatch.org: "Here are some of our governmental visitors:

United States Senate, US Department of Homeland Security, US Department of Energy, the National Security Agency (NSA), US Army Intelligence, US Naval Intelligence, Florida Department of Children and Families, City of New Port Richey, City of Zephyrhills, Broward County Public Schools, Florida Department of Health, City of Lakeland, Polk County Sheriff’s Office, and of course one of our most frequent visitors, the Zephyrhills Police Department."