Is "Power" Obtained By Keeping Outside Influences Illegitimate?

One way to not have to defend your self is to not acknowledge the entity that is trying to "gain power" over you. Depending on the circumstances and the relationship between you and the "power", simply ignoring it may work. Or, it may make matters worse.

I got to this place because the local public education system used different tactics to render me illegitimate when I wanted to "exert power" to change the course of events that I objected to. I have used the words "cavalier", "obfuscation" and "arrogance with ignorance" to describe my perception of how the District dodged the real issues.

While ignoring "the law" assuredly saves the District's money, being caught at ignoring "the law" can be costly:

Wrightslaw - Special Education Law - Whitehead v Hillsborough:

"Florida Jury Awards $600,000.00 to Parents of Handicapped Child
School District Failed to Provide FAPE; Retaliated Against Parents and Child"

NAPTA: TEACHER STORY, Doug Erwin, Florida:

"After nearly three days of deliberations, the jury awarded Erwin at least $175,000 in damages for emotional pain and mental anguish. He could get an additional $196,000 in salary for being pressured to retire 18 months before his scheduled retirement date of July 31, 2003, his attorney said."

I have said all of that to bring attention to what can happen when a school District ignores a public records request.

Polk Schools To Pay $25,000 in Legal Dispute | The Ledger | Lakeland, FL

"The $50,000 in legal fees spent during my fight with the Polk County School Board was the result of their having “acted contrary to law.” Certainly, taxpayer funds were wasted - by the PCSB (subsequently, the Duval County School Board wasted taxpayer funds doing the same thing). I find it curious that some folks think I’ve wasted the money when all I have done is to seek access to records that EVERY citizen is entitled to. Using the same logic marchers on Selma wasted taxpayer funds when the State Police beat them and used tear gas."

(Blond Moments from the Blogosphere...):



The lawsuit...:

"...Obviously, Mr. Conner [PCSB attorney*]acknowledges on the record that the PCSB knew that there was no basis in law for denying my request. Further, he admitted, on the record, that the only reason the PCSB did not produce the records was that they did not want me to have them."

"I believe this is the “smoking gun” regarding the criminality of the actions of the PCSB and Gail McKinzie. They knowingly refused to comply with a legal request for non-exempt public records. They knowingly frustrated my efforts to see these records even though they knew I was entitled to them. Their actions were conscious and deliberate. It seems clear that with the benefit of counsel and months of planning they orchestrated a series of hurtles and roadblocks to my obtaining these non-exempt records." -Joel Chandler

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What intrigues me with this information is that it bolsters my opinion that public exposure is the Achilles heel of the public school system. If legitimate concerns that are brought to them are obfuscated or kept illegitimate, what other recourse does anyone have? I am also curious as to who makes these decisions to obfuscate the issues.

* (my edit)

Maybe this is how credit is given in our public education system

Thanks to The Gradebook for this link:

Hillsborough school incumbent wrongly claims credit for tax cut
By Letitia Stein, Times Staff Writer

If one follows the logic of Kurdell, one could take credit for a lot of actions just simply by being a member of any group.

The scary part is how one would deny being responsible for a lot of actions just simply by being a member of any group.

How does that play out?

Image More Important Than Substance?

This article may hold information that is common to our public school education systems. For those who believe that the main goal of the system is to maintain an image of competence at the cost of achieving competence, this article fits the template.

Two teachers with apparent laudable backgrounds appear to be trying to improve their system. It appears they have the necessary experience to comprehend what changes were needed that would be beneficial.

For their efforts, they are banned.

"Traube said the district isn’t interested in public constructive criticism.

“I think its obvious what they want is a very cooperative relationship between anyone representing teachers,” he said. “They don’t want anyone to be adversarial in this district”.


"Chester, who is retired from a career in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has taught for seven years. Last year, children at one of the schools she was banned from nominated her for teacher of the year, she said. She also volunteered to start a penmanship club at one of the schools."

"Teaching is what she loves, Chester said. But, she said, “I would like the cloud of fear that people who work for this district are under to go away.”"

This is not the first time I have heard of a "cloud of fear" within a public school system.


Banned substitutes still speaking out against school district : Lee County : Naples Daily News

We are Playing Those Mind Games Together

Hillsborough: Suspension without rules


I have written before about obfuscation.

I have a question. The administration (some)say that these suspensions are not a punishment.

How does a student process this information? From an educational point of view? From a behavior modification point of view?

In this case, we are talking a student with a processing difficulty.

Does anyone know what concrete thinking is?

Does anyone know what abstract thinking is?

Does anyone know how to ascertain when these different cognitive skills are needed to process information?

I keep hearing echos in my mind "But I didn't do anything wrong". (inside voice - I didn't get punished, so must not have done anything wrong.)

But other kids, when they get suspended, they are being punished. Why am I different? They are just playing mind games with me.

Training kids that suspension is not a consequence for "their" behavior, but the suspension is for the "parents" behavior is somewhat confusing.

Do they have different colored suspension forms so one can tell if it is the student behavior that gets the student suspended or the parents behavior that gets the student suspended?

Must be hell to have a parent that won't contact the school. In more ways than one.

The Tribune Stole' My Words

Click here: Shooting Case Raises Questions About District's Credibility

Tribune says: "Instead of treating parents' questions with respect, they obfuscate or cavalierly dismiss them. "

I have been using the words "obfuscate" and "cavalier" to describe the HCDS since 1996.

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Shooting Case Raises Questions About District's Credibility
The Tampa Tribune
Published: September 30, 2007

Video: Shooting Raises Questions For Parents
If Hillsborough County public school officials want parents to trust them with their children, they need to be responsive and honest. But in Temple Terrace, where many parents are worried about the safety of the area's high school, straight answers are hard to come by.
And this seems characteristic of a school district that all too often appears obsessed with avoiding blame and minimizing problems.
Consider the town hall meeting inTemple Terrace earlier this month.
School leaders brushed off valid questions about student safety, telling parents the area's schools are merely the victims of bad publicity and misperceptions. The handling of the shooting death of King High School student Dalshon Walton during an after-school fight was particularly revealing.
It has been nearly two years since the shooting, yet it continues to be a flashpoint for parents with safety concerns because the district has been so eager to dismiss this tragic event as irrelevant.
Officials have insisted Walton's death had nothing to do with the school because it occurred just off campus and the shooter wasn't a King student. That remains King Principal Carla Bruning's stance.
But investigators and prosecutors have amassed a voluminous file of documents and testimony that shows otherwise. And district officials who maintain there was no connection between the shooting and the school either are ignoring facts or are in denial.
We dug into the case, which is detailed in thousands of pages of public documents at the Hillsborough County State Attorney's office. We found strong evidence that Walton died as a result of a dispute between King students, which started in the school days earlier over a minor insult and erupted into the brawl at the McDonalds.
Testimony and investigators' reports say Otis Lorenzo Neal, who has since pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, was summoned to the fight by a relative who was a King student involved in that ongoing quarrel.
In disturbing - but uncorroborated - testimony, a female King student said she saw the boy who brought Neal into the fight with a gun at school the same day.
Hillsborough County Sheriff's Deputy Nathaniel Johnson, who is assigned to King, also testified he met with the same boy and his mother earlier that day because she was concerned trouble was brewing. Defying his mother and the deputy, the boy ended up at McDonald's.
The fight clearly was a case of a school dispute spilling onto private property.
Yet when asked why the school has always denied a connection, Bruning said she never knew the facts. Bruning says she was never briefed on the case and she never asked the details.
Sheriff's Major Harold Winsett, who oversees the school resource officer program, says that's not true - Bruning was told by the school deputy the extent to which King students were involved.
Even the school district's head of security, Dave Friedberg, says he has long known the facts of the case and that he and Bruning jointly made improvements in the school in response to those facts.
Friedberg says school officials may have said the shooting was not 'related' or 'connected' to King because incidents not on school property are not considered school-related. But Friedberg says he also understands parents would have a broader interpretation.
'Is it school related? No,' Friedberg said. 'Does it involve us? Yes.'
Friedberg, though, was not the one tasked with responding to the public about this incident. The school officials who did played word games.
Their conduct makes the district look as if it intended to mislead people. This undermines school officials' credibility and takes some shine from what appear to be laudable safety improvements at King.
The school has undergone security upgrades, adding a fence, surveillance equipment and an armed security officer.
The school's annual crime stats show there were just three fights at the school last year, compared to the 58 that occurred in the 2005-06 school year.
Yet school officials didn't come to the Temple Terrace town hall meeting armed with such facts, perhaps because that would have required them to acknowledge violence had been a concern.
Reasonable parents will understand that bad things happen despite educators' best efforts. And there is no evidence the school was in any way negligent in the shooting.
Yet being defensive seems to be school leaders' natural reflex. We've seen it in the way they've dealt with parents who have questioned the elementary math curriculum; in how they've handled parents who objected to abrupt boundary changes and now in how they answer questions about school safety.
Instead of treating parents' questions with respect, they obfuscate or cavalierly dismiss them. At the town hall meeting, a King student who says he was at the fight animatedly talked about running when he heard the shots. Bruning heartily laughed at his account.
But parents take such matters seriously. And when it comes to their children's safety, they want, and deserve, the unvarnished truth.
To see video of a King High School student talk about safety at his school, go to TBO.com. Click on Tampa Tribune and then Opinion."

Milwaukee Public Schools loses special ed lawsuit - Coming to a District near you soon?

Milwaukee Public Schools loses special ed lawsuit.


http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=660882

See below how the judge answered this one: "lawyers hired by the school district had argued that much of the testimony from the parents was not reliable"


Systemic delay in HCDS was addressed a few years ago. The District has, to the last of my knowledge, a written policy that requires initial evaluations to be initiated within 30 days of parent's signed consent and completed within 60 days of same consent.


Unless the parent knows that the signed consent is the only thing that triggers this timeline (possibly a false premise under Section 504), verbal assurances that the issues will be adressed only delay the timeline. Suspending kids whose behavior is dramatically different from his/her peers (usually a sign that it may be a manifestation of their disability) without the District acknowledging or evaluating the kid for a suspected disability certainly saves money.

Suspending kids sets the stage of "First we blame the kid, then we blame the parent". It absolves the District from providing resources needed to address the manifested behaviors. While the parent is repeatedly assured that the District personnel are trained professionals, the District personnel's ignorance of understanding the concept of "special education" is on full display. This is prevalent with site administrators who have no concept of special ed.

What is the cost to saving money?


<<<<<<<<<"The inability of MPS to reach full compliance with the law in the area of Child Find is not the result of numerous isolated and unrelated cases, but stems from systemic inadequacies," Goodstein wrote. MPS said two years ago that it had spent $1.8 million on its defense, some of which it could possibly recoup through insurance. That was before the three-week-long trial in 2006. Spitzer-Resnick said his group has spent more than $1 million, money it hopes MPS and DPI will now be forced to pay. During the 2006 trial in front of Goodstein, lawyers hired by the school district had argued that much of the testimony from the parents was not reliable. But Goodstein cited specific cases presented at the trial where he judged the district had not addressed students' needs appropriately. Spitzer-Resnick said that throughout the legal proceedings: "We've heard 'It's poverty, it's mobility, it's homelessness.' Guess what? Those excuses are not given any credence by the court or by the law." One of the mothers involved in the lawsuit, whose son's story was chronicled in a December 2005 Journal Sentinel article, said she made repeated requests that her son be tested for learning disabilities. Eventually, the boy was 12 years old but still in the third grade at MPS. He was suspended so often that his mother and teachers sometimes lost track of where he was supposed to be. In another case, one girl cut herself at school and once wrote on her desk: "Kill all people. Solve the problem." While she did well on standardized tests, she couldn't seem to pass the sixth grade. The judge noted that school officials suspended the girl and referred her to a new school - but did not evaluate her for special education until prodded to. "The issue of suspension has an effect on the timely identification of children in need of special education," the judge wrote. "It also had an effect on the timeliness of providing services.">>>>>>>>

Sacred Cows and Unwritten SP&P's.

There are some things that happen in one’s life that one wants to forget. There are some things that happen in one’s life that one should forget and move on. The recent events revolving around the actions and comments of the HCDS’ Board has jostled my memory about past events that I would like to forget.
Blogging affords me the opportunity to present past events in a manner that gives some substance to why I have done the things I have done. One must read my adjacent blog as well. What those who read about me should understand that my cause is not about me, it is about the ethical people within the system, the parents and the students. I have repeatedly seen good hard working people doing the “right thing” be subverted by a system and the people who carry out the system’s desires.
Many pieces of the dysfunctional puzzle are shaped as unwritten SP&Ps within the realm of Special Education. When one has their finger on the pulse of the District, it is not difficult to recognize these unwritten SP&P’s. One of these unwritten policies was brought out as a finding in the Whitehead vs. HCDS case. The allegation was that the District had an unwritten policy to not write individual speech therapy into an IEP as a related service. My understanding is someone, who apparently did not know this unwritten policy, first wrote individual speech therapy into the IEP. Another IEP was convened soon after that to discuss something else, and when the IEP was updated, the individual speech therapy was removed from the new IEP, without discussion.

"66. Respondent violated the procedural requirements relating to the formulation and implementation of Andrew W.’s IEP by the following actions:
(a) Implementing a policy of omitting from IEPs specific speech/language services that will be provided to an individual, irrespective of the individual’s needs for specific speech/language services. '

One interested in learning the mechanisms of the system should read this case. The ensuing events cost the District a lot of money. Judging by the number of District personnel that were in attendance in the Federal court the day of the decision, one wonders what the toll was to the staff over the many years this case ran. Perhaps some were hardened to the process. The Whiteheads proved in Federal court the ensuing events were deemed to be retaliatory by the District.

Click here: Wrightslaw - The Division of Administrative Hearings

Most of the unwritten SP&P’s appear to revolve around clever ways to save money. Ignorance of the law contributes to them being carried out unwittingly by the one's lower on the chain. I remember seeing countless IEP’s that had signatures of staff who did not attend the IEP meeting. How can that happen unless it is part of the culture? The answer lies in the least expensive method for the system to be in compliance with their paperwork. To be morally and ethically compliant to the law and to student’s needs requires money and resources. The recent finding by the state of the unfulfilled OT/PT services should raise an alarm. However, with lack of sanctions, it is business as usual.

While none of us like to have a past of slamming doors, I can relate to the need to take actions that in hindsight are not the best choice, but something has to happen to stop the injustice. I know in the past I have said things that needed to be said, but it needed to be said to someone other than the person I said it to, and came off wrong.

What should now be coming to light is the hidden cost in saving money. While I will reserve my opinion of those who not only obfuscate the truth but defend the parsing to the hilt, what should be a concern for all of us is the impact it has on the quality of life for the employee’s who know the truth and have to live with the distortion. Keeping it from the parents is relatively easy, Having a chilling control on keeping teacher’s quiet is an issue of itself.

Sacred Cows and Unwritten SP&P’s, no matter how cleverly contrived, have a cost.

Looking Back On The Memories

As one who tries to be introspective regarding my outlook on many aspects of my life, there have been many times I have been accused by those who know me that I over analyze issues.
Having grown up in a very rural part of Hillsborough County, I have had the benefit of knowing many people who have been employed in the local school system over the last 50 years. Some of them were my school mates. Many of the ones who have risen to the highest ranks possible were teachers at the high school I attended. Some of them I knew, some of them I did not. I probably would have never recognized the significant number of how many future administrators were directly tied to that particular school had it not been for particular circumstances in my life that afforded me that information.
I fondly remember my days as a student. I believe I can still name all of my first 8 elementary school teachers and one of my principals. I remember the challenge through the years of trying to get the highest score on the tests. My rivals were a couple of girls. In the third grade, a boy from out of state moved in to our area, at which point I had a male rival.
My high school years were memorable. My attendance record for my 12 years in school was excellent and was close to perfect one year. Despite my relative lower economic status and family dynamics, I was able to participate in several extra curricular activities. I was involved in both academics and sports. I played baseball (12-0 in our conference in my senior year), 1st chair trumpet player and played bass clef sousaphone, was undefeated in 1st chair chess club, drum major and school mascot, 99 percentile in aptitude assessment, a two year member of NHS and was voted “most likely to succeed”.

One of my memorable days was a Saturday in which I played sousaphone in a Concert Contest at Chamberlain in the morning, played a baseball game at Turkey Creek in the mid day (knocked in the winning run either in the last inning or may have been an extra inning), and then went to Sarasota to fulfill my Drum Major duties in a night parade.

I say all of this because one would think that I would be an ambassador for the school system that did so much for me. I held the teaching profession and school administrators in high regard for many years when my kids entered the system. There was a period of about 10 years that I continued to see the professional behavior and mutual respect between parent and school personnel. In 1990, circumstances started to change.
Along with the continued professionalism by many, it took six years of repeated incidents that demonstrated to me that there were a few people who I had to deal with, regardless of which school my son was in that could not be trusted. Along with them, there unfortunately were different key people in three of the 4 sites that repeatedly demonstrated actions and words that were repeatedly shown to be disingenuous.
Despite my many efforts to collaboratively and honestly communicate, these efforts were not reciprocated. On December 16th, 2006, this group of which I was a part of hit rock bottom. The rest, as they say, is history.
As with any profession, I recognize there are levels of experience and capabilities. I had the expectation that if I voiced my concerns and demonstrated repeatedly what was happening that there would be attention paid to what I was complaining about. Instead, the focus was on me being a malcontent, troublemaker and naysayer.

The Training of Coded Language-Another Brush, Another Incident, but keeping out of legal jeopardy

I spoke of the coded language that is taught in IDEA training meetings. I have spoken about obfuscation of the law by those who should know. The following is straight from a publication that is developed by the District for the District.
______________________________________________
http://www1.sdhc.k12.fl.us/~ese.dept/communicators/ESEComm1104.pdf
From : THE EXCEPTIONAL COMMUNICATOR November-December, 2004 Vol. 4 No. 4

WHAT NOT TO SAY AT IEP MEETINGS !

When parents make requests at IEP meetings there are some things that you shouldn’t say in
response; using these phrases could place the district in legal jeopardy if the parent files for
due process later on:
 We can’t do… - We don’t believe…
 No student gets more than…  It would cost too much to…
 It would take too much...  We don’t do…
 We never do…  We only do…

Instead, show you’re listening by asking:
Where did you hear about that ?
 Which IEP goals do you see that addressing ?
 Do you have data on that ? Can you get us information?
 Have we described what we’re doing in the program we’re using ?
________________________________________________________

This speaks volumes to one who understands the game. I don't care who wrote it. But it is pretty clear that the focus is on protecting the system -gate keeping if you will.It also clearly says to "show you are listening by asking...." as to "show you are listening by answering the question or addressing the issue".If one honestly looks at these feigned "listening strategies" it is no wonder that the special education realm is frustrating for all. I continually hear about teacher retention and the teacher shortage in special ed. Dealing with students and parents is a hell of task. But dealing with a system that "shows you are listening" does not work.