Blame Games

[Dave's Not Here Man]

apnews.com/article/uvalde-school-shooting-justice-department-report-takeaways-6ccf359bb60b878a4b3edbedbcab404e

This seems highly political to me. Not even real sure if I consider it a DOJ matter but for the sake of an argument let's assume the AG did the right thing by looking at this. After all, we're looking at a mass murder of school children and there should be some answers. However, in my opinion the first question isn't how the police responded. It follows this pattern I'm not a fan of at all. 

Anyway, since the DOJ has concluded that there was this massive failure on LE there at the school, what expertise and authority does it have in implementing procedures on the ground? Can you mandate that the officer/s breach the room/area where the shooter/s are in acts of tv heroism? Sure, if I'm the cop at that door I'm going in hard at 100% my own risk, but the very first thing that is going to happen when kids get shot is they'll blame me for being a cowboy that risked their lives. 

I don't see where this whole thing gets anyone. The focus should be on preventing it in the first place. If DOJ wants to start making policies, how about they go get with the Dept of Ed and require an armed LEO at all entries and exits from schools, metal detectors, and prosecution of the owners of the weapons used to commit the act (since most are done with a parent's unsecured weapon)? 

[minx]

Yeah, I don't see where this 'investigation' covered anything new. The police were woefully unprepared and refused to engage even in the clear face that they needed to. Medical personnel didn't get to the scene on time, and the local hospital was understaffed and unprepared for all the victims.

The few studies that have been done on preventing shit like this focus on the same factors:
1) Having an atmosphere of trust at the school - Classroom sizes are small enough so teachers can really get to know students and vice versa. In these cases, many students will go to a teacher with their concerns and those concerns will be taken seriously.
2) More counselors at schools to work with troubled students and communicate with parents.
3) Parents who are involved with the school and their child.

See a pattern here? But now we have asshole Republicans who want teachers to immediately report to parents any questions their students may ask about sex or gender, and report to parents what books their children ask to check out from the library. That truly fosters trust, right?
And we have taxpayers who refuse to fund schools or even take an interest in them because 'They don't have skin in the game' - I dunno. I'm pretty interested in making sure that the next generation knows how to read and write, and that the kid who graduates HS and becomes my in-home caregiver when I'm senile knows how to read the prescription bottles and when to dose me.

But that's just me....

[Dave's Not Here Man]

That last part is something that's hit close to home the past couple of days. There's a thing that went down at Riverbend HS in spotsy involving the principle, now on admin leave pending an investigation, where he allegedly invited a parent to "step outside" to settle their beef.

This is where I don't have skin in the game per se but maybe one day my grandkid, or grandkids, who knows, wind up attending school there. Or maybe where he's an administrator. Even if that's never the case, my community matters to me whether it be in how it's policed, how it's maintained, or how/what goes down when it comes to educating or youth. Same would apply to one's concern with any number of issues that affect society directly including those in leadership positions everywhere.

So I've started asking some questions about it to www.facebook.com/SpotsyParentForPublicEducation and the main guy Lieberman. His responses have included things like "don't read the text of the post, just watch the video"..... so obviously I have bells ringing, alarms blaring, and red lights flashing immediately with that type of response. Especially when you consider the video was a 30 second clip that brought essentially no context at all other than the principle being highly upset with someone.

I let it go for the time being because I want to research the entire thing that apparently started with the school's swim team and something about someone recording video from the locker room. It's not something people should just make knee-jerk judgments about. Based on the comments I've seen to date there are religious nuts, race baiters, and all manner of people with their own agendas and at the end of the day the focus on students gets lost in those personal agendas and that's where I feel like there is skin in the game for all of us.

[minx]

I don't know if you remember him, but Lieberman was one of the dudes on Fugtalk who went after Jeff Sili (some elected dude in Caroline) and his wife all the time.
He wanted to join a softball league, but they were all affiliated with Christian churches. As a Jew, he didn't want to be part of a Christian team, so he asked them to form a team that was non-sectarian. Talk about upsetting the apple cart

He's a decent guy, but like many others needs to have more of the facts - 'just watch the video' isn't helpful.

From what I've read, a parent of one of the swim students asked the assistant coach to mentor her (the student). Coach agreed to do so, and numerous texts and stuff took place. From what I can see, the coach did not initiate things -the student or parent were the ones texting him, and the texts weren't inappropriate from his side (Mom did talk about how she was so happy he was helping her look at colleges, because she didn't want her daughter ending up at a Woke School that didn't have Christian Values). Mom loved the dude (no word from student, but sounds like she appreciated the help.)
Coaches then changed the team from having one captain and assistant to something called pods, where groups of swimmers worked together in a group - Not sure of how this whole things works, but it seems that each pod had it's own captain, and the daughter wasn't chosen (or she was chosen, but she felt it was a demotion of some sort).

Anyway, mom went from 'You're so great' to 'You're a total scumbag' pretty much overnight. Assistant coach decided to resign after mom started some sort of campaign against him saying that he ruined the team and was turning the girls against each other. So far no allegations that he behaved inappropriately have been made, but the principal refused to re-hire him.

So down to the meeting. Again, I don't have the full picture, but the father of one of the girls (not sure if it's the father of the original girl) was being rude and inappropriate and I guess he said something personal about the principal and the principal said something to the effect of they could take this outside. Principal says he meant take the discussion outside, but who knows?


Like you, I don't have a kid in the school system. But there is no way that I believe that this is nothing less than detrimental to the students attending the school, along with the teachers and staff who are doing their job and trying to help them learn. Sadly, this type of shit isn't limited to one school or even one locality. This weekend a teacher at Walker-Grant was arrested after a group of kid said she flashed a gun at them after they were playing ding-dong ditch on her street.

How can you learn when all you hear is the bad shit that your school has done lately, most of it involving adults acting like toddlers? And as a rational parent, why would you want your kid in that environment if you had any type of choice to move them?

[Dave's Not Here Man]

I actually do sort of remember something about that but didn't realize who was who... well, I definitely remember the Sili name. A little bit of looking around and there have been some FLS articles on Lieberman and his affiliation with various local government, possibly being on the school board?

Also saw some of the things about the assistant coach and the student that you mentioned but hadn't connected the dots yet. It makes total sense that it could have stemmed from politics invloving parents of kids in HS athletics. Coach should have put out a resounding NO when asked to mentor. Not his/her job. Even if the adult has nothing but the purest of intentions, the optics of texting with a student is not something you want in this day and age. Once the first suggestion is made, it's damn near impossible to unfuck.

As for the principle, I'm still not sure how he was involved to the point of wanting to throw hands. His assertion about wanting to talk about it outside, you know, as to keep the negativity outside of the building, is 100% organic bullshit, as is his immediate claim of being targeted because he's black. Even if that was the case, being party to a physical altercation is unacceptable especially given his position. The only time I would make an exception to that is if he were actually defending himself from physical harm. It also appears as though his story differs greatly from that of witnesses including his own staff. Still, what was it that happened where he was prompted to be involved to the point where this went from a kid on the swim team to the sheriff's office being called to a school meeting?

[minx]

He ran for the school board, but didn't win. And FWIW, I do believe he would have done what he could to put the needs of the instructors and kids first. Unfortunately, he doesn't come off well when you disagree with him, so not sure he would have been an effective representative.

There are many teachers and coaches who do mentor individual students. and in this day and age, texting isn't uncommon. From what I read it wasn't excessive (at most one a day), and he never contacted the girl or her parents first - they asked him a question and he answered. And it seemed his advice always centered around school or swim team - he did recommend colleges which is probably the only area outside of HS that he mentioned from what I've read.

I don't have a problem with him - he and the student seem to be the only ones who played by the rules here.

And how effing sad is it that one single parent can cause this much controversy and harm?

[Dave's Not Here Man]

I'll give him this- He (Lieberman) played a big part in this last election. Not only for the school board but also the Clerk of the Court and Sheriff, which resulted in those extremist assholes getting their walking papers. Sometimes being on the side of right requires drawing a line in what you might be willing to listen to and what you simply won't. I'm sure I come off that way to a lot of people. I can and will listen to reason but also fully prepared to yell over top when applicable. I swear you all would have loved to had been a fly on the wall when George and I would get into it at the high top.

So as for the thing at Riverbend, I'm still mostly in the dark about how this involved the principle and why he was intent on attending the dance down at knuckle junction.

[minx]

Yeah, the whole principal thing is very murky. But the entire thing stinks to high heaven.

And Liberman has been great in terms of letting people know what's going on and to open their eyes and get out and vote. I just don't know if his personality would tolerate being in office.

[Dave's Not Here Man]

Maybe/Maybe not. I guess it sort of depends on how you look at it. When I was President of SCLL, I had a board member that simply wouldn't take the assignment I gave him. He didn't think it was my job to tell him what to do. Huh? I was the first pres of the league to ask each member for a budget and deadline to submit them. Radical concept right? Wrong again apparently. Not only did he not submit his budget on time, which included uniforms for his division, but nearly cost those kids being outfitted for Opening Day. I don't know if I had the authority to dismiss him and I didn't want to move to have the board vote on that (we had over 900 familiies to worry about at that point) so what I did was use my built-in readiness for active confrontation and thoroughly dress him down at a meeting until he decided to quit. The other player's agent had already offered to take up the task and the rest of the preparations for the season went off smoothly if not at the literal last minute (some teams got their unis at the field on opening day). So like I said, it depends on what needs to be done to get positive results for the good of your community and or the people you advocate for. Can't imagine where that would be any different when it comes to serving in any capacity from the PTA to the oval office.

[minx]

Point taken - but I think his time is better spent on getting the word out than on sitting on the board itself. We got into this mess in large part because people were too apathic to learn anything, much less vote. He's bring a lot of attention to the bad shit happening in the county and getting people involved. So I do say more power to him.

[Dave's Not Here Man]

It appears that he has chosen to do just that and while I still don't know that much about him, I do know that whatever he's doing has had a positive impact and like I said, helped big-time in keeping people like Ignacio and Maxwell out as well as hard sweeping Twigg and one other self acclaimed tea party member whose name escapes me at the moment. He might have also taken Roy Searles, another straight up clown, down from his perch. So I agree that sometimes you don't need to be one of the officials to have an impact but at the end of the day he's the one to make that determination, and I would be inclined to support him in either endeavor.

[Dave's Not Here Man]

I just got the news that the School Board has placed Taylor on administrative leave. From what I have so far, Twigg was convicted of forgery on something involving Taylor's contract or something to that effect. He and his minions also gauranteed his contract for whatever terms again IIRC it was 5 years but no less. Taylor is the guy that there was so much controversy over and his own daughter told the board he was unqualified. I think they might have him on falsifying his resume' George Santos style but the probable cause has not been put out there yet, only that they have it.

scontent.fric1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/421739675_412654907950670_6718552191399347707_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=dd5e9f&_nc_ohc=utQH8D0X9tsAX9mNF3i&_nc_ht=scontent.fric1-1.fna&oh=00_AfCZ_mf4MloXosPzienDb_CFhtAXjb7H4Gr7KAd-xL-wEg&oe=65B4D438

[minx]

Well halluajah!


That hiring was beyond sketchy - way beyond sketchy. And that man has done no good at all for the schools in Spotsy.

I wonder if they can find him in breach of contract for doing things like telling teachers and staff that they couldn't contact the school board without going through him first and pulling books off shelves and out of classrooms in violation of school board policies?

If they can terminate his contract for cause it would be a good thing.

[Dave's Not Here Man]

School Board has decided to terminate the principle (Downs) and re-instated the coaches. the vote was 7-1 IIRC with one tea party voting against and one that didn't show for the closed door meeting. Story should be out there today.

I wonder how long it will take for the busses full of reverends and the media caravan to get here...

There's also a twist- It was Mark Taylor's signature on the letter (apparently done right before HE was put on administrative leave). LOL Of course Spotsy's best and brightest heads will be exploding about the dysfunction in the school system. Most of them won't know just how bad the culture was on the board and at Riverbend HS and how heavy machinery has to be used to clean it up.