A source from within the administration said that Superintendent C. J. Huff has spent nearly as much time dealing with his "enemies" as he has with the school's business, likening it to an obsession.
Part of that obsession, the source said, came after I had been removed from my job as an eighth grade communication arts teacher at East Middle School. Huff was caught totally off guard by the revelation that I had recorded my "interrogation" by HR manager Tina Smith and has determined that no one is going to record anything he says unless it is something designed to promote him and the school district.
That has led him to require some of the people who have visited his office or attending meetings to remove their phones and turn them off before he will speak to them, including the district's principals and, in at least one instance, a parent Huff considered to be an enemy.
The Huff situation has led to a bunker mentality at 32nd and Duquesne as employees wonder not only from day to day which C. J. Huff will be in their midst, but also from minute to minute.
On more than one occasion, two sources inside the building told the Turner Report, Huff has tearfully related how he told his daughter when they moved to Joplin that it would be the last time they would move and how he could not understand why people were out to get him.
Huff has also become preoccupied with knowing who is for him and who is against him, the sources said. At the rally at College Heights Christian Church opening the 2013-2014 school year, administration spies were watching to see which employees were applauding during Huff's speech.
Huff and the top administrators have kept a close eye on the Turner Report and on Inside Joplin and have been watching to see if any district employees "like" the Inside Joplin Facebook page. (None have and I would recommend that they continue to follow that course.)
My writing has not been the only outside news source that has brought tears to Huff, according to the source. This summer, two of my former students, whose names I am not going to mention on this blog, started a blog of their own, which began with a story revealing that Huff was making $8,000 a speech relating the story of how he and the Joplin School District dealt with the Joplin Tornado. Huff automatically assumed, since the two students were supporters of mine and organized the rally on May 23, the day of my termination hearing, that I was the mastermind behind that blog.
I wasn't. In fact, though I admired the two young people for their efforts, I advised against the blog. I was afraid of exactly what ended up happening- the students ended up being targeted and have had their every move watched by administration.
Nothing is too minute to get past the watchful eyes of C. J. Huff and his staff. A few weeks ago, I received a message from a former colleague of mine, who does not work in the Joplin School District, but who has a relative who does. He told me he could no longer leave comments on my Facebook page.
This teacher has a relative who teaches in one of the Joplin middle schools and that relative was called in by the principal, reportedly at the behest of upper administration, who wanted to give this teacher a warning not to be too friendly with me.
This teacher was not a Facebook friend of mine; in fact, to this day, I have never met him.
My former colleague sent me a personal message on Facebook.
The teacher, he said, was genuinely concerned about losing his job and feared he was being "watched by Joplin's Big Brother."
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Administration source: Turner targeted for firing before No Child Left Alive was published
12 comments:
The more a person tries to control something, the more readily that thing slips through their fingers. Control inspires fear, driving people apart rather than bringing them together. Loyalty and respect are won through empathy, fostering openness and allowing for autonomy and individual expression within a system. Authoritarian structures do not always fall overnight, but they do crumble, no matter how slowly, from the inside out. Cracks are indeed showing.
When people who are ordinarily law-abiding and rule-following suddenly find themselves in danger of being labeled otherwise, it indicates a problem with the rules. It's clear, for instance, that at least one of the students responsible for the school-watch blog is an accomplished person and from an established background. Similar things can surely be said about teachers within the system.
If it's true that clapping is monitored as an indication of loyalty, this is surprisingly similar to North Korean citizens who risked punishment if they did not demonstrate sufficient grief at the death of the Dear Leader. Kim Jong Huff and Chairman Bess are obviously not that extreme, but it is still surreal that a school district in the United States should employ analogous methods. In this light, it is clear that the teacher training meetings are party indoctrination, the TLCs are party loyalists, rewarded with administrative posts for their service while principals from the time of the previous leader are rotated out in a process of consolidating power (Kim Jong Un has similarly replaced old military leaders with figures of his own choosing in an effort to establish his control).
I'm finding humor in it, of course, but it's a striking parallel.
Perhaps it will be better when Auntie Bess takes the helm. She may be of a dark mind, but at least she is consistent and stable, unlike her tearful boy toy who cannot control his emotions and who, along with the other gentleman from admin, seems to have nothing better to do all day than wander around school buildings pretending to care, at least for the beginning of the year, that the students are learning. It comes off, after the Turner debacle, as intimidation and spying, but that surely is not what they're doing, right?
I would say unless our tearful leader and his "friends" leave that the exodus from the last two years will pale in comparison to this year. I am already planning to go. I can get a $4,000 raise by moving to a neighboring school system and NOT have to put up with the scare tactics and frustrations of Joplin Schools. I've stayed this long for the students and for my friends, but sooner or later you have to look after your own needs. I'm hoping they will leave and I'll get to stay with my school family. Dream big, as Bessie implores. Dream big.
Somebody please tell me that the waste of tax dollars and the lack of learning that came with the Huff and Besendorfer regime will end soon. Why are they still here? I can't see one thing that they have done well, unless they wanted to drive down learning, run off employees, and create chaos and distrust. They've done a wonderful job, if that's what the Board is wanting.
As for me, I want to see my son come home with some books, because I am not spending what few dollars I have on the damned Internet, that seems to create more problems for kids than it solves. I'm tired of finding access to it for homework.
I hate this district now, and that's a shame, because I was proud of it a few years ago. Do the people have no say now? Run these idiots off before they bankrupt the schools both financially and morally. Surely there is someone in that building who can practice a little self-control with the money and use some common sense when it comes to learning. Put that person in place. Soon.
How has the nonstop presence of upper level administrators in the classrooms been of any help to any one of us? After what they did to Turmer, do they think any of us trust them or feel reassured by their presence? It's one more interruption and one more threat factor in an already unstable and unhappy environment.
Angie is the only one with any street cred as far as classroom experience goes and no one sees her. She's back at the ad building taking care of business. I wonder if she couldn't whistle and call the boys back home? Give us a break. We have enough problems without them.
I left the district exactly one year after the tornado. Many tax payers don't realize the head aches teachers went through to get simple things that the storm ruined in our classroom. Even though a big fat check was written for everything destroyed, we were forced to go onto donors choose to find outsiders to pay for things so that the insurance money could go somewhere......
I was bullied by the administration while they sat high and mighty across the table from me. I can wake up everyday knowing I did my job the best way I could and had my students best interest at heart! Can the Huff crew say the same??
Power and paranoia? Great combination
Too much alcohol will do that to you--paranoia, loss of brain cells, loss of judgment. They must all drink a lot of CJ brand KoolAid at the Modot building.
I despise those people, plain and simple. One of these days all the truth will get proven that we all have talked about and a bunch of people around here are really going to be embarrassed and mad. I hope I'm still here when the truth comes out, but if it's after May, I'll have to hope my friends will tell me what is going on. If this mess isn't cleaned up by May you won't be able to keep me in Joplin, not even with a 1% raise that equals NOTHING on my paycheck. Just going to another district will be a bigger raise and a hell of a lot better than working for these fools. I resent what they've done to us and this town and the kids.
All the board wants is their name on a plaque in those new buildings. If they'd wanted to help kids learn they'd have fired this bunch of jackasses before the tornado. Now the bank is cleaned out and the teachers have left, it'll take forever to clean up the damn mess. It's a load of crap that these idiots are still here. I don't think anyone is even pretending that anything is still good here. Joplin would be better off under the state. Nobody in that building should be allowed to stay in education.
Right. Our district is being ruined by outsiders that are not from Joplin. They don't care about anything but themselves and their power and glory.
Seems to be a sickening trend in our state...bully superintendents who think they are the king. They set out to ruin people's lives and take prisoners. Check out what just happened in Camdenton. The hated superintendent there, Dr. Tim Hadfield, felt threatened by the most beloved principal in the district so he made a huge public spectacle of firing him. https://www.facebook.com/MrSeanKirkseyForCamdentonMiddleSchoolPrincipal
The superintendents like CJ Huff and Tim Hadfield need to be exposed for the vermin that that are.
The MSBA teaches school boards to be good little puppets, and empower bullies like Huff and Hadfield to terrorize good people.
Same sick story, different setting.
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