It is time to elect a new Joplin R-8 Board of Education

Sometimes I am amazed at the lack of logic from some of the people who comment on my posts.

Last night, one left a comment on a post I wrote several weeks ago about IPads being added at a school (not Joplin). The person commented about how everyone at East loved the IPads and then said that I was getting all of my information from my former students.

That would be some trick since I taught eighth graders- all of my former students are in high school.

But then, as I have pointed out numerous times- the people who have left negative comments generally fall into one of the following categories:

-They make comments about my supposed lack of character

-They talk about how wonderful C. J. Huff and Angie Besendorfer are and describe the teachers, especially those more than 200 who have left over the past two years, as whiners.

-They complain about how negative I am about the school district.

-They suggest, always for my own good, of course, that it is time that I moved on and got over it.

Not one comment has disproven anything I have written.

Think about the things I have written about over the past several months:

-The incredible amount of money that district officials have been spending

-The addition of one layer after another of administration, at an incredibly high cost

-The large number of people who never set foot in a classroom, but who pull down substantial salaries

-Motivational speakers being paid taxpayer money to tell the school board to ignore the taxpayers

-A district employee who had pornographic photos of Joplin High School girls on his laptop (and neither the school board nor the parents were ever told about this, on the contrary, they were told by C. J. Huff that this man had no access to students)

-More than 200 teachers leaving the district in a two-year period (and the public has been told it is due to the tornado or to spouses finding out-of-town jobs)

-Voters passing the largest bond issue in the district's history and then less than six months later, administration is already planning a tax levy increase proposal

That is just a partial list of the things I have written and no one has questioned any of them, not any of them. One reason has been that everything I have written has been documented. I have used U. S. Department of Education documents, court filings, DESE information, board of education documents, quotes officials have made to media or which have been captured on video, and also information from sources inside the schools and inside administration.

C. J. Huff, for the most part, has used one strategy to counter what I have written and that strategy has not been to prove that anything I have written is incorrect- he just says I am a disgruntled ex-employee, as if that magically means that everything I have written is a lie. When high school students were gathering damaging information about Huff and his administration, they were being led astray by me (despite the fact that I specifically encouraged them not to investigate the school). What they uncovered was marginalized by administration because they were high school students and because they were allegedly working for me and, of course, I am a disgruntled ex-employee.

Thankfully, state and federal investigators are already looking into the house that C. J. and Angie built, and the investigations do not have anything to do with this disgruntled former employee.

Angie Besendorfer is on her way out, and I have no doubt that C. J. Huff's days in Joplin are rapidly coming a close.

What needs to be remembered, especially as filing for Joplin R-8 Board of Education positions opens, is that what C. J. Huff and Angie Besendorfer have done to this school district was not done in a vacuum.

Six of the seven board of education members have been in office since before Besendorfer was hired seven years ago and Huff six years ago. They have given their official stamp of approval, almost always by 7-0 margins, on everything that has been done to the taxpayers and to the employees and students in the R-8 School District.

Three seats- those of Board President Jeff Flowers, Randy Steele, and Phil Willcoxon, are up for election in April. It is time for a clean sweep. It is time to elect people who can think for themselves and who are willing to bring the taxpayers back into the equation.