Alaska, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Maine, Maryland, Indiana, Georgia, Virginia, Wisconsin Washington, D. C., Illinois, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri, and soon crossing the border into Canada.
Whether it has been as part of a thank-you tour following the Joplin Tornado, paid speeches for the Washington Speakers Bureau (and he told the Joplin Globe last year that he had only made one of those), conferences paid for by the taxpayers, or just speaking to local groups, an internet search shows that C. J. Huff has made at least 43 speeches over the past three years, including ones coming up in the next few months in North Little Rock, Arkansas; Baltimore, Maryland; and Saskatchewan.
And those are only the ones that were publicized and show up on internet searches.
During most of these speeches, some of which have been detailed on the Turner Report in the past, Huff has spoken of how school was started on time three months after the Joplin Tornado or about his Bright Futures initiative. Some speeches have featured Huff explaining his brand of leadership.
Huff's financial disclosure forms for the past three years, filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission, do not show any extra income from speaking engagements, which would indicate that either Huff is going to these places for free, having his expenses paid for by the school district, or he was mistaken on his financial disclosure reports, which he signed under penalty of perjury.
I will provide more information about a number of these speeches over the next few days.
2014
Jan. 23- Wisconsin Association of School Boards
Feb. 20- Columbia- An Evening With C. J. Huff- Council of PTAs
March 14-15 Missouri Lions District Convention, Holiday Inn, Joplin
July 13-16- National School Public Relations Association, Baltimore, Md. (panel discussion, supts. Only)
July 21-23 Tenth Annual Arkansas Safe Schools Conference, North Little Rock
Oct. 13-14- Bright Futures USA Conference, Missouri Southern State University, Joplin
November- Saskatchewan School Boards Association
2013
Jan. 8- National Press Club, Washington, D. C. (panel discussion)
Jan. 27-28 Powerful Learning Conference- Osage Beach
Feb. 12- Midwest Education Technology Conference, St. Charles, MO
Feb. 21- Superintendent of the Year National Conference of Educators (was not able to find location)
April 17- Grove, Oklahoma Rotary
May 6-8 New Mexico Mine Health and Safety Conference (keynote speaker)
May 29-30- Pittsburg State University, (not sure of which day he spoke)
June 1- Ted X Front Range, Loveland, Colorado
June 12-13- Georgia School Boards Association (keynote speech)
July 22- Central Office Administrators Conference, Lodge of the Four Season
July 26- Building Emergency Coordinator Annual Training, Office of Emergency Management, Virginia Tech University
August 2013- Community Foundation of the Ozarks, Springfield (not sure of exact date)
Sept. 30-Missouri School Plant Managers Association Conference
Oct. 14- Bright Futures USA Conference, Missouri Southern State University, Joplin
Oct. 17- California Emergency Management Training and Conference, Santa Rosa, California
Oct. 19- Missouri PTA State Convention, Springfield
Oct. 31- Community Prayer Breakfast, Blue Springs (keynote speaker)
Nov. 12- Springfield Metro Rotary
Nov. 23- Rotary District 6080 Foundation Gala, Lodge of the Four Season
2012
January- Missouri Association of School Administrators (not sure of location)
Jan. 28- Cassville Chamber of Commerce
April 10-12- Alaska Homeland Security Spring Preparedness Conference,
May 8- Arkansas School Boards Association and Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators
May 15- Missouri School Audit Conference, Missouri Society of CPAs, St. Louis
May 24- United Way of Southeast Missouri- Cape Girardeau
June 13-14- Non-Profit Missouri Strengthening Relationships, Holiday Inn, Joplin
July 10- National School Public Relations Association, Chicago, Illinois
July 19-20 Missouri Safe Schools and Colleges Conference, Osage Beach
Aug. 8- National Council of Professors of Educational Administration Summer Conference, Kansas City (keynote speaker)
Sept. 11- Rotary Club of Pittsburg
Sept. 25- Safe and Prepared Schools Conference, Topeka, Kansas
Oct. 18- St. Luke’s Hospital and St. Louis Suburban School Nurses Association, Emergency Preparedness: The Role of the School Nurse
Oct. 20- PopTech Conference, Camden Maine (keynote speaker)
Oct. 29- Crisis Response: The Joplin Schools Story, Indiana Department of Education
2011
September 29-October 2- Missouri School Boards Association Annual Conference,
October 25- Best Practices in Emergency Preparedness for Child Serving Organizations (policy forum with C. J. Huff)
Nov. 11- Four State Regional Technology Conference, Pittsburg State University
11 comments:
The Missouri School Audit Conference? How hysterical. Got to love the irony in that one.
This doesn't count the trips he made when he wasn't the star of the show. Like last year's Model School Conference in D.C. The theme was "making more with less," or some such nonsense. Apparently, he didn't get the concept.
With all of this traveling, how does he have time to do the district's business? Oh, wait, I get it now.
9:17--
Considering the disastrous results of his management, perhaps we would be better off to send him out on the road full time in exchange for a cut in his fees. We might rebuild the reserves eventually.
Surely he was not paid for all these speaking engagements. Even if he wasn't paid to give The Story of The Tornado. the travel alone had to cost a chunk of change for the district. I'm sure Dr. Huff will explain that money came from donations. We all know by now that if the money was donated it is Huff's to spend as he sees fit.
The local speeches don't concern me so much, assuming they were gratis. I am concerned about the amount of travel, since there is no financial accountability shown, and we do know that he charges $8,000 from his own promo on the Washington Speakers Bureau. This is a money maker for him, or he would not bother to maintain that page. Is he reporting this as income on his taxes? Is he collecting expenses from the district? He obviously has not filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission. This is a strong reflection of the mindset of the Huff administration--disregard for the law, for doing one's job well, and for being transparent and ethical in all dealings with the public.
Step up, school board, and put an end to the unethical behavior of Joplin R8's superintendent.
This Bright Futures gig is really a slush fund, hitting up the public for money and time to do things away from voters and board of education. Hope the school audit sees the illegal operation.
How much longer is the state and school board going to slow this to continue?
As disturbing as his apparent financial corruption is, I find his content as much or maybe even more disturbing. Read his promo carefully. It is disgusting and insulting. Really, Dr. Huff, you "literally" helped this community emerge from the rubble? Do you think we would have sat in a perpetual state of decay without you? That is as bad as some of your speeches in which you imply that Joplin is some kind of third world region, and without you and your Bright Futures program our children would have remained perpetually naked, shoeless, hungry, and uneducated. Looking back at school progress, I hate to tell you this, we were doing much better before you got here. The sad thing? I think you have told this priceless bit of propaganda so many times that you are starting to believe it, and therefore believe you can do no wrong. I beg to differ, along with the majority of the community. And, it is OUR community. We want you gone, hence the changes in the school board. It is time, R8, to send the charlatan packing. We are being humiliated by our school district leadership, and that same leadership has failed our students. So just do it "for the kids." Don't let another year start with this man at the helm.
The tornado was the best thing that ever happened to this opportunistic man. He certainly turned tragedy into a money maker for himself and his buddies.
There is no question in my mind that if, on May 22, 2011, Jim Simpson was still the superintendent, along with Steve Doerr and Doug Domer, our kids would have started school the following Fall. The schools would have been rebuilt without all the "razzle-dazzle" that won't make the students one bit smarter, and they would have done it without squeezing the taxpayers until it hurt. They certainly wouldn't have used the tornado as a spring board to advance their career.
Although I didn't always agree with Dr. Simpson and his administrative team, I always respected them because they were men of integrity, something that is completely foreign to CJ and his cheerleaders.
10:20 makes some good points about the negative attitude that someone like Huff often displays to the community, as far as portraying us as somehow ignorant. You can see this attitude extend to other administration and honestly to a lot of the city leaders in general.
I remember when certain influential people were pushing for Memorial Hall to be converted into a museum, or that rich guy that wanted the room that Bonnie & Clyde stayed in to be turned into a legitimate business. When people opposed those measures, the comments on the Globe site were often the most elitist snobby stuff you ever heard, insulting the town as being into wrestling and tractor pulls and basically not sophisticated enough to know what's good for itself.
You can see those kinds of comments echoed in the subtext of Huff and administration. If we ever knew this mysterious and perpetually intangible "real story," we would know that Huff is in fact some Promethean hero stealing fire from the gods to enlighten our poor little minds. The problem with that attitude is that it comes from people who are themselves exactly the kind of nouveau riche unsophisticated types they portray everyone else to be - just because they got a little money in their pockets over the past generation or two they somehow took it as evidence that they became smarter in the process, and are not in fact the same as the rest of us.
To be sure, their kitsch is not culture; the plaster facade is just that - a facade. They are not smart enough to perceive their own ignorance. You know how they say that the people who should be in politics are the ones smart enough to have self-doubt and end up thinking they are unsuited for the job? That's the reality. The people who are actually smart and practical in this town are the ones who end up in positions that don't draw as much attention to themselves, because they're busy working. They are engineers, in labs, driving trucks, building things. Those people are the ones who get things done while the people on top are busy taking credit and pretending they are important. That includes Stark.
That's also why the brightest and the best of the kids who could make a difference end up leaving town - to be with their own kind. The "best" in a small town like McCune end up having an inflated sense of self because there was never any significant challenge or competition. Huff doesn't end up in a place like Columbia because his inherent weaknesses would be readily exposed. The real opposition to growth in this town is the mediocrity that doesn't want to see itself challenged, losing power in the process. Here is an insular place where one can spin whatever myths they want to the outside world, like Huff and his line about the town's "piddling" and "apathetic" interest in the schools. We're interested now, hope you're happy.
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