While the Missouri Legislature appropriated $150,000 this year for Bright Futures USA, not one cent of that goes to the school districts which have an affiliation with the not-for-profit, including Joplin, Carl Junction, Jasper, Carthage, Neosho, and East Newton.
The money is used for salaries and in efforts to convince other school districts to join the organization. It appears the last draw for Webb City was when BFUSA hired former Joplin R-8 Superintendent C. J. Huff as a consultant at an unspecified, but reportedly hefty salary.
Though Webb City was one of the first school districts to sign on to Bright Futures and it did not have to pay for an affiliation, schools that sign up now have to fork over $2,500 and are required to pay to send people to the annual Bright Futures USA Conference held on the campus of Missouri Southern State University. Those registering by today for next year's event, which is scheduled for March 2-4 received the bargain price of $199 a person. The price increases tomorrow to $229 until December 31 and $259 thereafter.
While Webb City officials praised the work BFUSA does in helping new affiliates get off the ground, it was noted that after the initial training, the only benefit affiliate schools receive is the right to use the Bright Futures name and logo.
Webb City's 13-member Bright Futures Advisory Board voted unanimously to withdraw from Bright Futures, but to continue to provide the same services.
Webb City School District Drops Bright Futures
Webb City School District Drops Bright Futures
1 comment:
Essentially, BF USA is extorting monies from its affilitates by forcing them to pay for and attend their pitiful little conference. By doing this their advertaising can brag about their conference and how many attendees it has. Last year's was the worst--sessions by the same TLCs that can't help in our schools, and CJ pretending to know about leadership and altruism while sticking his hand in the cash drawer. I hope that Joplin, under the guidance of Dr. Ridder, will break away from Cj Huff completely.
An interesting sidenote about Huff--since his new "job" with BF USA, it appears that Dr. Huff has scrubbed his Facebook page clean of his attacks on school board members. Anyone now looking will see nothting but squeaky clean endearments and encouraging words about the schools. That would be wonderful if he weren't lying in order to get even this pathetic little job, the pay for which comes from funds that could feed a lot of little children. He is scum. No district should be associated with him. Let BF Joplin and BF USA die a natural death, the more quickly the better. Send the master manipulator packing from Joplin. We don't need him or his associates here.
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