Five Turner e-books on sale for 99 cents

Five of my e-books will be reduced in price to 99 cents for 48 hours beginning at 10 a.m. Sunday on Amazon Kiudle. (Those of you who do not have a Kindle can download the free Kindle app.)

The five include my novels No Child Left Alive, The Devil's on Facebook, and Small Town News and non-fiction books Let Teachers Teach and The Best of Sports Talk.

No Child Left Alive is the story of one year in a dysfunctional high school as teachers battle out-of-control students and clueless, self-absorbed administrators (Where do I come up with these ideas?). It is the book that C. J. Huff testified has nothing to say whatsoever about education and frequent Joplin Globe columnist Anson Burlingame says is pornography. After you read it, you will begin to wonder if C. J. Huff knows anything about education and if Anson Burlingame knows anything about pornography.

The Devil's on Facebook is an updated version of my 2006 novel Devil's Messenger and is a combination horror story/murder mystery. A teenage girl communicates with her murdered father on Facebook. Devil's Messenger, you may remember, is another book that Joplin R-8 Administration cited in its eventually successful effort to fire me. This vile book (according to them) was also pornographic and I allowed students to read it. That is true. Of course, it was never mentioned that the book had been on the shelves at East/South and Joplin High School for seven years.

Small Town News was my first novel, originally published in 2005, and is a fictionalized version of the events of October 31, 2001, when the bank of Diamond was robbed and Diamond R-4 Superintendent Greg Smith on the same day. The book is a satire on what happens when a small town is besieged by the media as newspaper and television reporters battle to get the story.

Let Teachers Teach is a collection of my best writing on education, including some original essays, plus ones that have been published elsewhere. Topics featured include standardized tests, the war against public education and public schoolteachers, my experiences teaching after the Joplin Tornado, remembrances of colleagues and former students, and the challenges that face classroom teachers.

The Best of Sports Talk is a collection of my best sports writing, mostly from the 1990s, including features on current Joplin City Councilwoman Miranda Lewis, about her aunt Nancy Cruzan of the Supreme Court right-to-die case, former Lamar Coach Armando DeLaRosa, who murdered his wife and then killed himself, current Carthage teacher Peggy Lucas as she watched her daughter Tysha, also a teacher now, play her final high school volleyball match, and the girl who received her first kiss at a basketball game, plus the way a swimmer who died of meningitis affected a class of first graders and much, much more.

Copies of C. J. Huff and the Assassination of a Teacher's Character available for 99 cents beginning Monday

On May 23, 2013, during a 10-hour hearing at the Joplin R-8 School District Administration Building at 32nd and Duquesne, five members of the C. J. Huff Administration, including Huff, not only sought to strip me of my teaching job at East Middle School, but also conspired to make sure I would never teach anywhere again and to send a message that this is what will happen to anyone in the school district who crosses them.

The e-book, C. J. Huff and the Assassination of a Teacher's Character, is a copy of the transcript of that hearing. (It has my name on the cover only because Amazon Kindle requires it.)

For one week, beginning Monday, the e-book will be available for 99 cents.

For those who want clear evidence not only of the lengths that the Huff Administration is willing to go to in order to get what it wants, or who want clear evidence why is time for the two incumbents who are running for re-election to the R-8 Board of Education, this book provides clear evidence.

Last week, I posted a copy of the letter I wrote to a board member detailing the problems that were taking place at East Middle School and in the Joplin School District. Despite possessing this information (or perhaps partially because of it) I was still voted out 7-0. Board President Jeff Flowers, despite knowing that the insinuations HR Director Tina Smith, Huff, and other Administration witnesses were making about me were not true, simply ignores my attorney's objections, time after time, while not one of the other board members said a word, even though it was clear that the witnesses were making insinuations about me that were not even hinted at in the charges. (One thing the book will not show is that the charges that were offered against me at the hearing were almost completely different from the ones that were originally made against me because I had successfully refuted those charges in Turner Report posts.)

The main thing that those who attended the hearing or who have read the transcript realized is that Administration's allegation that I had asked students to download and discuss my novel, No Child Left Alive, for a classroom assignment was dropped in favor of me "dangling" the book in front of students by offering it as a free download (despite the fact that they not only were never able to find any students who said they were assigned to download and read the book; they could not even find any students who had read the book or even heard of it.

The reason this transcript is so important is that it is the only instance I know of where the lengths the Huff Administration is willing to go to has been captured in sworn testimony. More stories about the people Huff and his administrators have bullied and the continuing intimidation of teachers and staff are starting to come forward.

This transcript shows just how complicit the Joplin R-8 Board of Education has been in the reign of terror C. J. Huff and his administrative team  has inflicted on our schools for the past six years.

New specials on 5:41, Let Teachers Teach, other Turner books

As of this morning, anyone who buys, or who has bought, a paperback copy of one of my most recent books from Amazon can buy an e-copy of that book for 99 cents.

The deal, which will continue for the foreseeable future, covers 5:41: Stories from the Joplin Tornado, Let Teachers Teach, No Child Left Alive, Scars from the Tornado, and Spirit of Hope: The Year After the Joplin Tornado.

The whistleblower letter I wrote three weeks before I was removed from the classroom

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• On the day before spring break in March 2013, following months of being leaned on by R-8 Administration about the contents of the Turner Report and shortly after East Middle School Principal Bud Sexson had begun asking questions about my book Scars from the Tornado, Sexson came into my classroom and said HR (Tina Smith) wanted my computer. He gave me no reason. I not only gave him the computer, but about 10 minutes after that, I took him another computer that I had used for school work. I had nothing to hide.
• I had heard enough horror stories about the way the Joplin R-8 School District Administration to know that this was not going to turn out well for me.Since it made no sense to go to Sexson, Assistant Superintendent Angie Besendorfer or Superintendent C. J. Huff with the information I had, I decided, after careful deliberation to send the information I had to a member of the Joplin R-8 Board of Education.
• In this message, dated and sent March 16, 2013, a full 23 days before I was removed from the classroom and escorted out of the building in full view of my students and my fellow teachers. I told my story.

Things I'm Thnking About Today- January 4

-Playoffs Over for Chiefs- After watching wins by Oklahoma and MU the last two night, I was hoping the Chiefs would make it three in a row today. Great game- lousy result. Joe Montana and Marcus Allen are getting further and further in the rear view mirror.

-Marty Schottenheimer Got a Raw Deal- Speaking of the Montana/Allen Chiefs, over the past few days after Washington fired head coach Mike Shanahan, the pundits have talked about all of Redskins owner Dan Snyder's poor coaching hires, one of whom was former Chiefs Coach Marty Schottenheimer. Setting the record straight, Schottenheimer did not do a bad coaching job for Washington. He took a team that did not have much ability and after losing the first five or six games of the year, guided it to an 8-8 record and got fired for his efforts. Schottenheimer also got a raw deal in San Diego where he posted a 14-2 record, lost in the first round of the playoffs and got fired. He was replaced by Norv Turner, who came nowhere near that kind of record but hung around for years. Schottenheimer never received the credit he deserves.

-Why is Debby Woodin Writing About Downton Abbey?-I thought there was nothing the Joplin Globe could do that would shock me any more, but today's page one is a head scratcher. One of the few remaining journalistic assets the Globe has is veteran reporter Debby Woodin. Her reporting on former Jasper County Public Administrator Rita Hunter is the last solid investigative reporting that has graced the Globe's page. So why in the world do the Globe editors have her doing a story on local people who watch the PBS show Downton Abbey? When you have a whole group of smug, self-important people who write about entertainment, why waste one of the newspaper's real assets?

-Missing the Civil Rights Research Project- I am going to miss teaching for the next few weeks more than I have at any time since I was removed from the classroom nine months ago. Monday would have marked the beginning of the annual third quarter research project on the Civil Rights Movement. That was always my favorite part of the school year.

- Sale Set for Small Town News E-Books- A couple of advertisements to end today's musings. Beginning Jan. 7 for two days, the e-book version of my first novel, Small Town News, will be available for 99 cents. It normally sells for $2.99. That book, fiction based on a real-life occurrence, the 2001 disappearance of Diamond Superintendent Greg Smith and the robbery of the Bank of Diamond, was originally published in 2005.

-No Child Left Alive- If you would like to see what can happen when a superintendent is willing to cut any corners to bring up a high school's graduation rate, including gift grades, ignoring criminal activity, and undercutting teachers, you might check my novel No Child Left Alive, available in both paperback and e-book.

2013 in Review: The Books that Got Me Fired

(This post from April 2013 includes the audio of Joplin R-8 Human Resources Director Tina Smith's "interrogation" of me. Once the audio was released, my recording of the conversation for my own protection was added to the list of charges against me.)

(The following is my latest Huffington Post blog.)

Two weeks ago today, I walked out of my classroom for perhaps the last time.

It wasn’t anything I planned. Even when I wrote for Huffington Post a couple of weeks ago recommending that young people not become teachers, I never stopped loving my job. I never lost my enthusiasm for teaching eighth graders the finer points of writing.

My students are still in my classroom every day and will be until May 21.  I miss them greatly and hope, perhaps against all hope, that I will get a chance to be with them at least one more time before the school year ends.

That usually doesn’t happen, however, for teachers who have to be escorted from the school building by a police officer in full view of students who were boarding school buses to leave for the day.

2013 in Review: The Joplin School District's Charges Against Me

(From April 25, 2013, this post reveals the first set of charges the Joplin R-8 School District leveled at me. Of course, after I pretty much refuted all of those charges, they hit me with some more.) As most Turner Report readers are aware, I was removed from my classroom at Joplin East Middle School April 8, placed on paid administrative leave.

Last night, as I read over the 28-page list of charges against me, I grew both angry and depressed.

Finally, I began detailing the charges on my Facebook page.

I am going to take a different approach for this blog and simply repeat the way I reported it on Facebook last night and early this morning: