Huff to Jet 14 audience: I have no shame whatsoever in how we handled our funds

When you have Jet 14 and endless reruns, you do not even need to accept money from the Joplin Progress Committee.

During the last 10 minutes of the Joplin R-8 Board of Education meeting, which ended moments ago and was televised live on taxpayer-supported Jet 14, Superintendent C. J. Huff spent time praising the work done by the Board, including, of course (but not mentioned by name) Board President Jeff Flowers and Randy Steele, who happen to be running for re-election in the April 8 election.

The speech, something Huff said he just had to say, came at the end of the meeting and addressed many of the items that were brought up, and not handled well, by Flowers and Steele at last night's candidate forum.

Huff addressed the 8 to 10 percent fund balance, which has been criticized (and which one board member said a few moments ago may dip down to seven percent) and said the board had done what was necessary to keep school going and that everything was done for the children.

"I have no shame whatsoever in how we handled our funds," Huff said.

The superintendent indicated that you have to be on the inside to understand how school finances work. "It's hard for the community to understand."

The handling of the district's finances under the Huff Administration was a target of board candidates Jeff Koch and Debbie Fort during the candidate forum, even though Huff was never mentioned by name.

While Huff's impassioned defense of the board's handling of money centered around the completion of the new buildings and paying for facilities for the students to attend school while those buildings were under construction, the superintendent never mentioned the main areas of overspending that were attacked by Mrs. Fort and Koch.

Not once did he mention that staffing at the Central Administration office has tripled since he became superintendent, a fact that Mrs. Fort cited, and one which can be verified by examining Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education records.

 Nor did Huff talk about the increased travel, including nearly $100,000 hopscotching the nation on a thank-you tour. Jeff Flowers told the Joplin Globe last year that all of Huff's travel had been approved by the Board of Education.

Other travel has included trip after trip to one seminar and conference after another with many teachers missing numerous days. Mrs. Fort noted Monday night that one of her teachers was pulled out of class for 40 days, nearly one out of every four-and-a-half days of school, to attend administration-mandated seminars.

Also left unaddressed by Huff was the addition of layer after layer of lower-level administrators or quasi-administrators, such as the teaching/learning coaches, 21st Century coaches, and career pathway directors, none of whom are in the classroom working with children.

During the board forum, David Guilford and Mrs. Fort ripped into the board for its lack of transparency. Huff also addressed that criticism. "We're very transparent," Huff said, though he gave no examples to counter the criticisms leveled by Guilford and Mrs. Fort.

Huff attempted to give answers to questions that left Flowers and Steele stumped the previous evening.

Essentially, with an election that started with a slumber party at the Administration Building, with board members using their own keys to allow themselves and Administration-favored candidates to wait in a warm building, using district wireless technology and other amenities, and which is scheduled to end with a perfectly timed election morning thank-you breakfast at East Middle School for Bright Futures volunteers, C. J Huff has once again shown a willingness to use taxpayer-supported facilities to get what he wants.

Joplin Progress Committee gives $4,000 to Slumber Party Four

The desperate push to continue the Joplin R-8 School District down its present path began with a slumber party at the administration building at 32nd and Duquesne and is now being continued with a generous helping of campaign cash from some of the city's business interests (and a surprising number from outside the city).

As noted earlier today, the Joplin Progress Committee has contributed $4,000 to the school board race, with the promise of more coming as we approach the April election.

Those who received the contributions were Board President Jeff Flowers, incumbent board member Randy Steele, Shawn McGrew, who has been closely associated with the Bright Futures program, and Lynda Banwart, who headed the committee that pushed successfully for the passage of the bond issue following the tornado.

Things I'm Thinking About, January 19

Some things that have crossed my mind:

Score One for the Joplin Globe- Today's Joplin Globe features a page one story about a feud between the Wallace-Bajjali firm that is serving as Joplin's master developer for the tornado-stricken area of the city and the owners of the El Paso Diablos, the minor league baseball team that appears to be headed here. The article, written by veteran reporters Andy Ostmeyer and Debby Woodin, is comprehensive and shows some real reporting, something that has been in short supply at the newspaper of record as of late.

It also features a mention of one of the bankruptcies in which Wallace-Bajjali has been involved, something that has not ever been mentioned in the Globe to this point.

I have contended for the past few years that the Globe has excellent veteran reporters, including such people as Ostmeyer, Woodin, Susan Redden, and Wally Kennedy, who have been pushed to the side while investigative reporting has been neglected and the newspaper has been dominated by fluffy feature stories, snarky "entertainment" reporters and columnists whose sole purpose seems to be to prove how much more sophisticated their tastes are than the tastes of their readers.

I seriously doubt that today's report marks a turnaround for the Globe, but I would certainly like to see that happen. I am sure there are some who will read this and not believe that I am sincere about that comment, but it is crucial that we have as many media sources as possible striving to shine a light on things that affect our community.

On The Other Hand, Where is the Coverage of This?-  Just because something is not illegal, does not mean it is not newsworthy and one such occurrence, mentioned only in the Turner Report up to now was the infamous slumber party at the Joplin R-8 Administration Building the night before filing began for three seats on the Joplin R-8 Board of Education.

Using a key provided only because of his status as an incumbent, Board President Jeff Flowers, along with fellow incumbent Randy Steele, and two newcomers Shawn McGrew and Linda Banwart, were invited in to wait out the evening and thus gain the top four spots on the ballot.. Was it illegal? It does not appear so. Was it ethical? Not a chance. If Flowers, Steele, and the other two wanted to wait the opening of the filing period indoors, in comfort, then they should have had it advertised beforehand that the opportunity was there for anyone who intended to file. The only reason these people were there was because of access afforded them either by their position or because they had been anointed as "suitable replacements" for Phil Willcoxon, who chose not to seek re-election.

If you consider this to be a minor point, and there are some who do, consider this. During the past week, one board member whose seat is not up for election this year, has been "educating" teachers at one elementary school (one that I know of) on who they should vote for in April. "Any of the first four candidates on the ballot are all right," the board member has said. This is a board member who appeared with Jeff Flowers at a meeting of principals last year and nodded approvingly as Flowers told principals not to bring their complaints to the school board, but only to C. J. Huff and if Huff was not available, Angie Besendorfer.

Apparently, this board member wants his fellow board members to join him and Flowers in keeping the principals and teachers (and judging from the lawsuits I wrote about yesterday, the support personnel) from creating an uprising on the plantation.

The ethics of this school board election should be a major concern for the media- so far, not one word has been written in the Globe, not one word has been uttered on our local television and radio stations.