A Weather Channel video
Monday, June 03, 2013
Joplin Chamber president to receive national award for disaster recovery contribution
(From the Small Business Administration)
Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce President Rob O'Brian will receive the U.S. Small Business Administration's Phoenix Award for his outstanding contribution to disaster recovery in his role as a public official in the aftermath of the tornado that devastated Joplin two years ago.
The award will be presented to O'Brian during a breakfast event held inWashington, D.C. June 21, during National Small Business Week. Since 1998, the SBA has presented the Phoenix Award to business owners, public officials and volunteers who displayed selflessness, ingenuity and tenacity in the aftermath of a disaster, while contributing to the rebuilding of their communities.
On May 22, 2011, the Joplin tornado destroyed or badly damaged more than 550 businesses. A huge portion of the city's tax base was reduced to rubble, and more than 5,000 jobs were in danger of being lost. After securing space for the SBA's Business Recovery Center (BRC), Rob directed his staff to canvass the hardest hit areas and make phone calls to find out what each business needed to recover. Within three weeks, O'Brian and his team had talked to more than 420 business owners, steering most of them to the SBA's BRC where they could apply for SBA disaster loans, and get counseling on how to build a more resilient business.
O'Brian maintained constant contact with government officials and private-sector partners who would ultimately help with Joplin's long-term rebuilding. The chamber also sponsored business recovery expos that covered topics including business plan development, overcoming post-disaster rebuilding challenges, and tips on starting a new business. Today, out of the 553 businesses at risk of closing after the tornado, 500 of those companies are operating. More than 90 percent of the jobs impacted by the storm remain in place. And remarkably, 40 new businesses have opened.
"The Phoenix Award is an acknowledgment of heroic work and a recognition of the contributions made to disaster recovery," said SBA Administrator Karen G. Mills. "Rob O'Brian displayed tremendous courage and resourcefulness in the aftermath of the Joplin tornado, and he exemplifies the spirit one must have to rebuild after a disaster like this."
The Phoenix Awards will be presented June 21, 2013. Events on the schedule will be available for viewing through SBA's free, live webcasting, which will be accessible at www.sba.gov/smallbusinessweek. Interested parties can register online at the same site, where additional information (updated weekly) is available regarding registration, awards ceremonies, small business forums and educational and matchmaking sessions.
Additional information on National Small Business Week, including the schedule and registration information, is available atwww.sba.gov/smallbusinessweek.
Reference to No Child Left Alive caused lockdown at East Middle School
Testimony provided by Joplin R-8 Superintendent C. J. Huff and other administration officials at my hearing May 23 indicated that the school had turned my case over to the Joplin Police Department, Jasper County Sheriff's Department, the cyber crimes unit and the U. S. Attorney's office.
That seemed like overkill to me at the time and I was surprised that I had never even heard from any of these agencies.
E-mails sent from Joplin Schools administrators to each other indicate there was a good reason I was never contacted- the alleged crime that was being reported had nothing to do with me, except that it involved a reference to my book No Child Left Alive.
On May 1, an apparently fictitious person named Kai Alexis Price posted a message on the East Middle School PTO website saying, "If the shooter doesn't get you, the East Middle School Administration do," an obvious reference to the tagline of No Child Left Alive, "If the shooter doesn't get you, the system will."
After that was reported to EMS officials by a PTO officer, the school went on lockdown as the "threat," which seems to me to be more of a reference to school politics and what happened to me than to a mass murder plot, was being investigated- which was exactly the right thing to do, you cannot automatically assume that the message was not a threat.
As far as I can determine, no one was ever able to locate Kai Alexis Price, or connect him or her in any way to me, anyone who supported me (though that would appear to be the motivation), or anyone who wanted to damage my case (which would also be a strong motivation).
Despite that, it appears this investigation was used to smear me May 23 in the same way that administration indicated that student support for me suggested that I was a child predator (Their reasoning appears to be why else would students support a teacher?).
The posting of the message on the EMS PTO website was wrong, but as with everything else that has come up in this circus- administration knows full well I had nothing to do with it, but took advantage of the opportunity to make it look, by shading the truth slightly, that I had been reported to all of these agencies.
Screen shots of the messages and reports involving the PTO Facebook message are printed below:
That seemed like overkill to me at the time and I was surprised that I had never even heard from any of these agencies.
E-mails sent from Joplin Schools administrators to each other indicate there was a good reason I was never contacted- the alleged crime that was being reported had nothing to do with me, except that it involved a reference to my book No Child Left Alive.
On May 1, an apparently fictitious person named Kai Alexis Price posted a message on the East Middle School PTO website saying, "If the shooter doesn't get you, the East Middle School Administration do," an obvious reference to the tagline of No Child Left Alive, "If the shooter doesn't get you, the system will."
After that was reported to EMS officials by a PTO officer, the school went on lockdown as the "threat," which seems to me to be more of a reference to school politics and what happened to me than to a mass murder plot, was being investigated- which was exactly the right thing to do, you cannot automatically assume that the message was not a threat.
As far as I can determine, no one was ever able to locate Kai Alexis Price, or connect him or her in any way to me, anyone who supported me (though that would appear to be the motivation), or anyone who wanted to damage my case (which would also be a strong motivation).
Despite that, it appears this investigation was used to smear me May 23 in the same way that administration indicated that student support for me suggested that I was a child predator (Their reasoning appears to be why else would students support a teacher?).
The posting of the message on the EMS PTO website was wrong, but as with everything else that has come up in this circus- administration knows full well I had nothing to do with it, but took advantage of the opportunity to make it look, by shading the truth slightly, that I had been reported to all of these agencies.
Screen shots of the messages and reports involving the PTO Facebook message are printed below:
Sunday, June 02, 2013
Some thoughts about Scars from the Tornado and my current situation
As everyone knows who follows The Turner Report or who has noted my Facebook postings, I lost more than $4,000 in Google Ads that I thought I had canceled. The ads were designed to promote Spirit of Hope, the second of the two books John Hacker and I did on the Joplin Tornado. The money from those ads, had they been successful, was going to be used to pay for everyone at East to receive a paperback copy of Scars from the Tornado. When I did not have enough, I later made the book available as a free download and gave away 1,111 of them, giving free paperbacks to those who contributed stories and to various local libraries. I also had to pay designer David Hoover for his excellent work on Scars from the Tornado.
During testimony May 23, Superintendent C. J. Huff made some condescending remarks referring to me as a "celebrity teacher" and claiming that I bragged about the Amazon rankings for my books (the idea about writing about the rankings is not bragging, but to remind people about the books) and much ado was also made about the fact that my name is on the book and not the names of the students. And there was also the matter of missing permission slips.
As I noted during my testimony, if HR Director Tina Smith had allowed me to respond during my April 8 interrogation, all of the charges against me could have been resolved in 45 minutes. That was never the plan, of course.
To understand what I did with Scars from the Tornado, it is necessary to take into consideration the two tornado books John Hacker and I did. In 5:41: Stories from the Joplin Tornado and Spirit of Hope: The Year After the Joplin Tornado, the names Randy Turner and John Hacker were put on the book. All of those who contributed chapters were prominently mentioned in the books, both in the table of contents and on their stories.
I used the same approach with Scars from the Tornado. My name is on the cover, but the names of those who contributed chapters are featured prominently, both in the table of contents and with their stories.
Much of the criticism during the hearing was because I never put anything in the advertising for the book about how the proceeds from the book would be used. That is exactly the same approach I used with 5:41. I don't want people buying a book because it is for a good cause; I want them buying it because it is a good book. If it is a substandard product, I do not care where the money is going, it is a ripoff.
As my Facebook friends are fully aware, I was also searching for a charity or a cause to which to donate the proceeds and debated several good ideas people had. I finally decided, with the help of some of the students whose work appeared in the book, to try to implement an idea from my colleague, Sheri Cornett, who suggested setting up a foundation or a fund with money going to a school which ends up in a tragic situation such as the one that hit East two years ago. "Paying it forward," Sheri called. The kids loved the idea, and I did, too. They would serve as the board of directors for that foundation.
My plan was to have a signing sometime in late April or early May, allow the students to have a real author's experience and sign books for those who wanted them. All of the proceeds, somewhere in the neighborhood of several hundred dollars probably, would have most likely gone to the Moore, Oklahoma, schools. There is a question now whether that book signing will ever take place.
The first inkling I had that there was any concern with the book came the week before spring break when my principal came to my room and asked how much money I had put into the book. I told him about the Google advertising and the money I owed David Hoover.
The next thing I knew, on Monday April 8, I was being accused of profiting off the children's work and without their parents' permission. I had a folder full of permission slips I had taken home from school the day before spring break. On that day, Principal Bud Sexson came into my room just before I was to head out on break and said, "HR wants your computer." After he left with my computer, I decided it might be wise to take the permission slips with me. I did it because i did not trust the people who were conducting the investigation.
At an earlier point in the school year, I had checked the permission slips. I had signed slips for everyone who contributed to the book, with three exceptions- myself, fellow teacher Kathy Weaver, and Rylee Hartwell, who wrote the foreword. For the first two, I did not need one. I made a mistake by not getting one from Rylee's mother beforehand. The addition of the foreword to the book was a late decision and it slipped through the cracks. I was wrong.
As it turned out, at some point during the year, as the folder with the permission slips lay in one of my desk drawers, some of the slips must have fallen out. Considering that the administration had only one parent testify against me, and that was a parent who signed the permission slip and whose form was in the folder, certainly backs up what I am saying. That parent appeared to have not been concerned about the book until administration told her I was making a profit off of it, had my own name on it, and was advertising it on Amazon. She was entirely truthful in her testimony, but I have no doubt that had I been given a chance to talk with her, her concerns would have been addressed and could have easily been worked out.
However during the hearing, the administration first tried to act like my permission slips were not valid because they were poorly written and because they referred to a book called Eagle Pride and not Scars from the Tornado. I am surprised administration did not think the Board of Education was intelligent enough to determine that at some point the name of the book changed and Eagle Pride and Scars from the Tornado were one and the same. The title was changed after I read a phrase in one of my students' works that I thought made a much stronger title.
After administration discovered before my hearing that I had permission slips, something I had never been asked about during my four-minute interrogation by Tina Smith, the charge changed to publishing the book without permission from administration.
To get permission from administration, we are told that everything must go through proper channels. For me, that meant talking to my principal, Bud Sexson. That was something I did right after I returned to school in August 2011, three months after the Joplin Tornado. I told him about what I had planned- that I wanted to use proceeds from 5:41 to publish a book featuring stories written by East Middle School students about their tornado experiences and our first year in a warehouse school. He did not express any concerns about the idea, and in fact, seemed to like it, and even said to make sure I had signed permission slips from the parents of students whose work was included in the book.
Considering that to be approval, I announced the plan to my fellow faculty members at our first group meeting, a meeting that was also attended by the principal. Again, no objections were voiced. There was no reason for me to assume that I had any other steps that I needed to take.
If I did not firmly believe I had permission, I would not have written the following passage in the September 6, 2011, Turner Report, in a post titled "A Portion of 5:41 Proceeds to Benefit East Middle School Writing Project:"
In the back of my mind, I wanted to do something to help my students deal with the aftermath of the May 22 tornado and I wanted it to be done through writing.
I have held off on announcing this project until I had everything pinned down, but the communication arts (English) teachers at East and other faculty members are working on a year-long project that will culminate in a book and documentary video about our year in the warehouse.
The working title: Eagle Pride: East Middle School's Journey after the Joplin Tornado.
The book will concentrate on the 2011-2012 school year in a makeshift school building in an industrial park. It will also feature the students' recollections of the cataclysmic event that made the move necessary.
The book will feature the best work of our sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, photos, and contributions from some faculty members.
Sixth grade communication arts teacher Nina English, who did the design work for 5:41, will handle the same duties on this volume.
When the book is published, John and I are committed to seeing that every EMS student and staff member has a copy. The book will also be sold to the public with proceeds going to the East Middle School Communication Arts Department, hopefully to begin a long line of student publications.
Though some of those plans and the title of the book changed, the basic plan remained the same. I would never have announced it without feeling I had permission. In fact, in that same blog post, I wrote the following:
Our principal Bud Sexson okayed the project a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to wait to make the announcement until I had checked out some possible complications.
As excited as John and I are about the unveiling of 5:41: Stories from the Joplin Tornado, these past 10 days or so, we are just as excited about giving the students and staff of East Middle School the opportunity to be part of a quality project and make sure that not only will we have a year we will never forget, but that we will be able to share that year with the thousands of friends Joplin has across the United States and the world.
On August 15, 2011, the first day of the 2011-2012 school year, Gov. Jay Nixon was at the school. Since I had first period plan time, I took my digital camera and began following the governor, shooting pictures. After I had taken only a few, Bud Sexson approached me and said, "They don't want you taking any pictures."
I told him the pictures were for the book. He did not say, "What book? I don't know about any book." He said, "I know, but they don't want you taking pictures." I was never told who they were, but I had a feeling it was administration and not anyone from Gov. Nixon's office.
The next time I talked to the principal about the book was when Assistant Superintendent Angie Besendorfer sent an e-mail out, recommending a publishing company that published student work. The company took a cut and provided some proceeds to the school. Later that day, I stopped by the principal's office, reviewed that e-mail and noted that the company was simply sending the work to Create Space, the Amazon-owned company that I do my publishing with and noted we could keep more money for the school by not using the company mentioned in Dr. Besendorfer's e-mail. He agreed, so I proceeded with the project.
In ensuing months, I had only a couple of brief conversations with the principal about the book. Both times, he told me to make sure I had signed permission slips. At no point did he ever tell me he wanted to review the contents of those permission slips or to look at the slips themselves.
At a faculty meeting in March, I announced the book was being published.
So imagine my surprise when I was preparing for the case and examined some of the materials we received after issuing a subpoena to the district. One was an e-mail from Principal Bud Sexson to Tina Smith.
When I saw that, I became worried that it was simply going to be a matter of who people believed. Was the principal's version, which did not include at least six times that I told him about the book going to be believed, or was mine?
That is why it was especially gratifying, though I cannot recall it being mentioned in media coverage of my hearing, when we were able to discover two unimpeachable witnesses, the president and treasurer of the East Middle School PTO, both of whom were present at a May 2012 planning session- 10 months before the principal says he heard about my book for the first time- who vividly recall him not only talking about the book, but talking about what a good thing it would be for the children to be involved in such a project. It would help them through the healing process, he indicated.
The permission slips were poorly worded (it was the first time I have ever done such a thing and considering everything that has happened, most likely it will be the last), but I would have been happy to have rewritten them and had them signed again had I known that was a problem.
Anyone who knows me knows that I would never do anything to profit off my students' work, but I will do everything I can to see to it that they receive the recognition they so richly deserve. There was never any reason for me not to believe that I had the permission of the district to publish the book. I went through the proper channels.
Anyone who knows me also knows that I do not take kindly to people attempting to destroy my reputation through a series of well-placed allegations and outright lies. And it is even worse when I know that my own taxpayers' money is allowing these people to mount their vendetta.
***
(Information about the allegations concerning my book No Child Left Alive can be found at this link.)
School discipline and the writing of No Child Left Alive
When my attorney cross-examined me (in school termination hearings, the prosecution is allowed to call you as its witness), May 23, I talked about the reasons I wrote No Child Left Alive, the book which is at the center of the Joplin Schools administration's attempt to fire me.
As far as I can tell, not one media outlet picked up on this- yet it is one of the most important things that was brought up during the hearing.
I started writing No Child Left Alive following the administration's successful effort to push former South and East Middle School Principal Ron Mitchell out of a job. After a few weeks, I put it aside, until an incident that happened in the fall of 2011.
During a fifth hour fire drill at East Middle School, I was taking roll when I noticed two students, two of the biggest boys in my class, horsing around, throwing punches at each other. At least, I thought they were horsing around. When I stepped forward to stop the nonsense, I quickly learned that this was not horseplay. The two were really going at it. One of the young men, who probably had at least 70 pounds on me, gave me a hard shove, nearly knocking me over.
Again, I tried to stop the fight and he gave me another hard shove, knocking me to the ground. Coach Tim Spiers, who was on the East Middle School faculty at the time, was able to get the young boy to an administrator. Spiers told me, "That young man is not going to be back in this school."
Knowing what I thought I knew about the lack of tolerance that is shown, and rightfully so, to students who attack teachers, I thought Spiers was right.
It did not take me too long to discover that things had changed, and not for the better. A few moments after we returned to the building, the assistant principal came up to me, before I even had a chance to go back into my room and asked, "Do you really want to hurt this young man's education?" He did not appear to be comfortable asking me the question and I have always believed he was sent to my room to ask it.
How do you answer a question like that? "Yes, I want to hurt his education," or "No, I will apologize to him."
I simply answered, "No."
That was the end of the conversation.
After class resumed, the principal announced over the intercom that teachers should read the message in their e-mails, something which is done any time that something needs to be spread quickly across the school without students knowing it.
When I opened my e-mail, I was stunned to see the announcement, "Contrary to rumor, Mr. Turner was not assaulted today."
This fire drill took place during the middle of the week. The student who assaulted me was placed in ISS (in-school suspension) and returned to my classroom the following week. He never gave me another problem the rest of the year.
I never wished this young man ill. It never was about him. To me, the inaction on the part of administrators sent two, equally disturbing, messages. To students, it said nothing serious will happen to you if you attack a teacher. To teachers, it sent the message that we were targets and nothing was going to be done about it.
At that point, I resumed writing No Child Left Alive and did not stop writing until it was done.
Many of the things I wrote about were based on stories that have been told to me by teachers, some from Joplin High School, some from teachers across the country with whom I have been communicating since I began writing about educational issues.
The Joplin Schools, as well as schools across the country, are steeped in a new administrative culture, that says if you control the message, you control the problem. If people are not told of the problems that exist in our schools then those problems do not exist.
That culture is explored in my book which deals with excesses that can take place in efforts to keep students in school to improve the graduation rate, including playing games with grades and attendance statistics, the fear that teachers have once they discover they are being encouraged to not write referrals for students no matter how egregious their transgressions may be, and the idea that a slick public relations machine can make any new program sound like a gift from heaven.
As he testified at my hearing May 23, Superintendent C. J. Huff said he saw nothing in my book that had anything to offer about education. All he was worried about was that I had "dangled" it in front of unsuspecting students, which was the new argument administration made about my "crimes." Since they could not find any student who had read the book (not one student nor one parent testified at the hearing that anyone had read the book), now it was no longer that I had assigned this book to "download and discuss," it was the possibility that someone had accidentally reached a website that I had not used in class for more than two and a half years (and even then it was only for a few weeks during a 20-minute class called Encore when I used it to prepare for standardized testing), then clicked on a link I had placed there, and then read the book. And even then, I had copied and pasted my story, which was primarily about the murders at Sandy Hook and the way that schools misuse discipline statistics, on a Sunday. The free download was available for only two days, Sunday and Monday. That week was the week before Christmas break. On Monday, my students did some work to prepare for the third quarter civil rights research project. High school students spoke to my classes about the project on Tuesday and on Wednesday, a half-day, some of the same high school students and some others spoke to my class about various topics having to do with what they will face when they go to Joplin High School.
And since I did not assign any homework over the Christmas break, and we began the civil rights project immediately after we returned from vacation, just when would we download and discuss the book?
It's no wonder they dropped their initial contention. It made no sense from the beginning. As for "dangling" it in front of students, all administration ever had to do was tell me that I had put that on Room 210 Discussion and it would have been removed immediately.
At the hearing, I was asked why I did not immediately remove it after my four-minute interrogation by H. R. Director Tina Smith. I said I was concerned that people might think I was admitting that I had done something wrong and it could harm my case.
The administration's attorney acted as if this was some "ah-ha" moment and that she had caught me in a character flaw. "So you put your needs in front of the needs of your students?" She kept hammering and hammering on this, and in a sense, I did...if you really believe that there were hundreds of students who downloaded the book. As far as I can determine, no one did.
After my "interrogation," in which I was not allowed to explain any of these things, I had no idea what was going to happen. I did not know what to do. It is easy for the administration's attorney to criticize me for not shutting down Room 210 Discussion immediately. I hope she is never put in a situation where she does not know where to turn and is expected to make all of the right choices.
It was apparent after my hearing that any of the problems that came up as a result of either No Child Left Alive or Scars from the Tornado could have been settled the day of my interrogation, but allowing me to address those concerns was never a part of the plan.
Tina Smith tried to explain that during her testimony by saying that she changed her plan because she knew I was recording the interrogation. After that, she says, she decided just to stick with the questions she had on her list. Pardon me if I am skeptical about that story. If I were in her position and were certain I was being recorded, I would have been intelligent enough to have offered time for an explanation, if nothing else, just to create the illusion of being fair.
It sounded to me like it was just an attempt to explain her decision to try to ruin a man's career on the basis of a four-minute question-and-answer session, which spent little time allowing me to answer.
I heard five members of administration attempt to destroy my reputation. Those parts were included in the news accounts and should have been. If people are willing to do whatever they can to destroy a hard-earned reputation with a thin fabric of innuendo, then the public has the right to know these are the people who are directing their children's education. These are the people who have been charged with making sure our children become fine upstanding members of society- not just fodder for our business partners, but people who contribute to making this a better world.
We learned on Thursday, May 23, that if a teacher writes a book with adult content and it cannot be proven that any child has read it, that our administrators have no problem with reporting him to Family Services, the Joplin Police Department, the Jasper County Sheriff's Department, the Jasper County Prosecuting Attorney's office and the U. S. Attorney's office.
The day before the hearing, as my lawyer and I were meeting with our witnesses, the husband of a parent who testified on my behalf asked what I thought was an excellent question. "Is this all there is or is there something else we are going to find out tomorrow?"
I answered him honestly, "That's all there is."
I can understand that question. That was another part of smearing my reputation, really the only "dangling" that was done. Administration allowed the idea to persist that there was something more and when there was nothing more, something had to be created- either the types of slander that two of the administration witnesses tried unsuccessfully to sell or the idea that C. J. Huff promoted with the "How are you going to feel if you let this man continue to teach and something else happens a few years from now?"
Huff had alluded during a speech to the East Middle School faculty a few weeks ago that he would have his side on May 23, indicating that there was more to be revealed than what I had written about on this blog.
There never was anything more, just the hint that something might happen in the future.
And meanwhile, while all of the attention has been paid to me and to my book, the problems that caused that book to be written in the first place, are in danger of remaining unaddressed.
That would be a crime for our teachers, students, and everyone in the Joplin R-8 School District.
As far as I can tell, not one media outlet picked up on this- yet it is one of the most important things that was brought up during the hearing.
I started writing No Child Left Alive following the administration's successful effort to push former South and East Middle School Principal Ron Mitchell out of a job. After a few weeks, I put it aside, until an incident that happened in the fall of 2011.
During a fifth hour fire drill at East Middle School, I was taking roll when I noticed two students, two of the biggest boys in my class, horsing around, throwing punches at each other. At least, I thought they were horsing around. When I stepped forward to stop the nonsense, I quickly learned that this was not horseplay. The two were really going at it. One of the young men, who probably had at least 70 pounds on me, gave me a hard shove, nearly knocking me over.
Again, I tried to stop the fight and he gave me another hard shove, knocking me to the ground. Coach Tim Spiers, who was on the East Middle School faculty at the time, was able to get the young boy to an administrator. Spiers told me, "That young man is not going to be back in this school."
Knowing what I thought I knew about the lack of tolerance that is shown, and rightfully so, to students who attack teachers, I thought Spiers was right.
It did not take me too long to discover that things had changed, and not for the better. A few moments after we returned to the building, the assistant principal came up to me, before I even had a chance to go back into my room and asked, "Do you really want to hurt this young man's education?" He did not appear to be comfortable asking me the question and I have always believed he was sent to my room to ask it.
How do you answer a question like that? "Yes, I want to hurt his education," or "No, I will apologize to him."
I simply answered, "No."
That was the end of the conversation.
After class resumed, the principal announced over the intercom that teachers should read the message in their e-mails, something which is done any time that something needs to be spread quickly across the school without students knowing it.
When I opened my e-mail, I was stunned to see the announcement, "Contrary to rumor, Mr. Turner was not assaulted today."
This fire drill took place during the middle of the week. The student who assaulted me was placed in ISS (in-school suspension) and returned to my classroom the following week. He never gave me another problem the rest of the year.
I never wished this young man ill. It never was about him. To me, the inaction on the part of administrators sent two, equally disturbing, messages. To students, it said nothing serious will happen to you if you attack a teacher. To teachers, it sent the message that we were targets and nothing was going to be done about it.
At that point, I resumed writing No Child Left Alive and did not stop writing until it was done.
Many of the things I wrote about were based on stories that have been told to me by teachers, some from Joplin High School, some from teachers across the country with whom I have been communicating since I began writing about educational issues.
The Joplin Schools, as well as schools across the country, are steeped in a new administrative culture, that says if you control the message, you control the problem. If people are not told of the problems that exist in our schools then those problems do not exist.
That culture is explored in my book which deals with excesses that can take place in efforts to keep students in school to improve the graduation rate, including playing games with grades and attendance statistics, the fear that teachers have once they discover they are being encouraged to not write referrals for students no matter how egregious their transgressions may be, and the idea that a slick public relations machine can make any new program sound like a gift from heaven.
As he testified at my hearing May 23, Superintendent C. J. Huff said he saw nothing in my book that had anything to offer about education. All he was worried about was that I had "dangled" it in front of unsuspecting students, which was the new argument administration made about my "crimes." Since they could not find any student who had read the book (not one student nor one parent testified at the hearing that anyone had read the book), now it was no longer that I had assigned this book to "download and discuss," it was the possibility that someone had accidentally reached a website that I had not used in class for more than two and a half years (and even then it was only for a few weeks during a 20-minute class called Encore when I used it to prepare for standardized testing), then clicked on a link I had placed there, and then read the book. And even then, I had copied and pasted my story, which was primarily about the murders at Sandy Hook and the way that schools misuse discipline statistics, on a Sunday. The free download was available for only two days, Sunday and Monday. That week was the week before Christmas break. On Monday, my students did some work to prepare for the third quarter civil rights research project. High school students spoke to my classes about the project on Tuesday and on Wednesday, a half-day, some of the same high school students and some others spoke to my class about various topics having to do with what they will face when they go to Joplin High School.
And since I did not assign any homework over the Christmas break, and we began the civil rights project immediately after we returned from vacation, just when would we download and discuss the book?
It's no wonder they dropped their initial contention. It made no sense from the beginning. As for "dangling" it in front of students, all administration ever had to do was tell me that I had put that on Room 210 Discussion and it would have been removed immediately.
At the hearing, I was asked why I did not immediately remove it after my four-minute interrogation by H. R. Director Tina Smith. I said I was concerned that people might think I was admitting that I had done something wrong and it could harm my case.
The administration's attorney acted as if this was some "ah-ha" moment and that she had caught me in a character flaw. "So you put your needs in front of the needs of your students?" She kept hammering and hammering on this, and in a sense, I did...if you really believe that there were hundreds of students who downloaded the book. As far as I can determine, no one did.
After my "interrogation," in which I was not allowed to explain any of these things, I had no idea what was going to happen. I did not know what to do. It is easy for the administration's attorney to criticize me for not shutting down Room 210 Discussion immediately. I hope she is never put in a situation where she does not know where to turn and is expected to make all of the right choices.
It was apparent after my hearing that any of the problems that came up as a result of either No Child Left Alive or Scars from the Tornado could have been settled the day of my interrogation, but allowing me to address those concerns was never a part of the plan.
Tina Smith tried to explain that during her testimony by saying that she changed her plan because she knew I was recording the interrogation. After that, she says, she decided just to stick with the questions she had on her list. Pardon me if I am skeptical about that story. If I were in her position and were certain I was being recorded, I would have been intelligent enough to have offered time for an explanation, if nothing else, just to create the illusion of being fair.
It sounded to me like it was just an attempt to explain her decision to try to ruin a man's career on the basis of a four-minute question-and-answer session, which spent little time allowing me to answer.
I heard five members of administration attempt to destroy my reputation. Those parts were included in the news accounts and should have been. If people are willing to do whatever they can to destroy a hard-earned reputation with a thin fabric of innuendo, then the public has the right to know these are the people who are directing their children's education. These are the people who have been charged with making sure our children become fine upstanding members of society- not just fodder for our business partners, but people who contribute to making this a better world.
We learned on Thursday, May 23, that if a teacher writes a book with adult content and it cannot be proven that any child has read it, that our administrators have no problem with reporting him to Family Services, the Joplin Police Department, the Jasper County Sheriff's Department, the Jasper County Prosecuting Attorney's office and the U. S. Attorney's office.
The day before the hearing, as my lawyer and I were meeting with our witnesses, the husband of a parent who testified on my behalf asked what I thought was an excellent question. "Is this all there is or is there something else we are going to find out tomorrow?"
I answered him honestly, "That's all there is."
I can understand that question. That was another part of smearing my reputation, really the only "dangling" that was done. Administration allowed the idea to persist that there was something more and when there was nothing more, something had to be created- either the types of slander that two of the administration witnesses tried unsuccessfully to sell or the idea that C. J. Huff promoted with the "How are you going to feel if you let this man continue to teach and something else happens a few years from now?"
Huff had alluded during a speech to the East Middle School faculty a few weeks ago that he would have his side on May 23, indicating that there was more to be revealed than what I had written about on this blog.
There never was anything more, just the hint that something might happen in the future.
And meanwhile, while all of the attention has been paid to me and to my book, the problems that caused that book to be written in the first place, are in danger of remaining unaddressed.
That would be a crime for our teachers, students, and everyone in the Joplin R-8 School District.
Conference attendee: How Huff brought Joplin together even before tornado was inspiring
In the last two minutes of this video from the Loveland Reporter-Herald, those attending the TedX Front Range Conference Friday in Loveland, Colo, react to the speakers. A couple of them respond favorably to the presentation by Joplin R-8 Superintendent C. J. Huff.
Besendorfer: Joplin Schools are doing well after tornado
In this interview with News Oklahoma, following the Moore tornado, Joplin R-8 Assistant Superintendent Dr. Angie Besendorfer talks about what she found in Moore when she arrived, how the schools in that community are doing, and then talks about how well Joplin Schools are doing after the May 22, 2011, Joplin Tornado and how it enabled the district to capitalize on technology opportunities such as the laptops for high school students and change how education takes place.
Video of Carthage Square fire
A Joplin Globe video of the fire at the Sassy Spoon on the Carthage Square
Saturday, June 01, 2013
Emery: Best approach to bullying- teach the bullied to stand up for themselves
I was unable to write a Memorial Day Capitol Report last week, but although Memorial Day is past, it is always appropriate to honor America’s fallen heroes — those who’ve given their lives for your liberty and mine. By honoring the American servicemen and women who never made it home, we acknowledge the value of freedom and the exceptionalism of the United States of America — the country that both embodies and defends freedom. America and the individual liberty and economic freedom we represent are priceless. Patrick Henry said it well, “Give me liberty or give me death.” With those words, he inspired the Virginia House of Burgesses to deliver Virginia troops to the War for Independence. The signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the cause that would be called “a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
As we honor freedom’s value, we also remember her cost. Liberty comes at a price, and the balance is never paid-in-full; freedom must be ever defended from enemies foreign and domestic. Whether it is those who died in service to their country, those who suffer from the lasting effects of injuries, or those with memories that cannot be forgotten, freedom exacts a cost. As we remember those whom we cannot comfort, may we comfort those we can — our veterans.
I’d like now to change the subject to an emerging issue — bullying. I have not been a fan of “bullying bills” because of questions about their effectiveness and their unintended consequences. Nevertheless, in the last weeks of this year’s session, the Senate Education Committee considered two such bills. Afterward, a certain individual approached me and suggested that my questions during the hearings revealed some skepticism. He explained that his wife is a high school counselor and “hates” bullying bills. She told him that such legislation made the problem worse and her job harder. This person offered to have his wife suggest some language and later provided it to me. Instead of focusing on defining and eliminating bullying, the language required counseling for victims on how to respond and overcome the character flaws in others. The counselor’s approach, instead of trying to “protect” the students from life was to strengthen the student’s character by the trials of life. The first approach treats the students like children; the second prepares them to be adults. This new language was amended to some of the bullying bills, but none made it to the governor’s desk.
The bullying I am most concerned with is the bullying of states and taxpayers that is coming out of Washington, D.C. Most recently, we’ve begun to learn about the IRS bullying. We are in the midst of bullying initiated from the federal health care act and are continually subjected to threats of losing federal tax dollars if we don’t succumb to Washington, D.C., bullying in the areas of education curriculum or how we run our highways, and so on. The unending stream of top-down central planning and threats to the First and Second amendments to the U.S. Constitution incite visions of a Chicago-mafia protection racket with rewards for friends and punishment for enemies. My prayer is that those of us in state government will have the vision and resolve to stand up to irrational and unconstitutional federal mandates. There will be a cost, but the alternative is continuing to “buy” protection with our taxes and our liberty; that should be unacceptable to us all.
Finally, I would like to discuss the matter of unclaimed property. The state currently has hundreds of millions of dollars in unclaimed property that belongs to its citizens. Often, this property is an old bank account that was forgotten or unknown to heirs or even a deposit that a utility company tried to return, but could not find a forwarding address. Visit www.treasurer.mo.gov/content/find-your-property to see if you have property waiting to be claimed.
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