School Board Member Davidson: Vote Yes / Don’t Punish Striving Students and Dedicated Teachers
by Captain Ed Davidson…….
There are a number of highly significant, precedent-setting, and historically impactful policy-level issues arising from the HOB daycare mis-funding/cover-up scandal that the School Board should discuss forthrightly after having had the time to carefully review the results of the thorough composite investigations that have now occurred — discussions that were not possible at the last meeting when the ink was still wet on investigative reports that had been delivered to the Board (and the public) at literally the last minute.
However, since the context of such discussions will be inescapably influenced by substantially differing Board Member perceptions of the degree of public disgust, and the depth of taxpayer outrage, it would be in the direct public interest to postpone such follow-on deliberations until such public reactions can be ground-truthed to some degree by the factual vote count of the 15 March half-mil referendum, which there are credible reasons to believe might pass by a significantly narrower margin than previous ballot tax issues because of taxpayer discontent.
For that reason, it would risk muddying a great deal of water not yet “under the bridge” to have such inevitably animated debate at our 15 March meeting while that polls were still open for another 3-4 hours; so as concerned as I am about many implications of the daycare scandal that have not yet been definitively dealt with, I believe such discussions should be delayed until the next meeting after the taxpayers have given the School Board and Administration some “voting booth feedback.”
Of course, if a large enough number of taxpayers are more disgusted than some in the Administration think, these debates will all have to occur at a crisis-convened, special/emergency meeting called to deal with the draconian impacts of referendum failure. For my part, I have made many recent public statements that, despite the mis-behavior and lack of accountability of some adults in the District — which I fully intend to pursue — nonetheless our dedicated teachers and striving students should not be penalized by voting down the half-mill referendum and thereby severely impoverishing the schools and classrooms of the Florida Keys.
— Capt. Ed Davidson, School Board Dist 3
YES!
We acknowledge there remain many problems in our school district – mostly from top administrative or managerial positions. This has to be straightened out over time (how many years now have we been saying that?!) But this is no time to take it out on the students and their education.
If you want to make a statement to the Board – speak out, vote those who are complacent out of office, run for a Board seat yourself…..but please don’t take your frustration out on education. These students are our future!
Vote YES on the half-mil referendum. And understand this will NOT cost you more, the YES vote only stipulates where that half-mil goes. We want it to go to our students and their education.
Third time is a charm….nothing about money going to students
other than bad Administrators will have bigger pay checks.
They invoke helping students which is further from the truth.
Why every year the teachers are asking for school supplies.
Why equipment is not fixed, why, why, why.
So how many times are you the tax payer going to allow this
rip-off to continue??? VOTE “NO” and “NO” on the other two ITEMS.
Make the bleeding STOP now and in the future.
Yes, I was a teacher and loved my job and students.
It was not the program that failed it was the way the money was managed.
Here is the referendum wording:
The District’s objective is to continue to make
available a portion of the existing capital ad
valorem tax levy for operations – such as
teachers, school nurses and classroom
materials. The District intends to continue its
reduced millage for capital projects, and
continue to make available the equivalent
amount for operations.
Shall the district continue to enact a yearly ad
valorem tax of .5 mill, for four (4) years
beginning July 1, 2016, for operating
purposes?
When I ran for school board in 2012, I repeatedly said not passing this tax that year would be Armageddon for the school district.
I also repeatedly said the school board and school district administration is terminally dysfunctionally insane, and the only possible cures are either the state of Florida takes over the school district, or each school votes itself to be a charter school, and thus has its own individual school board, which does not answer to the county school board, while the county school board has to continue, by state law, funding said new charter schools.
I also repeatedly said the school district is teaching to standardized tests, and not what students need to learn; the school district views college prep curriculum as all that’s important, even though most keys high school students don’t enter college, and a large majority of those who do enter college drop out, and most of whose who do graduate from college can’t find work that pays them a living wage even on the mainland.
I repeatedly said the school district should put most emphasis on vocational training in high school, that all students should be able to touch type by the time they leave grammar school, that all students should be bilingual in English and Spanish by the time they leave grammar school; and I repeatedly said the school district is using the cookie cutter approach, trying to cram each student into the same mold, although no two students are alike, although no two students have the same aptitude, although each student has his/her own abilities which need to be met by the curriculum.
I repeatedly said the school district needs to centrally locate its administration in Marathon High School, which was way over-built under pressure from Marathon parents who wanted a high school as big as Key West High School. Centralized administration would be more efficient and economic.
I repeatedly said the School Board should sell off its Key West real estate, and the white elephant nursing home next to Marathon High School, which it bought with grandeur of making a killing in real estate. I flat opposed the school board giving the City of Key West Glenn Archer school. I flat opposed adding a grammar school to the new Horace O’Bryant school. I flat opposed busing Bahama Village grammar school students (predominantly black) around two grammar schools in Key West (predominantly white), to the grammar school on stock island.
I loudly and longly called for a full, in broad daylight investigation of the hazing of Key West High School student Matthew Gelleran, because he was gay, which led to his shooting himself to death with his father’s pistol, which one school board member, Robin Smith-Martin, blamed on his father having a pistol in the home, while all school board members, including Ed Davidson, as I recall, did nothing about the tragedy.
I saw the school district continue to stonewall Kathy Reitzel, who had blown the whistle on the Acevedos, and for that and for being the State Attorney’s star witness against the Acevedos, Reitzel was told by the school board to resign, or be fired, because she had waited too long to blow the whistle, school board member Andy Griffiths told me, guaranteeing there would be no future whistle-blowing in the school district, which is how the school board and the school district like it.
I watched the school board, in the wake of the Acevedo scandal, create its own appointed volunteer Audit & Finance Committee to make it look like the board was serious about changing school district money oversight; then I watched the school board ignore the Audit & Finance committee’s many efforts and recommendations to improve the school district’s financial operations.
I watched the school district repeatedly ignore requests for public records requests made by Dr. Larry Murray, who had been an outspoken member on the Audit & Finance Committee, until he was fired by the school board member who had appointed him, by not renewing the appointment. Then Larry ran for that now retired school board member’s seat on the board, and did not even make it into the runoff, even as he continued dogging the school district and the school board, and he continued not getting his public records requests honored, although state law requires such requests to be honored, and if a court has to force it, and the requester’s attorney fees and court costs have to be paid by the school district. Ed Davidson won that school board seat in 2012, after moving from one part of Marathon to another, solely to be able to run for that school board seat.
The school board still does not let citizens who attend school board meetings speak to action items, but only allows citizens to speak once, for 3 minutes, during a school board meeting. I attended many school board meetings in 2011 and 2012, and spoke for 3 minutes, and it was obvious the board appreciated no citizen input.
After the Acevedo scandal, I watched the school board choose a new superintendent of schools, Mark Porter, who was clearly inferior to another candidate, Dr. Ed Shine. Porter had been fired by his school district in Minnesota. He was out of a job. Shine had served with distinction as superintendent of schools, and was loved by students, in two different New York state school districts. Dr. Shine made our school board members look like rank amateurs in education, and illiterate, and immature as adults during the public part of his vetting by the school board members at Marathon High School.
I have seen nothing change for the better in our school district since 2012. Most of our students would be better served by being home schooled, or by going to work in some trade and being taught how to make a living wage somewhere, if not in the Florida Keys.
So, guess what? I voted NO yesterday on extending the school board ad valorem tax for operations.