Update of the school board meeting of September 18, 2012 At the school board meeting the school board majority united and agreed to fire a counselor who authored a racy sex book. But then our similarity ended. The rest of the board meeting showed something that was very different from the democracy and America that we know: Ignorance, tyranny, lies, suppression, small mindedness, lack of knowledge, and poor judgment resulting in school failure are a destructive combination. The latest examples, we saw at last night's school board meeting. Our community who wants better for its children are the real heroes in our freedom struggle to save our schools. Although the community was given four minutes to make a point, Betty Owens, who sets her own gag rules in open session against anyone who has a different viewpoint, told Dr. Morgan, a school board member, that he could have only two minutes to get his point across. While the school board policy states that community members have four minutes to speak at open forums, Betty Owens has set her own policy where targeted board members can speak for only two minutes, while her cronies can speak as long as they wish. She abuses community members who can think in the same fashion. Of course, the school board majority will always vote against a forensic audit for fear of uncovering more corruption that has robbed our children of a decent education. Sending a Quintella Bounds, who spoke more than four minutes in impugning the reputation of progressive and targeted school board members, she was blessed and supported by the board boss who denied us reubuttal. But to us attack means that we represent the real change in Open Government issues and challenges, abolition of corruption, lack of academic progress, the board majority attacking our parents, to the failures of our children and community, students being raped, academic probation, academic watch list, and academic failures with negligence, lack of planning and collaboration that has plagued our school board for over a decade. Mrs. Cheryl Coleman spoke addressing violations of Open Government issues regarding School Board 227 as did Dr. Morgan, but unlike the board majority, not without gag rules and interruptions from the school board chair. As the Center for Open Government at Chicago's Kent College of Law has urged the school board boss to comply with the State's Open Meeting Act, FOIA laws, Robert's Rules of Order, the right of every board member to speak equally in open session on agenda items, to stop trying to strip targeted board members to serve as elected officials and citizens right to speak who don't agree with her failed and corrupt "policies", and Freedom of Information Act laws. Meanwhile, the school board majority has buttoned down in implementing further gag rules in a so-called "Board Agreement" last night passed by the board majority that denies the full school board and the community its parliamentary and constitutional rights to equal participation, transparency, and accountability of government bodies. After the vote, Betty Owens then argued that "Board Agreements" supersede these rights. Every informed American knows that this can never be the case. No one can pass "Board Agreements" that supersedes our rights as citizens of the United States. We can never lay aside our citizenship rights as Americans to become board members at the school house door. Rather, it is in school that we learn to become good citizens. With one failed and corrupt point of view for over two decades, skewed board minutes, the community being kept uninformed, in the dark, and misinformed, and no new ideas from the other side of the aisle at open board meetings, our schools have failed miserably. Last school year less than three out of every ten of our high school students were at grade level, and the board majority was still saying that nothing could be done. The open forum meeting was led off by Quintella Bounds yelling "Let's unite" in her effort to support the school board majority "Board Agreements" which has the intended purpose to re-institute more gag rules and re-enslave minority board members and our community through these so-called "Board Agreements." In every civilized and peaceful manner, to be the best as a community, we must strive for the rights which the world accords to all men and women. The board majority's efforts is a further attempt at clamping down on our First Amendment Rights, and full board and community input and participation efforts. The promoters of these illegal gag rules have insisted on following behind a "board boss", the party of no to student achievement, at the expense of our community and fellow board members' right to public participation who want better for our children. Their puppet strings have been pulled so hard until they have slammed all the way back to slavery in America. With the so-called "board agreements" , now they expect them to stay put. To save our children and our community, we must move with a great sense of urgency and justice to the promised land of school improvement, the defense of our own community lives, and to vote in a new school board on April 2, 2013. Otherwise, those who wish to continue to bully, tyrannize, and prevent us from finishing a comment within our allocated time will continue to do so. To save our children, tax payers, and community, we must experience this high and joyous moment through acting in the best interest of our children and community and not just for ourselves alone but for those devotees of educational excellence who have acquired a new estimate of their own human worth in the process. We have moved so courageously against the ramparts of the party of No to student achievement , and toward our Constitutional freedoms to be the best that we can be. The sad part is that this is a majority black school board who insists upon oppressing a predominantly black community, neglecting and failing its children, fighting parents and our community in court using our tax payer dollars to do so, dumbing down fellow board members, and in the process, cheating our children out of a quality education. Given the history of our country, as all citizens know, and African Americans in particular, through painful experiences that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed. To save our children, community, and to return our schools to the crown jewel of the south suburbs that we knew twenty years ago, our boss must be the one who walks around beneath our hat every day. We must all stand united in the quiet conviction that it is better to suffer in dignity than to accept being gagged, treated like cattle, robbed, taxed to death, and to accept injustice in humiliation. In reclaiming our schools and community, we can never stand before a great human problem, and then argue that nothing can be done. We must do something. That is why we are on this earth. David E. Morgan, Ph.D. School Board Member Rich Township High School District 227 Olympia Fields, Illinois 60461 |
