| | | Being united Means having A Board 227 Vision that is fair, progressive, inclusive , shared and supported by our community Quintella Bounds and Citizens United 2 Bring Unity sound more like more school board suppression and corrupt practices at the trough of those who are feeding and getting paid off the system of academic failure of our children and tax payers and the status quo. Their puppet strings have been pulled so hard until they have slammed all the way back to slavery in America. Now they expect us to stay put in their reprehensible, disunited, and unfair behaviors. The purpose of school boards is to improve student achievement levels and to productively and democratically engage the full school board and district community to achieve this goal. Any people who follows behind a dictator, that strips us of our role as public officials and denies our community our fundamental human rights as citizens, and the means of inclusion required to be successful, are spiritual and mental slaves. Hiding behind "LET'S STAY UNITED" OUR COMMUNITY CANNOT BE DISRESPECTED. OUR COMMUNITY IS NOT " THOSE PEOPLE." MINORITY BOARD MEMBERS ARE NOT "THOSE PEOPLE." Rather, we are constituents, tax payers, students, parents, friends, and family. There is no place for attitudes like yours to treat our community as if we are less than you or anyone else. There is no place for anyone like you that says that advocates for equality can be denied the ability to serve the public and represent the interest of our children. You cannot simply say "Opps, I'm sorry" and this will all go away. We will never forget what you have done and continues to do. The one bright spot in this selection is that now your constituents know who you really are and what you really believe. In your bullying and debauchery of this community and targeted board members, you have single handedly tarnished the reputation of this body and has brought discredit upon board 227 on a state and national level. To be united as a school board and community, we don't need to unite with more incompetence. We need more community and full board inclusion, input, fairness, and board accountability. The school district was failing miserably with corruption, gag rules, and lack of democratic community input long before we came to the board. We must change this picture, not join it. Given the same failed conditions, we will have the same failed results. A minority of two cannot keep the school board from being successful and voting for meaningful self direction, board accountability, assessment, evaluation and district improvement. The reason no progress is being made in this direction is because the board majority doesn't want progress. They are already happy with the status quo of "special privileges and denials from the board majority" and has no intentions to make progress, which appears to be to their own private disadvantage. Full school board and community inclusion, working together as one to improve student achievement, and to productively engage the full board and school district community to achieve this goal is, not merely following behind a dictatorship who has failed our community with no input from the full board and certainly not from our community. When we stand for nothing, we will fall for anything. Board work is well, work! Working together, listening to everyone, and standing up for a common goal that is beneficial to our children and community is being united. What minority board members want is progress and "better." It is what every tax paying citizen in our community wants for the community and its children. Does that make us traitors to a dictatorship of tyranny and suppression who wants "Let's stay the same" and business as usual to their own private advantage of the status quo and to the detriment of our children and to our community's future? The open and transparent board minority who have fought for open government, board meetings videotaped on our rich 227 website, and for community inclusion, transparency and integrity are proud of what we stand for. Is this what Quintella Bounds means by not being united. As citizens of these United States we have a right to our opinions and to the companionship and support of like minded parents and citizens in our community who wants better for our children. But are not against anyone neither do we believe in denying others community participation and basic citizenship rights. Rather, we are for what is in the best interests of children and of our community. Being on a school board is not about the school board. It is about representing, respecting, and engaging the full board and our district community in a vision that is shared and supported by the stakeholders. We fight for what we are for. We are for what will unite the school board in the best interest of children. We are not for being unaccountable and failing to do our basic job as board members of assessing, evaluating, and holding the district accountable. We cannot afford to join in the madness of being unaccountable. We don't respect the student achievement data that we don't inspect as a school board. We are for having a vision, standards, school board accountability through formative and summative assessment of the school district which is our job to do, collaboration and community and full school board inclusion and engagement. This school board's idea of being "united" is what we saw when we first became board members, academic failure, corruption, suppression of individual rights to speak and to be heard, and more of the same. We have seen more of the same for three more years now with less than three out of every ten of our children performing at grade level. We want better than this. Mrs. Coleman and Dr. Morgan, along with all board members, may not be silenced with a banging gavel when they have a right to speak. A school board business meeting, with its open forum, should provide all board members and the community, the opportunity to propose ideas and to participate in forming the plans and actions of the organization, including constructive feedback and debate. To do this in an orderly, fair to all, united and efficient manner, the business of the meeting must be conducted in an orderly, equitable, and efficient manner. There can be no order, lack of communication and feedback, or unity in gag rules, discrimination, injustice, and lack of respect for others by the board chair. To do this in an equitable, orderly, and professional manner, all board members must be able to communicate. This is what united and becoming a profile of leadership through collaboration, fairness, inclusiveness, community engagement and continuous improvement looks like. Without respect for everyone, community, listening to every adult, full school board member, and community inclusion, we cannot succeed. With it we cannot fail. Dr. David E. Morgan School Board Member Rich Township High School District 227 Olympia Fields, Illinois |
| | | | | | More on The School Board Meeting of September 18, 2012 On September 18, 2012, Cheryl Coleman presented the argument as to why board president Betty Owens should be relieved of her duties. In the future, we can never be a part of approving a board agenda where targeted board members have been inappropriately barred from court in speaking on any item or motions on the agenda, then expect us to approve such corruption and debauchery while no one speaks up for justice for fear of retribution. This is like saying that when citizens request an FOIA every citizen will receive one. Like board members, citizens do ask for FOIA's and only the individual requesting them will receive them. Similarly, no rule should be supported that says when one board member request an FOIA the whole board should receive the same. This is not the law. A school board cannot tamper with our already established liberties and freedoms or seek to violate them. Wasting tax payer funds fighting targeted board members, our parents and community in court using our tax payer dollars to do so, wasting our time engaging in buffoonery and arguing that everyone must receive an FOIA when one individual board member ask for one is foolish. I will not participate in such discrimination, unfairness, misrepresentation of our community, partiality, and foolishness. Non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with what is just and good. On September 18, 2012 the school board majority, who spoke on every agenda item often once, twice, or three times as they pleased, while targeted board members were denied participation. The board majority allowed Betty Owens to get away with it, because being blocked has never happened to them. Being blocked from speaking, denied our rights to participate in union-board negotiations, stripped of our role as board members, and being denied FOIA requests needed to do our job is not legal. It undermines our roles as public officials. It also exposes the district to more violations of Freedom of Speech law suits that has already cost tax payers hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past several years. In the 2010-2011 school year alone, over $873,000 was spent on just one of the district's several law firms fighting our community and targeted citizens in violations of our First Amendment Freedoms. I agree with Kevin, in his tears of anger at the last board meeting on September 18, 2012 who advocated for fairness and professionalism. But I am afraid that Kevin doesn't know the real and true story that things are not always what they appear to be at open board meetings. In an atmosphere of civility and reason, a board member who makes a motion has the first right to speak to the motion. He or she does so by rising and obtaining the floor after the chair places the motion before the assembly for discussion. A member can speak twice to the agenda item or motion on the same day, but he or she can take the second turn only after everyone who wishes to speak the first time has spoken. If debate on the motion is continued at the next meeting, which is held on another day, the member's right to debate is renewed. For Betty Owens, pushing the board majority to approve "Board Agreements" is like a return to animal kingdom abusing others with the sanctions of the so-called "Board Agreements." The most important principle that a presiding officer must remember is that they represent all the members, not just a select few and not just those with whom she agrees. To do otherwise is not showing leadership. Rather, she has consistently violated the leadership principles of respect for everyone, fairness, impartiality which brings unity. Betty Owens, for certain, for the three years that I have been on the school board has continuously and repeatedly denied our right to make motions and debate, put items on the agenda, speak to agenda items, refused to entertain points of order and proper appeals, recognized only those who has upheld her views and has denied the opposition the right to speak. Our schools and students continue to be neglected, as Betty Owens has persisted in this disrespectful and disunited behavior . While targeted board members continue to be abused in this fashion and treated like cattle, the board majority will say nothing, do nothing, and stand for nothing. She refuses to reason together. It is either Betty's way or the highway. President Lyndon Johnson's favorite expression when trying to get opposing groups together was "Come let us reason together. " Betty has never considered this expression when confronted with those with another viewpoint. |
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