This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Graduation Confidential, Media should be ashamed!

Graduations are upon us again and here is the list at the Florida State Fairgrounds. 

Outside of the Patch, has ANY Media in Hillsborough County reported on the contents of the depositions of school board member April Griffin, Candy Olson and Superintendent Elia? These depositions are a treasure trove of information. A behind the scenes look and how completely dysfunctional your school board is and yet no one has touched these. They should all be ashamed of themselves. That is just irresponsible. The school district fails to report and so does the media. The media is as much of a part of the dysfunctional system as the school board.

Remember Superintendent Elia controlling the student’s speech right up to the bitter end last year? Ironic that she is so mindful of this communication but then you read her own deposition in the Herrera case and you have to wonder why she fails so miserably with her own staff communications. In her Herrera deposition she claims that despite her attorney and Risk Management department receiving a notice of intent to sue and despite all her school district staff, that she was somehow unaware of the tragic death of student Isabella Herrera for 9 months.

Find out what's happening in Brandonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Of course 9 months would also be plenty of time to coordinate and make sure that there was no record to show otherwise. Lucky for us there is a video recordshowing where superintendent Elia was at the very moment that Isabella Herrera was pronounced dead. Ironically, the video shows superintendent Elia standing at a podium giving an address much like a valedictorian would. 

The depositions available at this link also include the deposition of then Board chair Candy Olson who apparently knew of the death of Isabella Herrera but also never bothered to tell the superintendent or her fellow board members. But, here again, there is a video record showing where Candy Olson was at the very moment that Isabella Herrera was pronounced dead.

Find out what's happening in Brandonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The depositions available at this link also include the deposition of April Griffin who became board chair right after Candy Olson. April Griffin is running for re-election to the school board.

Pay particular attention to the bottom of page 21 where April describes the role of the new school board attorney as “Just help us in our board meetings and meet with us individually as needed to give us advice on issues that we want to have advice on.” and “…work with Mr. Gonzalez as our general counsel.” Mr. Gonzales is still the general counsel for BOTH the Superintendent AND the School Board according to April. Now how would that work if there was a conflict of interest between the Superintendent AND the school board, such as if a student died on a bus and-hypothetically- one party did not want it known and one party did want to know?

Just across the pond, Pinellas County schools have separate attorneys for the school Board and the Superintendent to prevent conflicts of interest.

After what happened you would think that even April Griffin would realize what a problem this representation could be, but apparently not. It is still business as usual. April Griffin has done nothing meaningful and yet she expects you to re-elect her this year.

Worst still is that April Griffin and Stacy White were the representatives on Hillsborough County’s Council of Governmentswhich is supposed "To study the area government problems including but not limited to matters affecting SAFETY and EDUCATION." But neither of them have ever done anything about this tragedy. Furthermore- April Griffin was the chair of this council but they have never had a meeting ever since she became the chair almost 2 years ago “to study the matters of SAFETY and EDUCATION.

Why on earth would you re-elect either of these people?

If you have ever been to a graduation you know that many of the school board members will also be sitting on stage with the Superintendent. We suspect in an election year that board members April Griffin and Stacy White who are running for re-election will want to be seen on that stage a lot. We can imagine that many students are aware of the horrific record of this school board and superintendent. They might have something to say about this and find it particularly insulting that the administration that said nothing about the death of Isabella Herrera for 9 months will sit in judgment of their speech with their finger on the "Kill" button ready to censor them at any moment. 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?