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Health & Fitness

Patch exclusive- NAACP demands Superintendent performance benchmarks

On June 17, 2013 the NAACP hand delivered a letter to each of the Hillsborough County school board members demanding an update of performance goals for the superintendent concerning equality and diversity with particular respect to African-American and Hispanic males.

In 2008 a coalition of advocacy groups including the NAACP, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities filed a class action discrimination complaint against the Hillsborough County Schools. You can read about it in an article titled "Disability complaint filed against Hillsborough schools" at WMNF which can be viewed at http://www.wmnf.org/news_stories/6166. Seems like some things never change.

This 2008 complaint included both disciplinary discrimination against African Americans and discrimination against special needs students. The Superintendent has failed miserably in both arenas this year especially when you consider the January 2012 death of Bella Herrera that went unreported to the board for 9 months which conceivably required untold numbers of staff who knew, to sit in front of the board for 9 months and, likewise, all remain silent.

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An administration that had a duty to act and a silence that arguably led to the drowning death of a second ESE student Jenny Caballero 9 months later, for lack of training and updated procedures that should have taken place during those silent 9 months.

Keep in mind that the Superintendent’s interim previous 2011-2012 performance review would have been in January 2012, the same time frame as both the Herrera death and the re-election campaigns of 4 sitting board members. The Superintendent’s failure to inform for 9 months managed to eclipse her entire 2011-2012 performance review and most of the campaign for re-election for those board members.

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“It is unethical for you to not have notified us of the death of one of our students in January 2012” says school board member Susan Valdes in this year’s performance review of the Superintendent, a clear reference to the death of Bella Herrera in January 2012. See more excerpts of this performance review exclusively at OlsonandEliamustresign on Facebook. 

So even some board members believe this was unethical. And last week the federal court decided to allow the Herrera lawsuit to proceed in their effort to establish a pattern of the Hillsborough County Public Schools failing to ensure the safety and well-being of special needs students. So now the parents of Bella Herrera will be having to do the discovery in court that arguably should have been done long ago by the Sheriff’s Office.

By the way, absent any action by the board, the Superintendent’s employment contract automatically renews 3 days from now on July 1 and, except for this article in the Patch, the local media has likewise been silent about both the NAACP demand letter and the Board’s performance review of the Superintendent’s silence. Having failed to ever provide a complete explanation for the administration’s silence, the board, at the least, should require strict performance goals for communication, student safety, and equality including special needs students for the Superintendent’s continued employment.

The county’s citizens should not also be silent about this; silence kills.

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