School Board always too little, too late.

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

Despite this NAACP letter, and as another classic example of the school board’s failure to take care of business when it would make a difference and/or avoid tragedy, at the September 24th School Board meeting the School Board extended Elia’s contract without any updates of performance.

Even with Board Chair April Griffin stating “You have demonstrated a complete lack of professionalism with staff members and board members by cussing, yelling and bullying” the Board extended Elia’s contract without any change.

And despite doing nothing about Elia’s performance requirements on September 24, less than a month later on October 15 the school board sat in judgment of the performance of former Assistant Principal Shawn Livingston. Superintendent Elia was looking to have Shawn Livingston fired for the drowning death of Jenny Caballero at Rodgers Middle School.   

Back in January, the School district offered Livingston a demotion to a teaching position that would have also required him to agree to be charged by district leaders with “willful neglect” in the death case.

When you consider what constitutes “willful neglect” consider that one of the responsibilities of the Superintendent and her staff is to recommend policy and training updates for the school board to adopt. But the Not-so-superintendent Elia will later claim that her excuse for not informing the school board for 9 months about Isabella Herrera’s death was that no “criminal wrongdoing” was found. But criminal wrongdoing was found in the previous December 15, 2011 incident but no policy & training updates were recommended by the not-so-Superintendent and her staff like Cathy Valdes, Chief of Facilities (bus transportation). Instead they “willfully” sat in front of the board for 9 months and said nothing. Had they not neglected policy, training and qualification updates then both Isabella Herrera and Jenny caballero might still be with us. And conceivably had policies and training been updated after the December 15, 2011 incident then Shawn Livingston and all the staff at Rodgers Middle school would have received those updated policies and training and Jenny Caballero would not have drowned. Or, in other words, Superintendent Elia and the school board’s failure after the December 15, 2011 incident is directly responsible for any perceived failure on the part of Shawn Livingston.   

And here is another backstory that was not acknowledged: the Superintendent’s interim 2011-2012 self-performance review would have been in January 2012, the same timeframe as both the Herrera death and the re-election campaigns of 4 sitting board members. This is the part of the Superintendent’s evaluation where she evaluates herself first. Furthermore, 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.

Do you believe that the 2012 elections and the Superintendent’s own self-evaluation did not factor in to the decision of Not-so-Superintendent Elia and then Board Chair Candy Olson to not inform the school board and the public about the Herrera tragedy? Imagine how the Superintendent’s performance review would have gone that year (2012) if she had included the death of Isabella Herrera. Imagine how that campaign year would have gone for those board members if we had all known about this awful failure of the school district.

Even Board member Susan Valdes stated in this year’s performance review of the Superintendent, “It is unethical for you to not have notified us of the death of one of our students in January 2012” a clear reference to the death of Bella Herrera in January 2012.

As another classic example of the school board’s failure to take care of business when it would make a difference and/or avoid tragedy, the school board will now be having a workshop on the NAACP demand letter this Tuesday November 12 at 9am. This is 2 months after it might have made a difference in the Superintendents contract extension. Workshops are open to the public and as we’ve all seen the failure to take timely action can result in tragic death. Please govern yourselves accordingly.