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Health & Fitness

School Board meets on 1st anniv. of Jenny Caballero's death with some explaining to do

The school board meets this Tuesday, October 22 which is the sad memorial anniversary of the tragic drowning death of student Jenny Caballero and yet just 2 weeks ago there was yet another tragedy with uncanny and disturbing similarities to both the Isabella Herrera and Jenny Caballero tragedies. All the while Hillsborough County residents have been assured that antiquated school policies and training have been updated; so what happened?

On October 9, Wharton High School student Sean McNamee was injured when he hit his head on a paint striping machine that had been left out at the practice field.  After being escorted off the field from the injury, no one called 911 and he was allowed to wander off and drive himself home where he rapidly deteriorated and was driven to the hospital by his father.

Despite this recent tragedy, the School Board Suspended agenda shows that the school board suddenly thinks it has successfully completed an “expanded security committee to look at ALL aspects of safety in EACH DIVISION” and that it has completed the issues in the “District Protocol Review”. Anyone can view this online; see the big red letters “Complete” at: http://www2.sdhc.k12.fl.us/BoardAgenda2010/pdfs/BD20131022_600/Attch_20131022_14706_000.pdf

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Isn’t that convenient- on the memorial anniversary of Jenny Caballero’s death the school board is closing both their books so to speak on these critical tasks that were both marked as “On going” at the last board meeting. Doesn’t that seem just a bit contrived, as though they had a deadline of the anniversary of Jenny Caballero’s tragedy and they are now done with it whether or not it has been taken care of? And despite overwhelming evidence that “ALL aspects of safety in EACH DIVISION” have not been taken care of.

Update policies and training was supposed to stop tragedies like this from happening. It is not confined to ESE students; any child could have climbed that 4 foot fence like Jenny Caballero and drowned in a 12 foot deep retention pond.  It’s almost as though there is a much higher power than Superintendent Elia, demanding that the school board continue taking another closer look at what is happening here.

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The school district tends to compartmentalize these issues to limit their scope. It is an uncanny parallel that student McNamee was also allowed to “wander off”, like the Caballero tragedy, when he arguably should have been under constant supervision after the injury. And like the Herrera tragedy, no one called 911. These seem to be common policy and training failures at the Hillsborough School District- students wandering off. And the “Sites” department would be part of the “Facilities” Division headed by Cathy Valdes which was the division in charge of Transportation (buses) when Isabella Herrera tragically died for lack of updated procedures, training, and qualifications and also the child that was left most of the day on a school bus in Valrico.

We wonder how old the procedures and training are for the "Sites" department, or if there even are any. Well, at least this tragedy didn't get buried by the administration. Do students always have to suffer a tragedy before the Hillsborough school district does their job of getting qualified people and updating their antiquated policies and training? Isn’t this a pattern of Willful Neglect on the part of upper management? Will the Sheriff's Office investigate this as a pattern of neglect on the part of upper management or, like before, unilaterally decide that this is just another unfortunate isolated incident with no relationship to all the other tragedies. And is the local media also too intimidated by the Not-so-Superintendent Elia to ask the “tough questions” about "willful neglect"?

The School Board meeting is at 5pm Tuesday, please govern yourselves accordingly.

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