More on the Specious Claims Made Regarding School Board Business

Rick Alexander in the Lebanon Express:

Alexander said he too was not given the district's recommendation until Nov. 30.

"We're supposed to make a decision with no time to study," Alexander complained.

Bullshit. Table the motion to renew until the next meeting (leaving time for discussion!); that is a perfectly viable option. I know he knows how to do that, at least, which means he is failing to tell the truth.

No wonder the students I work for (not a typo, but a hope) have such creative excuses for breaking the rules - they are getting lessons in lying from a school board member!

Barf.

Moving on:

“If you simply renew the existing contract you essentially have taken away your ability to say how things go from here,” Robinson said.

Oops. That one's true - and it was the point of Alexander's actions. Strange how he hamstrings the board's choices, but then wants the board itself to be the negotiating team. It's almost like he wants to the LCSD to suffer. And that he has a specific plan he's not sharing with the public...

There's more:

Jackson said he felt the administration's report was an incomplete picture and in some instances inaccurate. The district reported that there were no personnel at Sand Ridge trained to dispense prescription and non-prescription drugs as required by law.

“Those individuals are properly trained,” Jackson said.

They might be now - but Jackson did not say they were trained when Jan Zarate checked. Why didn't Jackson or someone from Sand Ridge let the district know that this particular issue had been resolved?

I don't know, but it allows Jackson to imply that there's something wrong with the Administration's Report. I'll bet he hopes to discredit the whole thing based on one item that he almost certainly could have had removed from the report had he made an effort. It's very good dirty politics.

Unless, of course, he's lying about the training, but I doubt it. That's too easy to check out. Though it is possible he just doesn't care, since his audience is the Sand Ridge crowd and he could care less about what Greater Lebanon thinks as long as they don't show up to Board meetings... hint hint.

One last thing from this story:

Board member Alexander said the issues presented by the administration would be addressed in the new contract, but expressed doubts about the accuracy of Chastain's financial report, saying the schools recent audit showed no problems.

“On the co-mingling of funds you had auditors look at that. Did the auditors fail to do their job?” Alexander said.

Sigh. More shifting of the blame - while it is possible that the auditors missed something, notice how Alexander implies the problem is with them and not with the fact that money was shifted improperly in the first place.

It is also entirely possible that the transactions in question happened after the auditors checked, or that they were hidden from the auditors in the first place. PIE has not been forthcoming about anything else; why should anyone trust them about this?

And why does Rick Alexander, a LEBANON School Board member, have far more to say about SAND RIDGE, a school run by the PIE Board?

Maybe Alexander should sit on the PIE board instead and let Lebanon get some actual work done.