Arkansas Blog

Thank you Larry Jegley for speaking out about the depths some people will seek to in order to get back at those they hate. When one looks at the time and effort spent by Bob Powers and others channeling their energy in this direction, one can only wonder what would've happened if they had turned that effort toward something positive for the LRSD schools.

It was beginning to look like an Israeli-Palestinian war zone over in the LRSD community. Maybe we can focus on the real issue of helping those kids, their parents, their communities, and their teachers solve those problems before them.

And a word to the wise for our DOG editorial writers: just keep quiet about this. Silence would truly be golden if you did such and it would help heal the wounds. I think a Southern Gentleman would understand and oblige.

Leslie,

How about putting up the whole memorandum? I'd be curious to see it.

As the Gang of 4 continues to wreak wide spread destruction with buyouts based on unsubstantiated claims, payoffs to former fired employees, etc. etc. etc. our LRSD schools continue to fall down and the private schools and burbs (Cabot, Benton, Bryant,)keep gaining students.
Last year at Hall High school there was a teacher that also owned a Funeral Home. It was common knowledge that she conducted business on her cell phone during class time while on the job at Hall. It was often noted that she would just leave during the middle of the day at school to conduct business for the funeral home. Teachers told me about this and students, even one of her business assocaites told me that he would call her at school to conduct business for the Funeral Home. Nothing was ever done about this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There you have it!!!!!!!!

Larry Jegley recognizes this as the hot potato that it is. Reading between the lines, apparently many of Katherine Mitchell's cronies (as well as her enemies) contacted Larry Jegley's office to try to influence the outcome of the case. It sounds like a case of Larry Jegley acting more like politician that prosecutor to avoid getting in the middle of this political black hole. I can only imagine the volume of phone calls that Katherine Mitchell and her cronies could generate to overwhelm the prosecutor's office.

I don't know if LJ's office is subject to the FOI, but it would be curious to know who has been contacting him to try to influence the outcome.

Billary sounds like a familiar voice from the past who paraded a long list of nasty accusations about schools, teachers, board members, etc. Was barred twice before and think now is back under a different nom de plumage.

In other words: be skeptical. Very skeptical.

Severus,

Where does it state that Mitchell's cronies were the ones who called the office? You apparently read something I didn't see plus you also said you wished you could see the list. Yet, you already spoke as if you knew who was on the list.

Again: some skepticism req'd.

Hmmmm....I know a teacher from Hall High School who, for the second time in three years, has coached a Hall student to the state championship in the "Poetry Out Loud" poetry recital competition sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Foundation, and the Arkansas Arts Council. That teacher also owns a funeral home, by coincidence, and I know she spent many after school hours and six hours last Saturday as her charge bested students from public schools (including charter schools), private schools, and home-school associations around the state to win the right to go to Washington to compete in the memorization and interpretation contest.

But it couldn't be the same person. One of them sounds lazy or neglectful or disinterested. Probably just a coincidence.

Again, when someone wants you to be privy to their so-called "dirty little secrets" then please be skeptical. Very skeptical.

There has been one person who has appeared on this blog under different pseudonyms who wants you to believe her "dirty little secrets" about teachers, board members, principals, etc. They have been pieces that rely on invective, slurs, innuendoes, and animosity. If he were alive, Kafka would admire her works. They make the National Enquirer look like a convent newsletter in comparison.

So, to revise Shakespeare: "A poison nettle by any other name is still a poison nettle."

I don't disagree with Mr. Jegley's conclusion but were his editorial comments appropriate for his investigation? Seems like he was just supposed to say "yes" there is an offense or "no" there is not an offense.

Jegley's dire prediction in the last sentence, previously echoed publicly by others, seems to have been totally unrecognized by the oblivious LRSD Board as they sail their little skiff over Niagra Falls.

Let's hope the DOG editorial writers are also not as "oblivious" as people make the LRSD school board out to be.

Perhaps, Jegley was addressing his comments to the community as a whole and to ALL those people, no matter which side they've been on, who've contributed to the polarization on those issues affecting the board, school policy, legal works, etc.

This matter needs to be laid to rest, as I stated earlier, and let us get about the business of school improvement. The sooner its buried and the spiteful fingerpointing is over, maybe we'll be able to work things out.

Jake da Snake is again preaching wisdom.

So many of you miss the point! Larry Jegley is telling you that his office has too much to do preparing and litigating criminal cases with merit. Drugs, rapes, and murders should take priority. His office doesn't have time to investigate bull-crap orchestrated by former superintendent Roy Brooks through his lackey Robert Joseph Powers. He's telling you don't bring this crap to his office just to seek publicity.
What he should do is file charges against Powers for tying up his office with this stupid waste of taxpayer money.

I am not going to respond to Jake the Snake and his comment on hate. I tried my best to bring to the surface what I believed were improprieties. I did not allege that Watson was being paid by the LRSD for the NTL, PQE or any other grant (it was stated clearly in the grant that the LRSD was only the custodian of the funds) - my allegation was that not only was she being paid by the LRSD for her normal job, but she was also being paid by the ADE at same time. According to the timesheets submitted by Watson for the NTL, the overwhelming majority of the days she worked for the NTL were during normal work days when she was not on vacation or otherwise out of the office. The NTL program was ended by the ADE due to ineffectiveness.

As for Mitchell, she is quoted as saying the secretary to the superintendent at that time didn't remind her to file the Statement of Financial Interest for 2004. She didn't file an SFI for 2004 and she did not report all of her income for 2005. The income left off the 2005 SFI was the money paid to her from the NTL program. Jegley mentioned the minimal penalty levied by the Ethics Commission. That is the norm for the Ethics Commision. According to a member of the staff there, the Commission has never levied the maximum penalty on anyone. Even Daugherty who was found guilty of 14 violations by the Ethics Commission was only fined $150 - an amount less than14 packing tickets. Drew Pruitt was fined $250 by the Ethics Commission for being late in filing contributions and expenses in January and February of 2006 (see http://www.arkansasethics.com/cm/2006-CO-019.doc). To see Jegley's report go to http://lrsdparents.org. I was not given the report by Jegley. This is a faxed copy from the Democrat Gazette who called me asking for my reaction. The Arkansas Times has never asked me for any comments on any article.

Sorry, Granamere. You have my name wrong.

LR School Parent aka Robert Joseph Powers. The Ethics Commission didn't have the balls to tell you to go to Hell like Mr. Jegley did. If they did they would have told you to kiss the underbelly of a mockingbird. You need to get a life and leave the LRSD board to its business. Didn't someone tell you Brooks is no longer superintendent? That he is now competing with the LRSD. Or maybe you are such a bigot you can't see past your own hatred for those four black board members and the new superintendent.

Sorry again, Granamere. You have my name wrong. Just call me Bob.

Why not call you crazy? Or as Daughtery calls you Idiot?

You are the most dangerous kind of person I know. One who can justify his own biases altruisms. I'm not impressed, Bob!

Bob Powers says, "I am not going to respond to Jake the Snake and his comment on hate," and I think that's a pity. I've always enjoyed hearing people expound on their area of expertise.

Or maybe not.

At least you called me Bob. I never called Daugherty an iIdiot or any other demeaning name. Nor did I comment on his past or current marriage. Unfortunately, the converse is not true. I am not prejudiced nor do I consider myself a biggot. Never have I brought race into this situation unlike you. In fact, the only way I knew of most of the people in the complaint was on paper. I didn't and stll don't know the ethnicity of many of the people in the complaint because I have never met them.

No need to respond Bob. But, the point about a better use of time still remains. In fact, for most of us, we could have put all that time and effort into helping the schools and achieved far more meaningful results. I'm currently back working in the school district and helping with testing. Sure beats the hell out of smashing my brains against brick walls over this issue.

You need to let it go, Bob. One can see that when you respond with a long list detailing all sorts of minor problems that don't amount to squat in light of the real problems faced by those kids in the classrooms. If you had spent as much energy focusing on ways to help those kids increase their test scores, think how much more you would really have accomplished.

Jegley was right. We all had better and more productive things to do and we need to drop this nonsense and get to work on more important things. Plainly put: it's accomplished nothing for you, nothing for the schools, and nothing for the children.

Although I don't think the word hate applies to you, Bob, one can see from the writings and rants of others on both sides of this issue, that hate was and remains a predominant force behind their actions and beliefs. It's time to turn those swords into plowshares. It's time to heal not hurt. It's time to encourage repsonsibility not allocate blame.

Get involved and help these schools, these teachers, and these children. Let those fingers point the kids in the right direction rather than point at each other.

Bob,

Perhaps I jumped the gun. I have a hard time resisting a smart remark. Jake da Snake has attained to wisdom, but I'm still working on it.

In any event, if I've spoken wrongly about you, I apologize for it.

I'm sure you don't think of yourself as a bigot, and I believe it might even be true. I don't know you except by your actions and effects. But those actions and effects have encouraged bigotry and racism. I hope you'll give that some thought.

And I see Jake beat me to the post, with good advice.

I had no idea that it would turn into something like this. However, this has been going on for some time. People in positions of authority have a responsibility to be examples for our kids and to provide the best for them and the citizens of Little Rock. That was my objective - it had nothing to do with the composition of the board but their actions. I have to say that as long as I have lived in Arkansas (20 years) the LRSD has always been in turmoil from both internal and external forces. I sent my children to LRSD schools and staunchly supported them and the schools. I have been a VIPS volunteerof the year of which I am very proud. I am still involved with kids and am a "mystery reader" in one school and have been asked to read in another. I have even been a Spanish interpreter when one didn't appear at a townhall meeting. My actions were part of what I thought would be helping children. I am still leary but the course of the school district is set. As a citizen I still plan on monitoring the ongoings of the LRSD. It's my money they are using and I want it to be used in a best effort. I don't want it spent on travel, food or lining the pockets.

Bob I talked to Daughtery and he doesn't hate you he just doesn't like the things you do. While you are so busy attacking him and the other three black board members, the real culprit is laughing at you behind your back. Brooks lied to you about student achievement and the gains the LRSD had made. He lied to you about being innocent of the charges brought against him because the school board is finding more and more evidence of his rogue style of leadership.
You got into this defending Brooks, now that Brooks is competing against the people and the district you champion don't you think it is about time you formed a different alliance?

Jake, I meant to say in the "LRSD on the list" thread that I really appreciated the link to the studies on high performing schools serving students with economic and social challenges. The Kentucky study was really interesting. I commend Jake's post to anyone interested in such things.

Bob,

I appreciate your efforts and would encourage you to continue to the fight against school board corruption. If only one child is helped, the fight will be worth it. This isn't just about Roy Brooks, it is about the children, and the failure of the Little Rock School District to educate them.

Thank TAP. While others spend their time on "corruption" we can see if there are solutions for these kids. It's getting to be like the Hatfields and McCoys around here. It hardly sems likely that any child has been helped by these actions (again from both sides).

The strange thing about this entire "monitor" the LRSD board is that these papers are all public and that those board members whom Bob endorses (and not the ones mislabeled "gang of four" by a certain mentality) all can easily look into the LRSD board records themselves, police themselves, help each other avoid pitfalls or the appearances of "coruption."

Why didn't superintendent Brooks cover such things? Why didn;t any white member of the board cover such things? Why didn't other black members of the board cover such things? And yet, it's all public and wasn't hidden nor swept under the rug.

In a sense, Granamere is right: it started with the Roy Brooks situation. Everything was about Brooks, one way or the other. When that didn't work out as some wished, then the next step became a campaign against "corruption" in the LRSD. We're not blind. A clearly connects to B in this matter.

It has become an obsession. Let the board members police themselves since it's obvious they can do it and that it's something all seven would benefit from.

Thanks Bob for your volunteer work. Let's hope this distraction would die down and we can see people start to volunteer more to help those kids. It would be a shame if one VIP less was caused by all this disruption and bad blood.

TAP mentioned the Kentucky link I provided a day or so ago. Here's my input on it and the link I referred to is still available on my blue name below. This is the direction you need to be looking to if you are concerned about improving education in LRSD. Again, I want to reiterate that LRSD (and many others) are already doing many of the things listed but this report shows there are a few more key elements needed (especially the community support!!!) that make the difference in success or failure. It is why I'm fighting so hard to get all of you on the bandwagon again for the school district.

Anyway, please read:

Kentucky has been one of the leading states in doing research on successful schools, especially those that have performed well under tough conditions. Click on my name for this report:

Inside the Black Box of High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools
A report from the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence
Lexington, Kentucky

It does offer answers and repeats my mantra of commitment by the teachers, parents and community. And, as most other reports do, it stresses high expectations, extensive teacher planning & leadership, and a host of other proven keys to success. I recommend this as one of the better and more readable reports on the issue.

A similar report done by a group in Austin, Texas, struck me as interesting because the LRSD has done a lot of the things it mentioned needed to be done to raise scores, etc. But, there were a few items that were not being addressed as well. (That study is here: http://edweb.sdsu.edu/ncust/publications/middle_schools_exec_summ.pdf)

The key according to the Kentucky study is that you must have high marks in ALL areas in order to have improvement occur. That was the common factor with all successful schools that they studied. Well, I won't go into the details because the reports do that quite well. And, the Kentucky one stands out to me.

Granamere - when someone calls you an idiot, is disrepectful and misstates personal information that is none of his business in an attempt to destroy you - that is an attack. I never attacked anyone on the board in an attempt to destroy them. I never reported any false information or call them demeaning names. I especially didn't limit it to the just the board members nor did I discriminate by race. I am willing to go along with the p;rogram but I am not going to stop watching what is going in the LRSD. Daugherty was delinquent on expenses as well as Mitchell. None of the other board members had suc an issue as far as I could tell. I didn't take that information to the prosecutor to have charges filed, I reported it to the public. In my opinion, that is what a citizen is supposed to do. You did the same thing with what you thought was wrong with Brooks. Why is it that you have the right to do this and I am not allowed that same right? That is called "bias".

You're right about the name calling, Bob. Far too much of it has gone on and is still going on.

It seems from today's paper that the following items stood out: (1) Brooks OK'd all these financial expenditures and I presume the board at the time saw nothing wrong with it; (2) Jegley has basically said it was all a snipe hunt and that there was a better use of city resources and personnel than pursuing this ephemeral charge.

Maybe it would've been best to just bring those concerns directly to the school board members or to the superitendent. Well, what might have been......

Reminds me a bit of Don Quixote. Reminds Jegley of a waste of his time. Reminds us all that noble goals don't necessarily have noble means and ends.

Bob try to be forthcoming for a minute and tell all these good people how Brooks used you to help his smear campaign of select individuals he didn't like. You didn't get this information on your own Brooks and several staff members loyal to him provided you information they were aware of that could be considered controversial and had you make it public. The chief financial officer mark mil-something or other, and Beverly Griffin helped to provide you with information/misinformation to help you attack the character of several people. And you did it willingly. As far as calling people names, wasn't it you who got your friend fired from his radio show "The Free Ride" by publicly attacking Daughtery in violation of station policy. Don't tell us this b/s story about you being the crusader for truth, justice, and liberty when you do all you can to degrade a particular race of people. And it's not about truth. Your letter to the editor in October of last year was an attack on black school board members here in LR and on the Jena 6 or have you forgotten that? Your quote basically stated that you report on blacks because they are the only ones committing crimes. I guess I should be impressed because a few of the people here think the same way. Tell me who do you blame the crimes on in areas where there are no blacks?

Granamere - why don't you be forethcoming and tell us your name. You are quick to criticize, quicker to assume and play the race card at will. I don't have to defend myself from your misquotes and parftial statements. Why don't you reread my editorial or better yet, post it. Then if you want me to explain it, I will. In regard to the Jena 6, you need to do your homework and get the whole story. But chances are, you haven't read or know the whole story. Suffice it to say, the media once again has exagerated and embellished a story that has caused more consternation than truth for the sake of profit.

Jake:
Yes. Don Quixote. Good fellow.
DK

The towering giants have turned out only to be the windmills of his mind. If only there was a fair Dulcinea for this errant knight.

Your humble Cervantes,

Jake

Jake:
Although the mind inspires many noble and fanciful endeavors, my Dulcinea is no doubt present, close by and a tangible source of comfort and encouragement to whom I shall retire without further ado.
DK