Open Letter to Molly Spearman

The following letter has been sent to Molly Spearman, Superintendent of the South Carolina Department of Education.

Dear Supt. Spearman,

 

I am writing to request your help in dealing with Richland 2 School District.

You are probably already familiar with the January 25, 2022 incident at a Richland 2 board meeting, when Mrs. Pamela Davis, wife of Supt. Baron Davis, created a disruption that resulted in two white men being kicked out of the meeting and being put on Trespass Notice by Richland 2. The District failed to investigate the matter and did not discipline either Pamela or Baron Davis. I filed a complaint with your office against Pamela Davis and awaiting a determination.

I am writing to request your help with Richland 2's violation of its Administrative Rule KI-R, which allows a designated security officer to "issue a verbal or written 'no trespass' notice for the school facility". The District has issued a No Trespass Notice to me that bans me  from "...any and ALL [emphasis in the original] Richland School District Two properties, facilities, campuses and buildings..."

The District is apparently having difficulty in understanding that "facility" is singular; it means "the (one) facility" where an incident occurred. 

I have filed complaints against Richland 2's employee who has exceeded his authority by issuing the No Trespass Notice beyond its limited scope and also against the Administrative Rule itself. The Rule provides no guidelines for duration and no provision for Due Process. The employee has denied me access to a property other than R2i2 and also to the Richland County Public Library, which leases its Sandhills Library from the District.

The District refuses to process my complaints against the employee and the Rule.

Will the South Carolina Department of Education assist me to 1) requiring Richland 2 to process complaints duly-filed and 2) to require Richland 2 to comply with its written Administrative Rule and to cease improperly and unlawfully expanding it?

Sincerely,

Gus Philpott

Resident, Richland School District Two

847.971.7083

cc:  Gov. Henry McMaster

       Attorney General Alan Wilson

       Scott Price, Executive Director, SCSBA

       Jamie Devine, President, SCSBA

ESG and your Real credit worthiness

E S G

Consider this. You work hard, build a business, do things well, serve the public, borrow money, pay it back; pay your bills on time.

You ought to have good credit; right? You should be able to borrow money at a bank - at a fair interest rate; right?

Then along comes ESG. You've heard of the Cancel Culture; right? Have you heard of ESG?

Read this week's issue of The Nerve, published by the South Carolina Policy Council. In particular, read the article titled "Officials warn ESG movement heading to SC amid ‘woke’ power play".

What is ESG? Environment, Social, Governance

If your "scores" on ESG aren't high enough, your woke bank might just make your life miserable. 

The article is a worthwhile read. The Policy Council is worthy of financial support.

Racial Division - alive and well (unfortunately)

(Click to enlarge)

On September 24, 2020 Diversity and Equity Chief Helen Grant presented "Shifting to a Diverse, Inclusive and Equitable Mindset." While uclear on the first page of the presentation just who the target audience was, it appeared to be aimed at Administrative Professionals. 

Slide 29 is shown above.

This is what is being "done to" the Administrative Professionals. If I didn't know better, I'd say those are the Principals and Assistant Principals thoughout Richland 2. And probably the headquarters staff.

Those are the people who steer those below them in the ranks; i.e., the teachers, staff, secretaries, assistants.

That slide is a great example of the Critical Race Theory that Richland 2 "doesn't teach", if you want to believe Teresa Holmes, the woman who sits in the position of Board Chair.

Holmes wants everyone to Go Woke (or did she say, "Stay Woke"?).

But parents are waking up. Thank goodness.

Roll Call at Board Meetings?

Should the Richland 2 School Board take a roll call at every board meeting? 

How else would the Minues ever correctly reflect who was there and who was not, or who attended by telephone?

Roll call should be taken at 5:30PM, when the Public Session officially convenes. And probably again at the beginning of the Executive Session, just in case someone got lost on the way to dinner.

And then roll call should be taken at 6:30PM, when the Public Session reconvenes. How much time would that require? One minute? (More, if certain people didn't recognize their name or weren't paying attention.)

If a board member is absent in-person but attending remotely, that should be properly noted to the Public and in the Minutes. The reason should be clear. And those board members present in person should vote whether to allow that absent person to attend telephonically.

The Richland 2 school board is not an after-school club. It is the elected group that oversees a $300,000,000+ annual budget, 28,000+ students, 3,000+ employees, and assets worth $1 Billion.

Next time you are attending or watching a meeting, ask yourself this question. "If I owned that business, which of those eight people at the front of the room would I trust to direct it and run it?"

Remember this on November 8, 2022.

Are Rules for the Board and District, too?

Or is it, "The rules are for thee and not for me." Is that the attitude of Richland 2 School District?

I have at least four complaints on file with Richland 2 since February 22. They are about actions of Safety & Security Director Marq Claxton and the Administrative Rule (AR) KI-R that is not being followed.

Remember the board meeting when Trustee Caution-Parker said that there are rules and that the District will follow the rules. Do you remember there was no objection to her statement by Board Chair Holmes? Or Supt. Davis. Or by any other trustee? Perhaps somebody should have said right then, "Wait just one minute! We are not going to follow all the rules!"

In a wordy email sent to me late last Friday afternoon over Teresa Holmes' name (but clearly not written by her), the District informed me that my complaints were being considered part of the original grievance that the Board discussed on February 22 and would not be considered separately.

I responded (again) that the complaints were separate and distinct from the grievance, which I could not attend because the Security Director denied my request to enter R22i2 to attend the grievance. (Gee, I wonder who told him to make that decision.)

Did Claxton make that decision on his own? Not likely. Did Will Anderson direct him to make that decision? Probably not. Did Harry Miley direct Will to so direct Claxton? Did Marshalynn Franklin tell Miley to tell Anderson to tell Claxton to deny me? Did Baron Davis tell Marshalynn to tell Harry to tell Will to tell Claxton?

Or did Baron Davis just save time and skip over Marshalynn, Harry, and Will and tell Claxton "Just say No"?

But back to Rules.

The District has Board Policies and Administrative Rules. If they aren't going follow them, why have them? Just because the South Carolina School Boards Association says so?

When Teresa Holmes writes at 9:53PM on a Monday (April 11), "Mr. Philpot, You have received our official response.  Have a nice day, and this matter is closed", I recognize that as coming from her.

Won't she be surprised, when she finds out that the matter is not closed?

Safety app - know about it?

Seen on Facebook.

Know about this? Download it from PlayStore to your Android. Really?

A search of PlayStore just now reveals one app, which is for the school District, not a specific safety app. Is this safety app buried in the Richland 2 app?

Sure wish I'd had the safety app on January 25th!!!

 

Did R2 just threaten me?

Last week, when Richland 2 taxpayers, parents and I were looking for the Proposed 2022-2023 budget, we couldn't find it anywhere on the District's website. A public input session on the Budget was announced in the Agenda published for the April 7th school board meeting.

Some of us thought the proposed budget ought to be available for inspection. How else would one be able to provide input on it? I had no doubt that a Proposed Budget for the next school year existed and had been in the works for months. No organization with a $300,000,000 annual budget lets it go until the last 1½ months.

I emailed the District's Ombudsman via the Let's Talk feature at the bottom of the District's homepage.

Here's the response I received from the District:

Mr. Philpott,

This is in response to the Let's Talk forms you submitted on April 4 at 4:01 p.m. and on April 5 at 8:50 a.m.

A proposed 2022-2023 General Fund Budget does currently exist. The district is still in the input/information gathering steps as outlined on the timeline: https://www.richland2.org/Departments/Business-Services/General-Fund-Budget​.

The proposed budget is first published on the agenda for the board meeting where it is scheduled to receive first reading. For the 2022-2023 the first reading is scheduled for the May 24 board meeting. Therefore, the proposed budget will be on the agenda for that meeting when it is published to the public.

A link to the General Fund page on the district's website has been added to the news articles on the district's website about the public information session and the board meeting. Thank you for that suggestion. 

You stated in the April 4 form that you "just wasted a fair amount of time trying to help someone find the proposed FY 2022-2023 General Fund Budget." Based on that statement, I feel compelled to caution you from representing yourself as an official source of information on Richland School District Two.  

Sincerely,

Libby Roof

Then Mrs. Roof quickly sent a corrected email, which read,

Clarification

Mr. Philpott,

I just saw a typo in my response to you. I should have stated A proposed 2022-2023 General Fund Budget does not currently exist. The district is still in the input/information gathering steps as outlined on the timeline: https://www.richland2.org/Departments/Business-Services/General-Fund-Budget​.

I apologize for my mistake.

Thank you,

Libby

I appreciated her quick Correction (not really a "Clarification"). It was a simple error and was caught quickly and corrected. No big deal, for me. Frankly, I think she was correct the first time; i.e., that the proposed Budget does exist but isn't ready for publication yet.

Now, the part of the communication that greatly concerned me is this:  

You stated in the April 4 form that you "just wasted a fair amount of time trying to help someone find the proposed FY 2022-2023 General Fund Budget." Based on that statement, I feel compelled to caution you from representing yourself as an official source of information on Richland School District Two.  

Libby Roof knows, and everyone is the District knows, that I have never represented myself an an "official source of information". Not even close! 

So where did that come from?

Does she really "feel" that way? Was she instructed to put that "caution" in her response? Who would have told her to do such a thing? Are all my communications to the District monitored? Do employees do as they are told, even if they object? 

Mrs. Roof is a nice person. Personally, I don't think she ever would have written anything like that on her own. She's a great loyal, trustworthy, kind, reverent, obedient, hard-working employee. 

Go back and read what she put out after the bruhaha in the board room on January 25th. The statement which was put out then had to have been crafted and approved well above the Media Relations Department. (I worked in a corporate HR department of a Fortune 50 company and saw how formal press releases on difficult issues were "massaged" by the lawyers.) There's a two-year Statute of Limitations on that one!

If a threatening message is going to be sent to me from the District, it had better come over the signature of the Superintendent or an attorney for the District, and not from Media Relations. And they'd better have their facts lined up, because they are going to need them. They have found one man who is not intimidated by them and who refuses to be bullied.