Circuit Court - Terrible (and wrong) Decision

Remember the 2015 incident in a classroom at Spring Valley High School. Yeah; that one.

The one where a "child" got into it with Deputy Ben Fields. Niya Kenny grabbed her phone and said some untrue things about Deputy Fields as he put the other girl on the floor. Had Kenny begun recording sooner, the public likely would have felt differently about the situation. 

Media failed to report the whole incident. Sort of like, later, when Sgt. Pentland got into it with a young black man in The Summit. I heard there were other videos in circulation about the Spring Valley incident. They were not favorable to the disruptive student. 

The incident prompted my first "nastygram" to Sheriff Lott. I believed he had fired Fields too quickly. I still believe that. I emailed him that there was no way he could have given Fields a full, fair, impartial investigation in only two days before he fired Fields.

I fully understood the racial aspects of the incident. But he threw Fields under the bus too quickly. And one of the reasons that the two girls were not prosecuted in Columbia was that Fields had been fired too quickly.

Soon after that, I talked with the son of a friend in another state about that incident. I had felt it was mishandled in the school. The son, who is a SRO, told me that the first thing that should have happened, after the Assistant Principal arrived, was that the teacher should have removed all the other students from the classroom. That would have removed the "audience" and been a good first-step in de-escalation.

The Assistant Principal should have then been able to get the minor student to leave the classroom and go to the office. If that failed, then you get the SRO.

Now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, in Richmond, Va., has ruled in an appeal, saying in part, “The disorderly conduct law fails to give South Carolina’s schoolchildren fair warning about what it prohibits and vests practically unfettered discretion in those charged with its enforcement.”

Can you believe that hogwash? Just imagine the disruption that will continue to occur after a decision like that!

Read more about it here.

Richland 2 Meal Plan Debt

Don't miss the article in the Post and Courier about Richland 2's meal plan debt! Reporter Ian Grenier nails it.

65% owe less than $25? I seriously doubt that. If that is true, just wipe it off the books and forget it. You don't pay somebody $100,000/year to collect $25.

90% owe less than $100? I doubt this, too.

Put up a sign in the lunch rooms. 

"NO MORE FREE (or Reduced Price) FOOD (unless you qualify)"

I wonder what a spreadsheet would look like, prioritized by each child's debt, after throwing out the Free Meal Plan kiddies. The kids owing the most are probably the ones with Air Jordans, the BMWs, the iPhones, etc. My guess, anyway.

Don't forget under whose administration this debt went out of control. Baron Davis was the superintendent. And you know who was on the board. Was that one of the reasons he "resigned"?

Why didn't Davis tell the board about the problem and propose a solution? He was in charge of finding a solution, not the board.

The District ought to subtract that $547,861 meal plan debt from Baron's $615,000 settlement. How would that be for "equity"?

UNC-Chapel Hill : no mo' woke

Check out this FoxNews article on the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

University of North Carolina moves to ban ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ statements in anti-woke backlash

Ah, if only Richland 2 would follow suit.

Read the article here.

Whew!!! $615,000 to Baron Davis!!!

I spotted the termination agreement between Baron Davis and Richland 2 on Facebook, before I saw that the District had emailed its FOIA response to me at 4:06PM today.

What did it cost Richland 2 to "accept" Davis' resignation? $615,000.

$415,518.68, less normal payroll deductions; plus

$124,481.32 for 97.75 days of unused sick leave and 22 vacation days, less normal payroll deductions; plus

$  75,000.00 to settle all disputed claims. 

$615,000

That's about one-half of what he could have gotten, had he held out for 100% of his contract. It was a great deal for him. A $615,000 payday and no fight about it.

Is there any doubt that the bottom drawer of his desk at home was filled with job offers? 

Now Richland 2 has to deal with the mess from the S.C. Inspector General's Report.

Remember, that Report was generated for the time that Davis was Superintendent and that the Board was dominated by four trustees who are no longer there. 

The new board has to deal with the fall-out of that Report and the costs associated with the clean-up.

 

Read the termination agreement. How many hours were required to negotiate, write and execute that Agreement? What did that cost Richland 2? Did they pay the whole freight or did Davis, since he "resigned", pay for it?

Dangerous? Demented?

 Am I a dangerous and demented individual?

Remember that school board meeting when I complained about too many SROs at school board meetings and too much money being wasted hiring deputies to be at school board meetings.

I think I also said that, if I saw anyone attempting to threaten or harm any member of the school board, I'd be right there to protect them - any of them!

There has not been even one Richland 2 school board meeting where trustees have had any reason to be concerned about their safety.

There was one (February 8, 2022), when school board members should have been concerned for the safety of the public - the audience. Remember that one? Remember the threats made toward the white men in the audience and toward me, even though I was not in the audience?

How did the board handle that? Not a peep out of any of them. No interruption of the speaker by the Board Chair (Holmes) or by then-Supt. Davis or by Security or by RCSD. Holmes even thanked the speaker at the end of his three-minute rant.

If you've forgotten that (or don't know about it), go to the February 8, 2022 school board meeting here and advance the timer to 1:46:03

Black History Month - more important than I.G.'s Report?

Is Black History Month more important in Richland 2 than the Inspector General's Report?

Based on use of livestream.com by Richland 2, I say it is.

Last Tuesday there was an important meeting of a school board committee on the I.G.'s Report. Livestreaming of it had been requested. And not approved. So, if you weren't there, you don't know what happened.

But Black History Month's celebration is to be broadcast on Livestream by Richland 2. 

Re Black History Month, I encourage you to watch this PragerU video, featuring Pastor Dumisani Washington. The title of this video is "How Twisting History Has Hurt Young Black Men".

I.G. Report Committee Meeting - Today, 6:00PM

Why isn't this February 21st committee meeting being livestreamed?

Many community members are interested in the work of this committee. How simple it would be to livestream it, so that the community could either view it live or watch the recording at their own convenience?

Perhaps at the next board meeting someone on the committee will explain to the public why it wasn't livestreamed.

If you haven't read the Report yet, or wish to read it again, click here: 

https://oig.sc.gov/sites/oig/files/Documents/Reports/2022/Inspector_General's_Investigation_of_Richland_School_District_Two.pdf