R2 agenda: "Security at Public Meetings"

Here it comes, folks.

The National School Boards Association (NSBA) went trotting off the Joe Biden's territory with trembling shoulders, worried looks and tears in their eyes, and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is flapping his arms now and getting ready to pounce on poor, old, defenseless parents because a few school boards and their members "feel" intimidated by the increasing numbers of concerned parents showing up at board meetings.

And well those parents should be showing up, with all the Marxist activities being jammed down the throats of the little kiddies in the seats in front of all those so-important teachers who are spouting Critical Race Theory and its components behind the closed doors of the schools. 

Look how quickly "Security at Public Meetings" is showing up on a school board agenda!

You think it's not here in Richland 2? You're hearing the buzzwords; right? Equity? Inclusion? Diversity? Black, instead of black. But you don't see White anywhere, do you? Of course not.

Why this blogpost?

On the October 12th Agenda for the R2 School Board's Executive (private, confidential, secret) Session is "Security at Public Meetings".

The only time security has ever been needed, in recent memory, was at a January school board meeting where a trustee was accosted in the lobby after a meeting. And then she got arrested, instead of the man who looked (on the video) like he was assaulting her with his cell phone jammed right in her face. The deputies arrested the wrong person. 

Did I speak too forcefully at the September 28th meeting? Was I too loud? Too pointed? Too direct? Keep in mind that what I was doing was reading an email from trustee-elect Teresa Holmes to me that she had sent on September 15 at 10:57PM.

Did I lose sleep and cry out that I felt intimidated by that email? Did I run off to the sheriff's department and file a harassment complaint against Teresa Holmes?

If you want to hear my words and tone, go to the video of the September 28th meeting. You'll find it at livestream.com/richland2  Fast-forward to 1:30:36. I read verbatim what she sent me. This is what she emailed me:

"Gus, I have often tolerated you hateful remarks and email. However, this time you have gone too far.  I lost my husband Rev. Dr. Jacob A. Holmes Jr. 4 years ago which, I know you are fully aware of.  I will no longer tolerate nor concern myself with your continuous diatribe of falsehoods and insults.  After this message you are officially blocked from any further contact   with me.  Go spout your hate on those who care  about you and what your deceitful lying  mouth has to say.....Do not contact  me again or include me in your racist, hateful. lying  remarks or emails.  It is sad that someone of your advanced age is not concerned about your mortality and relationship with God.  I will pray that God will forgive your outright evilness and have mercy for your pitiful soul.  It has to be hard working on being so evil.  

       

Widower,

Dr. Teresa Holmes 

#Officallydonewithyourfoolishness"

Should the Richland 2 Board be proud of that email, sent by the person they improper elected as board chair on June 29, 2020? A person not even legitimately on the board, because she has never taken the oath of office legally. And, since not even a legitimate board member, she cannot serve as board chair. But there she is.

Will Holmes be sanctioned by the other board members? If a motion for that is made, it will fail. She should abstain from the vote, and then the vote will be 3-3, which is a failing vote. The vote ought to be 6-0, but there is no chance of that. Holmes is certain to get the protective votes of Manning, McKie and Caution-Parker.

If the Richland 2 Board starts crying "Wolf", parents had better be ready to stand up and face them down. Peaceably, of course. 

As I have told more than one deputy assigned to the Richland 2 Board meetings, if anyone attempts to harm a trustee, trustee-elect or any staff member, I'll be the first there to prevent it. 

Now, if their feelings get hurt, that's not from intimidation. They just need to spend a little more time at their therapist's office.

Intimidation?

Created 10/8/2021. Saved.

Does a school board or District official intimidate members of the public when it tells them that a board member is intimidated by them? Is that a prelude to arrest?

What will most members of the public do? They'll hunker down. They'll pull their heads into their shells. They'll quiet down. They'll be afraid. They'll go away. They'll stop asking questions about racist programs in the schools. They'll stop asking about Critical Race Theory and gender-identity curricula and sex education in kindergarten. They'll stop emailing. They'll stop posting on Facebook. They'll stop writing blogposts.

On September 28 Supt. Davis told me that one board member had told him she felt intimidated by me.

I emailed him for more information about that, because I certainly have done nothing to cause that board member (or any board member) to feel intimidated by me.

His reply?

"Mr. Philpott, 

"Thank you for your email. I am not a liberty to share my personal conversation with you.  

"Warmest Regards,"

I'm planning the next steps now. "personal conversation"? He didn't have any problem addressing me in the R2i2 lobby, in front of another member of the public, a deputy and an R2 security office and "sharing his personal conversation" on September 28. He even mentioned the board member's name!

What is "personal" about a board member's complaint to him about intimidation? That's official business! That's not "personal" conversation.

And I say that complaint never happened. If it did, it was a false complaint. Are someone's feelings hurt by opposing viewpoints? That is not a cause of intimidation.

As I have found myself saying more often lately, "I was born at night, but not last night."

And what's with the "Warmest Regards"? It's just a meaningless boilerplate closing.

What is a School Board Commissioner (in Richland 2)?

Recently I asked Richland 2 to update the biographical profile of trustee-elect Teresa Holmes, who is being allowed to serve as board chair, because she was no longer employed by the Fairfield County School District. She was also identified as a "widower" which, I was pretty sure, was not correct.

Today I happened to read her Facebook page, and I see that she still describes herself as "Assistant Administrator /Guidance at Fairfield County School District", which isn't correct.

According to Fairfield County School District she was a "School Counselor/Lead Teacher" with some administrative responsibilities if the CTC Director was absent. She separated from FCSD on August 1, 2021. Shouldn't she change her Facebook page to reflect that as her former employment?

Separately, Holmes lists "Assistant Administrator/Guidance/Adjunct Professor at Guidanc [sic] Counselor/Adjunct Professor" (whatever that is supposed to mean).

I wonder where "Guidanc [sic] Counselor/Adjunct Professor is located. Is there any organization by that name?

I doubt that Facebook has a Fact Checker on titles like that.

And, on the very top line, she identifies herself as a School Board "Commissioner". Holmes was elected to the Richland 2 School Board on November 6, 2018, and she should know by now that Richland 2 does not have school board commissioners. Why would she ever use that title? Richland 2 has trustees. Did she think she was elected to the Richland 1 Board, where they do have commissioners?

What are your thoughts? Should people elected to public office kept their profiles and public information up-to-date and correct? Comments below, please.

The Power of the Cancel Culture

Take 5-6 minutes now and read this article about a University of Chicago professor whose lecture at MIT was canceled.

I encourage your special attention to the paragraph beginning "On August 12..." Just in case you don't take time for the article itself, here is that paragraph:

"On August 12, a colleague and I wrote an op-ed in Newsweek in which we argued that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) as it currently is implemented on campus “violates the ethical and legal principle of equal treatment” and “treats persons as merely means to an end, giving primacy to a statistic over the individuality of a human being.” We proposed instead “an alternative framework called Merit, Fairness, and Equality (MFE) whereby university applicants are treated as individuals and evaluated through a rigorous and unbiased process based on their merit and qualifications alone.” We noted that this would mean an end to legacy and athletic admission advantages, which significantly favor white applicants." 

How often do you hear "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" right here in Richland 2? Do you really understand what it means and what happens in the school system when those words become the rules, the process, the policy?

What happens to the rights of others? of everyone else?

The Richland 2 superintendent's pet project is "100 Premier Men of Color", because he and some on the board want a face at the front of the classroom that looks like the faces in the seats in the classroom. In other words, black students in the seats? Black face up front.

Isn't that really racism?

And the superintendent told the board that he is not even evaluated on that project. So, why is it in the  Richland 2 school system? 

Why doesn't the board direct him to submit his project to the board for evaluation, consideration and approval (or not)?

He might want to think about hurrying to do that. Should the composition of the board shift in November 2022, a new board might tell him to shut down that project.

Are Communications with me "safe"?

From time-to-time I have mentioned that email to me is safe from prying eyes. Why do I say that? Because it is.

I wrote a blog in Illinois and frequently found fault with the sheriff's department and a number of police departments in the county. People thought I didn't like cops. That's not true. I like cops who believe the laws are for them, too. They should be first to obey the laws, not last.

A number of deputies fed me the dirt from the sheriff's department, and it was driving the sheriff crazy. He couldn't find the leaks. After the sheriff fired a deputy who had complained about racial profiling (and had three years' worth of documentation to prove it), that deputy filed a Federal wrongful-termination lawsuit.

The sheriff had his attorney subpoena 27 months' worth of my blog records as part of that case. As soon as I received the subpoena, I knew I was not going to reveal sources. The deputies (and others) were counting on my word never to reveal sources. So I wrote up a Motion to Quash and filed it pro se in the Federal courthouse.

That was in 2010, and I filed it in person. When the court clerk told me that the magistrates heard such motions on Wednesdays and Fridays and asked when I wanted the court date, I asked, "What do you have in 2015?" She laughed and told me I couldn't put it off that long, and she gave me a court date 30 days later.

I shined my shoes and put on my best suit (my only suit) and went to court. When my matter was called, the magistrate asked me one or two questions, and he turned to the sheriff's attorney. He told her that her motion had nothing to do with the (deputy's wrongful termination) case and that the sheriff was just on a "fishing expedition" (his words). 

"Mr. Philpott, you have won your motion." I was feeling seven feet tall as I walked out of the courtroom.

Of course, it could have gone the other way. He could have ordered me to produce the records. I had already hidden them and would not have done so. If he had threatened me with Contempt of Court and jail, I would have told him my car was in hourly parking across the street and asked if I could take it home (40 miles away) before going to jail. Federal judges don't usually have a sense of humor, but I would have tried it, anyway.

I might have sat in jail weeks or months, but he never would have gotten any names out of me.

So, your email to me is safe. Write to gusphilpott@gmail.com or call 847.971.7083

Look out - here comes the DOJ

You read last week about the National School Boards Association running off to the Biden Administration for help; right?

Now read this: 

DOJ launching effort to combat threats of violence against school officials

Here's a little story that might help you decide what to do when the FBI knocks on your door.

On March 20, 2019 trustee-elect Teresa Holmes filed a harassment report against me at the Richland County Sheriff's Department (RCSD). I had sent an email to all board members on that Wednesday morning, telling the board if Holmes and McKie were not going to be sworn in legally by the next Tuesday's board meeting, then I intended to file charges on Friday (two days later). That was at 10:30AM.

By 1:00PM Holmes was at the RCSD, 27 miles from her Blythewood school place of employment, and registering her complaint with Deputy Jenkins.

 

On the next afternoon, while I was cleaning up dog poop in my backyard, my cell phone rang. I answered, and it was a Deputy Sergeant calling from RCSD to tell me he had a report in front of him that I had been harassing a school board member. Thanks to my law-enforcement experience, I immediately thought of the Miranda Rights ("Anything you say, can and will be used against you in a court of law"), and I knew I wasn't going to "give" him anything. He didn't know that, though.

So I said, "That's interesting." After he talked a little longer, I thanked him for calling and said Good-bye. He said he wasn't done yet. I asked, "Is there something else?"

He said he would like to get my side of the story, and I said, "I'm sure you would."

I knew I wasn't going to tell him a thing on the phone. I said I wanted to read the report, and he told me to come on down (to RCSD). When I got there, he greeted me at the door and escorted me upstairs to the office of the Deputy Chief of Criminal Investigations. Now, I was not intimidated at all by that, and I walked right in, shook hands with the DC and sat down. They pushed the report across the table to me.

"Before I read this, I'm going to tell you a little story. When I lived in Denver, the minister of the church I attended was accused by his former step-daughter of molestation. The girl, by then an adult, was mad that the minister and her mother had divorced. (She later retracted her accusation.) A Denver Post reporter saw the minister on a sidewalk one day and asked him about the charge. He said, "Young lady, if I weren't a minister, I'd say it's all bullshit." The reporter printed his exact words in the Denver Post.

Then I read the report about Holmes' complaint. I told the DC and the Sergeant. "This is all bullshit. I wasn't going to "give" you anything, but I am." I pointed to each sentence in the deputy's report. "This is a lie. This is a lie. This is a lie. This is a lie. This is a lie. You haven't got anything."

At one point the sergeant said in a surly voice, "You just want those two women kicked off the board."

I didn't take the bait. I paused and said calmly, "No, I just want them to take the oath of office and become legal members of the board." 

The decision at RCSD was that no crime had been committed. 

That was March 21, 2019. Holmes and McKie still have not taken the oath of office legally. They are not legitimate members of the board. They cannot serve as officers of the board. And yet???

The morale of the story. When the FBI or SLED or RCSD or the cops show up at your door, if you don't know your rights and what you are doing, keep your mouth shut! "You have the right to remain silent." Exercise that right. Be polite, but exercise your rights!!!

Where is Red4Ed?

Remember when teachers walked out for a May 1 rally at the State Capitol?

Richland 2 wasn't going to close. For 2-3 weeks, "schools will be open". Then the board and the superintendent caved. How many of the then-Board members spoke in favor of the walk-out. (They forgot they were "Management" Or maybe they never knew.) On just the day before May 1, the District announced schools would be closed.

Did all the teachers get paid for that day?

I certainly never heard about any of them whining about not getting paid.

Maybe ALL the teachers should walk out on behalf of those who must quarantine.

For a teacher who must quarantine, it's not like he went skinny-dipping in Lake Michigan on January 1 and got pneumonia.

Teachers don't have a choice about being at the front of the classroom, when kids show up and sneeze or cough. Then Little Johnny (no offense, Johnny) comes up with a positive COVID-19 test, and suddenly Rules apply.

Maybe it's just a little misunderstanding that some teachers are being told they will not get paid during quarantine. 

Or maybe it's not.