Knee-jerk Reaction at White Knoll High School

Today's The State reports that overly-sensitive White Knoll High School in the Lexington One school district has kicked out four students over a home-made video that was created off school property and off school time.

Read the article here.

The students recorded a video for Tik Tok about which White Knoll Principal Ted Daughtrey said, "the unacceptable and disturbing actions of these students negatively impact their school and all of our students ...” 

Lexington 1 superintendent Greg Little piled on with, “We strongly condemn the actions of these students. Racism, in any form, will not be tolerated by our students or staff and will be addressed immediately.”

Of course, no details were provided about what constituted "racism".

Have you noticed how, on some days, if you just blow your nose on the wrong color of Kleenex, you'll be accused of being a racist? 

Why do I think that the reaction in Lexington One will be a local lawyer's dream come true? How quickly will the parents of those four students "lawyer up" and sink their teeth into Lex One's checkbook?

I, for one, can't wait to hear how much they walk away with.

Should Caution-Parker resign?

Should Caution-Parker resign over the profanity she is accused of uttering on Richland 2 school property after the October 12th board meeting at R2i2? If she doesn't, could she be prosecuted? 

Imagine what would happen to a student who uttered those words on campus! Would he (or she) be given a "fair trial" by the superintendent and kicked out of school?

Would the board miss her? She seldom speaks up, except to second standard motions made by trustee-elect Amelia McKie. Oh, and to utter "Tough!" in response to a Motion by Trustee Scott, which had been seconded by Trustee Agostini, on that same night.

Let's see; if Caution-Parker resigned, if Holmes and McKie finally got removed from office because they are on the board illegally, and if a fourth trustee on the Squad had to resign, that would clear the way for a conservative board to bring order and professionalism back to the Richland 2 school district. After a special election, of course, to fill the four empty chairs.

Just imagine four empty chairs at the front of the room. The first order of business would have to be an emergency action to change the number required for a quorum. But could the remaining three Trustees even do that?

What would be the first thing they'd do? Run the curricula of the District through a sieve and filter out all the Critical Race Theory-type material. And get back to educating students!

She said WHAT?

Disgusting words attributed to Richland 2 school board trustee Cheryl Caution-Parker have now hit The State newspaper.

This is the trustee with "the mouth".

This is what 40 years of experience looks like - or one year of experience, 40 times.

Reporter Lucas Daprile's story today is titled Richland 2 school board member accused of saying ‘F— you’ to protester in video

Read all about it. Click on the story headline to read it. I was there that night (October 12) but did not personally hear Caution-Parker. When I heard about it, I emailed Sheriff Lott and asked him to obtain a report from the deputy who escotted Caution-Parker and Holmes to their cars. He definitely would have heard her words.

It was definitely a contentious meeting, but the shouting that went on was inside the meeting room and among the trustees (and trustees-elect) themselves, not among the public. 

Ok, well, I got blistered by the board chair and ordered to stop speaking during public participation, but I did not shout back. 

And, after I got home, I thought about breaking out the first-aid kit and bandaging my head for a photo opp. Looking back, I should have done it. But there will always be a next time.

ICYMI: "Systemic Racism" is a pandemic

Just when you think you've heard it all, up pops something to top it.

The woke folks in Montgomery County, Maryland have been outed for really stupid thinking. "Systemic racism" joins COVID-19 to petrify and terrorize students (and teachers and parents) as a pandemic.

But the good news is Parents Are Waking Up. 

See this FoxNews article published today, November 4, about Critical Race Theory and Ibram X. Kendi's book that is "perfect" for babies up to 3 years old. Yeah, sure... Start indoctrinating them early, before they can walk, talk, read, write.

The icing on the cake is that last sentence in the article: 

"Thomas Pyle Middle School's social justice class taught students that the phrase 'Make America Great Again' was an example of 'covert white supremacy'."

This is the fight, folks. And we have to get it stopped right here.

Public Participation - 10/26/2021

Be sure to listen to and watch the Public Participation portion of the October 26, 2021 school board meeting.

You will find it at livestream.com/richland2  Click on the October 26 meeting. Then advance the timer to 1:34:10 and listen to all ten speakers.

Joe Trapp had, for me, the hardest hitting comments, when he addressed the District's department for Diversity & MultiCultural Inclusion. Listen to his remarks carefully and then view the District's page for this department. 

Joe's suggestion to the District was to disband that department. I second that.

There was a comment at the end of the meeting about the correct form of address for Helen Grant, the Chief Officer for this department. Should she be referred to as "Dr. Grant"? Well, the short answer to that is "No". She is a lawyer by education, and lawyers are not addressed as "Dr." just because their degree is a J.D. (Juris Doctorate).

Read the letter on that department's page, dated March 23, 2021, about the violence directed against the Asian community. Does anyone today even know what that violence was? Did the board of trustees approve that public letter on the District's webpage? Why does Helen Grant, head of just one department in the District, get to issue a letter of sympathy on behalf of the Richland 2 District?

Now listen to Joe Trapp's remarks again (1:59:55).

And listen again to Stephen Gilchrist's remarks again. He hit the nail on the head. (2:03:07)

Loudoun County Sheriff says "No"

Read this article about the Loudoun County (Va.) Sheriff's Office, which looked carefully at the demands of the school district and then decided not to supply the manpower that was demanded.

The Loudoun County sheriff's office was asked for K-9 units, undercover deputies, a "five-person Quick Reaction Force", and a special ops unit. 

All this makes me wonder how much manpower Richland 2 asked the Richland County Sheriff's Department for, and for what reasons. There were four-five deputies inside, and there were reports of patrol cars moving outside R2i2. 

Richland 2 parents and community members certainly have not gathered in numbers anywhere closer to the numbers in Loudoun County, and public remarks have been relatively civil.

The same cannot be said for the arguing and bickering led by the board chair, Teresa Holmes, at several board meetings before the October 26th meeting. Somebody must have sat her down and made it plain to her that she should not continue to act as a dictator, bully or tyrant. 

Parents, community members and even some board members want to know how much "security" did cost the District on last Tuesday evening. 

If that cost isn't made public at the November 16th board meeting, then I'll file a FOIA request and post the response after I receive it. 

The public knows who the "Core Four" are - Holmes, McKie, Manning and Caution-Parker. 

Who (on the board) was it who tried to deflect the "Core Four" term to the four principles of something or other?

On behalf of the parents and community members at the October 26 board meeting, I say Thanks to Sheriff Lott for assigning deputies with good people skills. They understand what's going off at Richland 2 and that the upset, dissention, "noise" was all generated from the front of the room (i.e., by the board chair) on October 12 and at earlier meetings. 

When I was asked to step out of the meeting briefly on October 12th, after Holmes sicced "security" on me, Will Anderson told me he was trying to get things calmed down. I told Will that he had asked the wrong person to step out of the room with him. He needed to have asked Teresa Holmes to step out of the room and calm down. 

That, of course, was not going to happen, because Holmes acts like she is the superintendent's commander-in-chief. Anderson's boss is the superintendent. If Anderson had asked Holmes to step out of the room and calm down, Anderson would have been in the unemployment line the next day.

Who is (not) Dr. ___?

There was a discussion at the end of the October 26 board meeting about whether Helen Grant should be addressed at Dr. Grant. Trustee Monica Scott raised the question that I began thinking about months ago when I realized that Helen Grant was an attorney with a J.D. (Juris Doctorate) degree and not an educational doctorate, such as Ed.D. or a doctorate such as Ph.D. Even if she had those, she - in her current employment position - should not be addressed as Dr. Grant.

I've known many attorneys over the years. I worked closely with attorneys when I was a C.L.U. in the life insurance business. As a member of the Rocky Mountain Estate Planning Council in Denver, I worked with bank trust officers, CPAs, other life insurance agents and attorneys who specialized in estate planning and business planning. Never once did I ever hear an attorney referred to as Dr. ____.

When I worked in a large Fortune 100 corporation and worked with attorneys there, no one ever referred to himself as Dr. _____.

When I worked for three years in a suburban Chicago law firm, I never heard an attorney referred to as Dr. ____.

And then I came across Richland 2 School District and begin hearing "Dr. Grant", now the Chief Diversity and Multicultural Inclusion Officer. Then I learned that she is an attorney, not an educator.

The correct form of address for Helen Grant is "Mrs. Grant", not "Dr. Grant" and not "Attorney Grant".

Trustee Scott was allowed by the Chair to ask the superintendent how Mrs. Grant should be addressed. First of all, RONR requires questions to be addressed to the Chair. But everybody in the room should have known what the superintendent's response was going to be. Of course, he was going to answer, "Dr. Grant."

Well, he's wrong. Am I the only one in town to say so?