Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
At last! It’s June 30, 2014 and it’s the last day for the bitter dregs of the Gilbert Public Schools Good Old Boys to inhabit the big white Temple of Doom and receive big bucks from taxpayers for doing so.
There has been a clean sweep of the old GOB superintendency, and tomorrow will begin the Kishimoto administration. Let’s take a look at some dots that are just begging to be connected before a door is damaged by hitting these folks in the butt.
First, a roll call of the departees:
Dave Allison, a superintendent who blithely shredded public records and ordered a computer server destroyed in the midst of a lawsuit he presided over as plaintiff. Allison destroyed GPS’s ability to present evidence in the federal lawsuit. That stunt cost GPS TWO MILLION DOLLARS at the time that teachers and support staff saw their salaries frozen. That’s just one of Dave’s accomplishments while he reigned over GPS, but the investigations are not finished, so we might find more! The Allison Superintendency, the gift that keeps on giving to the Rabid Fringe.
Clyde Dangerfield, assistant superintendent of B.S. (yep, business services) and chief enabler of GOBs and their evil ways and the GPS dystopia that hopefully will come to an end. You can watch his arrogance and contempt for National Board Certification and NBCTs in GPS on display; in case you’re wondering, that’s a demonstration of lizard brain taking over and pulling off the veneer of civilization in that video.
Shane McCord, a self-professed “non-techie” who landed a job in Mesa Public Schools the day after he announced his resignation from GPS (to be effective many months later, of course). His new job? Executive Director of Innovation and Strategic Projects. Cozy spot for a dude who is going to be spending plenty of time explaining to lawyers and law enforcement why he did the things he did in GPS. We’ll pass the popcorn at the appropriate time.
Jeff Filloon took a bit of a step down from Assistant Superintendent at GPS to Director of Human Resources in Chandler School District. He and his sidekick McCord still haven’t explained why they submitted bogus documentation about work they didn’t do in return for THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS in stipends that their buddy Allison slipped under their doors.
Barb VeNard was double-dipping on a SmartSchoolsPlus contract, so she just flat out quit one day, using her *generous* time off provision to cover the 30 day notice she was required to give GPS. It seems that Good Old Barb the GOB didn’t want to be around to answer questions about the server that was destroyed in her Technology Services department. Those nagging questions about how the technology override funds were spent and how Requests for Proposals and other elements of the GPS bidding process were rigged manipulated ended up benefiting some of Barb’s favorite vendors and *family friends.*
Nikki Blanchard retired before this mass exodus, but she has been coming out of retirement to answer questions in lawsuits against GPS in which she was a named defendant and/or witness. We heard lots of chirping about how she set up her staff for pay raises when no one else in GPS was getting raises … except for certain GOB pals and members of the Loose Zipper Brigade, perhaps. It’s really great to be Queen of HR and Payroll! Apparently, Nikki trained Jeff very well. [gag]
Jack Keegan came in pretending to be a white knight coming to the aid of a dysfunctional superintendency, but the bloom was off that rose in a short time. Good Old Jack had plenty of problems with understanding certain laws, such as producing public records and using GPS resources to affect the outcome of an election. Yessiree, Jack had his favorites on the staff and his favorite lawyers at his beck and call and dinner table. Funny thing, after Good Old Nicole skated and didn’t get in trouble for using district resources to campaign for a (failed) override, Jack had to rescue her again when more monkey business came to light — there’s quite a story behind the fracas in Community Relations and the dots that connect to a massive staff departure. We haven’t told everything we know … yet.
Of the three principals who were named defendants in civil rights lawsuits, Vicki Hester and Debbie Singleton high tailed it out of GPS shortly after the lawsuits settled in favor of the teachers who had experienced discrimination and/or retaliation. We expect they were kept on the payroll while ASRRT, The Trust was defending them because anything less might have been taken as an admission of wrongdoing. It appears GOB Jason Martin apparently pulled a Huppenthal, commenting about himself online in the Arizona Republic with details that only he could know. That and more came out in Jason Martin’s deposition. Maybe he just doesn’t understand the definition of sock puppet. GPS probably just gave him a pass rather than deal with something related to his suitability to *lead* a campus.
Whatever holds Jason Martin and Brian Yee have over GPS, they must be doozies. It’s astounding that being convicted of a crime is no barrier to being a principal in the district. Hmm, we mustn’t forget that The Trust is defending a lawsuit in which Brian Yee is a named defendant, so that might be giving him a certain sense of job security for a while. He should have bought a squirrel when he had the chance.
While it probably would have been humiliating for a principal to know that junior high school students were laughing about the principal and dean being boyfriend and girlfriend over at Highland Junior High School, that was just one of the revelations in the 11 anonymous letters to the board. We expect other revelations in those letters to bite Brian Yee as the truth comes out about other loose zippers in GPS.
Bet Brian Yee didn’t expect his criminal past to become public knowledge … how will he be able to hold up his head before students and staff now?
Dude, why didn’t you get out while you had the chance? Those public records are just going to keep adding fuel to your pants that are on fire … in more ways than one.