By Antonio D. French
Filed Wednesday, January 31, 2007 at 11:05 AM
The most contentious moment of last night's public hearing on the future of St. Louis Public Schools came when controversial School Board President Veronica O'Brien attempted to read her statement expressing support for immediate state intervention. Labels: Schools
O'Brien has become a lightning rod and the face of all that is wrong with the current school board. She has been accused of intentionally sabotaging the district, buying personal items on a district credit card, and allowing her personal grudges to get in the way of board business. And now an online petition is circulating asking for O'Brien's immediate resignation.
The petition, started by Steve Patterson of Urban Review STL, states:
To: Veronica O'Brien
We respectfully request that you resign your position as President of the St. Louis School Board effective immediately. The reasons are numerous but here are a few:
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
Since the petition started this morning, 31 people (including School Board Vice-President Bill Purdy) have signed it.
Click here to view the petition.
10 Comments:
Slay may have been the one who initially appointed this nut to replace another nut. But it was ironically all the Slay-haters who voted to keep her on the board and even bring back another nut of their own, Purdy.
Veronica, you go girl! Be as crazy as you want. State takeover, here we come!
1/31/2007 11:43 AM
Antonio, thank you for all your hard work continuing to cover meetings related to the St. Louis Schools. Your reporting is helpful when I am unable to personally attend a meeting.
I wanted to clarify for your readers, my petition is asking that she resign as President of the board, not necessarily resign from the board.
1/31/2007 2:18 PM
I agree with Anon 11:43 -
Slay may have appointed Veronica (I don't thnk she's a "nut" though) but it was this band of self-serving teachers and those on their payroll (directly or indirectly) who helped her get elected. She simply out-smarted Purdy in getting the top seat on the Board and now Purdy is upset that a Black Woman out-thought him.
As a parent of children in the district, and a uncle to many more, I have yet to see this board put forth a plan to make accademic achievement one of their priorities. They seem to focus on everything else - teacher's jobs & pensions, criticizing others w/o offering their own plans, "bad" parents, charter/private schools, etc. And at the head of the ship is Lizard Brown - a woman who has never raised a child, who has never worked in a school, who couldn't make it as a lawyer so she took to the radio to tear others down AND who works for the highest bidder. She couldn't stand Bill Purdy until he started sending contracts her way. The same was true going back to when Cleve Hammands was in the district; it wasn't until the district gave her a contract that she stopped barking at and about him.
Fortunately there are other solutions to the matter of educating children. First is the State establishing a Board to give oversite and direction to the District (not "take it over"), then their is the school choice bill that has been working it's way through the legislature.
My children don't have time to wait for this system to get fixed, every day they spend in this system is a day of thier lives lost. I also don't feel I should have to depend on luck to get my child into a Magnet school or luck to win the lottery and pay for their education.
Telling a parent of a child in this district "wait, things are going to get better" in this district is no different than during the Jim Crow era when we had segregationist telling us to "wait until we can build you a better school". Or even worse telling someone that they have to live in substandard housing just because they are on Section 8, when there are better home available to live in. Those families don't care who owns the house, they just want a clean, safe, comfortable environment to live in.
I can just see Liz Brown on a plantation with Purdy & Downs as her masters and she telling the other enslaved people "Don't leave here to go North, big business owns everything up there. Why ya'll want to leave? Right here on the plantation everything is given to us." Then she leaves the group to go into the Plantion House to eat steak, potatoes, and hot cornbread - leaving the others to fend for themselves of the scraps of the hogs!!!"
1/31/2007 4:44 PM
Ms. Lizz Brown cares about the children and is not looking to lead the parents wrong. However, Bill Purdy is a closet politician that will say one thing in your face and do another thing behind your back. Bill Purdy is leading the charge for a state takeover behind closed doors and writing letters to say he is against a state takeover. Bill Purdy should come clean about who he really is and how he lead the charge to make Veronica O'Brien president of the school board. Bill Purdy wants the money out of the school system so that he can retire comfortable. Bill Purdy is as slick as they come and is working with Peter Downs to give contracts and jobs to their friends. Diana Bourisaw puts on this fake smile, and is ruining our schools all the while. Visit the schools and see for yourself how bad the discipline is and the horrible learning environment that children face everyday. Bill Purdy, Peter Downs, and Diana Bourisaw don't care about inner city children or their parents or else they would be addressing real issues that would improve education. Instead they want to give Flint Fowler the power to sign contracts on behalf of the St. Louis Public Schools, and do you think that is the most important issue for our children's educational environment to improve. Giving Flint Fowler the power to sign contracts and why does Diana Bourisaw care so much about these contracts. They all want to control the contracts that are awarded and the people that are hired. The problem is not the teachers in the school district or principals. The problem is the lack of discipline in the schools and neither the school board nor the superintendent knows how to deal with it. These people are putting a smoke screen over your eyes and robbing the school system blind, while hiring all of their inept friends. If there is going to be a petition circulated let it be for everyone on the school board and the superintendent to resign. While you are at it, get rid of the state appointed people that were given the task to review the St. Louis Public Schools, because they don't know what they are talking about either. All of these state people are out of touch with the reality that our youth and parents face.
Signed for now on,
THE WIZARD OF OZ
1/31/2007 5:07 PM
Why do I get the impression Richard Callow is writing to stir things up? Amy Hilgemann can't be far behind "looking through a glass darkly."
1/31/2007 7:25 PM
Wiz, you can't have much firsthand knowledge of SLPS. Anyone who does has seen the deterioration since Slay spent a fortune getting his people elected. Do you not get it? They want to skim off cash - not educate our kids. When you practically give away a school building that housed one of the highest scoring programs in the district, without regard to the fate of that program, you can't plead, "It's all about the children." It's all about favors for friends, vouchers for parochial schools (who do not even have to give State tests, or accept special needs students), and contracts to outsource whatever gets you the biggest campaign contributions. Wake up and smell the coffee, Polyanna!
1/31/2007 7:52 PM
some of you are beneath comtempt; and dont have a flipping clue disrespecting Bill Purdy and others like that.
Wizard, I presume "signed for now on" was meant to be "signed from now on? what a dope! the only kind of contempt some of you are not beneath is your own.
1/31/2007 11:48 PM
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
2/01/2007 7:35 AM
has anyone checked to see why this Chip guy is no longer working for the board. Reports are saying he used the board credit card without approval and Dr. Bourisaw knew it and this is all documented. Someone said his mom works for the mayor and she has a background of fraud also. Maybe they should look a little closer at this Chip guy and his mother.
2/01/2007 10:49 PM
Wiz,
You are right about at least one thing. The biggest problem being discipline. I would add discipline & learning disabilities. (Sorry to those who don't want to face the truth) I don't know if the board and Dr. Bourisaw know how to deal with it or not but it does result in the largest amount of lost learning time by far.
Ironically, state-imposed interventions are the second leading contributor to wasted time! Reading First, for example, is IMPOSSIBLE to implement in a classroom of highly disruptive students. These are the classrooms that often don't make AYP which results in the implementation of the program. Yet it is a state mandated program that we are forced to waste time on. It is designed for an idyllic classroom that rarely exists in this district. When you ask how can we possibly implement this you are told to have your teachers aides or other NON-EXISTENT people help you!
God help us if the state comes in and gives us MORE of this.
By the way...any names for all of these friends being hired?
2/03/2007 12:16 AM
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