Broward County residents increasingly dismayed by brazenness of Broward County Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie & Broward School Board's Ann Murray and Rosalind Osgood's actions re bond $$ transparency & oversight; @Florida_Bulldog @Buddynevins

Broward School Board backs Runcie on keeping public off selection committee http://t.co/Nily1agD1i

— Florida Bulldog (@Florida_Bulldog) May 26, 2015

@NirviShah Broward ethics! MT @Buddynevins Broward Co. students 2 get grad. credit 4 working 2 push $800M bond vote http://t.co/Rn0z4kSBFr …

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) July 22, 2014

Florida Bulldog
Broward School Board backs Runcie on keeping public off selection committee
By William Hladky, FloridaBulldog.org
May 26, 2015

In the face of public suspicion, a majority of the Broward School Board last week allowed Superintendent Robert Runcie’s move to exclude the public from sitting on a committee that will select companies to manage $800 million in voter-approved construction projects.

The suspicion: that Runcie and Derek Messier, his chief facilities officer, want to get around contracting reforms imposed after a scandal in order to control who gets the lucrative management
contracts.

The selection committee’s members will be school board employees only.
School officials have said the public will be able to observe the process, but will not participate.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2015/05/broward-school-board-backs-runcie-on-keeping-public-off-selection-committee/

In many parts of the country, both urban and rural, African-American School Board members often provide a powerful voice for needed reason and basic fairness within the larger community, and frequently, even provide a much-needed moral/ethical backbone and force-multiplier for people and groups who are routinely marginalized by parts of society.
And when they are the superintendents, well...

As we all know, though, in upside-down Broward County, it's Broward taxpayers and citizens in favor of reform and accountability who are consistently marginalized and not just taken advantage of, but played for suckers, by incompetent and corrupt elected officials and agencies. (Over-and-over again.)

But it looks like those particular facts, self-evident to me and so many of you receiving this email, are news to Broward School Board member Rosalind Osgood, someone whom I warned you all about many years ago when she first ran and I discussed her strange notions of conflicts of interest, sense of entitlement and Good Government.

This Florida Bulldog article from earlier this week makes it abundantly clear that Osgood -along with SE Broward's own ethical/moral burden and blemish, Ann Murray- wants to be a voice for keeping the public in the dark as much as possible about how hundreds of millions of dollars are dividied up.
Yes, the better to help her loyal corporate friends!

As this article makes clear, simply by reciting the simple facts and chronology, once again, Broward County's top educators are revealed to be both an outlier to any notions of Best Practices, and an acute embarrassment to the very citizenry they're supposed to represent and the children they are supposed to serve.

It's just as my friend Charlotte Greenbarg and I -and many others- predicted, and told anyone and everyone who'd listen in the months prior to the vote on the Broward School Board bond issue.
The Broward School Board and its smug, unctuous army of highly-paid and self-confident bureaucrats are like the scorpion in the fable of the scorpion and the frog.
They can't help themselves -it's who they are. Surprise!
Except it could not be clearer that it's Broward taxpayers who are being stung!

Some predicates for the above:
MAY 13, 2013
Spring 2013 Observations re Broward School Board: controversial District 1 member Ann Murray gets a challenge from someone who'll go right at her, Felicia Brunson -will a third viable candidate join them by 2014?; Broward School Auditor Patrick Reilly finds more appalling evidence of School system's waste of taxpayer dollars, and as usual, Broward civic activist and Audit Comm. member Charlotte Greenbarg is 100% correct in analyzing the situation and saying it's what we think, too -it's the usual toxic combination of insubordination, entitlement and longstanding incompetency
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/spring-2013-observations-re-broward.html

NOVEMBER 13, 2012
More business-as-usual at Broward School Board is NOT good news for students, parents or taxpayers; Why the need by Broward Schools officials to impose omertà on school volunteers in Broward?; the very curious Hallandale High School roof situation reveals much about School Board's culture; Why is South Florida news media largely ignoring Broward Schools Diversity Comm. and their Audit Comm.?
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/more-business-as-usual-at-broward.html


Dave
Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth
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Speaking of diversity and backsliding on ethics, Broward County School Board becoming an all-female enclave is NOT good news for concerned taxpayers & parents: expect even more micro-managing and time wasted on trivial matters made melodramatic because these particular people, literally, can't help but pander; Broward Schools Supt. Runcie in Hollywood on Thursday night at the Boulevard Heights Community Center

 

Speaking of diversity, as a result of last Tuesday's election results, the Broward County School Board will now be an all-female enclave: expect even more micro-managing and time wasted on trivial matters made melodramatic because these particular people, literally, can't help but pander; Broward Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie to be in Hollywood on Thursday night at  Boulevard Heights Community Center

I was going to post this collection of news and tidbits last Friday afternoon but thought better of it since I thought few would see it then, and as you'll see, I'm glad I waited, since in the time since I first typed some of these words last Friday morning, I've already seen others in the community and in the press writing about the composition of the new School Board who, in my opinion, lack appreciation for why having an all-female School Board is not exactly reason for taxpayers or students to celebrate.

Based on my own observations and what others who are much closer to all things education in Broward County have shared with me about some of the people elected, I think Broward taxpayers and parents have good reason to be concerned about backsliding on ethics.

While I could always turn out to be wrong, my overall sense of things is that this new crew might not only be more spiteful than professional at times, and attempt to make far too many issues that come before them personal, but also indulge a bit too much in creating straw men for them to attack when the Board is being properly chastised by the public or the news media, or otherwise held to account for inaction or bad judgment or lack of fidelity to rules and procedures.

I also suspect that there will be more instances than perhaps need be when after talking for hours, Supt. Robert W. Runcie will say that it's time to stop the talking and time for voting and actions.
This particular crew seems destined to try to talk everything to death, as if that wasn't already enough of a problem with the current crew of characters.

As most of you already know by now, here's what happened last Tuesday:
District 4: Abby Freedman defeated Shelly Solomon
District 5: Rosalind Osgood defeated Torey Alston
At-Large District 8: Donna Korn defeated Franklin Sands
At-Large District 9: Robin Bartleman defeated Barbara Houston Wilson
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/FL/Broward/42272/111826/en/summary.html#

Over the past 2-3 months of observing political campaigning all throughout Hallandale Beach -and Hollywood- such as it was, given that there were never any chance there'd be actual bona fide candidate debates of the sort that everyone here desperately wanted, owing largely to Mayor Joy Cooper, Comm. Anthony A. Sanders and former Comm. Bill Julian desperately NOT wanting to be a part of any event in the city that they could not control, where they'd be forced to answer pointed questions from well-informed citizens, I only once saw a re-elect Robin Bartleman yard sign in a HB resident's front yard.

As it happens, it was located in a front yard in Southwest HB of someone who also had one for do-nothing Comm. Sanders, so you can well imagine what I thought every time I drove past it,
just off of S.W. Third Street -it's not exactly the sort of illustrious company you'd necessarily choose to be associated with.

While I was certainly glad that Bartleman attended the educational forum in HB in June of 2011 on what was REALLY going on at Hallandale High School with respect to what the School Board was doing to remedy longstanding problems that led to a lawsuit that the School Board lost, a forum that my friend, Catherine Kim Owens hosted and superbly moderated, THE first such serious meeting on education in this city during the eight years that I'd lived here up to that point, despite how crucial that subject is in this community for reasons I've previously mentioned here -and yes, Ann Murray was a no-show at that meeting in HB (again) just like Jennifer Gottlieb was!- considering what I'd seen and read about Barteleman's involvement and performance during the disturbing Douglas High School cheerleading coach saga, I'm not sure if her winning was really such a great thing for Broward taxpayers and parents long term.

See my post on that subject from October 8th, titled,
Dynamite! Bob Norman adroitly uses facts and context to lower-the-boom on the Broward School Board for their abysmal handling of the purported Douglas H.S. cheerleader coach 'scandal" -and drops School Board member Katie Leach squarely on her head; One month before the election, docs show Donn Korn opponent Franklin Sands funds his race with lots of money from his stepson’s lobbying firm -shocker!; @mattgutmanABC
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/dynamite-bob-norman-adroitly-uses-facts.html

Last Wednesday I received the following message from the City of Hollywood with the subject header: Meet and Greet Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie

City of Hollywood residents and members of the community are invited to meet Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie on Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. at the Boulevard Heights Community Center, 6770 Garfield St. in Hollywood. Mr. Runcie will be available to answer questions from the public about local public schools and other education issues. Members of the public who are interested in attending and asking Mr. Runcie a question are encouraged to arrive early to fill out a question card. 

Light refreshments will be provided. 
For more information, contact Donna Green at hollyed1@aol.com.

I've now seen and heard Broward Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie three times in person since he was hired by the Broward School Board -twice in Hollywood and once in Hallandale Beach.

(Surprise! Not present at that meeting in HB was School Board Chair Ann Murray, who is this area's representative on the Board, but whom as I've mentioned here so many times, has assiduously avoided showing her face in public in Hallandale Beach for well over a year.)

I've personally videotaped Runcie all three times -and have taken plenty of photos, too- though I've chosen not to post them here or on my YouTube Channel.

At this point, I feel fairly confident that I can tell what direction he's going to take a discussion based upon what the question posed to him is.
That's actually part of the problem -how the questions have so often been posed to him.

I don't know who first told told Mr. Runcie that the idea of having Broward taxpayers and parents write questions via index cards -read by someone else- was a great idea, but it's not.
I see it as both patronizing and condescending and it's precisely the sort of awkward attempt at (mis)communication that the Broward Schools needs to get away from -quick.

Mr. Runcie is very articulate and an agile conversationalist who can talk about a host of issues for long period of time if he wanted to.
He does not need -nor do taxpayers want to see- someone there as a handler, largely to translate what are almost always very understandable questions.

If I'm going to show up for something like this, I think I can also pretty well frame a relevant question for him in the hours and days leading up to the meeting. 
Maybe several, and having attended three of these before, I also know what NOT to ask.

For those folks who show up and can't ask a question in the form of a question, it's not my problem.
Everyone there can either laugh at them or ignore it, but I have to say that this notion that so many School employees are necessary to be present at these get-togethers, to form a phalanx of protection, is getting more preposterous with each passing meeting.
One person will do, nicely, thanks!

If you ask me, that same person could/should also pop a videocamera onto a tripod and point and then get out of the way.
That there hasn't been at least one person within the school system who had the common sense to tape the remarks he's made at any of the dozens of places he's been and put them online on a School system website or a YouTube Channel for taxpayers and parents to see, is ridiculous.
Not tape every meeting but at least one of them?

I seem to personally have more of them on DVDs near my computer than the entire Broward School system does.
What gives with all the continued indifference and half-assed effort?
Where are the signs of those positive changes we were promised? 

Some content originally contained in this post has been moved to: 
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/more-business-as-usual-at-broward.html
More business-as-usual at Broward School Board is NOT good news for students, parents or taxpayers; Why the need by Broward Schools officials to impose omertà on school volunteers in Broward?; the very curious Hallandale High School roof situation reveals much about School Board's culture; Why is South Florida news media largely ignoring Broward Schools Diversity Comm. and their Audit Comm.?

Ethics questions re someone (Rosalind Osgood) who teaches ethics -and her Tallahassee lobbyist friend- who also happens to be a candidate for Broward School Board District 5

Might be time for the South Florida news media to have a nice heart-to-heart talk with Broward School Board candidate Rosalind Osgood, cited in this disturbing piece that I first discovered via one of my many Google Alerts:

Media Trackers
Broward School Board Candidate Tapping Funds from Controversial Lobbyist

By Tom Lauder

24TH AUG 2012 AT 17:05

Broward School Board candidate Rosalind Osgood is tapping funds from controversial Tallahassee lobbyist David E. Ramba, official campaign records show. Heading into the November runoff for the School Board position, Ramba, his companies, and political committees under his control have already given $4,000 to Osgood.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://florida.mediatrackers.org/2012/08/24/broward-school-board-candidate-tapping-funds-from-controversial-lobbyist/

The most obvious question of several would be to ask her what she SPECIFICALLY plans to do for Broward County kids, parents and taxpayers if elected from District 5 that doesn't involve churches.
But then there are all those other obvious questions, too.

On the other hand, her opponent, Torey Alston, has been specific, consistent and articulate about what tangible goals he supports in changing the fractured culture at the very unpopular, disconnected and self-serving elected Broward School Board, where along with their top-heavy administrative staff, their policy-making for years has largely consisted of chasing their tails and getting upset about how they are portrayed (accurately) by the news media who holds a mirror up to them. (That's Ann Murray's specialty!)

Alston has also been specific, consistent and articulate about how he would accomplish those goals if elected -including expanding vocational training opportunities- which is precisely the sort of specifics that civic-minded parents and taxpayers are always calling for in an election year, right?

I mention that here because the political romantic in me thinks THAT should really count for something, something positive, but if nobody in the South Florida news media notices...

And just so we're clear about what I mean by that, that's REAL reporting about the race in the Herald and Sun-Sentinel that consists of more than a dozen two-sentence paragraphs about their bios AFTER Early Voting has already started.
To say nothing of what ought to be on TV newscasts.

That is, if the news media really believes that public education is as important as they keep saying it is, even while the Herald STILL lacks an engaged and well-informed Education blog in the year 2012.

Just saying...