Well many of you may know Board Member Tobi Jackson who was elected to represent District 2 which covers most of East Fort Worth. For the past months until her announced resignation from Prime Prep, she took on the lead of the academy. The academy has been marred with so much negativity and bad decisions by adults. In all students who were former FWISD enrollees made the decision to join the academy as it was touted mainly because of the Deion Sanders. We questioned how an elected member of a public school system would endorse a charter. We heard from both sides and she indicated that her job was no different than someone who lives in another district being a board member in ours. Others weren't so fast to forgive because how can you be for public schools and represent it and then advocate for charter schools. Well in one of her recent Facebook postings she indicates that these are public charter schools because they receive state funding. Obviously she boasts about her schools and the improvements thereof and yet children were going to another institution. Why would the children not stay in FWISD? If things were going great, why leave? Tobi turns a blind eye to the issues affecting our kids and not until she went to Prime Prep did she begin to realize that our kids are affected by extreme poverty. Hence she called on the mayor and everyone else to join her for a walk to help the students. So since 2010 she had not realized that students in district 2 needed help?
Now she is on a campaign to help the students return to FWISD. Using them as pawns for her intentions to run again next year for the board. Truth be told she intended to leave Prime Prep once she thought that she could get elected president of the board. That plan failed because she has no leadership and does not have good standing with her colleagues. While Norm Robbins is not one of our favorites, it's the better of two evils. We appreciate her dedication to Eastern Hills and we want her to know that District 2 has other schools that also need the attention but we don't hear much about it. Only when a prize or recognition is won does she show up to take the picture but other than that we don't hear anything. There are plenty of events that she shows up and that's it, nothing more than to say I was here. Leadership requires you to be hands-on and I don't mean just hand shaking, doing the work as an example.
The results we have now are the type of leadership she has supported, actions that speak. The results are worse than ever! No transparency whatsoever.
2015 is board election year and know that we are coming after her to make sure that she does not continue to hurt our students. Here is a link of a story that doesn't come up often, how she got questionable funds by an indicted lawyer and basically covered it up:
http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/04/26/3916335/fort-worth-lawyer-indicted-on.html
http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/07/13/3219973/fort-worth-school-board-trustees.html
Here Ms. Jackson points out how great things were at Prime Prep, yet she resigned? Doesn't a leader see things to the end regardless? Then she goes on to celebrate students finishing the STAAR exam. We are all for celebrating students but supporting a testing system that has failed our students? See for yourself:
http://www.greatermeadowbrooknews.com/GMN_back%20issues/2014%20web%20pdfs/GMN%20May15.2014-web.pdf
Interesting how Tobi works: http://www.texassharon.com/2011/04/12/fwisd-trustees-lobby-for-chesapeake/
Welcome back CIA! Thanks for this story on Jackson and her soap opera. By the looks of it, it will not take much to dethrone her from her District come 2015! She speaks from both sides of her mouth for sure. Changing the subject, it's been almost a month since your last blog. What is the 411 on Palazzolo's case, since Linares took over? Also, I just read the Star Telegram story on the Internal Audit in the tune of 2.7 million and The Weekly's story yesterday chastising Telegram for their lack of reporting truth! Any thoughts or insider intel?
ReplyDeleteLet me tell you about Ms. Jackson and how little she cares for the students that she supposedly serves. 2013-2014 school year an Anglo student with absolutely no Hispanic background was placed in a bilingual, dual language classroom. This student was a third grade student who would be taking the STAAR test in English but would be receiving instruction in Spanish. Now in case this is confusing, don't worry, you're not alone! The parent of this student is bi-polar and somewhat unstable and seemed to dislike the only RP teachers. So in order to accommodate this parent, Ms. Jackson had him placed in a classroom where reading is taught in Spanish. Anyone want to guess how this student performed on the STAAR test? Well, this student failed both the math and reading STAAR and the administration changed the student's grades on the report card in order to alternatively place the student in 4th grade next year. So, doing what's right and what's best for students, shouldn't be in Ms. Jackson's campaign speeches.
ReplyDeleteWhile it has been obvious to me for quite a while that Jackson must go, I strongly disagree that Norm Robbins was : "...the better of two evils." He is not. Evil is evil. Robbins committed perjury in the Palazzolo when he allegedly told the Jury that FWISD does not retaliate. For that, he should be prosecuted. Jackson and Robbins have both had their heads so far up Needham's a** for the past four years its a wonder they can stand the light of day. Both voted against every employee who came before the Board with a grievance or lawsuit; Gonzalez, Salinas, Duran, Chavez, Tennyson, Palazzolo and more - including two employees who subsequently died no doubt in part from the stress. The difference between Jackson and Robbins is that Robbins was under oath in a Court of Law and LIED. As for Jackson's "indicted attorney" friend, he is the same guy who ran or helped run Sutherland and Vasquez's campaigns. In my opinion, Jackson should have resigned when she took the Prime Prep job. Her lack of qualifications speaks to why they were closed. Her obvious conflict of interest demanded her resignation. No Board Member even asked about it. I frankly don't know how any of these clowns have avoided indictment. Employees of FWISD work in FEAR. Do you hear that Board Members? FEAR. Screw your politics and do something to clean yourselves up. Too bad others could not fight as long as Palazzolo has. Many simply leave. Then it is the children who are the real losers. I still hope one of the new members will step up and say enough is enough. I am so tired of Sutherland whining and talking in the shadows but failing to DO anything. And to think these are the people overseeing the people who are running things.
ReplyDeleteHey Maleficent. We are working on uncovering more information on the internal audit and will post as soon as we can get our hands on it. We have not heard anything on palazzolo as of yet and will need to make a few calls to try and find out from sources. Hope to have good info coming up!
ReplyDeleteSo CIA, what have you found out about Palazzolo? Isn't the hearing next week? How much interest is the Board paying on his judgment while they play games on this appeal?
ReplyDeleteAll we can confirm is that the hearing is next week but due to attorney advice no one is talking at this time.
ReplyDelete