School Censorship of Public Participation?

Do you ever wonder why the School District posts it’s ‘School Choice’ Events on Patch but not their School Board meetings or even their workshops? Juxtaposed News thinks this is censorship of the worst kind and that it speaks volumes. Just last week the school board had a workshop at 9am on Tuesday November 12 and the school district never listed it in the Patch Events but the School District will selectively post their Magnet Choice and Parent Information Meetings.

The workshop was about disproportionate disciplinary actions against minority male students. The NAACP wrote a letter way back in June (attached) demanding relevant performance benchmarks for the Superintendent’s evaluation but the school board ignored their letter and extended the superintendent’s contract in September without any changes. Then the school board decided to have the meeting on November 12 (see article- NAACP demands ignored until after Superintendent’s contract extended). The NAACP attended but little of substance resulted from the meeting (see article- NAACP Fails triumphantly!).

Recently the school board even changed their meeting times to be irregular. Now some are at 9am and some are at 5:30pm. Now you never know what it’s going to be and you have to check and, obviously, most working people can’t make a 9am meeting. You get the distinct impression that the school board is actually trying to limit public participation in this public process. 

Not providing meeting information to the public and making it as difficult as possible to go are subtle ways to limit participation and not unlike the tactics used with voting laws to limit minority participation.

And it just so happens that many of the relevant NAACP officials and committee members have ties to charter schools and similar ties that rely on the Hillsborough County School District.

None the less, the school board meets approximately every 2 weeks for regular meeting, so every 2 weeks the NAACP has the opportunity to redeem itself and keep these “enormous” issues front and center but we are unaware of the NAACP ever having recently addressed the school board at a regular meeting where it would be recorded and broadcast to the public (see article- We the people of Hillsborough County).

In fact this Tuesday, November 19th there is another school program on the agenda; it’s called the Juvenile Justice Education Program (items 6.03 & 6.04). We wonder how many minority males are in that special program? We imagine that the school board would like to keep this under the radar. It seems like a great opportunity for the NAACP to redeem itself.  

You would think that the NAACP would be passionately speaking at every school board but instead they go quietly and compliantly to the singular tardy workshop which gets little public exposure and conveniently allows the school board and school district to ignore their concerns as much as possible. And then they wonder why these injustices can go on for “decades”. Shame on the NAACP. Please get your act together and start advancing your mission like you mean it.