What I’m going to do next is to try to get you all to SEE me. I’m actually writing this for Christopher Pape, because he has been living rent free in my head for more than a year. Knowing that he has to read every word of this, is both theraputic and has the potential to be cathartic. So here goes:
There’s your foe, in first grade. We’re going to start calling this child Mat. Which is short for Doormat, because even though he’s a cute kid, he’s already what psychiatrists would call “Co-dependent.” Mat will spend most of his life giving to others and trying to make others happy, but he will never really figure out how to find people with which to have healthy romantic relationships. Much more on that later. Let’s look at Mat’s eyes.
That is a child who has been ABANDONED by his father. From now on, when I use capital letters, it means that the memory triggers feelings that Mat (not Jason) had or have. This is a way for me to talk about Mat in the third person so it’s easier for me. Just indulge me, please. Also remember that I’m out of my ADHD medication so if this meanders a bit, trust that I’m going somewhere with it. Mat had two siblings that their dad visited, and let live with them at different times. Not Mat. Mat never had contact with his dad, despite his dad living less than three hours away. This made Mat feel like he was UNWORTHY OF BEING LOVED by his father and he felt UNWORTHY OF HAVING A DAD. In 1976, most children came from two parent homes. Not Mat. Mat also remembers being hungry a lot when he was little, but he always knew that his mom LOVED HIM NOT MATTER WHAT. That is what saved Mat. Also she said from the time he was in third grade, “You ARE going to college.” So I never doubted that I had to go. Many kids never even realize they can be successful in college because no one encourages them. That is sad (that was a tangent, but an important one).
Here’s a story about Mat that you all should know. Mat was a ‘latchkey’ kid, which means he walked home and let himself into the fifth story apartment at Lake Run Apartments (no idea how I remember the name from 1976=1977).
Mat had a crush on the girl from school in fourth grade who he played with after school. As Mat and his friend were walking into the building, three fifth graders blocked their way and the leader pulled her hair hair. She CRIED OUT in pain. Mat lowered his head and rammed the bully right in his ‘boy berries’ and he fell to the ground holding his junk. Mat grabbed two handfuls of his hair and started trying to drag him by his hair. Mat knew this hurt because another child on the playground had done this to Mat. Mat made a mental note. The bully SCREAMED for Mat to stop. Mat said, “Are you going to leave us alone?” Mr. Bully cried, “Yes, stop pulling my hair.” The head to the balls was to get him to stop that day. The hair pulling was done to humiliate him in front of his friends so that he would never bother us again. Mat is not proud of that act, but it was necessary. Mat can still hear my boy’s SQUEAL of pain. Not a good memory.
In his methods courses, Mat taught about Brain Based Learning Theory. Mat’s students are sick of it by the third class they’ve taken with him, but the tenets are important. The second states “The emotionality of an experience affects retention.” Stated differently, if you can engage the students with a strong emotional reaction to the content, they are more likely to remember it. Think about how we remember trauma. Think about how clear those memories are even after decades have passed. All the villains in this story are broken. They all suffer from the same thing, LoE (Lack of Empathy). People get really turned off by the word narcissist, so we will use a different label, LoE. When you are an LoE person, you treat people horribly, because you don’t care about their suffering, because they’re not you. LoE. No one in the upper administration should suffer from LoE. I don’t want to go back into the “HCS Investigation” folder (1,117 files), because it brings back all the trauma. Child abuse not reported, covered up rapes (Grissom), mishandled rape (Jemison), students getting assaulted (both Collins AND Burruss). Bullying, nepotism, spying, belittling, threatening, isolating, punishing, belittling, treating teachers like children, micromanaging, Project BOOST, no planning periods, everyone walking on eggshells, everyone thinking about quitting or retiring, no one applying for jobs, teachers having to do more with less, not being able to find substitutes, covered up gas leaks, deleting evidence of child abuse, Lanier Ford and all the double-dipping with clients, corruption on the board, lavish beach vacations, violating sunshine laws, 300 district credit cards, Dr. Leverette having a $50K limit on her credit card, Michelle Watkins soft coup of Jemison PTA group, Ryan Renauld and the nepotism policy to benefit his wife, PPP loans to Carlos and Leverette, Hovet having a parent arrested while he was driving on a suspended license and HE got arrested…All the SPED violations. All this stuff is floating around and when I release it, I have to release all of it and name everyone so that they can’t fire any of you. When I do the big dump, I will tell everyone that it’s coming. When I link the folder in the google drive, I want everyone to go into the file and copy them to your flashdrive. If you are one of my witnesses, you have a roadmap for your attorney to file a class action lawsuit.
If you are retaliated against, you can contact the DOJ, because every single file in here has been given to the DOJ and they did nothing. However, it would be bad for the consent decree if teachers were punished for reporting illegal, unethical, and inappropriate behavior. Don’t forget the theft (I’m still salty about the generator, Andy and Dustin). I will leave the files up for a few hours, then I will deactivate my Facebook page and this page, and RCR will be a thing of the past. You all can figure out how to reform the system because I’m never living in Huntsville again, and I’m ashamed that my university sends our teachers out to be chewed up and demoralized and no one addresses it.
The Provost of my university (Dr. David Puleo) has a copy of all my RCR files and they are sitting in a secure room on my laptop’s hard drive. My dean could have a meeting with the local colleges of education to have a conversation with HCS leaders about how to make the schools more safe and effective so our teachers don’t abandon the profession and so more than 7% of our black students can do math on level by the time they graduate.
You all should be ashamed of that number.
I definitely have PTSD with some depression thrown in for good measure. The depression has existed since 2019 and the PTSD had been exacerbated ever since I started hearing the trauma from the teachers and parents. Just to show you how much work I did and how much I wrote, I’m going to share something below. I didn’t even send this to the DoJ, this was my ‘stream of consciousness’ that I intentionally wrote down to remind myself what had happened. This is from two months, and I didn’t even use it. That Matthew is a hard worker. Narrative of events from 9/22 – 11/13/22
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Stream of Consciousness 9-11/2023 (HCS Investigation folder: OB strategy docs) I never sent this to Brigid (DoJ contact) but I did cut things from it to put in emails to the DoJ. There are 90 pages of DoJ emails. If I posed them unredacted, it would cause pandemonium.
I brought the Carlita Collins case to Chris Pape and he's been sitting on it for several weeks. I'm almost not convinced he's going to do what's right. I notified him last week that informant teachers at her school were saying that she was starting the pattern of behavior again...berating children and making faculty members stand up and recite their job descriptions out loud. I spoke with a school board member who said that he’s probably going to give her a ‘soft exit.’ In other words, they will confront her with the information and allow her to resign and sign a document saying that she can’t appeal or sue. This school board member was told by the Committee of 100 and the mayor that the worst thing that can happen to HCS is for ‘bad press.’ This is why they are all hiding the illegal stuff that’s going on. By the way, when Chris is nervous, he plays with his wedding ring...
Last week I began checking the DAC boxes to hopefully introduce myself to the principals to see who I got a good 'vibe' off of. Hovet Dixon is a principal at Ridgecrest, he's important. I went in to his school and introduced myself to him and I asked if I could come back and introduce myself to the faculty to tell them about the DAC boxes (which no one uses). He said 'sure, come at 3:00.' I wanted to know if he would recognize my name and tip off that I'm on the 'naughty list.' (I know this sounds manipulative, but it's working really well and I’m really good at reading people).
Right after he walked away from me, his AP approached me and asked if I was on the DAC. I said yes and she said, "I have to tell you something outside, it's important." When we were outside, she said, "My principal.." I stopped her because her principal had pushed the door open and was making a beeline to us. I said, "Have a good day" and walked away.
I reached out to her via her District email and gave her my personal cell and she never responded. Turns out she called me twice, but the District blocked my number from receiving calls from District phones. LMFAO. They are so afraid of me.
I produced the PM report and submitted it to Dr. Scott on the Friday before it was due from teachers, so they would be able to see it. I couldn't figure out how to get the information to the principals quickly, so I went to the District's website and copied and pasted all 48 elementary principal emails into a document (now it's saved) and sent the report to every one of the elementary principals.
My network of teachers said that they still had to turn them in or face a write up. So, I went on the HCS website and typed out 122 elementary teachers' emails (all third grade through fifth) and sent it to them so they would know that there were serious issues with the construct validity, that the data were not useful and a waste of time, etc...I didn't want teachers to have to go home and work on something meaningless.
In the email, I said I'm an ally and send me things to my doctor.ob.1970@gmail.com email.
The District didn't know what to do. I notified Chris Pape that this email was for formal DAC inquiries and to have him tell you the District was going to block it. I'm always about three steps ahead of them...
A few were immediate...the ones with the least to lose came out and started telling me what's truly going on (check the end of this document for some stories). Don't miss the three pictures of black mold that the District knows about but won't do anything about at Rolling Hills Elementary. Remember Highlands? The school they "renovated" last year? They didn't have electricity for three days.
This is the letter with the mold, so you read it here and you see what I'm up against:
Dr. O'Brien,
My name is XXXXXXX and I am Rolling Hills Elementary where I have never gotten 30 minutes planning a day . I’m addition , I am quite certain there is black mold and aphetas growing in my classroom as well as the other 2 fifth grade classrooms . We are constantly seeing doctors for everything from upper respiratory infections to walking pneumonia since school started .. we need help .
I am a veteran teacher of 15 plus years and was trying to hold out longer ; I’ve worked all over and never seen anything like this .. including back in Huntsville before .. we don’t have support with discipline , and are constantly interrupted during our instructional time .
I pray and hope you can help us.. I’m contacting the union as well over my HVAC unit and other matters .
Thanks , XXXXXXX
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Now I have a target on my back.
But, one principal agreed with me and warned me that the district was 'on to me.' Their name is XXXXXX and he's not a bad guy, but he knows everything that's going on and he silently watches and will not help me because "he is friends with these people." *sigh
I have an informant. He has agreed to help me with some financial information that is publicly available, but hard to find.
One thing making it harder to find is the way that the District hides expenditures.
Specifically, there used to be a ‘check register’ that anyone could ask to see, which listed the check number, the amount paid, the person to whom the money was paid, and a brief explanation of what the money was for. (E.g., $2,354 to Jason O’Brien, for consultation services on Project BOOST). Now the District groups all the expenditures by category, using category codes that one would have to look up to find. That’s how they can hide payments to people without scrutiny.
For instance: Last year, there was a conference and all the board members and the superintendent attended. Elisa Ferrell, Michelle Watkins, and Christie Finley all declined to stay in the $200/night hotel on site and instead rented three bedroom/four bathroom condos off site. Finley paid for it with her District credit card. This is one of the many reasons I have to believe that Finley is leaving this year. Watkins isn’t running again (she knew that if someone called her on it, that she wouldn’t have to answer for it to voters). Ferrell knew she wasn’t running again, so it was a no-brainer.
When Alvarez was running for school board, she filed a FOIA request to see how much they spent on accommodations, and the District never answered her request. Alvarez told me in a personal conversation that they tried to trap her into taking luxury accommodations saying “We all do it.” She declined. The Committee of 100 and the mayor did everything they could to keep her from getting elected…because she won’t play ball with them.
Back to our story…It's always about the money...
Look at the highest paid administrators. Why are they making so much more than the other principals with less experience? Why did Dr. Scott and Dr. Finley get 14K and 11K raises, respectively, on January 31, 2022? Why did Superintendent Finley then try to circumnavigate the Board for a bigger raise? When she was told no, she asked if she could give them some other 'gift' because they 'earned it with their hard work."
Why I think Finley is leaving in August? Because she knows the house of cards is coming down, because they all know that teachers are talking to me. I’m assuming that they’re monitoring emails…
If you recall, Chris Pape is going to employ the "bad actor" defense for Collins...that she was doing it in isolation.
She wasn't.
This is what shook me last night. I was talking to XXXXX, former student, currently a fifth grade teacher at XXXXX. XXXXX has an African-American child who brought a knife to school, Hovet Dixon did nothing. Student is gifted, but has horrible trauma and as a result is exhibiting menacing and threatening behavior at school.
XXXXXX was scared the child was going to hurt her or another child and nothing was being done, so she called me and she sent me the letter that's attached, and I forwarded a message to Chris Pape saying “it’s a safety issue” and he responded with something like “I’ve forwarded it to the appropriate person, thanks for letting me know.”
In the meantime, this child in fifth grade is getting worse. Dixon does nothing, and they can’t even get security to check her bag for weapons.
A couple days ago, she got mad because XXXXXX wouldn’t let her leave and go home and she grabbed a pencil and stalked around the room sharpening it, looking at the kids in the room, scaring the shit out of them. XXXXXXX asked her to sit down and stop sharpening her pencil and glaring at everyone. She wouldn’t. XXXXX got the kids to stand up and get out of the room and had security come take the pencil away from her. After reporting this, XXXXXX went to the principal and requested a meeting.
XXXXX recorded the meeting. At it, Dixon said, “Did she lunge at you?” XXXXX said “no” and he said, “Well, that’s the problem.” She said, “Do I have to get stabbed for her to get in trouble?” and he said, “No, that’s not what I meant.” Dixon does not know XXXXXX recorded the conversation. Next he said something like “What have you done to foster a positive relationship today?” Total gaslighting…
Here’s where you’re going to lose your f’ing mind.
I know that at McNair under Collins, Mr. King (AP, now retired) under-reported discipline by deleting text or downgrading BLOOM’S write ups from a level four to one that’s not reported. Remember the unreported sexual assault on XXXXXX?
I haven’t even started to investigate the high schools, but I wondered how the elementary principals game the discipline system. I found out one way. XXXXXX took copious amounts of hand written notes. I asked why. She said, “My Bloom’s was down until last week.” BLOOM’S is the behavior software. Without it working you can’t report any discipline issues. I said, “Wait, that doesn’t happen. You have to have it when you log on.” She said, “I have 12 unanswered emails from my principal and AP asking them to fix it.” (they’re attached). No response. She finally sent a ticket to the help desk downtown and it was fixed that day.
I said, “Do you think he shut you out of BLOOM’s?” She said, “I thought about it, but I didn’t want to sound crazy.” That’s what gaslighting does…they prey on young teachers (mostly female) and blame them for the problems the administration won’t address. The result is that teachers end up doubting themselves and end up thinking that the stuff they’re seeing is ‘normal.’ This is systemic…it’s happening in both Title I and non-Title I schools
I asked, “Did anyone else get locked out of BLOOM’s?” She said, “Only two others that I know of.” You see where this is going, right?
The others were first year teachers who had horrible classroom management, but according to XXXXXX, “both got help” from the administration and THEN their BLOOM’S worked again. Melissa Lindsey and her "the public needs to trust us." That comment really burned my ass because of the fake smile she had on her face.
So, the middle and high school administrators either delete the wording or change the classification without consequences…and at the elementary schools, Hovet Dixon disables BLOOM’S so the teachers can’t use the system to report level IV behaviors. Worshim only allows teachers to BLOOM students in their own classes, which was a problem for one teacher.
When I went and looked at the salaries, I saw how much Collins and Leverette and Dixon are making (the mean salary for those knuckleheads is 107K…I wonder how big their raises have been under Finley)…I am convinced that the district has told Collins about the information they have and are now negotiating with her so she’ll sign a waiver giving up her right to appeal if she resigns and goes away. THEY DO NOT WANT ANYONE TO KNOW.
Highlands elementary school—Hovet Dixon—$123,795.00
McNair Junior High School—Jamarious Harris—this is his first year. I met him checking the DAC boxes. He is way too kind to be working there, and he’s not getting paid, so he might not know anything. He’s not in the top 32 salaries in the district
Jemison High School—DeMetrius Harris Leverette—136,077—I have a student named XXXXXX with whom I just touched base today. He loves his job. He admitted that 90% of his kids are socially promoted. He’s writing something up right now.
XXXXXX is a teacher at McNair. He has an email from his AP admonishing the teachers for filling out a BLOOM’S write up without coming to talk to him first. That’s another variation of how you game modify the Level IV Bloom’s write up. Administrators say “you can’t use bloom’s without my permission.” They train the first year teachers who don’t know better and think that this is how it is at all schools. If the teachers aren’t absolutely loyal (the loyalty test is to get you to change grades, not do write ups, and whatever crazy shit they ask you to do). Then what happens? Most times, they still lay you off at the end of year 3.
When a teacher would come to Collins in May and say “I’m finishing the year out” she would say “You have to resign right now so I can advertise” and then send a complaint to the State against their certificate for ‘not giving two weeks’ notice.’ I have documentation from XXXXXXX. She shared the letter from the state saying “We investigated you but nothing was done. This complaint can be used against you in the future should someone else complain about you.” The result is that she is afraid to ever go against a principal again.
At McNair, they had nominations for Teacher of the Year…XXXXX said, “To be eligible, you have to have been here three years. There was only one content teacher and a PE teacher and another specials teacher.”
This is how you keep the secret. Hire people (like XXXXX) who need the job. Single moms are easy targets. Gaslight and blame them for the bad behavior of the kids, even though the admin isn’t allowing write ups. The kids find out that they can’t fail (Collins announced over the loudspeaker several times “Teachers, remember that students can earn nothing lower than a 60 on all grades.” She did this to create chaos. Can you imagine teaching in that environment? They are all traumatized. I have 20 examples of teachers saying they are ready to walk out the door the first chance they get.
Today, I was telling my dean how bad all this is, and she said, “Well, there’s something I need to tell you.” Two principals (who are my Chairperson’s sorority sisters) have contacted your colleague XXXXX to make sure that everyone here knows what you’re doing.”
I said, “Did they say good things or bad things?” She lied to me…She said, “I don’t think it was good or bad.” She’s a horrible liar.
Then she said, “And, I know that Tasheria Price (a former student who is AA and who has climbed the ladder very quickly at HCS) told our Administrative assistant “Dr. O’Brien’s work is causing trouble for the district. I hope this doesn’t affect the District’s relationship with UAH.” She knows everything. That was the District’s way of getting the message to us, I’m almost positive. I don’t trust anyone at this point. Tasheria has been there less than 10 years. She has a master’s degree…She’s making $88,900. That is WAY more than the normal step schedule for teachers.
Chris Gregory, the DAC Chair? I started to tell him about Dixon and he said, “Hovet? He’s like a brother to me, he’s a good man.”
I told him that if he tipped him off that I would never speak to him again and he assured me he wouldn’t.
Brigid, I don’t trust anyone.
What’s going to happen when I start digging at Jemison and Columbia (which has a graduation rate of 77%)? I’ll find one teacher at the elementary schools and then one more will talk. If not, I’ll email the schools with a questionnaire I created.
The District still won’t answer my request about the PM documents, even though teachers are having to ‘back date’ them. Dr. Scott told principals that if they don’t write up their teachers, that the principals will be written up.
So, I knew he wasn’t going to get rid of the PM sheets, because of his fucking ego, so I gave him enough rope to hang himself. He had an emergency meeting on Friday for principals to deal with my PM blast to the principals. I’m now getting messages from teachers saying “They’re making us change the forms, but the new ELA standards don’t align with the ACAP stuff. And he’s making us do the same assessments each week.”
See what I did there? He backed himself in a corner and the only thing he could have done was acknowledge that it was a shitty idea (I think he spent more time thinking of the name “Building Opportunities & Ownership for School Transformation” than actually thinking about what the data could be used for, which was nothing). This is the ‘put lipstick on a pig’ bullshit they do.
Why didn’t the Superintendent stop it? Because she is AWOL. She is unwilling or unable to make any decisions without Chris Pape’s approval. Apparently she's trying to get a contract extension, but she's too obtuse to realize they want my man Clarence.
Clarence will be a 'company man' and do the bidding of my man Christopher, and all the rest will go along to get the gravy and the prestige. Wash, rinse, repeat.
They have to keep hiring from inside. Henceforth.
Why can't they do a real search and get someone who will do something? If they get a real superintendent, his first day on the job, everybody is going to be running to him to be the first to report that they didn’t have a choice to change grades and Bloom’s…and that’s only if he’s willing to change things. I suspect not.
What’s behind this??????
Lanier Ford bills the District between 800k and 2.4K each year. There is no incentive to stop people like Tim Scott and Carlita Collins, who I honestly think try to be as cruel as possible to teachers to run them off so few have tenure. Chris is making me hold off sending the request I want…It’s attached…I made a spreadsheet that they have to fill out which will show exactly how the Title I schools are different than the non-title I schools in regards to faculty composition.
Wash, rinse, repeat…
I am convinced that the people making the most money are all in on it.
J.R. Brooks (kingpin of LanierFord) represents the Huntsville Police Department. Every time someone suggests getting private counsel (for a lot less money), it doesn’t happen, because according to The Architect, who has seen a lot, “no one goes against JR Brooks.”
Finley approved using a company called RippleWorx to collect ‘anonymous survey data’ from the teachers in the district. RippleWorx is a local company (Go figure) and their two biggest clients? Huntsville City Schools and the Huntsville Police Department. Did I mention that LanierFord’s two biggest clients in Huntsville are……….Huntsville City School and Huntsville Police Department. What a coincidence.
The District is like a big pinata. LanierFord is raking in cash, Finley is coasting, Pape is the de facto leader, meanwhile Scott inflicts cruel and bullshit data meetings and data collection, which take time away from instruction and make the teachers feel like children. I would honestly say that if you polled every teacher in HCS, more than half want to go…that may be a low number.
They are doing everything EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF THE CONSENT DECREE. They are having no discipline for the kids of color and no expectations for work, while simultaneously blaming teachers for the poor achievement and classroom management that THEY created. Instead of thinking of ways to get teachers more time teaching (and thus improving reading and math scores), teachers are asked to spend time documenting “student progress” using meaningless data and redundant forms that have data which the district could glean from iReady, DIBELS, STAR, or any of the other instruments which the teachers ARE REQUIRED to use.
If I could call a number and get the DoJ to bring down investigators to start talking to teachers in the McNair pattern, there would be mass resignations. BLOOM’S has a sandbox feature so you can see any alterations to write ups. Are there tickets from other teachers whose BLOOM’S mysteriously didn’t work? Administrators are intentionally gaming the system and hiding serious violations (including kids bringing weapons to school and sexual assaults on students and faculty members).
Laura Worshim (providence) told her teachers that any negative comments about the district can result in being terminated. They are terrified to talk to anyone.
The District won’t even answer my question about what they were going to do with the PM sheets. They won’t tell me how to get the Ripple Worx data, in which the teachers eviscerated the District. The District paid 25K for it and when I asked to see the unredacted responses, Tim Scott said, “That data doesn’t come to me.” WTF? You’re the f’ing second in charge. Who gets the data? Who owns the company? Honestly, it’s only 25K but how much do you want to bet that there is some sort of nepotism there? The CEO is Angie Sandritter and her husband is Timo Sandritter. When I start researching them, what do you think I’m going to find? Connections to LanierFord, or the Committee of 100, I’m sure.
END REPORT 11/13/22 I didn’t even USE that. Can you imagine how much stuff I have? Kayode Crown, Al.com reporter looked at my files and said, “How long did your team work on this? Two years?” Nope, seven months. I stopped at the end of April. I got too close to the parents and teachers and absorbed all their trauma. I internalized it and realized that I am the only person idiotic enough to do this, and everything has lined up. I have had everything stripped from me and I no longer have an ego (it died). I need to clean up the names with the victims of assault and rape but I am going to leave their stories, so you can read it. For the record, NO ONE felt safe at Grissom. That you all allowed that kid to continue to play a sport and represent HCS schools says all you need to know about the priorities. More soon friends, grab your popcorn.