Has the Newport Mesa Board of Education showed you yet?

THESE VIDEOS ARE SHORT....AND SO INTERESTING...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jhv2d6GXh4k&t=1s Britt Dowdy (President of the Teacher's Union)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siFWyCJY16E Trustee Anderson makes the case for comments at the beginning of the meeting!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THsIx8q0Ghs Fred Navarro's response to video ...truth?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjw9jH3spS8 Trustee Fluor not for public?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBzkqPvNJnY Trustee Snell not for public but still open to change...tried to compare her day to a teachers....not a good idea.

THE STORY

When people show you who they are ….believe them. The Newport Mesa Board of Education showed us who they were Monday night.

157 teachers dragged themselves to the meeting to protest two things, and salary wasn’t even close to the top two issues.

The two issues were the millions of dollars the district owed the district (confusing right?). It seems that in the “way back days”, perhaps as long ago as 10-15 years ago there was an important piece of the contract which said that employees who elected not to participate in the benefits package’s money would be put in a special pot of money and saved for the benefit’s needs.

In 2018 it was discovered that there was no money. In fact there was no “pot”. The teacher’s union, giving the district a break (classic teacher move) is only holding them to the last two years of this “mistake” 2017-2019.

Let’s be clear, we are talking about $5,000,000 plus.

Remember when Clinton argued the use of “is”? The district is arguing the meaning of the word “fund”. How quaint…

The second issue that brought 157 teachers out on a Monday night, is the indecent decision to put the “public comments” at the very end of the meeting…only prior to the ever entertaining “Trustee Reports” Just so you know, public comments have been at the beginning of the meeting for 20 years.

This decision coupled with the refusing to post the meeting video on You Tube until several weeks after the event is an obvious effort to be non-transparent. The specious reason for this according to the superintendent is that the video has to have closed captions and it takes a long time to have another company accomplish this. Oddly, other districts don’t seem to have this problem, and apparently streaming the meeting is impossible according to Navarro.

When Marti O’Meara spoke before the board at around 9:30 PM saying that she had to pay someone $100 to stay with her husband, Trustee Black interrupted her to say that she had to do the same. Marti, ever the polite woman, said she was sorry and also reminded Ms Black that she was being paid.

Trustee Fluor and Trustee Snell felt the need to remind everyone that this was a meeting of the members of the board to do the board’s business, and not a “Public Meeting”. Oh, that this were true. I do not know how many times a board member has said that we should see what they say in private….but here’s the thing…we should see and hear what they say IN PUBLIC, but we don’t. Most of time it is a dog and pony show without the entertainment factor.

In the end, close to 10:00PM, the trustees decided to discuss the time of public comments.

So, the teachers came, sat, corrected papers, dreamed of lesson plans, needed sleep, and tried to be patient. What a travesty!

Let me remind you trustees…these are the real people who make this district work. Be respectful.