APRIL GRIFFIN HELPED CAUSE SCHOOL BUS TRAGEDIES!

Incumbent School Board candidate April Griffin would like us all to believe that she did not do anything about updating antiquated polices and training after the Herrera tragedy because she claims no one told her about it for 9 months. But that excuse doesn’t wash because 6 weeks prior to the Herrera tragedy another student was forgotten on a bus most of the day and that aide was charged with child neglect AND that incident was reported by the school board’s own communication department and widely publicized in the news to everyone.

So why didn’t April fix policies and procedures then and conceivably prevent the death of 2 children? Isn’t that also her responsibility to keep procedures current and staff trained BEFORE tragedies occur?

Think about it: Had April Griffin acted after the December 15, 2011 incident then Isabella Herrera and Jenny Caballero probably would not have died. But she just sat there and did nothing for 10 months until they were forced to act by the Public’s revelation of the Herrera cover-up and lawsuit. April Griffin is either incompetent or corrupt or both. Either way she should be fired via the Ballot box just like all the employees she has fired.

If any low ranking staff did this they would be fired. But Elia is still employed. Joyce Weiland (ESE) is still employed. School District attorney Thomas Gonzalez is still employed. Cathy Valdes (transportation) was promoted! Even John Franklin (transportation) had to resign on his own because the Board would not have him fired. April Griffin should resign for her failure to act in December of 2011 which led to the death of 2 students.

April Griffin fires employees all the time for the school District’s convenient interpretations of policies that are written such that they allow this abuse by the school board.

April Griffin arguably helped cause the bus tragedies by her persecution of one employee in particular; that employee was Dave Schmidt who dared to criticize April in her last campaign. Read more at this link. April Griffin specifically targeted employee Dave Schmidt causing him to be DEMOTED to being a SCHOOL BUS INSPECTOR. Yes, that is how they PUNISH employees at the School Board they send them to transportation. No wonder it is such a mess there; thanks to April Griffin! Then they feign to wonder why they are so demoralized, safety suffers and then kids die on buses.

Not only is it a sad character example of in so far as how petty April Griffin is in persecuted Dave but this shows that April directly caused problems at transportation. So we have drawn a direct line from April Griffin to the tragedies in Transportation.

But there’s more, beginning on the same day as the 9 month coverup of the death of Isabella Herrera the school district began firing George Olmo, a maintenance worker, for their contrived interpretation of “campaigning”. That is- while the Isabella Herrera tragedy was being ignored during campaign year 2012, the school District was busy firing an employee for an alleged minor campaign charge. This is crooked.

Which is worse: a campaign violation or children dying?

Meanwhile April Griffin allows the Tampa Bay Times to campaign on school campuses to keep her in office.

This is crooked. Hillsborough County should be rioting against this flagrant abuse of power. You deserve much better than April Griffin.