Je Suis Coty; Deja vu all over again

Another campaign year has passed and Superintendent Elia has set a new record for covering up a student death from the public and this time the Maher Law firm is suing the school District in behalf of ALL students-Je Suis Coty- not just ESE students. It’s déjà all over again. A virtual replay of Elia’s coverup of the choking death of Bella Herrera during campaign year 2012. Elections Kill.

That’s an average of at least one student death per year: 7 year old Bella Herrera in January 2012, 11 year old Jenny Caballero in October 2012, and now 6 year old Keith Coty in January 2014. Rather than train staff, it would appear that the Superintendent’s strategy is to train Hillsborough County parents to expect incompetence and for a student to regularly die from neglect while at school.

The previous 2 deaths cost taxpayers $1.3 million just in the settlement not all the attorneys fees and other costs. This is well in excess of what it would cost to pay Elia to go away and the price for her mistakes keeps going up. How much will this latest death cost taxpayers? Eventually the Maher Law firm will get it right and the punitive damages will be astronomical.

Mayor Bob Buckhorn and Representative Dana Young recently praised Elia, but that was before the 3rd death of 6 year old Keith Cody hit the news. Although they are probably in awe and envious of Elia’s ability to get away with 3 student deaths, they probably regret saying how great they think she is right before news of the 3rd death broke. D’oh!

Led by Elia’s buddy Rick Scott it is a curious network of politicians, public servants & administrators who profess transparency and Freedom of speech but then seem to do everything within their means to suppress, obstruct, and conceal from the public- especially during campaign years. It is trickle down public service fraud with so many apparently willing to endanger students and betray coworkers to preserve their own jobs.

Our hypocritical local leaders figuratively marching arm in arm to protest the suppression of free speech but, behind the scenes each doing what they can to protect each other’s paychecks and keep the public in the dark as long as possible. Elia has even been recorded conspiring against school board speakers here.

Even the media and law enforcement are duplicitous in this. The Tampa Bay Times owes Elia; she allows them to distribute their paper on school campuses. It makes it clear why twice now, in 2 separate campaign years the Tampa Bay Times did not report a student death until 9 months after it occurred; only after the law firm announced it and they had no other choice. Tampa Bay Times schools Reporter Marlene Slokol appears to wait for the School District to issue press releases rather than investigate. Her job appears to be to try to spin and deflect criticism to keep the school district happy so those papers can continue to blanket school campuses every day.

The police department owes elia also. Their personnel are paid to be posted in your city schools. Where was that “trained” school police officer when Keith Coty was dying in his classroom? Why did the officer not call 911 or start CPR? And why did they not report it to the public? And don’t forget the recent case of Blake School High School Resource Officer Police Officer Brian Morales (link here) who was recently charged with 8 counts of felony sex with a minor female student at the school and was subsequently baker acted. So instead of protecting students the Hillsborough School’s “security” program put an armed unstable predator in the schools. We are all lucky that it wasn’t the school resource officer who went on a school rampage.

The sheriff’s department owes Elia (link here). Their personnel are also paid to be posted in your county schools. When Bella Herrera choked on a bus, Sheriff Gee unilaterally decided that no crime had been committed and this then became Elia’s excuse for not reporting it to the public or school board and not taking immediate action. Now at least 2 more students we know of have died. Rather than protect students, it appears in this case that the sheriff and superintendent worked together to suppress, obstruct, and keep the public in the dark as long as possible.

So there you have it, a network of local public “servants”- schools, media, law enforcement - who are all marching hypocrite arm in arm to make sure that you are kept in the dark.

Elia was given a sweetheart, ironclad virtually perpetual contract 10 years ago that was designed to make it impossible to get rid of her. Her salary is now grandfathered in and well exceeds limits later imposed by the state legislature to keep absurd excesses like this from happening. As such Firing her would actually save Hillsborough taxpayers money in short order. Read more here. Additionally and ironically boardmembers also plan to use the savings from the $1.6 million per year puppet “school security” law enforcement that Elia forced through by exploiting the public’s fear following Newtown.