It’s Not in the Article

We all love the the press until they write something we don’t like. I certainly read something that I don’t like this morning.

Howard County human rights investigator accuses some school board members of discrimination, homophobia by Tim Prudente

Here’s the thing. It’s not “Fake News”.  It’s not all of the news. It certainly appears that Mr. Prudente has had certain people driving the narrative as his work progressed. I’m sure he did the best he could. I’m trying to be charitable here.

The flaw in these accusations against board members Christina Delmont-Small and Cindy Vaillancourt is, quite frankly, the two witnesses themselves. I’m not going to name names because you can read the article for yourself and I don’t want anyone to sue me. These two individuals have proven themselves to be anything but credible witnesses. They have a body of work in the community that proves otherwise.

I know this, and a lot of other people close to the school system know this, but apparently the human rights investigator doesn’t know this and neither does Mr. Prudente. Let me put it this way: if I wanted to go up against the Board of Education and the school system, these are not the people I would want championing my cause.

As to the Board members themselves, well, how can you look at this accusation against Cindy Vaillancourt in a vacuum? Where is the connection between this example and all the other examples of the former administration and its allies alleging impropriety or malfeasance? This is a thread sadly neglected here. (Condoms, anyone?)  Time and time again Ms. Vaillancourt was the target of false accusations and the record of them is probably in the Howard County Times.

But it’s not in this article.

As for Ms. Delmont-Small, I suspect her real “crime” is persistently pressing the former administration for a financial transparency that they had no intention of providing. The record shows that her concerns for the finances of the school system were well founded. It also shows that those  who were running the school system during this time period did everything they could to thwart Ms. Delmont Small’s efforts to re-establish Board oversight.

But that’s not in this article.

It is my personal opinion that there are things that occurred during the former administration at hcpss that are very likely actionable. But a part of the severance agreement with the former superintendent stipulated that both sides would cease all litigation. The Board has moved on and is addressing the many challenges left on its plate.

It looks to me as though the former Superintendent has found a way around the “no litigation” requirement. After all, it probably doesn’t say anything about allies, co-workers or friends.

It’s not surprising to see the past administration come back into the news to make false claims about Board members. This action is right out of the playbook that marred our school system and damaged relationships with teachers, parents, and students. This is how people who disagreed were treated. This behavior is not new.

But that’s not in this article.

Again, it’s not “Fake News”. But it is absolutely not “all the news”. These accusations do our community a disservice. I sincerely hope to see them discredited thoroughly.

And then I’d like to read all about it in the newspaper.