Teacher arrested at board meeting for criticizing superintendent's raise

a reply to: BASSPLYR

It's backwards. The sad fact is, I - for one - won't be surprised when this solid gold piece of sh# turns into yet another "nothing burger" and "fake news" once a minor past charge against the teacher is brought into light. I imagine that there will be a lot of people who aren't surprised as well.

One human treating another like this is a travesty, let alone an entire board and marshal. They all deserve the worst because they are elected or appointed officials censoring free speech. This isn't a case of fake commies shouting down fake nazis or visa versa. This is legitimate abridgement of a right by the government.

Welcome to the new age when this isn't nearly as important as it should be.

ETA:
The rent-a-cop was actually a state marshal. He acted with complete and total rent-a-cop mentality, but he can arguably act in the capacity of a
police officer (arrest and transport) towards just about anyone in his state if he's acting the part. This is why I predict a quagmire for a suit against this situation. A suit is warranted, but if it goes to court instead of settlement, it could turn into a real judicial football.

Another excellent display of democracy in action, government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

a reply to: OrdoAdChao

Nothingburger to most people but I think it will draw attention from the governor to reassess teacher pay. There's more to this than meets the eye also.

a reply to: OrdoAdChao

Thank you! I don't mean to brown nose, but that means a lot coming from one of my favorite members of ATS.

I sincerely appreciate that, thank you! I'm sure there are many of us who are not in agreement on various issues, but we always have members who have similar views on so many issues. We're really helping each other to look at various issues through different perspectives.

Were you in an area that knocked the teeth out of unions (public and private)? No need for specifics as I see your location is classified. Also was it like that when you first started?

Unions have been steadily attacked for years especially from Corporations. There's a lot of companies who move their entire factories down south because there's less organized labor with lower wages. I can understand some of the negatives about unions, such as protecting slackers who simply are not putting their fair share of work into the company or demanding wages that are way too high for some non-skilled positions.

As for teachers unions, they were strong in the late 70's and were the main reason why teachers paltry salaries rose due to Teacher strikes across the country. It's unfortunate the value placed on teachers in this country is so low, while we pay professional athletes millions of dollars who really don't give anything important back to society but entertainment for the public and money for their owners. Today skilled high school athletes get more full paid scholarships to universities than the hard working and brightest students in our high schools. It's all about bringing $$$$ to the university. It's a shame that today's university's hold their athletic programs as a priority, rather than giving more scholarships to intelligent young professionals that have a much larger impact on humanity than entertainment. I'm sure if you looked into most of these high school athletes GPA, a lot of them had less than a 2.0 average.

I set out to become a teacher when I was younger but recoiled in horror when I accepted the full reality of the position. On some level, I feel if I were a better, stronger person I could have taken it on. So now I work in the construction industry. It's a better fit for someone like me ;-).

I was a teacher in an Inner-City school. People would be surprised how many student teachers changed their majors after experiencing a week in an inner-city classroom. My own daughter used to substitute teach, until she got tired of being disrespected by students. Kids no longer have consequences for bad behavior and they have no fear of failing, detention or being suspended from school. The education bar has been lowered due to wide spread student apathy toward education. Nothing like setting our children up for failure when the enter the real world.

Back in my day, a student wouldn't even consider using the f-word toward a teacher, let alone talk back to them. If they did, the consequences was being paddled and/or suspended for 3 days or a week! If they continued with their bad behavior, they were eventually expelled. Back then students knew not to cross the line between them and the teacher. I remember if I got in trouble at school, I wouldn't dare tell my parents. I would have been grounded from going outside to play and as I got older grounded from using the car or watching TV, lol. It was tough love, but it kept most of us on the straight and narrow. Unfortunately, the classroom environment is no longer conducive to learning. What's sad is nothing is being done to fix it.

You made the right decision to choose a different profession my friend. Districts across the country are finding ways to keep teacher's salaries low. It's one of the main reasons why I retired early. Administrators in my district were going after veteran teachers who were at the top of the salary payroll, and harassing them to try to get them to retire early. I was one of 50 veteran teachers who accepted an early retirement incentive to retire early. What really surprised me, is my financial adviser told me 2 years before I took my early retirement, our neighboring state was doing this exact thing to their veteran teachers in their districts. It's all about saving money and not about the students or preserving good experienced teachers. Yet the districts top heavy administration continue to hold onto their jobs and get their hefty pay raises while teacher raises were put on hold for 4 years.

All this shortsightedness is causing a shortage of teachers. If I had college aged kids, I would certainly steer them away from the profession. Don't get me wrong, it is a personal rewarding profession and seeing the kids you taught becoming successful later in life is extremely gratifying. You always get kids you've taught coming up to you later in life and telling you how much they enjoyed your class. It makes all the years of being under daily stress, disrespected and not valued by administrators or this country some how worth it.

It's funny you mentioned construction, because now that I'm retired, I'm doing some remodeling construction.

a reply to: OrdoAdChao

I spent 6 years getting a bachelors of science I paid for, I account 2 years of that to catch up on math, science and writing which the public education system failed to give me. Then I spent another 2 years getting a masters degree, again which I paid for. Then I spent another 3 years in a seminary where I finally learned how to write fairly well.

This book did more for me than my first 12 years in public education and it was assigned reading my first semester in seminary. And it's funny that it used to be standard reading material in schools 40 years ago, but since they removed it from curriculum the seminary had to assign the book as reading.

www.amazon.com...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515604005&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+read+a+book

Wow,this was sorely overshadowed by political threads. Glad someone shared it, needs more attention. IMO my opine was it's draconian.
An update:

"I have reviewed the video and I am not going to approve any charges against the teacher," Funderburk said. "I talked with the attorney for the school board, and they do not wish to pursue any charges against the teacher." Board President Anthony Fontana says he thinks the whole thing was a "set up."

"The other four board members, now three, have been committed to getting rid of the superintendent. No matter how good the policy might be, they would be against it to cast disfavor on the superintendent to prevent him from getting a contract," said Fontana, who also is an attorney. "The whole issue, from day one, was that they were not going to give him a contract."

Source

The only thing this lady did wrong was not getting enough people to make a scene. Can't arrest everyone.

Gotta have some back.

hope they enjoy the lawsuits

a reply to: OrdoAdChao

I think it was an act that will result in that lady winning millions of dollars because she was overly dramatic. Society...lol... I would wager that she knows the superintendent, or other members, or all of the members personally, and may have worked out an agreement. I guess she doesn't need that raise any more.

Either that or the cop was racist.

a reply to: OrdoAdChao

won't be surprised when this solid gold piece of sh# turns into yet another "nothing burger" and "fake news" once a minor past charge against the teacher is brought into light

Wonder how may times she has been escorted out of a meeting for disrupting said meetings. I am willing to wager too many to count . Probably well paid by the local teacher's union for that exact job . Disruption of council meetings.

The arrest, and force used, seemed highly unnecessary. After she was asked to leave, which was bull# because all she did was bring up a point that everyone was in agreement with and the board seemed adamant not to talk about, she peacefully walked out then this goon threw her on the floor and cuffed her. Ridiculous.

This is #2 on trending on YT right now. When something like this gets this much attention... expect consequences.

a reply to: OrdoAdChao

Lets hope the teacher sues the christ out of the police for wrongful arrest, the tort of trespass of the teachers person, unlawful detention and damages for pain and suffering inflicted by the superintendent unreasonably

How can asking a question be a crime and an arrestable offence, even if they did remonstrate with the superintendent and then the police.

Unless there was threat to the safety of people or a breach of the peace, the police should have stayed the hell out of it because it is a CIVIL MATTER and not a criminal matter.

lets hope they get a slam dunk payout for this.

The planned destruction of the middle class. The trickle down economics of defunding from the feds to the states, then counties, then communities, then citizens. Now neighbors are starting to fight over resources.

Now the superintendent is in damage control mode.

Vermilion Parish Superintendent Jerome Puyau told CBS News' David Begnaud there are things he wishes he did differently at Monday night's board meeting. He vows the district will learn from this incident, but says the backlash has taken a toll on him and his family. "I hated what happened," Puyau said.

Source WARNING: Auto play video ahead!

So, at least you feel bad. Here's a cookie. The crocodile tears aren't going to win you any points. You messed up and now may not get to enjoy that raise. Although, I am sure if you are replaced, you'll get a nice lump of tax money as severance that you can put towards new pursuits.

All snark aside, at least the superintendent said this much. The president of the board who encouraged the marshal and taunted the attendees hasn't budged and believes nothing at all wrong happened here. Boot-licking authoritarians seem abound in our nation. It's hard for me to understand how so many people bow to this garbage and claim to be patriotic. It's disgusting.

a reply to: MOMof3

That's an interesting path to tread down. I've been looking at this situation as if I were an attendee at that meeting, but pulling back the scope so to speak, it really does show where we've landed ourselves as a society. We've devalued certain areas that are critical to us as a nation (in this case, public education) and now we're witnessing it all come to a head.

If the raise went to the teachers/employees of the district, it would amount to crumbs to each individual. Better spent? Definitely, but this is an inherent problem in our public school system as well. The budgets are so tight that an extra 30k will probably be directed towards a single cost because in all truth that isn't that much money in terms of budgets. The fact that the superintendent makes as much as four teachers (now with the raise) is where I am shaking my head.

Whatever happened to public servants? I have no qualms with them receiving early and good retirement packages, but ~140k per year out of the budget is ridiculous. Or maybe I am wrong the superintendents job really is worth that much. I wonder if the local tax payers realized the salary of their superintendent.

originally posted by: WeRpeons
a reply to: OrdoAdChao

Unions have been steadily attacked for years especially from Corporations. There's a lot of companies who move their entire factories down south because there's less organized labor with lower wages. I can understand some of the negatives about unions, such as protecting slackers who simply are not putting their fair share of work into the company or demanding wages that are way too high for some non-skilled positions.


As for teachers unions, they were strong in the late 70's and were the main reason why teachers paltry salaries rose due to Teacher strikes across the country. It's unfortunate the value placed on teachers in this country is so low, while we pay professional athletes millions of dollars who really don't give anything important back to society but entertainment for the public and money for their owners. Today skilled high school athletes get more full paid scholarships to universities than the hard working and brightest students in our high schools. It's all about bringing $$$$ to the university. It's a shame that today's university's hold their athletic programs as a priority, rather than giving more scholarships to intelligent young professionals that have a much larger impact on humanity than entertainment. I'm sure if you looked into most of these high school athletes GPA, a lot of them had less than a 2.0 average.

I agree that unions have been gutted greatly all over the country. There has been more than a few jobs I've worked on (union member or not) that required as "No Picket" agreement with the union outfits in order to be awarded a contract. So, the main strength of unions (work strike/pickett) has been removed. This is the modern day counter to "Ye Olden Daes" when union members actively undermined any business that was a non-union competitor. My home town was one of the organized labor battle grounds, literally. Many people died or sacrificed a lot in order to gain fair pay for dangerous work in the copper mines. I am steeped in organized labor, and recognize my own bias for it. But, I still can't find a counter argument to the notion of: "United, We Bargain. Alone, We Beg"

I was a teacher in an Inner-City school.

Good god, man!

People would be surprised how many student teachers changed their majors after experiencing a week in an inner-city classroom. My own daughter used to substitute teach, until she got tired of being disrespected by students. Kids no longer have consequences for bad behavior and they have no fear of failing, detention or being suspended from school. The education bar has been lowered due to wide spread student apathy toward education. Nothing like setting our children up for failure when the enter the real world.

Back in my day, a student wouldn't even consider using the f-word toward a teacher, let alone talk back to them. If they did, the consequences was being paddled and/or suspended for 3 days or a week! If they continued with their bad behavior, they were eventually expelled. Back then students knew not to cross the line between them and the teacher. I remember if I got in trouble at school, I wouldn't dare tell my parents. I would have been grounded from going outside to play and as I got older grounded from using the car or watching TV, lol. It was tough love, but it kept most of us on the straight and narrow. Unfortunately, the classroom environment is no longer conducive to learning. What's sad is nothing is being done to fix it.

I was planning on teaching in my area, and while I feel like I could handle the "bad eggs" (read: poor kids who never had a chance) just fine, it would be the precious snow-flake of some well-to-do-and-connected douche bags that would send my career (and perhaps my gun and voting rights) down in flames. I was lucky to be one of the last generations to get the "old school" (I pun!) education in my area.

By the time I was finishing up with my bachelors and was deciding between grad-school or a teaching certificate, friends of mine who were working as teachers warned me what it was like. One person in particular was teaching at a grade-school in an affluent area out of state and told me that he dreaded every day of his life. Not only was the curriculum garbage compared to what we learned, but the kids treat you like a nanny and so do the parents. If you hurt their feelings, you could get sued.

You made the right decision to choose a different profession my friend. Districts across the country are finding ways to keep teacher's salaries low. It's one of the main reasons why I retired early. Administrators in my district were going after veteran teachers who were at the top of the salary payroll, and harassing them to try to get them to retire early. I was one of 50 veteran teachers who accepted an early retirement incentive to retire early. What really surprised me, is my financial adviser told me 2 years before I took my early retirement, our neighboring state was doing this exact thing to their veteran teachers in their districts. It's all about saving money and not about the students or preserving good experienced teachers. Yet the districts top heavy administration continue to hold onto their jobs and get their hefty pay raises while teacher raises were put on hold for 4 years.

All this shortsightedness is causing a shortage of teachers. If I had college aged kids, I would certainly steer them away from the profession. [...]

It's funny you mentioned construction, because now that I'm retired, I'm doing some remodeling construction.

I look back and feel like I did make the right decision. Another person I know who was set to be that awesome teacher that everyone remembers ended up quitting and now manages a local parcel distribution center. Luckily he rode on an athletic scholarship and had the opportunity to take a risk that has paid of for him in the end.

It seems like there is a shortage of skilled workers in every area. The local ironworkers have resorted to hiring anyone willing to try right off the street. No more transcripts, attendance records, or multiple interviews required. The skilled trades are hurting largely because of the danger (ironworkers in particular),technology replacing jobs formerly filled by highly capable and typically older tradesmen (sheetmetal workers), and modernization making it easier for people to DIY or go so far as to become be able to compete with union shops in the residential and light commercial markets (plumbers, carpenters, tinners/HVAC).

There is one thing that stands out to me on the union topic in particular, and it relates to this case of injustice: We have devalued the very basis of our modern society that has brought so may people "up" in terms of economics. Our society at large does not respect educators or skilled workers, who hold a tradition of passing values of hard work, discipline and unity. It seems like so many have forsaken teachers for being "evil union members" and skilled construction workers as dumb peons. All because of the problems that will plague any group of people.

originally posted by: SkeptiSchism

Edit: I'll add I think they should all be fired on the spot, teachers, administrators, janitors the whole lot.

I actually agree - fire everyone.
They have gotten too cozy hiding behind unions.

a reply to: tadaman

the other people there should have beat his arse.
i say this as a former security guard he had no right to arrest this woman he is not a cop.
she did not steal or assault anyone so he as not a cop had no legal right to do anything except ask her to leave.
by him laying hands on her he committed assault and opened up his employer to litigation.

That will teach her to speak out against the superintendents during an open forum...

It would be interesting to see how much money goes into every position outside of teachers..

When I went to school even the Principal and vice both sub when needed and the only non teachers were a small staff. Today it seems there are endless number of non teaching jobs that pay 6 figures and no one knows what they do. I blame unions and Cronyism where positions are created and filled but not for need.

This is a bit of info on the school board president, it's slanted but the facts are there.

Heavy.com report

Seems like there has been a lot of contention about the superintendent position, so far as half of the board boycotting meetings in protest of the budget spending. It also reports that only women have been removed from board meetings and no one has ever been arrested. Interesting. If this teacher's actions were the most "arrestable" and removable thus far, there is definitely another factor at play here. Something along the lines of certain men not liking being criticized by a "little woman", to use the board president's words.

ETA: Fun Fact: the board president announced in December that he will not be seeking re-election. Maybe he just felt like getting a few final jabs in on those lousy teachers!