"The Meg Deb"

As I have posted before, Scott Coffey is dangerous to the proper functioning of a school district. As a member of the District 26 school board, he advocated for the closing of schools and the axing of programs. Balancing budgets on the backs of kids is NOT what fiscal responsibility is.

And now he wants to do that to District 155. He even stated on McHenry County Blog that "it is completely clear that one of the buildings needs to be closed." Make no mistake: Scott Coffey and his ilk are bent on destroying public education in the name of balancing budgets and "fiscal responsibility." 

And Meghan Tillson has aligned with Scott Coffey in that aim. Although she recently commented on a Facebook post that she would not vote to close a school, her alliance to and support of Scott Coffey tends to point otherwise. Before becoming a school board candidate, Meghan Tillson posted under the name "Meg Deb," and regurgitated Scott Coffey talking points.  That profile has since been deleted. All references to "Meg Deb" have been scrubbed. 

Having these two on the school board will be detrimental to District 155. 

Scott Coffey and the D155 School Board Election

It's election season again, and people who should not be anywhere near a school board are running to get a seat on the District 155 school board.

Here's what I can tell you. I am not a fan of Scott Coffey. I was involved in the debacle at District 26 years ago. During that time, the Cary schools were attacked and the education of our kids suffered.

• Art classes were eliminated
• Music classes were eliminated
• PE teachers were let go, forcing classroom teachers to teach "gym"
• Class sizes were s high as 35 kids
• Parents were angry. I talked to so many parents that were thinking about leaving Cary altogether. Many took their kids out of d26, actually.

It was a debacle. And Scott Coffey had a hand in it.

My oldest was in the Cary schools at that time. And, as many parents, I was so concerned about the lack of specials. As a result, parents volunteered their time to come in and teach lessons on art to Cary students.

I did that. I took personal time to teach my son art in his elementary school classroom.

All because some people are confused about fiscal responsibility. In any school board, the responsibility FIRST should be the kids. And this was not what happened.

Specials are back in d26. But the stain of this remains. Justified or not, people do not look to the Cary schools like they did before. Teacher retention is low. It takes a long time to recover from such mismanagement.

And now Scott Coffey is comparing the situation in d155 to d26, echoing the same rhetoric from a decade ago.  And it is simply not true.

And the effects of a Coffey-led agenda would be devastating on d155.

To be honest, I do not know anything about Meghan Tillson and Jacob Justen. However, since they have aligned themselves with Coffey tells me that they, too, should be avoided at all costs.

I know, I know. Some people are going to look at this and say, "Well, he's a teacher and he's biased." I am a teacher.

And I am biased in favor of public education. As a taxpayer I believe that our schools are our biggest asset. And any attempt to balance budgets on the backs of kids is the wrong way to go about managing school budgets in a responsible way.

Scott Coffey is not what d155 needs.

The Scott Vetter Ruse

Yep. Scott Vetter claimed to the Northwest Herald that he has removed himself from the slate, in order to protect the others, apparently, from his toxicity.

But what does that actually mean?

He's still on the ballot.

He's still apparently campaigning.

Case in point: he posted to the article on the McHenry County blog the following:

This doesn't seem to be someone who has "removed himself" from the slate.

The only thing that happened here is that he told the Northwest Herald he removed himself from the slate.

But nothing has changed.

Oh, look: squirrel!

----- More later.

Scott Vetter is dropping from the slate...but is still in the race

Apparently, Scott Vetter is worried that his tweeting may bring down his running mates, Donna Kurtz, Raphael Kamner and John Pletz in the race for the District 155 Board of Education.

So, according to another Northwest Herald article, he is leaving the slate. However, he is not leaving the race.  "I would still love to win," he stated.

His running mates have not really commented on the matter, except in this recent article. No one, except Kamner, has actually come to Vetter's defense. That's pretty telling, isn't it?

Kamner stated in the article, "He is not a racist now nor has he ever been, and he’s not anti-religious."

Funny, but do the videos claim that he is a racist? No, not really. The tweets are just shown as an example of inflammatory rhetoric not befitting of a school board member.

It's interesting that Vetter supporters are honing in on two of the tweets.  In fact, the McHenry County Blog recently posted an article about Scott Vetter with a screenshot from the video of the the "BLM racists" tweet Vetter sent on July 31, 2016.  The article is entitled "So Scott Vetter's a racist?" And, in an attempt to prove something about Scott Vetter that was never even claimed in any of the videos, author Cal Skinner posted a picture of Vetter and his wife.

This is a classic example of a "Strawman Fallacy." Skinner and supporters of Vetter are focusing on the two race and religious tweets and declaring that Vetter is not a racist. This misses the entire point of the video. The video used the tweets to show the inflammatory rhetoric of a candidate for the school board. If people are thinking that others may think that Scott Vetter is a racist are reading more into the video than is there. This actually says more about them than about Scott Vetter.

So I attempted to set the matter straight by commenting on the article in the McHenry County Blog. But, alas, my comment is still "awaiting moderation:"

The point is this: if someone wants to post inflammatory tweets, call people names on social media, that's fine. They have the right to do that. We all do.

But don't be surprised when you run for a position on a board of education that those tweets will resurface as an example of your demeanor. Remember, this is behavior we teach our kids not to engage it. Go ahead: call people "fucking idiots" on Twitter. Or, post an article about the President on Facebook and call him an "Ass Clown." That's fine.

But don't cry when these things are brought to the attention of voters. Right, Raph Kamner?

"Tweetgate" and Vetter's Running mates

So, "Tweetgate" is a thing--as it should be. After all, the the public postings of someone who could be in charge of the direction of our children's education is fair game.  These tweets reveal the character and demeanor of a person who could possibly sit on a board of education and help form educational policy.

What's even more telling is that Scott Vetter is running on a slate with three other candidates: Donna Kurtz, Raphael Kamner and Jeff Pletz. These candidates have been silent on the issue of the tweets. Jennifer Weinhammer is running for Cary Trustee, and she has been on record publicly endorsing Scott Vetter in other races. She, too, is silent.

What does this silence say?  We can only imagine.