Copperhead Consulting
Helping Citizens Keep Their Local Government Bodies More Transparent!
Sample Document For Public Comments By Board Of Local Governing Body.
PUBLIC STATEMENT TO ANY CITY COMMUNITY SCHOOL BOARD MAY XX, 2024
To the children, parents, President Tom Smith and other school board members of ACCS;
My name is Paul Dorr from Ocheyedan, Iowa. I work in ten states to help restore local representative government. I want to make some brief comments tonight, from my professional observations, as to the reason board members so often insist that local stakeholders attend their meetings where the board receives public comment. Failure to attend is portrayed by school officials as the public being indifferent, ignorant, and not really qualified to speak publicly on such matters. But that’s not the real reason local apathy is such a problem across the country.
The reason is that the meeting rules so often end up rigging the outcome to the board’s benefit. The nature of such meetings held by local government bodies are designed to champion their cause while leaving some of the finest members of their communities frustrated.
Here’s how it works. As ACCS’s own policy reads, “Public comment is a time set aside for community input, but the board will not discuss or take any action on any matter during public comment.” Not discussing most often includes not publicly answering any questions either. Sometimes, they might get back to you later by private email.
What if a member of the public has questions he/she believes should be answered - publicly? “Sorry, that doesn’t conform to our policy,” is the reply. They might provide a brief response but it usually ends there. So apathy sets in.
This is not a New England Town Hall format to help answer questions and resolve issues. This is designed for the board to control the conversation, let the frustrated public vent off some steam, and have the board’s legal counsel intimidate a little, if needed.
Then after some strong questions have been asked or statements made by a members of the public and the public comment period is officially closed - but before they go on to the next Agenda item - the President or another board member will often say, “Before we move on, I’d like to make a few comments about what we just heard here tonight.” And then he/she will proceed to spin less than truthful answers (often leaving out critical information) making some of the speakers appear ignorant. And then it ends. No rebuttal, no challenge, no evidence allowed.
And often there sits a local reporter from the dying newspaper industry. They can’t afford to risk upsetting the school who drive readers to their paper through all the sports and other school coverage, nor all the ad revenue this generates.
So! Are they going to report in detail the member of the public who commented or asked questions; or will they focus on the comments made by a board member after the public comment period was closed? Most often the later!
So this is why my client will be inviting the public to their own Town Hall meeting soon. They will make their case and take questions from the public. They’ve already invited President Smith and he’s still deciding. Our format will allow for a vigorous but controlled give and take from all sides. If Tom and the board do show up, we won’t let them (or their friends) grandstand on my client’s time but will allow sufficient time to answer questions our members and the public ask them. My client committee leaders are also negotiating with an experienced civil engineer to do a walk-through of the former high school building and hopefully, the public will get a fair report. This walk-thru will happen if the school board will allow us in. Watch Client Committee’s FB page and for the bright yellow postcard in the mail for more details! Thank you.
08/04/2024
A lot more of this is needed. It happens all the time.
Two Denton school district principals indicted on charges of illegal electioneering A grand jury indicted the principals for allegedly using their school emails to encourage staff to vote for certain candidates in the March primary.
A sheep farmer is tending his flock when a city slicker rolls up in his BMW, hops out and asks, "Hey, if I tell you exactly how many sheep you have, can I take one?" The farmer nods, so the city slicker opens his laptop, calls up some satellite photos, runs some algorithms, and announces, "You have 1,432 sheep."
Impressed, the farmer says, "You're right. Go ahead and take one." So the city slicker loads one of the animals into the backseat of the car. "Now," says the farmer, "I'll bet all my sheep against your car that I can tell you what you do for a living."
A gaming sort, the city slicker says, "Sure."
"You're a consultant," says the farmer.
"Wow!" says the consultant. "How'd you know?"
"Well," says the farmer, "you come from nowhere even though I never asked you to. You drive a flashy car, and wear a smart suit. You told me something I already knew. And you don't know anything about my business. Now give me back my dog."
I pirated this joke from Andy Underhile.
08/12/2023
An incredible new tool for citizens. Load up your local government's video channel and soon you will have access to a search index of all videos and Citizen Portal allows you to check for all words, all elected representatives, and will provide a list of videos and will take you to the timestamp on the video where the words are heard/said. Plus they will provide the text for the entire video.
27/11/2023
A Christless le***an heads up the teacher's union. She lies about supporting school lockdowns.
It’s Anti-Semitic To Criticize School Lockdowns Says Union Boss Randi Weingarten Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) claims the criticism against her and her policies was due to anti-semitism and h...
28/07/2023
School District Lawyers Ridicule Parents During Texas Bar Conference - Texas Scorecard "It's all about protecting the system," says education attorney and parent advocate Janelle Davis.
10/03/2023
Yep!
Jaded with education, more Americans are skipping college JACKSON, Tenn. (AP) — When he looked to the future, Grayson Hart always saw a college degree. He was a good student at a good high school. He wanted to be an actor, or maybe a teacher. Growing up, he believed college was the only route to a good job, stability and a happy life.
07/02/2023
Build a new middle school, drain off 7th and 8th graders from existing elementary schools and seven years later you're forced to close a neighborhood elementary school. This is not uncommon, especially in states where enrollments continue marching down.
Enrollment numbers cause Watertown to consider closing an elementary school The Watertown School District is considering closing one of its five elementary schools, but which elementary school that is has not been announced.
08/01/2023
Who would put their children anywhere near such public school teachers?
Chicago schools watchdog finds hundreds of employees groomed, sexually assaulted students A newly released report found that hundreds of Chicago teachers groomed and sexually assaulted students over the 2021-22 school year.
27/11/2022
I've cautioned Minnesota clients for 5 years that this was coming for new high schools in their state. And its my dear "friends" at Wold.
MN Schools Built With No Girls' Bathroom. Will ND Follow? Designed to be all-inclusive, parents are outraged
07/11/2022
The amount of money in circulation since I sold my half of the local community bank. The vast majority of this "money" is electronic entries as "liabilities" on bank balance sheets. As they mismanage their assets your deposits become at greater and greater risk. FDIC? Hah? Their insurance fund has around 1/2 of of 1.0% (0.005) cass on hand for every dollar deposited in American banks.
And then there's the bond market....
26/09/2022
New hiring policy at public schools. Though, us Boomers have to take some responsibility for the moral depravation of these new teachers. Back when they were kids, we didn't fight to protect their generation's innocence.
14/09/2022
Want to learn from 30+ years of experience confronting local government. Check us out here:
Copperhead Consulting Services Hi, I'm Paul Dorr. I am a Christian and have been married to my high-school sweetheart for 46 years. We have 11 children and 32 grand-children so far.
24/08/2022
Lol Public schools becoming butt of jokes now!!
Thousands Of Kindergartners Dropped Off Across Nation For First Day Of Grooming U.S. — This week, thousands of kindergartners across the U.S. are being dropped off at their local public school for their first day of grooming.
15/08/2022
It continues.
L.A. Unified estimates tens of thousands of students are missing from back-to-school rosters Officials are also scrambling to fill 800 teacher positions and hire 200 bus drivers, with school set to resume in two weeks.
06/08/2022
A North Carolina County is now arming teachers in public schools. We at Copperhead have been saying this for years, back when it was considered 'loony.' We knew it because we had studied the psychotropic 'source' of so many angry killers and knew that the more the schools drugged kids; and then a few years after they 'graduated' many realized they were in a drug-educed psychotic prison for life; the more of them would be filled with rage and have no hope for the future. In their minds they have nothing to live for.
Want to end school shootings? Stop all your drugging of children! But selfish women teachers who love their paycheck far more than children will scream and rant at such suggestions. So more kids will likely be gunned down! Insanity created by the 'adults.'
North Carolina county putting AR-15s in every school for security The school system in Madison County, N.C., plans to put AR-15 rifles in emergency safes in each of its six schools as a part of a plan for enhanced security in the wake of the Uvalde, Texas, school…
05/08/2022
They turn some kids into violent monsters with their psychotropic drugs and then refuse to consider stopping that or legalizing armed adults in the school buildings. So the solution then is....always more infrastructure spending. Always! They are insane. Go to page 34-35.
https://digital.1105media.com/SFLmag/2022/S4L_2022_Summer/SFL_2207Q1_701921924.html =35
03/08/2022
Women teachers are so often dangerous to little boys.
01/08/2022
No, No, No! We can't do this! lol
This will take away the need for new school buildings with $2 million enhanced entrances (each) for "school safety." Watch for the building contractors and bond dealers across the country to lobby against this (children's lives be damned) if it starts to spread outside of Mississippi!
Copperhead clients have been promoting this in their political literature for years. Seemed radical at first. Not anymore.
Mississippi Education Board Removes Ban On Guns in K-12 Schools Local school districts must decide a weapons policy.
26/07/2022
The fruit of so much public school sexualization. It's now so common even among the adults in the buildings that all they can do is scream "liar, prove it!" Christian children are at great risk in their presence.
I know people who've come to Christ, powerfully, with such past body counts. The Gospel is real public school teachers!
“Never argue with someone whose TV is bigger than their bookshelf.”
— Emilia Clarke
Without the Biblical understanding of the generational compounding curse that Christ-less education must experience, all most public school teachers involved in it can do, is experience the consequences. See the attachment linked below.
07/07/2022
Another one bites the dust. This is my fifth client where the school Superintendent has decided to "move on" after we engaged. It comes down to knowing how to humbly, yet boldly and publicly hold them to account. It emboldens others, who in this case previously sat quiet for four years of bullying, until they saw my Christian clients take the lead.
Sparta Superintendent resigns after harassment investigation Sparta School District Superintendent Dr. Amy Van Deuren has resigned her position, according to an official school district press release.
30/06/2022
I'm seeing this in every state I work in. The thing is, the schools will either give a nominal short-term response or will not care at all.
Academic excellence trumps equity in new Thinking Minnesota poll According to the latest Thinking Minnesota poll, an overwhelming plurality (41%) of Minnesotans chose academic excellence when asked about their top priority for local school leadership. The next closest answers were “supporting teachers” at 17% and “student mental health” at 13%. No other a...
I've only had one client get turned down on public records request and that Superintendent lost his referendum and left town several months later. I helped my client committee politically pummel him for doing it.
Bill Angrick director of the former Iowa Public Records office called me once years ago, when the new Iowa was passed and said, "the law allows for a task force to be commissioned to implement the rules for implementing this new law and we'd like you to be on it." When he told me that all of the rest of the Committee members were government employees of some level, I declined saying, "You want me to be your token. I've reviewed the law and see that, in the name of increasing public access, this new fee schedule is going to be prohibitive. If you want to un-assign four of the new committee members and replace them with four of my taxpayer clients from across Iowa, then you'd have a balanced committee." He didn't and soon after the cost of accessing Iowa public records rose significantly.
Wisconsin's law does not allow the local jurisdiction to charge for research and assembling records, only the cost of copying, if that's even needed, as most records are now in .PDF format.
If you want to learn more about doing a records request and see some of my sample letters see the link in the first comment.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/school-districts-pricing-out-parents-record-requests-charging-tens-of-thousands-exorbitant-fees
Videos (show all)
