Betty Culbreath email to Trustees on Internal Audit Report and Superintendent Mike Miles

The email below was sent by Betty Culbreath to all Dallas ISD Trustees on December 23, 2012.  

I found this statement puzzling:

"I knew we were headed for trouble when Ms. Ranger my district rep. did not vote for new Super."

What does this statement mean and what is it intended to imply?

The Texas Education Code states that it is the exclusive responsibility of elected Trustees to hire and to fire a Superintendent but it appears some believe a Trustee does not have a right to an independent opinion. 

In Dallas ISD, we have a lot of meddling and hidden agendas of people who were not elected to oversee the district but want to control it for their personal agendas.

My decisions will be independent as long as I serve as a Dallas ISD Trustee. And when I leave I will know those decisions - good and bad - were my own.
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From: Betty Culbreath
Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2012 12:07 AM
To: Blackburn, Lew
Cc: Morath, Mike; Dan Micciche; Bingham, Nancy; Ranger, Carla; Cowan, Eric; Medrano, Adam; Nutall, Bernadette; Elizabeth Jones
Subject: DISD negative tone pass 5 months of school year.

Thanks for your time and Happy Holiday Season. I attached my background for new members who do not know my background and experience.  

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President Lew Blackburn, I am calling upon you to stop certain 

members of the DISD Board, and disgruntle staff, and former staff 

members from sabotaging Superintendent Mike Miles and the 

direction his agenda was proceeding. If I am wrong in my analyses

 I stand to be corrected. 

• Your Board gave the new Superintendent full authority to hire his staff and use his discretionary account.

•  Superintendent started on job one month prior to school year startdate, New Super. Was at disadvantage No fault of his he did not control hire date.

• The process of hiring Administrative salaried staff is different from hourly and monthly also no compensation is based on prior salary of applicant. Demographics and cost of living dictate salary range also Professional consultants establish ranges for the value of a position. 

• Every organization has Job description that includes the words and “any other duties assign” that covers any work ask of the employee so that statement” some job description were not written prior to hiring” is covered when it comes to salaried employees.

• Everyone familiar with internal audits know that the draft Audit is never released to a Board or management until it has been shared with Staff involved ,and are given opportunity to answer findings the combined findings and answers are forwarded to Board committee. I can tell by the question on this So Called Audit Ms. LA Nita Ray was ask by a Board member to audit Mr. Miles on his new hires, that was wrong of said Board members Mr. Miles should have been ask the question.

• There were no two requests for payment for moving expense. Because a person does not hire a company in an effort to save money does not mean the expense was fraudulent, it means  you have a policy that does not state what or how you submit if you move yourself. This matter should be over, money paid back and staff member gone and life disrupted by Dallas ISD.

• There are members on this Board that remembers  Dr. Hinojosa hiring Ms. Olsen from Weatherford Texas. A Board member Weatherford School District ,had  no experience in HR., and no job at time of hire was paid $182,000.00 per year in 2008 and Given an out of Countywaiver to work in Dallas. Not oneperson question Olsen’s salary and no citizen complaints mainly becauseBoardmembers wanted Hinojosa happy. You have talked aboutthe salaries for past three months, DMN editorial Board has gotten Mr. Miles to say he was wrong and now he’s second guessing himself. This Board has damage their new Superintendent and hurt the Students of the very District you were elected to serve. The damage has been done by a few Board members playing games for a few disgruntle employees and people who are jealous that they were not considered for jobs, and don’t make as much money. If they could do the job, why haven’t they been doing it?

•  AMR American Airlines parent company lost $25 million dollars in 12 month because of Disgruntle employees you might not think it cost but it does, you come to meetings and leave all the hell behind. Everyone in that ADM. Building is connected to everyone in the District, lies and rumors are running rampant thru your Organization.  Ison-Newsom and other keep it going daily and are destroying the moral of staff and when Board members interfere with staff and gossip with staff and tell Staff “they will fix their problems” it undercuts Superintendent and his staff.  You knew there would be Staff upset with the reorganization who could have known Board members would help defeat the Super.

•  I knew we were headed for trouble when Ms. Ranger my district rep. did not vote for new Super. My fears were confirmed when Ms. Nutall reacted to a statement of Mr. Miles made with  “if he does not want to be here”.

DISD has become the laughing stock among Educator groups and 

ISD Board around the Country. People cannot understand how a 

school Board can treat a new employee as Mr. Miles is being 

treated and over nothing that impacts Student achievement in his 

first five months. Mr. Miles hired who he felt were workers with 

new IDEA’S to move the Students of DISD. Mr. Miles came 

highly recommended by the US Secretary of Education and he 

visited Dallas with praise and a promise of help. The Mayor has 

pledged help and this is the time a few Board members decide 

that they and their agenda to ruin and run off Mr. Miles is more 

important than the 150,000 students and 10,000 teachers and 

principals of DISD?

I am asking you for the Students to table discussion on that so 

called audit or discuss it in closed session since it all pertain to 

personal issues. Please table the discussion on salaries they are 

done and Taxpayers have moved on from that no one is talking 

about it but DISD Board members. It is illegal to tender a salary 

and without cause reduce said salary based on unidentified 

people complaints, that’s why we have a labor department, and you

 know any lawyer will take the case in as much as DISD has had 

other people employed in comparable positions making the same 

or larger salaries than the people Super. Miles hired.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the purpose of education

Morehouse College Student Paper, The Maroon Tiger, in 1947

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As I engage in the so-called "bull sessions" around and about the school, I too often find that most college men have a misconception of the purpose of education. Most of the "brethren" think that education should equip them with the proper instruments of exploitation so that they can forever trample over the masses. Still others think that education should furnish them with noble ends rather than means to an end.

It seems to me that education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.

Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To think incisively and to think for one's self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.

(Perhaps the most dangerous periods in civilization have been those periods when there was no moral foundation in society.

Education without morals is like a ship without a compass, merely wandering nowhere. It is not enough to know truth, but we must love truth and sacrifice for it.)

The late Eugene Talmadge, in my opinion, possessed one of the better minds of Georgia, or even America. Moreover, he wore the Phi Beta Kappa key. By all measuring rods, Mr. Talmadge could think critically and intensively; yet he contends that I am an inferior being. Are those the types of men we call educated?

We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character--that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living.

If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, "brethren!" Be careful, teachers!