Wichita Public School Hires Sex Offender

You read the title correctly. One of the illustrious and brilliantly run public schools in Kansas has hired someone who has been charged with possession of child pornography to teach children. It seems that Steven Thompson resigned his teaching post at Garden City Community College amid an investigation about some kiddie porn that allegedly was found on one of his computers, and made way to Wichita. He was hired at the beginning of the 2015-2016 school year at a public school, only to be arrested on a warrant from Finney County, Kansas, to answer for the evidence that found. You might wonder how this could happen, since Thompson is, after all, out on bond for sex crimes. Susan Arensman, spokesperson for the public schools in Wichita has an answer: nothing showed up on the background check because Thompson had not yet been arrested or charged. But then, you might ask, do "unified" school districts in Kansas go the extra mile for the children they claim to serve, and check the references of the teachers they hire? While a former employer might not provide in depth details about a police investigation, it is hard to imagine that a teacher who disappears during a kiddie porn investigation.....on HIS computer......would get a glowing recommendation from his former employer. Common sense, Kansas. Common sense.

A Fourth Reason To Consolidate Kansas Schools

Wouldn't it be nice if Kansas schools, like schools everywhere else in the nation, were administrated by educators, rather than politicians? Wouldn't it also be nice if every principal in Kansas had a degree in teaching and a few years of experience in the same? This provides yet another reason for consolidation of schools: tiny, often errant, independent little school boards comprising "unified" school districts, sometimes do not bother to hire qualified people for this post, making victims of all the students and their parents. That's what happened in Kansas USD 380. There should probably be an audit of USD 380's standardized test scores for the past ten years or so, too.

Third Reason Why Kansas Schools Should Consolidate

To further discuss reasons why Kansas public schools should consolidate, instead of operating in "unified" districts, a misnomer because school districts in Kansas are not unified at all, a third reason is unequal and selective hiring practices and selective application of the law in relation to teachers and other employees of the "unified" school districts. The Renwick school board, near Wichita, has terminated the contract of Troy McChristian, principal of Garden Plain High School, pictured to the left; because he was arrested in the recent past for DWI. Officials cited that McChristian was "not setting a good example" for students, and was not reporting criminal activity, both prosecuted and unprosecuted, to the board in order to ensure proper decision making! Okay; driving while intoxicated does not set a good example....no argument there, but what about Noble Rick Pendland? He taught in a different public school in Southern Kansas, and was a foster parent, to boot, yet it took years to get rid of him, and his school isn't even responsible for the decision: Pendland was arrested and jailed for sex crimes against children, and was not granted work release pending bond or trial so that he could continue to go to work at the school where he met some of his victims. Terminating Pendland's contract was simply necessitated by circumstances, and would not have happened if law enforcement had not removed his presence from his forced audience, the students. This is a glaring example of unequal, and possibly selective, application of Kansas law, used to make or break a school employee's contract with a "unified" school district's school board.

 

If public schools in Kansas were consolidated, it would be much easier to insist that the same laws be followed by all Kansas teachers in public schools. Parents would have a basic notion of what to expect from their childrens' teacher; Rick Pendland and his ilk, favored by conservative Christians, would have to curry favor with a school board governing the public schools in all of Kansas, rather than just brown nosing the republicans on the school board in one locale. There would not be teachers who get away with drunk driving or showing up to teach classes while drunk (yes, Frankfort, you covered for a teacher with addiction problems) in one part of Kansas, while the same is not tolerated in other parts of Kansas. Children would have more stability, as well, through knowing what to expect. As things are run at this point, each unified district is allowed to play picksies/choosies with which laws it will respect and which laws it will ignore, at the ultimate expense of the children.

 

Another problem with laws, and the applications thereof, that could be cleared up with consolidation of public schools in Kansas is not only the favoritism employed by unified school districts, but the favoritism employed by local judicial systems and county prosecutors. When a teacher commits a serious crime, especially a person felony against a student, and a parent steps forward with a complaint, terminating his contract should be the next logical and acceptable step. According to the Kansas Department of Education, prosecution for a crime is not what determines breach of contract. Breach of contract is setting the bad example in the first place. It should not matter if the policeman responding had the teacher for eighth grade social studies, or if the teacher's parents also taught at the same school and donate money to the school, or if the county attorney has personal problems with the child's parents and denies justice out of personal prejudice. Once the state school board hears about a teacher who criminally endangers a child, such as Tom Schroeder, pictured on the right, who abandoned a fourteen year old girl along a highway in Marshall County Kansas, that teacher's walking papers should be forthcoming. There should be no exceptions made because of political or personal favoritism, and if all of the public schools in the state of Kansas answered to one school board, instead of un-unified  unified districts, equality, justice, and common sense would have a stronger chance of prevalence in such decisions.

 

Has anyone noticed a difference in skin complexion between the two teachers cited in this post who did not get sanctioned by their "unified districts", and the teacher who did? In other places, this might be chalked up merely to coincidence; but in Kansas, it deserves consideration.

 

Has Your School's Insurance Been Canceled?

Has your local public school's insurance been canceled? If you live in Kansas, the answer might be "yes". EMC Insurance Companies, the Iowa based backer for most of the insurance companies used by public schools in Kansas, has refused, this year, to underwrite a policy for any public school that allows guns on school premises, except in certain instances, such as when police officers happen to visit a school for some reason, in the line of duty. In July of this year, Kansas lawmakers decided not only to extend de facto permission to allow guns at school to  students who hunt in the morning, before school starts; but to also allow teachers to carry concealed weapons to school!

In the tiny public school that is closest to my home, all six of my children have been bullied by oversized, pink, blond children, and when that has not been enough to satisfy the lust for violence among the inbred population that was waiting for us when we moved here, teachers began to bully me and send nasty emails to me, for such infractions as failing to support their favored candidates during elections and failing to attend their churches! The ACLU was forced to step in on my behalf! No loving parent sends a child to Frankfort School in Kansas if another choice is available. Should any of the teachers who stoop to bullying tactics experience a momentary lapse of reason while carrying a gun, the closest child would probably be the first to take a bullet, and the child with the darkest hair and skin would probably be the first at whom the bullet is deliberately aimed.

In response to the new law, allowing teachers of all levels of sanity and intelligence, or lack thereof, to carry weapons to school, EMC has decided that the risk is unworthy, and about ninety percent of Kansas public schools did not have insurance when school started. Because public schools in Kansas are not consolidated, but run by small, "unified" districts and ridicules local school boards, school boards are scrambling to appease insurance companies with newfangled "policies" about guns in schools, in an ongoing effort to convince underwriters that their buildings will be safe. If schools were consolidated and all under the control of the state of Kansas, one decision could be made for all Kansas public schools, and the insurance companies would not have to deal individually with many different school districts. In the mean time, school has started with no insurance for most public schools in Kansas. Failing to carry insurance is against the law in most states for drivers, and most businesses must carry insurance, so I can only wonder how public schools in Kansas get away with this. Also, why has this been largely ignored by Kansas media? Are parents seriously not concerned about children attending uninsurable schools?

It should also come as no surprise when the unified districts that do manage to procure insurance find themselves doing so at a higher rate than they formerly paid. The climate of Kansas schools has already been shown to be unsafe. Shouldn't the local school boards on the unified districts have seen this coming, and begged their representatives to vote otherwise on this law? Now there will be even less money for actual education, such as it is in Kansas.

Some time ago, the local school board thought I was jesting when I explained to them that allowing guns at school in the hands of students is foolish, and that if they did nothing about the guns that were taken to school by certain students, I would make their oversights public. I called the school's insurance company, and was told that under no circumstances should a weapon be taken to a school by a student or a teacher, and that the information I had just given them would be shared with their investors. I suppose those who provide the school's insurance had hoped that the school board folks would wake up and smell the coffee before a tragedy forces their eyes open, but Kansas, instead, has compounded the issue.

In other news, Iowa has begun to grant permits to carry concealed weapons to blind applicants.

Second Reason To Consolidate Kansas Schools

Not too long ago, I discussed, on this site, what I consider to be the first reason to consolidate Kansas public schools, rather than leave them under the control of unified districts and unprofessional local school boards consisting of uneducated folks with no teaching experience. This allows the unified districts too much leeway to violate federal and state laws, since none of them answer to federal or state authority in any way. One of those laws that Kansas school boards attempt to sidestep has to do with student safety and weapons; specifically firearms.

Before she graduated last year, my daughter shared with me the fact that she did not always feel safe at school because some of her classmates took guns to school. I was shocked to hear this, and asked her why this was happening. She told me that during hunting season, boys in her class went hunting before school started, and instead of taking the guns home and putting them away, they would leave them in their lockers, or in the back seats of their cars! This particular school, in Frankfort Kansas, has all grades from kindergarten to grade twelve, and no one besides my daughter had ever considered the possibility that a small child could open a car door, find an unattended weapon, and create a tragedy. Also, at least one of the children cited by my daughter as taking weapons to school is a confirmed bully, and allowing such a child to take weapons to school is crazy, but this is school in Frankfort, Kansas.

I went to the local sheriff's office to complain about this, and was told by the undersheriff, Tim Ackerman, that because of the Republican leanings of most Kansans, and because many of them go to fundamentalist Christian churches, Frankfort School does not have to worry about tragedies such as the ones in Columbine, Colorado and Newton, Connecticut. Later, I called the Kansas Department of Education, and was told that Kansas schools do not have to really obey the law. It is only a "recommendation" in Kansas, not a requirement. The best alternative my family was able to find for the protection of everyone in our home was to find another school that is not affiliated with Kansas public schools or USD 380.

The only way to change this, and make Kansas schools safe is to either put the entire mess (and I DO mean mess) of public schools in Kansas in receivership, or simply consolidate Kansas public schools and make them answerable to state and federal authorities. Most Kansans hate that idea, but if Kansas were truly able to understand the law and govern themselves, public schools in Kansas would all be in compliance with the law.

Tim Ackerman, the cop who thinks voting Republican and going to church are great ways ensure that kids can safely attend school with guns in tow during hunting season.

Reason Number One For Consolidation Of Kansas Schools

Kansas never ceases to amaze me with it's stupidity. The public schools in Kansas are not consolidated, which means that each "unified district" has a local school board that is not answerable to state or national standards, or to the state or federal authority, and can force any decision they please on children and parents, be it lawful or not. They can even hire sex offenders and kidnappers if they choose! We now have a Sedgwick County former coach, who was caught in an internet sting, attempting to solicit sex from a fifteen year old, demanding his job as a high school football coach back! Unfortunately, Todd Puetz (it really should be Todd Putz) was allowed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of soliciting sex from a prostitute, and now, since he was not convicted of more serious sex offenses or required to register as a sex offender, his lawyer says he is "entitled" to his job as a high school football coach, and is fighting to somehow force the local school board to engrave him another invitation to endanger children!

Most of us would find this whole request, and the obvious best response......telling Mr. Puetz that he need not apply again.......to be a no brainer. After all, he was fired immediately after his arrest for sex offenses, the local school board did not wait for the trial or the disposition of the charges. As Kansas law does not guarantee a person a job in the event that his services are no longer relevant, and his contract violation(no abusing or molesting children) was proven by his admission of guilt, even though he made a plea in court to a lesser charge, there is a tradition in the unconsolidated, unified school districts of Kansas of covering up the misdeeds of teachers and coaches, and telling the victims to go to hell, because they don't matter. At the other end of the state, in Marshall County, a guidance counselor at Frankfort High still collects taxpayer dollars to endanger children by dropping them off by themselves along highways. The parent who almost had a heart attack over it was told by her local school board that this should not be a cause for concern. If schools in Kansas were consolidated, the laws against child endangerment would need to be followed at each and every public school, and there would be no local school boards protecting political favorites. A thug, such as the guidance counselor in Frankfort, would not be allowed to continue employment in a public school. In fact, the school's insurance should not be allowed to cover this employee any more than an auto insurance policy can be written to cover a driver with fifty DWI's. Child abuse is child abuse, and this guidance counselor committed child abuse and got away with it because Kansas school boards are unsupervised and do not answer to the state. They only answer to themselves. If they do not care about a particular child who has been abused by a teacher, they will generally not lift a finger to stop the abuse. Kudos to the school board who will not offer Todd Puetz his job again. This is an amazing change of pace for Kansas.

Most Kansans fight tooth and nail against consolidation of their schools. Brown v. the Board of Education in 1956 was quite a shock for the quietly prejudiced white population of Kansas, and keeping schools unconsolidated is quite likely a deliberate attempt to continue to keep schools as racially and culturally segregated as possible. Unfortunately, unified districts also have a lot of latitude to violate almost any law when running Kansas schools.

Kansas Public Schools Are All At Risk

Kansas is in denial. It seems that U.S. Department of Education has taken notice of the fact that Kansas schools like to hang on to incompetent teachers, despite any high failure rates among their students, and keep their insular, ridicules social fishbowls intact, rather than terminating the contracts and careers of those who were not born to teach, in favor of hiring real teachers who can educate our children. Because of this, the state of Kansas is in danger of losing it's No Child Left Behind waiver. Not that No Child Left Behind has been wonderful or great, or even satisfactory; but there is a school principal in Frankfort, Kansas, who actually encourages his special education teacher for grades three through six to deliberately impede any learning done by the young people in her class, because the minute those children catch up to their peers, the school stops receiving extra funding. This school also has a much higher percentage of special education "cases" than most public schools in other states.......there are about one hundred and ten students in the school, and at least thirty of them have special education services. If this is an example of how Kansas funds it's public schools, and we should all hope it isn't, then it's truly no big surprise that the U.S. Department of Education is now taking notice. Your tax dollars at work, Kansas. It is well past time to consolidate the schools and lose the small, "unified" districts that are not accountable to anyone for teaching our children.

 

Blown Away And Back In Place

One day in the future, if there is ever enough genetic variance in Northeast Kansas to foster critical thinking among the population, public school will be consolidated. This will be very helpful in creating a curriculum with more and better choices; some of which, a college bound student may need, but not be able to take at present...thanks to the disorganized and haphazard approach taken by the stubborn, not-so-bright folks who occupy the school boards in Northeast Kansas. Of course, the less biased and more competent direction provided by a qualified, more centralized school board would mean that Kansas children would be required to stop taking guns to school after hunting, and also that Brown vs. The Board Of Education may finally become law in Kansas. On a related note, a "unified" school district in Marshall County just lost five students because school faculty was unable to act professional and respectful to parents who wanted their children to learn. One would think, amid all the whining about declining enrollment and all the outright fear in the face of consolidation of Kansas schools, that parents of large families would be treated with respect! Because there ARE other options, USD 380!