Louisiana Voice

Even as the St. Tammany Parish School Board refuses to divulge when – or even if – it has requested background checks on personnel and even as the board exerts every effort at its disposal – legal and otherwise – to silence critics, an internal audit has revealed that of the 55 public schools in the parish, at least 44 (80 percent) are considered medium- to high-risks when it comes to sufficient oversight of $12.5 million in student activity funds.

The $12.5 million controlled by the 55 schools comes to an average of $227,272 per school, though five schools considered at high risk are sitting on student activity funds totaling more than $3.5 million – an average of $700,000 per school.

Those schools are Mandeville High School ($1.3 million), Covington High ($610,381), Pearl River High ($387,625), Salmen High ($396,545) and Slidell High ($817,111).

In all, 11 schools are classified as high risk by the board’s own internal auditor while another 33 are considered medium risks, according to the board’s Risk Assessment for the current school year obtained by LouisianaVoice.

The funds are generated through school fundraisers such as fees, field trip payments, food services, T-shirts, P.E. uniforms, parking finds, passes and other activities and are used to finance various student activities such as band, pep squads, athletic teams, etc.

An audit of Honey Island Elementary School, a high-risk school, noted that purchase request forms were either incomplete or did not contain the required prior approval needed for purchases. Moreover, it revealed that the principal’s travel expense form was paid without a supervisor’s approval or without supporting documentation.

Another high-risk school, Bayou Woods Elementary School showed areas of concern as well. A review of purchase request forms, for example, showed in one situation, the school principal initiated a disbursement request and had the assistant principal sign the “Principal Approval” to authorize the expense, meaning that the final expense approval was obtained from an employee who reports to the principal.

In another instance, school funds were used to purchase a $650 “unique item” without the completion of required purchase request forms to document the business purpose of the expense.

The risk assessment report and the 2007 RAPE of an elementary school student by a school custodian have combined to raise alarm with several St. Tammany Parish citizens over whether or not the board carries out its responsibility to conduct criminal background checks on employees in a timely manner.

And whenever the issue is raised with the board, critics are silenced as with the abrupt KILLING OF THE MICROPHONE of that rape victim at a January board meeting.

But the real kicker is the board’s ruling that one can only speak to a particular agenda item but requests to speak must be submitted in writing by noon the Friday before the next meeting – even though the agenda for the meeting has not yet been posted.

“How can someone possibly know what’s on the agenda before noon if it’s not posted?” asked Rebecca Bleker, the mother of the 2007 rape victim, Justin Bleker.

Cindy Rester, a frequent critic of the board, was a bit harsher in her assessment of the board and School Superintendent Frank Jabbia:

“I am appalled after reading your response! You may want to read [the] St. Tammany Parish School Board Policy, and I suggest that you read the LAW particularly La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§17:81, 42:14, 42:15, 42:16, 42:2.

“Public Comments for Agenda Items is totally different and is a requirement set out in law.

“If you are going to be in charge and responding to things like this, I suggest you may want to take a class from Louisiana Legislative Auditor to LEARN about such things. I am attaching for your review the LLA FAQ on Open Meeting Laws you should find it very interesting.

“In fact, they have a whole section just for School Boards Louisiana Legislative Auditor.”

Below are the board Risk Assessment Report for the 2020-2021 school year and the internal audit reports on Bayou Woods Elementary and Honey Island Elementary schools.

“First, with regards to the reappointment of Ronnie Jones, the Louisiana Gaming Control Board needed an injection of new leadership after seven years of Jones serving as chairman and even more years as a regulator.

“I applaud Gov. John Bel Edwards’ appointment of Lt. Col. Mike Noel, who, as the governor says, brings a “wealth of experience and knowledge” to the Board.”

—State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, on her reasons for objecting to the reappointment of Ronnie Jones as Chairman of the Louisiana Gaming Control Board.

No reflection on the abilities of Noel, but while Carter Peterson felt that new blood was needed after Jones’s seven years, she seems to have ignored the fact that Noel spent 17 years regulating gaming as head of the Gaming Division of State Police.

Her apparent disregard for logic and reason as evidenced in her statement above may well be part of the explanation of how she has run the Louisiana Democratic Party into the ground since her election as Chairperson in 2012.

Now Carter Peterson is seeking election to Congress from Louisiana’s Second District. She hopes to fill the seat vacated by the capable Cedric Richmond now serving as a Senior Advisor to President and Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.

So, with a lot riding on who represents citizens of the state’s 2^nd Congressional District, perhaps a closer look at Carter Peterson’s performance in the Louisiana Legislature might be appropriate.

From 2017 through 2020, she missed 45 percent of all votes in the legislature despite drawing a salary of $22,500 per year, plus per diem and mileage. That’s more than 1,770 votes she missed.

And if one thinks 45 percent is a tad on the high side, consider this: in 2020, she missed a whopping 85 PER CENT Of VOTES.

But here’s the real kicker: In the pandemic-shortened legislative session of 2020, State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson missed an eye-popping 20 of 24 days – but collected her per diem (at $161 per day) for all 24 days ($13,685) and $1,225.90 in mileage payments (mileage for about a dozen round trips to and from New Orleans).

Legislators, it should be pointed out, generally stay overnight in Baton Rouge during the session, returning home on weekends and Carter Peterson is one of those fortunate lawmakers who gets to rent an apartment at the Pentagon Barracks across the street from the Capitol at bargain basement rates.

To get an idea of what a generous perk those apartments are, go HERE for a story I did more than 10 years ago.

Last year’s payout comes to almost $15,000 ($14,910.90) for non-attendance – in addition to her $22,800 legislative salary. That’s a total of $37,710.90 for a part-time job when many Louisianans don’t make that much at their full-time jobs.

And as the really campy TV commercials say, but wait. There’s more.

Carter Peterson also holds down, presumably, a full-time job (since 2014) with DENTONS LAW FIRM in its energy division. The June 5, 2014, news release announcing her appointment said, in part, “Her significant experience in Louisiana business and government, and work nationwide, gives her a unique perspective that will be of tremendous value to our clients.”

Among Dentons’ clients are Entergy and the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board.

So esteemed is Carter Peterson that she is not even listed among Dentons’s “professionals” on the firm’s web page. Still, she pulls down more than $100,000 per year, according to FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE FORMS filed with the State Ethics Board.

And then there is her husband, Dana Peterson, who serves as an assistant superintendent for the Louisiana Department of Education at $136,536 per year, according to Carter Peterson’s 2019 financial disclosure.

With those kinds of salaries, she still feels the need to rip off Louisiana taxpayers for sessions she didn’t attend. That’s real class.

With the legislature charged with approving budgets for all state departments, it would be interesting to know whether or not she abstains when matters concerning the Department of Education or the Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, come up for legislative action.

…If she shows up to vote at all, that is.

Sometimes a writer gets a story dropped into his/her lap that is like manna from heaven. Oftentimes, they tend to write themselves.

Such is the 2021 CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE (CPAC) that is off and running in Orlando, that oh-so-appropriate selection, being, as it is, the home of Mickey Mouse and Goofy.

There are so many stories tied to this collection of cretins, this assemblage of airheads, this meeting of muttonheads that literally drip with irony, contradiction and delusion that it’s difficult to know which angle to pursue first.

After some consideration, I’ve decided to violate the first principle of journalism by saving the best for last – that being the not-so-subtle flaunting of the Golden Idol by the party that seeks, yea thrives, off the unqualified adoration of the evangelical Christians.

Spoiler alert: for reasons yet to fully explained, there are several notable speakers not on the program this year. No Sidney Powell (go figure). No John N. Kennedy (how could they overlook a cartoon character for an event staged at the cartoon capital of the universe?). No Rudy Giuliani (ditto). No Marjorie Taylor Greene (thank God). No Bobby Jindal (likewise). No Clay Higgins (what can I say?). No Nikki Haley (rumor is she and Trump broke up). No Rush Limbaugh (like Elvis, he’s left the building). No Jeff Landry (Aww).

But there are plenty of other interesting speakers. Let’s examine a few:

South Dakota Gov. KRISTI NOEM gained her 15 minutes of fame by refusing to mandate safety precautions in the name of personal freedom. The result of her experiment in herd immunity was that 40 percent of the state’s population became infected with the coronavirus. The rate of infection was even higher on the Native American reservations. She explained that her inaction allowed families to “keep putting food on the table.” Not said was that it also allowed the state’s residents to keep burying family members. She won’t be passing out face masks at the CPAC event.

Former Florida Attorney General PAM BONDI who in 2008 initiated an investigation of Trump University only to have Trump make a most generous, albeit illegal $25,000 CONTRIBUTION to her reelection campaign. Her aggressive “investigation” was abruptly dropped and Bondi was rumored to be in line for a job in the Trump White House. Trump subsequently went on to reach a $25 million settlement with students he had defrauded at his “university.” Don’t expect Bondi to recap her exhaustive investigation of Trump in her CPAC address.

Alabama U.S. Rep. MO BROOKS, who once said of Trump he could never endorse a “serial adulterer,” but who ended up addressing the mob on Jan. 6, URGING THEM to “start taking down names and kicking ass” just before they stormed the U.S. Capitol building and killed a Capitol police officer while looking to take out a few members of Congress.

Florida U.S. Rep. MATT GAETZ who brushed his hair and scrubbed his face before claiming that Donald Trump’s call to Georgia election officials was “clear and visceral,” and who asserted that the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol was led by Antifa (a claim later shown to be false) and who later that same day OPPOSED the certification of Joe Biden’s election as president. He later became the ultimate shameless Trump toady by magnanimously offering to RESIGN from Congress so he could defend Trump at his impeachment trial.

Missouri U.S. Sen. JOSH (B’GOSH) HAWLEY, who along with Ted Cruz promoted the absurd theory that the election was stolen from Trump via massive voter fraud (but only in the states Trump lost), saying “millions of voters concerned about election integrity deserve to be heard,” neglecting for the moment that at least 7 million more, along with 60 separate court cases, felt there were no questions left to be asked. Hawley’s actions on Jan. 6 prompted his mentor, former U.S. Sen. JOHN DANFORTH, to say that supporting Hawley and working for his election “was the worst mistake I ever made in my life.”

Texas U.S. Sen. TED CRUZ (see previous paragraph) who, when snow blanketed Texas, temperatures plummeted, the pipes froze and the lights went out, did what a real Repugnantcan leader will always do: he split with his family for the beaches of Cancun. Think of the irony here: A Repugnantcan sneaking across the border into Mexico.

North Carolina Rep. MADISON CAWTHORN who has been guilty of embellishing quite a few of his non-accomplishments and taking full advantage of the pity vote as a paraplegic. Word is bets are being made on which lie he will dwell on: his Naval Academy career cut short by an auto accident that left him paralyzed (he had already been rejected by the academy prior to the accident), his gritty training for the Paralympic Games (totally false) or his history of alleged SEXUAL MISCONDUCT, flirtations with right ultra-nationalism, or his RACIAL INCITEMENT.

California U.S. Rep. DEVIN NUNES who loves to sue anyone who dares disagree with him but it appears he only sues to lose. He loses or drops all his cases. He has sued CNN, an INTERNET COW (Twitter) and a former employee, among others. He was also directly involved in the effort to pursue the BIDEN UKRAINE INVESTIGATIONS.

There is a host of other speakers as well, but these would be the lowlights.

Besides, there is the other story that’s much more bizarre.

Like the Israelites led out of Egypt by Moses, the attendees at CPAC have brought in their own golden calf. Well, golden Trump, but a pig by any other name….

That’s right, folks. They wheeled in this hideous STATUE of The Former Guy that more resembles something they’d dream up on The Simpsons or in a tortured nightmare after having too much pork for supper.

Were I The Former Guy, I would likely look upon this monstrosity as a cruel attempt at ridicule because flattering it ain’t.

What it did do, however, was to generate a slew of Twitter comments (more irony considering Trump is banned from Twitter for life), including a still shot from the movie The Ten Commandments of Edward G. Robinson standing beside the golden calf. Some of the choice comments:

“If only there were some sacred text, one most people of CPAC claimed allegiance to, that very explicitly warns against making golden idols.”

“Republicans wheel in the golden calf as they prepare to wander the electoral desert for 40 years.”

“Worshipping the golden calf was ‘really bad,’ prophets say (Exodus 32:8). Worshipping the golden jackass seems even worse.”

“Oh, this is so very on-brand for CPAC.”

“Instead of worshipping a golden calf, the GOP worship[s] a golden crook.”

“Despite having to fight up at least two weight classes, $20 says Bob’s Big Boy knocks out Golden Calf Donald Trump by the 3^rd round.”

As our late friend C.B. Forgotston was fond of saying, “You can’t make this stuff up.”

The St. Tammany Parish School Board, while refusing to reveal when – or even if – background checks had been carried out on key employees, nevertheless may have found itself in violation of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) by allowing third parties to see teachers’ responses to questions about Covid vaccinations.

Meanwhile, LouisianaVoice has learned that following the board’s KILLING THE MICROPHONE of Justin Bleker last month as he attempted to speak about his 2007 rape by an elementary school custodian, more parents have come forward to claim that their children were molested while attending St. Tammany Parish public schools.

LouisianaVoice has obtained information that the entire St. Tammany school system is in a state of disarray with several schools sitting on half-million-dollar student activity accounts while issuing multiple credit cards to employees, giving them unchecked access to the funds.

After Abney Elementary School custodian DINO SCHWERTZ was convicted in 2009 of raping Bleker and after Bleker was awarded more than $450,000 by the 22^nd Judicial District Court, it was learned that Schwertz was never properly vetted for employment by the school board. Despite having been on probation for bank fraud and with a second criminal conviction for violation of a protective order on his record, he nevertheless checked “NO” on his job application when it asked “Have you ever plead [sic] guilty or no contest or been convicted of a criminal offense?

The school board is required to conduct criminal background checks on all employees but Schwertz’s background check wasn’t completed for three months. That same law allows temporary employment until the results of the background checks are received. Even after it did come back, however, the principal at Abney was never given his background check to review.

That law was expanded to include contractors and vendors in August 2017. It says:

“The St. Tammany Parish School Board shall require all contractors and vendors doing business with the School Board to maintain adequate insurance coverage. The contractor or vendor may not appear at the facility either to unload materials or to begin work until a valid insurance certificate requested by the Superintendent or his/her designee has been provided to the Superintendent or his/her designee. If the contractor or vendor cannot provide requested coverages, another contractor or vendor may be secured.

• No contract shall be countersigned by the Superintendent or authorized School Board representative unless a valid insurance certificate has been provided. 
• Once a valid insurance certificate has been received, the Superintendent or his/her designee shall assure that the certificate is valid and meets the limits prescribed in the specifications and/or contract agreement.”

Schwertz’s conviction was nearly 12 years ago but the school board may still be negligent in running background checks on its employees, LouisianaVoice has learned. School Superintendent Frank Jabbia has refused to comply with several public records requests seeking dates that background checks were requested and when the results were received by the board. All such requests specifically noted that nothing contained in the background reports themselves was being sought.

Jabbia cited applicants’ privacy rights in refusing the records requests.

At the same time, LouisianaVoice learned on Tuesday that Jabbia was circulating a questionnaire sheet asking teachers to check Yes or No by their names as to whether they intended to obtain Covid vaccinations.

Because the names of all teachers at a given school are on each of the forms, it would enable respondents to see how other teachers who received the form before them responded. That would be a violation of HIPAA, but Jabbia apparently wasn’t as concerned over privacy when it was information school board officials desired.

He did respond to one person who expressed concern over the apparent HIPAA violation that the problem was “already being dealt with.” He didn’t specify what steps were taken to “deal with” the problem.

But Rebecca Bleker, mother of rape victim Justin Bleker, was not placated. She sent an email to Jabbia that said “Retaliation has [been] what I see as a normal occurrence within [the] St. Tammany Parish school system.” But now, she said, the board has moved into an area that she said was “a specialty of mine. I am a nurse and for you to display a piece of paper and expect people to express their medical information for everyone to see is a violation of HIPAA Laws.”

She also said she was aware of retaliation by the school board against one of her son’s teachers who was seen talking to her. 

“You can allow personal information [to be] spread that clearly is a violation of HIPAA but a simple date of hire and date of a completed background check is an issue,” she said, adding that she felt the board would take any measure it could to deny her access to records.

“I know I requested documentation of rules and guidelines for Janitors now and even that has not been given to me. Just like the background check on Schwertz, STPSB makes their own rules [on] how to handle things.

“Mr. Jabbia you need to clean house and start doing your job or you very well might be out of a job. The board can clearly fire you for you not getting rid of those who have not done their jobs. I think at this point that may have to be the option.”

“We are learning there were many more [victims] than we knew,” said one former board employee. “Now, one mother of an autistic, nonverbal child is also coming forward after all these years saying she suspected [her child was molested] but could never confirm because her child was nonverbal.

“This Board and administration [have] failed to protect children, and continue to obstruct parents’ rights to information regarding the systemic failures of this Board and administration,” the former employee said.

Another unconfirmed report said that a second class-action lawsuit had been filed against the board for sexual abuse of children in parish schools. 

“You can call anyone any name you wish, but if it was your child that was protected by someone who had skin thick enough to handle your insults, you would be on your hands and knees thanking God that He gave them the courage to take a stand,” the former employee said, apparently referring to personal insults directed her way by school board officials.      

“Are you allowing these individuals to walk onto school grounds without a background check?” Mrs. Bleker asked of the entire school board. “You have got to be nuts. I know that many contractors and vendors hire child molesters and you are not even putting this within your policies?

“Someone needs to respond to me and not ignore this.”

A few cogitations about old dogs, pickup trucks and Repugnantcans.

Don’t let your old dogs ride in the back of pickup trucks. They could fall or jump out. Let ‘em ride up front with you.

Now, about those Repugnantcans, especially those of the Texas variety.

Besides the obvious that Gov. Greg Abbott doesn’t know his butt from a bull fiddle, there’s so much to say about Repugnantcans to the west of us who, truth be told, aren’t so different than Repugnantcans in Louisiana. And I’ll get to the Louisiana home-grown variety in due course, so be patient.

It’s not enough that Ted Cruz went skulking off to Cancun rather than remain at home and try to help his Texas constituents. Insult was added to injury when the man he defeated in 2018, one Beto O’Rourke, busily went about trying to do what he could to relieve the suffering. He even drove the 700 miles to Austin to deliver water to residents who had none.

Did I mention that Ted Cruz was basking on the beaches of Cancun about that same time?

But what must have really stuck in the collective craws of Repugnantcans everywhere was that while Cruz was warming his ample tush in Cancun and ignoring his constituents’ plight, one Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, aka AOC, a Noo Yawk Democrat hated universally by Repugnantcans, was busy raising $5 million….for victims of the crippling cold that paralyzed Cruz’s Texas.

That, my friends, is blasphemy cubed, pure sacrilege it is.

It’s also the very definition of irony and the kind of thing that gives late night talk show hosts like Jimmy Kimmel ample fodder.

And while Ted Cruz was making an absolute fool of himself, JOE SCARBOROUGH, host of Morning Joe, was taking our very own Sen. John “Foghorn Leghorn” down a peg or two after the latter’s performance at yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings on Judge Merrick Garland’s nomination as Attorney General.

First of all, Kennedy, that human caricature of a southern politician, made an absolute ass of himself when he asked Garland, “Am I a racist?”

“Ah mon ast you ‘bout this concept of implicit bhas (bias),” Sen. Kornpone began. “D-zat mean ah’m a racist? No mattah whut Ah do or whut Ah thank, Ah’m a racist but Ah don’t know Ah’m a racist?”

Wal, butter mah butt an’ call me a biscuit. Ah do believe Kennedy thanks he’s Sens. Sam Ervin an’ Everett Dirkson rolled into one.

It was perhaps one of the stupidest utterances of his brief career (oh, please let John Bel Edwards run against him in 2022 – it will be a breath of fresh air just to hear someone who doesn’t speak with that disgustingly syrupy pseudo-Southern accent that instead of sounding distinguished, begs to be extinguished).

Garland, though, was more than up to the task of addressing Kennedy’s patently clumsy attempt at entrapment, embarrassment, or whatever the point was supposed to have been.

Garland explained that racist is not a term he would use but certainly bias would apply – in the case of every living human. “Implicit bias just means that every human being has biases. That’s part of what it means to be a human being.” He said the objective should be for us to recognize our tendencies toward biases and to see that we behave in certain stereotypical ways. “Implicit biases are those we don’t recognize but it doesn’t make you a racist,” he said.

Kennedy knew that, or he should have. An imbecile could answer that. You reading this have biases. I have them. We all have biases. I pull for the Red Sox and I hate the Yankees. That’s a bias. I don’t care too much for Repugnantcans. That’s a bias. I know that (though I have managed to warm up to Sen. Bill Cassidy in recent weeks as Louisiana Repugnantcans gang up on him for not marching in lock-step with the party of the rich and privileged). I’m biased against cats as opposed to dogs.

On a more serious level, I’ve harbored bias in my past against gays and I’ve told racist jokes – both in my much younger and more immature youth. I hope I’ve grown beyond that mindset. Meanwhile, I’ve developed a keen bias against what I observe as the unabashed hypocrisy of evangelical Christianity that espouses love and forgiveness while seated in a pew on Sunday morning but can’t can’t seem to generate sufficient faith to change the double standard in our system of justice or to challenge the propriety of caging of children on Monday.

But my moralizing aside, Scarborough made me spit coffee onto my keyboard when he said of Kennedy, “Every time John Kennedy, former Democrat, former John Kerry supporter, former Oxford grad opens his mouth, all those institutions weep.” 

But he wasn’t through with the Mouth of the South just yet. “That guy was doing everything but windsurfing in 2004 on Lake Pontchartrain. If he wants to ask if he’s a racist, then “he really needs to take that back to the cloakroom and get on his knees wondering if he’s a racist or not.”

It wasn’t the first time Scarborough has taken on His Éminence of Madisonville. Back in  NOVEMBER 2019, he dredged up 2004 footage of Kennedy proclaiming to be a John Kerry Democrat, a position that would turn 180 degrees in 12 years when he proclaimed to be “110 percent behind Donald Trump.” That’s what the reference to wind-surfing was: going whichever way the (political) wind is blowing. That episode ended with Elise Jordan a Time correspondent wo was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, saying of Kennedy, “Bless his heart.”

Now, Southerners know this already but for those of you who may not have born in the South, when you say “Bless his/her heart,” you have either just observed a very homely person who a mud pack can help only if it remains on, or you’ve just seen someone do or say something incredibly stupid.

Cruz and Kennedy: bless their hearts.