Letter to the Editor

I wish to express my total displeasure with certain members of the Board and the superintendent as they sanctioned Mrs. Charles Wilson in Monday night’s Board meeting. Mrs. Wilson has faithfully served on the Board for eighteen years. I must point out that she is the only master trustee on the Board. Simply because Mrs. Wilson has chosen to speak out against the atrocities that have taken place in MISD, she is now being harassed and humiliated in a public manner in still yet another attempt to keep her quiet.

For instances, and most recently when a black effigy was found hanging in a noose on a Christmas tree, no one from the public relations manager to bus drivers would dare voice an opinion or release any information for fear of retaliation. This was verified by the Marshall News Messenger . It was not until the television stations contacted Mrs. Wilson that the misfortune was brought before the public. Racism is alive and well in MISD and thrives on hammering away at those who dare to speak out. Under the constitution, Mrs. Wilson is guaranteed her right to speak out whenever she observes an injustice. For that she is being punished. What happened to the superintendent for harboring what appeared to be weapons in his office? When did this become his office? The taxpayers own the building; it is not a private edifice for the sanctimonious leader of the district who has made a store house for bicycles and a tree house out of this once respected office.

Mrs. Wilson stated the matter so well when she spoke of his incompetence. It is time for Franklin to go; however, no one wants him. He has applied in numerous districts across the state, but those districts quickly dropped him from their list of applicants when they became aware of how he had destroyed the gifted programs at Booker T. Washington in Dallas after only a few months, how he left Marfa in total disarray in less than a year, and the total chaos that he has created in Marshall during the past three years.. I understand that he has been rejected most recently in Georgetown and Ysleta. Fortunately, those Boards did more than MISD’s Rick McMinn and Walter Floyd, who refused to drive to Marfa to complete a site visit.

The incident for which she is being singled out involves a situation several weeks ago where she dropped by the superintendent’s office to deal with Board business. On that particular day, she heard a loud commotion in his office. Because the door was open, she walked into his office to see what was going on. There she found several maintenance workers installing light switches for numerous lamps because Mr. Franklin objected to having to turn on all of the lights individually. (I wonder how much this cost the district, and did it buy any education for our students?) As she walked past his restroom door, she observed what appeared to be several rifles. Knowing the district prohibited possession of weapons on school premises, she reported her observations to the police department. The Marshall Police Department investigated the findings discovering that these were bb guns or air rifles. Mr. Franklin told the officers that these were weapons confiscated from students. If this is the case, Mr. Franklin needs to provide the Board with student names and dates of incidents. Now he and Mr. McMinn are wishing to punish Mrs. Wilson for simply doing her job as a public servant and Board member. She knew that reporting the incident to the Board would fall on deaf ears and be swept under the carpet as so many other occurrences, such as the incident with the noose, the drunk high school principal that was escorted home rather than charged with DUI, the purchase of $500,000 of instructional materials from the superintendent’s mentor and personal friend, Mike Moses, and the electrocution of a custodian—just to name a few. I maintain that Mrs. Wilson is the only moral conscience this Board has. To hush her will be to turn over full authority to a Board president (Rick McMinn), vice president (Tiffany Ammerman), and superintendent (Kenn Franklin who have ripped apart a district that has not met AYP standards in grades 7-12 and that has a TEA monitor assigned to oversee its special education department because of failure to adhere to state guidelines. Also, I must point out that because of low performance scores, the high school has a mentor from Ballard, trying to help raise its scores.

I marveled at how Melinda Jones skipped over scores for individual subgroups, especially the blacks and Hispanics as she spent two hours covering the AEIS Indicators or TAKS scores for the district. This was a joke and a waste of citizens’ time because all of this information can be accessed online at TEA. If the district made all of the progress she stated, then why did grades 7-12 not meet AYP, and why did the district have to notify parents of their rights to send their children to other districts? This was a delaying strategy on Jones’ part as well as Board members in hopes that Mrs. Wilson’s supporters would become fatigued and leave before their planned vote to sanction her. “Yes, Melinda, we were sick of hearing from you.” Also, why were two police officers present for this meeting? One was in uniform and the second was Franklin’s church buddy from First Baptist who did not wear a uniform, but we all knew who he was. Were McMinn and Franklin expecting a riot from the Black community? This was a blatant insult to Mrs. Wilson’s supporters.

In closing, I want to remind Mrs. Wilson and all MISD taxpayers of Martin Niemoeller’s message as the Nazi’s came for the Jews:

First they came for the communists and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

With that, I urge the community to get involved by speaking out through letters, calls, attendance at Board meetings and casting their votes in the next election. Mrs. Wilson, please know that we are with you and admire your courage. You do not deserve such public humiliation, and we will not be intimidated by the likes of Rick McMinn, Tiffany Ammerman, and Kenn Franklin. We are with you!!!!

Sincerely yours,

Smith Williams