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The School Board Is Not An E-Ticket

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By Daniel Ruth

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 31, 2008

Who would have ever imagined that when it comes to dysfunctionality, the Hillsborough County School Board would make their Bowery Boys brethren over at the county commission look like the U.S. Central Command?

In recent days, the school board, in a tiff over travel expenses, has been doing more sniping at one another than the panelists on "The View."

It is probably worth noting right about here that when the body politic votes to elect someone to the school board, the last thing on voters' minds is that their public official will end up treating the post as if it's a personal e-ticket to flit about the country hobnobbing with other pols at various conferences, conventions, seminars and buffet troughs.

After all, the school board traditionally has been a sort of backwater elected post, which most of us probably view - apparently erroneously - as a bunch of folks sitting around pondering curriculum issues, personnel decisions and the dry, banal, esoteric nuts and bolts of education.

Doing The 'Rithmetic

Alas, the Three R's have come to mean Reading, Rating and the Route to Tampa International Airport.

When she runs for re-election this year, board member Susan Valdes might consider a campaign slogan along the lines of, "I'm Susie - Fly Me!" Well, perhaps not.

Of the school board's $148,000 travel expenses, Valdes has gobbled up more than a third, spending $50,322 and strapping on her seat belt to munch her in-flight peanuts across this great land of ours.

It's never a good thing in dire economic times to be exposed for having 50-G wanderlust on the public dime. And so Valdes did what any glad-hander would do when confronted with an expense account that exceeds the average income of most parents with children attending Hillsborough Public Schools.

She went into a pout-fest.

Everybody Look What's Going Down

"I'm the hardest-working school member," she claimed, confusing perhaps the rigors of packing and unpacking, packing and unpacking with serving the interests of her constituents here.

And then - cue Buffalo Springfield's "Paranoia strikes deep..." - Valdes whined, "I can't trust anyone in the district ... I take it personal sic."

Valdes was referring to her decision to request the travel calendar of board Chairwoman Jennifer Faliero, who in turn demanded to see the calendars for the rest of the board. Perhaps at some point all these folks will get around to doing the jobs they were elected to, but don't hold your breath.

It's hardly surprising that Valdes' relationship with most of her fellow board members is about as warm and collegial as Mike Tyson's with the National Organization for Women.

When you run around claiming to be more hard-working than your fellow board members, that hardly endears one to one's colleagues. Valdes might have a point when she frets about not being able to trust anyone, having just stabbed her associates in the back.

But it is a self-inflicted wound by a school board member who has morphed into a temper tantrum-throwing Joan Crawford.

Repairing that damage will be a long and winding road to travel.

Keyword: Book of Ruth,

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