Opinion
By Rich Lamken, 1-17-25
As a former school administrator and executive educator, I’ve maintained my interest and attempted to advise on educational matters of the Nassau County School District. I’ve attended 90% of the school board meetings and many workshops for years and frequently spoken up where there are problems.
I’ve spoken out on issues such as textbook selection, performance, cronyism, curriculum, budgets and the 1% millage increase referendum, which was marketed as for increasing teacher salaries.
I’ve also been vilified by the School District, Board of Education and local Progressive media/unions/NGO’s for that. This article is about some of their recent nasty and disingenuous opposition.
Definition of Journalism by Merriam-Webster:
A: writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation
B: writing designed to appeal to current popular taste or public interest
Wow, they say the quiet part out loud. Journalism is either an “objective presentation of facts or biased toward current popular taste or opinion”.
Well, my experience with the News Leader (NL) confirms their bias toward “B”, while Citizens Journal Florida (CJF) is clearly in the “A” camp!
I have been, unabashedly, calling the Nassau School District to account for their misrepresentation, aka, lies, their poor results, often hovering around 50%, as to students reading and doing math at grade level, despite extremely inflated graduation rates, and the cronyism of their Superintendent and her direct reports for the last 4 years. During that time, I have attended 90% of the School Board meetings and workshops, speaking at most of them, often alone.
In more immediately relevant terms, I’ve been a vocal, outspoken critic of the lies in the 1 Mill Millage marketing documentation, the district’s failure to honor their commitment to give teachers the lion’s share of millage money, as advertised to the voters, being good stewards of taxpayers’ money, and doing a horrible job in negotiations, making unbelievable excuses along the way, especially regarding NESPA.
The News Leaders’ response for the first two years was to publish my opinions/perspectives. Over the last 2 years, my submissions often resulted in a request from Dr. Burns for her perspective on the topic and I was reduced, at best, to a letter to the editor.
So, with some surprise, I received a request for comment from Tracy Dishman, Editor of the NL, asking me for a comment this past Monday, re: the ad hominem attack by Marian Phillips of the Support Personnel Union (NESPA) on me at the School Board meeting, the previous Thursday. I sent her excerpts, 6 paragraphs worth, from this article in the CZ and stated that this is what NESPA is responding to. NESPA interprets my position that insists that the district honor their commitment to give the teachers most of the millage money as somehow disrespectful of their contribution to the district. That’s simply not true. My time in K-12 education demonstrates my respect for and admiration of support personnel!
Without reiterating my previous thoughts on millage referendum funding usage here, please read this:
How is Your Nassau School District Millage Money Being Spent? – Citizens Journal Florida
She chose only one sentence to include in her article, hardly representative of what I submitted to her, and, in her article, out of the blue, accused me of instigating the issue and not having the intestinal fortitude to show up! I wasn’t previously aware of NESPA’s intent to present and to attack me publicly in a school board meeting!
I should have known what to expect; a snake may molt their skin but they’re still a snake!
If you want to know what’s happening in the county, you can only rely on the Citizens Journal as the News Leader serves a leftist, progressive agenda as, seemingly, so does school district leadership.
More articles by/about Rich Lamken in this publication.
Rich Lamken and his wife, Meg are both retired and live in Fernandina Beach. They are both retired Assistant Superintendents of Schools with decades of experience in K-12 Education. Rich has been extremely active with the Education Division of Nassau Citizens Defending Freedom and volunteers in both the Empowerment Program at Barnabas and the ER at Baptist Medical Center, Nassau. He has observed, commented on, advocated and written extensively on this referendum and other educational matters.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
