Trails in the Sand by Peter Traceit, the Street Detective
Sleuthing ain’t easy, but somebody’s got to do it.
Duty calls and Ol’ Peter Traceit, the Street Detective is hitting the sands hard. It appears that someone is out to do some serious damage to Ruth Carter-Lynch, a district five candidate for Broward School Board. Two flyers have gone out accusing Carter-Lynch of being a lobbyist for private schools and accusing her of being unaccountable to taxpayers, having lower academic standards, having lower standards for teachers, and discriminating against minorities and LGBTQ+ students. They are only targeting the Black community, the 33311.
The Street Detective went straight to the source and Carter-Lynch was adamant that she has never worked for any private school. She explained her work in various public schools like Boyd H. Anderson High, Parkway Middle and Sunland Park Elementary. She has also worked with some local charter schools that are public schools. Carter-Lynch repeatedly emphasized that charter schools are public schools that give parents choices.
Interestingly, Ol’ Peter Traceit could not find the name of the person or PAC organization that paid for the publication and distribution of the flyer. This got Ol’ Peter to dragging and trails led to two places. The trails first stopped at a former Board member who loves to throw sand and hide her hand. What’s interesting is Peter is learning that these same poli-trick-cans who are lying and criticizing Carter-Lynch for her work with Charter schools (but purposely calling them private schools to “poli-trick” the public), have themselves taken money from Charter School governing boards, and their own children have attended private schools.
Carter-Lynch explained that she has never worked for a private school but has worked with public charter schools, which is similar to many others who are working with them, including the Broward Teachers Union (BTU) who has contracts to represent teachers who work at local charter schools.
Ol’ Peter is wondering whether the phrase “private schools” was intentionally used in lieu of “charter schools” to keep BTU’s relationship with charters quiet.
It’s no wonder that the Street Detective’s second trail led to guess who. You guessed it, The BTU.
Oh, the lies, the lies, the lies. They are piling up like sand on the beach. A lie doesn’t care who tells it or who it hurts. Peter is learning that when people don’t like you or they fear you, they don’t want others to like you. Then the lies come in sand dune proportions.
Ol’ Peter is always leery of this type of fear and effort to extinguish a candidate, so the sleuthing continued in the direction of an old friend who once worked in Broward’s Charter School department. Peter confirmed the dirt that Carter-Lynch exposed that charter schools are not private schools. They are public schools that provide parents and students school choice, and the Broward School Board has certain obligations to them as they are district public schools with the same accountability (school grades) as any other school in Broward county. Peter’s sleuthing also uncovered that Broward schools also offer parents’ choice within the district through magnet programs, innovative programs, and reassignments.
But the trail didn’t stop. The Detective’s sleuthing led to an office on University Boulevard just north of Commercial in Tamarac. Ol’ Peter has noticed that the president of the BTU, Anna Fusco has been on her best behavior with the new reformed Board, but sources are saying that she, too, is working behind the scenes to ensure her District 5 endorsed candidate, Jeff Holness wins the seat and may be behind these mailers targeting the Black community. To think Fusco is trying to play the Black community when she has been accused over and over of targeting Black administrators in schools within this same community has Ol’ Peter head scratching in disbelief.
Carter-Lynch told Traceit that she has faith in her community to see past the dirt to her efforts to run a clean race. Interestingly, there was an effort by a PAC some years ago to destroy Rosalind Osgood when she first set out to clench the District 5 seat in 2012. A mailer went out with her face behind jail bars and it listed some very unfavorable facts (not lies) about her, to which she has spoken to on many occasions both public and private. Her life as a drug addict, criminal record, drug use, drug possession, and choice to educate her children in private schools was publicized, yet Black voters were outraged by the smear campaign and voted for her in great numbers. Carter-Lynch doesn’t believe the Black community will fall for the poli-tricks, and she is claiming the same victory a decade later.
Traceit is told there is some collective work among some who want to remain behind the shadows as they throw their dirt to not only try to destroy Carter-Lynch’s character, but to stay in Broward School Board business. The Detective has learned that the most pressing business is the review of Superintendent Cartwright’s evaluation. A special Board meeting was called for Tuesday, October 18 to discuss the evaluation. Traceit has learned that the evaluation period covers up to September 1, 2022, so only five of the sitting Board members should actually rate her performance. Lori Alhadeff, Daniel Foganholi, Debra Hixon, Sara Leonardi and Nora Rupert. Interestingly, one of the new Board members, Ryan Reiter rated Cartwright’s overall performance as highly effective (HE) along with the only other highly effective which is Cartwright’s self-rating. Traceit is learning of pressure from the community to have both those evaluations thrown out. Their position is Reiter’s should be eliminated because he was not on the Board for the dates that covers her evaluation period and Cartwright’s self-evaluation should be eliminated because it is an anomaly. Reiter himself led an amended motion to have his evaluation assessment removed and it was, in fact removed.
Traceit was able to get sandy hands on copies of the evaluations, and the evidence shows that there is a clear gap in the way Cartwright perceives her performance and the way it is perceived by her bosses.
Cartwright’s collective average score from the six Board members who rated her is a 3.2. (It is closer to 3.0 if the highly effective evaluation from Reiter is removed.) However, her self-evaluation score is a 3.7. Cartwright rated herself as highly effective in 5 of 7 areas: academics, community relations, employee management, leadership and professional responsibilities.
Traceit drug self over to some of her critics to learn what they think about these perfect ratings. There were some interesting inquiries like:
How is she highly effective in academics when the district is still B-rated, even receiving a B under her watch last year?
How is she highly effective in community relations when she intentionally and strategically avoids or ignores community input that it has a right to in policy, and the community shows up at almost every Board meeting to urge the Board to remove her?
How is she highly effective in employee management when she has botched the process of almost every executive level hiring position and is a proven liar as evidenced by the October 11 Board meeting when her dirty lies around the Chief Facilities position involving Willie Hopkins was discussed at great length?
How is she highly effective in leadership when she takes full credit for all that is good, but never takes responsibility for those things that are not so good? She points the finger of blame at the nearest victim.
How is she highly effective in professional responsibilities when she chooses to ignore state statutes and district policies because they do not fit her agenda?
How is she highly effective when she doesn’t even recognize that there are nine board members, not ten. she has left Dr. Rosalind Osgood on her school board letterhead and Osgood has been gone from the board for more than six months.
How does she rate herself as highly effective when she uses the accomplishments of staff, she demoted to rate herself as highly effective, yet she claims she demoted them because they did a poor job?
From all that Traceit has discovered dragging these sands, Board member Leonardi’s assessment of Cartwright is probably the most on target. Traceit is hearing that Leonardi’s assessment was even lower, but she was coached into giving Cartwright some grace. While Foganholi’s assessment was satisfactory, rumors that he wants a do-over are running rampant in the sand. After his “we don’t have a process problem, we have a leadership problem” comment at the October 11 Board meeting, it is clear that Foganholi and Cartwright are not playing very nicely together in the sand.
Of the Board members who have been there during Cartwright’s tenure, Hixon was probably the most generous in her comments, but critics who Traceit spoke to were quick to remind that Hixon has publicly admitted twice that she is just understanding her role and job as a Board member. With that being said, how can she effectively evaluate the performance of the superintendent?
They’ve got questions and Traceit continues to drag the sand for clues and answers.
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