Looks like Jeffersonville HS students and parents have had enough of their principal, District 7 school board candidate James Sexton

Kelley Curran is a local blogger who had James Sexton’s number a long time ago.  Kelly gave me permission months ago to use the information from her blog, Southern Indiana Agitator, so give her some hits and read some really interesting stuff.

She kicks off her post about James Sexton with this:

Ok, people, here’s the thing:

The already unpopular principal of Jeffersonville High School, James Sexton, has punished the kids who created a very inoffensive Facebook page, “you know you go to Jeff High if.”

This is disturbing for several reasons. Most simply, this is not a school matter. These are kids communicating and expressing themselves online, presumably outside of school.

Since we’re talking about speech here, we’re talking the First Amendment, which it is hardly Mr. Sexton’s place to diminish.

What kind of lesson is this to kids? If you don’t like what someone is saying, use threats to quiet them?

Just click here to read the rest of her post.

And there’s more…

More strictly enforced and/or tightened existing policies in areas such as cell phones and dress codes; made coaching staff decisions that angered parents and students; angered some teachers for similar reasons as students with some reportedly being berated in the front office and various other slights; created and sometimes backed off of other unpopular policies such as prohibiting students from being picked up in front of the school, prohibiting school newspaper staff from leaving campus to solicit ads for the paper, getting rid of a long-serving and liked resource officer, changing long-standing graduation-related traditions…
Actually, as I answer your question, I realize just how truly unpopular he has been. I listed all that off the top of my head, could have continued, and I’m not very closely tied to the school right now.

aaa

And we have posts like this about Sexton on the “You know you go to Jeff High” Facebook page:

So, there’s no mystery about Mr. Sexton’s inexplicable, unpaid leave.  Sounds like the students and parents finally had enough and raised some hell.

Principals like Sexton can get away with practically anything at JCPS.  I know.  I’ve seen it firsthand.

Maybe Kelley will post an update to the story so stay tuned!

Update:  He was allegedly escorted out of the building.  Ugh.  NOT GOOD.  Click here to read more at clarkcountychatter.com.

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How school board candidate David Jones, Jr., turned a local education gig into a business opportunity for Chrysalis product, StraighterLine

Short version of a long post.  And I can’t wait to give you all of the details.

Below is a truncated list of the board of directors for 55,000 Degrees.

Hey, look!  There’s District 2 school board candidate David Jones, Jr!  Oooh, and his wife, Mary Gwen Wheeler is on staff as the executive director

In case you don’t know what 55,000 Degrees is, what it IS NOT is a non-profit even though its website is a dot org.  It’s a private-public partnership which means I can’t scrutinize their 990s .  Boo, hiss.  Anyway, they’re trying to add 40,000 bachelor’s degrees and 15,000 associate’s degrees to Louisville’s poorly-educated workforce.

Even though there’s plenty of mental muscle over there at 55,000 Degrees, they can’t figure out that the fastest way to spike the number of degrees in Louisville is to get rid of forced busing – because when people buy a $200,000 house or, hell, any house, they want to know where their kids will attend school.  Instead, the degreed professionals have fled to Goshen and LaGrange where they don’t get any enrollment surprises from a wacky school district.

Hmmm.  So, 55,000 Degrees hopes to get more degrees in Louisville.  According to the 55,000 Degrees video, there are about 90,000 Louisvillians who have some college credits but haven’t crossed the finish line yet.

Wow, that sure is a lot of people.  That’s a lot of potential customers…

I now introduce you to StraighterLine, an online-education product that’s part of Chrysalis’ portfolio.  You know about Chrysalis.  That’s David Jones, Jr.’s vulture capital firm.

Know what a “straighter line” really stands for?  A shortcut, that’s what.  And shortcuts are what got this town into the academic disaster that it’s in right now.

With StraighterLine, we have a product targeted at the least savvy consumers of post-secondary education products.  University of Phoenix and all of these other for-profit joints that provide online education are devaluing college degrees.  Now we have StraighterLine doing its part to water down a college degree.  Great.

So, here’s the punch line:

School board candidate David Jones, Jr. + 55,000 Degrees =

Jefferson Community Technical College purchases StraighterLine

And if you put Jones on the school board?  The joke’s on you while the vulture capitalists at Chrysalis laugh all the way to the bank.

I have plenty to add to this post but I’ll add more later.  LOTS MORE.

And I know I promised a voter guide today but all I can say right now is CHRISTOPHER FELL, CHRISTOPHER FELL, CHRISTOPHER FELL.  He’s your guy for District 7.  He’s a JCPS parent who supports neighborhood schools so hard he sued JCPS to get his little girl into her neighborhood school rather than putting her on a long commute twice a day.

Another great thing about Fell is he doesn’t have a hidden agenda.  Isn’t that great?

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