Cleburne Texas CISD School Bond is a SCAM... Are they actually going to build a SPORTSPLEX?

For those of you who still believe 'It's for the children!', you need to ask yourself some serious questions...

Do you believe it is possible that the Federal Government has ever misled or lied to the public?

Do you believe it is possible that your local Government has ever misled or lied to the public?

Do you believe it is possible that your Cleburne ISD School Administration (or any school administration for that matter) has ever misled or lied to the public?

If your answer to all or any of these questions is 'NO', then I have some bad news for you.  Our Federal, State, and local governments and school bureaucracies are not made up of monks whose main purpose in life is to maintain transparency and honesty in their inner workings.  All of these entities are made up of real people, who have ego's, who have stress and issues and baggage just like all the rest of us, and like a lot of humans, when given a position of power over someone else, there is a fairly good chance they will abuse their position.

There was a saying by a  gal that was the State Comptroller a few years ago, Carole Keeton Strayhorn I believe, and it goes like this.. 'Here in Texas, we're going to keep voting on it until you get it right.'  That applies so well to what Texas schools do when the voters turn down a large school bond.  They start all over the next year, and just keep hammering away.

Right now, Cleburne is into Year Two of the 'Big Cleburne School Bond Boondoggle', because the whole thing is essentially a fraud.  Last time around, Cleburne was told that, for $150 Million Dollars, Cleburne could have a nice, shiny, new Football Stadium, you know, 'For the kids!', and that it would drastically improve the quality of life in Cleburne.  Pardon my French, but that is bullshit, and the taxpayers of Cleburne thought so too, because they voted it down, but just barely, because out of 17,000 property owners, only a couple thousand voted on both sides of the issues.

So here are, again, except that this time, the school administration is promoting a new high school, you know, 'For the kids!', except that... it isn't.

If you google 'Texas School Bond Fraud', there are quite a few articles that come up about it, and the crux of this process is that with access to tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on a big project, and NO OVERSIGHT, it is possible for anyone involved with expenditures in the project the bond was raised for, to embezzle money.  And embezzle they do!  Texas isn't the only state this happens in, and there are some school systems where up to 70 Million Dollars just disappeared, such as Beaumont, Texas ISD.  Folks, that isn't white collar crime, that's a bank robbery.

The only way to keep these things from happening is to have the smallest bond possible on the smallest project possible, with the most oversight possible.  Right now Cleburne ISD is failing on all three counts.  First and foremost, the school administration keeps screaming that the high school is out of room, and the hallways are unsafely crowded, and it just impacts education so badly... that is all a lie.  Go ask the administration about the studies done on Cleburne growth over the next decade.  Go to the school board meetings and ask 'em which one of them did walkthroughs with a clipboard to count heads and classrooms.  Both processes came up to the same result.  It'll be ten years before the high school runs out of room.

Now, what is needed is a lot of repair to Cooke and Coleman schools, because, there's hearsay bouncing around that the football program kept robbing the maintenance program from these schools, and they repeatedly ended up short when they needed to do repairs.  Funny though, I never hear of the football program coming up short... Regardless, we are where we are, and on the yesmatterscisd website, they state that they can fix Cooke and Coleman for only $2.5 Million.  Great!  Let's a get a bond for that and be done.
But oh no!  That's too small a dollar amount to easily embezzle funds from, so now we've got a new high school and a rebuild of the existing high school tagged on there as well.  Here's the problem.  Sure, they call it a new high school, but look at the layout plans right there on the school or bond website.  They're not building just a new high school, they are building a new SPORTSPLEX as well.  New baseball fields, new track, new locker rooms on either side of the general use building at the end of the football field.. that suspiciously look like home and away team lockers, prior to building .... a new football stadium.

It's right there on the pictures folks.  They may scream that it's all about the high school, but it isn't.  For some reason some people in Texas think that having a big football stadium is a measure of the worth of it's students.  It isn't.  Nobel Prize winners are the measure of your school, and the way things are going, I don't see too many of those coming out of Cleburne ISD.

So here your administration is, pushing a new high school, with no mention of the SPORTS PLEX they are going to build with it, with locker rooms that look like they're setting up to build a new football stadium right there by the high school.

All of it unnecessary, none of it that will help the education of, you know, the KIDS, and all of it a SCAM to have access to large amounts of money, with NO OVERSIGHT, because your school board is asleep at the wheel.  Go to the school board meetings and watch how often they discuss school finances.  They don't.  Look through the minutes, they're so vague they could be holding drunken college parties in there and you'd never know it from the minutes.  

Vote NO on the 2016 Cleburne ISD School Bond.  It is NOT for the kids, as a pile of bricks never made a bit of difference in the education of a kid, and a new SPORTS PLEX is not going to help that either.

Did you know that at the beginning of this school year, when tested, MOST of the incoming 9th graders were reading at a 6th grade level?  Until you can fix THAT, no one needs to be spending millions of dollars on a new, going to stay mostly empty for ten years, un-needed school, or a SPORTS PLEX.

Cleburne ID 2016 School Bond Scam- Let's talk about reading

Ever wonder just how it is we learn how to read as kids?  It really takes a lot of one on one time, and it is best done early as possible.  My mom was a school teacher, and she taught me to read starting when I was four.  I read 'The Hobbit' when I was 5, and after that, I never looked back.  Now I read 4 inch thick tomes about geo-politics and history, just for fun, like some people read comic books.  Just like typing, having good reading skills is something that will help you your entire life.

Unfortunately, some folks aren't able to teach their kids how to read at home, and they have to leave it to the public school system.  That's fine, that's what the school is there for, but what happens when the school fails?

Well, then you get Cleburne ISD in Cleburne Texas.  This 2015-2016 school year, incoming 9th graders were tested for their current skill level on a number of topics, and most.. MOST.. were found to be reading at a 6th grade level.  That's horrible!  Right off the bat, that means none of them are reading for fun.. unless it's a comic book.  They're certainly not reading for education, which means later they'll have trouble reading just for a job.

Now, the Cleburne ISD administration and bond consultants would have you believe that if we just give them $130 Million Dollars without any oversight, they'll build a nice shiny new school building with that money, and that'll make everything all better.  Just one problem.  Kids in India that go to school in mud huts and later go on to become doctors over here have proven that you don't need a shiny $130 Million Dollar school building to be educated.  It's really all about the teachers, class sizes, and information technology, ie: books and, these days, computers.

Thanks to the internet, we live in the greatest renaissance of self-education and leaning known to man.  Have a question about anything?  Google it.  Look it up on Youtube.  You can learn about anything these days.  But!  You HAVE TO BE ABLE TO READ.

Now, if the proposed new school was going to help with class sizes, that would be an argument for it, but it won't.  As a matter of fact, the existing high school won't even be used at capacity for A DECADE.

Smells kind of like a scam doesn't it?  If this new high school was built, most of it would be sitting empty for a decade just waiting for the OTHER high school to fill up.

It really smells like someone just wants to get their hands on $130 Million Dollars without anyone looking over their shoulder to see how the money is spent, so that they can put.. just a little.. only a million or two.. in their pocket...

Read about it!  Google 'School Bond Fraud', or 'Texas School Bond Fraud'... this has been done before!

Plus, imagine how ripped off everyone in Cleburne will feel when the administration says 'Well, thanks for the money, but we've decided to built A NEW FOOTBALL STADIUM ANYWAY, and there is nothing you can do about it, NAH nah NAH nah NAH NAH!!  It could happen!  Nobody would get fired, nobody would go to jail.

A brick wall does not teach kids how to read.. good teachers do.

Cleburne ISD 2016 School Bond Scam... It's tough to find time to deal with local school bond voting

It is unfortunate that it takes a lot of work in Cleburne just to get by.  While a lot of places think of the work week as being 40 hours, or 30 if you live in France :) the reality in Cleburne is that a lot of people work 6 days a week, 8 to 10 hours a day.  That makes it tough to deal with local issues like school bonds.  However, just like the last school bond scam for $150 Million Dollars, this NEW bond scam for $130 Million Dollars must be voted down, or every property owner in Cleburne with be paying for the results for the next 25 years.

Remember, anyone associated with the school has a reason to vote FOR this thing, and even if they don't agree with it, they are being prodded by the school administration to vote for it, regardless.  We have to come up with enough votes to overcome those numbers, and THAT MEANS YOU.

May 7th is the main voting day, but there should be early voting, just like last time.  Now, you have to watch out for a few tricks the scammers, ah, administrators pull when the voting occurs.  One thing they like to do is change the voting venues by rotating the place you go any given day between different schools in the Cleburne ISD.

That makes it really easy for all the teachers to go vote for this thing, because they effectively just have to walk down the hall.  However, for the rest of us, we have to leave work, find out where they have 'stashed' the voting booths that day, go there, and vote.  It's more of a hassle, and it's designed to limit the number of people who might vote who aren't involved with the school.

You have to overcome that!  Early voting is handy as well.

Also, help get the word out!  Send links to these posts to your neighbors, friends, and customers.  Copy and paste the cartoons above and email those.  Speak up and tell people and the administration what you think about all this.  Responsible spending isn't a problem.  Irresponsible spending on a school that won't be needed for a decade is.    Oh yeah, and don't forget to push for an audit of the Wheat Middle School Concession Stand, so we can find out how that thing cost $277,000 dollars!