"Hanoi Heather" Ousley is Dangerous Union Organizer Who Will Ruin SM School Board, Gerrymander Boundaries and Deputize Our Kids as Junior Social Justice Warriors! Vote instead for Mandi Hunter.

Homeowners beware--a civil rights Snowflake Attorney, "Hanoi Heather" Ousley is running at large for SM School District Nov. 7.  She promised at last weekend's ShawneeMissionPost debate NEVER to allow disadvantaged school's boundaries to permit higher income/achieving kids to leave that school.  (debate is linked at bottom.)

"Hanoi Heather" Ousley is as tone deaf as Jane Fonda was, when she was a traitor to the US in VietNam.

"Hanoi Heather" Ousley wants to play politics with Joco's biggest investments--our homes--through gerrymandering school boundaries.  She promised Sat. at the debate-- to handcuff smart affluent kids into artificially inflating school test scores.  That includes MY neighborhood school, Shawanoe at 75th & Nieman in Shawnee.  It's smack dab in the growing heart of subsidized apartments, (formerly called Section 8) for citizens and illegal immigrants alike.  At Shawanoe, 28% of the kids speak 17 OTHER LANGUAGES THAN ENGLISH!  And school board candidate Heather Ousley is willing to handcuff and dragoon our little kids into being teacher's assistant--to teach English to kids at Shawanoe.  Meanwhile, many other children are not getting much attention, because we all know, class sizes in Shawnee Mission schools are too large.

This social engineering experiment failed miserably in KCMO.  Did we learn nothing??
Despite statements and inferences from Hanoi Heather and another socialist/union candidate, Laura Guy, students do not "learn better" in a school that is excessively diverse.  They made that up.

Using kids as unwilling pawns for social engineering is WRONG.
Using GERRYMANDERING of district boundaries for cavalier social experiments and manipulation of test scores is UNETHICAL AND HIGHLY DESTRUCTIVE TO MAINTAINING PROPERTY VALUES!

None of this would be an issue in the more prosperous Blue Valley School District in southern Johnson County--because they don't have Title 1 low income schools.  All those kids walk to their neighborhood school.  That's why parents bought where they did!

In Johnson County, we all believe in diversity to a point.  In my own HOA, my immediate neighbors are a great mix of folks who maintain their property and support kids through higher learning to good careers.  They include Hindu, Muslim immigrants who escaped the Shah of Iran and speak Farsi, gays, Catholics, African Americans, Armenians, Mexican American citizens, atheists, mixed families with foster kids, rednecks, retirees...and me.

To the Bernie Sanders liberals in Northeast Johnson County, I'd say this:  Of course you support diversity.  But it is mostly INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY, because Fairway, PV and Mission do not have low income subsidized housing totally surrounding YOUR neighborhood grade schools!  (Like we have at Shawanoe.)  You do not have any ESL schools at 28%.

"Hanoi Heather" is a Merriam Democrat whose misguided extreme Liberal policies are not in line with homeowners' goals.  She will ruin Johnson County property values for the 82% of residents who do NOT have kids in SMSD.  While quite pleasant one on one, if you hand her a microphone, Hanoi Heather turns into a belligerent harpie for the NEA Teachers Union (Never EnoughApples!): Listen to her badgering Hillary style speech in Topeka on her web site.

Hanoi Heather Ousley: Joco's Hillary Clinton harpie for "Full funding" for public schools, because $14000 a year isn't enough per student

Full funding is really teacher union code for endlessly more money.  But that's not the solution.

"Hanoi Heather" Ousley's day job is a civil rights attorney for HUD.  So her paycheck comes from HUD;  while her husband Jerrod's paycheck comes from being a Democrat state rep in Topeka.   And now this family is so narcissistic they think they also need to boss around our School Board? 

Union organizers from Mo marching for Jerrod Ousley.  Wife "Hanoi Heather" Ousley is ALSO endorsed and funded by Tri-County Labor Council.  This "Bill & Hillary" wannabe power couple is on a rant--willing to disrupt the rights of homeowners to preserve and protect their property values in Joco.  They are on the record, willing to use gerrymandering of district boundaries, and using little children to be dragooned into serving as Junior Social Justice Warriors.


Ironically, Hanoi Heather doesn't walk her talk--she moved her three kids out of her husband's district's Nieman Elementary--a Title 1 low income school, to a non-titled school.  Allegedly, one child had a hearing problem.  But not all three!  One must "state a reason" to move a child out of their assigned school boundary.

Thus, the Ousleys used their political influence to move all three of their kids out of the elementary district represented by their Dad.   Ousley's opponent, Republican Mandi (Serrone) Hunter has a child with a hearing deficit--but KEPT her child in the assigned school.  Hunter's father is famously likeable Lenexa Councilman Lou Serrone.

Listen to the one hour debate, or just start at minute 17--
where Hanoi Heather feared Shawanoe would "lose half the PTA" if my HOA, Seven Hills, was allowed to be rightfully reassigned to Mill Creek, where ESL is just 3%.
Oh the horror! Ousley feared half the PTA would be lost!

Finally, I had to laugh at this PTA nonsense.  We don't play games with property values because a few PTA Moms lobbied to keep their "identities" and power and social cachet at the school where nobody else wanted to serve.  Wahhhhhh!  There's no crying in PTA!

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Editor's note:  10/27/17
I just received a second comment after Ned Scott was allowed to leave his comment.
It appears HERE, because like the second commenter, I can't get Blogger to post it.  I happen to agree, that it was OUSLEY who acts like Hillary Clinton who used her privilege as the wife of a state rep to pry THREE of her kids out of a Title 1 underperforming school! In fact using the disabled child as her wedge to sneak the other two reassigned.  That's disgusting.  For her own "convenience".  Ousley's actions demonstrate clearly she thinks the rules don't apply to her.

COMMENT #2 FROM OUSLEY PULLS STRINGS.  ALL TALK 

"Tiger Mom"??  Mr. Ned Scott, it seems Ousley meets your notion of "Tiger Mom," not Mandi Hunter.  OUSLEY is the one sending all of her kids to a school outside their attendance zone.  The facts are: Hunter's kids attend their assigned school, like most people do within the district.  Mandi Hunter is committed to the serious change our district desperately needs.  Hunter is already posing questions and proposing policies to enhance accountability, digging deeply into district policies and methods to make decisions in the best interests of the students and everyone else who supports this school district, from teachers to taxpayers.   We all want a great education for ALL our kids.  And Hunter has the courage to check the administration's supersized salaries--so we can lower class sizes.  We need to stop the steady exodus of middle class families to Blue Valley.  The actions of our privileged scheming school board are costing ALL SMSD homeowners tens of thousands of dollars in lost resale value.  Ousley is all about herself in her galloping ambitions and publicity stunts."

Thanks to Shawnee Mission Post/Jay Senter's reporting, ACLU spanks SM School Board's Three Monkeys policy as violation of 1st Amendment.

Today, Doug Bonney, Chief Counsel and Legal Director of the ACLU of Kansas challenged Sara Goodburn, President of the Shawnee Mission School District for violating the First Amendment in suppressing parents from speaking at a fake Open Forum meeting earlier this month.

Speak no evil.  Ignore public input.  Disallow First Amendment.  And make the public GUESS what you think, so you can get re-elected without ever revealing how you voted in those executive sessions.  The SMSD school board puts 98% of all votes on their consent agenda.  So how would you know for whom to vote???

Last month, the SM School District secretly (like 98% of everything they do) passed new rules requiring patrons to:
a. WRITE the Superintendent, first about any issue BEFORE attending a school board meeting
b.  Not mention names of district employees
c.  The "Onesie Rule": Not speak in support of any issue that anyone else mentioned earlier in the
      in-name-only Open Forum
d.  Wait patiently by their mailbox !!!--for a reply that might or might NOT come,
     weeks after said Open Forum.  Seriously.  Might come when you win the Readers Digest
     Sweepstakes.

The All-for-One True Blue Blood Oath
The school board also seemingly took a blood oath and foresook their integrity, revising their Code of Ethics, (LOL) never to disagree in public with any board position.  Especially if they disagreed.

Having watched the Trump administration try this tactic, sending generals out to back up crazy actions, it makes me wonder, how's that working for ya?

Our SMSD Three Monkeys!  New school board president Sara Goodburn--the paper waving scolder of parents making comments--plus former prez Deb Zila, cozied up to departing Superintendent Jim Hinson.   Photo by Shawnee Mission Post.com 

Huge praise goes to Jay Senter, publisher of an unrelated blog, Shawnee Mission Post, which has dogged this story ever since they revealed the conflict of interest story when Deb Zila, the school board member who was prez when she hired her 'school crush', Jim Hinson, as Superintendent.  And then Mommy Deb snuck through on a consent agenda the CBIZ contract for insurance benefits admin.  Her daughter Mallory, former Nordstrom customer service gal, administers the benefits plan for our school district!  And Mom Deb didn't think she needed to pull that off consent agenda--and ABSTAIN!

Well, now Hinson has suddenly resigned--before we figger out how to get the Ks. Legislature to fund us so schools re-open in August.

Cheers to the ACLU of Kansas for writing Sara Goodburn and 'splaining the First Amendment to her.  (She might have missed that chapter in history class.)  Clearly, the SM School Board has spent too much time emulating the KCMO City Council!  Suppressing speech, voter turnout, public information, etc.

Sara Goodburn scolded a parent for asking about Deb Zila's failure to abstain, and her conflict of interest on the CBIZ contract.  A totally valid point.  And, even with the new gag order, Zila is NOT an employee of the district, so the Open Forum rule didn't even apply to her.  (Goodburn admitted that later.)

One clever parent threaded the needle at the last meeting asking pointedly, without naming any names:
1.  "Will the contract for the NEXT SMSD superintendent have a moral turpitude clause?"

2.  "Is anyone on this board currently having an inappropriate relationship with any district employee?"

The board and the audience gasped audibly.  Stunned silence.  Absolutely NO response!  The dead elephant in the middle of the room cinched up his necktie, and stared at his shoes during the awkward silence, till Sara Goodburn asked for another patron to approach the mike.

Question: Do we think the district, or the superintendent, before he leaves this month, will respond in writing????  Or maybe on his way out the door, he will start tweeting...

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Here are excerpts from Doug Bonney's great ACLU letter:

“…I write to emphasize that people have a well-established First Amendment right to criticize both elected officials and other public servants,” Bonney wrote. “The Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment reflects ‘a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.’ New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 271 (1964). ‘Criticism of their official conduct does not lose its constitutional protection merely because it is effective criticism and hence diminishes their official reputations.’ Id. at 273.”

Bonney went on to suggest that the policy, as currently written, would prohibit both public criticism of the district’s superintendent, who is vested with great authority over decisions about the district’s position on matters of public policy, as well as praise of current teachers or building principals:

“By prohibiting commenters from discussing ‘matters related to a specific student or employee,’ the Board’s current guidelines are overbroad and inconsistent with the First Amendment. Specifically, the guidelines prohibit citizens from making public comments — whether good or bad — about the stewardship of school employees who have key responsibilities for carrying out the public functions of the school district. For example, the guidelines would prohibit a parent from criticizing Superintendent Hinson by name for his public statements about the on-going legislative and public debate over school funding in Kansas. Similarly, the guidelines would prohibit a parent from extolling the selfless dedication of a particular teacher or principal in the district who has made extraordinary efforts to help immigrant students. Because such comments fall squarely within the people’s First Amendment right to comment on stewardship of public officials, the Board’s current guidelines for the Open Forum agenda item are unconstitutional.”

Read Doug Bonney's ACLU letter to SMSD in full, here.

See related post about SMSD in RH column.

also, read www.kcmopost.com for other news that will make you so glad you live in Kansas.

Shawnee Mission School District allows nepotism hires--and overcharges $1054 upfront if you dare to request Open Records search

Here's to my esteemed and finally emboldened leader friends at the news reporting website, www.ShawneeMissionPost.com!  Generally they just kiss the asses in power.  But FINALLY, THEY TOOK A STAND.  And got punished for daring to report the news.

They outed the Shawnee Mission School District for allowing the hire of the daughter of one of their school board members, Deb Zila.

Photo from SMPost.com: Deb Zila, the smug silent Mom who approved the contract with CBIZ to be
benefits MANAGER for the school district where she was elected to serve on the board!!
Hey, Deb.  Save us all the trouble of  a KORA records search--divulge the answers for FREE! 

Meet Mallory Zila.  Fresh from KState, until last April, when this former Nordstrom employee became a highly paid Employee Benefits Manager for CBIZ.  She manages insurance and benefits for SM School District,
where Mommy Deb Zila serves as SM South area's elected school board member!
Note: this ruffled grey sweatshirt is NOT from Ivanka Trump.

And then, when the website made a KORA request (Kansas Open Records Act) Shawnee Mission Post was gobsmacked to be told they were slugged with a preposterous $1000 downpayment demand!!!

Here's that link:
https://shawneemissionpost.com/2017/03/13/shawnee-mission-school-district-asks-for-1000-prepayment-in-order-to-comply-with-open-records-requests-61471

Note that the rate for searching and copying is $56 per hour, when the district publishes a rate of $30 to respond to KORA requests.  But working at the copier at SMSD comes with a benefit: all the Koolaid you can drink.

Today Shawnee Mission Post ran a survey on their web site.  Asking inoccuously:  "Are you satisfied with the level of transparency of the Shawnee Mission School District?"  

Knowing the facts, what fool would answer "yes"??  None.  But that doesn't count the district's horde of employment slaves...and Facebook and LinkedIn friends of Mallory and Deb Zila.!!

Well, so far the tally is 65 yes, 458 no. I thus conclude that the staff of the Shawnee Mission School District logged on after drinking their morning Koolaid, to vote yes. Couple that with the new policy of charging a deposit of a preposterous $1000 for Open Meetings requests for documents, which will likely be overturned as burdensome and thus illegal. Shame on overpaid Jim Hinson and the school board that condones this crap. 

The SM Schools should be merged with Blue Valley School District, and Olathe and Desoto. Fire some administrators, consolidate and save the taxpayers money. Then the Mom on the board, Mrs.Deb Zila, should submit the answers now, for free--and then resign based on conflict of interest.  Did she abstain from a line item on a SMSD board consent agenda that authorized her daughter's company's employment contract?  That's how these things sneak through. 

And folks wonder why the Ks. Legislature wants to cut down on wasteful taxpayer subsidies of public schools. We all have the governance we are willing to put up with. And yes, I know that's a dangling participle...I'm from Iowa, a "state of minds"... 

Pulse of Northeast Johnson County: Are you satisfied with the level of transparency from the Shawnee Mission School District?

SHAWNEEMISSIONPOST.COM

Note: if you like being informed about government transgressions and consumer issues, check regularly with www.jocopost.com and www.kcmopost.com

PV's mayor Laura Wassmer advocates RECREATIONAL WELFARE at Meadowbrook: the only free community center in JoCo: Demands SM Schools lower our property values and boost Blue Valley's.

Oh brother. PV's new mayor, Laura Wassmer is urging residents to lobby the SM Schools before the big vote to veto the Meadowbrook TIF Wednesday night. And get her preposterous spin: calling SM Schools need to collect property tax to keep competitive with Blue Valley Schools a "short term concern"? That is insulting logic. Where did Welfare Queen Wassmer learn reasoning? Hopefully not in a classroom in a Shawnee Mission School. The fact is this: The citizens of Prairie Village are now being lobbied by Ron Shaffer, their former mayor, now BOCC Commissioner, who is trying to deliver the bacon, millions of dollars of JoCo tax dollars, to provide PV with a FREE community center. That is RECREATIONAL WELFARE. 

No other community got a free community center paid for by ALL of JoCo taxpayers. Not Shawnee, not Lenexa, not even the big dog, OP, altho they are getting a stupid one room yoga studio inside the $32 million King Louie, (we paid $4.5 million for the ugly asbestos filled building and a year later it appraised at $430,000.) which is seven blocks south of the functional OP community center, Matt Ross.

Our schools protect our property values.
So it doesn't matter one whit if you have kids.
Your home is your biggest single asset.

A rec center with subsidized day care COMPETES with private industry, which is well capable of offering yoga or pilates classes and day care.
If you want the economy to improve, (so your kids and grandkids can get a job and move out of your back bedroom there in PV!) then stop allowing your governmental lackies to transfer private tasks to public tax financed efforts.

SM Schools should STOP allowing businesses to demand TIF's.
The Meadowbrook TIF is a phony head fake--pretend the tax is for the county not the car dealer, when it is just an account transfer.
By one vote, your inept JoCo Commission, including Ron Shaffer, allowed the VanTrust car dealer to set an inflated price, sans appraisal.
And because the car dealer is building things that don't generate much property tax,
the TIF is phony, because it will likely never be paid off.
It's a gift disguised as an incentive.

So like a Trojan horse, but now with 8 cylinders and 350 HP, VanTrust is muscling its way into NE JoCo to build what they want,
on the GOOD land, while sticking the county with the worse half, the inside, in need of a giant detention pond,
and then using former mayors and Welfare Queen Laura Wassmer to brand it as "long term good"
and now trying to guilt trip the SM Schools into taking it in the shorts.

PV Mayor Laura Wassmer wonders:  Where do I sign?
To get SM schools to give $12 million of our PV property taxes away?
Forget your declining resale values.   I want my name on a brass plaque
at my new Meadowbrook Recreational Welfare Center!  

Personally, I think if PV wants a community center, their residents should pay for it, and not accept RECREATIONAL WELFARE from the rest of us in Johnson County.

I think the SM School Board should man up and demand their fair share of property taxes. Period. And if you agree, and are getting to that point where you will want to sell your home, you will realize, you don't want to have to lower your selling price by $20,000 to compete with a homebuyer who believes they absolutely must move to the Blue Valley School district...for the RESALE VALUE.

So, PV taxpayers, it's your call.

What is more important? YOUR resale value of your home? Or dressing in your yoga pants to go to the Meadowbrook Welfare Rec Centerin PV instead of 30 other private health clubs?

Read more on KcmoPost.com

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