Here is a podcast of the interview with mayoral candidate, Craig Greenberg, following the alleged attempted shooting by Black activist and journalist Quintez Brown. This will be updated as time allows.
“I’m more fortunate than most people who are shot at.”
“We have got to stop the gun violence.”
“I am a person who can bring this city together.”
Mental health was another topic.
Meiners: “Do you know him?”
“I do not know Mr. Brown.”
Meiners: “You have not met him at rallies?
Greenberg: “I don’t believe so.”
Meiners: “He met with a group last week called the Land of Judah armed forces. A spokesperson for them said, “We are terribly heartbroken over what appears to have been a humongous lapse of judgement. The lam of Judah In no way advocates anything of this nature.”
This is a group that has shown some very strong tendencies, much like the Black Hebrew Israelite movement.
I have to ask about your religion. Did you worry this was an antisemitic …?”
(9:16) Meiners: “Last week, there were multiple Democratic members of the Metro Council who endorsed you. The alleged shooter has been connected to other candidates and he himself is running for office. [Metro Council].
The alleged shooter tweeted, he took a story from WLKY about those other democrats endorsing you before primary and then he wrote at the top, “Dollar Democracy?” So he’s showing political anger at that. I mean, it’s pretty blatant that’s what this is about.
Do you think it’s appropriate for other Democrats to endorse you prior to a primary? And in this case, obviously, it may have led to this outrageous act.”
“I know there are other people whose experiences in their life have been unfair.”
“Let’s lower the temperature.”
(11:55) Meiners: “Alleged shooter Quintez Brown writing though dollar democracy with that story. The inference is that you made a deal with these Democrats on the Metro Council?
Greenberg: “That’s totally false.”
Meiners: The bail was set at $100,000.
The bail was paid by some New York hip hop guy.
Is 100,000 the correct amount? Is that enough for someone who has already shown he has no respect for life, and he’ll blast 5 bullets at you or anyone else.”
Greenberg: With respect to the bail, that’s a good question. I haven’t had time to process that.
I don’t know what led this individual who shot at me.
I am empathetic to whatever led him to that point. I want to be part of that solution.
At the same time, actions have consequences. It’s not acceptable to open fire at other individuals.”
I’m driving down to Frankfort to advocate for that as well.
Meiners: “on the streets.” “Sociopathic behavior.” Blah blah.
Greenberg: “Those who commit violent crimes, there need to be consequences.”
LMPD needs the resources to solve unsolved murders.
Between the weekend hubbub over the “Russian assets” in teachers’ pensions, to the lawsuit that was announced against JCPS this morning, we haven’t had a moment to rest. Much less process what it all means, but in case you missed it, here is a recap:
Better Schools Kentucky (BSK) is the Political Action Committee (PAC) that decides who to endorse for state and local elections and where to spend resources and campaign contributions. We are aware of several abnormalities regarding the selection of those who are chosen to serve on this PAC, which serves as the lobbying arm for the largest school district in the state of Kentucky, Jefferson County Teachers Association (JCTA). which we want to bring to the public’s attention.
The abnormalities in question started first with the 2020 BSK election, and continued into the 2021 officer election, where the entire executive board was also on the ballot (a once every three years phenomenon). The BSK election challenge and results can be found here. An email isolated to complaints about the officer election can be found here.
On Jan. 12, 2021, several white JCTA leaders took to Facebook to spread disinformation about me (Dear JCPS co-founder and page moderator Gay Adelmann) in order to distract from a 4-hour livestream that I had started a couple of hours earlier on my personal FB page. There were several false statements made on a post on Tammy Berlin’s Facebook page, which can easily be disproven. One claim made by another female white leader accused me of “stalking and harassing” her when she appeared on a nearly 16-minute long livestream on the Dear JCPS facebook page from the Senate Steps to protest the confirmation of one of Bevin’s pro-charter school appointees to the KDE, Gary Houchens. Anyone can watch the video to see that she walked into the frame at the 14:30 mark after we had been livestreaming for quite some time. In fact, you can see the person holding the camera changed two times before she came into frame. The person holding the camera at the 13:13 mark had brown shoes, and several times during the feed, you can see me moving about the space (not behind the camera) and I’m wearing black shoes.
It’s not the first time this small handful of powerful white leaders have slandered me for speaking up for racial justice in JCPS. In 2019, they held a 40+ -minute press conference referring to me and others as “rogue groups” because we elevated concerns from Black educators and parents who wanted to encourage a stronger resistance to the attacks on education, pensions, and in particular, Black and Brown JCPS students and families. JCTA President Brent McKim told numerous media outlets that I was looking for “lucrative” service contracts, for example.
Upon the recent discovery of possible ties to Russia (we brought attention to having possible ties to the Jan. 6 insurrection in 2021) regarding the teachers pensions, which JCTA lobbyists, as well as BSK endorsed lawmakers, have been intimately involved with, the complaint, along with the email above and related EXHIBITS have been submitted to the (Office of Education Accountability (OEA) as of 3/4/22.
Let’s hope an entity with resources and ability to research the ties to Russia and other illegal or unethical activities can get to the bottom of what’s really going on in Kentucky!
In the midst of everything else going on, on February 17, 2022, the Kentucky Supreme Court heard the arguments for and against the tax increase appearing on the ballot in November of 2020.
Senate Bill 1, a title reserved for the bill of the highest priority, passed the Kentucky Senate in a rare Saturday session, just 5 days into this year’s 60-day General Assembly. It is a heinous bill that undoes key components of KERA and puts the final nail in the SBDM coffins. The archived file is not yet available on KET, but if you would like to hear the discussion before then, you can listen to it here.
On Tuesday, January 4, Kentucky General Assembly began their 60-day session, in the midst of a raging pandemic. Despite the Omicron variant driving our state to new record numbers of cases and one in three who take the COVID tests testing positive, on Wednesday, January 5, I masked up and drove to Frankfort to meet with lawmakers and share some of our concerns about several racist bills.
While there, I also inquired about the opportunity to testify against Senate Bill 1, which had been assigned to the Senate Education Committee. SB1 focused on two things, and two things only. Taking principal and curriculum selection authority away from local, site-based decision making councils (SBDMs). By weakening SBDMs, they take away some of our key arguments about why HB14 and HB18 are unnecessary. The dismantling local decision-making ability, of course, has been a driving factor behind this bill for six or seven years. And our continued pushback is a key reason it has not passed. Until now, during a time when our democracy is facing the greatest threat of our nation’s history, and our ability to address injustices and be heard is the lowest it’s been during most, if not all, of our lifetimes.
By Thursday, January 6, #SB1 had already had two readings on the Senate Floor and was poised for passage. As a looming snowstorm threatened school closures and driving conditions, adding insult to injury when it comes to the limited access we’ve had to our halls of freedom since the pandemic set in nearly two years ago. After encountering several vehicles that had spun out on the ice and snow, experiencing added delays and dangerous conditions, I called again to make sure I was on the list to speak, so I could focus on driving safely and arriving alive. I arrived moments after they collected the sign-in sheet, so they almost didn’t let me speak. But after some interventions by one of the Senators sitting near me who overheard the kerfuffle and advocated for me, they kindly did. Here is my testimony.
While sitting in one of the waiting rooms, I learned that a Saturday Session had been called. Not much ado had been made about it in any of the news media I follow, so being there in person gave me the opportunity to find out some of these things and pass them along to our coalition members. You see, our super-majority GOP legislature had been working diligently on gerrymandering their districts and guaranteeing their re-elections, so Saturday was the soonest they would be able to approve those maps, and they wanted to get that out of the way as soon as possible.
On Saturday, January 7, I had no idea SB1 was even on their Saturday agenda, but when a friend alerted me it was being debated so quickly, I turned on my handheld mic I carry with me and captured what I could. #SB1 passed the Senate 25-9.
If you missed today’s floor debate, you would normally have to wait until the following day for them to load the replay on KET Archives. However, I have decided to share my audio recording, with added screenshots, so you can see who was speaking when, for those who are interested and able to take the time to watch it while it’s still fresh. (I apologize for the washing machine and cussing sounds in the background.)
EXCLUSIVE. #SB1 is a heinous bill that undoes key components of KERA and puts the final nail in the SBDM coffins. It passed the KY Senate in a rare Saturday session, just 5 days into this year’s 60-day session. A great deal of misinformation was provided during the floor debate prior to its passage. The archived file is not yet available on KET, but if you would like to hear the discussion before then, you can listen to it here.
As mentioned above, this bill strengthens their arguments for HB14 and HB18 because it takes away the authority to make curriculum decisions at the local school level, so we need to be calling our House Reps in opposition to this bill, in addition to HB14 and HB18.
Please join us for a press event at the Capitol on Tuesday at 12:45 PM and Rally Wednesday at 2:15 PM. There will be indoor and outdoor options for the rally. Please mask up.
What they’re saying: “At this time, we do not recommend or endorse a test-to-stay program,” the CDC told the Times. “However, we are working with multiple jurisdictions who have chosen to use these approaches to gather more information.”
There were over 30 individuals signed up to speak at Tuesday night’s meeting, but only about six were able to be heard before the chaos erupted.
Speakers will not be permitted at today’s meeting. Anyone wishing to share their thoughts or concerns with board members prior to this afternoon’s meeting are encouraged to use this link to send them all an email with one click.
LOUISVILLE, KY – There were over 30 individuals signed up as guest speakers at Tuesday night’s school board meeting, but only about six were able to be heard before the chaos erupted after a white women, who had come at the invitation of Beanie Geohegan, a known right-wing radical, changed her seat in order to more easily confront and ultimately threaten a Black mother. One of the speakers with their group, Dr. Frank Simon, spoke about his concerns for Black students, yet ironically, they not only refused to listen to what the Black parents and students had to say, they instead threatened and attempted to silence them. Further frustrations were expressed when one of the officers, who was Black, took the side of and protected the white woman who had instigated and escalated the situation, instead of the parents and children who were being berated by a racist.
The Jefferson County Board of Education meeting is in a five-minute recess after arguments about school resource officers. SROs are not on the agenda @wave3newspic.twitter.com/zq9o1qHeKc
As COVID cases continue to spike in Jefferson county and across the country, amidst a newly reported outbreak in respiratory virus infections, as well, Jefferson County’s public school system is no exception. Add to the mix a vindictive Kentucky GOP supermajority that plotted and schemed with the likes of one-term governor, Matt Bevin, to pursue their political party’s agenda and strip executive powers away from his popular and charismatic replacement, Andy Beshear. These executive powers had previously allowed any Kentucky governor the right to grant a district in crisis more than 10 days of “non-traditional instruction” or NTI, and not risk their SEEK funding being held hostage for doing so. Between SB1 and HB208 during last year’s session, which I explain in an earlier post, that’s exactly what they’ve done.
Kentucky’s new governor obviously suffered these blows because the losing political party wanted revenge. They concocted a plan to make NTI, which many districts were already utilizing as a response to the crisis created by the pandemic, ILLEGAL AFTER THE FACT. But instead of responding with righteous indignation, the powers that be, including our own allies who fear being voted out of office more than they fear going to hell, apparently, participated in the spread of even more lies and manipulation by falling for the gimmicks of the GOP. They were told HB208 would solve the problem they had created so that SEEK funding could once again flow to the students of schools that had participated in the “illegal” act of NTI and all would be well again.
Unfortunately, the bill also contained “trojan horse” language that would force all school districts to reopen to in-person schooling before the end of the school year, presumably so testing companies could get their data and revenue. HB208 is the real reason JCPS and other districts were forced to reopen to in-person classes before the 2020-2021 school year ended. Thanks to much outcry from districts with vulnerable populations, especially ours, a last-minute compromise allowed districts to continue with a hybrid plan (half capacity, two days per week in person, with the remainder of instruction online) until the end of the year. This exception enabled Joint Education Committee Vice Chair Regina Huff to retain her favorable rating with the state-wide teachers union, Kentucky Educators Association, while she managed to successfully bluff her way through playing both sides long enough that the bill was passed, practically as the 2021 session gaveled out. The tea party libertarians who had concocted this plan hated the compromise so much they actually called for the revised bill to be killed, once again showing that they are willing to use children as pawns in their political charades. The compromises were only good until the end of the school year, however, and 2021-2022 was a whole new ballgame.
Summer never stopped to take a breath. The “big lie” gained momentum and a new deadly variant of COVID began to spread like wildfire, just in time to put our district and most of our state in the red as school was set to reopen. Vaccine resistance and mask-wearing became badges of honor, and the only way for these folks to continue to live in the lie, was to reject history and science and to ridicule others who don’t fall in line. They began storming our local school board meetings, work sessions and committee hearings. Along with it came the rise of anti-CRT legislation and outcry over the dogwhistle narrative that teaching history accurately “creates division” and is “hateful” and “divisive.” Truth is, the base of white supremacists is dwindling, and these desperate tactics are used to recruit new blood to help keep the “big lie” alive.
The billionaire elites, with Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul as experienced tour guides, have mastered the practice of preying upon the innocence and man-made ignorance of Kentuckians through their well-funded campaigns of disinformation, fear and hate. Despite the best efforts organizations like ours and countless others, and the will of the people we represent, they continue with their destruction unobstructed. We know that not everyone sees what is going on or believes us when we tell them. But we don’t think we have to convince everyone. We, the Leadership Team of Dear JCPS and practically everyone I’ve spoken to in the JCPS community who shares these experiences, believe we are enough.
It’s time to rise up.
I would like encourage everyone reading this post to realize the seriousness of the situations our families and educators across the state were placed in BEFORE this latest Delta variant surge, with every district being forced by that same GOP legislature to offer in-person instruction. Our current predicament does not even take into account the next wave that we fear is coming based on the reports we at Dear JCPS are receiving of cases that are not being accurately reported on the JCPS COVID Dashboard. We believe we have a moral obligation to share, not only what we’ve been hearing, since those we entrust to keep us safe can not always be counted on to do so.
To that end, I decided to compare yesterday afternoon’s JCPS COVID dashboard numbers to this morning, and I noticed an alarming increase overnight. Four new schools joined the club, and the number of infected and quarantined students and staff jumped, in some cases, by nearly 20%. On top of that, we are hearing alarming reports of cases that have still not made it to the dashboard, 48 hours after they were discovered. Sources tell us letters going home to families don’t match the numbers in the dashboard. In-school nurses are being asked to fudge numbers or data they report to the district, making healthcare professionals feel “caught in the middle.”
I was about to post this blog when something strange happened.
After an entire day of on again, off again internet issues, I was about to post my findings, when I decided to refresh my screen for the 3:00 PM update. That’s when I noticed that there was an even more dramatic jump over the 24-hour timeframe after I had already been reeling over the overnight numbers. As my brain tried to grasp what I was looking at, panic began to set in when I realized I had no way to disseminate these findings effectively. My chest felt like there was an elephant standing on it. I had to get the word out! But because I’m currently on a 7-day Facebook ban, and in a remote location with spotty internet, I have been down for the count.
I crunched the numbers and tried to dust off a fake account from my last Facebook ban to see if I could make that account an admin and post to our page. No luck. Another hour goes by, so I did the 4 PM refresh to see how much higher it went and guess what? The numbers went BACK DOWN to more in line with the trend we had been seeing at 10 am, 1 PM and 2 PM. Where did those 10 new sites go? What happened to nearly 400 new cases or quarantines? Meanwhile, I added another tab to the spreadsheet and came up with even more questions and concerns. I tried to capture the discrepancies in the following video.
Sorting by facility or group name, these 10 sites that were new on the 3 PM report had disappeared again by the 4 PM report.
Meanwhile, a parent had been messaging me since 7:49 Friday morning saying, “Some schools haven’t listed their cases from last week.” I told them I had seen and heard this from numerous sources, and for that reason I was working on a data gathering tool to try to triage and make sense of the conflicting information. Later that afternoon, I shared my discovery of the spike, including the 10 mystery sites with them. That is when they informed me that their site is on the “missing” list, confessing, “Letters were sent to families on August 18 regarding our school having a positive case.”
What is the source of this extraneous data?
Why are these sites not showing up on the dashboard (other than that one time)? We have confirmation they should be there.
What caused this blip to show up just one time and not on previous or future reports? Are they suppressing it on purpose? Keeping two sets of data?
How many more situations like these are there?
In addition to the 10 sites that are missing from the ongoing reports, several of the sites that are consistently reported also contributed to that spike at 3 PM. I tried to capture a sort order that shows some of the sites with the largest discrepancies based on student cases here:
If anyone has any additional information to share, you may email me at moderator@dearjcps.com. Lives may hang in the balance. Rest assured, correspondence will be kept confidential and identities will be protected.
How many others are not accurately reported? Help us find out by reporting missing or conflicting info on our survey.
The data spike during the 3 PM report possibly masked schools that DID experience significant increases in the 4 PM report, such as Lowe Elementary, which according to my comparisons, actually added 10 more students to the quarantine list while everyone else’s numbers were going down, taking them from 38 to 48. Please check the dashboard and ask around at your school to find out if there are discrepancies in your data, and use the survey to report them. We will compile the information to share in a confidential and orderly fashion so that others can have access to the same information we have and you can help the district troubleshoot where breakdowns are occurring.
And even without this unexplained anomaly, the increase in the number of cases and quarantines from Thursday to Friday is still alarming, with case numbers increasing between 20-36% in just one day. With more and more teachers and staff out on quarantine, and a dire substitute situation, this continues to not safe. We will see more situations like the one we saw with a student at Pleasure Ridge Park who was left to fend for themselves after more and more of them are corralled into cafeterias and gymnasiums to maintain control. Meanwhile, opportunistic lawmakers and politicians will use any violent outbreaks as an opportunity to blame the district leaders for removing police from our schools instead of admitting the 1,000 other things they did or didn’t do that got us here in the first place. It’s already happening, and I would even argue it was a calculated maneuver.
So we already know it’s bad. The questions are, “How much worse is it than we realize?” and “What are we going to do about it?”
Our community needs transparency in order to make the best decisions. In order to prevent avoidable suffering, humans have to be willing to see that our actions (or inactions) have cause and effect, and anticipate where our society is headed in order to make the best preparations. Change is inevitable. We can sit back and helplessly wait for it to happen to us, or we can recognize that each of us has the power to be the change that MUST happen and guide it in for a safer landing. The sooner we bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice, the less fallout, carnage and repercussions there will be. Parents, students, teachers and staff hold the power to make this shift happen sooner rather than later. And as they say in the medical profession,
an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Our Leadership Team will make every effort to validate, vet and share the information as it comes in, so you can continue to weigh all available information when making your own personal decisions about the health and safety of your families, but also to alert anyone in a position of authority who might be able to intervene on our behalf. To get a better sense of how widespread these disparities are, and streamline the vetting process, we have created a COVID discrepancy survey for parents/guardians and JCPS employees to report discrepancies, concerns, etc. that they are aware of. Participants will have the option to remain anonymous, and any personal data shared with us will not be shared with anyone outside of the Dear JCPS Leadership Team.
Thank you as we ALL do our part to keep our students, families and community safe! If you have updates to provide, please email moderator@dearjcps.com or come back and complete the form again. Please try to provide timestamps with your documentation so competing or duplicate reports can be reconciled.
During a recent press conference, hosted by the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, a heckler began talking loudly to the crowd while one of our local community leaders, Vincent Gonzalez, was speaking. The press conference, which was held at Central High School ahead of the July 27, 2021 JCPS School Board Meeting, focused on our community’s unapologetic support for the teaching of accurate history and the practicing of equity, diversity and inclusion, as well as halting recently proposed legislation that would make doing so illegal. This interruption went on for quite some time, as several individuals from the crowd went over to try to kindly ask the belligerent woman to be respectful, to no avail. My latest blog post, entitled, “Listen to the Black People!,” details the events and dynamics that took place during those tense moments. Thank you for taking a moment to check it out.
A coalition is forming! Join us as we band together to fight the latest attacks on public education and our people as lawmakers nationwide attempt to deny the right of every student to learn an accurate and comprehensive US History. Sign up for our email list to get updates on meetings, strategies and other ways you can support our students, teachers and public schools during this historical time.
Be on the look out for those claiming that “Critical Race Theory” is divisive and teaches hate. These people may be in your child’s school’s parent teacher group, on your Facebook feed, attend the same church, or even be in your own family. If they make this intellectually lazy claim, prod them for details. You will learn that their claims can be easily debunked. They have likely not done any research, but instead are simply repeating divisive and hateful messaging they’ve heard elsewhere, perhaps from people they trust. The originators of this untruth are usually those who want to keep others under their feet. People at the head of an organization, a committee, a parish or a household. Usually, white men.
It’s almost as if they WANT public schools to fail so they can bring in charter schools and profit off our tax dollars while simultaneously denying quality education to those who don’t have the means.
These claims have nothing to do with what Critical Race Theory actually is or what it does. But since CRT is a college-level course, and none of us has the spare time or funds required to master that curriculum just to figure out who to believe, let’s cut to the chase.
What you need to know:
Critical Race Theory is not taught in JCPS, or any public primary or secondary school in Kentucky, for that matter. This is a solution looking for a problem and “much ado about nothing.”
Critical Race Theory is college-level legal coursework curriculum. It’s just that. A theory. It focuses on how race has played a role in disparate outcomes between white and non-white persons in the criminal justice system. That’s it. It doesn’t teach hate. It doesn’t blame white people for slavery. None of that nonsense.
The bill that has been introduced in Kentucky does not mention Critical Race Theory, but instead lists a dozen concepts public school employees must not discuss with their students.
Failure to comply exposes the school district to thousands of dollars in fines.
Many of the concepts it prohibits teachers from teaching either don’t happen, or are already illegal, including acts of treason. Most of the 12 provisions are unnecessary, redundant and superfluous, clearly to create disinformation and spread fear.
Of the few provisions that actually change the laws on the books, they serve more to protect white feelings than they do to protect Black lives.
The bill’s language and threat of punishment will have a chilling effect on teachers’ ability to provide their students with factual historical information, regardless of context, and denies students their right to a quality public education.
The bill would take authority to supervise employees away from local district leaders and place it in the hands of the Attorney General, currently Daniel Cameron. It eliminates stakeholders’ abilities to hold board members accountable to what is taught and what is prohibited.
The bill would violate free speech, while protecting corruption and structural racism.
This is a waste of resources. This is a lawsuit they are likely to lose. We don’t have money for textbooks, but we have money to fight this in court? Where are our priorities again?
Groups that are supportive of this bill have demonstrated ties to ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council), the Koch Brothers, Mitch McConnell, Matt Bevin, and radical right wing organizations, to name a few.
Fearmongerers spreading these concepts have infiltrated many grassroots and social media groups, allowing this misinformation to be spread unchecked. They are running for school boards and other top seats, and in fact, this language has already become law in many other neighboring states and school districts.
Please be outspoken and vigilant when you encounter this messaging. Feel free to tag Dear JCPS on social media if you need backup.
If only lawmakers would spend half the energy looking for ways to help and support our public schools as they do they do figuring out how to tie our hands and punish us, while demanding more with no additional funding, we might actually get somewhere. It’s almost as if they WANT public schools to fail so they can bring in charter schools and profit off our tax dollars while simultaneously denying quality education to those who don’t have the means.
More information will be forthcoming about a coalition that is forming, as well as strategies to support our students, teachers and our public schools. Click here to join our email list.
Here are some additional links you may find helpful:
