Fear and Loathing in ISD 709

Here’s the link to the full power point presentation our poor teachers had to sit through. This is Jane. Jane is a teacher. Jane is in danger. A meteor is about to fall on Jane.

That meteor is the Duluth Public that the School Board flipped the bird at two years ago. But just like the campaign they waged to raise the operations levy last fall they are resorting to fear mongering. They failed to raise the levy last fall. It remains to be seen if their fear tactics will work this year.

Here is the crucial slide. Its number six

http://www.votelikeitcounts.com/images/Pganda6.jpg

It sounds dreadful. Vote for the challengers and all hell will break lose and you will lose your job.

This makes as much sense as the handout that accompanied the propaganda session. The handout showed that by cutting $100 million from the Red Plan an alternative plan would actually raise taxes. Seriously. This is what the handout said. The presentation must have been made with all the passion of Glen Beck because this asinine claim was echoed by an editorial in the DNT a few days later.

I’m struck by the email from a Faribault school district employee who, a couple years after Dixon’s departure said this of his/her former Superintendent:

“The King had no clothes when he was in Faribault, but everyone was afraid to say it. It didn’t matter how many good people left because they couldn’t put up with him, there are still people insisting he was a great man.”

Perhaps the best evidence of the District’s disingenuousness is what appears to be a disclaimer on the bottom of the handout.

“For more information visit www.ChooseDuluthSchools.com or call 218-336-8735”

Choose Duluth Schools? You would think this is an independent organization but its not. However its being referred to by various other pro Red Plan organizations like the Duluth Chamber of Commerce as though it was another “independent” organization like Move Forward Duluth. Not that MFD was all that independent. When they sent a complaint against Let Duluth Vote they had the Superintendent’s secretary notarize it. As for www.ChooseDuluthSchools despite the website’s appearance of not being part of the District’s website it most certainly is.

The phone number leaves no doubt. I just called it. Its Katie Kaufman’s phone. Katie is is Dr. Dixon’s public relations director.

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