Tag: school board

I Support Darbi Boddy More than Ever: How education costs get blown out of control and why Matt Miller is not worth $200K per year

Part of the entire problem with public education was on full display this past week at Lakota schools, where the school board voted to urge a fellow board member, Darbi Boddy to resign. Darbi made a mistake that many quarterbacks make in sports, which is the point of the sport, to apply pressure to the passer and see if you can force an error. The pro levy, big government, Joe Biden “mask-wearing even in their car with the windows rolled up” type of supporters who think they run the school has hated Darbi Boddy since she was elected. They have been trying to get rid of her since the election. For the first time in their lives, the public beat the pro-union supporters when Darbi Boddy won, whom I supported and continue to support emphatically. They were reminded that they do not run the school; it’s the people who pay the taxes.   And Darbi started off her job on the school board after being sworn in during a January meeting, asking lots of questions and being what the other board members thought of as disruptive. So that same radical labor union side of the Lakota business that makes everything cost so much and really has any kind of management crippled to do anything positive, set in their minds to put a lot of pressure on Darbi Boddy, and she got wrapped up in reacting to that pressure when she accidentally placed a link on her Facebook site that led to pornographic material. It was the kind of mistake that even a good quarterback throwing an interception with pressure from linemen trying to sack him could have made. That’s the point of the pressure, to pressure their target into making a mistake. Darbi was trying to point out how vulnerable kids are to sex in schools and the kind of grooming that goes on through liberal textbooks, like what they have found in Florida. And that’s how she ended up making a mistake with the link and how the pressure applied could then be used to make a case for her removal.   The masked parents and other union-supporting radicals could care less about the link. They want to get rid of Darbi Boddy, which the school board then obliged for their own reasons. Thankfully, Darby Boddy is tough and is refusing to step down. Because she shouldn’t, I would say that the Lakota school board needs four more members just like her, and after this event, it’s clear that we should be working to make that happen. 

The main problem in public education is that an expert class runs it, and that was indeed the case here. The board likely referred to “legal” over the Darbi Boddy incident. They recommended that the board distance themselves from the controversy with some legal pronouncement of advising her to resign. This is the same woke advice they would give any human resource department and has been just another corrosive element to American culture for many decades now. A woke administrative class that runs things behind the scenes throwing logic out the window and paying tribute to some progressive form of chaos, hides the fact that none of these people know anything about anything. Since she has been on the school board, Darbi Boddy has been excellent at questioning those very types of issues. She has been giving Matt Miller a hard time at every meeting, not so much on purpose, but to wrestle power back away from his position and to apply it back to the school board where it always belonged. Before Darbi Boddy was elected to the board, all five of them would punt every decision to the school superintendent, and he would answer as the head of the administrative state. Almost everything he reports to the school board is the judgment of the administrative state which has really spun out of control since Covid started. The teacher’s union tells Matt what to say. The CDC tells Matt what to say, as does the local health department, which never had any authority to tell anybody what to do. Then they punt all this administrative opinion to legal, who then ultimately controls everything with liability worry. The” experts” say something. Now it becomes pre-court testimony that everyone just throws more money at to avoid. And in that way, logic gets thrown out of the window, and everything costs a fortune just to do basic things. 

That’s also why Matt Miller is not worth the $200K a year we pay him. I think he’s a nice guy. But he’s not worth that much money. And neither are the teachers who use him as their spokesperson. The whole game is rigged against the taxpayers, and the only school board member I see doing the work the way school boards should operate has been Darbi Boddy, which is why they want to get rid of her because she asks too many questions that they can’t answer. We could get a parrot to repeat whatever some “expert” says, pay them in birdseed, and save the $200K. I’ve been watching several of the meetings by the Lakota school board because I keep hearing how out of control Darbi has been, how disruptive. I saw a person asking the kind of questions I wanted to know and a person doing the job correctly. But the labor union side of government schools doesn’t want the job done correctly. They want to support the administrative state because it’s big, easy money for them. And they don’t want any change, no matter how needed it may be. The parents want the free babysitting service and to believe that if they send their kids to Lakota, all their crappy parental skills won’t screw up their kids growing up. The school officials want low expectations that are easy to achieve and won’t expose how incompetent they are as people. And the teachers, of course, want to continue to be overly paid and do as little work as possible, which was the case during the eternal pandemic they never want to end. Nobody is showing any leadership except for Darbi. 

The moral outrage was laughable that the pornographic link Darbi accidentally posted was something detrimental to the education of students at Lakota. At that very minute, 3:15 PM on a Wednesday afternoon, teachers were likely trying to get naked pictures of students on their phones, there was porn being watched in the back row of several classrooms, and even the school board members themselves had much more salacious stories to tell that weren’t accidents, but deliberate acts of stupidity and poor judgment that have gone unpunished for the most part. (click the links for examples over the years) Fake moral outrage toward Darbi to hide the vast amount of real trouble that is just under the surface. I found the whole episode disgusting and very disingenuous. Many of the people who pushed for the resignation of Darbi Boddy have been telling the media that they have 1500 signatures gathered to push her off the board. Well, news flash, Darbi just won an election where she had gained around 7000 votes from the public, and that public generally likes the job she has been doing. In a community as large as Lakota, 1500 names are a small minority. They do not represent the kind of people who live in the district. Darbi won more votes than even the incumbent on the ballot. And that’s how elections work; if people don’t like the performance of the people they elect, they can be voted out for the next term. What the people showed who pushed Darbi to resign for this really minor mistake is that they wished to remove their vote from the public, which is about as disingenuous as it gets. That lack of respect is the real problem, and it was quite clear in what Lakota schools did to Darbi Boddy on April 27, 2022. They owe her and her voters an apology at the bare minimum. And they also need to figure out if they can live with the high standard they have now set for themselves. Because I already know the answer.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The John Gray Pediphillia Case: Why decentralized citizen journalism is our only protection

You could say I know or knew John Gray very well, going back several decades now. When he was running for school board in Goshen, I helped him write positioning statements for his campaign. A long time ago. It’s been a few years, but watching his video, I see the same guy, a person I would call “honest.” I think he was so honest that when PCI: Predator Catchers Indianapolis and Predator Catchers Muncie caught him buying snacks for an upcoming sexual liaison with an 11-year-old girl, he rattled on and on for an hour, incriminating himself more by the minute because he knew they had caught him, and that he felt guilty about it. The guy I have known would have shaken his head at something like this two decades ago. But here he was, a respected community member, the school board president in Goshen with grown kids, a long marriage, and grandchildren who want to look up to him, standing in the middle of Indiana, caught on video trying to do the unthinkable. When I think of John Gray, I think of a church-going family man and respected community leader. But the guy I saw on the remarkable video, and the testimony he gave was John Gray too, a side of people that many don’t even know themselves. And even as he was speaking, and knowing his life was over in every way you can imagine it, he seemed aware of it and wanted to confess to getting it off his shoulders. It’s an amazing examination into what pedophiles are and how even they may not see themselves that way until they are well down the rabbit hole, as he obviously was. 

What is significant about this case is it shows just how much you might not know someone. I am a pretty good judge of character, and I would never have thought of John Gray as a pedophile. He’s someone who would have been very critical and morally outraged about such activity. But there he was trying to get an 11-year-old down to her underwear for a massage, and he was at the Dollar Store to buy snacks for her beforehand. And he didn’t deny it, so I said he was honest. At first, he lied about being on the school board when they called him on it during the tape. He lied to the camera. But the honest person I know couldn’t wait to get it out, he couldn’t hold it in, and eventually, he said everything. That was the worst testimony I can think of on record. Typically, people don’t say this much, especially out in front of a store by strangers who confronted him. Typically, they’d clam up and get in their car to drive off and hope to disappear. But the honest part of him wanted to tell on himself, and he sure did. After the video was done, the crowd seemed disappointed that he wasn’t taken to jail and had charges pressed at that time. But honestly, the worst thing that could have happened to him was that tape. His life was as a respected public servant and trusted business advisor. And that brand has now been completely destroyed just for the chance to touch in a sexual way a girl just going into puberty. Life as he knows it is over, and he knew it as they put the handcuffs on him. But he also seemed relieved to get it out in the open. It was a bizarre set of contradictions. 

So how many John Grays are out there in the world? Can we really trust anybody? I would say no. We can’t. You think you know people; you think you can trust that crazy uncle or that family friend. Or that school board president. But people have all kinds of things going on, and you really can’t trust anything. As I always say, don’t trust what people say; judge them on what they do. I would never think John Gray would have done anything like this, and I wouldn’t have believed it if it hadn’t come out of his own mouth. But because of citizen journalism, this story was dug out of the dirt and exposed for all to see. And I’m glad it was. Not because I want to see John Gray hurt, but because we need that level of protection in a society where institutionalism can’t hide the dark side of people like him. When people get very good at maintaining a public persona, but in the dark recesses of their personality, they crave sexual contact with children, we need a mechanism in society that can uncover such things. If people can’t control themselves, which he obviously couldn’t, then the fear of that public persona being destroyed is all we have to keep bad behavior from manifesting into outright evil. When we wonder about Pizza Gate in Washington and the client list of Jeffery Epstein, keep John Gray in mind. Think of all those friendly people who might shake your hand and smile to your face who are craving sex with your daughters and grandchildren. Think of the groomer talk of Disney World and the executives who are trying to hide their own demons with mass sexualized activity that makes their miserable lives seem more normal. Think twice about that strange guy walking in your neighborhood or looking at you in the grocery store. We can come up with rules and regulations until we fill libraries with laws that nobody ever reads. All that really keeps bad behavior from happening is accountability. And in this case, a pedophile citizen journalism group created that accountability. The police weren’t going to do the work. The FBI is too busy trying to keep Republicans from winning in the next election.

The CIA is pushing drugs across the border as they always have. Nobody is looking out for our kids. Rather, I would say there is an army of John Grays out there who all want to do the same thing he did. And if you have a daughter or granddaughter, you can bet there is someone in her life looking to groom her for a naked back rub at the cost of a bag of chips purchased at the Dollar Store. If John Gray could participate in pedophilia, anybody could. And his confession comes at a valuable time. People have been wondering how and why pedophilia could occur, and many don’t want to think about it. So, they don’t. But from his own mouth, you can hear why John Gray did it and why he was willing to risk it all for an activity that is beyond sinful. And maybe this video done by these great citizen journalists will wake people up to this terrible evil in our world. Perhaps we’ll find more people willing to fight for children and to help them have an opportunity for a good life. How many people like John Gray didn’t get caught on Saturday, and who function in society as respected people? I think it’s in the many millions. And what kind of people do these abused kids grow up to become? Well, the answer is obvious, and if we want to live in a good society, it starts with each and every one of us. If you see something and think something and don’t stop the evil from happening, well, you’re complicit. So don’t be, and take this lesson for what it is. And when respected people tell you they could never do something so terrible, judge them on what they do, not what they say.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Trick or Treat in February at Lakota: Darbi Boddy wants to remove masks and give parents freedom of choice, the LEA wants to impeach her over it

The Union Wants to Impeach the School Board over Mask Freedom

I watched the school board videos from January’s Lakota meetings several times, and I still think they are very good. But apparently, the mask police at Lakota is so insulted by Darbi Boddy’s proposal to remove mask mandates from the Lakota school culture and give parents the right to choose has caused the LEA union to begin proposing talk of impeaching the young school board member. During the last meeting, you would think it was trick or treat at Lakota as the mask lovers got up and left while Darbi was talking, obviously meaning to show her disrespect. But none of that is a surprise. This has been a problem for a long time at Lakota, where the inmates run the asylum. Actually, that’s how it is in most public schools, the unions run everything, and the school boards get sucked into believing their goal in life is to show uniformity. I would argue that the point of having five members on a board is to fight it out and debate to convince two other voters to either approve or deny a resolution. The goal of a school board is not to get along but to run the business of a local school the way our “republic” was designed. And to me, that’s what I see happening. This was Darbi’s second meeting, and she’s very passionate. There are a lot of high expectations behind those who went door to door for her to win, and she feels the need to get there and get something done instead of just being another bobblehead on a school board. She ran on getting rid of masks in the schools, as other schools have done around the state of Ohio. So short of getting more comfortable with the rules of school board business and not feeling like a sell-out for doing so, I am more than happy with how the Lakota school board is functioning for the first time in three decades. 

I know people are wondering, especially the sweat bees from the teacher’s union, what my relationship is with all this. Just remember what some of those same people who are all stirred up over Darbi, what they did to me about ten years ago in the parking lot of Kroger by Lakota East. Julie Shaffer played her role in that along with Joan Powell and many other tax increase supporters back then. So now is not the time to play innocent. I’ll stay mad over that forever; I will never forget. But that isn’t the fault of the current crop of kids moving through Lakota or many of the characters who are now involved that want to make the public school work for the benefit of the area’s parents. It took Lynda O’Conner more than a decade to win me over to believing that she was a Republican. I know her to be a very good one now. But I used to be so angry at the Lakota school board that everyone on it was what I thought were scum bag liberals. It took seeing Lynda at many GOP events over the last several years that I learned that Lynda was one of the good people. We have very different ideas about the worth of public education. She really believes in Lakota and is hopeful about public schools’ role in all our lives. I personally want to blow it all up, metaphorically, as a concept given to us by the significant progressive loser, John Dewey. I had been asked to run for school board many times, but that just wouldn’t be fair. We all pay taxes to the school, right or wrong; I’m happy to not get in the way if people like Lynda who want to fix it to the best of their ability. I’m also happy to offer solutions or help people who want to be part of the solution find their way to the school board by helping connect all the right dots. But for me personally, I’m all about getting rid of the Dewey system completely. 

Lynda and I usually agree to disagree on education, and when we see each other, we talk about other things besides school board business. Usually, we have a shared interest in GOP-related topics locally and nationally. If we talk about school board items for too long, I quickly blow it all up intellectually, while she desperately wants to save it. I tell that little story to those who are wondering, which are quite a few people these days. And I can also relate to the problems that new school board members like Darbi and Isaac Adi are feeling now that they are inside. It’s empowering to help be a part of the solution. The rules of the game are there to make it something of a functioning republic, and most of the time, no single person gets it their way all the way.

In Darbi’s case over this mask resolution issue, it’s her job to get two other votes on the board to support her. Many people backing her might think it’s a sell-out to work with people on the board. But they aren’t on the board. It’s tough, at best, to represent so many people and still do what you think is right. I have a policy that I do not pick up the phone, or text anybody ever, like Sheriff Jones might do, to never put my hand on the scales and threaten people to vote a certain way. I would never call up Lynda and tell her that I wouldn’t like her anymore if she didn’t vote the way I wanted her to. I believe firmly in finding people who want to do a job correctly and putting them in power to do that job. I may not always like what they do, but they should know more than me about it in a republic, which is why they are my representative there. You must trust the people you vote for to do the ultimate right thing and always keep the big picture in mind. If they don’t, then you vote them out. That’s the way the game works. 

But for the teacher’s union at Lakota, they already don’t like Darbi because they can’t imagine how they might get her under control and intimidated by their presence. That is something they have been doing for years, threatening school board candidates first with the offerings of friendship but then taking away that civility if they step out of line. That was what was implied by them walking out on Darbi in the second meeting of the year while she was speaking. I can understand not liking what Darbi was saying. It may not be their politics. But if they really wanted to understand what’s going on in the district, they would know that Darbi represents people in Lakota who think worse of public education than I do. I’m a moderate on the issue, believe me, there are lots of people who hate it far worse, and to them, Lynda might as well be Satan incarnate because she doesn’t put everyone on trial and burn them at the stake. Nobody will ever make everyone happy, but what we want is for good people to do good work on behalf of the kids and taxpayers who are stuck paying many thousands of dollars a year for this ridiculous product. And there isn’t a lot of tolerance for these teachers’ union shenanigans. As Issac and Darbi get more acquainted with the conduct of these school board meetings and the agreed rules of the game, they will get better. But so far, these meetings are what I think all school boards should look like. They may be a little bumpy. But I’ve never liked a lot of hand-holding, especially when millions of dollars are at stake and many lives are impacted. And for those who are used to bullying their way into a one-sided argument, well, those days are over.  

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Lakota Gets a New ‘Conservative’ School Board: Isaac Adi, Darbi Boddy, and Todd Minniear win despite all odds

Great Election Results in 2021

After the election results within West Chester, Ohio, and Liberty Township for the 2021 school board races, the first thing my daughter said to me was, “well, that’s nice, but all public schools are still a dumpster fire.  Thanks, but no thanks.” That’s not just because she’s my daughter, but she represents a significant number of moms who are in their thirties and have watched the lunacy of our government over the last decade where they have decided that they want nothing to do with it.  Both she and my other daughter are homeschooling their kids.  My other daughter pulled her other child out of Monroe schools to homeschool just a few days ago because of the mask mandates and threat of vaccine rules.  Kids don’t need all that politics in their life, and my kids want nothing to do with any of it.  They want their kids to be educated, do the math, read, and adjust to critical thinking.  However, for me, to see Darbi Boddy and Isaac Adi win school board seats at the Lakota public schools was a fascinating thing to witness.  Bad, liberal management of Lakota, in general, has been a problem for decades. Finally, some reasonable people could manage the district in the way many of the Republicans in the county of Butler have needed by representation.  Adding these new names to the board with Lynda O’Conner is an excellent opportunity for sanity to come to Lakota for the first time in my lifetime, which at this point, is a long time.

Nobody can take anything away from Isaac and Darbi.  They worked very hard and were completely sincere in their efforts.  At no time in the process were they phony politicians.  Even when it came to fundraising, shaking hands, and going to political events, they were completely authentic and invested in running for school board and doing good things when they arrived there.  I will have to add a little name that many won’t know; Kristi Ertel worked behind the scenes very effectively and professionally to help make all this happen, as did other people who supported these candidates in unique ways.  This election was very much a team effort extending into the Republican party of Butler County in very positive ways.  None of us just woke up a few months ago and put our efforts into this achievement without a lot of work.  It started many months ago, well before the presidential election of 2020, as a way to figure out how to turn off the insane spending at Lakota, which was going to demand a levy increase by 2022.  It was names like Darbi and Isaac who stepped forward to become part of the solution.  Others helped in other ways.  And some of that group ran but wanted to be independent of a party nomination.

Looking at the results of this 2021 election, Vanessa Wells was one of the originals in these meetings.  I was rooting for her, but I understood well everyone’s problem with her in the race.  The LEA union had three candidates, and two of them were incumbents.  The other represented an incumbent, so it would be hard to beat them  on a good day.  Starting this process, I reminded everyone that the union candidates would get at least 5000 votes if the turnout were around 20%.  So there wouldn’t be much extra to divide among all the other candidates, Vanessa being one of them.  With the union endorsing the school board, which they always do informally, it would take the Republican Party endorsement to compete.  As it turned out, both Darbi and Isaac broke 8000 votes each which put them in first and second place comfortably over the other candidates.  By the way, things looked to me, there were thousands of hits on my blog site in favor of all the conservative candidates, so I felt it was safe to support Vanessa Wells even though she had selected to run as an independent.  I respect that kind of decision, so as it turned out, she gained a respectable 5000 votes all on her own, which is the magic number I pointed out at the start of the process.  While it’s true, those 5000 votes took away from Darbi and Isaac among a conservative base, knowing the minds of Butler County, I wasn’t worried that it would keep them from winning.  Of course, some races are coming, and Vanessa is an excellent talent to apply if she wants.  The same with Karine Chausse, who is a wildly independent person whom I like quite a lot.  She gained 1,400 votes with almost no resources to apply, which I thought was particularly strong.  I wanted to see how they’d do, and I was impressed. 

But it was scary for many people leading up to the election.  They couldn’t see what I did, the analytics from my blog site showing an enormous interest in the conservative school board candidates.  What I didn’t know was how would all that enthusiasm equate on election day.  As it turned out, everything came out exactly as we had war-gamed the election 18 months earlier in one of our earliest meetings.  Fear of the unknown taken into account, the people of Liberty Township and West Chester, won on election night.  Our job was to give them options, and they showed up and voted for them.  And it came out exactly like we thought it would.  Not a blowout margin, but voters would do the rest of the work with the suitable candidates, Isaac and Darbi, good sincere people who were in the race for all the right reasons.  The union always gets their base who want easy union contracts to negotiate against.  But their base runs out quickly.  When Isaac and Darbi went over the 7000 voter mark, I knew they were going to win.  Especially in an off-year election.  They exceeded that number more than that, which is a stunning blow to the previous status quo. 

Overall, all my endorsed candidates for the various races came out on top, which shouldn’t be a surprise.  The media does not give coverage to conservative options the way they should, so the blog site at least lets voters know who the good guys are.  It certainly helped in the school board race.  But it also helped in several trustee races. Mark Welch, of course, held his seat in West Chester, but Todd Minniear won as the top vote-getter in Liberty Township.  He was surprised to learn how quickly links to my site died on Facebook.  I explained to him that I was heavily shadowbanned on all internet providers and platforms.  So viral marketing is not possible when it comes to my site.  But, specific searches do work, so my blog site and name recognition, such as signs voters see on the side of the road, will add up to thousands and thousands of views, which is better media coverage than the local papers and tv market provide.  In races like these, it adds up quickly and can make a big difference.  But just as in the case of Darbi and Isaac, Todd worked his ass off on this race, and ultimately people saw that and voted for him.  If anything helped with the blog, people saw Todd campaigning, saw his signs, and looked him up to learn more.  Then they could read more about him, which earned a vote.  So I feel good about my role in helping out.  But that takes nothing away from all those who won.  They did a fantastic job, and I am proud to see each one of those victories manifest into something meaningful and hopeful.  The future is a little bit brighter today because of election night 2021.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business