Cry Me a River, Superintendent Payau

17Jan
by Leticia Chavez-Garcia

Well, Superintendent Jerome Puyau certainly was not crying when a former teacher of the year was questioning his pay raise at a board meeting. After death threats and calls for his resignation, the Superintendent from that viral school board meeting where a teacher questioned his pay and was carted off by police is crying a whole river. Puyau is now saying ‘sorry’ for not intervening in the unlawful detention of the teacher at a public meeting where she spoke during her time to question the board about his salary increase.

You may have seen it online, but in case you have not, here is the video of Deyshia Hargrave, a middle school English teacher in the Vermilion Parish School District in Louisiana being handcuffed and dragged out of the district school board meeting by a town marshal last Monday night.

The school board president has gone on the record to defend the action taken against the teacher. The community, however, is not having it. Apparently, the Superintendent has been receiving death threats ever since the incident.  

Hargrave is a former teacher of the year with the district. She stood up at the board meeting after being recognized to speak and asked the question that got her dragged out. Teachers in this district have not had a raise in a decade, but the superintendent’s new contract would give him a $30,000 raise.

Jerome Puyau, the Superintendent in question has now renounced the arrest and has said, in tears, that he should have done something to prevent the fiasco.  

Really? I doubt the Superintendent’s sincerity, and I love the karmic twist that now the entire country is enraged over his salary increase. This probably was not the attention that he was looking for. In my view, both Payau and the board should resign.

There is no reason that school board meetings should be handled in a dictatorial fashion, where employees of the district and the public have to fear arrest for asking a simple question. At a time when our President has displayed fascist tendencies by threatening journalists and expressing a desire to use the FBI to go after political enemies, this kind of incident is the last thing we need at any public board or hearing.

What do you think?

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Leticia Chavez-Garcia

Leticia Chavez-Garcia is a Mother, Grandmother, former Middle School Teacher, former Member of a School Board of Education and an Education Advocate for hundreds of parents and students in the Inland Empire. Having become a mother at 15, Leticia knows what it’s like to be a single mother trying to navigate the education system. Leticia received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Political Science and Public Administration from California Baptist University and a Masters’ Degree in Education Technology from Cal State Fullerton in her 30’s. Leticia has used her knowledge and experience to help hundreds of families as an Education Advocate in the Inland Empire and currently works as an Education Specialist.

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