Mr. Ervin has explained that he meant nothing offensive and that we have simply misunderstood his intentions,” the board said.
Uh huh, we just misunderstood (slightly paraphrased) “god you’re hot, what school do you go to?”
There are SO many ways to interpret this, you don’t know what he meant, except for that all those ways are all fucked up in the head
I became involved because I reside in Washington County, I went to school my entire life in these schools. The things that are happening now have happened for as long as I can remember. It’s the “good ole boy” system. They protect each other and let each other get away with whatever they want, and it needs to stop.
Many such cases, tale as old as time, etc.
Watch the far right rally around this.
I’m sure you are correct, but is there a non-far right anymore?
Neoliberals?
when you are that far right you are in Far Reich terroritory
The people you disagree with are far right… or far left, depending upon your political orientation.
the majority of people are not far right.
the issue is that people who are far right, are far more likely to run for office than moderate candidates are. and run better campaigns, and win more votes.
Why?
I don’t know. I ask because I cannot explain anyone even tolerating Trump’s actions in any way unless they are far right. I still know people defending his actions… Anyone opposing him in any way, the rest of America thinks is “far left”. So it’s a weird time…
You are captured by the false media narrative that you are one thing or the other.
The vast majority of voters are neither far right or far left. They are moderate. However, moderate people dont’ get any airtime because the extremists here, and everywhere else, paint everyone as either FOR or AGAIN things.
Moderate voters went for Trump because he offered them a better platform to vote for, especially economically. And Trump’s tanking now that his policies are showing to be horrible. But he has 2.5 more years in office.
They’re not moderate, they’re the people who will say “they just need to drop a bomb on that neighborhood” talking about the black neighborhood of course. They love acting moderate in public but they really want genocide against brown people and they want poor people without healthcare to be left in the street to die. Trump is doing exactly what they’ve been saying in private for decades.
I’m literally citing personal experience.
Because they can lie with impunity while the rest of us have a conscience.
If they’re voting for the far right candidates then they are far right.
I would say they’re heavily misled. What may seem obvious here is invisible on their Twitter feeds, on TV, in their communities, and even Google due to “search customisation”.
Yeah, they are being lied to but part of the problem is they like the lies.
I find this to be an altruistic if naive mindset.
And he is sitting next to her and grabs her when he says it… Ewww.
Definitely investigate this guy, i bet he has a BAD history. May be some criminal charges in the future.
He is already not allowed on school grounds unsupervised because of his sexual comments to children from before this incident.
So agreed on the bad history.
Conservatives are all pedophiles. This cannot be stressed enough.
slogan phrase about the enemy here!
Thats what you get when you choose your leaders by popularity contest. That wouldn’t be appropriate even if she was an adult.
how else are you suppose to select school board members? should they be appointed by the town/county or something?
In a sane world, by ability and competence
As defined by our able and competent political leaders? Ha ha ha.
How do you assess that exactly? What are the qualifications or objective measurements of competence as a school board member?
And furthermore, according to whom? your personal assessment in particular?
There isn’t a single right answer to that and I’m not going to suggest there is.
How any organisation operates, be that public or private, is down to the culture of the organisation, and culture comes from people, process, motivation, legislation, and a whole bunch of factors.
If an organisation has a clear mission, is held organisationally accountable in appropriate ways to that mission and makes people feel professionally enriched and valuable, it will attract competent people. And importantly, an organisation full of competent and principled individuals will attract other competent individuals.
On the flip side, if an organisation is subject to decades of mismanagement, has very poor oversight, doesn’t reward people for being good at their jobs and in fact rewards the wrong behaviours then exactly the opposite will happen. People who are competent at what they do will either leave or be crushed down, while those who know how to play the bootlicking game will be raised up, and this type of organisation again becomes self-perpetuating.
None of this happens overnight, in either direction. Failure can take years or decades, and so can the reverse.
The issue is that it’s self-referential. The org itself gets to define what is good management or bad. Outsides parties, have no say.
And that’s how local school boars work. They are local politics and they have very little external oversight, if any at all. Sort of criminal acts, like a board member embezzling school funds, that violate state law, there isn’t really much criteria over which they can be held accountable, other than winning votes from their local voters.
I live in Boston. I can harp all I want about a local school board in TN, but the only power I have is over my own local school board here, where I can vote. And man the candidates we have… are usually a mix of nutbags and slightly less nutbags. School board elections tend to attract weirdos more than sensible people, IME.
By merit??
who judges that merit? how is it defined?
In typical fediverse fashion, the users responding to you have no answer so they get stuck on semantics and counter arguing your question rather than the intent.
I genuinely would like a well thought out response to this too. Would merit be someone with many years of teaching experience? Maybe school administration?
Do those things make that person capable of performing board responsibilities? Do those things preclude them from making creepy remarks (I highly suspect they don’t)
For the record, the dude here has been on the board for 12 years, which should be more than enough time to learn the necessary skill set to do the job. Doesn’t make him less creepy though.
I hear schools are pretty good at giving people these funny things called “tests” to assess an individual’s knowledge on a certain subject. Not only are schools good at testing, I hear there is a WHOLE INDUSTRY built on creating and running them.
You know, they could give those to other people too I’ll bet! In fact, I’ll bet you can use them to qualify doctors, lawyers, barbers, auto mechanics and all sorts of people!
Oh wait, these are politicians. We shouldn’t do that to them. I don’t know why, but it just feels wrong. Never mind.
Absolutely! It’s just a complete coincidence that the people who the school system is failing are barred from fixing it because in order to pass the test you have to have done well in school. It makes perfect sense.
It’s not like the US has a history of refusing to educate people, and then refusing to let them participate in civic matters by gating that access behind tests. The US certainly has never, say, made passing a test a requirement to vote to disenfranchise people.
And we all know that, of course, that any test would be super effective at preventing the abuse the above article is about. You just put the question “are you sexually attracted to children,” on the test. That way you’d keep out creeps. And no one would ever lie on a test. That’d be ridiculous.
I don’t know why people are disagreeing. It’s a perfect system!
Who comes up with what’s in these tests? Should we elect someone for that job?
there is no test to run for, or be on a school board.
what would this test be, exactly? are you saying school board members should have to pass a civil service type of test before they can run, or after they are elected?
Shhhh, don’t overload them with reason, it’s rare to see this kind of naivete in it’s natural form.
Oh come on, but it’s fun!
Do you know what a bad faith argument is?
Yes, and it’s not this. I’m not making an argument either. I’m asking you a clear and obvious question.
Pretending you don’t know what merit is is a bad faith argument
Just to be clear, you’re arguing that merit/competence can’t be accurately judged and therefore should be ignored in favour of popularity ?
it can’t be judged without well-defined criteria, no.
seriously, what is the qualification or criteria for being a good school board member? tell me. I’d like to know.
because as far as I am aware, there absolutely is none. anyone can run for school board.
it can’t be judged without well-defined critical, no.
That’s a partial answer at best , a nice deflection though.
So your argument is that there is no possible criteria by which competence/ability can be judged for a school board position so popularity is the best option ?
seriously, what is the qualification or criteria for being a good school board member? tell me. I’d like to know because as far as I am aware, there absolutely is none.
Once you answer the original question or the newly revised version above i can give you some idea on this.
anyone can run for school board.
Who can run for a school board and how a school board member is evaluated for the position are unrelated.
It’s not an argument. It’s a fact.
My local school board anyone can run. The only requirement is you are a resident of the district you represent, and you are over 18, and you are a registered voter. That’s literally it. There are no other requirements, qualifications, or criteria for running for school board.
You should ask people in a professional setting that work with schools this instead of demanding the answers from the black box of the internet.
No u!
Seriously, do you even vote in your local school board elections? I do. If so, what criteria do you use? I vote according to the educational platform they propose.
None of that has anything to do with merit of qualifications that are hypothetically being raised as criteria for evaluating a school board member’s performance or competency.
It’s not demanding answers, it’s pointing out the typical lemmy/reddit hypocracy of sitting on a illusory high horse, getting outraged, and refusing to actually deal with the problem on your local level where you do have the ability to make a difference.
or if you want to be really extreme, you could move to this district in TN and run for school board yourself.
That’s not even required (though it would most likely be more accurate ) , there are some easy , low-hanging fruit answers to this question that don’t need expertise.
I’m just interested in seeing if they really think popularity is the best option here.
So your general point is a concern. Who can you trust to make the judgement. But that doesn’t mean you should just toss up your hands either. As was pointed out, tests of various sorts could be done and the results presented to the voters so that they have more to go on than the number of lawn signd they have seen for a person. The write ups in the guides are nearly pointless. They can say anything they want in there. For a person running for reelection, their voting record would be nice to give voters easy access to. There are lots of ways to present the voters with objective information so that they can choose based on thier preferences. But none of that happens today.
it’s a democratically elected position.
the judgement is the judgement voters of that district.
do you vote in your own local school board elections? I do, and yeah you vote based on the person’s policy stated positions. however, just because I do that, doesn’t mean lots of candidates I don’t vote for, don’t get elected and push policies I don’t agree with… because they get more votes than the candidates I vote for did.
Also, why do you assume that the voters in this school district, don’t want this guy? He may very well be who they think is best for the job. If you don’t live in this district… you don’t get to vote for the school board there.
White House chief of staff: “Mr president… we’ve found your new Secretary of Education sir”
Might end up attorney general. Have they been on TV before?
Notice how every single man, almost every single person, is massively overweight.
Like I’m not hating on fat people, but why are they all fat?
Because it’s the USA.
Only half of white people are overweight, let alone obese, which they all are here excepting the one in the middle.
Weird thing to complain about when the whole child flirting is right there.
Like bringing it up when it isn’t related makes it seem more like it is a athing you personally dont like and are happy to point out. You basically associate fat people to child groomers here.
Forgive me, but I am tired of the needless parade about this topic as if it helps add another pin to the hate board, especially for body image reasons.Why should a half not overweight population elect an all obese local government? I think it’s worth mentioning, and that it’s suspect that you don’t.
Suspect away, I don’t care that you think someone’s appearance is worth mentioning and hating on here.
What a champion of fat pieces of shit you are!
Ah, yeah. That checks out.
Was the student actually hot tho?
everyone at that meeting should be barred from any sort of role in the educational sector + atleast a year long mandatory training on identifying & preventing sexual harassment.
They… just… laughed?
The member would never have said it in the first place, if the school board culture was not already like that.
Everyone in that room is older
“God, you’re hot. Do you know that? Where do you go to school at?”
How do you possible make this worse? Ask them where they wll be later.
Not calling for violence but how does this not get you tarred and feather in the parking lot?
Not calling for violence but how does this not get you tarred and feather in the parking lot?
Haven’t you noticed? pedophiles are in fashion now… they can even be presidents
If my kid was speaking in front of the school board and subjected to that kind of harassment I’d be in jail right now.
Heard, one use to be a prince…
yeap… green prince instead of blue
🔫always have been
Not calling for violence
the reason this keeps happening is because people refuse to call for violence against filth like this
He’s a symptom. Violence against the idiots who can’t help but say the quiet part out loud on camera won’t stop the millions that do manage to keep the most blatant statements contained to men’s spaces.
What we need is a culture of nuanced introspection and personal growth, where people like him can admit that they’re pigs without it destroying their lives or moral standing, instead being a first step towards rehabilitation. Women and girls deserve to be kept safe from him and boys deserve better teachers, so he wouldn’t be able to work in education until he has done a lot of personal growth, but violence is just scapegoating.
Of course if the state threatens violence unless you pay taxes that pay for people like him to endanger women, then you can engage in organized mutual self-defense. Hard to get to that culture of personal growth otherwise.
In the mean time, people are entitled to organised mutual self-defense against him, which might also include violence but probably won’t.
There is more effective ways of dealing with it, outside of violence. I do like tar and feather though, just the right amount of violence
What are those more effective ways?
All the ones I can think of that don’t involve violence don’t seem to be working.
Thats because too many people sit on their ass waiting for other people to take care of it for them.
Coincidentally a lot of them are the same ones who call for violent action (and not all of them lean right).
These actions only work if a majority of citizens actually take them, not sit back and complain about how they dont work because things dont magically get fixed the instant a minority of people do it once.
Bingo.
my biggest complaint about the liberal/left is they will do anything but take charge. they seem to love sitting around and quarter backing and demanding someone else do something in their name… and a lot of them don’t even vote, because ‘what is the point’.
Here’s why:
“Boys will be boys.”
“He’s not wrong, she is hot.”
“Little slut deserves it for dressing like that.”
“Why didn’t I think of this? I wonder if he has any videos.”
“Note to self: accept his 4th of July pool party invitation this year.”
Pedophiles are praise worthy unless you are trying to make it big on the Internet, then you beat up random people who cant fight back and pretend they are this guy.
Everyone is willingly living a hypocritical lie these days.
Priorities, we got’em!
The only response to that is, “what the f*ck is the matter with you?”
https://www.youtube.com/live/977US_SUGg8?t=4560 at 1:16:04
Edit:ed in exact link, thanks lazynooblet
Direct link to clip: https://www.youtube.com/live/977US_SUGg8?t=4560
Oh nice thanks. I’m stealing this.
anyone else in that room who did not immediately stand up and drag this douche out by the ear is complicit.
Didnt hear them laughing at it and the one older lady going “ohhh you” as if he does this all the time to children?
Cause they are accpeting of it. It comes from being bigger than the allegations.as if he does this all the time to children?
It wasn’t just “a child”, it was a fellow board member. Guy has zero respect for the office, the students, or women generally speaking.
Yeah, I am just using the word cause the article doesnt bother with it.
I honestly don’t get how that makes it worse. Like, doing this to a board member is worse??? I don’t get this stance at all.
Like, doing this to a board member is worse???
Doing this to some random student is gross.
Doing this to another board member is also gross. But it signifies a kind of structural disrespect that undermines the office as well as the individual. It’s symptomatic of a general institutional disgust for student involvement in school affairs.
Like Bush Jr doing the creepy shoulder rub on Angela Merkel or - in a more extreme example - UN staffers who were “approached, accosted and raped” by fellow officials and dignitaries. It isn’t merely a personal transgression. It undermines the entire function of the representative body.
I think they meant the “oh you” comment was from a board member. The article says he said it to a student.
deleted by creator
The petition may be found here:
https://www.change.org/p/fire-jerry-boyd-and-keith-ervin-from-washington-county-board-of-education
Let’s do our part, dear friends. And see you on the streets on Mayday at the next protest!
They also have a phone number you can call about the fact there is a school board member, Keith Ervin, who already was not allowed into schools unsupervised because of his sexual comments towards children before this event.
423-753-1100
Ppl responsible for his appointment should/need to suffer consequences too.
W.T.F?
