On Saturday, the daily newspaper reported that “Escambia County School Board members said they were disappointed the district didn’t receive any credit from the school(A.A. Dixon) when the donation (of three school buses) was announced earlier this month.”
The announcement of which the board is whining was the one by the A.A. Dixon, an inner-city charter school, that Levin-Rinke Resort Realty has bought three buses for the school.The school district wanted credit for the donation and claimed the company had only paid for maintenance.
The truth is that Superintendent Malcolm Thomas and his staff had told A.A. Dixon that they would have to buy the school buses at auction. The price tag was $10,000, which the school had already placed on its January financials as a payable. Rev. Lutimothy May went out and raised the $10K based on that district’s demands—-something Thomas never thought he could do.
The amazing thing is the School Board and Thomas knew this. I was at the board workshop when they discussed the buses, their price and the challenges of getting trained drivers for the bus. A review of the tapes of the meeting will prove it.
What Thomas found out after that earlier meeting was that state law mandates that he give the charter school the surplus property. He had no choice but to hand over the buses–something that he didn’t tell Rev. May, the school board or the newspaper.
So what does the board do last Friday? Blindside and Chastise the African-America school principal. Thomas says nothing.
And Superintendent Thomas also tells the daily paper that he plans to give the charter school a 90-day notice that he will close the school at the end of this school year. The man is doing everything he can to sabotage that inner-city school with the help of weak compliant board and a daily newspaper that never verifies what he says.
