No Felon Left Behind - The Search for Due Diligence to Protect Bossier’s School Children
[An Urgent Call To Action for Parents is at the end of this post.]
The recent federal criminal indictments of three Bossier Parish School System maintenance employees and two owners of a local air conditioning company, Ark-La-Tex Air Repair, have revealed the deeply disturbing fact that the Bossier Parish School Board has no written policy regarding allowing convicted felons of outside contract companies to walk the halls where our children attend school.
Ark-La-Tex Air Repair was contracted by the School Board to perform numerous installations and repairs at various Bossier Parish Schools over the past four years. Since the indictments, news reports reveal that both owners of Ark-La-Tex Air Repair, Alan Lee and Garrett Wilson are convicted felons.
From the KTBS-TV web site:
Wilson in 1995 was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his involvement in the murder of a man who was followed from a Bossier City casino after winning money. The victim was robbed and killed on Interstate 49 in DeSoto Parish after one of his tires was shot out.
Wilson, who implicated two companions in the murder, pleaded guilty to being an accessory to murder and armed robbery, court records show. He was later released on parole. The other two men are serving life sentences.
Lee served prison in Louisiana for a burglary conviction in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana Department of Corrections records show. They said he was sentenced as a repeat offender because of prior arrests in Texas.
Louisiana Revised Statute Title 15, Section 587E allows employers the ability to check criminal history records on prospective employees, and LRS Title 17, Section 15 provides the same review for employees of public school systems.
Fingerprinting and criminal background checks are in place for direct employees of the Bossier school system.
But there exists NO such written policy and procedure with regard to outside companies hired by the Superintendent or School Board. These outside companies are being allowed to enter our children’s schools to repair air conditioning systems, repair school roofs, install playground equipment, and perform other contract type services, seemingly without even cursory criminal background inquiries.
While no specific blame is being placed upon the elected School Board members, the unelected Superintendent of Schools Ken Kruitoff, and the School Board legal counsel Patrick Jackson, all are part of a SYSTEM that has seriously violated the trust of parents and taxpayers.
A SYSTEM that does not exercise due diligence to insure that convicted felons are not allowed to walk the same halls as our school children is an unacceptable system which foreshadows incidents that should send cold chills down the spine of every parent of a school age child.
While School Board members cannot comment on what is an ongoing criminal investigation, there is absolutely NOTHING that would prevent them from taking IMMEDIATE, direct, decisive action to implement a policy that would address the need for some type of screening of companies desiring to provide services to Bossier Parish Schools.
No one is suggesting that the School Board fingerprint every architect, every contractor, every outside business owner or their employees. Such action would be unwieldy, if not impractical, and virtually impossible. But, there is nothing to prevent the School Board from putting businesses on notice that any company which desires to do business in our schools, must verify that neither they nor their employees have been convicted of felonies.
If you want to see this issue addressed immediately, School Board members need to hear from you. Nothing will change unless School Board members know that the public supports and demands change.
You can find out who your School Board member is at their website HERE. Call them, email them, and please try to attend the next School Board meeting, Thursday, January 22, 2009, at 6:00 p.m. at the School Board Office in Benton..
Your phone calls, emails, and attendance at this Thursday’s School Board meeting are all very important. The School Board will not act if you remain silent. If they don’t act, nothing changes, and the ramifications are frightening.
In closing, at the last School Board meeting, Board member, Mike Mosura, read a statement to the public from the School Board which included the following remarks:
“We refuse to let the taxpayers dollars not be utilized properly,” board member Mike Mosura said in a statement by the board. “We also refuse to put our children’s future in jeopardy. It’s our charge to restore the public’s confidence.”
This coming Thursday night, the School Board will either prove or disprove their commitment level to these remarks.
See also FBI Press Release
on January 19th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Evodna,
Very nice synopsis of what is a huge problem at the BPSB. I have had
parents and teachers tell me this weekend just how arrogant the superintendent and asst superintendent have been since the last
school board meeting. Mr Machen has made the statement that he will
leave the school board when he gets damn good and ready.
on January 19th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
If you bring an aspirin to school to you expelled.
If you fight you are suspended.
If you are late to class you get detention.
If you allow known felons to walk the halls with these children, you get tenure and 100,000 a year job as attorney or administrator.
Bossier should hire a well known business CEO (there will be plenty available after all the companies that are failing) to run this multimillion dollar company. Why do we continue to promote education majors to run this corporation that owns land, buildings, has an enormous payroll and can tax and spend. Someone from outside of bossier should be hired to run the system and they should have CEO background.
The Bossier Parish school board system it top heavy, with a lot of money going to administrators at the central office and at the schools (three prinicpals!) Its time to revamp the system before our children are penalized.
Kruitof could have done a great job, be he had to clean up a mess that he inherited. NO amount of checks and balances could have kept this from happening. Felons should not be walking the halls with ourkids.
on January 20th, 2009 at 6:14 am
Patrick Jackson is not the school board attorney. The DA was asked to let him serve the school board on construction items only. The attorney is one from Monroe.
on January 20th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Wrong Eric, the school board hired Patrick on 05/19/2005 as the “Capital
Inprovements” attorney. He recommended to the board not to sue Cochran
Construction and then two weeks later declared in an informal letter to
“Coach Kruithof” that he had a conflict. Of course the conflict was that he has owned a company with Carl Cochran since August of 2007 ( CC&J Development). He also is counsel for Cochran Construction and Air-Repair, which miraculously got the $1,000,000 contract to do the mold
remediation which they weren’t licensed for at the time they got the bid.
You’ll have to do better than a driveby comment.
Oh and by the way, where is the DA while all this is going on?
on January 21st, 2009 at 10:17 am
Truthsquadron, interesting name for someone operating from rumors, half-truths, and obvious non-truths, needs to get has facts together. He can start at the courthouse and follow the schoolboards lawsuit and watch it as it is thorwn out for the reason Jackson gave for not suing in the first place.
on January 23rd, 2009 at 9:43 am
Eric,
That was a fairly pitiful response. Which part of my post was lie, half-truth
or rumor? Was it when Jackson was hired? Was it the conflict letter?
Was it the fact that Jackson is part owner or CC&J Development?
Which part Eric?
OK genius, when does the time start for a construction company to
be sued and is the window 10 years?
on January 24th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Eric– you are master of smoke in mirror–
murders are walking the halls of our schools and ya’ll are worried about mold. there’s probably not any mold - that was just a farce to help air repair make some free money. How much clorox does it take to clean some mold? How much roofing tar to stop a leak. You could build a metal shed over the school for cheaper than that. mold is everywhere in Louisiana– it only needs remediation when your friend can charge to do it and you hold the purse strings.
This is ridiculous. As much money as they have and they can’t do background checks on people that come on the school grounds. Are they doing background checks on teachers? Janitors? Administrators? What is their standard for excluding someone from the premises? I guess parole for accessory to murder does not raise a red flag. Maybe they will let child molesters change out the urinals. I would like to know each and every school that the air repair people went to. If they came to my grandaugters school, I am taking her out ASAP.
Educators should not be in charge of the school system. Hospitals don’t hire doctor’s to run the hospital, they hire CEO’s. A CEO can be held accountable and fired. Doctors are not trained to audit large sums of money. Teachers and education majors are not trained to handle money. They are trained to impart knowledge. That is their gift.
The school board takes credit for our high numbers, but if Barksdale packed up and left the collective average IQ of Bossier Parish would drop about 75 points– and test scores would plummet. ITs not you– its the parents and grandparents that stay up till 900 doing that busy work.
Private schools will be popping up in Bossier soon and no taxes will be renewed or approved in the near future. The public trust has been violated and the grandparents and parents will not stand for it.
on January 26th, 2009 at 11:16 am
anon,
That is very true concerning the option of private school. To answer your question about which schools in Bossier Parish that Air-Repair did work for? Just pick one. They did work in every public school in the Parish. I can
tell you when and how much they were paid to do work at your grandchildren’s school. Just let me know the school. They were at my daughter’s middle school at least 50 times while she attended. I’m not
happy about it at all.