In a move reminiscent of a tinpot dictator, Hartland Consolidated Schools (HCS) superintendent Chuck Hughes took time out of his executive schedule on Friday, February 2nd, to share his criticisms with district staff about a Facebook post made by a school board candidate. This is after Hughes made the decision recently to disallow public comment on the School District’s own Facebook page following public chatter surrounding a series of embarrassing disclosures made against Hughes by this candidate / parent during the public comment portion of recent school board meetings.
The offending board candidate, conservative Jeff Scott, pushed Hughes too far with a series of posts that highlighted negative trends in both student enrollment and administrative expenses – two huge issues that voters deserve to know about – and are potentially decisive in an election year.
The posts featured line charts that were based on data taken directly from a source supplied by HCS: mischooldata.org, which is linked on the HCS website. Another post addressed questions surrounding the recent hiring of a $209 thousand per year administrator of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, a very questionable position considering its social justice-oriented job description and Hartland’s demographic profile.
Hughes claims that data at mischooldata.com is pulled from the State data system and certain positions are coded as “administrative” when they should not be. As a result, real administrative expenses are not as high as portrayed by Mr. Scott. Really? So, who is responsible for coding? Mr. Scott reached out to the State of Michigan to inquire about this “discrepancy” and confirmed that reporting at mischooldata.com is based on coded data supplied by the district to the State of Michigan.
Mr. Scott used public information supplied by Hughes’ office, and Hughes attacked him for disclosing the data. There is no dispute about the accuracy of the data supplied by Hughes and used in Mr. Scott’s charts, and Scott’s personal commentary was not misleading in any way. The data speaks for itself. The issue is that Mr. Scott is drawing unwanted attention towards Hughes.
Whether accidental or not, it appears that HCS is supplying the State of Michigan with mis-coded data. As of this story, the HCS website is still linked to the site containing the disputed data at mischooldata.com, and HCS has failed to supply Scott with administrative personnel expense data that is properly classified as they claim. Instead, Hughes doubled-down by presenting this story as evidence of “misinformation” in his weekly update letter to parents of HCS students who will be voting for new school board members this fall.
The fable that this story represents “misinformation” is evidence that Hughes is nervous about the November election and losing his 4-3 control of the Hartland board to conservative candidates Jeff Scott and Angela Yarber. Until then, expect Hughes to continue abusing his position of power to disparage those that would seek to end it.
~Anonymous
Editor's Note: This story is not just Hartland specific. Brighton and Pinckney also have confirmed DEI "administrative" representatives that are paid top dollar salaries. DEI is the new name for affirmative action, segregation and racism in America today.
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