Staff Attorney, Board Attorney or whatever. Not one peep about exactly what a lawyer or a law firm will actually be doing for CCS or the NEW School Board Majority. At best Fisher did it this way as a deception that he actually did something that the NEW School Board Majority tasked him to do. At worst, and most likely, Superintendent Stephen Fisher does NOT understand what an RFP is all about. That he is totally unqualified in this arena. And, who needs unqualified personnel doing anything? Or sneaky ones either, for that matter.
But, let’s be more specific. It is exceedingly likely that the NEW School Board Majority wants an attorney attending School Board Meetings to give legal advice on the spot. Nowhere in the RFP does it say that. Nowhere does it say how many school board meetings there is in a year’s time and when, where and at what time. Or how long the meetings are likely to last. Basic information that is totally missing from Fisher’s RFP. No, it’s the NEW School Board Majority’s RFP and it is bad to the bone. No lawyer, without tons of questions, has a clue as to what the Scope of Work is that he is bidding on.
The RFP calls out “Educational Law” as a category of interest. Just what is Educational Law? And how different is “Educational Law” from regular law? Criminal Law? Civil Law? How many cases of “Educational Law” has Tharrington and Smith, T&S, done for CCS over the past 20 years? To my knowledge–ZERO!!! To my knowledge T&S has only been involved in matters related to covering-up for CCS misdeeds and stupidity.
Also, what law firm is trying to recover the $522,500 for CCS on the sale of the Old North Shelby School to Mt. Calvary Baptist Church Pastored by Rev. Lamont Littlejohn? Nobody!!! A Real Estate deal with payment about a year overdue. Simple Real Estate and Contract Law is the only thing needed in this instance. Plenty of those lawyers around and CCS does nothing. And the Old North Shelby School is a wasting asset with windows broken out and vandalism on a daily basis. Drug dealing and place for prostitution for drugs. A lawsuit in the making.
But this worthless RFP is not a one-time thing. It is standard operating procedure for CCS and Stephen Fisher. The construction cost over-runs at the new Shelby Middle School and the New North Shelby School Projects started with just such worthless documents that did not give sufficient or accurate guidance. Figuring 900 Students at the New Shelby Middle School and less than 400 attends. About $10 million wasted at the Shelby Middle School alone. The New North Shelby School RFP called for a special needs school with 175 students. Now it is built and only 50 students attend. Another $6.5 Million wasted in cost over-runs. $16.5 million wasted if you consider the fact that the entire New North Shelby School Project could have been absorbed into the vacant space at the new Shelby Middle School for almost nothing. And space left over.
Then, from another perspective, if you google “Education Law” as I did, you should also find what I found. A website called “FindLaw” stated the following:
Find A Trusted Education Lawyer
Education lawyers represent parents and their children in cases involving students’ access to public school education, rights of special needs students under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), discrimination in education, and more. When you need help to make sure that your child receives an appropriate education, contacting an education law attorney near you is the first step.
Use the list of education law professionals that we’ve compiled to hire a local education law lawyer to help with the issues your child is facing at school.
What Can Special Education Lawyers Do?
Within the field of education law, there is a subset of special education attorneys who are primarily focused on fighting for special needs children and those with learning disabilities. These attorneys can:
• Build a case for your child’s eligibility for an individualized education program (IEP).
• Guide you through the IEP meeting preparation process and potentially attend the IEP meeting with you.
• In some instances, attorneys may even participate in the IEP drafting process.
• Represent clients in due process hearings when disputes arise.
All of this means is that Educational Lawyers represent parents and their children in their quest to make “bad” school boards that have done wrong, do right. Wouldn’t if be nice to have a good, all-round, school board attorney advise the NEW School Board Majority to be proactive, do what is right in the first place??? Quit all the favoritism, sexual and racial discrimination stuff and concentrate on providing the best opportunity for a basic and sound education for ALL Cleveland County Students?? Isn’t this what School Board and school system accountability is all about??? Something the Old School Board and the old superintendent Stephen Fisher NEVER understood or talked about??? Being PROACTIVE in doing the right thing first instead of REACTIVE in trying to cover-up what CCS has already done wrong?
Folks, this is not rocket science here. This RFP developed by Superintendent Stephen Fisher is more a way to justify what T&S has done to help CCS cover-up than seek out legal advice to help the NEW School Board Majority do what is right!!
The NEW School Board Majority has the right idea in seeking out legal representation to improve the education provided by CCS to our children. That is a good and noble thing. Directing Stephen Fisher to get this RFP job done was foolish and insane per Albert Einstein. But damage that is easily repaired and a good and solid lesson learned. Something new and recent that demonstrates Superintendent Stephen Fisher’s many serious shortcomings in the overall ethical operation of the Cleveland County School District. Fisher apparently just doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. And that might be giving him more credit than he actually deserves.
Folks, my recommendation to the NEW School Board Majority is simple. Throw out this worthless RFP immediately. Hire the lawyer spoken about at the December 14, 2020 school board meeting, the former School Board Attorney for the Gaston County School Board (I forget his name), on an interim basis. Since you already have talked to this attorney and trust him, hire him to get you through this release of the Tharrington & Smith crowd and the negotiations for a more permanent arrangement with this attorney or somebody else. And move on with the more important “fish to fry” in turning around CCS into a competent, safe, effective and fiduciarily responsible organization. Turn this stumble into a solid lesson learned. Do what you know needs to be done. Do I need to say anything else? (If so, I will!)
New Attorney Information-RFQ
