Latest / Chuck Douglas / Lies and Manipulation - Columbus City Schools 5 23 2024

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Lies and Manipulation - Columbus City Schools 5 23 2024 · Chuck Douglas

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  The Power Hour with Chuck Douglas. Welcome to the Chuck Douglas Podcast from six
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  to ten WTV and I am the host of The Power Hour HERD Monday through
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  Thursday at six pm. I encourage you to join me live on the air
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  or through the iHeartMedia app. Also on Facebook, of course, Chuck Douglas.
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  On Twitter, it is Chuck d Talker. On Instagram Chuck Douglas Talker.
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  And just google me. It feels so good when you do, and
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  you'll find me out there. Make sure you follow and subscribe and all that
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  kind of stuff. Now, on the twenty second of May, I took
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  issue with the situation at Columbus City Schools. These secret memos, the secret
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  arrangements, the secret plans to shut down people, to divide people, to
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  malign people who disagreed with the district plan, to start shutting down what they
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  consider to be underutilized school buildings. I cannot believe that, in this age
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  of transparency, this kind of crap was happening once again. But I am
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  very glad that it's been exposed Columbus City Schools over and over and over and
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  over and over a couple of times. If you get my meeting, has
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  made promises, has made promises based on the results of various threats. This
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  will get cut, that will get cut. These people will lose their job.
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  We won't be able to do this anymore. Constantly we are told that
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  it's necessity. It's necessity that brings us to you again. We must get
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  you to say yes to a levey so that the children will have the education
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  they deserve, and yet the children don't so that we can have the appropriate
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  facilities and build on our STEM education platform. And we're talking about closing schools.
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  The city of Columbus is growing, a vibrant city. Andy Ganther last
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  night, You know Andy, don't you? Everybody knows Andy in his State
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  of the Union last night, you talk about, Hey, by twenty thirty,
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  we're gonna have more people than we got houses. Columbus is growing by
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  leaps and bountains and hills and mountains and all kinds of stuff that would probably
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  rhymes. And yet we're closing schools. We're talking about not utilizing schools.
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  We've got school but who owns. I see a lot of abandoned school properties
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  already auction them off, sell them off. I wonder if seeing Zach.
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  Maybe you can google or google or some There's a school building right at three
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  fifteen down in Franklinton, right across from Mount Carmel Hospital. I don't know
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  if the school system still owns that building or not, but it's boarded up.
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  It's been boarded up for years. There was another one right at seventy
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  and uh and three fifteen that got purchased and looked like it was being rehabbed.
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  It's doing nothing now. But if they still own that one, sell
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  it off. That's prime Franklinton real estate. Sell it off. I've said
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  it before, I'll say it again. I'll say it right now. Stop
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  the busing. Desegregation is oh, there's nothing in Columbus, Ohio that is
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  segregated. White people are everywhere, Black people everybody. We got Somali's,
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  we got Latinos, we got everybody's everywhere. We don't need bussing. There
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  is no more segregation. Stop the bussing. Sell the buses. The bus
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  drivers, Sorry, your job has come to an end. We're not spending
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  money on buses, maintenance, fuel, oil, changes, tires, driver
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  salaries, driver benefits. That'll save a bunch of money. And as always,
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  sell the damn radio station. You got no business owning a radio station.
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  You're not doing anything with it in the name of education. Well,
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  we do, we play NPR programming, so does WOSU. You don't need
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  a radio station there. I just saved you millions of dollars. I suggested
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  about a week ago that maybe you could use some of these, especially on
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  my beloved west side. A couple of these buildings you're talking about shutting down
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  to go with other educational ventures out there, like the head Star program.
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  The Catholic Diocese for some reason is not renewing their lease. They've been over
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  at Saint Agnes for years in the Hilltop community, and I had a couple
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  of parents tell me about this. They got noticed at the beginning of May
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  that hey, May twenty fourth, we're done, We're finished, we're through,
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  we're closing. We no longer have a lease here. Well, you
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  know you're talking about Value View not being utilized enough, and you may have
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  to shut that down, or Lindbergh not being utilized nothing. You might hit
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  to shut down. Now they're on either side of this daycare, a daycare
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  that is head start based and educational daycare. God knows that community needs the
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  education their children are being watched and taught at the same time. This is
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  a valuable benefit to a needy community. You, Columbus City Schools, could
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  do something about it. Instead, you have meetings and talk about closing down
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  buildings, and now it comes to light that you wanted to manipulate those meetings.
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  The document discovered detailed ways to quote dominate the board room. It was
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  entitled taking control of the task force narrative narrative, narrative narrative. Not taking
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  control of our schools, not taking control of our budget, not taking control
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  of education, not taking control of the children's future, discipline, graduation rates,
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  but the narrative, how we let people hear about it. It's not
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  what it is. It's not what you see, it's not what you know.
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  It's what we tell you. It is the narrative. I am sad
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  to say that this Brandon Simmons, he upon which responsibility seems to hang for
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  this document, is also a resident of my beloved West Side. I read
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  his bio on the Board of Education website. Seems a bit pompous to me,
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  But everybody's titled to their their grandiose view of themselves. Yeah, they
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  write them, they themselves. I've never been very good at that, but
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  you're entitled, so I can let that part pass. However, what I
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  can't pass is this this immediate arrogance that I'm seeing. First of all,
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  he Brandon Simmons, who yes, should resign. Now, Brandon Simmons decided
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  before the meeting Tuesday night, before the board meeting Tuesday night, he is
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  gonna hold his own press conference. He's just that Dak got important people.
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  He came out there and held his own press conference and he explained to the
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  people. You know, there were several different versions of this document, and
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  it's just a shame that this is the version people are seeing. This is
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  early, this isn't the final. It's a shame that people are seeing it.
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  Why is it a shame? I would be happy to read the first
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  draft of the Gettysburg Address. At its core, it's still going to be
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  the same document. So whether this is the first draft or the fiftieth draft
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  doesn't matter. You were talking about finding ways to divide and conquer the oldest
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  battle strategy known to man, using race, young black man, using race
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  as a tool to divide people. The document out line driving a wedge between
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  the Columbus Education Association. Yes, I'm actually on the side of a union,
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  Oh my gosh, between the Columbus Education Association and the Columbus School Employees
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  Association. According to the ten TV website, as well as putting off sharing
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  bad news with the public to later meetings if there is other good news to
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  share, it also detailed rewarding good media outlets with priority interviews and priority seating.
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  And to that end, let me tell you there is. They're doing
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  a town hall unless they decided to cancel that too. But the Board of
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  Education I saw on Facebook or Twitter or something the other day they're doing a
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  town hall meeting, a radio town hall meeting on three radio stations, which
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  are They're not iHeart stations. They are owned by another company, and they
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  serve they serve an ethnic audience, all three of them high white people.
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  No, we got nothing to say to you. We're gonna go for here
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  and you and you're not gonna listen it. We're gonna talk. That's offensive.
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  It's your kids, it's your schools, it's your neighborhoods, it's your
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  tax dollars. To rewarding good media outlets with priority interviews and priority seating.
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  Now it seems there's a divide between the school district and Simmons. Ten TV
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  continues. After he held his own press conference ahead of the board meeting on
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  Tuesday night, the district stated that Simmons is not permitted to speak on the
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  board's behalf nice way of saying, sit down over there and be quiet.
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  Parents, faculty, and staff within the district express their concern over the league
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  documents. Institutional instructional assistance or yeah, instructional assistant. Leslie, I think
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  it's maltute or martut from Cranbrook Elementary said, I don't think my reaction is
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  television approved. Liz Chapman, Apparent and Secretary of the Board for All in
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  for Ohio Kids, said I was shocked and I just kept thinking it all
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  felt really toxic. Him resigning would definitely be the call right now. Jason
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  Marshall said, Apparent and President of the Board for All Kids Ohio. I
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  don't know where our local NAACP is on this. I haven't seen anything from
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  them yet. They have had no problem challenging the audacity of the Columbus City
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  Schools, and there are many many faux pause over the last year. I
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  hope that because this is a young black man, they don't sit back and
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  say, well, we'll just let this one go. They have been they've
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  been a source of pride. Nana Watson's leadership has been something impressive compared two
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  years past, and she has stood up and said things that are not expected
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  of that organization against things, people and institutions that are traditionally not targets of
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  the NAACP. So I hope they will jump onto this too. Simmons,
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  defending himself, said there are multiple versions of that document and the one people
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  are seeing today it wasn't the final version, and it really we're sorry it
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  really it's really regrettable that that's the version people are looking at. He also
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  claimed he wasn't the only one responsible for it, so it ain't me.
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  It was the other people too. You want to be a man, you
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  want to hold off a stand up and take responsibility. It was them too.
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  They were involved. No, your name's on it, you sent it
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  out, take responsibility. He said there were other important stakeholders when the document
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  was discussed. It was a collaboration. He said there was input for many,
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  many different people and ideas for many many different folks who are They call
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  them out, name them. Let's see how they take that accusation. On
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  top of everything else, this young man, Brandon Simmons, who should resign,
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  had a problem with board members sharing the document. When he wrapped up
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  his press conference, he made an additional statement several minutes later, calling out
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  these other board members who he said were responsible for leaking the document. You
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  cannot leak a document. It's your public board, accountable to the public,
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  running the public schools. There should be nothing to leak. By the way,
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  your biography on the website for the club's Board of Education says something about
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  your firm belief in transparency. You should resign, Simmons, said. Board
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  member Jennifer Adare. Chose to share that document with board member Sarah Ingele,
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  who chose to share that document with other folks. Oh, he said,
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  folks, mister Simmons needs to resign your tax dollars at work. You just
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  gave him one hundred million tax dollars in this last levee. Columbus is growing,
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  population is growing, need for schools growing, and they're managing things so
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  well with that one hundred million dollars that they're finding ways to shut down schools.
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  If you're not offended, consider adding more caffeine to your diet. Columbus
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  City Schools, I I don't know what to say. I seriously don't.
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  There was a time when I was a big supporter. I was a major
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  supporter. I was allowed supporter of Columbus City Schools. When the Proficiency Test,
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  the high school Proficiency Test started, superintendent was Jene Harris back then.
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  When the Proficiency said, they needed a big, big rally. Big they
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  had to get the kids fired up because they had to pass this state proficiency
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  test in order to graduate. And so that first year they held a big
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  rally down at the Palace Theater and Dave Thomas was there, Chris Davis from
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  our sisters station NCI down the hall myself. I was doing a morning show
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  back then, and I had I had turned. I did a parody song,
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  the Proficiency Rap. I think I used rump shaika if I'm not mistaken
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  as my backing track for that. Yeah, I know the irony, but
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  so I'm playing the Proficiency rap. Because I was a very kid friendly morning
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  show. I knew that I had families in the car in the morning,
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  and I didn't talk dirty. I didn't talk nasty. I tried to be
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  a family friendly morning show. And so I did this proficiency rap. Well,
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  Columbus City School has heard about it, and they asked me if I
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  would come down and do this proficiency rap at this big event at the Palace.
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  And you know, we had that place rock in all these high school
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  tenth eleven of the twelfth grade students who are going to be taking that test
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  that first year. And we're up there on the stage and even old Dave
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  Thomas was kind of dancing. Yeah, Dave had a little rhythm to it,
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  and the kids. I know that I can do it. I can
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  pass the test because I'm the best, because I'm the best. Yet that
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  was me. I believed in you. I was with you, I supported
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  you, I came from you, and you today are an embarrassment to me.
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  Columbus City Schools, do something about this. Do the right thing.
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  You can't force him out, but perhaps, mister Simmons, maybe even at
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  your young age, you can find the integrity and the character to do the
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  right thing. You need to go resign. Make sure you subscribe to the
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  Chuck Douglas podcast on iHeartMedia or wherever you get your podcast. I'm a little
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  nuts, but you don't want to miss a minute of it.