Too often during the past year, our School Board and district superintendent have been forced to waste countless hours defending the merits of mask mandates during a pandemic, explaining that Critical Race Theory isn’t taught in our classrooms, and listening to complaints about allegedly inappropriate library books nobody was reading.
Now comes water-gate.
Unlike those previous distractions – all of which were created by citizens claiming to care about children’s education – the source of this unnecessary detour from more important matters is School Board member Jackie Rosario, who is conducting a one-woman investigation into the school district’s donation of $70 worth of bottled water to a local charity last month.
That charity, TeamSuccess Enterprises, distributed the water as part of the more than 700 Thanksgiving meals it provided to the needy and homeless in our community.
Rosario, though, wants to know how this happened without her knowledge. She wants to know who purchased the water, what funds were used and why the School Board wasn’t consulted.
She also wants to know whether the school district also donated food to the cause, her suspicions aroused by photographs and captions she found on TeamSuccess’ Facebook page.
In fact, Rosario was so determined to get to the bottom of this supposed scandal and coverup that she sent an email to Superintendent David Moore, asking him to provide her with:
- All emails sent between board members and Moore, his cabinet or district staffers in connection with TeamSuccess president Michael Marsh and/or the Thanksgiving donations made to the charity.
- All policies, procedures and statutes governing school-district donations to outside organizations.
- All email conversations regarding any donations made by the district last month, as well as all relevant tax forms, itemized lists of what was donated, donation letters and receipts, sources of funding for the purchase of donated items, departments the donations came from, who delivered the items, where were they delivered and how much did the deliveries cost.
“I was given information that Mr. Marsh posted on Facebook that the school district donated hundreds of food products and delivered them to his home,” Rosario said during a phone interview last weekend. “He included pictures of him and the food products. There was even one of him and a school district truck.
“I want to get the full picture,” she added. “I was told it was just bottled water, but that’s not what the post says. So we don’t know, and it’s my fiduciary responsibility as a board member to look into it.”
Actually, Rosario does know.
She knows the donated water came from the supply the school district had in storage because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She knows the donated food came from school district employees who participated in a canned-food drive to help the needy at Thanksgiving.
Rosario was unaware of either of those facts when she sent her Dec. 3 email to Moore. But she was aware of them when we spoke last weekend.
Because Moore told her.
“I spoke with her later in the week and informed her of what was done,” Moore said, adding that chairperson Teri Barenborg, who asked the superintendent if the district could donate the water, was the only School Board member who knew before he authorized the delivery.
“We didn’t do anything wrong, didn’t violate any law or policy,” he continued. “The school district has the authority to donate to a charity, and that’s what we did. Nothing is being hidden. I’m a CEO who makes hundreds of decisions, and this was one of them.
“That should be the end of it.”
But it isn’t.
Apparently, Rosario isn’t convinced she knows everything she needs to know about these donations. She said she wants the information she requested.
So why is Rosario persisting?
Might her motivation have something to do with Marsh’s harsh and relentless social-media attacks, which include childish nicknames, cartoonish photographs and requests for candidates to run against her in next year’s School Board elections?
To be sure, Marsh, who describes himself as a “community activist” when not representing TeamSuccess, crossed the line on Dec. 8, when he posted on his Facebook page a screenshot of Rosario’s divorce record from the Clerk of Court’s website.
“That he would stoop to something to low …,” she said, not needing to finish the thought.
Later that day, Marsh wrote on the same Facebook page: “Don’t worry guys, we will know soon if we the taxpayers paid for a dog to go with a school board member during their last conference!”
He was referring to a public-records request he filed Dec. 1, seeking the names of any School Board members who brought their dogs to the Florida School Board Association conference in Tampa two weeks ago.
Rosario brought her dog, and she believes someone on that trip – another board member or district administrator – told Marsh about it.
“Who had the audacity to call Mr. Marsh and tell him something so stupid,” Rosario said. “That was none of his business. It’s not anybody’s business but mine.
“This has gotten so personal for me,” she added. “To put my divorce papers on social media? Then to question me about my dog? What is he accomplishing with this stuff?”
For those wondering: Rosario said she wouldn’t even consider seeking reimbursement for any additional expenses related to her dog making the trip. “Absolutely not,” she said emphatically.
Speaking as an activist – not in his leadership role for TeamSuccess – Marsh said his social-media assault on Rosario was prompted by her fierce alliance to what he believes is a “politically partisan” group of mothers who have organized, locally and nationally, in an attempt to influence school policy.
Rosario, though, denied that her questioning of the district’s donations to TeamSuccess was motivated by Marsh’s torment and antagonism. Nor does she want to be perceived as opposed to feeding and giving water to the needy and homeless.
But she said she was unaware of any other such donations by the district during her time on the board, and she wants to make sure the charities are properly vetted and policies are followed.
“It’s my duty and my right to find out,” Rosario said. “I’ve had very satisfactory conversations with Dr. Moore. Other than that, I’m going to wait until I get the information I requested.”
And Moore said she’ll get it.
This isn’t Watergate.
