Newsflash: a Sussex County elected official doesn’t like to follow the rules and takes matters into their own hands. No, I’m not talking about Wyatt Earp Sheriff Jeff Christopher, I’m referring to Cape Henlopen School Board member Sandi Minard, (pictured 5th from the top).
Minard is a teabagger. She won her seat in 2010 when the incumbent decided not to run and she was unopposed (note that there were 4 candidates for the at-large seat and none of them decided to contest Minard). From her brief bio:
Sandi is an active member of the Delaware Family Policy Council and the Education Concerns Chair for the 912 Delaware Patriots. Mrs. Minard will be the Board representative on the following committees: Arts, Technology and DSBA Legislative. Mrs. Minard is employed by Jack Lingo Realtor, Inc. as a Webmaster.
It’s interesting that she’s serving on the Technology committee, seeing she was in the forefront of the fight against the technology referendum a few years ago that would have funded the technology needs for the school district for many, many years. But I digress.
It seems as though Minard decided to take matters into her own hands last month when she went on to a school bus and ordered the middle schoolers already seated to get off the bus. Yep, someone who is not an administrator pulled kids off of a school bus, no reason given.
A former Cape school bus driver says a school board member removed students from his bus Jan. 12 and would not let him drive his route because of Internet postings he made, some of which he says have been posted for years.
“They really have no basis to do what they did,” said Tighmir Sayles, who until Jan. 12 drove a bus route for Mariner Middle School.
Sayles said Transportation Supervisor Vanessa Moore was at the school during afternoon dismissal because she was going to follow him along his route – a standard evaluation procedure for bus drivers that Sayles said did not seem unusual. While he waited for students to board his bus, Sayles said, school board member Sandi Minard unexpectedly got on his bus and told students already on the bus to get off. Sayles said he didn’t understand why she removed the students and says Minard said nothing to him.
About 15 minutes after what Sayles said looked like a heated exchange between Minard and Moore, the students got back on the bus. Sayles said Moore took the bus driver’s seat about 15 minutes later and drove the students home, with Sayles in the passenger seat. Moore did not respond to calls for comment.
Minard has been tolerated by her peers on the board. She demanded that they get new history books for the district because the books currently used refer to BCE and CE (Before Common Era and Common Era) instead of BC and AD. She has also falsely accused the business director of not giving the board a complete accounting of the budget and expenditures each month. What was apparent was that she didn’t understand what was being explained to her.
During the 2010 election, Minard was reported to have driven by the homes of all the GOP committee people in the 14th, 36th, 37th, and 41st districts to see if they had signs promoting Urkel and COD. She reportedly took down the names of those who didn’t and wanted them expelled from the GOP committee.
Sayles, in his defense, added more details to his side of the story via Dan Gaffney’s Facebook page. It makes for some interesting reading.
Now, back to Minard. If she does this with a bus driver, what’s to stop her or any other board member from yanking a teacher out of the classroom because she doesn’t like the way they’re teaching? Her actions remind me of a former DC school board member who set up an office in a high school for himself and basically tried to run the school.
Minard is no better than Christopher. Come to think about it, she’s one of his biggest and loudest supporters, after St. Bodie Girl and Don Ayotte. Yeah, I keep wondering what they put in the water down here that makes these people act so crazy. Thankfully I drink bottled water.