LAWRENCE TEACHER LET GO BECAUSE HE DID NOT FIT IN WITH STAFF

[Greg Ward]

WE ARE MAKING DIFFERENCE:
Click for Original Article and May 27 Update

Click link below for the June 9 article including video footage from Kansas Meadowlark http://kansasmeadowlark.com/2009/06/09/save-mr-latham/


NEXT SCHOOL BOARD MEETING IS JUNE22! WE NEED YOU THERE!!!!!

The Kansas 912 Project is calling on all members, students, teachers, administrators, like-minded citizens and all media representatives to flood the NEXT Lawrence school board meeting June 8 at 7:00 p.m. This is a tremendous opportunity to let your voice be heard. This issue is in need of many answers and we encourage you to come and say; we are no longer going to sit by idle and allow others to erode our freedoms. Come support this teacher and take a stand against this apparent discrimination!


Click here for map to school admin building

[pencil2pen]

Excellent article Greg, let's get behind this!!! This school district needs to be called on the carpet for this. I suggest any who can to meet with Lawrence School Board members individually (calmly and respectfully, but firmly) and request that they address this issue and bring back this excellent teacher. (see attachment above for article)
See Lawrence School District website ( http://www.usd497.org/AboutUs/MeetTheSchoolBoard/ ) to write letters to school board members requesting this teacher be reinstated and calling for a stop to this kind of discrimination within this district.
Let's be there in force at the School Board Meeting, Tuesday at 7 pm. -- bring signs if you are not speaking supporting Tim Latham so they know why you are there! Let's bring attention to this injustice!

[Fred Hillig]

Because he was not an Obamabot he was fired. This is horrible, the School Board should be fired! I hope that everyone in the area attends the meeting.
Greet article. Thanks for getting this some attention.

[Cindy Williamson]

Tim is a dynamic teacher where students actually LEARN and learn to THINK in his class! Even though I'm a "Baldwinite", I will definitely be there with a sign showing my support for him. Excellent teachers like him are jewels and in very short supply these days.

[pencil2pen]

I had a call from the Lawrence Journal World today. The reporter told me that after discussion with the editor they decided that they would wait and see how many people show up at the school board meeting to see if this is a story they want to write about. Let's encourage them to write about this story! It is up to us to fill this room so we can encourage more attention to this outrageous situation in our local schools!!!! Please pass on this information to others outside this group!!! Let them know about the article here so they can read the story for themselves and learn!

[Greg Beal]

This may be a good time to use the info gleaned from the training by American Majority. Letters to the editor, blogs and such, on top of contacting the board members. Motivating the students to connect on Facebook, Twitter and Myspace to spread their own thoughts on this might be a good thing to do. They, in turn, might energize their parents to get involved.

I wonder if there are any small town papers nearby that could scoop LJW on this? I wish I could attend but I will not be off of work in time to be there. I will however, spend time in prayer for Tim and his situation. We surround Tim with our support, our concern and our prayers.

[Larry Halloran]

This will go out to our 912 group meeting tonight in Wichita and via email to all I know today. We elther Stand up or Shut Up but we can no longer just Stand By. Please get us a FAX and Email Address for both your local paper and school board. While many of us will not be able to make the trip on a week night it should not prevent us from loading up their mail box and fax machines. I would suggest sending to both in case the school board forgets how many they receive or should misplace them.

[Jim Rice]

Why wouldn't the local newspaper want to cover such a local story? Are they in business to keep the public informed or not. I live way out west and read the attachment provided by Greg Ward and that certainly aroused my interest. I would love to know the outcome as many others living in that area would , I bet. I have a hard time believing the news does not believe there is enough interest to send a reporter or the story perhaps is not to their benefit or interest What about the readers? I recall many years ago an organized group here was having some trouble with the local newspaper covering some events. Soon the paper began getting calls by several individuals to cancel their subscription and advertisement, it wasn't long until the paper came around to our way of thinking. Go get em 912'ers!!

[Greg Ward]

Todays update:
Meredith and I went to the high school yesterday hoping to speak with a couple of the administrators involved. We met Jan Gentry but she was not willing to discuss anything or schedule a time for us to come back to visit. We then asked for the principal but he was not available so I left a business card and asked that he call. The word is getting around the school however as two students called me last night. These students are saying they circulated a petition and gathered over 100 names before the school shut them down. The students' petition was mailed to the superintendent asking him to intervene in renewing the teacher's contract. These students are very upset and plan to rally many to the school board meeting next Tuesday. The Lawrence High School fax number is 785-832-5054, the district office fax number is 785-832-5016, the superintendent's email address is [e-mail] and the school board members' contact info is as follows:

Craig Grant
President
[e-mail]
2505 Stowe Drive
Lawrence, KS 66049
842-8298

Scott Morgan
Vice President
[e-mail]
1618 Inverness Drive
Lawrence, KS 66047
842-6268

Mary Loveland
[e-mail]
747 N 1500 Road
Lawrence, KS 66049
842-9333

Marlene Merrill
[e-mail]
2917 Westdale Road
Lawrence, KS 66049
832-2203

Rich Minder
[e-mail]
1218 Delaware #3
Lawrence, KS 66044
760-3791

John Mitchell
[e-mail]
1012 Wagon Wheel Rd.
Lawrence, KS 66049
843-2954

Linda Robinson
[e-mail]
4210 Nicklaus Drive
Lawrence, KS 66047
865-3738

Please introduce yourselves and the Kansas 912 Project to them. GO TEAM!

[frank w. boler]

will try to make it

frank boler

[Kyler Thomann]

Seriously? Really? Obviously he wasn't fired because of his beliefs. School isn't the place for ideals and beliefs to be judged. I go to Lawrence High School, and the only reason he is being fired is because you can't express these beliefs as fact, as he was during his class. You can't tell a student that your personal beliefs are fact until they are accepted as fact. Tim Latham was flaunting his beliefs in front of the students and therefore not giving them an actual education but instead a series of regurgitated ideals that he called his own. Would you call that the curicullum?

Then you have the homework issue, where no one was getting anything done in his class. You can't tell a student to accept your beliefs and then do an assignment over it. Several students who did not agree with him felt oppressed in his class room, factionalizing the student population on the issue of whether or not he should be fired. He isn't a teacher, in any regards of the word. Maybe he's dynamic, but you don't go to a teacher to be dynamic. That's why you go see speeches. That's why we have politicians. He's a teacher. He should of taught.

That was the most biased article I have ever read. Also, you assume that the school board is made up of evil people who all love the democratic way so much, and fired him because they all hate him. You all assume that Lawrence is nothing more than a city of people who all revel in the idea of firing a Republican teacher. "Harassment also included a Vice Principal confronting the teacher about - who he should vote for - and by making disparaging remarks like ”how can you support that woman”, in reference to Sarah Palin." You actually typed that. You didn't even site a single source. As far as I can tell you just talked to Mr. Latham for an hour and a half and called it good, regurgitated what he said and called it an article.

Regards,
Kyler Thomann

[Greg Ward]

Sorry Kyler, but the first sentence of the article states we met with David Cunningham, Division Director of Human Resources for the school district. The second paragraph clearly states we met with a member of the KNEA. So your comment that I “didn't even site a single source” and I “just talked to Mr. Latham ..." doesn’t exactly create the basis for an open dialog.

We have only tried to learn the reason Mr. Latham was not being renewed. You say, "Obviously he wasn't fired because of his beliefs" but it is not obvious because no one will offer an alternative. You say, "School isn't the place for ideals and beliefs to be judged" but that is precisely what the appearance is with this situation.

If you can offer some facts that actually substantiate anything, please do so. I wonder if you have never seen evidence that other educators have expressed their beliefs, or perhaps you just don’t see that to be a problem as long as their views are the same as yours. And I'm sure you have never encountered any anti-Bush sentiment in class over the past few years, as school would certainly not be the place for that.

Kyler, the Kansas 912 Project wants to encourage honest debate among people. We are tired of the partisan bickering that has our country divided. If our republic is going to survive, we the people must come together to solve our own problems. You said Mr. Latham was a teacher and “he should of taught”. Well I will close with a reference to a classic John Lennon song. Imagine, you may have Mr. Latham to thank for teaching the free speech you just exercised is protected under the U.S. Constitution.

Thanks for sharing your comments,
Greg Ward

[Tim Latham]

Kyler,

I never had you in class, so how do you know how I taught my classes? Hearsay? You have no facts yourself because you were not in my classes. Just like the administration. They didn't come in my classes either. I have no beef with the school board. They just do what the administration recommends. You have never talked to me.