Leon County Commissioner Bill Proctor has responded to comments by Superintendent of Schools Rocky Hanna, which labeled Proctor a bully and an embarrassment to the community.
Hanna’s comment came after Proctor weighed in on a gun safety bill which he said could result in black students becoming targets for “trigger-happy” armed teachers.
Proctor, in an 650 word opinion piece, defended his comments about armed teachers by citing national reports. “Consistent with my interpretation of the negative impacts of arming teachers have been other voices. These include Time Magazine and CNN,” said Proctor.
Proctor goes on to criticize Hanna’s plan to “patch-up” southside schools instead of building new facilities, such as a southside high school.
“Superintendent Hanna’s ‘Patch Up Program’ for southside’s existing schools equates to economic gerrymandering of public dollars. This practice suppresses building new southside school facilities and oppresses our taxpayers and children,” said Proctor.
Proctor closes his comments by advocating for an appointed superintendent: “The twenty-first century School Superintendent of Leon County should be an appointed position for a skilled unifier and professional education manager.”
Include below is Commissioner Proctor’s letter.
Commissioner Bill Proctor calls for Appointed School Superintendent
Last week, I wrote a letter to the Tallahassee Legislative Delegation requesting that they oppose a proposal to arm classroom teachers in Florida Schools. I explained in my own terms why I deemed this policy to be a bad idea. Indeed, I respect our teachers. They should be protected but not made to police.
Consistent with my interpretation of the negative impacts of arming teachers have been other voices. These include Time Magazine and CNN. Time Magazine reports that “Black children will be the victims of Armed Teachers” in a story written by Sherrilyn Ifill who is the President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
Also, a CNN article headlined that “Lawmakers fear arming school staff could harm black and Hispanic students” was reported by Athena Jones and Carolyn Sung on Thursday, March 8, 2018.
Superintendent Rocky Hanna, who my letter was not addressed to, released a statement saying “Bill Proctor is nothing more than a school yard bully.” He further noted “his rhetoric is an embarrassment to our community.”
A great bullying act by Superintendent Hanna was his recent orchestration to get the all female Leon County School Board to reverse their previous commitments to build a new southside high school inside Capital Circle southeast. This reversal of plans lead by Superintendent Hannah is larcenous against the children and taxpayers in the south county. Southside voters supported the last sales tax referendum, in part, because of promises that a new southside high school would be built.
It is now obvious Leon County needs a Superintendent who will listen to and serve all people regardless of geography. We need an appointed Superintendent who rises above the politics and pretense of being a big baller shot caller who lords over all things, taxpayers and personnel of Leon County Schools including the school board.
Superintendent Hanna actions are injurious to the growth, dignity and advancement of the Leon County School District as a whole. His refusal to invest public dollars into new infrastructure for southside modernization of educational structures stymies the southside’s development and growth.
His “Southside School Patch Up Program” is indeed scandalously short sighted. It undergirds and exemplifies poignantly Harvard University’s findings in 2015 that “Tallahassee Florida is the most economically segregated community in the United States.”
Superintendent Hanna’s “Patch Up Program” for southside’s existing schools equates to economic gerrymandering of public dollars. This practice suppresses building new southside school facilities and oppresses our taxpayers and children.
I encourage everyone to tour Montford Middle School and then tour Fairview, Nims and Griffin Schools. The school facilities which help distinguish the learning experiences of children are radically different here in Leon County.
Although the Superintendent suggested that I am “an embarrassment” to our community, may I offer that a comparison of Montford School to Nims, Fairview or Griffin Middle School—counterparts of Montford—is a visible “embarrassment” to the Leon County School District. Superintendent Hanna presides over a school district that fosters “separate and unequal” school facilities consistent with Harvard’s findings.
The twenty-first century School Superintendent of Leon County should be an appointed position for a skilled unifier and professional education manager.
The southside is a good and faithful partner of the Leon County School system. There is no good reason the Superintendent and School Board should fight against us. We have patiently waited for parity and equalization of our schools which are badly needed and long overdue. Southside taxpayers deserve far greater than a band-aid fix-up for our schools.
Superintendent Hanna’s “Southside Patch Up Program” is a farce and a robbery. However, this disastrous plan by him to leave our southside schools and children behind compels me to see that our community deserves to have an appointed superintendent. The voted upon commitments and plans of a county’s school district should not be left to a flip-flopper elected superintendent.
Commissioner Proctor Responds to Hanna, Seeks Appointed School Superintendent added by Staff on
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Wow Jackie Pons is responding to over 50% percent of these comments against Hannah. Jackie, STFU, you are a loser.
Bill Proctor the great race pimp of Leon county. You had Pons put your kid at Montford. How do morons like you keep getting elected. Why don’t you talk about the “community” in real terms. Crime, single moms, drugs and violence on welfare.
Supt. Hanna and our current school board just approved 50 million for Fairview and Rickards on the southside. Northside school are at maximum capacity. We may see more busing of northside students to southside schools. Parents you better get more involved.
How about we keep all the tax money paid for each area of town in that area. I am tired of paying for total morons that live in the southside.
Kind of tired of hearing about the Southside this, the Southside that—–if you are not happy with the allocation of taxpayers money, then move. The rest of the counties taxpayers are carrying the Southside now and are not interested in dumping more dollars into a NEW highschool there, to please polititions that do not even live there ! Besides the schools there are not or no where near capacity currently!!
It long over due for bill proctor to exit LEFT forever! Bye Proctor! Get a real private sector job! You haven’t done Nothing for your district significant to keep you in your taxpayers’ seat except being a ‘bottom feeder’!
I blame Tallahassee reports and the Democrat for giving Proctor a forum for his racist remarks – ANY fool can see these are nothing more than an election ad. He says outlandish racist remarks – you publish them and the people on the South Side think he cares – he doesn’t!! They are little more than a paycheck to him and he prays on their misfortune. Where is Erwin Jackson to confront this evil-doer, who everyone knows does NOT live with his mom in district 1. The south side will never prosper until Proctor is gone – he does not want real economic development in South City – it would mean his end as Commissioner – VOTE HIS RACIST A$% OUT !
So the increased suspension rates of minority students while we have decreasing graduation rates for minority students and Hanna and Gregory doing away with computer assisted instruction for fragile learners means nothing to you?
Bill Proctor’s comment is an insult to the dedicated teachers in Leon County. The voters in his district have other options this time and I truly hope they show Mr. Proctor and his racist division in this community the door.
Rocky Hanna is an embarrassment to this community. He is non-responsive to individuals and rules by threats. His lack of character in acknowledging his daughter is his problem but his inefficient management of this school district is a danger to the children of Leon County.
In his latest lack of concern for the well-being for students and staff he is moving a principal who mismanaged federal grant dollars to a school as “principal on special assignment” rather than terminating her. What gives him the right to punish another school rather than having the guts to handle the situation.
I hope Tallahassee Reports will do indepth research into the situation and expose his lack of leadership and perhaps even malfeasences.
Rocky Hanna may not be the best person or the best school superintendent, but Proctor is a racist fool that no one should give any public forum to. On top of him not even living in his district, he shows up when he wants to at commission meetings – always late, then strolls in surveying the audience for friends and supporters to wave at (hard to believe he has any but someone must be voting for him). He pays no attention to what is happening at meetings, & gets up to walk in and out numerous times. The fact that Proctor keeps getting elected shows how corrupt and/or downright pathetic our town has become.
Where are you Leon County School Board? You ladies better speak up. Does Rocky control you?
Bill Proctor such an embarrassment to the office he holds that it is laughable for him to say anything about Ricky Hanna. Proctor is the biggest racist in Leon County. Its time for him to be gone!
When the Superintendent of schools has lied to parents for many years, please read Mr. Hanna’s graduation remarks repeated year after year, “having no children of my own”, he cost Leon County Schools $600,000 investigating his notebook when he admitted to Hank Coxe he had “no knowledge of any wrongdoing”, he broke every ethics code within education when he dated a teacher he evaluated, routinely had sexual contact with her at school during school hours and the when she calls it off he gets her transfered!
Rocky Hanna has a proven track record of making fun of students, using people to get what he wants- ask Woody Hilderbrandt about that – demoting people he does not like, firing those who would not bow to him, hiring 5 assistant Superintendents without interviews, all of whom were political payback.
Mr. Hanna has a track record that speaks for itself, vengeance and payback. By the way look who contributed to Hanna’s campaign and who was just given a huge construction contract.
We need an appointed Superintendent and the Governor needs to investigate Hanna
To Happ With Hanna:
Are you really happy that Hanna dated a teacher he evaluated, he bungled the Best and Brightest making teachers pay back money, he has 6 assistant superintendents who have no contact with students that make $100,000 each with paid cell phones while teachers make $35,000? Are you really happy that Hanna rehired many people who went through DROP and are back , depriving educators of upward mobility? Are you happy he cut elementary school resource officers? Are you happy that he is cutting computer assisted instruction for students score Level 1 and 2 on the state test? Are you happy graduation rates are down and suspension rates for students of color are up?
The Southside doesn’t have a problem with being represented by someone who lives in a “separate and unequal” area from them: Buckhead Bill. He has politically gerrymandered that constituency.
So why should it be any different for their schools?
And BTW, arming teachers is not a mandatory tenet of the bill; it is optional. And I’m betting Sheriff Walt, who gets to decide if even that is allowed in Leon County, won’t go for it anyway. So, no extra security for Leon County students.
Rocky Hanna has made charged racists remarks in the past. It is about time that everyone that has heard Rocky’s disparaging remarks speaks up. Leon schools has a bully for a Superintendent. I doubt anyone will speak out because Rocky rules through fear and intimidation. He non- renewed and demoted staff to send a clear message – mess with Rocky and you are gone.
From falsifying information, to dating teacher he evaluated, to disparaging remarks about students, Hanna is a the wrong role model for our county.
Hanna cut school resources officers by 50%, he is doing away with computer assisted instruction for fragile learners (
( many are poor and ESE), he has not investigated the Principal (buddy of his) who called administrators in Leon County and told them if they didn’t switch their allegiance to Rocky they would be out of jobs. That is voter intimidation and that was sent from Hanna.
The school board does nothing. They are enabling a bully.
I just want to address the comment on the Superintendent’s demeaning remarks about students and the subsequent example that sets for his staff. I am a parent and my child has endured unbelievable, blatantly false, cruel disparagement directed at them by school district staff because they have a learning disability. Reading this I better understand how this is allowed and why it happened – its tolerated and even encouraged at the highest levels, including the school board attorney. They mock kids and their parents. It makes me so upset to hear the board members talk about stopping bullying, the importance of social inclusion, fostering mental health etc. when the staff they oversee and pay big bucks to goes out and targets kids! Do they not realize how much damage this does to families? This isn’t just something that affects former employees who feel mistreated, it is affects everyone. The leadership on this issue is terrible.
My heart goes out to you. I work in the district, I know firsthand the Bullying that goes on especially from our assistant superintendent for so-called academic services. She speaks ill of everyone behind their back and will smile at them when they’re walk by. This tone is set by our superintendent who does the same. If he couldn’t run people out of town and demote them then he will berate them at every opportunity. Just look at the latest data breach instead of taking any form of accountability Hannah blames the former administration. Does Hanna blame the former Administration for him not paying child support for 10 years? Does she blame the former Administration for him campaigning with a man who committed rape? Blaming and bullying the new motto of Leon County Schools.
Can we get these two clowns to meet at high noon and have a “Your mama” fight.
I have a hard time figuring out which one is dumb and dumber.