School board member shouldn’t be re-elected

Lee Ann Wiseheart is often lone dissenting vote

School+board+member+shouldnt+be+re-elected

Kami Geron, Creative Editor

Team USA and NWSL soccer player Sydney Leroux has a tattoo that states “What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say”. This quote is one of the most powerful statements when it comes to how a person should act. When bullies corner victims it is the action of standing up that finally takes them down. When I think of NAFC School Board member Lee Ann Wiseheart, who time and time again is a lone dissenting vote on simple and complex topics, I think how someone needs to stand up and do something because her actions are always being overlooked in her pathetic justifications.

Wiseheart first ran for the NAFC School Board in 2006 as a 36 year old residential appraiser and daughter in law of former NAFC teacher Delores Wiseheart. Mrs. Lee Ann Wiseheart served on the board from 2006-2010. In June of 2009, according to the News and Tribune, Wiseheart and Gardenour were the only two “no” votes in the naming of the football field at FCHS for former coach Ron Weigleb.

In March 2010 in a 5-2 vote regarding the cost cutting closures of four NAFC elementary schools, according to WAVE3.com, board member Lee Ann Wiseheart, one of the board members who voted no, in turn lashed out saying she thought the decision was made in haste.

“I think, the decision for me was rushed because I don’t believe I had all the information I needed to make the best informed decision and that’s what I believe I was hired to do,” Wiseheart said.

According to clarionnews.net, “The board has only discussed this for a couple of hours,” Wiseheart said. “I don’t feel I have the information I need to make a decision this important.”

Keep that last sentence in mind, because it is truly her only remark after every vote, and every vote is a no. When the board voted on her proposal to table the decision, the motion failed to pass. Then, a motion by Wiseheart and Gardenour to vote on each school separately also failed.

“I think we should wait until we have real numbers,” Wiseheart said. “Don’t start by closing schools. Let’s start with other things. My vote represents the willingness to vote in a manner that’s in the best interest of the children and not voting in a manner that’s rushed.”

This constant reeling back onto no facts, or no time, just stalls very urgent matters that are needed to be made. Why did anyone hire a procrastinator to in turn make you tell your kids that you can’t help them? When your kindergardener grows up from wishing for a school to wishing to play soccer, you can now tell them honestly that you elected a manipulative person into office who is using you, their child, to be a political big shot.

After her first and only political experience of being on the school board, she took a giant leap by running for Republican candidate for State Senator District 46. This hasn’t gone unnoticed as NA Confidential, blog for the city of New Albany, notes Wiseheart’s “tactical manipulation of foregone conclusions” and states its importance so we remember this later when “Team Wiseheart will paint a rosy picture of courageous “no” votes as she seeks employment further up the political food chain.”

She lost her Senate run in the primary to Ron Grooms. With that, Wiseheart now a adult probation officer in Floyd County and the mother of a Christian Academy student (yes, you read that correctly, not a NAFC student) returned to the NAFC school board in 2014 with an at large run. Her campaign posters themselves with a Biblical notation Colossians 3:17 somehow forgetting we are a secular school system and not the private religion based one she chose over ours. Wiseheart’s words versus action record skips on and on.

In July 2015 per the News and Tribune Wiseheart and Corbett failed 2-4 to table a vote on hiring a consultant firm for the Districts second attempt at a Referendum. The Board voted in favor of hiring said consultants 5-1, Wiseheart claiming she didn’t want to “make a flippant decision.” June 2016, a very different tone was reported by the Courier Journal when the Board voted unanimously in favor of the Referendum, but Wiseheart noted “the plan presented was not her first choice, but said her vote was reflective of her confidence in referendum consultants hired by the board and Superintendent Bruce Hibbard.”

July 2016 Wiseheart took to Twitter to complain about the School Board and Hibbard on the very political topic of diversity in hiring. The next time diversity was raised by Donna Corbett regarding Lee Cotner rejoining the Board after the resignation of DJ Hines. Wiseheart is quoted during the meeting by the Courier Journal as saying she feels the board chose “the person with the most experience … and an individual (who) shares the philosophy of serving this community with the goals of academic achievement and fiscal responsibility.”

Latest bullying over social media against her fellow board members to distract from the fact that she didn’t even attend.

Wiseheart has recently announced her bid for reelection to the NAFC School Board in 2018 and is changing from at large to District 2, to oppose “the person with the most experience… and an individual (who) shares the philosophy of serving this community with the goals of academic achievement and fiscal responsibility.” Wiseheart apparently feels need to be the dissenting voice as she is the lone no vote in an October 2017 Staffing Report all the way to the lone vote against the contract for new Superintendent Brad Snyder in January 2018.

At the August 2018 School Board meeting with a large turnout of NAHS soccer players, middle school soccer players, community club teams and family you could almost hear the movie lighting buzz on as Wiseheart gave her speech about how much she cared about the soccer players getting everything they deserved and if anyone said she was against them getting their soccer field they were wrong. She followed it up with an attempt to delay by a motion to table the discussion and when that failed had nothing to say while discussion and questions continued by the other board members, with input of an attorney, Facilities and the AD. Wiseheart recited her go to excuse of not having enough information to make an informed vote, yet anyone can refer back to meeting minutes of 12-11-17 to see when this soccer field was first discussed. I would say that anyone who is in the role of voting yes or no on a topic with an 8 month advance knowledge to research and doesn’t do so has no one to blame but themselves. In the end all she had to say was No in a 6-1 vote to move forward with the Green Valley Soccer Field by requesting architectural plans.

Wiseheart took to Twitter that evening to state “I loathe those who use kids to further their personal agenda. My heart will always guide me to utilize kids to drive my passion to advocate for THEIR best interest.. and I mean ALL kids!” I’m sorry Wiseheart, but what you do speaks so loud that we cannot hear what you say, and are tired of being manipulated and bullied into helping you succeed.