{"id":13084,"date":"2021-07-08T21:48:32","date_gmt":"2021-07-09T01:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=13084"},"modified":"2021-07-08T21:48:42","modified_gmt":"2021-07-09T01:48:42","slug":"how-much-does-lake-wales-charter-force-families-to-pay-school-board-chair-lori-cunninghams-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2021\/07\/08\/how-much-does-lake-wales-charter-force-families-to-pay-school-board-chair-lori-cunninghams-business\/","title":{"rendered":"How much does Lake Wales Charter force families to pay School Board Chair Lori Cunningham’s business?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Where is the transparency????<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by Billy Townsend<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
School Board Chair Lori Cunningham<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In my time on the Polk County School Board, I tried very hard to set a standard for and establish a culture of\u00a0transparency\u00a0<\/strong>\u2014 both at the elected official and staff levels. I had some success, and I made some enemies in the process. That\u2019s part of taking the power the public gives an elected official seriously \u2014 and then acting on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one example, I always tried to make clear to folks my warm family relationship with my cousin Robin Gibson. Robin is the father of the Lake Wales Charter and long served as its chief legal counsel. When the board had dealings with LWC \u2014 and we had many during my term \u2014 I always tried to remember to publicly declare that Robin and I share a close family bond. (Robin\u2019s mother and my grandmother were sisters.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was never any financial relationship between us, other than I stayed at his house for a few months when I moved to Polk County in 1999. But I thought our personal relationship was an important context for the public to consider in assessing my performance as a board member in regards to LWC issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPurchase from \u2026 Applied Images\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Board Chair Lori Cunningham has taken a different approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image below is from June 29th. Edward W. Bok Academy North is a \u201cconversion\u201d charter school that is part of the Lake Wales Charter organization\/network. \u201cApplied Images\u201d is School Board Chair Lori Cunningham\u2019s company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Various folks over the years have told me that Lori\u2019s business \u2014 Applied Images \u2014 sells mandatory uniform apparel to the students of at least some Lake Wales Charter Schools. She never discussed this as a board member, and I never bothered to track it down or ask about it publicly because I just didn\u2019t have time and didn\u2019t need to hijack a board discussion with imprecise information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
From Lori’s Linken acct<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks back,\u00a0before\u00a0that Bok North Facebook post appeared, I sent Lori and the board as a whole a note. I am now a self-appointed beat writer for the Polk School Board, and I asked Lori if she would discuss her business dealings with LWC so I could report on them. Here\u2019s how she responded:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To answer your question, I do not have a contractual relationship with any of the Lake Wales Charter Schools that would create a continuing or frequently recurring conflict. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t ask about \u201cconflict.\u201d The rules concerning conflict are difficult to parse. I was interested in disclosure \u2014 in a piece of knowledge the public should have. Detailing Lori\u2019s business relationship with LWC would make clear the personal business incentives she might have to behave in a certain way toward LWC. The same concept goes for anyone else on the board or in government. The public should know your incentives if it gives you power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lynn Wilson always abstained from Polk State College votes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Board Member Lynn Wilson<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

For comparison, Board Member Lynn Wilson always abstained from votes involving Polk State College\u2019s charter schools \u2014 and I think, all other Polk State-related votes \u2014 because he\u2019s an employee of the college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bok North post about apparel only mentions one vendor \u2014 Lori\u2019s\u00a0Applied Images. That certainly suggests a guaranteed revenue stream. I sent a second note to Lori a few days ago asking for more detail about the Bok North\/LWC business relationship discussed in that post. She has not answered me yet, and she\u2019s under no obligation to answer me at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, it\u2019s not at all clear to me that he was legally obligated to do it. I don\u2019t know the rules and law well enough. But just the act of doing it gave the public a clear window into how the personal and public intersected for him in doing his School Board job. I always admired that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I do think it\u2019s useful for the public as a whole to have this basic knowledge. And it would be appropriate, in my view, for the public to know how much money LWC has forced its families to pay to the School Board Chair\u2019s personal business over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I encourage Lori to disclose that amount \u2014 and disclose any ongoing relationships the next time an LWC issue comes before the board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Where is the transparency???? Written by Billy Townsend In my time on the Polk County School Board, I tried very hard to set a standard for and establish a culture… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[753],"class_list":["post-13084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-where-is-the-transparency"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}