Some of you know me as a radical troublemaker and that is ok with me, I only address things that I believe in and this issue is something that I think needs to be addressed. If you don't think that it does or you think that I am handling it wrong then thats ok. I have no interest in being popular or even fitting in, my only concern is the children.

    

   I wasn’t going to write about this because it involves the elementary school but I feel that I have to. As I am explaining this please keep in mind that the schools hands were tied. I think that is the actual reason that I felt that I had to write this. I hope that if enough parents see it then maybe we can get the school the power that they need to make on the spot decisions when it comes to the safety of the children.

       Mandy and I have been fighting to keep her children away from their father. At first I was opposed to this and I encouraged their interaction. I changed my position on this a few months ago. The father, I’ll call him Joey, because that’s what everybody calls him, tried to kill himself with his son in the house. He actually did this twice but the second time we were called by the father’s girlfriend and we drove over and took Mandy’s son out of the home.

       We got a protection order against him but since it had Mandy’s name on it, the judge had to drop the order. The child protective services representative that was in the courtroom stepped up right away and put another protection order on him that was just in the children’s name.  The CPS worker put the order on him until they can check out his mental stability.

       Joey is a very meek and mild looking man; I was completely surprised to learn his history of domestic violence. I will give you a brief summary so you can fully understand why I believe that the school has to be given more power when it comes to this type of thing.

   Joey beat Mandy on several occasions, he tried to kill his unborn son by kicking her in the belly and bruising her badly while she was pregnant (we have pictures to verify this). One night when his daughter wouldn’t go to sleep he pushed her face into the pillow hard enough to bloody her lip trying to make her sleep (This was a newborn infant). After Mandy had all that she could take of this, she divorced Joey.

       Joey’s second wife wasn’t lucky enough to get away so easy. Joey hurt her bad enough that he messed up her back and she is on permanent disability now.

   Now on to Friday April the 1^st.

       Friday was Mandy’s daughter’s birthday, Mandy talked to someone at the elementary school that morning because she was worried that Joey would violate the protection order and try to get her children. Mandy works 12 hour shifts at the hospital Friday through Sunday so I went to pick up the kids at the end of the school day. When I arrived Mandy’s son told me that his dad had come to the school. He told me that he was scared and hat his legs were shaking.

       I instantly called Mandy and left her a voicemail, and then I called the sheriff. I drove to the hospital to get Mandy out of work early so we could get her to the sheriff’s office and file an affidavit immediately.

       We found out that Joey had taken the original protection order in to the school, the one that the judge had dropped because it had Mandy’s name as being protected and not the children’s names. He showed them that the order had been dropped. He neglected to mention that the second order had been filed against him.

       The problem with the current rules comes in here. Even though the staff at the elementary school knew that Joey was dangerous and that he had hurt people, even though they knew that Joey had tried to kill his unborn son, they didn’t have the authority to keep him from seeing the children because they hadn’t received a copy of the new order yet (The order was filed in the home county of the father, not in Izard county). Even though Mandy told them we were trying to get CPS to fax them a copy and it might take them a couple days to receive it, the school couldn’t stop a parent from seeing his children without that piece of paper.

       As a result of that little rule, if you have children that go to Melbourne Elementary school, there is a good chance that your children sat in the lunch room with a dangerous, mentally unstable man Friday afternoon. Since Joey sat through two different lunches, the possibility that your child may have been put in an unsafe situation is very likely.

       I debated on whether or not to write this but it is my opinion that the Melbourne School system needs to be given the power to make decisions in matters that could allow dangerous people around the children. In this case their hands were tied; they did what they legally had to. It was brought to my attention that more than one staff member was watching very closely  and they were on top of the situation but we need to find a way to give them the authority to stop a visit from anybody that they feel is a threat to the children, parent or not.

   I have the utmost confidence in Mr. Cooper as superintendant, he has proven himself to me in the past, time and time again. Let’s get him all of the power that he needs to keep the children out of harm’s way.