This story in today’s Big Metal Shed on the Hill details a group of “local women” attempting to rally the community to support our local public schools. Several Shock And Awe readers have contacted me asking how this is a grassroots effort. They point out that Ginna Mashburn is a former Webb High School teacher, a private for profit school. Virginia Babb is the Membership Development employee of the Great School Partnership. The story states that these five women were inspired after hearing a speech by Buzz Thomas, executive director of the Great School Partnership. Thomas is the immediate supervisor of Babb.Â
The three other women are Jamey Dobbs, leader of the local League of Women Voters. An organization that has rallied to support a restrictive Hillside/Ridgetop plan for Knoxville and Knox County. Tammy Sommers, a recent candidate for School Board that failed to make the run off between former School Board Member Robert Bratton and current Ninth District School Board Member Pam Trainor. The fifth woman Maggie Carini is unknown to the readers of Shock And Awe or myself at this time.Â
How can this be a grassroots initiative when the number two woman is an employee of the organization that would benefit from additional revenue to the school system and not face budget elimination or reduction? Babb is the person sending out the press releases and the releases were sent through a yahoo email address not her greatschoolspartnership email address. Inquiring minds want to know why?
Shock And Awe plans to cover tomorrow evenings meeting. Stay tuned.
Also, interesting to note that they used a similar organization title like two summers ago when some moms decided to lobby the school board and legislature to “Save Our Summers”. That group was successful in getting the legislature to pass legislation mandating a later start time for schools.
