By now you've read the rants by Bob Norman on the corrupt School Board and uses not only the latest Grand Jury report, but supports his diatribes with data taken from the 2002 Grand Jury report.

Cherry picked data, that is...

Well take a gander at this statement  from the 2002 report:

"Some of the old problems with school construction continue: the School Board remains under great pressure to open new schools and to enlarge and repair old schools. Each year for the past ten years, an average of more than seven thousand six hundred (7,600) new students have started school in Broward County. This year's relatively small increase of five thousand (5,000) new students is perhaps a sign that this phenomenal growth has slowed, or may be only a one-year aberration. In addition, the pressure to house new students is not uniform county-wide, but concentrated in the western portions of the county, and primarily in such cities as Weston, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, Coral Springs, and Parkland. This is where schools must be built if the children are to have classroom space. The older schools in the eastern portions of the county also need repair and/or replacement so valid arguments also exist for building programs in the eastern portion as well as the western portions of our county."

This conclusion was published before the class size amendment was passed by the voters.

All of those additional children being stuffed into elementary schools built for 680 students, middle schools built for 1,200 students and high schools built for 2,500 students.

The above paragraph from the "other" Grand Jury report supports what I've been reporting for years.

I've been hammering Norman and his sycophants for years on the extremely overcrowded conditions of the district that ignited the need to build, build, build.

Instead of acknowledging the problem, Norman calls it a waste and intentionally ignores not only the class size amendment, but the illegal fines facing the district if the requirements of the amendment were not met in a timely fashion along with the abject refusal of the legislature to adequately fund construction forcing the district to borrow, borrow, borrow.

To make it even worse, some of Norman's loudest blog posters are members of the very same district facilities department that even according to the current Grand Jury report, can't find its own ass with two hands and a flashlight.

Forget what parents and I knew in 2002 going in as a new board member, now we have documented proof that the dire straits of the district were published in the "other," cherry picked Grand Jury report nine years ago.

But somehow even now, Norman and his supporting bloggers don't consider those facts to be significant information.

Since my word as a former School Board member wasn't enough, here it is again, this time not my words, the Grand Jury's words...

"Each year for the past ten years, an average of more than seven thousand six hundred (7,600) new students have started school in Broward County. This year's relatively small increase of five thousand (5,000) new students is perhaps a sign that this phenomenal growth has slowed, or may be only a one-year aberration."

It was an aberration.  2003 and 2004 were 6,000 falling again to 5,000 in 2005.

It fell to 2,000 in 2006

There is no getting around the fact that not only was the class size amendment significant, but the need of the district to "catch up" as well.

Here's more from the 2002 Grand Jury...

"In addition, the pressure to house new students is not uniform county-wide, but concentrated in the western portions of the county, and primarily in such cities as Weston, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, Coral Springs, and Parkland. This is where schools must be built if the children are to have classroom space."

But then we'll never see the whole story on other blog sites.

Yellow Journalism is alive and well in Broward County.