Polk Supt. should fire Chad Davis and get serious about a public referendum on competitiveness

Fred Heid's "lawyer" embarrasses his boss and the legal profession daily. He distracts from the stark reality Polk faces within Florida.

The social, economic, political, and status “leaders” of Polk County do not care if our county’s local education system — public or private — can remotely compete with peer and rival counties.

If they did care, the map below would drive constant discussion and action by those social, economic, political and status “leaders” of Polk County. Instead, they walk around in self-congratulatory obliviousness.

The map shows which neighboring counties have taxed themselves at the local level to supplement school operations and teacher salaries beyond the nation-trailing pittance that awful Florida’s state legislators and bureaucrats provide. Polk is the big X.

Florida is already the worst state level — public and private — school system in America, by far, if test score “learning rate” is how you evaluate it. You can imagine what that means for Polk. Access my map interactively here. The data comes from the Florida School Board Association.

This map is the reason Polk County is bleeding teachers to much higher paying counties. It is also one structurally unavoidable reality that makes Polk’s ongoing teacher contract negotiations miserable — recent potential settlement aside.

But there are other reasons for that misery. And they are avoidable.

That brings us to Chad Davis, a district staff “lawyer” representing Superintendent Fred Heid in his collective bargaining negotiations with Polk’s teachers.

Supt. Heid: what did Chad do last week? Can he name five bullets?

In what appears to be an unsanctioned public “negotiating” ploy, Chad Davis posted this on his Facebook page last week exactly concurrent to ongoing contract negotiations, which are supposed to happen behind closed doors.

This “little math problem” was designed to denigrate the Polk County teachers who work for Supt. Fred Heid. I’ll show you how Chad explained it in a moment.

It is my understanding that Heid in no way authorized this negotiating ploy; but he has not answered several detailed questions I sent him by text. He should answer them.

I’m not able to access Chad Davis’ Facebook page. I assume he blocked me at some point. I am told he took down this post and the obnoxious “clarification” post that followed. But I can’t personally verify that. And I’m not sure that Chad, as a public officer with the Polk County School District, has the legal right to block anyone from public statements he makes about the job he is doing on my behalf, with my tax money.

Indeed, theses posts run sooo counter to the interests of Chad’s clients that it’s worth exploring if they run afoul of Florida Bar professional expectations.

“A counter position to the popular argument that teachers are underpaid”

Here is how Chad helpfully explained his math problem:

Again, I do not know if Fred Heid shares his lawyer’s “counter position” that Polk teachers are not underpaid because of summer. He should clarify. It went on from there:

“I did it graciously.” LOL.

“If my posting this offends you, that’s your problem!”

Also LOL.

Sorry, Chad: your post isn’t my problem; it’s entirely Fred Heid’s problem. He should deal with it and you. Free advice: I know this is your first real adult job. It is generally a bad idea to humiliate your boss in this way publicly and put him in a completely untenable position.

Even Kelli, Chad?

So, anyway, that’s what Chad Davis did last week. Let’s take a quick closer look at what might make him so entitled and professionally undisciplined.

Start by noting the guffawing emoji from Chad’s “mentor” Kelli Stargel, former GOP state senator from Lakeland — she of the fake $175,00 taxpayer-funded job at Florida Poly.

Before she had a $175,000 fake job, Kelli was, of course, known mostly for the personal joy she took in keeping educators underpaid and helping state government torment them. Chad was her top aide.

Neither of them were powerful. But they were gleefully malevolent in passing down the education enshittification dictated by people with actual power. That guffawing emoji on that comment captures Kelli’s personal character perfectly.

Moreover, Chad Davis isn’t just a Nepo baby — he’s specifically the Nepo son of Charles Davis, the incompetent trial judge for the Leo Schofield wrongful conviction. All darkly absurd things come full circle.

Chad desperately wants to be a player in Polk power/status centers. Mocking/hating teachers has always been one easy way to get cred in those lame circles. But even that has not been enough to convince any of my fellow GOPers to take Chad seriously.

Case-in-point: Chad ran for state house — while supposedly working for the taxpayers and Fred Heid — in last summer’s GOP primary. I’m sure he scrupulously avoided any campaigning on taxpayer time. Perhaps that’s why he finished a distant third in six-person race. For good measure, he publicly cried about how big and mean the machine that rejected him is.

That means either: 1) Kelli has absolutely no power beyond her emojis. 2) Doesn’t care at all about her supposed one-time protege. Actually, both can be true. And I think they are in this case.

So what now? That’s all on Heid — and Polk’s leaders

As I said, “serving” as a school district lawyer is Chad’s first real adult job, as near as I can tell. He’s getting a nice $140K-ish pay check to publicly troll and/or humiliate his clients.

His incompetence and indulgence on behalf of his client gives me some fodder — and — more importantly — a chance to jam this map in the faces of Polk’s fake “leaders.”

But what Fred Heid and taxpayers are getting out of Chad, other than headaches and gratuitous pettiness, I have no idea.