Ozark High School Band's Brian Perkins Suspension Brings Out the Totalitarian Side of the School Board

Ozark High School Band teacher Brian Perkins was silently suspended from duties last month. It's unclear why Perkins was suspended but one thing is certain, the Ozark School Board continues to work in total secrecy in a totalitarian sort of way.

We have seen this in the past as the Dr. Gordon Pace, Chuck Fugate, and the school board has limited debate on the International Baccalaureate, a globalist initiative ran by the United Nations that doesn't have Ozark and American values in its best interest. When one parent asked about the IB's conflict with American values, Fugate told the parent "I don't care." With the suspension of Perkins once again the school board works under the radar without answering many questions from parents.

The Christian County Headliner tried to get answers about Perkins departure. They were snubbed in the most arrogant and tyrannical sort of ways. The Headliner has an interesting editorial today which they note the school board demanded the paper only report the good news about the school district and stop asking so many questions about things that could possibly embarrass the district:


The editorial staff at the Headliner News studied hard over the last month on how to present the story about Ozark High School Band Director Brian Perkins’ absence or suspension. Because few were comfortable going on record with comments, we could not attribute some of the information we obtained. And we couldn’t report on many of the conversations. But we must tell you that our sources are credible and well-placed; but they were afraid to talk.

When parents contacted the Headliner News because they couldn’t get satisfactory answers from the school district, it was our responsibility to follow up—that’s what we do. But we also have to tell you it wasn’t easy. We were faced with two choices: Inform the public on what we know and risk casting aspersions on an innocent individual needlessly or not informing the public and risk shirking our duty and enabling a culture of denial and deceit. Neither is particularly appealing.

We were also faced with silence from the district. Superintendent Dr. Gordon Pace, who has the authority, according to the district’s employee handbook, to suspend a teacher, would not confirm or deny that action. There is no other way to find out what occurred. We are not privy to personnel records.

The only way we, or anyone knows when, why, where or how a teacher is disciplined is if the district releases the information. But don’t be fooled, the rumor mill does not discriminate when filling in the blanks.

So we would caution the public from jumping to any conclusions other than the obvious one—a well-liked teacher’s been absent from the classroom for about two months with no real explanation. But we felt the subject matter was significant enough to let you know that there is or was an investigation going on and our sources indicated that this was not an isolated, one-time incident.

News organizations are often faced with balancing what the people should know with privacy rights of individuals. We weighed the evidence and made the judgment that at least the patrons of Ozark School District needed to know what we know.

When reporter Emily Letterman raised questions about the issue at December’s school board meeting , it was suggested that the Headliner News report good news. We do that regularly every week.

The Headliner News reports the news, whether it is good or bad, pretty or ugly. That’s our job.


So we now have elected officials and public servants in Ozark trying to control the news cycle. Are they teaching the First Amendment at Ozark these days or has been swallowed up the global globbityglook of the UN's International Baccalaureate? We know the goal of the IB and the UN is to establish the UN's human rights doctrine as world law that would overrule our Constitution. This is thuggery similar to what I saw when I lived in Chicago. Public servants telling a newspaper what to and what not to print!

Now here's some background about what I know. Just a few weeks before the suspension, Perkins was travelling every weekend with students at band competitions, something where parental supervision is more than apparent. Ozark Band parents are dedicated followers of the band during the competition season. There was an overnight trip to St. Louis the last weekend in October.

The suspension corresponds with this schedule leaving many to believe there may have been some inappropriate behavior. Let's not forget these events require parents everywhere to pull them off, so the likelihood of that seems unreasonable. If Perkins is being charged with inappropriate behavior with a student, which I don't believe is the case knowing all the good things I have heard about Mr. Perkins, Dr. Pace, Chuck Fugate, and the rest of the school board has a responsibility to parents to inform them what may have been taking place with their children.

Once again, we see it is Dr. Pace's strategy along with the school board to keep parents in the dark, just like they have with the anti-American agenda of the International Baccalaureate they push upon Ozark kids.