Re: Your “Leaky Richard” article in today’s “Political Eye” column

To: cking@stlamerican.com, areid@stlamerican.com, dsuggs@stlamerican.com

I assure you I’ve been covering the schools beat long enough to have lots of sources at all levels, from classrooms to administrative, and the person that tipped me about Bourisaw’s firing was not Richard Gaines or any other member of the Special Administrative Board.

You owe Mr. Gaines an apology.

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Antonio D. French
Editor-in-Chief, PubDef.net

The following misrepresentation printed in the Feb. 14, 2008 edition of the St. Louis American:

Leaky Richard?

Antonio D. French at Pub Def got the jump on the news that the newly confirmed Rick Sullivan and the SLPS Special Administrative Board he chairs was pretty much giving Diana Bourisaw the axe. That is, they offered her to apply for a job that she already had! Despite his professional relationship with school choice proponent Rodney Hubbard, French has kept fairly tight with the public school activists, and someone in that crowd, perhaps in the district offices, may have heard from the (in effect) axed super. Then again, French was still working with Lewis Reed when Reed appointed Richard Gaines to the SAB. Last we checked, Reed and French had fallen out, big time, but these things change (fast), and French and Gaines may have kept open a line of communication independent of the appointing authority himself. Gaines would have been in a hurry to get this news out about the super’s fate - reportedly he has been wanting to start a candidate search to replace Bourisaw since the day he got appointed.