Jim Paul: 'Champion of Travel'

Intrepid investigative journalist Michael Stewart reports in today's Pensacola News Journal that disgraced school superintendent Jim Paul has been racking up more out-of-state conference trips -- and expenses -- than any other school chief in Northwest Florida. In fact, "Paul spent more money on travel than the five other superintendents combined."

Since January of last year, Escambia County School Superintendent Jim Paul has spent 66 days away from work attending 17 professional conferences — an average of one trip every three weeks.
* * *
[A]n examination of Paul's travel records last year compared to members of the Escambia School Board and five other Florida school superintendents shows he is the champion of travel.

Paul's defense seems to be that Pensacola is such a backwater burg, who wouldn't want to escape it for a little lobbying action elsewhere? He told the News Journal, "We live in Pensacola on the edge of Alabama. Nobody comes here."

Tell that to the tourist bureau.

This latest bamboozle is about as convincing as the excuses Jim Paul put on offer after being arrested on drunk driving charges. Especially when you notice that so many of the cities he 'conferenced' at -- Boston, Las Vegas, Tampa, and New Orleans, among others -- happen to be within easy driving distance of gambling casinos.

On the other hand, maybe he just needs a lot of parking lot naps.

Jim Paul's Arrest: The Complete Video

Last week we called the video of Escambia County school superintendent Jim Paul's arrest "instructional." Now there actually is an instructional video (14 min.) of sorts, complete with chapters illustrating the major stages of a DUI arrest.

It's just like a training film (see below) without annoying commercials or the all-important breathalyzer test, which may have been administered off-camera.

Ah, but training for whom? New traffic police or chronic drunk drivers looking to prepare in advance for the field sobriety tests when they're pulled over?

No doubt the video is the kind of 'ugliness' the Pensacola News Journal editorialized about last week:

At a time when the School District faces growing challenges, the last thing we needed was a race for superintendent whose chief issue would be the superintendent's personal actions, not education.

It's too bad, but that is the reality of it. Paul made himself into a target — one hard to defend.

Those most in need of some training are the voters. They need to realize, as the PNJ says, that it makes no sense to have the Escambia County school board and its superintendent enjoying "independent power bases due to the political structure of the system."

As the newspaper points out, "Few, if any, elected superintendents enter office having managed anything as large and complicated as a school district." Furthermore, having an elected superintendent as well as an elected education board doesn't blur the "line of command." It erases that line.

What's worse, the political sirens of electoral politics inevitably seduce elected superintendents, sooner or later, into making decisions that are calculated to have voter appeal but do not help to improve the quality of our schools or the education of our children.

By referendum, local voters have had opportunities in the past to restructure the governance system of Escambia schools. Every time, a bare majority has blown the chance.

If Mr. Paul's troubles do nothing more than inspire the voters, at last, to rationalize the system and abolish the election requirement for superintendent then this tawdry business will have served a worthy end. And Jim Paul, by no design of his own, will have left a lasting legacy we can all be thankful for.

School Super's Instructional Video

UPDATED BELOW

Pensacola TV station WEAR-TV last night aired a video of the January drunk driving arrest of Escambia County school superintendent Jim Paul. The edited version was taken from a longer 38-minute video of the entire episode released yesterday by the Pinellas County sheriff's office.

The longer video would make a great instructional film for the classroom. It shows all the stages of a drunk driving arrest, from the moment two deputies spot Jim Paul's car weaving side-to-side in one lane of traffic along a straight highway, through the field sobriety tests which he flunked, to the frisking of the suspect and his ultimate handcuffing.

One positive thing may be said about all who were involved: both both the deputies and Mr. Paul were exceedingly polite throughout.

WEAR's edited broadcast tape can be seen here. The full 38-minute Pinellas County video is here.

Two brief moments in the longer video caught our attention. In one, the arrest video suddenly is interrupted by a clip of some football game. Somebody, somewhere, needs to buy some new blank videotapes.

In the other, before Jim Paul takes - and flunks -- the field sobriety tests, he's asked when he last had any sleep and how much he got. Check what he told the deputy -- and then compare it to the story Mr. Paul has been peddling back here at home:

Escambia County School Superintendent Jim Paul says he was trying to sleep off two glasses of wine in the parking lot of a Tampa casino before his arrest at 3:30 a.m. Thursday on a DUI charge.

Paul said he was dozing in his rental car in the Seminole Hard Rock Casino parking lot when a drunk knocked on his window, prompting the superintendent to drive away.

Well, okay. Maybe he misspoke to the deputy about when he last had any sleep. That's understandable. After all, he was probably drunk.

UPDATE
2-25 am

A more or less "complete" video of the arrest is now available for watching here.

Jim Paul Falls

UPDATED BELOW

Escambia County school superintendent Jim Paul has announced he will not seek reelection this year, after all.

"So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

-- Charles Baudelaire

Rick Outzen of The Independent News claims "Paul announced his withdrawal from the 2008 election because the PNJ was about to do another big story on him."

Could be. Likely there were more embarrassments to come. As Charlie Chaplin once said, "A man's true character comes out when he's drunk."

UPDATE
2-25 am

A 14-minute video of the Jim Paul arrest can be seen here.

School Super 'Censured'

Tuesday night the Escambia County School Board "censured superintendent Jim Paul for his Jan. 10 drunken-driving arrest in South Florida." What's that mean? The intrepid Michael Stewart explains:

School Board members approved a motion by Claudia Brown-Curry to "express disapproval of the conduct of Mr. Paul in Pinellas County."

In kiddyland, an "expression of disapproval" isn't even a "time out" much less a "grounding." It's more like a mild finger-wagging.

In any event, the school board's action rather misses the worst of Paul's behavior, doesn't it? More egregious than the crime "in Pinellas county" has been Jim Paul's persistent lying about it afterwards, right here at home in Escambia County. Reporter Stewart today exposes yet another whopper of Paul's.

As we pointed out when the story of his late-night drunken escapades first surfaced, the heavy irony behind this incident has its roots in Jim Paul's rigid insistence on a "zero tolerance" policy for students and teachers accused of even the most minor, attenuated, or thinly-evidenced misbehavior. But when it comes to his own behavior, all of a sudden he acts like all excuses should be warmly welcomed. To quote ourselves:

There is no reason to believe a "zero-tolerance" policy -- whether for drugs or alcohol abuse -- is any more effective or rational as a school district employment policy than it is as a policy governing student enrollment. There are gradations to such offenses. There can be important individual differences among offenders.

Paul apparently became sufficiently uncomfortable with the manifest hypocrisy of his own behavior that last week he claimed in an interview with Stewart that the school district's policy is mandated by "state law. "

"We have no choice," he claimed then.

Today, reporter Michael Stewart explodes that as yet another Jim Paul prevarication:

The state mandates zero tolerance for some school offenses, such as battery on a school official or bringing a weapon to school. In some areas, such as possession of alcohol or drugs, there is some flexibility.

To which the superintendent apparently now replies, If you don't like my policy, advertise and hold "a public hearing to... see if changes need to be made."

When an elected official repeatedly lies to the public not only about his own behavior but about the institutional policies he is charged with administering against others, he deserves more than a mere wag of the finger. He deserves to be fed a dose of the same medicine he's been so insistent is good for everyone else -- zero tolerance -- and it's up to the voters to do it.

School Super's War on Truth

Yesterday, Escambia County school superintendent Jim Paul opened a second and a third front in his continuing war on the truth. The PNJ's Michael Stewart was embedded to report on it.

Along the old battle line -- did-he-or-didn't he? -- Paul managed to imply simultaneously that he had only one glass of wine before getting collared for drunk driving and that he might have had three or four, too.

"If you have one drink a day, does that mean you have a drinking problem? It might mean that.
* * *
"Maybe it was three drinks," Paul said Friday, adding that the amount doesn't matter. "Whether it was two drinks or four drinks, I did something wrong."

At the same time, Jim Paul launched a new frontal assault on the breathalyzer results:

He chastised those who questioned his account of events — particularly the .128 reading after two glasses of wine.

"How terrible would it be to everybody if we found out, 'Oh my God, the breathing machine was out of whack,' " he said.

This is reminiscent of Paul's earlier insistence that it wasn't his fault; it was the fault of the arresting officer. As first concocted, the officer "asked me to walk the line, and I thought I walked it perfectly, but he didn't."

Confused by the fog of this war? No doubt that's what Jim Paul, who's up for reelection this year, is hoping for.

Just in case the pincer movement in this war on the truth doesn't work, it sure looks like Paul is preparing to buy more time with a surge of the Ready Reserves. That would be the regiments of reformed alcoholics and Born Again proselytes who are always in abundance in Northwest Florida.

Local businessman Quint Studer told Stewart he's already "talked with Paul about his own experience in recovering from alcoholism." And Paul got the message:

"I'm going to meet with a counselor. I've got to talk to people who are in the business of counseling. They diagnose these kinds of things."

If the 12 steps are waiting just ahead for Jim Paul, can the Army of Jesus be far behind?

It doesn't take "people who are in the business of counseling" to diagnose Jim Paul's real problem: he's a serial liar and a hypocrite.

Jim Paul Wall Art

Today, in a centrally placed in-your-face editorial the Pensacola News Journal outright calls for the resignation of Escambia School Superintendent Jim ("Car Sleeper") Paul.

Not for being arrested on drunk driving charges. For being a ridiculous liar and a transparent hypocrite.

Alongside for the ride: a mocking editorial cartoon by the talented Andy Marlette, suitable for taping on the bedroom wall of every student in the Pensacola area.

News Flash: School Super Has 'Liver Problems'

UPDATED BELOW

"I didn't feel in any way inhibited," Paul said when asked if he was intoxicated.

-- School superintendent Jim Paul

This news about Escambia County School Superintendent Jim Paul almost brings tears to our eyes. In an interview with PNJ reporter Michael Stewart, Jim Paul has explained that before being arrested for drunk driving, he had consumed only "two glasses of wine."

Hey, that's not bad. Could have happened to anyone. Just two glasses. And only wine.

Then he fell sleep for five hours in the parking lot of a St. Petersburg gambling casino. Now, that shows good judgment, right? One almost wishes everyone who's had a glass of wine or two would be so safety-conscious.

Unfortunately, before Mr. Paul could finish getting a full night's sleep in his rental car he was rudely awakened by "a drunk" knocking on his car window at 1:30 in the morning.

A drunk, mind you! Gosh darn. Is there nowhere in America a law-abiding citizen can get a little shut-eye without being harassed by drunken bums?

After that, Jim Paul tried to find his way back to his hotel on Clearwater Beach, but he "got lost." Those rental agencies never give you a usable map, don'cha know.

After spotting Paul's rental car "speeding and weaving dramatically," a police officer gave the school superintendent a field sobriety test. Paul says, "He asked me to walk the line, and I thought I walked it perfectly, but he didn't."

So, Jim Paul was arrested. Quite possibly, the officer was impaired and didn't notice how "perfectly" Jim Paul was walking after his five hour snooze.

Oh, but there's more:

Paul registered .128 on an alcohol breath test that was administered, by his account of events, at least five hours after the first of his two drinks. The legal threshold for driving under the influence is .08.

An alcohol counselor in Pensacola, contacted by the News Journal, said Paul's account of how much alcohol he consumed before the .128 reading sounds unlikely.

After two hours, a person who drank two 5-ounce glasses of wine, which officials at the Hard Rock Casino said they serve, "should have a blood alcohol level of approximately zero," said Pensacola Naval Hospital drug and alcohol counselor Laurie Perkins.

Wait, wait... There's an explanation! Ms. Perkins says, "I'm not going to say it is impossible. There are cases where people have liver problems and their liver doesn't metabolize alcohol properly."

Paul concedes voters may no longer trust him, but adds that he can regain that trust "by accepting responsibility" for his actions. He's courageously begun to do that by blaming the two glasses of wine, the rude drunk who banged on his window, the confusing highways of St. Petersburg, and the arresting officer who didn't appreciate how "perfectly" Jim Paul was walking.

Once someone takes responsibility for all of these things, he says, "we need to move on."

But first, Jim, please have your liver tested.

UPDATE
01-12 pm

There's good news and bad news for Jim Paul over at Chris Olson's new Pensacola Blog.

The good news? Olson writes, "I don’t think Paul has a drinking problem." The bad news? Olson thinks Jim Paul is a liar.

High School Musingsville

In the most precise sense, perhaps this should not be considered a schedenfreud moment. It comes darn close, though.

There is a difference, after all, between illegal driving after drinking to excess and illegal drug use. Both are crimes and both can be just as deadly. But Pensacola's school district policy, justifiably or not, gives drunk driving teachers a second (or even a third) chance and none at all for drug offenses, however minor.

Rules are rules. Still, what other than the whiff of rank hypocrisy accounts for the venom these students and parents are expressing about Escambia County School Superintendent's arrest?

They know how unyielding and self-righteous he was when it came to another person's "mistake." They doubtless expect, now that the handcuffs are on other wrists, that Ron JimPaul suddenly will be pleading for mercy and understanding about his own lapse.

Other than the school district's draconian "zero-tolerance" policy for ingesting one kind of mind-altering substance and not another, there's no real difference between the two cases. Former Woodham High School coach and teacher Benny Washington didn't contest that he was caught with a small amount of "cocaine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia in his vehicle." By pleading no contest, technically, he may never be convicted of any crime. But he lost his teaching job anyway.

Escambia County School Superintendent Jim Paul came down hard on Washington by demanding he be fired or resign with a public confession that effectively bars him from reemployment. He also likely will not be contesting his own arrest for drunk driving. And he probably won't be convicted of any crime, either.

But Paul, you can be sure, won't resign his elected post. Instead, it's nearly a dead certainty he'll soon be begging for forgiveness from voters. Too bad for him that he couldn't find an equal measure of charity when it came to Benny Washington.

The real issue, as we see it, transcends these two individuals and any implications of hypocrisy. Alcohol and drug abuse are terrible things to see anyone suffer, and hardly less so when it happens to educators whom we rightly expect to set an example for young people. As one expert has pointed out at some length, however, "zero tolerance" policies do not work in society at large because "drug abuse and addiction are medical problems, not criminal justice problems... . "

There is no reason to believe a "zero-tolerance" policy -- whether for drugs or alcohol abuse -- is any more effective or rational as a school district employment policy than it is as a policy governing student enrollment. There are gradations to such offenses. There can be important individual differences among offenders.

Sometimes a child or a teacher -- or even a school district superintendent -- needs counseling and treatment, not umbrageous moralizing and one-size-fits-all punitive consequences. The objective remains to prevent to the maximum extent possible drug and alcohol abuse by teachers and students.

We hope Superintendent Jim Paul's arrest serves to inspire the school board to take a closer, more objective look at all of its drug and alcohol policies to see just where they have gone wrong.