I am sure you read the title and think that can’t possibly be right. I wish it wasn’t true, but it absolutely is. Hope Blinco will stop at nothing to manipulate people and systems to her advantage. If I hadn’t experienced it myself, while Ponder remained complicit as always, never would have thought could happen.

There was an autistic student within Mineral County School District. This student apparently connected with a para professional on a pretty substantial level. When the student was with the para professional the behaviors were better, and the student demonstrated a willingness to learn. Anyone that knows anything about autism knows that connection is crucial in their success.

Well Hope Blinco was fighting with a school Principal during the same period. As a means to deflect and try and pin me against the Principal, she demanded that I take away the $.50 an hour the paraprofessional was getting. As you can imagine, $0.50 an hour for 2 hours a day is not anything that would break the bank. In addition, the impact that was being made was undisputed, but that simply was not enough for Hope Blinco.

Hope convinced Andre Ponder to schedule an impromptu meeting with the Principal. There was no agenda or reason provided to them. The result was the Principal felt horrendously uncomfortable. I apologized when I realized that Hope’s little set up was a complete sham, but not without noticing just how intentional it was.

At the end of the meeting the paraprofessional still was working with the student. I would never have agreed to try and jump an educator so was afraid to question anything, nor would I have ever denied a menial stipend for work that was actually being done.

I think about this instance a lot. I will never understand how someone that can be that vicious, cruel and unethical is allowed to work anywhere near kids. Only a wicked person would be okay with snatching an opportunity from a student, and the same would apply to a Superintendent was perfectly okay with Hope Blinco doing it.