Tomorrows News Today
Most of the "diversity" at Crockett will be rezoned. Yes, the children are going to go to a wonderful school, but they'll have to say goodbye to long term friends ONLY to see them again when they go to middle school in 2 years and THEN they'll be part of a "limited" feeder to Centennial High taking them away from friends AGAIN. Crockett will be "only" zoned for affluent subdivisions which is OK yet to take away the cultural diversity makes "no sense". It's good for ALL children to be exposed to people that are "different". In my childs class she is the ONLY non white child. In many classes there are only 2-3 children that are diverse. Williamson County Schools if YOU want children to be accepting in a globalized society it's time to "attempt" economic/cultural/racial integration. It's for the children.
Nissan Whistleblower Fears Discrimination in School Zoning of Tennessee Schools
Sharyn Bovat, the middle Tennessee relocation consultant assigned to manage the move of Nissan board member Carlos Tavares was arrested and taken to jail on July 7th, 2010 by the Franklin police in Williamson County (case # gsc-3714); the details are documented in an interview with CoolSprings.com after Bovat's release. According to court documents Bovat was arrested a 2nd time (case # gsc-2010) on July 15th. That case was dismissed during the preliminary hearing then when the Grand Jury met the charges were brought back and Bovat was sent back to jail on October 22nd. Bovat alleges the arrests were retaliation for her whistle blowing against a 'deep rooted' Good Ole Boy network that dominate the politically conservative community & now the school board is once again rezoning children not born in Tennessee that are economically/racially/ culturally diverse this time to a school that is considered lesser performing, what upsets her most is what she calls the "hearding of the diversity in Williamson County. Bovat appeared on the Channel 5 10 o’clock news covering the controversial rezoning saying "I'm really passionate about the diversity issue, because what's going to happen when the complex is zoned for Centennial. Basically Williamson County Schools is going to herd all the diversity to one high school."
As reported last summer Bovat says she was told “skirts don’t speak” on the executive floor & she communicated issues of discrimination to Carlos Tavares. Bovat who for over 3 years was considered one of the top relocation consultants to middle Tennessee and was brought in house by Nissan HR when Carlos Tavares the #2 at Nissan globally relocated to Nashville. During the relocation process Bovat’s claims of discrimination were validated by Nissan’s own internal statistics showing a decline in women in management from 20.9% to 10 (data provided). Bovat says that most of the information she told Mr. Tavares was given to her from Nissan employee’s that knew she had the ear of the high level leader.
Bovat says she gained valuable information while she relocated top international executives from 5 major companies to Tennessee and many moved to higher priced Williamson County for the high quality schools. Bovat says past clients left disappointed with their education experience in terms of quality and finding the community closed minded in acceptance of cultural diversity.
For years Bovat has expressed concerns to school leaders & recently the school board has announced their proposals for the new strategic plan and having every child become fluent in a foreign language. Bovat who has lobbied this issue for a long time and is happy with the board’s new educational direction
Bovat feels the pain of parent’s not originally born in America her own daughter was born in China and in the schools she’s dealt with some insensitive remarks about her child’s heritage and some comments (by parents) that were clearly racist.
Bovat says her passion for wanting diversity in Williamson County School stems from an insensitive remark by another parent made to her when the parent ONLY invited the “white” children to her child’s birthday party but excluded the “non white” children. Bovat’s daughter cried for 2 days for being excluded and even tried to use tape to make her eye’s round just to be like all the other children, the teacher at Bovat’s request then made it a rule that parents could ONLY distribute invitations at school if all the children were included or just the girls or boys. If a child/parent wants to limit the number of children for any reason they now just communicate a different way. It was a simple solution that created less heartbreak to young children. This is just "one" example but that harsh memory fuels Bovat, a carpool mom turned whistleblower to insist on acceptance of diversity in the public schools.
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Bovat believes that if the school “herds” the diversity to one school “all” the children in the community will suffer. Bovat say’s the key to Tennessee being a place that corporations want to relocate to be acceptance of a global community. Children need to be exposed to diversity to accept it later in life.
Now Bovat is talking about what she feels are unfair policies in the zoning of schools in Williamson County and many parents in the school system seem to be in agreement with her and bring up their own concerns like: a lack of transparency in how the new proposal was drafted.
With current rezoning plan due to be approved on November 11th Sharyn Bovat the “skirt that spoke” hopes the school board will draft a new plan that is respectful to ALL the children of Williamson County.
