In the coming days and weeks, voters’ mailboxes will be bombarded with slick mailers from the Kira Orange Jones campaign for BESE District 2.
Of course, this is a costly undertaking. Printing is not cheap—even in bulk. And postage to reach tens of thousands of voters in across Orleans, Jefferson, St. John, St. James and Assumption parishes is a pricey undertaking as well. Of course, we know that this is nothing for Kira Orange Jones, since her initial run for office, she has raked in sizeable contributions from local and out-of-state contributors with an interest in pushing and promoting the so-call reform movement that has failed our children, left our veteran teachers unemployed, and left parents, students, voters and taxpayers without a real say in their local schools.
But the goal of these direct campaign mailers are Marketing 101—to put the candidate’s name on your mind—even when she doesn’t deserve to be there.
Do not fooled! Regardless of how many glossy cards with her smiling face are sent to your home in this time leading up to early voting and election day, ask yourself one question about the current BESE District 2 representative: Have You Seen Her?
In the eight years that she has served on BESE, how many times did she visit the public school your child or grandchild attends? How many times did she attend your neighborhood association’s meeting outside of campaign season? Where was she when operations were being so poorly overseen by charter outfit New Beginnings at John F. Kennedy School that 70 students that participated in the 2019 commencement exercises later learned that they didn’t actually graduate amid a scandal that involved grade-changing, curriculum failures, transcript issues and who knows what else.
Voters should ignore Kira Orange Jones mailers just like she had ignored the students, parents, voters and taxpayers of BESE District 2 for the last eight years.
BESE sets the policy that impacts the more than 700,000 public school students across the state. Its members also appoint of the state superintendent of education.
So ask yourself this: Other than a smiling picture on a mailer stuffed in your mailbox, when was the last time you saw Kira Orange Jones? How has she represented your interests at BESE? What has she done for you lately?