Changing his appearance because of tolerant Madison’s hate
Kudos to the Madison Capital Times for getting Whitehorse middle school positive behavior coach Rob Mueller-Owens on the record.
“Mr. Rob”had already e-mailed Blaska for Safer Schools on Tuesday:
Thank you for pointing out some of the falsehoods of how my situation was handled. One thing I encourage all parent to do, is to go shadow their child for one day. They will learn a lot.
But I could not get him to come out of the cold. The man had already been thrown under the school bus by Jennifer Cheatham and the Madison School Board. “Mr. Rob,” as his kids at Whitehorse middle school called him, responded:
I’m pretty protective these days.
But Negassi Tesfamichael of The Capital Times got the scoop of the month by getting to “Coach Rob,” as his kids at Whitehorse called him. The story:
… When the separation agreement was announced, MMSD attorney Matt Bell said the district was still completing its administrative review of the incident. But [attorney Jordan] Loeb said Mueller-Owens was never formally interviewed by the school district or allowed to explain his side of the story.
“The most painful thing about this besides being betrayed by the school district, the people I worked with — I believed in the agenda that Jennifer Cheatham … established for us, and I promoted it and worked toward it as hard as I could — is the leaders in the community who have jumped on the bandwagon that I’m a racist c—, and have said that in their political messaging, their campaigning, their Facebook feeds and all of social media,” Mueller-Owens said.
“It’s been really hard because I have been an ally for a long time and to be rejected this way is very painful.”
Mueller-Owens said he’s been compared to serial killer Ted Bundy and has received threats via email and social media since the incident happened. He said he has had Madison police patrolling his neighborhood at times because of the incident. He asked not to be photographed during this interview because he’s trying to change his look to be less recognizable.
This ending to a 30-year career in teaching is not what Mueller-Owens expected.
“I never thought my career would end in disgrace, and it didn’t have to end that way,” Mueller-Owens said.
And where were our putative school board leaders? Ducking for cover, as always.
- School Board President Mary Burke declined to comment for this story.
- School Board member TJ Mertz declined to comment
- Cris Carusi, declined to address the claims
- Seat 4 candidate Ali Muldrow [and Blaska’s opponent] was critical of Mueller-Owens’ claims
Kaleem Caire, who is running for Seat 3 on the board, said he would be open to talking with Mueller-Owens.
“(Mueller-Owens) shouldn’t have engaged that young lady like he did,” Caire said. “I think he should feel lucky and thankful that he was able to get a severance and move on with his career.”
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Who has the courage?
Muldrow’s opponent, former Dane County Board member David Blaska, has been critical of what he has described as a rush to judgement when the initial media reports about the incident surfaced. On his blog, Blaska said Cheatham “was premature to castigate.”
Blaska Policy Werkes 
38 responses to “Whitehorse positive behavior coach is a man betrayed & hunted”
[…] The Tankers want to reintroduce segregation: a black student union. And pay black parents to show an interest in their kids. The tankers prefer the term “paid parental liaisons.” And, of course, a black ombudsman to sniff out racial incidents. Not that anything could deter Jen Cheatham from rushing to judgment as she did in the Whitehorse “hair-pulling” incident. […]
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[…] • “Mr. Rob,” the teacher who helped develop the school district’s restorative justice handbook, made the fatal mistake of trying to restrain an out-of-control student of the wrong race. For his troubles, superintendent Cheatham threw the educator under the school bus well before a police investigation and the district attorney’s review cleared him of any wrong-doing. The veteran educator — jobless — changed his physical appearance, so much had he now become a pariah, a social outcast, an untouchable, a non-person. (More here.) […]
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