Discipline in schools: are the adults worse than the children at Horton and Castle Park Elementary Schools?

Here are two stories of misbehavior at schools. In the first, students became noisy in the cafeteria and grabbed a bathroom pass from an employee's pocket. In the second, teachers celebrated the last day of school by saturating curtains, walls, upholstered furniture and carpet in the teachers lounge with soda and desserts that were left over from parties in their classrooms.

Too many adults in schools confuse authority with power. They think whoever has power gets to do whatever they want. Quite a few teachers and administrators are as desperately in need of lessons in respect as the worst-behaved students.

Story One

ACLU criticizes S.D. elementary school for forcing students to plank

Maureen Magee

San Diego Union-Tribune
Dec. 5, 2016

Horton Elementary School in southeastern San Diego has come under fire for disciplining students for misbehavior by forcing them to hold a plank position on a hot blacktop surface, which the ACLU said amounts to corporal punishment.

An incident occurred in October when a ruckus erupted in the cafeteria after a student reportedly took a bathroom pass from an employee’s pocket. The school replaced open recess for fourth- and fifth-graders with structured exercising, including the plank or push-up position.

Some of the students’ parents were banned from campus for 14 days under threat of prosecution after they complained to the principal...

San Diego Unified disagrees that corporal punishment was used, rather Horton “modified open recess” for the students for three days “as a result of unruly behavior displayed by students during the lunch period on Oct. 14,” district spokeswoman Shari Winet said in a written statement...

The rowdy lunchtime incident prompted staff to summon the principal, Staci Dent, who arrived at the cafeteria to find some students pounding on their desks or tables...

According to the ACLU and parent complaints filed with the district, students were “forced to get into a push-up or ‘plank’ position, and hold the pose for a significant period of time, potentially as long as several minutes.” Some developed blisters on their hands after they “were forced to hold their hands against the scalding hot blacktop” or face time in juvenile hall, according to the principal’s threats, the ACLU said in its letter to Marten.

...The principal sent “stay away” letters to at least four parents informing them they were banned from campus for 14 days under a provision in the Penal Code. The letters threatened the parents with arrest and prosecution should they “enter onto district property in the future and should they cause disturbance or disruption....Read more here.

Story Two--Food Fight at Castle Park Elementary
by Maura Larkins
Dec. 11, 2016

There was a huge food fight at Castle Park Elementary School when I was a teacher there.

The walls, furniture and carpet of the teachers lounge were saturated with sodas and cake on the last day of classes. It took the custodians over a week to clean it, and another week for it to dry. There were absolutely no consequences for any of the immature, negligent teachers who made the mess. (No students were involved.)

The next year one of the teachers returned to the lounge on the last day of school wearing a raincoat. She was planning to do a repeat performance, but no one else was interested.

The teacher in the raincoat (I'll call her "R" for raincoat) had a habit of becoming enraged when students weren't suspended when she demanded it. She and her "family" (I kid you not; that's what her clique of teachers called themselves) controlled the principal and the district administration.

"R" also caused huge legal bills for the district and was finally transferred out as part of the "Castle Park Five" when the district tried to retake control of the school from the rogue teachers.

Ironically, David Loy, chief counsel for the San Diego ACLU, went out of his way to cover-up everything that happened at Castle Park Elementary. He went out of his way to undermine my First Amendment rights in this law suit. I suspect that some wealthy ACLU donor (someone like Irwin Jacobs) gives large donations to the ACLU and in return asks the San Diego ACLU to foster his pet projects, one of which is to increase the arbitrary power of school administrators. Irwin Jacobs is my top suspect because he has spent huge amounts of money trying to mold schools to fit his vision, which even included packing the SDUSD board with unelected board members.

I think the adults at Horton Elementary would have been more successful at encouraging kids to value self-control if they involved the kids in some highly organized but fun physical activities.

Castle Park Promise Neighborhood continues to conceal results of $60,000,000.00 grant

Voice of San Diego published a story about SDUSD board member Kevin Beiser urging parents to opt out of standardized testing (see below). But I don't think the real story is Kevin Beiser. I think it's Promise Neighborhood.

Promise Neighborhood Institute gave a $60 million grant to Castle Park neighborhood and schools in December 2012. So what do you get for $60,000.000.00? It's anyone's guess. Promise Neighborhoods conceals Castle Park results.

What improvements in student performance have been seen since the money started being spent in early 2013?  Strangely, Promise Neighborhoods took credit for improvements in the spring 2013 test scores at Castle Park Middle School though some think that the new principal, not Promise Neighborhood, deserved credit for the student progress.

But I'd be willing to give Promise Neighborhoods some of the credit if test scores had gone up again in spring 2014.  But strangely, Promise Neighborhoods is silent about those scores.

In fact, Promise Neighborhoods doesn't seem to want people to see its own June 2013 article by Samuel Sinyangwe announcing the spring 2013 scores.

Promise Institute took down its original website, but the article was concealed even before the website went dark, and it is also missing from the new website. Here's all the information that the new website is giving about Castle Park: http://www.promiseneighborhoodsinstitute.org/sites/default/files/PNI_chula vista_070615_b.pdf

If a $60 million grant isn't working, shouldn't Promise Neighborhoods be honest about it?  Who is gaining from their secrecy? Are they afraid that competent people might be brought in to replace the folks who are spending large sums of money?

Why are some schools so afraid of test results? Because they don't know how to improve them. For many, of not most, teachers, test preparation is just a bunch of boring worksheets, not fun lessons on logic and concepts.




Beiser Encouraged Castle Park Students Not to Take State Tests
By Mario Koran
Voice of San Diego
May 16, 2016

Kevin Beiser, who serves on the San Diego Unified School Board, sent a note to students and parents in his Castle Park Middle School class days before the class was set to take mandated state tests. In it, he encouraged students to opt out of the tests — something that’s forbidden by the state’s Education Code.

...Parents and educators oppose testing for a number of reasons, ranging from resistance to the possibility of sanctions imposed on teachers and schools to skepticism of profiteering by testing companies.

Yet, groups that want to preserve testing – including the NAACP, National Council of La Raza and the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund – argue that standardized testing reveals disparities that exist between students.

Last year, civil rights groups wrote in a joint statement: “There are some legitimate concerns about testing in schools that must be addressed … But we cannot fix what we cannot measure. And abolishing the tests or sabotaging the validity of their results only makes it harder to identify and fix the deep-seated problems in our schools.”

Promise Neighborhoods conceals results of its $60 million grant to Castle Park neighborhood and schools

Promise Neighborhoods conceals Castle Park from search results from its website--so what's the truth about its $60 million grant to Castle Park?
December 2, 2014
by Maura Larkins

The Castle Park area in Chula Vista, CA was granted $60 million in Promise Neighborhood money two years ago, in December 2012.  What improvements in student performance have been seen since the money started being spent in early 2013?  Strangely, Promise Neighborhoods took credit for improvements in the spring 2013 test scores at Castle Park Middle School though some think that the new principal, not Promise Neighborhood, deserved credit for the student progress.
But I'd be willing to give Promise Neighborhoods some of the credit if test scores had gone up again in spring 2014.  But strangely, Promise Neighborhoods is silent about those scores.

In fact, Promise Neighborhoods doesn't seem to want people to see the June 2013 article announcing the spring 2013 scores.

Today I tried to search the Promise Neighborhood website for "castle park elementary" and that article didn't even show up in the results!  I also searched for "Chula Vista" and got no results.

What kind of a search tool do they have that would leave out their own article?

I clicked on the tag "chula vista" at the bottom of the article and discovered only one other article that mentions Chula Vista Promise Neighborhoods. This last article is dated Aug. 22, 2013.  It's now December 2014.  Why no follow-up on the $60 million investment????

The links in the Castle Park article are not so great either.   The link to the Chula Vista Promise Neighborhood’s South Bay Community Services resulted in this message: "Not Found--The requested URL /services/promise-neighborhood/ was not found on this server.

I'm guessing that things aren't so great in Castle Park!  But if a
$60 million grant isn't working, shouldn't Promise Neighborhoods be honest about it?  Who is gaining from their secrecy?

Here's the June 2013 article:

Chula Vista Promise Neighborhood Gets Results with Innovative School Turnaround Model
June 7, 2013
By Samuel Sinyangwe
Promise Neighborhoods Institute

Groundbreaking research from Dr. Robert Balfanz establishes that middle
school is a “make or break” period for children. Children who fail math or
reading, are suspended or expelled, and/or are chronically absent during these
critical years often drop out when they get to high school. To keep children on
the path to success, Chula Vista Promise Neighborhood’s South Bay
Community Services has collaborated with Principal Robert Bleisch to
implement the Granger Turnaround Model (GTM) at Castle Park Middle School.
This innovative model has produced immediate, dramatic results in ELA and
Math proficiency scores and attendance in all five schools that have adopted
the model to date.

How do they do it? Through a well-defined, data-driven system that intervenes
immediately to keep students from falling behind. When students are absent,
they make up that learning time during the weekend. If a student fails a quiz,
they are re-taught after-school and re-tested the following week.

The system works through collaboration. South Bay Community Services
provides staff who collect daily achievement and attendance data before the
bell rings to identify students who need support. They then distribute folders to
these students at the end of the school day telling them where to go for
appropriate intervention. Students are re-taught until they succeed, teachers
feel more empowered when they see their students improve, which leads to a
culture of success for the entire school.

During the first year of GTM implementation (2011-2012), Castle Park Middle
School dramatically increased math and science proficiency scores, reduced
incidences of misbehavior and achieved a remarkable 99% attendance rate!
Given these impressive results, Chula Vista Promise Neighborhood is
replicating the GTM model at Castle Park Elementary School and Hilltop Middle
School...


3 Comments

  please help me understand why stories like this never hit the mainstream
media. in our part of the country, we are trying to change the downward curve,
and it is perfect time for info to get before people who are trying to save public
education. the other piece is that patents and caregivers need to get the same
info in an appropriate way so that THEY WOULD BE MORE PRONE TO
COOPERATE ! i guess that only so much can be done at one time. keep up the
great work and collaboration!!

  Comment by don speaks — June 10, 2013 @ 1:53 pm

  Hi Don,

  We agree!

  If you think these stories should get more coverage, help us spread the word
by sharing this post via email to your networks, posting on social media, etc! If
we show interest, reporters will take note.

  Shantha

  Comment by Shantha — June 10, 2013 @ 3:07 pm



[Maura Larkins' comment: It would be appropriate for Promise Neighborhoods to share its 2013-2014 results.  Where are they????]





  Just a couple of comments from a teacher at Castle Park Middle, although
aspects of this model have merit it must be said that the way the model has
been portrayed here does not reflect what is actually happening at CPM. The
data that is being used to show growth is from the 2011-2012 school year, that
was the year Principal Bleisch took over as principal, the school did not start
implementing these reforms until the 2012-2013 school year; the growth is from
the hard work of teachers not from Principal Bleisch’s reforms. Interesting this
starts with a statement of the need to keep students in school since for the last
month of school many students (low scoring, attendance issues, behavior
problems) were forced onto independent study contracts to keep them out of
school and then were removed from our attendance rolls the last week of
school to take their grades and scores off of the books. Principal Bleisch is
attempting to gain notoriety and make money off his “system”. That is why he
takes credit for everything good, blames teachers for anything wrong, and has
no qualms forcing students and parents to sign away their rights.

  Comment by CPM Teacher — June 12, 2013 @ 4:35 pm

Update: Promise's 2013 report states: "CVPromise Staff who live or grew up in Castle Park or surrounding neighborhoods--98%"

Mario Koran gets to the heart of the punitive culture at poor schools

Voice of San Diego's Mario Koran wrote yesterday in Oops: San Diego Unified Might Have Just Unwittingly Validated ‘Vergara’ that blacks and Latinos at poor schools in San Diego are disproportionately suspended and expelled.

This jibes with my experience. I remember how the teacher clique leaders at Castle Park Elementary used to go nuts because Superintendent Libby Gil wouldn't let them suspend students. I, on the other hand, thought that this was the best policy Libia Gil ever instituted. It may have been the only good policy that Gil ever instituted.

One day our special education teacher ran into the lounge, speechless with fury at the principal. The teacher leaned against a wall, fuming, as her loyal brigade of teacher followers fluttered around her asking questions.

It turned out that one of her students had run away from school. Apparently, he just couldn't bear it any more.

She was mad at the kid for leaving, but she was even madder that the principal was going to let him come back.

Ironic, right? She didn't want the kid in her class, but she didn't want him to leave--at least, not voluntarily. She was basically saying, "He can't quit! He has to be fired!"

But here's my larger point: it's not necessarily the least experienced teachers at poor schools who are most responsible for the suspensions and expulsions. There seems to be a culture among many veteran teachers that holds that teachers don't have to do their jobs for students who do not meet all their requirements.

In general, kids are given more chances to measure up if the teacher holds them in high regard. They are allowed more mistakes.

Kids who are disliked by a teacher are behind the figurative eight ball. There's very little chance that they will be able to become one of the fair-haired children, no matter how hard they try.

I taught a bilingual class at Castle Park Elementary, and year after year, my class was assigned to sit in the very back of the auditorium during assemblies. I asked the principal if we could rotate positions. It was starting to feel strange having the brown kids always in the last row. I told the principal that my kids had a greater need to be closer to the front because it was already hard for them to understand English, and it was even harder when they couldn't hear well. But the principal refused to make any changes in our assignment.

I campaigned long and hard to have my students mix with all-English classes for some small part of the day. Finally the other third-grade teachers allowed me to send a few kids to each of their classes for sharing time each morning. "But I don't want them to share, they should just listen," said Teacher A. It's possible that this did them more harm than good. I pointed out, during a grade-level meeting with the principal, that the Civil Rights Act forbids segregation and discrimination. Teacher A laughed out loud. Teacher B bellowed. And the principal let them get away with it. And when Rae Correira came from the district to try to solve the problem, Libby' Gil's right-hand man Richard Werlin transferred Rae to another position and the investigation was dropped. It's ironic that Libia Gil is now in charge of the federal Department of Education's bilingual department.

I think it would be worthwhile for districts to find out which teachers are initiating the suspension process most often, and then to see if those teachers share certain traits, such as being inexperienced.

I suspect that the culture of the school might also have something to do with it.

I know that at some schools teachers spend a lot of time talking about how awful their students are. Other teachers stay away from the lounge so they don’t have to listen to all the complaining by their colleagues about administrators who don’t suspend kids when the teachers demand it.

I think inexperienced teachers might behave very differently depending on the influence of the veteran teachers in their schools. Wouldn’t it be fascinating if it turned out that poor schools not only have the least experienced teachers, but they also have the crankiest veteran teachers? Maybe there’s a perfect storm at poor schools.

I hope you’ll follow up on this, Mario.

The Vergara decision is just a scratch on the surface of what is wrong in poor schools.

But maybe it will help raise the quality of education in poor schools.

COMMENTS FROM VOICE OF SAN DIEGO

Kathy S

"Vergara" or "We can call it structural inequity or we can call it institutional racism."

Fifty years after federal troops escorted nine black students through the doors of an all-white high school in Little Rock, Ark., in a landmark school integration struggle, America's public schools remain as unequal as they have ever been when measured in terms of disciplinary sanctions such as suspensions and expulsions, according to little-noticed data collected by the U.S. Department of Education for the 2004-2005 school year.

Academic researchers have been quietly collecting evidence of such race-based disciplinary disparities for more than 25 years. Yet the phenomenon remains largely obscured from public view by the popular emphasis on "zero tolerance" crackdowns, which are supposed to deliver equally harsh punishments based on a student's infraction, not skin color.

........Race , Class and Gender......

Socioeconomic factors are certainly at play, researchers believe.

"Studies of school suspension have consistently documented disproportionality by socioeconomic status. Students who receive free school lunch are at increased risk for school suspension," according to "The Color of Discipline," a 2000 study by Skiba and other researchers in Indiana and Nebraska. Another study concluded that "students whose fathers did not have a full-time job were significantly more likely to be suspended than students whose fathers were employed full time."

But those studies and others have repeatedly found that racial factors are even more important.

"Poor home environment does carry over into the school environment," said Skiba, who is widely regarded as the nation's foremost authority on school discipline and race. ......."But middle-class and upper-class black students are also being disciplined more often than their white peers. Skin color in itself is a part of this function."....

Maura Larkins

Excellent point, Kathy S. Here's a thought that is chilling, but I have a hunch that it might be true: maybe the cranky veteran teachers who habitually suspend kids of color in poor schools are actually LESS racist than the veteran teachers who have skedaddled to middle and upper class schools. In other words, maybe the horrible situation that we have now, a system that consigns thousand of kids every year to lifelong economic failure, is actually not the worst possible situation. Maybe those cranky teachers just need a little support and guidance to help them cope with difficult students.

I really hope that Mario will keep an eye on how schools handle this issue in the future.

Kathy S

@Maura Larkins  I don't think structural inequity or institutional racism is a "cranky veteran teacher" thing....

Maura Larkins

Of course, you're right.  At heart, structural inequity goes much deeper than crankiness. 

Where exactly does it come from?  It comes from the human instinct to advance ourselves by putting our neighbors at a disadvantage.  And it is maintained by the human instinct to resist change.  Once a group of people gets themselves into a privileged position, they resist giving up that position.  At that point, it isn't necessarily racism that protects the system.  It's the fear of change.

Some very nice people work hard to maintain structural inequity.  That's the beauty of the system, from the point of view of those who think they benefit from it.The people who enforce it don’t even think they’re doing anything wrong.

Of course, I question whether people are really acting in their own best interest when they grab an obscenely large slice of the pie while their neighbors get crumbs.  Everyone would be safer if our society didn’t generate legions of citizens who have nothing to lose.

My point is this: very few teachers in the classroom actually intend to dispense structural injustice.

The system has left these teachers with inadequate resources to deal with children who have been set up to fail by poverty and past and present inequality.

It’s not accidental that these teachers have inadequate resources.Society intends this to be the case. If we wanted good schools for all kids, we would have them.

So what I’m saying is that at the level of the classroom, the institutional racism is applied to individual children by teachers who are socialized into a culture of crankiness.

They don’t sit around the teacher lounge saying racist things.They rant about specific kids who did specific things.

The teachers have no idea that they are failing to give the kids the chances that they deserve.The teachers really believe they are doing the right thing.

Teachers tend to give white and Asian children more chances because they believe that those kids are more likely to succeed.  This belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because the teachers undermine the black and brown students by too-readily consigning them to failure.
Learning is all about making mistakes and then improving.  Good teaching means deftly guiding a child from ignorance to knowledge.  Instead, lazy teachers just excuse themselves from their obligations by deciding that there's no point in helping some children.
Of course, many white children are also undermined by the rigidity and laziness of their teachers.
It isn't just about race.
The teachers themselves are not receiving adequate training and supervision.
After all, who do you think is supervising them?  Teachers just like themselves who probably got promoted for reasons other than teaching excellence.

 

From the Dumb Teacher files: What is it about swimming pools that makes teachers act stupid?

Kayona Hagen-Tietz of Como Park High School in St. Paul

I had my own experience with swimming pool weirdness with Castle Park Elementary teachers in 2001.

School Slammed For Forcing Girl To Stand Half-Naked In Sub-Zero Temperatures
By: Robert Porter
Issue Hawk
March 5, 2014

A Minnesota school has come under fire for forcing a wet and half-naked student to stand outside in sub-zero temperatures. Fourteen-year-old Kayona Hagen-Tietz developed frostbite after being shepherded outside from a swimming class when the school’s fire alarm went off. A teacher at Como Park Senior High School in St. Paul told her that there was no time for her to get her clothes or towel from the locker and rushed her outside while still wet in a swimsuit. The temperature outside was -5 degrees that day and was -25 degrees with the windchill.

“When they had seen that, they should have had some kind of protocol,” said the girl’s mother, Eva. “If I had a fire and brought my children out in that condition, you know, I’m sure I would be charged in some way or another if I didn’t instantly bring them into a neighbor’s house or someplace else. The ultimate goal is to keep them safe and protect your children, and, in this instance, they did a really poor job.”

Eva declined to pursue legal action against the school, but also wants them to issue a public apology and reexamine their fire policies. The school district issued a statement saying they regularly review such policies and intend to do so again in the future, which the school’s principal declined to comment on the scandal.

CVESD teacher removed for requesting massages from students, but Pettit isn't the only employee whose job is threatened

Stephenie Pettit

See comments at bottom of this post.

Stephenie Pettit has been placed on administrative leave for requesting massages from students. (See Channel 10 News story below.)

No one, including the police, has found that there was any hint of wrongdoing in Ms. Pettit's classroom--only bad judgment.

(Updated Mar. 14, 2014) But a parent has made me realize that Ms. Pettit's actions could result in serious harm to students in the future because they conditioned children to touch an adult on request. Even worse, kids were given class currency to do the touching. If CVESD used my plan for master teachers, this would not have happened. Our system puts untested teachers in full and solitary control of classrooms right after getting their teaching credentials. There is no close oversight or support to guide them.

Superintendent Francisco Escobedo will need to be careful in this case. A couple of members of his administration have more to hide than a few massages.

Asst. Supt. Sandra Villegas-Zuniga and Human Resources director Peg Myers will want to go easy on Ms. Pettit. They will want to continue the district's policy of avoiding investigations. It's a good policy when the people with the most to hide are not the ones the district is targeting. Ms. Pettit might say more than they want to hear if she were pressed for information.

WHAT KIND OF INVESTIGATIONS DOES CVESD CONDUCT?

Let's compare the two situations: guns and violence in the earlier case versus kids giving massages in the current case. Why was there NO investigation in the first case, while the police were called in in the second case?

The fact is, CVESD doesn't do thorough investigations to keep kids safe. Instead, it tries to protect its reputation. Too often this means covering up truly illegal actions by staff. As soon as as a report of child molestation surfaces in any school, a district administrator runs over to the school and threatens all the teachers that they'd better keep quiet. And they do keep quiet. The public has the right to vote for board members, but clearly does NOT enjoy the right to know what's going on at school districts.

Stephenie Pettit would NOT be the target of any investigation in the earlier case, but she'd be a star witness. She knows the truth about the reports of "fear for their lives" by teachers Jo Ellen Hamilton and Linda Watson when they taught at Castle Park Elementary in 2001. Pettit knows the role that Peg Myers played in the cover-up of crimes by Robin Donlan and other teachers.

And Sandra Villegas-Zuniga and Francisco Escobedo also know, or they should know.


Asst. Supt. Sandra Villegas-Zuniga might want to review her bizarre dealings with Peg Myers.


Peg Myers at her deposition

When Myers was the site representative at Castle Park Elementary School about ten years ago, she kept a tight rein on Stephenie Pettit in order to make sure that illegal actions were kept hidden. Stephenie Pettit was not involved in the original illegal actions, but she did keep her mouth shut after she found out about them. Later, when Myers was President of Chula Vista Educators (CVE), she continued to use her position to cover-up events at Castle Park in 2000-2001.

When she was President of CVE, Myers apparently impressed Villegas-Zuniga as someone who would help the district manipulate teachers. After sitting across from Myers at the bargaining table for a number of years, Villegas-Zuniga convinced Myers to clamber across the table to the other side and accept the job of Director of Human Resources. Obviously, Peg's intimate knowledge of individual teachers, and the workings of the teacher union, have been very helpful to the district in intimidating teachers. [Yes, I know that the district website claims that Myers is in charge of "classified" staff. Don't be fooled. She spends at least some of her time intimidating teachers.]

So here's the problem in the current situation. Stephenie Pettit knows the details of who was involved, and what actions they took, during the years when a large number of violations of civil and criminal laws were committed at Castle Park Elementary School, the district office, and the teachers union. The near-destruction of a school by power-hungry teachers and administrators was just the boost Peg Myers' career needed, and she has catapulted dramatically to higher positions since she was just an ordinary teacher at Castle Park Elementary in 2001.

CASTLE PARK ELEMENTARY

The effects of the decade-long teacher meltdown at Castle Park Elementary--that resulted in the school having 11 principals in 11 years--continue to ripple through the district.

It staggers the imagination to realize how many teachers involved with Castle Park Elementary's descent into a miasma of dysfunction have continued to make news long since the Chula Vista Star-News and San Diego Union-Tribune lost interest in supporting a troublesome group of teachers, parents and administrators that brought the school to its knees during their years of arbitrary power.


Pam Smith and Larry Cunningham

Current Chula Vista Elementary board members Pam Smith and Larry Cunningham oversaw the cover-up of illegal actions by CVESD employees at the school in 2000-2001. (I was a teacher at Castle Park Elementary, with Stephenie Pettit and Peg Myers, at that time.)


Former CVE president Jim Groth wanted a replacement who would continue the teacher versus teacher culture that he had helped create. Peg Myers fit the bill perfectly. See all Jim Groth blog posts.

It should be mentioned that current member of the statewide CTA board of directors Jim Groth played a big role in the concealment of illegal actions. He was then, and still is, a member of the Chula Vista Educators board. I imagine he's already hopped in his car and driven over to the district office to remind the administration that the district and the teachers union need to continue the cover-up.

After the district paid $100,000s of taxpayer dollars in legal fees to lawyers Dan Shinoff and Mark Bresee for their successful efforts to protect teachers and administrators who had committed crimes, the prevailing teachers apparently felt invulnerable. They delighted in their arbitrary power to do whatever they wanted and get away with it. What else could the district expect when it had fired a teacher (me!) simply for demanding an investigation, and for refusing to come back to work until something was done about the relentless harassment of me by teacher thugs.


Former CVE President Gina Boyd. See Gina Boyd's deposition HERE.


Robin Donlan, notorious along with her husband for $7 million Wireless Facilities stock options fraud case. See Robin Donlan's deposition HERE.

The rogue teachers were led by Robin Donlan, a personal friend of both Peg Myers and former CVE president Gina Boyd. Gina Boyd was a member in extremely good standing of the self-styled "Castle Park Family". The self-styled "Castle Park Family" resisted all efforts by a string of principals (averaging one principal per year for 11 years) to get them to settle down and do their jobs. I myself was a target of the ruling teachers. Administrators Libia Gil and Rick Werlin did the bidding of those teachers.

Before my lawsuit was even finished, five teachers were transferred out of the school during the summer of 2004. Stephanie Pettit was one of the "Castle Park Five" group that included the notorious Robin Donlan, Peg Myers, and Nikki Perez.

This district keeps finding that its favored employees have big problems. Perhaps an effective evaluation system for teachers would help? But no, that would interfere with the politics that currently guides employment decisions at the district. And the district wouldn't have hired Peg Myers if it didn't want to keep politics in the forefront of district decisions.

I doubt that the district will try to fire Mrs. Pettit. She knows too much about criminal actions by teachers and administrators. I predict a settlement.

And as far as the parent who says Stephanie should not teach again, I don't see how voluntarily giving a massage to a teacher could seriously harm a child. The situation is no more serious than if Stephanie were rewarding kids to fan her. The problem with the behavior is that the students are being asked to treat the teacher like a queen rather than a professional. The touching was clearly NOT sexual. It's only wrong because kids shouldn't be performing personal services for teachers--like combing hair, cutting hair, shining shoes, etc. Of course, Stephenie used poor judgment, but she's been taught by the district and the teachers union that she and other teachers with political connections are free to indulge any whim without repercussions.

A more important issue is that kids are being damaged by teachers every day in CVESD classrooms. There is psychological damage being done by cruel, rigid teachers who take pleasure in causing pain. Stephanie did not cause pain to the kids who volunteered to give her massages.

It would be interesting to know what else was happening when the kids were giving the teacher a massage. Was she teaching them at the same time? This could very well be the case. But there are so many classrooms where teachers spend huge amounts of time NOT interacting with their students that it would be very dangerous for anyone to criticize Stephanie even if she had not been teaching while receiving a massage. She could easily get plenty of witnesses to talk about the time wasted in classrooms while teachers are doing something other than teaching. I could write a book about it.

Stephanie deserves the due process than she herself helped to deny to me. Lawyer Dan Shinoff of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz took tax dollars for his successful efforts to keep Stephanie from being deposed in my case. I would be happy to deposed in any case she might file--which is exactly why I think that the district won't try to fire her. Here's my deposition in the current defamation lawsuit against me by Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz. Stutz is quite miffed, it seems, that the Court of Appeal says I have a constitutional right to discuss the lawyers who act on behalf of public schools.

Though I was not able to depose Stephanie, I was able to take the depositions of Castle Park Family members Gina Boyd, Peg Myers and Robin Donlan. (I recommend clicking on these links for these depositions if only to see the hilarious expressions on the faces of teachers who don't like being asked to tell the truth.)

NEWS COVERAGE

Channel 10 News and San Diego Union-Tribune have covered this story. Let's see if Channel 10 will investigate further the failure of school districts to do meaningful evaluations of teachers. The SDUT has been covering up for CVESD for years. I hope they will start to cover the real stories instead of only the sensationalistic ones.

EVALUATING TEACHERS

Researches say that 10% of teachers are doing a bad job, failing to add value to their students' academic abilities. Many teachers have serious personality problems. But the fact is that CVESD really doesn't know its teachers. I never met a principal who really observed and really talked to staff members to find out what they were up to.

It's time that ALL teachers in CVESD were properly evaluated.

Chula Vista teacher removed from job, accused of soliciting massages from students
Kandiss Crone
10 News
02/13/2014

CHULA VISTA, Calif. - Some parents at a South Bay elementary school told 10News they couldn't believe what their kids said went on inside their third-grade classroom.

"This behavior, to my son, has become so normalized that he did not report it to me," said parent Andy Stumph.

Some parents say Salt Creek Elementary School teacher Stephanie Petitt solicited massages from the students during reading time in exchange for $10 in class money. The parents also say Petitt also encouraged the third graders to give each other massages.

"The most children I've heard at any one time that was massaging the teacher was seven -- one on each leg, one on each arm, one on each shoulder, one playing with the hair," Stumph said.

The parents voiced their concerns at a school board meeting Wednesday night but weren't happy with the outcome, so they contacted 10News.

Chula Vista Elementary School District Superintendent Francisco Escobedo said Chula Vista police were called in to investigate but did not find any criminal wrongdoing.

"This behavior is absolutely not acceptable. We have professional standards at Chula Vista," Escobedo said.

Escobedo said Petitt is no longer teaching at the school, but is still employed with the district.

"She's on administrative leave; these allegations we take very seriously and we have to do due process to investigate," Escobedo said.

Parents say that's not enough, and they worry the teacher's actions could have a lasting impact on their kids.

"If there's a goal to be had ... Mrs. Petit would never be able to teach again," parent Samantha Trickey said.

Three parents pulled their children out of the school, 10News learned.

The district says a long-term substitute will replace the teacher.

Teacher on leave over massage claims
U‑T San Diego
Feb. 14, 2014 - She reported back to work Monday and taught her class after investigations by the Chula Vista Elementary School District and the Chula Vista ...

With $60 million in grants, troubled Castle Park Elementary is trying to climb out of the mire created by Libia Gil, Richard Werlin and Jim Groth

Castle Park Elementary, the troubled school I attended as a child and taught at as an adult, deserves a break. But I'm not sure that's what it's getting, even with $60 million in grants to the neighborhood.

Here's the problem: the culture of the school district and teachers union is as bankrupt as ever. Improved attendance has little impact when the dysfunctional culture of the district and the teachers union remains the same.

Here's a comment by a reader of the Chula Vista Star-News:

Sosocal says:
Sat, Sep 14 2013 04:30 PM

What could have been a great opportunity for honest dialogue unfortunately turned into something quite different: the Secretary of Education being spoon fed Ed Brand's scheme of the hour. Yes, principal Bleisch has created quite a stir, but what is the substance? Some might say, as long as the kids go to school and the district gets the funding, it's all ok. But is it?

We need honest answers regarding the finances of this district. We need honest answers from those who purport to represent us, but who really represent their own careerist issues.

What are the students learning from this? I hope the public is learning that they need to be involved.

I agree with the commenter. The network of corrupt officials in San Diego schools is fostered by San Diego County Office of Education. SDCOE protects officials who should be long gone. Why can't some of the $60 million in grants be used to clean up corruption in South Bay? Because the people involved in the grants are closely connected to the school districts, and they all protect each other. The public needs to know more about what's going on in schools, behind the red-painted windows.

See all posts re Castle Park Elementary School from this blog and from CVESD Reporter.


A Promise Neighborhood staff member works with students after school in the Castle Park Elementary computer lab in Chula Vista, Sept. 19, 2013. The software, paid for by the Promise Neighborhood is helping students improve their reading skills. Photo By Christopher Maue

How A Federal Grant For Promise Neighborhoods Is Changing A Chula Vista Community
By Kyla Calvert
KPBS News
October 3, 2013

CHULA VISTA, CA — Ten-year-old Emily Jimenez Ayon wants to be a doctor. To do that, she knows she’ll need to go to college. And to get there she’s willing to make some sacrifices. For the moment that includes giving up her Qiunceañera, which is kind of like a coming out party that many Mexican-American families throw for their daughters’ fifteenth birthdays.

Last year, a partnership of almost 30 organizations in Chula Vista's Castle Park neighborhood received a five-year grant to provide "cradle-to-career" support for the neighborhood’s children and families.

“I want to save the money for when I get into the university," she said.

That’s right – she wants the money to go toward the cost of college. Her mother, Gladys Ayon, said this is a new outlook for her daughter that came after a few weeks of summer camps provided through a program called Promise Neighborhood.

“Before, we didn’t talk a lot about it," Ayon said in Spanish. "But the people from Promise came with the mentality of helping the mothers from the time they’re pregnant and helping them so that their children do well, and little by little, get to college.”

Castle Park’s Promise Neighborhood program is one of about a dozen Promise Neighborhoods operating across the country. The federal government has set aside about $100 million over the last three years for programs like these. Last year, a partnership of almost 30 organizations in Castle Park received a $28 million, five-year grant to provide what’s being called "cradle-to-career" support for the neighborhood’s children and families.

“We saw a lot of gaps in services and we saw a lot of what was keeping kids from being successful in school or keeping kids from going to college,” said Kathryn Lembo, CEO of South Bay Community Services, the group leading the Promise Neighborhood. “You had parents – 96 percent of the parents – saying they wanted their children to go to college and they talked to their kids about it. But then when you asked them what they were talking to them about, it was that, “we can’t afford it, you can’t go to college.”

But changing that mentality is a tall order in a neighborhood like Castle Park, where English proficiency is low, two-thirds of adults don’t have a high school diploma and more than half of households do not have a full-time breadwinner. That’s why they have to start early.

“There’s an early learning network and that has to do with preventing any gaps or getting rid of the gaps kids have even before they enter school," Lembo said.

A preschool that opened this year on the Castle Park Elementary campus where students are learning in English and Spanish is part of that network. It also includes newborn home visits by staff from family clinics and parenting classes called Universidad de Padres, or Parent University. Those classes are giving Gladys Ayon tools to get involved with her daughter’s education...

See more HERE.

Can toxic workplace cultures at schools and banks be deadly? Castle Park Elementary; Moritz Erhardt at Bank of America

Castle Park Elementary, Chula Vista California
UPDATE: Here is another story about Merrill Lynch workplace culture that has popped up in the news. Former intern Polly Courtney: "It wasn't just a culture of long hours and hard work; it was more a culture of desperately trying to impress, with 'face time' – pretending to be hard at work even when you were done for the night – and backstabbing – taking credit for a job well done, blaming others for problems – both commonplace. Ultimately, the money and perks could never make up for the exhaustion or the lack of control we all had over our lives..."

This reminds me of some of the teachers lounges in Chula Vista Elementary School District, where I observed a "culture of desperately trying to impress...pretending to be hard at work" even when you were sitting in the teachers lounge playing politics before school and at every break – "and backstabbing – taking credit for a job well done, blaming others for problems – both commonplace."

I would rarely see the teachers who called the shots working late or on weekends.

But I did see the Castle Park Elementary principal at lunch time during the 1999-2000 school year kneeling next to the seated J.H. (a teacher who actually put a crown on her own head at one assembly). The principal was asking J.H. what to say at the staff meeting about the Comer Program. J.H. told her superior exactly what to say to turn the "all-stakeholders-have-a-voice" Comer Program, for which our school paid $20,000 for training, into a tool for the politically powerful teachers at the school to exert control over every decision. These teachers even overturned a decision NOT to have the Kingdoms Program. The teachers reached the decision by a vote of all teachers. The controlling teachers clique cherry-picked parents and teachers to form an illegally constituted School Site Council (yes, there is a law that specifies how the council should be constituted), which rubber-stamped their demands. It was at a Kingdoms assembly that J.H. wore her crown.

I myself conducted the voting about Kingdoms, and I had the ballots in a box in my classroom, but the ballots disappeared after J. H. and her acolyte L. W. made a concerted effort to get rid of me. Someone actually went to the trouble of searching every box in my room to find the ballots and remove them. I have wondered recently if the culture of advancing oneself through sabotage of coworkers, which reached a remarkable intensity at Castle Park Elementary, might have transferred to Allen School along with several Castle Park teachers, and claimed the life of teacher Teri Coffey this past June. Peggy (AKA Peg, then Margaret) Myers was one of them. She is now in disrepute after many shenanigans at Castle Park and Chula Vista Educators CVE).

The disappearing ballots remind me of A Tale of Two Cheaters, a recent story about voting fraud at Los Alamitos High School when Superintendents Rudy Castruita and Tom Anthony headed the school.



Bank of America reviews long-hours culture after intern's death
Moritz Erhardt, who was 'tipped for greatness' was found dead in shower after working solidly for 72 hours at Merrill Lynch
The Guardian
23 August 2013

Bank of America said it would form a working group to look at its office culture, especially the hours worked by younger staff.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch will review its working practices and culture of long hours following the death of a German intern last week, who colleagues said had pulled three all-nighters in a row before being discovered by emergency services.

One of the world's largest banks issued a statement on Friday afternoon expressing shock at the death of 21-year-old Moritz Erhardt, who was working in Merrill Lynch's investment banking division, and announced a review of working practices with a special focus on junior members of staff.

Erhardt, from south-west Germany, was found dead in a shower cubicle at his temporary accommodation in east London last Thursday evening.

The death of the "dedicated" student sent shockwaves through the world of global finance, as reports of his alleged extreme working habits sparked debate about the culture of punishing hours in some high-profile financial divisions.

A Bank of America statement said: "We are deeply shocked and saddened by the news of Moritz Erhardt's death. Moritz Erhardt was popular amongst his peers and was a highly diligent intern at our company with a bright future.

"Our immediate priority is to do everything we can to continue to support the Erhardt family, our interns and impacted employees at this extremely difficult time. We have also convened a formal senior working group to consider the facts as they become known, to review all aspects of this tragedy, to listen to employees at all levels and to help us learn from them."

A spokesman from the bank said the panel would review "all aspects of working practices with a particular focus on our junior population". He added: "We're going to look at everything."

He said it was too early to say how long the panel would take to complete the study but it would involve very senior members at the multinational bank who would have the capability to bring in third parties for extra scrutiny.

"If the committee decides it wants some additional expertise then they can go and hire it," the spokesman said. "We will look at hard factual evidence. We want a lot of employee feedback and we're going into this with no preconceptions as to what the outcome will be."

The exact circumstances surrounding Erhardt's death are yet to be officially determined. The coroner's court at Poplar told the Guardian that no decision had yet been taken as to whether an inquest would go ahead. A toxicology report as part of the autopsy conducted by Prof Petter Vanezis, was yet to be filed.

A fellow intern at the bank described the aspiring student as a "superstar", adding: "He worked very hard and was very focused. We typically work 15 hours a day or more and you would not find a harder worker than him." He told the Evening Standard: "He seemed a lovely guy and was very popular with everyone. He was tipped for greatness."

According to his biography on the social media platform Seelio, Erhardt said he was naturally inquisitive and had previously stated that he'd undertaken work experience at Morgan Stanley, and Deutsche Bank's corporate finance division.

Polly Courtney, author of Golden Handcuffs and an intern at Merrill Lynch in 2001 before its merger with Bank of America, said the culture of punishingly long hours was endemic. "During my internship, all-nighters were like a rite of passage. They were discussed among us in the Merrill Lynch canteen each night with an outward sense of loathing, but tinged with pride. You weren't seen as a 'proper' analyst until you'd worked through the night.

"It wasn't just a culture of long hours and hard work; it was more a culture of desperately trying to impress, with 'face time' – pretending to be hard at work even when you were done for the night – and backstabbing – taking credit for a job well done, blaming others for problems – both commonplace.

"Ultimately, the money and perks could never make up for the exhaustion or the lack of control we all had over our lives, but it took most of us a few years to realise this. Looking back, the money was just an anaesthetic."

Administrators prevail over teachers and students who follow them to lunchtime trysts

This case interested me because it is somewhat similar to what happened at Castle Park Elementary, except that it was not students, but teachers, who followed a district administrator to a lunchtime tryst in the California case. Castle Park Elementary had a very disturbed culture among the teachers, who wanted to retaliate after several teachers had been transferred out of the school.

The teachers didn't seem to appreciate that the district was in the middle of a court case in which it paid $100,000s to lawyers to defend these very teachers for illegal actions. The teachers styled themselves as "The Castle Park Family", and they were furious.

They caused a big public brouhaha, but the lunchtime stalking incident did not reach the newspapers. The board and the district administrators should have disciplined the teachers at the beginning instead of paying $100,000s of tax dollars to conceal their illegal actions. They became drunk with power, and could not be controlled by any principal. The school had eleven principals in eleven years. Also, one of their leaders, Peg Myers, became the President of Chula Vista Educators, and retains that position today. During the strife at Castle Park Elementary, Peg Myers worked closely with CTA director Jim Groth.

Court Decisions Favor Schools
BY ANDREA BELL
nassp.org
National Association of Secondary School Principals
Nov. 2000

Principal Prevails

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas found in favor of a school principal on legal issues related to the intended use of dubious photographs that could have potentially compromised the principal’s integrity.

In Riggan v. Midland Indep. Sch. Dist. (86 F. Supp. 2d 647 [W.D. Tex. 2000]), Casey Riggan, a senior at Midland (Tex.) Senior High School, along with several o f hi s f r i ends, followed the school’s principal to the house of a teacher and photographed the principal’s car in front of the house. Not long after, administrators investigating rumors of the principal’s sexual impropriety learned that Riggan had photos that might be linked to their investigation. The principal himself also learned of the photos and contacted Riggan’s father for a conference.

Although the parties disputed exactly what was said at that meeting, the principal alleged that Riggan intended to print the photograph on a T-shirt with the statement “I never had sex with that woman” for graduates to wear during graduation to publicly humiliate him.

Additionally, the principal charged that Riggan’s photos were taken in retaliation for prior disciplinary actions and attempted to punish Riggan by suspending him and temporarily assigning him to the Alternative Education Program and requiring him to write apologies or be banned from graduation. Riggan claimed that the photos were absolutely protected under the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of expression and that, as a result, the school could not regulate the photos or their use. The court held that although the photo-bearing T-shirt would be considered an expressive activity, regulation of the photographs in this case would not violate the First Amendment because Riggan did not have the absolute right to publicly humiliate the principal at graduation. Additionally, the court explained that if the p h o t o h a d b e e n p r i n t e d o n t h e Tshirts for graduation, the resulting disruption would have justified Riggan’s punishment by the school.

Peg Myers speaks for a good cause

Chula Vista Educators President Peg Myers

I'm glad Peg Myers is putting some effort into a good cause.

I couldn't help noticing that it looks like she's standing in front of the Hall of Justice in San Diego in the above picture. That's where her lawyers went to file an opposition to her being deposed in a case involving a cover up of teacher crimes at Castle Park Elementary. CTA was apparently very pleased with her efforts to cover up crimes at the school, but the school district eventually became concerned about what was going on at the school, and Peg was administratively transferred out of the school in 2004. Eventually a pal of Peg's was arrested for embezzling $20,000 from the Castle Park PTA, but for some reason Bonnie Dumanis (far right in photo above) declined to prosecute. Peg became Chula Vista Educators president without running for the office with a little help from Jim Groth. Peg herself finally submitted to a deposition (text of deposition is here).

San Diego leaders ask for budget reform now
CTA Action
By Len Feldman

Chula Vista Educators President Peg Myers at a Budget Reform Now rally joined by (left to right) Carlsbad Firefighters Association President Rick Fisher, San Diego Sheriff Bill Kolender, City of San diego Fire Chief Tracy Jarman, and San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.

Prominent San Diego leaders, including Carlsbad Firefighters Association President Rick Fisher, San Diego Sheriff Bill Kolender, City of San Diego Fire Chief Tracy Jarman, and San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, joined Chula Vista Educators President Peg Myers at a Budget Reform Now rally in April.

"We ask all Californians to join us in support of these propositions as a long-term investment toward a brighter future for our children," said Myers.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is slated to release an updated state budget around May 25, and what kind of news that proposal holds for vital services — including public education — depends on whether voters approve CTA-backed Propositions 1A-1F on May 19.

CTA's State Council of Education at its March meeting voted to support each of those pending ballot measures.

CTA fiscal experts note that the national recession has continued to wreak havoc on state revenues, with at least one projection from the state Department of Finance suggesting the weakening economy could open a new budget deficit of up to $15 billion for California.

If voters reject the ballot measures — including Proposition 1B, the repayment of $9.3 billion to public education — the governor's budget plan could include another significant round of budget cuts. Cuts necessary to close a new $15 billion or more budget gap would do untold devastation to public schools, which are already reeling from the impact of cuts suffered earlier this year.