Many people in top jobs at school districts have no business being there. Politics, not professionalism or even good will, rules most school districts. The Pennsylvania school superintendent in the story below was obviously very good at putting on a hail-fellow-well-met facade to hide the sickness within.
Now how do we go about replacing the other corrupt, callous and incompetent school officials? It's hard, because when administrators get in trouble, usually the problem is covered up, and they're sent on to another district with a warm recommendation. Also, since school firings are so often politically motivated, there's a good chance that the fired person is an excellent employee. Obviously, the people in power want to keep playing their game. If problems were revealed, then they'd have to clean them up. Perhaps that is why San Diego County Office of Education and Chula Vista Elementary School District are supporting the effort to shut down this blog by paying taxpayer dollars to Stutz law firm to quash subpoenas.
A school official’s unbelievably racist texts
Tip to bigots: Don't text on your work-issued phone
By Mary Elizabeth Williams
Salon.com
Sep 24, 2013
Not your best moment, Keystone State. Just last week, Pennsylvania was in the news when gun-loving small town police chief Mark Kessler’s expletive-infused rants against “libtards” went viral – and cost him his job. Now, Coatesville Area School District superintendent Richard Como and Director of Athletics and Activities Jim Donato have gained national attention for their abrupt departures from their positions – and the slew of hateful and racist messages discovered on their district-issued cell phones. Board president Neil Campbell has called the texts “sickening and obviously unacceptable.”
The incendiary messages, which all date from this past June, are a regular cavalcade of bigotry. And a source told the Philadelphia Inquirer Monday that “What has been made public represents a fraction of the messages between the men.” In one exchange, the two riff on how “All should have whatever first names they want… then last name is [n-word]!” Over the course of their messages, they also speculate in details on other people’s sex lives, discuss a “Jew red haired ESL” teacher, “that ape,” “cotton pickers” and a “skinny bitch,” among others. Intriguingly, there’s also a reference to a “MAJOR sneak” who “made at least 1500 – 2000 on kickback.”
But to be honest, my favorite is the damming understatement that “This fucking phone! No idea how to work!”
A district IT worker allegedly discovered the messages last month while transferring data to a new device. Superintendent Como announced his retirement shortly after on the district’s Web site – a letter that now appears to have been quietly scrubbed. Director Jim Donato resigned a few days later. On the District’s site now, there’s a new letter from Acting Superintendent Angelo Romaniello, Jr., acknowledging “inappropriate and racial comments… made by people we trusted.” The Times-Herald reports that “the departures were the direct result of discoveries found on Donato’s cell phone.” And because of questions regarding the extent to which the District was aware of the texts and whether appropriate protocols were followed in Como and Donato’s departures, the District Attorney’s office is now conducting a criminal investigation.
According to records obtained by reporters Michael N. Price and Kristina Scala, Como’s 2010 salary was $192,897 – not a bad income for someone with a barely disguised loathing for the students and faculty he works with. But a comfortable salary can’t buy basic human decency. And for that matter, it definitely can’t provide a working understanding that if you’re going to be a hateful jackass, you should really consider whether you want a text record of that hateful jackassery – or least whether you want to be mouthing off on the equipment your employer issued you.
There is so much that’s contemptible about the exchanges between Como and Donato – the simmering, near constant anger they display, the grotesque, dehumanizing way they view pretty much anybody who isn’t a white man (to their credit, though, I didn’t notice any gay slurs in the lot) and the jaw-dropping amount of arrogance and privilege it takes to speak that hatefully, that freely. But what stinks most is the betrayal it represents, the lie that their jobs were. The disgust they had for their own kids. “They were friendly to our faces,” Zhaqweyza Armstrong, a 16 year-old Coatesville High junior, told the Inquirer Monday, “and then they talked about us behind our backs.”
Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub.
Showing posts with label School superintendent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label School superintendent. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Rialto Unified superintendent and deputy placed on leave to make sure investigation of embezzlement is unbiased
Something similar to this happened at my school, Castle Park Elementary. The PTA president embezzled $20,000 but she wasn't charged. The San Diego DA seems to have a special, and odd, relationship with the south county. (So does the media in San Diego.) Stories about embezzlements in other parts of the county are common, but south country seemed to lie in a zone of silence. But while embarrassing embezzlements weren't allowed to roil the waters of Republican school board members like Cheryl Cox, the DA's Public Integrity Unit has focused on Democratic officials in South County.
Rialto Unified School District Superintendent Harold Cebrun, right, denies any criminal wrongdoing during a school board meeting at Preston Elementary School in Rialto on Aug. 14, 2013. He and Deputy Superintendent James Wallace, left, were placed on paid administrative leave... (Rachel Luna/Staff Photographer)
Rialto Unified superintendent and deputy placed on leave
By Beau Yarbrough
The Sun
09/12/13
Schools Superintendent Harold Cebrun has been placed on administrative leave in connection with the investigation into a former district accountant accused of embezzling from the district.
The Rialto Unified school board made the decision in closed session at its meeting Wednesday night.
Cebrun’s chief of staff, Assistant Superintendent of Student Services James Wallace, was also placed on administrative leave.
“The superintendent and the deputy superintendent are on administrative leave with pay,” district spokeswoman Syeda Jafri said Thursday. “The board of education will make its recommendation after the conclusion of the investigation.”
The investigation in question revolves around Judith Oakes, the former Rialto Unified accountant recorded on video stuffing school lunch money into her bra. She was arrested on Aug. 7 on suspicion of embezzlement.
Associate Superintendent of Business Services Mohammad Z. Islam was appointed acting superintendent for the district, according to Jafri.
When reached for comment Thursday evening, Cebrun said he agreed with the board’s decision.
“They wanted the investigation to be fair and clean and, especially if I was around, or Jim was around, the public might think it would be tainted in (some) way,” he said. “No one can say I interfered or offered any barriers to them getting what they needed to do.”
The Rialto Police Department, San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Office and a private investigation firm hired by the Rialto Unified school board are all conducting audits of Rialto Unified’s Nutrition Services Department.
The board expects to receive the audit from Rancho Cucamonga-based Stewart Investigative Services Inc. in time for its Sept. 25 meeting.
“That’s what we’re waiting for, that next report, to guide us in the right direction,” board President Joe Ayala said. “Then we’ll be in a better position to make a decision.”
At the board’s Aug. 14 meeting, Cebrun hotly denied any involvement in Oakes’ alleged crimes.
“I have not violated any district policy,” he said. “I have not committed a crime, been associated with a crime or had knowledge of a crime.”
No charges had been filed against Oakes as of Thursday afternoon.
The board also voted on independent legal counsel for board members behind closed doors.
“On issues where (the school board) may need guidance and advice on legal issues ... if there are attorneys representing the district, there can be a conflict of interest at times, depending on circumstances,” board member Nancy O’Kelley said Thursday. “It’s very common for boards to have separate legal counsel.”
Cebrun’s absence from the district office isn’t new. He’s been out on bereavement leave since Aug. 21, according to Jafri.
Judith Oakes
Search warrant: Rialto Unified accountant stuffed money in her bra
By Joe Nelson
San Bernardino Sun
08/30/13
A former Rialto Unified School District accountant suspected of stealing thousands of dollars in student lunch money was caught on video surveillance on at least two occasions stuffing large amounts of cash into her bra, according to a search warrant affidavit.
Judith Oakes, 48, resigned from her job as accountant for the school district’s Nutrition Services Department the day after her Aug. 8 arrest on suspicion of grand theft, embezzlement and burglary. Police allege that Oakes had been stealing money from the district since June, possibly longer.
Oakes had worked for the school district for 16 years.
Derek Harris, the school district’s risk manager, called police on Aug. 7 after Oakes’ supervisor, Cindi Stone, told him she saw Oakes on video surveillance on at least two occasions concealing large amounts of cash in her bra, according to the affidavit, filed Wednesday in San Bernardino Superior Court.
Thousands of dollars in student lunch money passed through Oakes’ hands daily as it was collected from district schools and sent to her to inventory and deposit into the district’s bank account. Daily bank deposit slips dating back to June, obtained in the initial stages of the police investigation, noted a discrepancy of $2,000, according to the affidavit.
Oakes had a private office with access to a department-issued desktop computer, according to the search warrant affidavit, but police on Friday said it was premature to suspect Oakes of fudging the Nutrition Services Department’s accounting records.
Rialto police Capt. Randy DeAnda said his team of detectives working the case are awaiting an audit of the Nutrition Services Department from the school district before making that determination.
“We’re hoping to find out if there were any other financial discrepancies,” DeAnda said Friday. “That’s what the forensic audit will reveal — if there are any abnormalities or discrepancies in the accounting in which Judy Oakes would be responsible for.” v The District Attorney’s Office is conducting a forensic audit of its own, and the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Office announced this week that it too would be conducting an audit of the school district’s Nutrition Services Department.
Police received authorization from Judge John Tomberlin to search Oakes’ San Bernardino home, the Nutrition Services Department and Oakes’ personal banking records at Arrowhead Credit Union, where, according to the search warrant, she has an account for herself and joint accounts with her two sons.
Oakes had a large amount of cash in her possession the day she was arrested, and a subsequent search of her home turned up more cash and other evidence related to her position with the school district, police said.
Police seized from Arrowhead Credit Union a CD containing Oakes’ financial records that could be useful in their investigation, according to the search warrant affidavit.
A police inventory of what was seized during the search of the school district’s Nutrition Services Department remained under seal with the court.
Rialto Unified School District Superintendent Harold Cebrun, right, denies any criminal wrongdoing during a school board meeting at Preston Elementary School in Rialto on Aug. 14, 2013. He and Deputy Superintendent James Wallace, left, were placed on paid administrative leave... (Rachel Luna/Staff Photographer)
Rialto Unified superintendent and deputy placed on leave
By Beau Yarbrough
The Sun
09/12/13
Schools Superintendent Harold Cebrun has been placed on administrative leave in connection with the investigation into a former district accountant accused of embezzling from the district.
The Rialto Unified school board made the decision in closed session at its meeting Wednesday night.
Cebrun’s chief of staff, Assistant Superintendent of Student Services James Wallace, was also placed on administrative leave.
“The superintendent and the deputy superintendent are on administrative leave with pay,” district spokeswoman Syeda Jafri said Thursday. “The board of education will make its recommendation after the conclusion of the investigation.”
The investigation in question revolves around Judith Oakes, the former Rialto Unified accountant recorded on video stuffing school lunch money into her bra. She was arrested on Aug. 7 on suspicion of embezzlement.
Associate Superintendent of Business Services Mohammad Z. Islam was appointed acting superintendent for the district, according to Jafri.
When reached for comment Thursday evening, Cebrun said he agreed with the board’s decision.
“They wanted the investigation to be fair and clean and, especially if I was around, or Jim was around, the public might think it would be tainted in (some) way,” he said. “No one can say I interfered or offered any barriers to them getting what they needed to do.”
The Rialto Police Department, San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Office and a private investigation firm hired by the Rialto Unified school board are all conducting audits of Rialto Unified’s Nutrition Services Department.
The board expects to receive the audit from Rancho Cucamonga-based Stewart Investigative Services Inc. in time for its Sept. 25 meeting.
“That’s what we’re waiting for, that next report, to guide us in the right direction,” board President Joe Ayala said. “Then we’ll be in a better position to make a decision.”
At the board’s Aug. 14 meeting, Cebrun hotly denied any involvement in Oakes’ alleged crimes.
“I have not violated any district policy,” he said. “I have not committed a crime, been associated with a crime or had knowledge of a crime.”
No charges had been filed against Oakes as of Thursday afternoon.
The board also voted on independent legal counsel for board members behind closed doors.
“On issues where (the school board) may need guidance and advice on legal issues ... if there are attorneys representing the district, there can be a conflict of interest at times, depending on circumstances,” board member Nancy O’Kelley said Thursday. “It’s very common for boards to have separate legal counsel.”
Cebrun’s absence from the district office isn’t new. He’s been out on bereavement leave since Aug. 21, according to Jafri.
Judith Oakes
Search warrant: Rialto Unified accountant stuffed money in her bra
By Joe Nelson
San Bernardino Sun
08/30/13
A former Rialto Unified School District accountant suspected of stealing thousands of dollars in student lunch money was caught on video surveillance on at least two occasions stuffing large amounts of cash into her bra, according to a search warrant affidavit.
Judith Oakes, 48, resigned from her job as accountant for the school district’s Nutrition Services Department the day after her Aug. 8 arrest on suspicion of grand theft, embezzlement and burglary. Police allege that Oakes had been stealing money from the district since June, possibly longer.
Oakes had worked for the school district for 16 years.
Derek Harris, the school district’s risk manager, called police on Aug. 7 after Oakes’ supervisor, Cindi Stone, told him she saw Oakes on video surveillance on at least two occasions concealing large amounts of cash in her bra, according to the affidavit, filed Wednesday in San Bernardino Superior Court.
Thousands of dollars in student lunch money passed through Oakes’ hands daily as it was collected from district schools and sent to her to inventory and deposit into the district’s bank account. Daily bank deposit slips dating back to June, obtained in the initial stages of the police investigation, noted a discrepancy of $2,000, according to the affidavit.
Oakes had a private office with access to a department-issued desktop computer, according to the search warrant affidavit, but police on Friday said it was premature to suspect Oakes of fudging the Nutrition Services Department’s accounting records.
Rialto police Capt. Randy DeAnda said his team of detectives working the case are awaiting an audit of the Nutrition Services Department from the school district before making that determination.
“We’re hoping to find out if there were any other financial discrepancies,” DeAnda said Friday. “That’s what the forensic audit will reveal — if there are any abnormalities or discrepancies in the accounting in which Judy Oakes would be responsible for.” v The District Attorney’s Office is conducting a forensic audit of its own, and the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Office announced this week that it too would be conducting an audit of the school district’s Nutrition Services Department.
Police received authorization from Judge John Tomberlin to search Oakes’ San Bernardino home, the Nutrition Services Department and Oakes’ personal banking records at Arrowhead Credit Union, where, according to the search warrant, she has an account for herself and joint accounts with her two sons.
Oakes had a large amount of cash in her possession the day she was arrested, and a subsequent search of her home turned up more cash and other evidence related to her position with the school district, police said.
Police seized from Arrowhead Credit Union a CD containing Oakes’ financial records that could be useful in their investigation, according to the search warrant affidavit.
A police inventory of what was seized during the search of the school district’s Nutrition Services Department remained under seal with the court.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Audit reveals expenses of ousted East Side Superintendent Bob Nunez
This story is from the Bay Area, but it reminds me of our own notorious Bob Watkins, former president of the San Diego County Office of Education. When is the San Diego media going to find out what expenses he charged while at SDCOE?
Audit details ousted East Side schools Superintendent Bob Nunez's expenses
Mercury News
By Sharon Noguchi
11/06/2009
Ousted Superintendent Bob Nunez routinely spent $1,000 a month for meals, travel and lodging and sometimes charged the cash-strapped East Side Union High School District as much as $4,000 a month.
The details were revealed for the first time Friday in a lengthy report into Nunez's spending habits that led to his departure last week from the struggling San Jose school district — complete with a $120,000 severance check.
The revelations were outlined in a 2,100-page report by the San Francisco law firm Hanson Bridgett, which reviewed two years' worth of Nunez's credit card spending. The report, commissioned by the East Side board, also concluded that Nunez did not improperly receive vacation pay or commit a conflict of interest...
Audit details ousted East Side schools Superintendent Bob Nunez's expenses
Mercury News
By Sharon Noguchi
11/06/2009
Ousted Superintendent Bob Nunez routinely spent $1,000 a month for meals, travel and lodging and sometimes charged the cash-strapped East Side Union High School District as much as $4,000 a month.
The details were revealed for the first time Friday in a lengthy report into Nunez's spending habits that led to his departure last week from the struggling San Jose school district — complete with a $120,000 severance check.
The revelations were outlined in a 2,100-page report by the San Francisco law firm Hanson Bridgett, which reviewed two years' worth of Nunez's credit card spending. The report, commissioned by the East Side board, also concluded that Nunez did not improperly receive vacation pay or commit a conflict of interest...
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