Due to daughter's Facebook post, headmaster who sued for wrongful termination won't get $80,000 from Gulliver Preparatory School

A school administrator who says one thing and then immediately does the opposite?

It's good I was sitting down when I read this article.

Of course, Mr. Snay's and his dishonesty were probably of service to the trustees of Gulliver Prep for many years. I doubt that dishonesty is the reason the school let him go. More likely, he made the wrong parent angry.

I'm guessing he wasn't as tolerant of dishonesty among the students as he was with himself.

It appears that the school settled to avoid a legal battle. It would have been embarrassing for the school to have to reveal in court what really went wrong.

And I suspect that Mr. Snay didn't need the $80,000. He preferred to embarrass the school. I don't believe that he admonished his daughter to keep quiet about the agreement. And what about Mrs. Snay? Why didn't she warn her daughter to keep quiet? She was in on it, too, it would seem. She admits to helping her husband make the decision to tell the daughter about the settlement.


Patrick Snay's wife with daughter Dana
Dana Snay’s Facebook Post Cost Her Dad $80,000
American Wire
Posted by: Steven Kenniff
March 1, 2014

After Patrick Snay had sued the Gulliver Preparatory School for wrongful termination, and won, he was supposed to keep his settlement a secret. That was part of the deal when the school agreed to pay the former employee approximately $10,000 in back wages and an additional $80,000 out of court settlement. If Snay did not keep the deal a secret, he would lost the additional settlement. That should have been easy, except for one little problem. Patrick Snay had a daughter who attended and recently graduated from Gulliver Preparatory School, and she couldn’t “keep her mouth shut” about the settlement on Facebook.

Patrick Snay believed that he should tell his daughter, Dana Snay, about the settlement because she was a former student of the school at the time of her father’s wrongful termination. Patrick believed that his daughter suffered mental anguish due to the school attempting to lash out at her father through Dana. To help Dana have closure on the issue, Patrick told Dana about the out of court settlement, and had apparently agreed to pay for a European vacation for the girl.

In a typical teenage outburst, Dana Snay took to her Facebook account to brag about the settlement and tell her friends what she was going to get out of the money. Dana wrote the following message on her personal Facebook profile:

“Mama and Papa Snay won the case against Gulliver. Gulliver is now officially paying for my vacation to Europe this summer. SUCK IT.”

Sadly for the Snay’s, the school found out about Dana’s outburst and did not pay the out of court settlement. They claimed that because Dana posted the status update to Facebook in reference to the settlement, that he broke his agreement to keep it a secret. A settlement court agreed that the Facebook post was enough proof for the school to not have to pay the Snay’s their $80,000 additional settlement portion due to Patrick breaking the clause.


Ex-headmaster who won $80,000 age discrimination settlement against his school LOSES entire payout after his daughter posted 'SUCK IT' message on Facebook
By Ashley Collman
Daily Mail
27 February 2014

Patrick Snay, 69, worked at Gulliver Preparatory for several years when his contract was not renewed in 2010 He claimed age discrimination and won a settlement of $80,000 from the school

Patrick Snay is now the headmaster at another school while daughter Dana is studying at Boston College

The former headmaster of a pricey Florida prep school lost his discrimination case against the school when his daughter decided to brag about the $80,000 deal on Facebook.

Patrick Snay was the headmaster of Gulliver Preparatory in Miami for several years when they decided not to renew his contract in 2010.

Snay, now 69, claimed the $30,000- a-year school was discriminating against him based on his age and that they retaliated against his daughter Dana, then a student at the school.

Let go: Patrick Snay (left) worked at Gulliver Preparatory for several years when they decided not to renew his contract in 2010. He claimed they discriminated against him based on his age (he is now 69) and won a settlement

Good deal: Gulliver attorneys initially agreed to pay Snay checks of $10,000 in back wages; $60,000 for his attorneys and an $80,000 settlement

In November 2011, the school agreed to settle with Snay, paying checks of $10,000 in back wages, $60,000 to his attorneys and a $80,000 settlement.

But Snay never got a dime after Dana boasted about the win on Facebook - violating the deal's confidentiality agreement.

'Mama and Papa Snay won the case against Gulliver,' she wrote to her more than 1,200 friends. 'Gulliver is now officially paying for my vacation to Europe this summer. SUCK IT.'

That post was seen by current and former Gulliver students, and eventually made its way back to the school's attorneys.

Four days after the deal was signed, Gulliver notified Snay that he wouldn't be getting any of the settlement...

While Snay initially won an order to enforce the agreement, Gulliver appealed and won the right not to pay in Florida's Third District Court of Appeals yesterday.

'Snay violated the agreement by doing exactly what he had promised not to do,' judge Linda Ann Wells said. 'His daughter then did precisely what the confidentiality agreement was designed to prevent.'

As part of the agreement, Snay promised not to tell anyone about the agreement besides his wife.

In his deposition, Snay said he felt he needed to tell his daughter because she suffered 'psychological scars' from her time as a student at Gulliver and knew that he was mediating with the school's attorneys.

'We knew what the restrictions were, yet we needed to tell her something,' he said.

Snay is now headmaster at $20,000-a-year Riviera Preparatory School in Coral Gables. His daughter is now studying at Boston College, according to her Facebook.

Snay can still file a motion for rehearing and appeal to the Florida Supreme Court in the case.

Tony Robbins event ends in 'wails of pain' as attendees walk on hot coals

UPDATE: THE SCIENCE OF WALKING ON COALS
(SEE ORIGINAL STORY AT BOTTOM OF POST)

Burning Question: Why Do People Walk Across Hot Coals? By Piper Weiss Yahoo News July 23, 2012 In 1986, motivational speaker Tony Robbins explained his fire walking ritual to a captivated audience: "People have gotten first, second and third degree burns . . . Some have had skin grafts and three people have died...None of them attended my seminar." As of Thursday, that's no longer true. During a four-day seminar in San Jose, California entitled "Unleash the Power Within," 21 participants in Robbins' famed "fire walk experience" suffered injuries, including second and third degree burns. ...But physicist Bernard Leikind, who tried Robbins' fire walk years ago, has a different theory of why walking across burning coals is often less dangerous than it seems.

..."You're walking on things with poor thermal conductivity and poor heat capacity," he says in a Scientific American video. "Even though the coals are at a high temperature, they don't have as much energy as you might think and aren't good at putting it into your foot."

According to Leikand, you don't need confidence or a heightened mental acuity to fire walk successfully, you just need science and a little bit of luck. "Throughout the course of the walk, energy moves from embers to feet, then the walkers' blood carries some away," Leikand tells Yahoo! Shine. "If the energy carried away doesn't equal the energy moving in, then the tissue's temperature will increase... The degree of a burn arises from a combination of temperature and time...If they make it to the end before any damage occurs, the fire walk was successful."

As to why so many weren't successful, Leiklind speculates: "Some people may have walked slowly. Some people may have stepped out of the path of earlier walkers into deeper, hotter coals. Some people may have jammed embers between their toes. The organizers may have built their ember beds differently than they had before, perhaps on a different surface. Gusts of wind might have increased the rate of combustion. It's really hard to say." He does believe other participants who suffered less severe burns may not have even reported injuries. "They just would have headed for home and visited their physicians or the emergency room later."...



Walking on hot coals is not something I can imagine myself doing, but I think I understand how people do it. (Oprah succeeded!) The feat is accomplished, I believe, through concentration, confidence and relaxation. I suspect that those who succeed are able to maintain a steady transfer of weight, keeping a fast, even rhythm and steady pressure of their feet on the coals. If you don't believe it will work, it won't. Maybe it's also a bit like the old English legal test for truth in which a hot coal was placed on the tongue of an accused person to find out if he was innocent or guilty. Theoretically, an innocent person would be relaxed (hmmmm--not necessarily!) and would have a normal, wet tongue, but a stressed, guilty person would have a dry tongue. The innocent would not be burned.

Twenty-one people in California tried walking on coals, and wound up the unhappy victims of old-fashioned peer pressure.

Did twenty-one people suddenly forget all they had learned from Tony Robbins about mind-over-matter control of their bodies? Yes, I think they lost faith (and concentration!) when they heard other people screaming.

So why didn't they back off and say, "I think I'll pass this time. Maybe another time."

That's where the peer pressure came in. It seems that herd instinct took over when mind control was lost.

People stayed in line, kept walking, and ended up miserable. Let's not laugh at them. Normal people do exactly this every day. (We suffer economically, but we don't even institute banking regulations, much less put some bankers in jail. It's business as usual.)

And why didn't somebody step in and stop the catastrophe at the Tony Robbins seminar? Because our normal, everyday culture tells us not to question authority, to keep a low profile, to keep quiet. Lately we've had a lot of books calling this "girl culture", but boys are taught the same thing, just not to the same degree.

Whistle-blowers are too often ignored, and too often punished. If one of the supervisors had stopped the event, would he or she have been fired? If one of the participants had tried to stop it, would he have been thrown out?


Tony Robbins event ends in 'wails of pain' as attendees walk on hot coals
Over 20 people treated for burns after multi-day motivational event encourages attendees to take a leap of faith on coals
Matt Williams in New York
guardian.co.uk
21 July 2012

Burnt soles rather than cleansed souls awaited attendees at motivational speaker Tony Robbins's latest life coaching seminar, with 21 people needing treatment after a painful walk across coals.

During a four-day gathering in California entitled Unleash the Power Within, the famed lifestyle guru encouraged participants to take a leap of faith and test their luck on the red-hot surface.

Emergency services were called to deal with the fall-out, as many in the group suffered second- and third-degree burns. Three needed hospital treatment, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

"I heard wails of pain, screams of agony" one witness told the newspaper.

"First one person, then a couple minutes later another one, and there was just a line of people walking on that fire. It was just bizarre, man," Jonathan Correll, 25, said.

The injured fire walkers were among thousands who attended the Robbins event. As part of the multi-day seminar, a crowd were led to a park where 12 lanes of hot coals had been laid out.

A brochure for the Unleash the Power Within event suggests that once you overcome the fear of walking on coals of between "1,200 and 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit" you can "conquer the other fires of your life with ease".

A spokesman for the San Jose fire department told the San Jose Mercury News that it does not recommend that people undertake the endeavour.

Robbins has used fire-walking throughout his career as a motivational speaker and life coach.

In a statement, the Robbins Research International told the newspaper: "We have been safely providing this experience for more than three decades, and always under the supervision of medical personnel … We continue to work with local fire and emergency personnel to ensure this event is always done in the safest way possible."

The trust molecule: Why are some people trustworthy, while others lie, cheat and steal?

The Trust Molecule
Why are some of us caring and some of us cruel, some generous and some greedy? Paul J. Zakon the new science of morality— and how it could be used to create a more virtuous society.
By PAUL J. ZAK
Wall Street Journal
April 27, 2012

Why are some people trustworthy, while others lie, cheat and steal? Part of the answer may reside in a hormone called oxytocin. Claremont Graduate University's Paul Zak talks with WSJ's Gary Rosen about how a "vampire wedding" helped him understand how this chemical works to control trust, empathy and virtue.

Could a single molecule—one chemical substance—lie at the very center of our moral lives?

Research that I have done over the past decade suggests that a chemical messenger called oxytocin accounts for why some people give freely of themselves and others are coldhearted louts, why some people cheat and steal and others you can trust with your life, why some husbands are more faithful than others, and why women tend to be nicer and more generous than men. In our blood and in the brain, oxytocin appears to be the chemical elixir that creates bonds of trust not just in our intimate relationships but also in our business dealings, in politics and in society at large.

Known primarily as a female reproductive hormone, oxytocin controls contractions during labor, which is where many women encounter it as Pitocin, the synthetic version that doctors inject in expectant mothers to induce delivery. Oxytocin is also responsible for the calm, focused attention that mothers lavish on their babies while breast-feeding. And it is abundant, too, on wedding nights (we hope) because it helps to create the warm glow that both women and men feel during sex, a massage or even a hug.

Since 2001, my colleagues and I have conducted a number of experiments showing that when someone's level of oxytocin goes up, he or she responds more generously and caringly, even with complete strangers. As a benchmark for measuring behavior, we relied on the willingness of our subjects to share real money with others in real time. To measure the increase in oxytocin, we took their blood and analyzed it. Money comes in conveniently measurable units, which meant that we were able to quantify the increase in generosity by the amount someone was willing to share. We were then able to correlate these numbers with the increase in oxytocin found in the blood.

Later, to be certain that what we were seeing was true cause and effect, we sprayed synthetic oxytocin into our subjects' nasal passages—a way to get it directly into their brains. Our conclusion: We could turn the behavioral response on and off like a garden hose. (Don't try this at home: Oxytocin inhalers aren't available to consumers in the U.S.)

More strikingly, we found that you don't need to shoot a chemical up someone's nose, or have sex with them, or even give them a hug in order to create the surge in oxytocin that leads to more generous behavior. To trigger this "moral molecule," all you have to do is give someone a sign of trust. When one person extends himself to another in a trusting way—by, say, giving money—the person being trusted experiences a surge in oxytocin that makes her less likely to hold back and less likely to cheat. Which is another way of saying that the feeling of being trusted makes a person more…trustworthy. Which, over time, makes other people more inclined to trust, which in turn…

If you detect the makings of an endless loop that can feed back onto itself, creating what might be called a virtuous circle—and ultimately a more virtuous society—you are getting the idea.

Obviously, there is more to it, because no one chemical in the body functions in isolation, and other factors from a person's life experience play a role as well. Things can go awry. In our studies, we found that a small percentage of subjects never shared any money; analysis of their blood indicated that their oxytocin receptors were malfunctioning...

We seem to have a problem with a "code of silence" in our schools

We seem to have a problem with "a code of silence" in our schools, and not just on the athletic fields, as seen in the Scott Eveland case. Kudos to those who had the courage to tell the truth about what happened to Scotty. Sadly, teachers also lie to cover-up wrongdoing by other teachers. And perhaps the biggest, and most harmful, cover-up of all is the effort to conceal the student test scores of teachers.

What Does It Take to Break the Athlete's Code of Silence?
By Bruce Anderson
The Atlantic
Apr 24 2012

Sports has an unwritten "no snitching" rule, but it comes at a price.

Ty Cobb called George "Buck" Weaver the best third baseman he had ever seen. But when the switch-hitting, sweet-fielding Weaver is remembered today, if he's remembered at all, it is for being a member of the Chicago Black Sox, the eight players who conspired to throw the 1919 World Series, nearly derailing the national pastime just before it reached its Golden Age. Weaver, like his seven teammates, was banned from baseball for life by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. But Weaver alone was banished not for taking money from gamblers or playing less than his best but for knowing the fix was in and not coming forward, for possessing "guilty knowledge."

How much truth is there in the notion, popularized by JFK, that "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"?

Because doing nothing is exactly what's expected in sports, where a version of the Mafia's omerta, or code of silence, holds sway. Snitching runs completely counter to the accepted notion of taking one for the team. Better to let a grounder roll under your glove in the 10th inning than to let slip the fact that your teammate's bat is corked.

Rare is the sports scandal, whether it's blood doping on the Tour de France or Tiger's sex life, in which complicit silence does not lie at or near the heart of events. It played a key role in the NFL's Bountygate. And in last fall's nightmare at Penn State. If baseball's antisnitching poster boy is not Weaver, it's Greg Anderson, the longtime friend of and personal trainer for Barry Bonds. Anderson was willing to spend time behind bars rather than testify against his friend. The blind loyalty of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil can give lots of cover for doing evil.

MORE ON SPORTS Should Fans Care About the Saints' Bounty Scandal? Joe Paterno's Disappointing Last Decade at Penn State The Barry Bonds Trial: Was It Worth It? An Open Letter to Lance Armstrong's Lawyers

Nancy Sherman is a professor of philosophy at Georgetown University and the author of the 2010 book The Untold War, which examines the ethical quandaries of the modern soldier. She was brought to the U.S. Naval Academy in the wake of a scandal in the 1990s that saw 133 midshipmen accused of cheating on a third-year electrical engineering exam or covering up for those who did. Sherman came to Annapolis to help midshipmen understand, as she puts it, "that the ship comes before shipmate."

Sherman doesn't underestimate how powerful the pressures can be for young men and women to remain silent. "So much in the life of a midshipman or an officer hangs on covering each other's back," Sherman says. "Building a cadre, developing esprit de corps, fighting for each other are all drilled in. So is loyalty and fighting against ratting, snitching—the less-charged term is whistle-blowing." She notes that when money and careers are at stake—and they usually are—the silence becomes even more pronounced.

No less a personage than Charles Barkley, commenting on the Saints' bounty program recently, said: "You have to be a punk to snitch that out." When the Round Mound of Expound, Expand, and Expatiate is speaking out against speaking out, the expectation for silence prevails.

Given all the forces in play, is it possible to get athletes to reconsider the code of silence? Sherman thinks so, but says that it requires getting athletes to consider their behavior beforehand, to develop what she calls a "moral imagination." At the Naval Academy, Sherman designed a military ethics course that is now required for every midshipman. She also laid the groundwork for the Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership.

"It sounds a bit simple-minded, but it requires a lot of serious reflection and leadership and thinking about what kind of individual do you want to be," Sherman says. "Often, in the case of sports and athletic scandals, you don't think about what the moral toll is, just will your conscience hurt tomorrow."

Silence isn't always golden. One wonders if Buck Weaver would have remained quiet if he could have clearly seen the years of not playing or coaching stretching out before him. What would he have done if he truly understood the loss of income, prestige, and face that would be his price for silence? Or if he could have pictured the almost irreparable damage the Series fix did to the game he loved so much? Would Buck Weaver, like Joe Paterno, have wished he had done more?

Virginia panel finds a presumption that administrators would never willfully violate the law

I certainly agree with this finding by a panel of investigators in Virginia. It applies to schools all across the country:

"...[T]here is "an unreasonable presumption" by some central administrators that principals would never willfully violate law or policy, and 'they are hesitant to adequately investigate possible wrongdoing, even in the face of documentary evidence that negates the presumption."

Report: School faculty told to cheat, whistle-blower rebuked
By Amy Jeter, Harry Minium, Steven G. Vegh
The Virginian-Pilot
March 9, 2010
NORFOLK

A middle school principal coerced teachers into fabricating students' work to help win state accreditation, then lied to get a teacher fired who refused to cheat and who reported testing problems to the division and the state, according to an investigatory report.

In addition, the school division's top administrators refused to demand that Lafayette-Winona Middle School Principal Cassandra Goodwyn comply with state testing standards and dismissed the whistle-blower's evidence that he refused to bend testing rules...

The panel

The members were Assistant City Attorney Derek Mungo; Leigh Butler, director of teacher education services at Old Dominion University; and Dennis Moore, senior coordinator of pupil personnel services for Norfolk schools.

Lafayette-Winona principal is faulted

A panel of investigators found Lafayette-Winona Middle School Principal Cassandra Goodwyn improperly selected students for alternative testing, removed students’ work if it appeared it would fail, ignored staff recommendations to correct policies and severely disciplined a whistle-blowing teacher.

Reached late Tuesday, Goodwyn denied any wrongdoing and said she has evidence to prove it.

Executive director is faulted

The report found that the division’s executive director for middle schools, Cathy Lassiter, stood by while the whistle-blower was unfairly disciplined. The report states: “She failed to fulfill the prescribed duties” of her position and and to uphold the division’s core values...



Understanding the Education Debacle
Karen Horwitz
May 14, 2010

In your article you said: "'According to the report, the panel found there is "an unreasonable presumption" by some central administrators that principals would never willfully violate law or policy, and 'they are hesitant to adequately investigate possible wrongdoing, even in the face of documentary evidence that negates the presumption.'" I can tell you why this unreasonable presumption takes place all over this nation. Organized crime is rampant in our schools and part of its organization is successfully keeping it away from the press so it can go on with no scrutiny. What they are labeling unreasonable is in effect a cover up I can document all over this nation and until the public gets what is being covered up, nothing does make sense. I wrote a book all about this organized crime in education called White Chalk Crime: The REAL Reason Schools Fail. All the answers are there. Check out WhiteChalkCrime.com and EndTeacherAbuse.org and you will learn just how teacher abuse, which you described in your article, underpins this organized crime. I have organized whistle blowing teachers so they can finally be heard above the propaganda. They are the people who have been disappeared by this system of White Chalk Crime, and they are eagerly awaiting an opportunity to testify or merely speak to reporters. However, somehow these truths are evaporated by the system that holds so much power and extends to the corporate controlled press.

With so many people mesmerized by the free market theory, those who want our schools to self destruct so they can privatize them are in the lead. However, had they done their homework on free market philosophy they would know better than to trust a system that abandons regulations. If people would just read Naomi Klein's book Shock Doctrine they would get it. But people talk about education rather than self educate and this is why those really trying to solve the problem of our schools are lost and subject to the power of those determined to privatize the schools. Granted government can be and is corrupt. But it is the only balance to corruption in business and anyone who thinks that greed does not take over has been asleep these past years.

What we need is good government, not less government, yet our people are being manipulated by free marketers totally unaware what that means. Ruining our schools killed two birds with one stone: made people too uneducated to figure out where they were being led and opened up the opportunity to privatize them. We cannot solve this problem without looking at the big picture or that the destruction of the public school system is a definite part of the free market agenda. So while we agonize about issues from bullying to cheating to drop outs, the free market people are laughing all the way to the bank, literally...

"The Cartel" opens this weekend in Los Angeles

Bob Bowdon
Subject: "The Cartel" opens this weekend in NYC & LA!

Los Angeles Premiere Screening:
This Friday, April 16, 7:40pm PT

After-movie Q&A with:
Ben Boychuk, Education Scholar, Heartland Institute
Brian Calle, Claremont Institute
Marco Petruzzi, CEO, Green Dot Schools
Larry Sand, California Teachers Empowerment Network

Get tickets now.
Laemmle's Sunset 5
8000 Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, 90046
310-478-3836

The Cartel
(NR • 105 min.) 1:00pm 3:10pm 5:20pm 7:40pm 10:00pm

Marsha Sutton exposes cheating students, but keeps mum on interesting antics at SDCOE

Below is an interesting story by Marsha Sutton. I'd like to ask Martha: why are you reluctant to expose dishonesty among adults in schools? Don't you think there might be a connection between the behavior of kids and the behavior of their role models? Years ago I asked you to look at what was going on at SDCOE. You ran a big story that appeared to account for SDCOE's entire budget, but you left out legal expenses and liability insurance. Haven't you been apathetic regarding the moral lapses of officials at SDCOE and in the schools?

Marsha Sutton: Scandal exposes district problem
San Diego News Network
By Marsha Sutton, SDNN
May 26, 2009

I don’t know which is worse - the fact that dozens of kids were caught cheating at Canyon Crest Academy or the apathetic way parents and administrators regard the moral lapse.

Under pressure to bury the story, which was brought to my attention because of the wide scope of the sordid affair, I’ve had to sort out what it is about this issue that’s causing so many people to exhibit a jaded attitude tinged with resentment at my inquiries.

[Maura Larkins: It appears that you weren't under as much pressure to bury this story as to bury the SDCOE JPA story and the school legal fees and liability insurance story.]

“What’s the big deal?” is the most common refrain I’ve heard. “It goes on everywhere.” “Why are you picking on our school?” “What are you trying to prove?” “It doesn’t help to write about bad news.”

Well, golly. I was under the impression that journalism’s job was to expose corruption (and cheating certainly falls into that category, by my lights), hold government agencies accountable, inform the public, and increase awareness of trends and concerns.

[Maura Larkins comment: Your impression was correct. May we expect a story on Diane Crosier? And all the money taxpayers pay to help school officials cover up wrongdoing?]

A single incident of cheating involving 50 to 60 kids at one of San Diego County’s highest performing high schools is news, but bigger news is that apparently many feel it’s not news at all...

Once, this was just a story about a single incident. But it has broader implications. How is it that cheating is now so common that many consider it “no big deal?” And why are so many people not just puzzled, but perturbed, that this is being aired publicly?

[Maura Larkins' comment: Maybe the kids saw the adults getting away with it, and figured that's how business is done nowadays. And they're right, Marsha, aren't they?]

...Cheating by students - almost all of them juniors and seniors - was discovered in CCA’s two Advanced Placement psychology classes. Combined enrollment for the two classes exceeds 80 students, more than half of whom have been charged with a form of cheating....

There were those students who were said to have cheated on homework assignments and those who cheated on tests - an important distinction that appears not to matter when applying consequences...

Another school fires a teacher for reporting violations

Personally, I've always taken grades with a grain of salt. I don't think they prove much.

But I'm really disgusted with school officials who have little or no respect for the law, or even for their own policies. Students across the country are being taught that honesty counts for very little, and that if you want to keep your job, you'd better be prepared to lie.

And the real tragedy is that our schools are contributing heavily to our failures as a society, instead of helping to prepare citizens to respect the rule of law.

April 11, 2008
By BRETT SHIPP
WFAA-TV

Click HERE to watch the video (after the commercial).

DALLAS -- Allegations of retaliation by a whistle-blowing DISD teacher have been supported by an internal investigation obtained by News Eight...

Former Skyline High School teacher John Stine says any DISD teacher thinking about speaking out should forget it.

In his case, he blew the whistle on improper grade changing and weeks later got fired. An internal investigation supports Stine...

When first we visited former Skyline High School Media Tech teacher John Stine, he was being paid by DISD to clock in with Human Resources and go home.

Stine had been recommended for removal from school by Associate Principal Ward English just days after reporting to state officials that English improperly changed the grades of failing student athletes.

Stine was relieved recently to learn that a 606 page internal investigation into his allegations supports his claims that his reward for trying to blow the whistle was termination, and worse...

Among the contents supporting Stine: a report from May of last year indicating that in a previous investigation, "Mr. English had admitted to making grade changes arbitrarily." Also, a time line laying out the alleged retaliation: April 9, 2007 Stine blows the whistle reporting that English improperly changed student grades. The next day, English initiates an investigation into Stine's teaching performance. One week later, Stine is directed to leave campus immediately. One month after that, English recommends Stine for termination...

Stine says Superintendent Hinojosa should have already taken action against English. "Yet he is still at that school and I'm still being punished," said Stine...

"What other things have they covered up, what other people have they destroyed? How are they trying to intimidate, harass, ruin the careers of other teachers that are standing there struggling against all odds against an administration that will not help them," said Stine.

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa080411_jh_ disdteacher.531a3869.html
LINK: Dallas ISD Website
LINK: (02/08/08) Grade changing allegations point at principal
dchanging.9d5ff2ad.html>

More corrupt school board members

I have made public records requests regarding SDCOE and CVESD payments to lawyers working for insurance companies, but I have not succeeded in getting the information I wanted. Apparently the best way to get such information is by setting up a sting like the one below regarding the Pleasantville School District in New Jersey.

New York Times
11 Arrested in N.J. Corruption Inquiry
By JOHN SULLIVAN
September, 2007

Federal agents used a phony insurance brokerage as part of a sting operation that resulted in the arrests of 11 public officials in New Jersey this morning, including two state assemblymen and the mayor of Passaic...

The investigation started in mid-2006 after the F.B.I. received evidence of corruption in contracts issued by the Pleasantville School District, federal prosecutors said.

The investigation is the most recent of a series of corruption probes Mr. Christie and the F.B.I. have conducted across the state. Mayors in several of the state’s largest cities, as well as members of city councils and county boards have been charged in the past few years.

The statement said that several members of the Pleasantville School Board took thousands of dollars in bribes from the cooperating witnesses, and that they referred the undercover agents to public officials in other parts of the state who would also be willing to take the payments...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/nyregion/06corruptCND.html?ref=nyregion

Teachers Setting Bad Examples

After 30 years of observing teacher and student interactions, my guess is that the teacher in the following story was exceptionally harsh to students when they broke rules.

I found this story on Union Corruption Update
http://www.nlpc.org/view.asp?action=viewArticle&aid=2035

"Ex-Employee of Maine Union Sentenced for Embezzlement"

"Catherine Crosier didn’t set a good example to students. She got a stern reminder of that at her sentencing hearing in federal court. Crosier, a former employee of the 25,000-member Maine Education Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association, was sentenced on May 7 to six months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. Crosier, 46, a resident of Augusta, pled guilty last November to one count of embezzling more than $45,000 in union funds during June 2002-January 2004. She had made out about 180 union checks either to herself or petty cash.

"“What troubles me the most is the nature of the employer you stole from,” U.S. District Judge John Woodcock told the defendant. “It was as if you walked into a classroom, marched up to a teacher and grabbed the teacher’s pocket or pocketbook and took money out of it. Then, you went to the next classroom and the next classroom and did the same thing.” In addition to serving time, Crosier will have to pay restitution. The sentencing follows an investigation by the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards. (Associated Press, 5/8/07; OLMS, 5/30/07)."

Developer Paul Nieto (partner of Mike Madigan) resigns from Airport Authority

Paul Nieto
Since Paul Nieto and his partner Mike Madigan were exposed for trickery regarding land being acquired for San Diego City College, Paul Nieto has been forced out of office. But Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox is still reflexively loyal to developers. She put a construction consultant in Nieto's place.

Mike Madigan
From Voice of San Diego, by Rob Davis: "Nieto Resigns Airport Post"

"Chula Vista developer Paul Nieto resigned this morning from his seat on the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority.

"Nieto, a partner with TMG and the former president of the company that developed Chula Vista's EastLake, has been under scrutiny for profiting off a land deal that he'd claimed he was involved in on behalf of the San Diego Community College District.

"Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox appointed Jack Miller to the authority's board in Nieto's stead. Miller is employed at Gafcon, a San Diego construction consulting firm. The former Navy pilot spent three years managing operations for San Diego County's airport."

Three school administrators cover up rape and slaying

Laura Dickinson

Eastern Michigan forced out three administrators who covered up the rape and murder of Laura Dickinson, 22, in her dorm room. John Fallon, Jim Vick and Cindy Hall lost their jobs for tellilng Dickinson's parents that there was no foul play involved.

This story was reported by Jeff Faroub of the Associated Press on July 17, 2007.

This seems like the logical outcome of the culture of secrecy and dishonesty among educators and education attorneys across the country.

After years of secrets and lies, Robin Donlan is finally talking

David Washburn of the San Diego Union Tribune wrote on May 18, 2007, regarding the recent lawsuit against Vencent Donlan and his wife Robin Donlan, "...Robin Donlan, who teaches fourth grade at Hilltop Drive Elementary in Chula Vista, is cooperating with federal investigators to an 'unprecedented degree.'"

Any cooperation at all from Robin Donlan in the investigation of crime is unprecedented, in my experience.

Robin's lawyer David Hiden said "she has waived attorney-client and spousal privileges and agreed to informal interviews."

In a civil lawsuit filed about four years ago against Robin Donlan for misdemeanors committed against Maura Larkins at Castle Park Elementary School District, Robin's entire defense was based on attorney-client privilege. Her argument was that any subject she had ever discussed with her attorney was something she should not have to answer questions about. Robin answered only ONE written interrogatory in San Diego Superior Court case no. 781970, and she answered it EIGHT MONTHS after it was served on her, when she knew that the plaintiff had already found out the answer to the question. Robin Donlan's brother and co-conspirator in the case, Michael Carlson, who is a sheriff's deputy in Santa Barbara, never answered a single interrogatory, nor showed up for a deposition. But perhaps he could be helpful in the current case. He could tell his sister that he puts people in jail all the time for being in possession of stolen property.

While Robin Colls Donlan's cooperation in answering questions is clearly a brand new behavior, some of her other behavior hasn't changed at all.

Robin ensnared a lot of her friends in her crimes, but they all stood loyally by her, claiming the same attorney-client privilege, and committing felonies to cover up her misdemeanors. Robin, on the other hand, seems to have turned against her husband. That's probably wise, since the FBI might be a bit tougher than Robin's victim in the previous case.

Donlan turned against Chula Vista Elementary School District after it had paid many $100,000's of taxpayer dollars to defend her. The San Diego Union Tribune wrote frequently about her attacks on the school district in 2004 when she was transferred to a new school. The district had to spend EVEN MORE MONEY TO DEFEND ITSELF FROM Robin Donlan, after it had spent so much TO DEFEND HER.

Here's what I'm wondering. If Robin really believed that she had HONESTLY AND GENUINELY come into millions of dollars in wealth, why didn't she pay back the taxpayers for all the money they spent on her? Robin's former lawyer Daniel Shinoff is still living high off taxpayer dollars, but the students of Chula Vista Elementary schools could sure use the money.

An Open Letter to David Bejarano, Former Police Chief of San Diego and US Marshall

The following is from Marie Killelea's CVESD Report:
___________________________________

When Patrick Judd interviewed you for the open Chula Vista Elementary School District board position on January 23, 2007, he asked you, “If a board member feels strongly about a matter, BUT HIS/HER POSITION IS NOT SUPPORTED BY THE BOARD, how should this trustee conduct him/herself?”

The correct answer was words to the effect of, “I will keep my mouth shut.”

You must have passed with flying colors. Pat Judd and the rest of the board expect you to keep silent when the board commits crimes and other violations of law. In recent years, every single board member has been willing to authorize, aid and abet
CVESD's illegal actions.

But is this an appropriate mode of behavior for a former Police Chief of San Diego and former US Marshall?

No, it’s not. It’s a crime for ANYBODY to authorize, aid and abet any crime. But for a former high-level law enforcement officer, it’s egregious.

Many people with higher political ambitions have joined the CVESD board, including your predecessor, Cheryl Cox. I’m guessing that you are similarly motivated.

May I suggest that you lead the corrupt CVESD board away from its current policy of maintaining a wall of silence and lies, where politics rules at every level, causing bad employees to be given positions of power and good employees to be pushed out, no matter how many laws are violated?

CVESD has behaved like our current US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose office tried to turn the US Federal Courts into a Bush political machine. It was a partisan, un-American campaign to bring the federal judiciary under political control. Karl Rove claims to have “lost” thousands of emails regarding this matter. Did he get lessons from CVESD? CVESD appears to have “lost” documents, too. In addition, CVESD forced teachers to commit perjury to cover-up the alteration of documents, and even pressured
law enforcement officers to commit perjury. I would like to see CVESD to come clean and root out the deep corruption created by Pat Judd’s current board majority (with the aid of the teachers union, Chula Vista Educators and CTA) and repair the damage done to children and schools by the current board majority.

For too long, CVESD has placed the rule of law and the wellbeing of children on the back burner. It’s time for a housecleaning and change in focus at CVESD.

By the way, Mr. Bejarano, Patrick Judd didn’t mention illegal actions in his question, so you wouldn’t be breaking your promise to keep silent. Anyone would assume that “a matter” meant “a matter of opinion,” not a violation of the law.

Cheryl Cox plays softball with her friends, and hardball with everyone else

Cheryl Cox has moved from school board to mayor in Chula Vista. She used to suborn perjury to protect her political career. The actual signed documents of one of the perjuries that she caused are at the bottom of this page. Then Cheryl moved up in the world, becoming even more powerful.

Now she can cause even more trouble. A young man who took a couple hours off work to photograph her with her disgraced friend David Malcolm could end up in jail for years. Bonnie Dumanis claims that the young man lied about whether he filled out his leave slip before or after his two-hour leave to go to the twilight yacht party where Cheryl was raising money. Dumanis claims that she wants to restore trust in government, and for that reason she has charged Jason Moore with multiple perjury felonies.

But Bonnie refused to prosecute obstruction of justice committed on behalf of Cheryl Cox's and Chula Vista Elementary School District. Bonnie, this looks like you are trying to curry favor with politicians, not restore trust in government. As long as you look the other way when Cheryl Cox and CVESD spend hundreds of thousands of public dollars covering-up crimes, you won't restore trust in government. You just make it appear that your services are available in exchange for political favors.

Bonnie Dumanis was also friendly with former SDCOE Superintendent Rudy Castruita, who provided the unethical lawyers to Cheryl Cox and CVESD. Rudy put a big photo of Bonnie on the San Diego Office of Education web site--which is funded by tax dollars. Cheryl's law firm, Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz was also involved in the recent gift of public money to Laurie Madigan, the wife of developer Mike Madigan.

Apparently, Cheryl and Bonnie both like to intimidate people. Cheryl once called me up, and started by saying, "Maura....This is Dr. Cox."

I knew I was supposed to feel intimidated because she gave herself a title and called me by my first name, but actually I had to struggle to stifle a laugh. Cheryl's doctorate is in education, and I know what it takes to get a doctorate in education. It isn't much. Have you ever heard of anybody flunking out of a graduate school education program? Only if he or she didn't show up. They seldom have to compete against geniuses. In fact, candidates for advanced degrees in education have the lowest GRE scores of all advanced degree candidates. Could that fact be related to the fact that we have a failing school system?

Cheryl approved multiple felonies, the perjury of a law officer among them, in order to hide a few misdemeanors committed by Chula Vista Elementary School District. When I called Cheryl up to talk about them, she refused to discuss it. I did fax documents to her, so she was well informed of what was going on, even if she tried to pretend she was "out of the loop." She just didn't think her crimes mattered. She thinks she is above the law. So does Bonnie Dumanis.

David Bejarano has taken Cheryl's place at CVESD. His wife is the secretary for Assistant Superintendent Susan Fahle, who ignored my public records requests for over a year. Finally, Dennis Doyle responded to my requests. I strongly suspect that Esperanza (Espie) Bejarano knows a lot about what happened at Castle Park Elementary and CVESD. But of course, her husband was handpicked to help the board keep their secrets, wasn't he?

Would voters be SHOCKED to find out that Cheryl Cox spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to cover up crimes and protect her political career? Perhaps, since she campaigned on a platform of CHARACTER and FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY. She apparently fooled a lot of people into thinking she was better that Steve Padilla. Actually, Cheryl Cox is a lot worse. She finds it easy to talk the talk of clean government. She just finds it impossible to walk the walk. After all, what's a girl to do when she wants to be mayor? Tell the truth?

Perjury Lawsuit hearing in East County on Feb. 16, 2007

Can lawyers suborn perjury with impunity?

That is the current public policy. But Maura Larkins has filed a lawsuit to change this policy.

I've put my complaint online. I'll try to scan the exhibits as soon as possible and put them online, too.


Click here to see the lawsuit.

Quote from pleadings:

The crime committed by defendants is particularly harmful to the public good because it involved two law enforcement officers.

In his dissent in Briscoe v. LaHUE, Justice Marshall stated:

"A police officer comes to the witness stand clothed with the authority of the State. His official status gives him credibility and
creates a far greater potential for harm than exists when the average citizen testifies.

The situation is aggravated when the official draws on special expertise. A policeman testifying about a fingerprint identification or a medical examiner testifying as to the cause of a death can have a critical impact on a defendant's trial.

At the same time, the threat of a criminal perjury prosecution, which serves as an important constraint on the average witness' testimony, is virtually nonexistent in the police-witness context.

Despite the apparent prevalence of police perjury, prosecutors exhibit extreme [460 U.S. 325, 366] reluctance in charging
police officials with criminal conduct because of their need to maintain close working relationships with law enforcement
agencies. The majority thus forecloses a civil sanction in precisely those situations where the need is most pressing."

I've noticed that south county San Diego has more cover-ups

This morning I read in the Union Tribune that an ex-coach in San Marcos has admitted stealing $40,000.00 from a girls’ softball team.

Once again I am reminded that South San Diego County has the most deceptive news coverage in San Diego. If you steal money from a PTA or other fund for students in any other part of San Diego, your neighbors are probably going to read about it.

Why has the truth about Chula Vista Elementary School District crimes been covered-up? If the violations of law that were committed by the school board, teacher union, and PTA in Chula Vista had been committed in any part of the county other than Chula Vista and its surrounding communities, voters would have read about it in their newspapers.

San Diego south county voters, on the other hand, are kept in the dark by the Union Tribune’s Don Sevrens, the Star-News’ Linda Rosas Townson, and Daniel Muñoz’s La Prensa.

I doubt that Cheryl Cox would have been elected mayor, and the Chula Vista Elementary School District incumbents re-elected, if voters in south county knew the whole truth about them.

Don Sevrens wrote plenty of negative articles about these individuals in the Union Tribune’s south county edition, but at the same time, he covered up the facts that would have proved his points. Most people assume that anyone who gets fired probably deserved it. It is human nature to give the benefit of the doubt to authority figures. Don Sevrens wanted people to vote against the incumbents because they fired or transferred employees. Yet he covered up the fact that school board members had committed multiple serious violations of law. Why did he cover it up? Because the teachers’ union, Chula Vista Educators, had also been deeply involved in the crimes.

The former head of Castle Park Elementary’s discipline committee now sits on the site council, helping to cover up the theft of $20,000.00 by one of her supporters. This former chair of the school’s “Peace Committee” is known for dealing out punishments to kids that far exceed the seriousness of the child’s transgression—and for demanding that other teachers do the same. This teacher has often been verbally abusive and excessively punitive toward kids who commit small transgressions. But stealing $20,000.00 is something she doesn’t want to talk about or act on.

The staff as a whole has been unanimous in its desire to cover up serious wrongdoing at the school. Not one single teacher has come forward to tell the truth since a crime wave by teachers began in 2000.

After a year without investigating, the CV Police Department finally showed a tiny spark of interest in the missing $20,000 AFTER CVESD board member Cheryl Cox was elected as mayor of Chula Vista. Chula Vista police then called in Former PTA president Kim Simmons, talked to her, arrested her, and then let her go. District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis did not press charges. Why? Perhaps she's too busy prosecuting a young man who worked for Cheryl Cox's opponent, Steve Padilla, for allegedly lying about taking two hours off work. The San Diego Union Tribune finally allowed a short note about the arrest of Castle Park Elementary's former PTA president to be published in November of 2006, but told nothing about the other serious crimes at Castle Park.

Update May 6, 2007:
Now that teacher Robin Donlan, a close friend of former PTA presidents Kim Simmons and Felicia Starr and former teachers union President Gina Boyd, is being investigated along with her husband Vencent Donlan for the theft of $7.7 million from Vence's former employer, perhaps the crime wave at Castle Park Elementary that was started in 2000 by Donlan and her brother MIchael Carlson will get some attention.

Castle Park Elementary teachers should not be sued for perjury

Should teachers from Chula Vista Elementary School District be sued for perjury?

Of course not.

But their lawyers should. These lawyers, including Daniel Shinoff and Kelly Minnehan of Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz, and Beverly Tucker of the California Teachers Association legal department, not only intimidated the teachers before their testimony, but instructed them to cover up the truth.

What teachers am I talking about? I'm talking about some of the teachers which the San Diego Union Tribune wrote about in articles and editorials published from the late summer of 2004 through February 2006. Editor Karen Winner and Don Sevren deceived readers into thinking that the problem was limited to the school principal, even though this principal came to the school after teachers had become embroiled in crimes and misdemeanors.

The teachers remind me of Osama Awadaliah, an honors student at San Diego State University, whom no one suspects of terrorism. NO ONE. But he was prosecuted for doing what Castle Park teachers did: denying being associated with criminals. Mr. Awadaliah had the misfortune to be acquainted with one of the 9/11 terrorists. He admits this. The US Attorney has prosecuted him because he denied being acquainted with a second terrorist. This is a silly way to spend tax dollars. No wonder Mr. Awadaliah's trial ened on May 4, 2006 with a hung jury. Even if he were guilty, he was merely doing what Castle Park teachers did: denying his association with criminals. In fact, officials admit that when they went to question him, he had no involvement in any crime. This is more than can be said for several Castle Park teachers.