Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoes bill to regulate charter schools

Sometimes I get information from commenters that I missed in the news media. (I have an excuse this time: I've been out of the country for most of the last three weeks.)

Here is an open letter from Anonymous to Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was posted as a comment on the Mike Hazelton article:


Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841

RE: AB 2115

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,
Yesterday I read on the news and reported on the net that you vetoed AB 2115 authored by Assembly Member Gene Mullin (D-South San Francisco). A bill that would requires a charter school to adopt and comply with a conflict-of-interest policy applicable to public agencies in the state of California.

The Net article says that the bill would have forced every charter school to reconstitute their governing boards…you are quoted as saying:

"Not only would this bill create state mandated costs for charter schools to comply with its provisions," said the Governor in his veto letter, "the measure runs counter to the intent of charter schools, which were created to be free from many of the laws governing school districts."

Governor Schwarzenegger perhaps you should have been more informed about what goes on in our state than simply rubber stamping advise from charter school lobbyists. I wonder if the facts about charter schools would have made a difference or if you are just as twisted as the Charter School Association and SIATech/Guajome Park Academy the only two opponents to AB 2115 bill.

Yesterday on my way home from San Diego I noticed that our tax dollars were paying for security for First Lady Maria Shriver who came to San Diego to promote “family day.”

The First Lady first stopped at Ramona, where she marked the start of construction on a playground at Camp Hope, which serves at-risk, abused and neglected children.

Now Governor, isn’t this a bite too hypocritical because if you, the first lady and your administrative staff truly cared about and wanted to prevent abuse and neglect in our American children you would take measures to prevent abuse and neglect in PUBLIC charter schools. So reasonably and logically you would take steeps to create policies and regulations to PROTECT the HEALTH and SAFETY of ALL of California students.

Yet you placed lobbyists interest ahead of the HEALTH and SAFETY of CALIFORNIA’S CHILDREN.

Perhaps I can assist you in finding your interests or a conscience if you have one.

Look up SIATech, the only charter school who opposed AB 2115, in the IRS form 990’s of 2005 filed 2006 and 2006 filed 2007.

Both state contributions of $ 55,599 for the year 2005 and $ 55, 467 for 2006 were political contributions paid with PUBLIC FUNDS. So Governor Schwarzenegger who got paid from PUBLIC FUNDS to sit in your office and convinced you to oppose AB 2115? That people of the State of California are entitled to know this much, but there is much more.

We finally have a well written a report by a gutsy reporter Emily Alpert who is not afraid to research, chase the stories and write about the facts as they are.
In the Voice of San Diego Reporter Emily Alphert is correct Mr. Hazelton was very successful starting up flout charter schools up and down the state of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Georgia, Florida….and they were all started under the Charter that was granted and sanctioned by Vista Unified School District “VUSD,” Guajome Park Academy. Would you believe that VUSD claims to be ignorant about the illegal operations of Guajome Park Academy?

The Drop out recovery program is alive and well at both Guajome Park and SIATech. The New Education for the Workforce is doing well too so much that SIATech top executive salaries for former employees of Guajome Park Academy cap the California Governor and the California Superintendent of Education salaries with only about 5,000 enrolled students. Yes, Hazelton was very successful in popping these charter schools all over the country.

These fellows left Guajome Park Academy to go off into SIATech [division of Guajome Park] to collect their high roller salaries and continued their clandestine practices with unregulated federal fund from the United States Department of Labor.

SIATech is another VUSD charter school 100% funded by the United States Department of Labor (Job Corps).

The CA state scores showed rankings 904 in 2007 and 858 in 2008. Now these scores are impressive at a glance! When you look closer at the numbers you will find that the SIATech student composition on the tests include only 3% of students, and no students with disabilities. According to the federal regulations under the NCLB and also state regs schools are supposed to test over 90 or 95% of students.

SO HOW DOES SIATech GET WAY WITH ONLY TESTING ABOUT 3% OF THE TOTAL STUDENT POPULATION?

SIATch tested a total of 135 students out of almost five thousand-student enrollments according to their own numbers in the form 990’s and state stats.

Now based on the salaries for SIATech Board of Directors and employees one can see that there is some real serious scamming of PUBLIC FUNDS:

LINDA DOWSON President of the Board of Directors and Operations Manager $ 220,461.

ED BROWN Director and Operations Manager $ 124,878.

LINDA MILLER Director of Educational Services $172,860.

DAVID JENKINS Assistant Supervisor $ 169,81.

KRISTIN MALLORY Assistant Supervisor $ 168, 896.

DIANE FAIRCHILD Director of Special Education $ 161,348

MANOUCHEHR HADJIAGHAI Director of Administrative Services $ 160, 210.

Link

Link to jobcorps.


Maybe you can contact the United States Department of Labor and ask them to see a copy of SIATech/Guajome Park Audit? He! They don’t have one try the Director of Job Corps Esther Johnson at 202-693-3000 or Chris Convoy at 202-693-3093. Maybe they have some answers as to how money can be handed out with no accountability no IRS tax forms and no audits. Thank the Vista Unified School District for failing to monitor them and have looked the other way while SIATech continues to pop satellites all over the states.

Like VUSD Board Member David Hubbard says, he doesn’t care about organizations doing ILLEGAL businesses under VUSD’s roof as long as they can get an insurance company to cover them it is perfectly OK.

By the way Stephen Halfaker and SIATech high-ranking employees come from Poway Unified School District just like VUSD and SDCOE preferred Attorney Daniel Shinoff.

Halfaker is a Board Member at SIATech and his brother is an administrator some of their board members are high salaried administrators who pad their wallets with unregulated PUBLIC FUNDS. That is ok! Guajome Park incestuous relationships also extend to the majority of their 23 employee run and operated Board of Directors and their families who are also sitting as Board of Directors and sit on all of Guajome Park Committees. Unreliable the VUSD claims to have no knowledge of Guajome Park and SIATech’s clandestine endeavors. Hazelton continued his practices from Guajome Park and SIATech on to TIP Academy. However Guajome and SIATech make TIP, Las Banderas, El Cortez and all of the other satellites looks like alter boys in comparison to the criminal activity-taking place at Guajome Park.

You can rest assure that the Hazelton’s recommendations were true and correct however those closely associated with the Hazelton’s are trying to distance themselves from them.

Roy Adams, president of Adams and Associates, Inc. is just bluffing. Hazelton was very much involved in developing new charters and pushing the curriculum for alternative high school programs through out the state and other states as well.

Yes, Hazelton was and can be tracked as co-founder and board president of the award-winning School for Integrated Academics and Technologies “SIATech” headquartered in Vista between 2001 and 2002. It is virtually impossible to believe unanimous spokespersons for SIATech and Guajome Park Academy since they have a track record of double-dipping, incestuous relationships, deceitfulness, fraud, lack of reporting and accountability and theft of public funds.

Oh, yes the so-called award winning elite International Baccalaureate program is alive and not doing so well at Guajome Park Academy but no one seems to care around here and certainly not the Vista Unified School District, the San Diego County Office of Education, and the California Department of Education Charter School Division. After all according to CDE’s Kathleen Seaborne it’s a federal program and CDE has no oversight over charter schools (not true).




Here is the well kept San Diego County cover up: The SDCOE, VUSD and Guajome Park Academy all belong to the same JPA where SDCOE Diane Crosier is the Director and represents the SD JPA’s with SELF.
Crosier reports back to SELF where the other JPA’s come together to form what it is called a “super pool.”


Three insurance brokers namely Driver Alliant, Keenan and Associates and Marsh & McLennan manage these super pools. These insurance brokers are being sued in Alameda County where the allegations are for unlawful business practices, in violation of California Business and Profession Code section 17200 et. seq. false and misleading advertisement where they cream millions of dollars in public funds in violation of Business and Profession Government Code Section 17500 et. seq., breach of fiduciary duty, illegal and secret kickbacks, steering premium dollars and getting public agencies to purchase services at high rates.

San Diego County Office of Education, “SDCOE” refers to their JPA’s as the “The Authority.”

Keenan and Associates has a “HYBRID SELF-INSURANCE and REINSURANCE” [SDCOE has SELF-JPA where Keenan is also a member of this “Super Pool”] pooling program for nearly 400 schools and community colleges.

Keenan advertised for its Super Pool’s conference at Lake Tahoe as, “The Pudding is in the Pooling,” in their invitations. Yes, the pudding is good, they are raking in Millions of PUBLIC FUNDS through their billable hours and their preferred attorney Daniel Shinoff is rolling in the CASH $$$.

Daniel Shinoff and his SASH firm takes the cream of the Southern District billable hours for BOTH Keenan and SELF which are brokered by Marsh & McLennan. The premium billable hours are steered to his firm with the blessing of Keenan, SELF and Diane Crosier.

Keenan and Marsh and McLennan as the agents of California’s public entities have a fiduciary duty to recommend the best coverage at the best price for its clients. They are to provide independent, objective advice, and to put ‘their clients best interests’ ahead of their own. Keenan and Driver and Marsh and McLennan are hired to act as consulting, billing/premium administration, and claims administration. Their duty is to provide full disclosure, candor, and loyalty. Disclose the amounts of income; Contingent Commissions Agreements and remuneration they receive form all transactions to the public agencies they represent. Keenan has a policy where every employee, associate and partner has to belong to several churches, golf clubs, non-profit organizations and civic groups. This is how they create friendships with judges, political figures, churches and organizations who look the other way. While attorneys like Daniel Shinoff bully public boards into contractual agreements and decisions that are not in the best interest of PUBLIC AGENCIES but bring in a lot of billable hours to his firm and bigger premiums for insurance Brokers and JPA’s.

The agreements that the PUBLIC AGENCIES get pressured into signing with the JPA’s have different names like: “Contingent Income Agreements” “Production Service Agreements” “Volume Based Commission Agreements” “Profit-Sharing Commission Agreements” “Commission Override Agreements” Premium Value Contingent Commission Agreements” “Preferred Agency Agreements” and “Platinum Profit Sharing Agreements.”

These commissions create a blatant CONFLICT of INTEREST and a direct financial interest for these brokers, JPA’s and preferred law firms. These commission and preferred agreements cause CONFLICT of INTEREST, along with premium prices in many cases with lower benefits. The insurance companies recoup the kickbacks paid to marsh & Marsh and McLennan, Keenan and Driver by higher insurance prices passed on to the public agencies. Whereby, suppressing competition in the market of insurance.

This is the reason why the PUBLIC AGENCIES in San Diego cannot get insurance apart from the JPA’s. No insurance company can do business in California without belonging to one of the three “insurance brokers.” The insurance brokers have contractual agreements with certain JPA’s; like SDCOE SELF and these JPA use the same law firms they have contractual agreements with like Best Best and Krieger, Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff and Holtz “SASH” and Winet.





Daniel Shinoff also has complaints with the Bar Association by elected officials. The Bar Association up to now has failed to investigate him. I wonder why--isn’t San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis a member of the Board in the Bar Association? Isn’t Leslie Devaney a friend of Bonnie Dumanis and a registered lobbyist?

San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis claims to be investigating his involvement in the Palmgate MiraCosta Community College scandal. Many elected officials have given up on her investigation and have seen the light and the intertwined corruption that extends to the highest levels of government.

http://apps.alameda.courts.ca.gov/fortecgi/fortecgi.exe?ServiceName=DomainWebService&TemplateName=html/complitcase.html&CurrBatchNbr=1&CaseNbr=RG04183334
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3975/is_200507/ai_n14684403
Back to the charter schools, how can the Vista Unified School District, the SDCOE investigate Guajome Park Academy and SIATech if they all belong to the same buddy pool? How Can Daniel Shinoff investigate these charter schools if he works to protect them through their contractual agreement with the JPA’s? It is like investigating yourself or a member in your immediate family. Talk about “CONFLICT of INTERESTS.”

So Governor Schwarzenegger is your job as a Governor to protect white-collar criminal activity taking place in the state of California or to protect the constitutes in your state? Your veto sends a message loud and clear.

Governor Schwarzenegger you have no interest in protecting the health and safety of students because the civil right violations in these charter schools are acquiesced and enabled by these tumultuous incestuous relationships that you just rubberstamped.

Michael Hazelton and the charter schools that suffered devastation while under his leadership

See all Mike Hazelton posts here.

The following story from Voice of San Diego is so good, I can't think of anything to add to it:

The School Guru Who Promised Rescue and Brought Ruin
By EMILY ALPERT
Part one of a two-part series. Read part two.
Sept. 24, 2008


"...Michael R. Hazelton sold himself as an expert who could help. He was soothing. Gray-haired. Nice. A Harvard University seminar topped his resume, loaded with impressive work at a national company and a school that had once aided Cortez Hill. The school hired him as its executive director to reverse its fortunes.

"Instead its deficit ballooned from $16,559 to $188,187 in the single year that it employed Hazelton. When an audit revealed that he gave himself an $18,350 raise without the blessing of the Cortez Hill board, boosting the six-figure salary that had already dwarfed what his predecessor had earned, Hazelton was already gone..."

Read the whole story HERE.

Photo of Mike Hazelton (above) is from the TIP Academy yearbook.

Rose Urdahl's hoax: she's not really a teacher or a nurse, and she has no business degree

College instructor and SDCOE board candidate Mark Anderson must be scratching his head. Who exactly is he running against? A teacher? A nurse? A woman with a business degree? Or none of the above?

Chris Moran at the San Diego Union Tribune reports on the SDCOE board race between Mark Anderson and Larry Urdahl's wife:

"This month, a court ordered the registrar to remove the words “teacher” and “nurse” as occupation listings under Rose Urdahl's name on the November ballot and to strike from her statement of candidacy a business degree earned at Kansas State University. Urdahl acknowledged that she did not have a teaching credential, a nurse's license, nor the degree."

The Urdahls recently declared bankruptcy, but they seem to have a lot of cash on hand. Rose is being investigated by the District Attorney regarding a $10,000 loan to her campaign from husband Larry.

The SDUT report continues:

"Bankruptcy documents show the Urdahls have more than $3 million in liabilities, including an Alpine home they bought less than two years ago for $1.1 million. The five-member county school board has oversight of the county Office of Education's annual budget of $647 million."

How does one manage to acquire almost $2 million in debt in addition to one's mortgage? What on earth have the Urdahls been spending money on?

Fortunately, college instructor Mark Anderson of Santee is running for the same board seat as the bumbling Ms. Urdahl.




GROSSMONT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT

In another race, Rose's husband Larry Urdahl is running with Priscilla Schreiber against Carroll Boone in Grossmont Union High School District.

Carroll Boone
Age: 66
Residence: La Mesa
Community involvement: La Mesa First United Methodist Church, San Diego County Community Coalition
Occupation: mediator, retired lawyer and manager
Education: juris doctorate from University of Pugent Sound; master of social work from University of Washington, bachelor's degree from University of Alaska

Also in the race are two candidates who seem to be very close to Jim Kelly, the dethroned former master of the GUHSD board.

The SDUT reports:

"The county Republican Party, which dominates the political landscape in East County, endorsed Jedynak, a freelance journalist, and Woods, a seminary teacher. Trustees Jim Kelly and Rob Shield have also endorsed them.

"Priscilla Schreiber and Urdahl have been endorsed by other Republican leaders, including U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, state Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth and county Supervisor Dianne Jacob.

"Schreiber and Urdahl said they believe they are running against candidates who were picked by Kelly so he can regain control of the school board. Kelly was president of the board from 2002 to 2006..."

SDUSD consultants help design rule to silence dissenting board members

How do the people running schools stay in power year after year, while continuing to fail our students? Here's how:

New School Board Policy Forbids Criticism
By EMILY ALPERT
Sept. 25, 2008

A new San Diego Unified rule bans school board members from publicly criticizing the superintendent or his staff.

The controversial restriction is part of a new set of governance policies passed earlier this month by the San Diego Unified school board to define its powers and responsibilities. Board members hammered out the policies this summer with the help of paid consultants, hoping to stop their squabbling and the criticized practice of meddling in everyday school decisions...

[Blogger's note: I have come to believe that lawyers and the consultants they approve, not elected officials, are the puppeteers that control virtually all school board members. Even the best board members seem to bow to lawyers' wishes when the issue is money and power.]

School board members "will not publicly express individual negative judgments about superintendent and staff performance," the rule reads. "Any such judgments of superintendent or staff performance will be expressed in executive session." They must also "respect decisions of the board and ... not undermine those decisions" when speaking publicly.

Willfully violating that or any other rule can lead to penalties from a private scolding to public censure and removal from leadership positions or committees, the policies state.

[Blogger's note: Why should the opposition be silenced? School boards make lots of bad decisions, and they SHOULD be discussed publicly. Wrongdoing by schools should not be kept secret. When a board member knows of wrongdoing, he or she should speak out. Sadly, board members are threatened into silence. The same thing happens in the teachers union, where board members who are aware of wrongdoing are threatened into silence by California Teachers Association lawyers.]

...For example, Gompers Middle School Principal Vince Riveroll faced public criticism and was abruptly pulled from his position in 2005 when the school was seeking to become a charter school operated independently from the school district; Riveroll was later reinstated without explanation...

Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and the California First Amendment Coalition derided the rule, saying it flouts the First Amendment and cannot be enforced.

"I'm flabbergasted," said David Blair-Loy, legal director of the regional ACLU chapter. "This is so outrageous. ... It's a complete violation of speech. It undermines democracy."

Consultant Randy Quinn said similar rules limiting public criticism "are generally in place in almost all the districts we've worked with." San Diego Unified signed a $69,000 contract in April with Quinn's company, Aspen Group International, LLC, to train the board on its role and operations. Aspen lists dozens of school boards on its website as clients, including the Guilford County school district where San Diego Unified Superintendent Terry Grier last worked.

[Blogger's note: Just because schools have these rules does not mean the rules are legal. They are merely a tool for hiding dissent, and keeping voters ignorant of problems, including violations of the law.]

Legal experts from the American Civil Liberties Union and the California First Amendment Coalition disagreed. Blair-Loy of the ACLU said the rules are "clear violations of the First Amendment" that undercut citizens' ability to hear the views of their elected officials. His views were echoed by California First Amendment Coalition attorney Terry Francke.

Did Bonnie Dumanis and Patrick O'Toole simply create a new PIU?

Bonnie Dumanis recently moved controversial Public Integrity Unit chief Patrick O'Toole out of the unit. But what is he doing now?

He continues to be absent from the District Attorney's office flow chart. But perhaps that is because he doesn't want to be seen as subordinate to Bonnie. He'd rather not be seen at all.

I guess Bonnie and Pat want to leave the matter of O'Toole's current assignment up to our imaginations.

Here are some possibilities I've come up with:

1. A new PIU has been formed, known as the "public intimidation unit" or, alternatively, the "political impact unit." It will continue to investigate political enemies, but in a secretive manner.

2. O'Toole's new job will continue to involve the tipster(s) who initiated the investigations of the Chula Vista city employee who took 2 hours off work to spy on mayor and former CVESD school board member Cheryl Cox's yacht party with David Malcolm, and councilman Steve Castaneda's claim that he never planned to buy a condo which he never bought.

3. O'Toole will ask for and receive assistance from his friends in the Bush Justice Department, an office which has proven to be expert in political prosecutions (Don Seligman), and hiring and firing based on ideology and politics (Anthony Gonzalez and Monica Goodling and the eight fired US attorneys).

4. O'Toole will prove to be an invaluable aid to Dumanis' political ambitions, or, alternatively, the two of them will go down in flames together when their secret shenanigans are exposed.

A new study says parents are right to worry about their sons

Struggling School-Age Boys
By Peg Tyre
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Sep 8, 2008

Every other week it seems a new study comes out that adds to our already-formidable arsenal of parental worries. But even by those escalating standards, the report issued last week by the federal government's National Center for Health Statistics contained a jaw-dropper: the parents of nearly one of every five boys in the United States were concerned enough about what they saw as their sons' emotional or behavioral problems that they consulted a doctor or a health-care professional. By comparison, about one out of 10 parents of girls reported these kinds of problems. (See the study here.)

The report confirms what many of us have been observing for some time now: that lots of school-age boys are struggling. And, parents are intensely worried about them.

What is ailing our sons? Some experts suggest we are witnessing an epidemic of ADHD and say boys need more medication. Others say that environmental pollutants found in plastics, among other things, may be eroding their attention spans and their ability to regulate their emotions.

Those experts may be right but I have another suggestion. Let's examine the way our child rearing and our schools have evolved in the last 10 years. Then ask ourselves this challenging question: could some of those changes we have embraced in our families, our communities and our schools be driving our sons crazy?

Instead of unstructured free play, parents now schedule their kids' time from dawn till dusk (and sometimes beyond.)...

Teacher of the year Guillermo Gomez takes a second cut in pay to teach at Lincoln High

See all Guillermo Gomez posts.

California School Districts lay off teachers in order to pressure the state to restore funds cut from school budgets, but then they always hire the teachers back, right? Yes, in most districts. But not in San Diego Unified School District.

Budget games have harmed several teachers at SDUSD's Lincoln High School, but Guillermo Gomez is one teacher whose students are not suffering along with him.

He is working as a long-term substitute at 9th-Grade Center for Social Justice, at a big cut in pay. What's up with that, Superintendent Terry Grier? Pay the man, for heaven's sake.

In April 2008, Voice of San Diego wrote about Mr. Gomez, asking, "How do you lay off a teacher of the year?"


Social activist is big on possibilities
By Chris Moran
San Diego Union Tribune STAFF WRITER
October 12, 2005

...His parents fled El Salvador 22 years ago, fearful their son would be conscripted to fight in the country's civil war.

They brought him to Los Angeles without knowing English, but they had emphasized reading at home, so Gómez arrived with a solid grasp of his first language, Spanish.

Bilingual education helped him master his subjects while he was learning English, Gómez said.

The teachers who helped him most, he said, weren't those who stressed subject matter, he said. He doesn't play piano or speak French, yet his piano and French teachers were the most influential ones he had in high school because they talked with him, encouraging him to attend college...

SIATech test scores don't correlate with staff salaries

The salaries of SIATech Charter School staff in San Diego have skyrocketed, unlike student test scores. A reader sent me the 2006 990 IRS forms for SIATch, which lists wages. The salaries for SIATech Board of Directors and employees:

LINDA DOWSON President of the Board of Directors and Operations Manager $ 220,461.

ED BROWN Director and Operations Manager $ 124,878.

LINDA MILLER Director of Educational Services $172,860.

DAVID JENKINS Assistant Supervisor $ 169,81.

KRISTIN MALLORY Assistant Supervisor $ 168, 896.

DIANE FAIRCHILD Director of Special Education $ 161,348

MANOUCHEHR HADJIAGHAI Director of Administrative Services $ 160, 210.

SIAtech scores went down 45 points from 2007 to 2008. Of course, the children tested in one year are not the same group of children that are tested the next year. Some kids graduate, others move away and new kids take their places.

SIATech tested 135 students. SIATech is 100% funded by the United States Department of Labor (Job Corps), and is not regulated. SIAtech operates the education for about seven Job Corps in California.

SIATech student composition is: African American--15 students; Hispanic: 39 students; White--4 students; English Language Learners 3 students; socioecomomically disadvantaged--67 students; American Indian or Alaska Native--2 students; Filipino--1 student; and no students with disabilities.

Guajome Park Academy improved from 753 in 2007 to 768 in 2008. This charter school averages 21 students per classroom and the staff is highly paid.

More about North County test scores can be found at the North County Times.

Is Sarah Palin striving to become a high-latitude Victoria Richart?

2008 Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska

Alaska's current "Troopergate" sounds a lot like the "MiraCosta Mess" to me. I wonder who the Daniel Shinoff alter ego is in this story. I'm not saying that Palin's ex-brother-in-law, state trooper Wooten, is an angel, but I doubt that it was part of Palin's job description to make personnel decisions regarding individual troopers. Just because you have power doesn't mean your personal agenda must be fulfilled by your subordinates.

CBS News
by Laura Strickler and Kim Lengle
WASILLA, Alaska, Sept. 3, 2008

Alaskans refer to it as “troopergate” but the McCain campaign is convinced the investigation into Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s attempts to fire her ex-brother-in-law, state Trooper Mike Wooten, will show no wrongdoing. Palin allegedly demanded that Wooten be fired from his job while Wooten was in the midst of a bitter divorce with her sister. The results of the investigation will be released a few days before the November election.

The focus of the investigation will surround whether Palin abused her power as governor by pressuring Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan, to fire Wooten. After Monegan declined to fire Wooten, Palin asked him to step down. Investigators will try and figure out if the two incidents are related, Palin says they are not...



PALIN DID A POOR JOB OF VETTING THE PERSON WHO REPLACED MONEGAN


Anchorage Daily News
Story by LISA DEMER
August 30th, 2008

Alaska's former commissioner of public safety says Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain's pick to be vice president, personally talked with him on two occasions about a state trooper who was locked in a bitter custody battle with the governor's sister...

No one from the McCain campaign ever contacted him to vet Palin as a candidate, Monegan said.

Who did they contact? "We don't talk about the vetting process," said Maria Comella, Palin's vice president campaign press secretary...

Palin's replacement for Monegan, Chuck Kopp, was forced to resign just two weeks after he was appointed because of a sexual harassment complaint that had been filed against him when he was the chief of police in Kenai.

Palin, in a news conference announcing Kopp's resignation July 24, said she was unaware that the Kenai city council had reprimanded Kopp as a result of the complaint and would not discuss how her staff had vetted Kopp before naming him to replace Monegan three days after Monegan was fired...

NOTE: Anchorage attorney Thomas V. Van Flein seems to be the Daniel Shinoff alter ego in this case.

Why was a gentle essay about Patrick Judd (CVESD trustee) removed from the web?

Patrick Judd has a lot of control over the media. He succeeded in keeping the story of my lawsuit against CVESD out of the Chula Vista Star-News (above) and the San Diego Union Tribune.

Now, it seems, he's managed to GET A PASSAGE REMOVED FROM MY PRIVATE WEBSITE!

I have long wondered how sentences, paragraphs and entire pages have suddenly disappeared from my Yahoo website from time to time. Attorney Ljubisa Kostic told me recently (when he was deposing me) that all someone has to do to get something removed is to complain to Yahoo. My guess is that the "someone" has to be a lawyer threatening a lawsuit for defamation. Yahoo hasn't admitted this to me, but Mr. Kostic could be right.

So the question becomes: Why did a particular paragraph or page disappear? Was it offensive? Illegal? Defamatory?

No, apparently that's not necessary. Take for example the following passage that disappeared from my "Seven Happy Clowns" page recently:

Judd says that having even one member
on the board who supports teacher unions
would destroy the board’s “collegiality.”

But what does “collegiality” mean?

In this case, it means that the current
board has agreed to hide its conflicts
from the voters. Important
differences exist between Judd and
the two board members who respect
teachers, Cheryl Cox and Bertha
Lopez. Judd's opponent, Jill Galvez,
would bring MORE collegiality to the
board because she shares the
positive attitudes of the board’s two
most forward-thinking members, Cox
and López.

[Blogger's note: Cheryl Cox and
Bertha Lopez, as it turned out, joined
Judd, Pamela Smith and Larry Cunningham
in a long series of unanimous and
irrespnsible decisions. They were not
as forward-thinking as I had imagined.]

School boards who keep secrets DO
NOT benefit taxpayers or children;
they only benefit incumbents.

They conduct trade-off diplomacy: I'll
vote for yours if you'll vote for mine,
and the public will never know what
our disagreements were.

Why not do the RIGHT THING EVERY
TIME??

Probably Mr. Judd genuinely believes
in what he is doing, but his rigidity is
an obstacle to progress in Chula Vista
Elementary School District.

The five-member school board is not
smarter than all the people of Chula
Vista put together.

The decision-making process needs
to become open to all. Does
disagreement result in worse
decisions? No! It results
in BETTER decisions because more
ideas are considered. We need to
hear from educators who DON’T
PLAY POLITICS!

I honestly can't figure out how anybody could convince Yahoo to remove this mild opinion piece.

So I'm back to wondering if friends of Patrick Judd have been hacking my website.

P.S. A few months ago, part of my California Teachers Association webpage was blacked out, as opposed to being blanked out.

A note to Patrick Judd: Teachers play politics with education just like you do. They need leadership to learn collaboration. I suggest you read "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team."

If they win an award, they must be good--right?

Here are two stories about awards.

The first award is for a school district, and the second is for a restaurant. I learned a few years ago that awards are very often based on political connections rather than merit.

But there is another way of choosing winners: awards are sometimes based simply on what the applicants claim about themselves.

The award in story #2 below may have been a result of a combination of these two strategies. Maybe there was a deadlock regarding the real restaurants, so the secretly fake one was chosen because the judges wanted to escape a difficult choice.

AWARD #1

CVESD CHOSEN AS FINALIST

Apparently CVESD didn't tell the NSBA about the millions the board has spent covering up wrongdoing. Or maybe they did--and NSBA, which is connected to the Council for School Attorneys--thought it was a terrific accomplishment.

From CVESD's website:
"...National School Boards Association to honor District as a role model for excellence in Board governance

"The National School Boards Association’s Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) has named Chula Vista as one of three finalists for the association's Annual Award for Urban School Board Excellence.

"The Chula Vista Elementary School District, the Brownsville Independent School District in Texas, and the School District of Omaha in Nebraska are each candidates for CUBE’s prestigious annual award. The prize honors urban school districts that demonstrate progress in educating children and that serve as role models in school board governance...

“These finalists illustrate how essential successful board governance is for urban achievement, and we are proud to recognize these districts for their exemplary leadership,” said Anne. L Bryant, executive director of NSBA...

"A panel of judges selected finalists based on the school districts’ submissions and independent research..."(emphasis added).

[Blogger's note: CVESD got (or gave to itself?) an NSBA/CUBE award in 2004.]


AWARD #2

NON-EXISTANT RESTAURANT WINS AWARD

NEW YORK TIMES
By Stanley Fish
August 31, 2008
Fooled Again


Last week the New York Post’s Page Six picked up on a story that had been widely circulated on the blogosphere. The magazine Wine Spectator was the victim of a hoax when it came out that its “award of excellence” had been given to a restaurant that did not exist. Robin Goldstein, a wine critic who said that he wanted to expose the lack of any foundation for many food and wine awards, had submitted an application that included the menu and wine list of a fictitious restaurant he named Osteria L’Intrepido. Goldstein revealed the hoax within a week or so of the announced award and declared that what he had done proved that “the level of scrutiny” that accompanies such awards is “insufficient.”

Links for VUSD stories

District: Vista Unified has spent about half its bond money
By: ROB O'DELL
March 12, 2005
North County Times

VISTA ---- The Vista Unified School District has spent about half of the money it raised three years ago through a $140 million construction bond, but enough cash remains to build a controversial high school campus near Highway 76, officials said last week.

The $140 million bond, dubbed Proposition O, was to be teamed with $104 million from the state, giving the district $244 million to build nine campuses, renovate 10 aging schools and make physical improvements to the district's other 14 schools...

Jerry McLeod opposed sweetheart deal at Vista USD

I was pleased to hear from Jerry McLeod in relation to this post about the Vista Unified School District sweetheart deal:

"As a current member of the VUSD BOC I naturally take interest in any and all posts regarding the District and taxpayers' wasted funds.

"First, of the six names listed I am the only one still serving because of term limits. My term expires as of 6/30/09.

"My wife and I sued the VUSD for not following the list of projects as promised to the voters but our suit was dismissed because of a statute of limitations decision by the Superior Court. Our appeal to both the Appeals and State Supreme Courts were not granted.

"Let's just say that the taxpayers did get ripped off. I am available for questions."

Jerry McLeod
jerry_ann@cox.net 760-940-1151

Are education reformers bad Democrats? Challengers at DNC convention confront teachers union

More and more Democrats are starting to challenge the National Education Association and other teacher unions for standing in the way of education reform.

Union Tensions at DNC
by Michele McNeil
Education Week

The education event that followed the NEA luncheon showed the growing tensions within the Democratic Party over school reform, and the role of teachers’ unions.

Though it’s no surprise an event sponsored by the Democrats for Education Reform would have a slight anti-union message; many of the speakers at the event took several shots at unions during the press conference announcing the Education Equality Project in June.

Today, the sentiment was strong and persistent at standing-room-only, three-hour forum called Ed Challenge for Change. In fact, some of the big-city mayors who participated predicted that had such a forum been held four years ago, a mere five souls would have showed.

Here at the Denver Art Museum, Democratic mayors from Newark, N.J., Washington D.C., and Denver joined education reform darlings including New York City’s Joel Klein and Washington D.C.’s Michelle Rhee. The group was referred to as the “misfits” of the Democratic Party by DFER's Joe Williams, a nod to their willingness to speak up against the influence of teachers’ unions, which have formed the backbone of the party...

Here's more about NEA and Washington D.C.:

Darcy Burner, Washington D.C.

NEA Throws Darcy Under the Bus, Undermines NEA’s Health Care Agenda
July 22, 2008
by Matt Stoller



The NEA's Washington chapter, the Washington Education Association, just endorsed Republican Dave Reichert for Congress over progressive Democrat Darcy Burner. Now, there are a lot of reasons that organizations endorse, and in this case it's because Reichert has badmouthed unfunded mandates. Reichert has a bad voting record on education, with a 10% rating on education from Progressive Punch. He has among other things voted to gut Head Start and lots and lots of scholarship money, as well as voting down the line with Republicans to gut Federal spending on education. But the NEA's Washington chapter wants a Republican in their pocket, so they are throwing Darcy Burner under the bus...

The Vista Unified School District sweetheart deal

"Instead of building a new school for Vista students, they bought trailers and called them the schools of the future, “modular” buildings. These overpriced modular buildings had leaky windows and roofs. Mike Vail claimed “stick built” permanent structures buildings were a thing of the past."
--Anonymous

I think this anonymous comment is interesting enough to deserve a post of its own. Below is the (almost) complete text, slightly edited. The original comment can be found under my post "Accelerated Charter School defaults on loan from taxpayers."

"VUSD recently built a over 40-million charter school for Guajome Park Academy with Prop. O Bond money.

"The Vista Unified School District was supposed to build a high school for students of the Vista Unified School District which VUSD two high schools house over 2,500 each. As it turns out VUSD built a 40- million campus for Guajome Park Academy. Guajome Park Academy student population comes from all over the county of San Diego.

"The VUSD did not build a high school for the students of VUSD. The taxpayers are stuck will the tab, literally millions and million of dollars are unaccounted for and so what happened here?

"Former Superintendent Dave Cowles, former facilities right-hand man Mike Veil, Former President of the Board David Hubbard, former leaders of the Vista Teacher Association and some of the leaders from Guajome Park Academy worked on the project, which was defended by Best Best and Krieger attorney Dina Harris.

"What actually took place is that the VUSD established a Citizens Oversight Committee. This Oversight Committee had members with conflicting interests. They all seemed to be connected in one way or another. Even Guajome Park Academy had their very own Administratior/teacher/501C3 holder/and Board of Directors for Guajome Park Academy named Beverly Kanawi. Kanawi was listed on the list of Oversight Committee members as a “community member,” but so where the rest of the folks in this committee.

See North County Times.

"The members of the Oversight Committee never seem to have filed any FFPC forms 700 or IRS 990’s. Many of the members were friends with the developers, and some VTA/PTA members of the Oversight Committee had their own construction companies. Here is the sweet heart deal you get your friends to bid for a job (school building) and make sure you bid LOW so that you get the contract. Once you get the contract you jack-up the price 2 or three times above the original bid.

"The taxpayers are left holding the bag!

"These folks happily fleeced the taxpayers and left with happy faces and a lot of cash.

"Instead of building a new school for Vista students, they bought trailers and called them the schools of the future, “modular” buildings. These overpriced modular buildings had leaky windows and roofs. Mike Vail claimed “stick built” permanent structures buildings were a thing of the past.

"However Guajome Park Academy Charter School got an award winning building while the Vista Unified students got the shaft and the taxpayers got fleeced."

Accelerated Charter School defaults on loan from taxpayers

I did not know about Accelerated Charter Schools in Los Angeles until I found out yesterday that CVESD's own superintendent Lowell Billings in on the board, and had apparently helped CVESD trustee Patrick Judd get a job there as a consultant. What's Billings doing on a Los Angeles board? And why did he bring the backward-looking Judd to a school that presents itself as reform-minded?

From Schools Matter blog
January 09, 2007
Accelerated Charter School Puts Brakes on Repayment of $10 Million Loan From L.A.Taxpayers

The edu-business world is making a killing from corporate welfare payments and easy-pay or no-pay loans from city and state officials across the country who are bilking taxpayers as a part of the charter school revolution. Here's a great example of one sweetheart deal that has come to light in California. Some clips:

A nationally recognized charter school in South Los Angeles has defaulted on a $9.9 million loan extended by the Los Angeles Unified School District using voter-approved bond funds, documents and interviews show.

Did Accelerated Charter School in LA bilk the taxpayers?

Los Angeles Times
Suit targets charter school deal
By Joel Rubin and Evelyn Larrubia
February 24, 2007

Seven years ago, the Los Angeles Unified School District joined with a charter school to build a sparkling new campus in South Los Angeles. The deal, using public funds and private donations, was hailed as an ideal partnership.

But that transaction is coming under scrutiny. Several individuals from the Accelerated School and the school district were named in a lawsuit this week alleging improper use of state school construction funds.

Among those named in the suit is Accelerated’s co-director, Johnathan Williams, who is running for a seat on the district’s seven-member school board...

Williams could not be reached for comment. But Kevin Sved, who directs and founded the school with Williams, defended the deal to build the school. He had not read the lawsuit, but said lawyers for the school and district had carefully vetted the project at the time.

[Blogger's note: School attorneys are famous for telling school officials exactly what they want to hear. Their job seems to be to help officials get away with whatever they want to do.]

...The lawsuit was filed by Dennis Dockstader... a whistleblower and former teacher,

False-claim suits seek the return of government funds from a person or entity that improperly used or obtained them...In this case, state prosecutors chose to let the suit proceed without their active involvement.

...Dockstader charges in the suit that, among other things, the school project was designed to bilk the state out of $2.8 million it paid the district to help defray the costs of the campus land...The suit argues that the state was defrauded of money for which the school district and Accelerated had no legitimate claim...

Patrick Judd finally hired (after months of looking); Lowell Billings serves board members better than he serves students

Patrick Judd and Lowell Billings: old friendships never die?


UPDATE

INFORMATION FROM THE COMMENTS SECTION:

Come to The Accelerated School this Tuesday, March 24th from 4-8pm to hear the board make up excuses, Patrick Judd blame everyone else, and perhaps more lawsuits to be filed that day.

ORIGINAL POST:

For many months school districts all over southern California have been doing Google searches for the mysteriously-retired superintendent Pat Judd of Mountain Empire School District. They all decided against him--except for a small charter school in Los Angeles.

It seems there's always a charter school with interesting board members who will give a job to a guy who has left his job under suspicious circumstances.

Judd is now a consultant at Accelerated Charter School in Los Angeles.

I looked at the school's web page and was taken aback to see that one of the trustees is none other than Lowell Billings, who is superintendent of Chula Vista Elementary School District in San Diego county, where Patrick Judd sits on the board.

What is Lowell Billings doing on the board of a charter school in Los Angeles, you may ask? It turns out that the world of education is a small one, which helps explain a lot of things, including the lack of new ideas.

I was chagrined, but not surprised, to also find that Charles Oppenheim, of the law firm Foley & Lardner, is on the board. Education attorney firms are given huge amounts of money to protect the status quo in education.

Judd is being paid as a consultant, and he's acting the only way he knows how to act: lots of hostility, little insight. Judd once memorably stated that we've known for a hundred years how to educate kids. “We have a traditional model for educating children that’s been around for 100-plus years.” (This quote appeared in the Chula Vista Star-News in 2004.) This is a man firmly planted in the early 1900's. Apparently he hasn't noticed that kids have changed.


Reports have already started coming out of Accelerated Charter School about Patrick Judd's shenanigans.

There is hope for all of us: dictator Mugabe bows to opposition leader

Zimbabwe Opposition Wins Parliament Speaker Post
Voice of America
August 25, 2008

Zimbabwe's main opposition party has won the vote for speaker of parliament, scoring a major victory over President Robert Mugabe...

UPDATE: OR MAYBE NOT

Zimbabwe: Jeers as Mugabe opens parliament in breach of deal
David Beresford in Johannesburg
The Guardian
August 27 2008

President Robert Mugabe was greeted with boos, jeers and waving fists as he rode to the opening of parliament in an open-top Rolls-Royce yesterday, accompanied by troops with colonial-style pith helmets and lances.

Opposition MPs - who have protested that the Zimbabwe president was in breach of an agreement that parliament would not sit until a power-sharing deal had been brokered - refused to stand on his arrival.

Having to raise his voice to be heard over the jeering in his 30-minute speech, Mugabe once again tried to recover his position by vilifying Britain and the US - accusing them of using food as a "weapon" through sanctions...

Larry Urdahl confused after decision regarding Miramar College instructor Mark Anderson?

Grossmont Union High School Board Member Larry Urdahl recently got a judge to say that a part time college instructor can't call himself a professor. Urdahl did this to help his wife win an election.

But here's the part I don't understand. Mr. Urdahl reacted to the judge's decision by stating John Adams dying words, "Jefferson lives."

I wonder if Mr. Urdahl, who obviously is a big stickler for using words carefully and precisely, is aware that Mr. Jefferson had actually passed away by the time John Adams uttered those words. It sounds as if Urdahl was claiming victory, for himself and for Jefferson, but no, that wouldn't make sense since Adams was incorrect in his statement about Jefferson's victory.

Just to be safe, I recommend voting for Mark Anderson, a part-time instructor at Miramar College. And I recommend that Mr. Urdahl put a bit more effort into using words to clearly communicate his meaning.

Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox had problems in her earlier job on CVESD board

Recently two employees reported that Chula Vista City Manager David Garcia was looking at inappropriate images on his laptop, and Mayor Cheryl Cox hired an investigator to look into the report. On May 28 she wrote a memo saying the City Council disapproved of Garcia's Internet conduct. Apparently he was downloading images of Pamela Anderson and other hot topics.

This is a far cry from Cox's behavior as a board member of Chula Vista Elementary School District.

In 2001, two employees at CVESD reported that they feared that a fellow teacher would kill them. This sounds a little more serious that downloading images on a laptop, doesn't it?

Cheryl Cox and her fellow board members never investigated.

Why not? Partly because she knew the report was false. But more importantly, she knew that the two teachers from Castle Park Elementary made the report to coverup criminal wrongdoing by the teachers.

Cheryl also wanted to coverup that wrongdoing. Castle Park Elementary has been a mess ever since, going through 11 principals in 11 years.

It seems that stopping an employee from speaking honestly and openly is the common denominator in these situations.

It looks like Cheryl wants to make a mess out of Chula Vista, too. Can we look forward to 11 city managers in 11 years, Cheryl?

When Teachers Abuse Power

When Teachers Abuse Power
by Heather Johnson

Teaching is a noble profession, one that demands a great deal of patience and flexibility. A teacher plays different roles in the lives of students; besides giving them an education, they also act as guides and mentors. Children spend most of their waking hours at school, which is why it’s important for teachers to be accessible to the students not just as educators but also as a friend. While there are some teachers who live in your memory as the ones that did make a huge positive impact, there are others who are remembered for reasons that are both shameful and a disgrace to the field of education as a whole.

Teachers are given a degree of power over the students they teach – they are trusted by both the school authorities and the children’s parents to use that power judiciously and for the general good of the children. But there are some bad eggs who give the entire teaching fraternity a bad name; they’re the ones who use their position and authority for their own purposes, some more horrendous than others.

We routinely hear of teachers sexually abusing children in their care; some of them are so perverted that they film their dirty deeds and sell them for profits. As if this were not enough, they hold the threat of bad grades over their students’ heads if they tell anyone what happened. Statistics state that around 5 percent of teachers and coaches abuse minors, but this is not a true reflection of the state of events. The number of incidents that are unreported are much more than those that are. Most students are afraid to come out in the open fearing the repercussions – the ostracism from their peers, the future of their education and the effect the media impact would have on their lives and that of their loved ones.

Abuse need not be sexual to be detrimental to the well-being of students – some teachers send children on the wrong path by encouraging them to smoke, drink and do drugs. Others play favorites in a blatant manner, with the students who are affected being powerless to do anything to bring the offenders to book.

The reason that such incidents are widespread is that most students look up to their teachers and are willing to go to any lengths so that they are not disappointed in them. A subtle word here and a small hint there are enough to make these immature minds fall prey to the more cunning brains of their educators. The only way to prevent this from happening to your child is to educate him/her in the ways of the world and warn them of the dangers that could befall them if they are not careful. Parents must play an active role in every aspect of their children’s lives and encourage them to report any untoward incident, no matter how trivial it may seem.


This post was contributed by Heather Johnson, who writes on the subject of top online college. She invites your feedback at heatherjohnson2323 at gmail dot com.

Teachers should be checked for anger issues before they bring guns to school

Update: Brain scans show bullies enjoy others' pain


I know a few teachers who get very worked up when someone does something they disapprove of. I also know some teachers with paranoid tendencies. These emotional traits could be very dangerous to students, staffers and parents if these people had guns at school and their emotions somehow got triggered.

I think this Texas school district is off its rocker:

Texas school district lets staffers carry concealed weapons to class

One school district is telling teachers they can pack heat when classes begin at the end of the month.

The Harrold Independent School District in northern Texas says trustees voted to allow teachers to bring handguns on campus as long as they meet licensing and other requirements.

David Thweatt, superintendent of the 110-student district, tells the Star-Telegram they adopted this policy because of shooting sprees at Virginia Tech and other educational institutions...

Vista Unified School District wins against school site council members

My first response to this story was: "Here's a real shocker: a state agency agrees with what school district officials say, without bothering to investigate fully."

My second response (Aug. 31, 2008): Some people have a different perspective on this story. Reportedly, parents on the Casita School Site Council were unhappy that all the Title I money was going to Title I kids, instead of to their own kids. I'll try to find out more about it.

State sides with VUSD in dispute over site money
School board has final say in how specific funds are spent
By STACY BRANDT -
August 15, 2008

State officials have sided with the Vista Unified School District in a disagreement about who has final say over how school site money is spent.

In a decision released last month, an official with the California Department of Education denied six appeals filed by members of the school site council at Casita Center for Technology, Science and Math in Vista.

A site council is a group of parents and school employees that puts together a budget on how money set aside for school improvements should be spent.

Lisa Hoffman, a member of the council and librarian at the school, said she doesn't expect the Casita group to appeal the state's decision, though she was surprised and disheartened by it.

"I'm not happy with the way the state did this," she said, adding that state workers didn't fully investigate the situation and simply took the word of district officials...

The feud between the site council and district started with disagreements over Lindamood-Bell Reading Process, the reading program that district officials have pushed to expand in recent years. Some parents have complained about the cost of the program, arguing that the money could be put to better use...

In June, after the group had filed the complaint with the state, the council and district administrators struck a compromise.

The deal gave the council more than $35,000 to spend as it sees fit, and set aside the rest of the school's nearly $180,000 in site money to pay for Lindamood-Bell workers and someone to oversee a new program for students learning to speak English.

District officials are working to create a policy that would clarify the role of the school site councils.

"We want our school site councils to be effective," Superintendent Joyce Bales said. "There's a lot of money that's coming into the district, so we want to make sure that it's impacting the classroom and supporting the classroom teachers."

[Blogger's note:]
There is a lot of competition among adults in children's schools, complete with bullying, sabotage, and all manner of behavior for which children would be severely punished. I suggest a workshop on The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. All school staffs need traning, and parent should be invited, too.]

SDUSD's former superintendent Carl Cohn goes to Washington

I have always thought of Carl Cohn as a man who managed to keep his humanity during a long career in a business that can be surprisingly inhumane: education. My own feeling is that he left SDUSD because he was disgusted that the school board ousted Jose Betancourt for lobbying too soon after leaving the navy, while at the same time the board pays lawyers millions to circumvent the law on a regular basis.

If the board cared about ethics, it wouldn't have made Mark Bresee its general counsel.

The board is careful to keep its unethical actions out of public view. Jose Betancourt was apparently a good employee, and nowhere near the top of the list of unethical employees.

Voice of San Diego: U.S. Ed Secretary Taps Cohn

"Former San Diego Unified Superintendent Carl Cohn has been appointed by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings to the National Technical Advisory Council, a 16-person body that could have a major impact on the future of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the latest iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act..."

by EMILY ALPERT
August 13, 2008

Leon Page and MiraCosta taxpayers v. Victoria Richart and Daniel Shinoff

Leon Page filed a lawsuit regarding the $1.6 million sweetheart deal given by MiraCosta College to former President Victoria Munoz Richart.

North County Times
By PAUL SISSON
August 9, 2008

"...[Leon] Page, an Oceanside resident and deputy counsel for the county of Orange...said the lawsuit is about defending the right of elected officials to speak on matters of public concern and reminding attorneys for public agencies who they really represent ---- the taxpayers...

"Page has alleged that MiraCosta's settlement with Richart was an inappropriate gift of public funds because state law limits contract buyouts to no more than 18 months of salary and health benefits.

"Richart's settlement included 18 months of salary and benefits; a $650,000 payment for unspecified damages; health care for her husband until age 75; payment of her $3,100 expense account for 18 months; and more than $43,000 in attorney's fees.

"News of the deal created something of an uproar among faculty and observers at the community college, where Richart's leadership had been a source of controversy and debate..."

CTA puts its lawyers Beverly Tucker and Patricia Winslow in charge of workshop about change

See all Beverly Tucker posts.

See all Patricia Winslow posts.

California Teachers Association is in favor of improving education--as long as chief CTA attorney Beverly Tucker is in charge of the process, and as long as any changes in the education system don't interfere with her own power.

I used to think that Tucker just wanted to keep a tight grip on the teachers union. But it makes sense that she has to control teachers in order to keep control of the union, doesn't it?

May 14, 2008
Culture of Success Sidebar Conversations
APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY & THE CULTURE OF SUCCESS

"...the values, beliefs, and attitudes – culture – may matter much more than elected representatives and policy makers think – something that many teachers have always known. To begin the conversation, meet Kelly Horner, CTA IFT Director, Beverly Tucker, CTA IFT Board of Director, and Priscilla Winslow, CTA Assistant Chief Counsel -- all instrumental in the AI interviews that created the foundation for the culture of success."

What are San Diego Unified School District trustees and attorney Mark Bresee thinking?

When you fire your lawyer, but you keep paying him, it looks like you wanted him to do the things that got him fired, but you fired him anyway so that you look good. This appears to me to be indemnification of a public entity lawyer, and it doesn't smell good to me.


EMILY ALPERT provided the following information in a
Voice of San Diego article:

"... [SDUSD] trustees gave the green light to a $217,500 contract that would allow attorney Mark Bresee to keep his paycheck and health benefits for up to a year if he were fired. Bresee's salary is 16 percent higher than the attorney he replaced, Ted Buckley. And like the agreement the school district struck with Buckley, his agreement provides that if San Diego Unified fires him, he will continue to receive his salary and benefits.

"Buckley was contracted to receive his pay for up to 18 months; Bresee would receive his for a year or the remainder of his contract, whichever is less. Buckley said the provision did not apply because he had decided to retire from the school district."

August 6, 2008

What teachers want

I agree with SDUSD's superintendent Terry Grier that teachers with more skills should be lured to poor-performing schools with higher pay. The California Teachers Association disagrees.

In today's edition of Voice of San Diego Emily Alpert writes:

"...[Superintendent] Grier has not broached the idea with the union, but he often includes articles about differential pay in his weekly updates to San Diego Unified staff. [Teachers union president Camile] Zombro called differential pay "an abhorrent idea" that doesn't address the real problem of "intolerable working conditions" at schools in low-income neighborhoods..."

Is the Constitution unpatriotic?

San Francisco Chronicle
Brad K. Brown
June 29, 1998

...On [April 1, 1998] at Fallbrook Union High School, [MaryKait] Durkee took a stand -- or, more accurately, refused to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance...It was a rejection of a society, she said, that has become too violent and a government that has become too corrupt.

Durkee's teacher didn't see it that way; neither did her fellow students, and they erupted.

Her classmates urged world history instructor Lutz Zastrow not to let Durkee ``get away with'' the boycott.

``Give her detention,'' they urged.

When the class had finished its recitation, Zastrow insisted that Durkee stand up alone and say the pledge. Three times he made the demand. Durkee loudly refused...

The country is periodically seized by these displays of patriotic fervor and reactionary measures, said constitutional law expert Robert Cole.

Far from symbolizing true unity and strength, however, they reflect ``a kind of lack of confidence or loss of identity that Americans have in what they really stand for,'' said Cole, professor emeritus and associate dean at the University of California's Boalt Hall School of Law in Berkeley.

...[School officials] say Durkee was disrespectful to her teacher when she raised her voice and have ordered her to serve four hours in Saturday detention.

Immediately after the incident, school officials also told Durkee she must stand during the pledge -- silently, if she wishes -- or leave the room until it's over...
The controversy could have been avoided, Durkee stated in a letter to school officials last month, if her teacher had respected her right to sit quietly...

The school district doesn't have a constitutional leg to stand on, said Jordan Budd, Durkee's ACLU attorney. The Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of thought and speech, he noted. ``You cannot be punished for exercising your constitutional rights,'' he said.

Law expert Cole agrees. So does the Supreme Court...

Fallbrook Union High sits near the Camp Pendleton Marine base in a staunchly Republican enclave of 30,000 people. After the incident, 400 out of 3,000 students signed a petition urging Durkee to stand for the pledge...

Durkee's mother, Ann, says the imbroglio has had a profound effect on her daughter.

...``But my daughter doesn't see the flag or the Pledge of Allegiance in itself as the ideals that these people went to war and fought for and died for. What they fought for, Ann Durkee says, ``is the freedom to live in this country. And the freedom that goes along with that is to think and to act freely.''

...Superintendent Anthony, for his part, says that until he receives an opinion from the school district's lawyers, the disciplinary action stands...

Verdict: students win retaliation suit against school administrators

The illegal spending habits of President Priscilla Slade of Texas Southern University were exposed by three students.

Slade was indicted and agreed to pay back part of the almost $5 million she had used for home improvements and clothing.

This is news because most people in power get clean away with their wrongdoing. The person in power destroys the livelihoods and reputations of the whistleblowers, and the public is left believing that the whistleblowers were disgruntled troublemakers who were causing problems for good leaders.

In the Priscilla Slade case, the three students who exposed her wrongdoing were expelled from the school and arrested.

In San Diego, schools that have Dan Shinoff as their lawyer exhibit similar behavior. The list of people who have been fired for exposing wrongdoing is long, including Mary Anne Weegar and Coach James "Ted" Carter. Examples of complainers who were arrested are David Alberts and Claudia Houston (that I know of). But the list of people that Shinoff tried to get arrested is even longer: Lindsey Stewart, Julie Hatoff (during the Victoria Richart scandal at MiraCosta College), and me.

Happily, the Priscilla Slade case ended differently. A federal jury has decided that school officials had retaliated against the three students, William Hudson, Justin Jordan and Oliver Brown. Next week the jury will decide on punitive damages.

Score one for the justice system.

Do good principals get fired?

Some school administrators are considering forming a union.
Voice of San Diego
By EMILY ALPERT
Jan. 15, 2008


...Under California's education code, managers have few rights, said Irvine attorney Bill Shaeffer.

Years ago, Shaeffer represented 15 San Diego principals and vice principals demoted by then-Superintendent Alan Bersin. Shaeffer won his case based on the district's long-standing MOU, not the Education Code...

"We have to threaten litigation after the harm is done..." [said Bruce McGirr, president-elect of the Administrator's Association.]

...in Barrio Logan, another principal was transferred, aggravating some parents and peers who thought the process unfair. Anna Cazares lost her job at Chavez Elementary, and was moved to Cabrillo Elementary. The transfer followed a series of disputes with Area Superintendent Delfino Aleman over issues ranging from the placement of a kindergarten student to whether to solicit student volunteers.

Karen Mashoof, a former counselor at Chavez, switched schools after Cazares left. Parent complaints against Cazares were "totally blown out of proportion," she complained, and Cazares was "a target."

...Chavez vice principal Karen Toyohara was also demoted. Toyohara said she was told the school's enrollment had dropped, eliminating her position...Toyohara was sent back to the classroom.

"Nobody honored our MOU," Toyohara said...

Question: What kind of relationship does SDCOE-JPA have with Bonnie Dumanis?

Answer: A much too close relationship.

(See all Bonnie Dumanis posts HERE.)

Why did San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis' Miracosta College investigation result in felony charges for $305 of water used to irrigate palm trees, but not even a whisper about the $3 million in tax dollars that was channeled to Victoria Richart and her SDCOE-connected lawyers? Did they commit extortion? Did they use their public trust for personal gain?

Why does Bonnie ignore wrongdoing by school board members? It seems to be a mutual back-scratching arrangement.

The ad above ran on SDCOE's website during Bonnie Dumanis' first campaign for District Attorney.

Trusted occupations: teachers are never abusive to students

Photo: Jade Ray

Here's a photo of Heather Hargett.

A recent San Diego Union Tribune article about a high school girl who is suing a teacher for kicking her and telling her to leave the room because she was too ugly to deliver singing telegrams on Valentine's Day brought on an onslaught of comments from people defending the teacher.

I believe that many teachers need a more positive attitude toward children in general. Just because a teacher has a few teacher's pets isn't good enough. Every child should be treated with respect.

Here are some snippets of the pro-teacher comments that were posted regarding Leonel Sanchez' story about teacher Heather Hargett and student Jade Ray of Grossmont Union High School District. The consensus of these people seems to be that there are no abusive teachers, because if there were the school would have done something about it:

"With 50 witnesses and 5 months passed, I have to suspect this would have come out a long time ago if the story was as outrageous as the student is claiming..."

"The story seems pretty un-believable really. It will be interesting for sure when the facts really come out. With so many eye witnesses, I can hardly believe that the child would dare make something up but who knows in this day and age..."

"...So she was embarrassed, so what- who is high school wasnt?"

"...The girl suing should be counter sued and if she is givin money, it should only go to fix her "ugly" attribute..."

"Freddieboy, if that were my WIFE on the receiving end of a false complaint that could ruin her career, that kid AND her parent(s) would be getting a lot more than a lawsuit."

[Note from Blogger: Don't worry. If schools fired teachers for being hostile and disrespectful, there would be a teacher-shortage of huge proportions. That won't happen.]

On the other hand, two people supported the student:

"I had a high school physics teacher who always singled me out to embarrass me in front of the class... I finally walked out when one time he said, "gosh, your parents must be really ashamed."... I hope the kid wins."


"The teacher should have been Fired and the School Board should've addressed the situation with her parents promptly to ensure she went back to that school. This is a story of just a poor educational system."

[Blogger's note: I think ALL teachers need to be supported more--and challenged more--to help them behave maturely in the classroom. I know there are lots of teachers who are more abusive than this one. This situation sounds familiar to me; a lot of teachers get socialized into girl-clique attitudes. The cliques form on teaching staffs and even in classrooms. This sounds like a typical "mean girls" moment. I'll bet there were sycophant students who laughed with glee when the girl was (literally) kicked out.

Maura's advice to Heather Hargett: We've come a long way in race relations, but there's plenty of sensitivity and actual racism today, so it might be a good idea not to call your black students "ugly". You're in a particularly bad position, being blond and attractive. It's not a big stretch for us to imagine that you really do believe that you're prettier than Jade. Just for the record, you're not.]

SDUSD lawyer Jose Gonzales told Frances O'Neill Zimmerman exactly what she wanted to hear

Voice of San Diego published a thoughtful letter from Sally Smith of Serra Mesa on July 18, 2008.

Smith wrote: "San Diego Unified School District legal counsel Jose Gonzales must have been in a hurry to start his vacation when he advised the Board of Education trustees about meeting in a closed door session about Luis Acle..."

Smith was obviously going easy on Mr. Gonzales. But that wasn't good enough for former SDUSD board member Frances O'Neill Zimmerman.

Zimmerman wrote in the letter's comments section: "Jose Gonzales has been a lawyer for the San Diego Unified School District for many years, knows school law and policy inside out and always honors the truth. If he tells you something, you can believe it. If perchance he is wrong, he will tell you so. So much for the excellent reputation of Jose Gonzales. .."

So much for the credibility of Frances O'Neill Zimmerman.

Is it possible that she actually doesn't know that school attorneys are paid to tell board members what they want to hear?

I don't think so.

After reading the rest of Frances O. Zimmerman's comments in the same letter, it becomes clear that even after the recent avalanche of news about coaches and teachers abusing students, FOZ believes coaches should be allowed to conduct "closed" practices.

I agree with many of Zimmerman's opinions, but she is so deeply ensconced in the power structures of both the school district and California Teachers Association that she apparently believes that preserving the power structure comes first, and kids come second.

To Randi Weingarten, (soon-to-be) AFT president, from Karen Horwitz

Ms. Weingarten:

What due process? Anyone who even suggests we are being heard is being dishonest. Read my book White Chalk Crime: The REAL Reason Schools Fail.

It is time the union people lined up with the teachers rather than those holding all the power and stopped pretending there is due process. It does not exist...

Union people, including the NEA, need to start expanding their vision beyond staying in business...It is time the unions began leading, not following the special interests of the powerful departments of education and public officials that are stuck in a materialistic vision, driving our country into moral bankruptcy...

Karen Horwitz
(Author of White Chalk Crime)

The most trusted occupation? Another doctor turns to the dark side.

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has finally been arrested.

In a switch reminiscent of Mengele, Serbian psychiatrist Radovan Karadzic became a master of genocide. Perhaps it goes to show that people without morality can become members of any trusted occupation. We in the US have already learned that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church was willing to protect child abusers. Now we learn that the Serbian Orthodox Church helped to hide an ethnic cleanser.

On July 7, 2008 a new coalition government was formed in Serbia, which has apparently decided that entry into the European Union is more important than nationalism, and that it was time to cooperate with European anti-genocide efforts.

New York Times
July 22, 2008
By GRAHAM BOWLEY

"He grew long white hair and a flowing white beard, and, as Dragan Dabic, the former psychiatrist worked for years in a clinic in Belgrade, the Serbian capital, as a practitioner of alternative medicine...

"But on Monday his false identity was broken, his mask pulled away, and secret police officers arrested Radovan Karadzic, one of the world’s most wanted war criminals for his part in the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.

"He had been sought by international prosecutors since he vanished from view in 1996.

"All along, he was said to have eluded arrest by disguising himself as a Serbian Orthodox priest and by hiding out in caves in the mountains of eastern Bosnia and in monasteries."

Daniel Shinoff articles

For related stories, see Daniel Shinoff articles.

Sure sign of trouble: Sandy Lopez brought a lawyer to San Ysidro board meetings

San Ysidro Superintendent Manuel Paul

I know little about San Ysidro school board president Sandy Lopez (the sum total of my knowledge is contained in the San Diego Union Tribune story excerpted below), but I am already confident that the San Ysidro school board made the right decision when it worked to remove her.

Why am I so confident? Because Lopez started using an education attorney to get what she wanted. The minute a school official brings in a school lawyer to influence decisions, I immediately start to worry that someone is trying to push a dishonest agenda.

Lopez' long meetings (a recent meeting lasted until 1:30 a.m.) were abusive to other board members, and also, I suspect, a way to channel dollars to the lawyer to get him to do something he might not do otherwise.

Also, I am disgusted by Lopez' bizarre and contemptible allegation against the Superintendent.

Here's a part of the SDUT article by Chris Moran:

Board member Paul Randolph said he asked that her removal be put on the agenda because of Lopez's strained relationship with Superintendent Manuel Paul.

Lopez has insisted on having an attorney present when meeting with Paul to establish the agenda for board meetings. Lopez said she fears for her safety because Paul has mentioned several times that he is proficient in martial arts.

Paul taught karate at San Ysidro Middle School in the late 1970s, or as he said in an interview Thursday, “about 50 pounds ago.” He said he has never mentioned martial arts to Lopez.

The meeting to establish the agenda has typically taken 30 minutes, Paul said. In each of the past two months it has taken three hours, he said, at $200 an hour for the attorney.

Some small cases have exposed some big corruption in San Diego schools

Terry Francke says Katherine Nakamura needs to obey the Brown Act

The SDUSD board doesn't like to appear as if it doesn't care about ethics. So it turns to its lawyers to point the way toward creating an image of upstanding behavior. And the lawyers are only too happy to talk anytime the board wants.

President Katherine Nakamura apparently doesn't want Luis Acle's election ethics violations to tarnish her own reputation. She turned to the board's lawyer, Jose Gonsales. I know that many school attorneys believe that their job is to help cover up for their clients. I don't know Mr. Gonsales, however. It appears that he's an expert at getting away with violating the Brown Act.

Here's the story from Voice of San Diego:
"President Katherine Nakamura said trustee Luis Acle's fine from the city Ethics Commission would be discussed by the board with its legal counsel in a closed meeting Monday.

"Terry Francke, general counsel for the open government advocates Californians Aware, said that it the school board's plan to discuss Acle behind closed doors "doesn't sound like it fits any of the lawful closed sessions listed in the Brown Act," which sets forth rules for public meetings.

"'There's no litigation involving the school district as a party that is either ongoing or threatened,' he said. If Acle faces litigation, 'that's a personal liability, not one of the district.'

"And Acle's future isn't a personnel matter, he said...Acle's ethics violations stem from an unsuccessful City Council run, not his campaign for school board."


-- EMILY ALPERT
Thursday, July 17 -- 7:38 pm

Terry Grier gets an "A" for coming up with the idea of higher pay for harder jobs

Emily Alpert at Voice of San Diego reports that SDUSD superintendent Terry Grier is a proponent of an idea that I have supported for a long time: pay more to teachers at less-desirable schools in order to attract better, more experienced teachers."...Grier's plans included a controversial move to use a county-paid supplement to teacher salaries to pay bonuses for teachers in "hard-to-staff" schools, Jewell said. He was overruled.

"'The teachers were up in arms," [North Carolina union leader Mark] Jewell said. "We viewed it as a tax on the teachers.'..."

Some people don't know when to quit fighting

It's hard to figure out some people. They seem to be intelligent, but then they act as if they don't have a grasp on reality. Why didn't Luis Acle show some remorse, apologize, and settle this case (see article below)?

Did he fool himself about his wrongdoing, or was he just convinced he could fool other people? I suspect that a combination of delusion and dishonesty caused him to act the way he did. After 34 years of dealing with people in the field of education, I've found that this combination is less rare than one might wish.

Scott Lewis of Voice of San Diego discusses the Ethics Commission fine against SDUSD trustee Luis Acle:

...he had the chance to cooperate with their investigation and maybe work something out like so many other politicos in town. Instead, he fought...

He took the Ethics Commission to its first ever full administrative hearing...

Acle must have argued worse than he did when he faced the IRS -- his fine, the paper reported, came to more than $75,000.

...He was found to have not only failed to pay contracted workers on his campaign, the commission found him to have hidden expenses and collected donations in cash. These are direct efforts to hide information from voters...

Unfortunately for him, he armed himself with very little evidence...

Manhattan Beach USD superintendent and board member charged with misappropriating funds

Steve Cooley, Los Angeles District Attorney

Thank you to the person who left the comment on the previous post about the good job the Los Angeles County District Attorney is doing at upholding the rule of law in public schools.

This is something we need in San Diego, but it won't happen until our district attorney, Bonnie Dumanis, is replaced.

Here is the story the commenter brought to my attention regarding the Los Angeles Public Integrity Unit:

TORRANCE – The former superintendent of the Manhattan Beach Unified School District pleaded guilty today to misappropriating public funds for personal expenses.

Gerald Frederick Davis, 58, who retired from the district in 2003 and now lives in Florida, was fined the maximum of $10,000 by Torrance Superior Court Judge Thomas R. Sokolov...

Deputy District Attorney Juliet Schmidt of the Public Integrity Division said the judge also ordered Davis to repay more than $6,000...

Davis pleaded guilty as charged to one felony count of appropriation of public money without authority of law (Section 424(a)(1) of the California Penal Code)...

In cases filed last week, Schmidt also charged former Manhattan Beach school board member Mary Agnes Rogers, 63, with one count of misappropriating public funds...

What is the benefit of bilingual education?

In my experience, first-grade students who don't speak English can learn basic English rapidly, and can learn to read basic English just as rapidly.

But soon they hit a wall.

They can't keep up with instruction because they don't have the advanced vocabulary that native English speakers have developed at home. The English learners don't understand the concepts that are being taught, and don't gain the thinking skills they need.

I believe these skills need to be taught in Spanish while the students are learning English vocabulary and grammar. Kids will naturally be able to use their thinking skills in any language, and will catch up to grade level in English as long as their instruction is of a consistently good quality.

Children learn languages rapidly; they seem to be hard-wired for grammar and vocabulary acquisition. Unfortunately, the same is not true for more complex thinking skills. One of the unfortunate characteristics of poor families of any color is that adults tend to talk less to their children. Teachers need to teach kids to think, but it doesn't do much good to talk to kids in a language they don't understand.

Why not get kids to operate on a higher level in the language they understand at the same time that kids are acquiring a second language? It takes more than the ability to speak English to get a good job; people who speak only English end up as ditch-diggers, too.

Why don't Hispanic immigrants assimilate the way other immigrant groups did? A few years back I was distressed to read that many second and third generation Hispanic immigrants are less successful in school than their parents were. I think this is a result of our failure to teach higher-level skills to the first generation that comes here. Sure, they learned basic English, but they didn't get the whole package, the critical thinking skills and love of learning that needs to start early if we want children to become part of our advanced technological society. And neither did their children.

Robert Samuelson of Newsweek recently wrote about a UCLA study: "Compared with their parents, the children of immigrants did make progress, Telles and Ortiz found. Incomes increased; English-language skills spread; intermarriage rose. But after the first generation, gains were grudging. Third-generation Mexican-Americans were only 30 percent as likely as non-Hispanics to have completed college. In the fourth generation, about 20 percent still had incomes below the government poverty line...Because government policies might mute these problems, they ought to be subjects of campaign debate."

Attorney Mark Bresee leaves as a recall effort comes to a vote

See all Terry Grier posts.
See all Mark Bresee posts.

[Photo: SDUSD Superintendent Terry Grier]

Capistrano Unified School District in Orange County has experienced criminal indictments of administrators for using public funds to play politics, and soon it will hold a recall election for two board members.

We have bad behavior by school administrators and board members in San Diego county, too, but our District Attorney, Bonnie Dumanis, seems not to be interested, except in very bizarre circumstances.

Still, events are converging for a possible legal blow-up here.

Orange County Department of Education lawyer Mark Bresee has come back to San Diego. He'll be an in-house lawyer for SDUSD. A few years ago he helped out Chula Vista Elementary School District by submitting phony documents to the Office of Administrative Hearings. What will he do this time? I guess that depends on what SDUSD's new superintendent wants him to do.

What is Terry Grier thinking?

Grier has shown so much courage until now. But it seems that insurance companies, not the education code and the law of the land, control school district legal departments. Perhaps Terry Grier hasn't figured out how much damage these insurance companies and the Council of School Attorneys have done to education. I would advise him to hire a lawyer who has worked for students or employees. That kind of lawyer would give better advice and would be more likely to stay within the law.


I found this article on the KPCC (Public Radio in Southern California) website.
by Susan Valot
June 23, 2008

"Voters in South Orange County will head to the polls on Tuesday. They're deciding in a special election whether to recall two Capistrano Unified School District board members. KPCC's Susan Valot says it's a battle that's been building for a while.

"Susan Valot: Three years ago, a group of parents unhappy with the Capistrano Unified School District board tried to collect enough signatures to recall all seven board members. That effort failed when the number of verified signatures fell short.

"Last year, voters replaced three of the seven board members with candidates supported by the CUSD Recall Committee. Now, that group's trying to recall long-time board members Marlene Draper and Sheila Benecke. Rancho Santa Margarita City Councilman Tony Beall is part of the recall effort.

"Tony Beall: They have created a culture of corruption in our school district..."

San Diego County Taxpayers Association and Cheryl Cox

Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox

I appreciated current SDCTA president Lani Lutar's efforts a few years ago to explain to me (via email) why SDCTA gave an award to Chula Vista Elementary School District about five years ago without even looking at the school district's budget. The award was given before Lani Lutar became president of SDCTA, and Lani wasn't able to explain it to my satisfaction.

When I learned about it, I wrote THIS.

Now I think I understand the situation better. Cheryl Cox was on the CVESD board at the time. That fact may explain more than I originally realized.

Here's more on the subject.

Barbara Kerr is leaving Long Beach teachers under the control of her "deputy"

Former CTA President Barbara Kerr

Teachers in Long Beach got into a power struggle a while back, and that didn't make California Teachers Association (CTA) happy. Instead of allowing the conflict to work itself out democratically and in the courts, CTA took control last October, and still hasn't freed TALB from its control.

Kevin Butler of the Long Beach Press Telegram Long Beach Press Telegram
announced on 06/11/2008 that former CTA president Barbara Kerr will no longer be the official trustee in charge of the local affiliate. After eight months, she is allowing her deputy trustee Jack Cottrell to take over.

Butler writes, "Kerr said she anticipates that the trusteeship will continue through the summer under the leadership of interim executive director and deputy trustee Jack Cottrell...Kerr, a former president of the statewide teachers union, said that the end of the regular school year was a natural time for her to choose to leave voluntarily..."

Good call, Barbara, to leave voluntarily.

The Press Telegram also notes, "Previously, the TALB board hired the executive director. Now, TALB and CTA officials will jointly screen candidates and hire someone..."

The last full time director, Scott McVarish, resigned after an audit that revealed that too much money was spent on politics. Barbara Kerr, however, had nothing but
nice things to say about McVarish.

Should we elect ALL public entity lawyers?

Who makes decisions for public entities? Is it the elected officials? Or do behind-the-scenes lawyers tell the officials and/or employees what to do?

I have long suspected that those lawyers-not the elected officials-make many decisions.

I found support for my suspicion in this July 1, 2008 Voice of San Diego article by Rob Davis:

"...The agreement to extend negotiations had already been approved by Janice Weinrick, the city Redevelopment Agency's deputy executive director. She said she was told to sign it by Murray Kane, a CCDC attorney. "I'm a document signer," she said. "I only did what I was told, to sign off.""

We need to know more about the lawyers who represent public entities. It seems that the lawyers make the decisions, and the officials and employees just obey them. If there's a problem, everyone says, "I was just doing what my (choose one: client or lawyer) told me to do.""

George McNeil running for MiraCosta College Board of Trustees

June 17, 2008
PRESS RELEASE
George McNeil has announced that he will be running for a seat on the MiraCosta Community College Board of Trustees this November.

McNeil is a retired educator who spent 37 years as a teacher, counselor and administrator. He will be contesting the seat currently held by MiraCosta Board Chairperson, Carolyn Batiste...

He stated that the cost of the investigation into the sale of palm trees, which eventually resulted in the resignation of the College President, is currently at two million dollars and continuing to mount...

McNeil also pointed out that the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges has issued a warning... McNeil, who has served on Accreditation Committees in the past, stressed that this is an extremely serious situation...

McNeil stated that MiraCosta is an excellent college with motivated students, a hard-working faculty and a dedicated administration that is however gaining a negative reputation because of the lack of leadership shown by its Board Chairperson...