By Maura Larkins: I attended Castle Park Elementary in Chula Vista Elementary School District as a child, and taught third grade there until 2001. I care about this district and the kids who go there.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Why was a mild essay about Patrick Judd blanked from my website?
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
irresponsible 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."
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