Vergara v. California; what motivates people like former Chula Vista Educators boss, executive director Tim O'Neill of South County Teachers United, to support the current useless system of teacher evaluations?

Tim O'Neill violated union by-laws when he refused to allow a teacher to present an ethics complaint to Chula Vista Educators directors.

San Diego's liberals seem to be far more obedient to the California Teachers Association than Los Angeles liberals, and students suffer for it. Here's a bit of the history of that subject. Shame on Richard Barrera for abandoning his principles, apparently in exchange for campaign contributions and a cushy job.

I don't object to tenure. I object to the intransigence of the teachers union in the face of calls for education reform.

Getting rid of tenure will do no good at all, and would likely do harm, if teacher evaluations continue to be as worthless as they are now.

If we get rid of tenure we'll just have to worry more about the already-existing problem of principals protecting their own careers by making alliances with mediocre but popular and politically-strong teachers. I get the feeling that David Welch, mogul of Student Matters, honestly doesn't know that many principals are former teachers who switched to the front office when they realized that they don't have what it takes to make it in the classroom.

I also get the feeling that Voice of San Diego's education reporter Mario Koran doesn't know this, either.

HAS VOICE OF SAN DIEGO SABOTAGED THE DEBATE ON TENURE AND TEACHER EVALUATIONS?


Emily Alpert Reyes

Voice of San Diego muzzled and then fired its education reporter, Emily Alpert (now Reyes), who knew what was going on in schools. The reason for this seems to be related to the politics and big bucks of VOSD's big donor trio Buzz Woolley, Irwin Jacobs and Rod Dammeyer who are deeply involved in charter schools and anti-union politics.


Voice of San Diego founder Buzz Woolley

Just before she was fired, Emily Alpert was one of the few people in San Diego doing serious research on teacher layoffs based on seniority. She dared to bring up the topic of teacher evaluations. If VOSD donor trio Buzz Woolley, Irwin Jacobs and Rod Dammeyer were really interested in improving education for all children they would have fallen all over themselves to keep Emily in San Diego. (Emily now works for the Los Angeles Times, but she's not writing about education.)


Irwin Jacobs, Voice of San Diego's major donor

My belief is that Buzz Woolley, Irwin Jacobs and Rod Dammeyer want to improve education for just enough students so that they can run their businesses with American employees--and they want those students in charter schools. They think they can have a flourishing society while the middle and working classes sink lower and lower.


Rod Dammeyer, charter schools advocate and political donor

Note: Buzz, Irwin and Rod also tried to remake the San Diego Unified School Board with appointed members who would undermine the elected members. They seems to think we'd do better without democracy.

IS THE CALIFORNIA TEACHERS ASSOCIATION TRYING TO SELF-DESTRUCT?

You might think that the teachers union could manage to do a better job of acting in the interest of all citizens than Buzz, Irwin and Rod have done.

Sadly, this does not seem to be the case.

I believe that schools can be fixed without getting rid of tenure (I have described one such plan HERE), but schools can't be fixed as long as the California Teachers Association stands in the way.

Something clearly needs to be done, but Richard Barrera doesn't seem to want to address the problem of rampant mediocrity among teachers. It's actually a bigger problem than the incompetence of about 10% teachers. I wouldn't use evaluations to fire teachers; evaluations are needed to help teachers become highly competent.

Sadly, Barrera will likely continue to toe the line for the people who control the California Teachers Association, so reform is looking unlikely. CTA doesn't want teachers to be held accountable; it wants to continue the politically-convenient system of principal evaluations.

The current system is such a joke that principals rarely even bother to observe teachers.

See all posts re teacher evaluations.

Teachers need to have a union. But why can't it be better than this one? Couldn't it be one without people like Tim O'Neill? (See comment at the end of this post.)


VOICE OF SAN DIEGO STORY ON RICHARD BARRERA'S TESTIMONY AT VERGARA TRIAL

Teachers Call Upon San Diego School Trustee to Help Save Seniority Rules
By: Mario Koran
Voice of San Diego
May 2, 2014

In 2010, when San Diego Unified was in the throes of a budget crisis and staring down a round of layoffs, school board trustee Richard Barrera told U-T San Diego, “Pink-slipping disproportionately affects poorer schools – absolutely.”

Now, that argument is the basis of Vergara v. California, a case that could blow up deeply rooted protections for California teachers. Barrera, who is now the leader of the San Diego Imperial Counties Labor Council, which includes the teachers union, changed his tune when he testified in the case.

Teachers see the policies that force the youngest teachers to bear the brunt of layoffs as the fairest possible, he argued. Replacing it with a system that requires administrators to make value judgments would erode trust as teachers vied for their spots, he said.

Along with attorneys from the state and the California Teachers Association, Barrera pointed to San Diego Unified as proof that a district can succeed because of the current policies – not in spite of it.

The case is the product of Students Matter, a group founded by Silicon Valley business mogul David F. Welch, a group of California students and a heavyweight cast of attorneys. They initiated the suit and claim the teacher protections violate students’ constitutional rights to equal access to quality education.

California law makes it nearly impossible to dismiss a bad teacher once he or she has received tenure, they argue, and last-hired-first-fired layoff policies disproportionately impact schools in high-poverty areas because they’re more likely to have less experienced teachers. Layoffs at these schools, then, create more turnover and worsen the experience for students.

But Barrera said that because San Diego Unified has had a good relationship with its teachers union, it’s been able to avoid mass layoffs in the first place.

In the grip of the budget crises, about 1,100 teachers were issued pink-slips in 2011, and all but 200 of those were rescinded, he said. And when 1,500 teachers were laid off in 2012, everyone was invited back.

Josh Lipshutz, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told VOSD he found this part of Barrera’s testimony bizarre. “Look, nobody wants layoffs. But layoffs are reality,” Lipshutz said.v “We’re not arguing that teachers should be laid off. But in speaking with administrators we heard over and over that everybody knows who the worst teachers are. All we’re saying is that in a layoff environment, why would you not want to include those teachers?” he said.

And avoiding layoffs in dark budget times also comes at a very real cost.

At this week’s school board meeting, trustee and fiscal wonk Scott Barnett castigated the rest of the school board for promising teachers pay raises that it couldn’t afford and selling off real estate to make up the difference.

Even though the district got money from Prop. 30, a voter-approved statewide measure meant to stave off drastic cuts to schools, San Diego Unified is facing a $100 million budget shortfall.

“Guess what? The proposed hole is bigger next year than this year because of this board’s inability to have any semblance of control,” Barnett said.

Holding Up San Diego as a Model

Barrera said that the idea that layoffs disproportionately impact poor schools doesn’t capture reality.

He said Central Elementary in City Heights, the school that Superintendent Cindy Marten once ran, is a good example of how a school can create a culture where teachers want to stick around.

Barrera said a school like Central is possible because teachers share strategies for what works in the classroom. In other words, if a district were to try to measure which teachers were better, teachers might be afraid to share what works with a competitive colleague.

“If we replace the seniority system – one which most people tend to see as fair – with one that teachers see as unfair or arbitrary, we’re going to dramatically hurt trust between teachers and their principals,” he said.

Still, schools like Jackson Elementary in City Heights, now Fay Elementary, might say the problem is a little bit more serious. During the budget crises, high-poverty schools like Fay – which had less experienced teachers – were hit hardest by last-in-first-out layoff policies.

In 2008, 24 out of its 26 teachers received layoff notices. Most of those ended up being rescinded, but in 2011, when 25 out of 27 teachers got pink slips – it was deja vu all over again.

“The reality is,” Lipshutz said, “that once the pink slips go out, the damage is already done.”

Teachers will often look for positions in more stable districts, and “it’s very discouraging to be treated as a number, to be told that you don’t have value beside your hire-date,” he said.

Barrera doesn’t disagree. “That’s all the more reason that we need to do what we can to avoid pink slips and layoffs,” he said. “Pink slips are disruptive, yes, but what’s more disruptive is laying off teachers and having huge class sizes.”

So What’s a Good Teacher?

Barrera said the major hole with the Vergara plaintiffs’ case is that they never clarified what, exactly, makes a teacher ineffective. In fact, the defense led with that point in its closing brief.

Of course, rebooting the criteria to measure teacher performance depends on whether the plaintiffs can persuade the judge that measures like test scores can be considered.

Plaintiffs leaned on Harvard researcher Thomas J. Kane, who said black and Latino students in Los Angeles Unified were more likely than their white and Asian peers to be taught by the worst teachers.

Kane reached his conclusion by looking at teacher effectiveness through a value-added formula, which measures improvements in student test scores over time.

To be sure, value-added formulas aren’t universally accepted. Critics like education historian Diane Ravitch have railed against them for years. Another said they resulted in “mathematical intimidation” from school administrators.

One problem, Barrera said, is that the scores appear objective, but fail to account for poverty, or other factors that influence learning. He said he isn’t opposed to all changes to the evaluation system, but they should begin a conversation about the real goal: quality teaching.

“From a policy level, you think we’d start with questions about what’s working and how we could do more of that, instead of trying to force these blunt instruments in through the court system,” Barrera said.

Lipshutz said poverty was a theme woven throughout the trial.

“To us, that’s a red-herring. We don’t dispute that poverty is a factor in student learning,” he said. “The question to us is whether the laws that are in place are harming students and preventing them from getting the best education they possibly could. And we showed very clearly that the answer is yes.”

COMMENTS

Here's a comment I found intriguing (for personal reasons):

Tim O'Neill, former executive director for CTA affiliates in Chula Vista

Tim ONeill (cvtimo)

The Vergara lawsuit claims that seniority based layoffs negatively discriminate against children of color. A valid critical commentary or report would show how this claim holds water in ANY school district in San Diego County over the past several years when schools have been hit by budget cuts of 25% or more.

The fact of the matter is that there have been none. All the union-haters should consider this in their world view and perhaps question the motives of the plaintiffs in this case.

Maura Larkins comment:

Tim,
Are you calling Richard Barrera a "union-hater" for saying, "“Pink-slipping disproportionately affects poorer schools – absolutely”?

I don't think the charge would fit, since he is the CEO of the San Diego Imperial Counties Labor Council.

Also, the ACLU sued the Los Angeles Unified School District based on the devastating impact of teacher layoffs on poorer schools. Are you calling the Los Angeles ACLU "union-haters"?

Maybe you should stop with the name-calling and try to come up with a solution to the problem.

[Maura Larkins note: I suspect this "Tim O'Neill" may be the same Tim O'Neill who worked for the California Teachers Association until 2010, and who violated the Chula Vista Educators bylaws by refusing to allow me to make an ethics complaint to the CVE Representative Council.

See a copy HERE of his letter to me in which he states that Gina Boyd herself denied my request to appear before the Rep Council to make an ethics complaint about Gina Boyd!

The Tim O'Neill who was the executive director of Chula Vista Educators worked hard to make sure that politics ruled in the district. That Tim O'Neill aided and abetted multiple violations of labor law and the teachers contract to ensure the re-election of CVE President Gina Boyd. But he himself lost his job and was apparently sent to work anonymously (until now, it appears) in the CTA offices in Mission Valley.]

COMMENT FROM JIM JONES:

Tim,
Either seniority protects the best teachers, and also keeps them out of the worst cesspool schools, which are minority schools, or seniority doesn't matter, it can't go both ways.
It's time for teachers to step up and put kids first, stop using them as pawns to feed public union greed.



Tim O'Neill, former executive director for CTA affiliates in Chula Vista

COMMENT FROM TIM O'NEILL:

"Using them to feed public union greed", huh? Please be a bit more specific in your retoric (sic).

Teaching assignments (school, grade level, subject assignments) are regulated in each school district collective bargaining agreement negotiated with the local teacher union in that district, not regulated by state law, which this lawsuit addresses.

The vast majority of these negotiated agreements places seniority as a subordinate criterion to many other factors such as subject matter credential, and most notably the opinion of the school principal. In other words, seniority, in most cases is NOT the determining factor with regard to a teacher's assignment.

It is true that some teaching assignments are more difficult than others. It may also be that vacancies occur more regularly at schools with such assignments, but for a variety of reasons. Some of the "best" teachers work at these schools; sometimes they don't. Are you suggesting that the "best" teachers be limited in their options as to where they would choose to work?


Maura Larkins response:

No, Tim, Mr. Jones is not suggesting that tenured teachers be limited as to where they work. He is simply suggesting that tenured teachers tend to use their seniority to get out of--and stay out of--schools in low income areas. In fact, I must say that I did notice during my years in Chula Vista Elementary School District that teachers with high seniority tended to snap up the job openings at schools in high-income areas.

I think that the success of children should not be subordinated to any goal at all that the teachers union might have.

It doesn't matter what the reason is that CTA has refused to allow any real progress in evaluating teachers--whatever it is, it's not a good enough reason. The fact is that the current system of principal evaluations is a joke, and it's part of the reason so many kids are failing to get decent educations.

I had a principal who came in fresh to the school, not knowing that I had been given all the lowest-achieving students in my grade level because I was also given the English-learners and it seemed to make sense. I was perfectly happy with the situation.

Principal Charlie Padilla retired in the middle of the school year

The new principal must have looked at the students' tests before sending them in to be scored, because he wrote on my evaluation that I had low student test scores--before the results came back! My students were progressing at top speed, particularly in their critical thinking, but they were starting the year from far behind the kids in the other classes at my grade level.

In fact, when the scores came back, they showed that my students had made one, two, three or even four years progress when they were with me.

That principal was highly regarded because he was highly political. But, strangely, he eventually retired from the district in the middle of the school year. He got another job, so obviously he wasn't interesting in actually retiring. It sometimes takes a while to figure out how bad some principals are. This would be less of a problem if principals weren't in charge of evaluations.

I once heard former CTA Executive Director Carolyn Doggett pointing out to CTA affiliate presidents that if they didn't improve education, they would become irrelevant. CTA would be wise to come up with an evaluation plan pronto. What's your plan for teacher evaluations, Tim?

COMMENT FROM francesca

@Maura Larkins If you taught in the Chula Vista School District, then you are probably more realistic about the idea of using test scores to evaluate teachers. When children have not mastered English, their test scores don't really reflect what they have learned or know.

Maura, Do you have an objective way to measure whether teachers are doing an effective job?


Maura Larkins COMMENT:

Thanks for asking, Francesca! I think observations are the single most important source of effective evaluations, and they should be done frequently by people from outside the school district (to avoid school politics).

Dennis Schamp and Scripps Dad and I had a somewhat detailed discussion recently on what should be observed; you can see our discussion at the bottom of this April 28 VOSD story:

The Case That Could Blow Up Teacher Tenure

The two main things we discussed as needing to be observed are:
1) What is the teacher doing?
2) What are the students doing?

Non-professionals could be used to make superficial observations. It would be up to professionals to evaluate the data and follow up with their own observations.

Scripps Dad says he's been involved in a good teacher evaluation program.

Also, student test scores would only be helpful after a number of years of gathering data about a teacher's performance, and even then, research shows that these scores are reliable indicators only for the top 10% and bottom 10% of teachers. The other 80% of teachers tend to get extremely variable results.

I do not think evaluations should be used to determine employment.

Instead, I think they should be used to identify the most highly effective teachers and to help average and below-average teachers.

I believe that the most highly effective teachers should then be given responsibility as master teachers to direct the less effective teachers and to give supplemental lessons to students, and to give training to their fellow teachers. This would be cheaper and more effective than bringing in ridiculously expensive outside vendors to do training.

I would expect master teachers to be paid like doctors and lawyers.

UPDATE MAY 5, 2014:

DO UNION LEADERS WANT TO KEEP THE EVALUATION PROCESS POLITICAL SO THEY CAN CONTROL TEACHERS BETTER?

You might be wondering why Tim O'Neill would lead Chula Vista Educators into aiding and abetting a string of illegal actions. Was it merely to protect CVE president Gina Boyd from the ire of the "Castle Park Family" as she was facing a union election? Perhaps not.

I just discovered a startling connection while perusing Facebook. The principal I mentioned above was Charlie Padilla. Here's a post about his middle-of-the-year retirement from CVESD. He turns out to be a personal friend of Tim O'Neill!


COINCIDENCE?
Charlie Padilla on the left, Tim O'Neill on the right.
Does this photo from Charlie Padilla's public Facebook
page of three couples out together for dinner on April 27,
2014 help explain why Tim O'Neill might be motivated to aid
and abet a string of illegal actions and violations of contract?

Tim O'Neill wouldn't allow the CVE board of directors to hear my complaint about him and Gina Boyd. CTA is a very top-down organization, run by administrators like Tim O'Neill--and CTA lawyers--rather than elected union officials.

I have spoken out for years on the behind-the-scenes collusion between the teachers union and school administrators. They often spar in public, but Wayne Johnson (President of CTA from 1999-2003) instituted a policy in which CTA affiliates would play nicer with school districts in order to reach more deals behind closed doors.

My Happy Hacker: he (or she) takes orders from lawyers, but also seems to have a sense of humor

I'm awarding good humor points to my hacker, who has become quite playful during the past week. He (or she) is having fun, but doing no harm.

Less than a week ago I discovered that this page in my related website had been hacked.

HERE IS THE HACKED IMAGE OF A GRIEVANCE I SUBMITTED TO CVESD:



I published this blog post, which the hacker must have read. In the post I wrote that California Teachers Association (CTA) director Jim Groth, who had been Chula Vista Educators (CVE) grievance chair at the time, had turned up unexpectedly at the grievance meeting and said that the union did NOT support the grievance. The grievance merely asked that the district RESPOND to an earlier grievance. It appears that CTA was quite desperate to cover up illegal actions of pals of CVE President Gina Boyd.


Former CVE President Gina Boyd at her deposition.
This blogger has awarded to Gina the Alberto Gonzalez
CRS award for her amazing lack of knowledge and
substantial memory loss: "I don't know"--25 times and
"I don't remember (or recall, etc.)--35 times;
total cognition lapses: 60.

Sometime during the past few days, someone went to work on my grievance image again. But this time, my hacker did NOT hide any information. He (or she) just moved black boxes around! It's actually quite entertaining to examine his (or her) handiwork.

He (or she) enlarged the black box to cover EMPTY SPACE on this page:




and moved the black box sideways on this page!



I actually like my hacker now, but I'm still not terribly fond of the lawyers who ordered the hacking.


It should be noted that CTA isn't the only party trying to hide these events. Current CVESD board members Pam Smith and her faithful ally Larry Cunningham were involved in the criminal actions, and they also have paid tax dollars to lawyers to support efforts to shut down my website.

Update Jan. 14, 2014


Robin Donlan relied on the help of attorney Kelly Angell Minnehan to avoid answering deposition questions.
I just discovered that a section ofmy webpage containing Robin Donlan's deposition had been deleted. Part of the transcript in which Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz attorney Kelly Angell (now known as Kelly Minnehan) stopped Donlan from answering a question about how Donlan felt when the principal discontinued programs without the approval of the staff was removed. Ms. Angell then proceeded to question the witness herself! I suspect there are other deletions in the deposition that I am not yet aware of.

HACKED CVESD GRIEVANCE: Who doesn't want you to read what's beneath the black box?

UPDATE JAN. 11, 2014:

My hacker has turned playful! He (or she) is moving black boxes around, but not hiding any information. See the story HERE.

ORIGINAL POST:

More than 10 years later, hackers are still helping to conceal the 2001 actions of CTA director Jim Groth

HACKED CVESD GRIEVANCE: Someone doesn't want you to read what's beneath the black box. (See original image below)


Yes, I've been hacked again, but things are getting better. This time the mysterious black box does not quite cover the targeted image on my related website.

More than 10 years later, hackers are still trying to conceal the 2001-2002 actions of former CVE president and current California Teachers Association (CTA) director Jim Groth, who worked on behalf of disgraced asst. superintendent Richard Werlin and board members at Chula Vista Elementary School District. Or was it the reverse? Were Werlin and CVESD working on behalf of Jim Groth? It's hard to unscramble the egg.

Jim "No response needed" Groth

In 2002 Chula Vista Educators' grievance chair Jim Groth unexpectedly came to a meeting at Chula Vista Elementary School District and announced that Chula Vista Educators did NOT support a grievance that merely asked that the district RESPOND to a teacher's grievance.

Why didn't Jim Groth (now a member of the state board of directors of California Teachers Association) insist that the district respond?

Well, that question seems to answer itself. Obviously, CTA and CVESD were covering up something. It appears that Groth's CTA directorship may be linked to his otherwise inexplicable decision to get in his car and drive to the district office to say that it was fine with him if the district ignored my June 9, 2001 grievance.

The original, unhacked grievance can be seen on my website. This is what it looks like:



The CTA website says that Jim Groth "is the past chair of the CTA State Council of Education Communications Committee." Perhaps that committee is in charge of hacking teacher websites?



Teflon trustees?

CVESD board members Pam Smith and Larry Cunningham, who spent tax dollars to cover up crimes, are still on the CVESD board, although the careers of several administrators have ended.

It seems that crime pays, as the saying goes, but only for teachers, union officials and board members--apparently not so much for administrators.

But now that I think about it, I realize that school board members are no longer quite so invulnerable. Bertha Lopez, who went along with the criminal actions of Pam Smith and Larry Cunningham at CVESD, is currently charged with criminal actions by the Public Integrity Unit. Maybe I should say that WASP school board members tend to be teflon.

It should be noted that this same case was investigated by school attorney Daniel Shinoff. A large number of documents he collected at Castle Park Elementary School have gone missing, as Mr. Shinoff and his partner Ray Artiano explained in this deposition.

More than 10 years later, hackers are still helping to conceal the 2001 actions of CTA director Jim Groth

UPDATE JAN. 11, 2014:

My hacker has turned playful! He (or she) is moving black boxes around, but not hiding any information. See the story HERE.

ORIGINAL POST:

More than 10 years later, hackers are still helping to conceal the 2001 actions of CTA director Jim Groth

HACKED CVESD GRIEVANCE: Someone doesn't want you to read what's beneath the black box. (See original image below)

Yes, I've been hacked again, but things are getting better. This time the mysterious black box does not quite cover the targeted image on my related website.

More than 10 years later, hackers are still trying to conceal the 2001-2002 actions of former CVE president and current California Teachers Association (CTA) director Jim Groth, who worked on behalf of disgraced asst. superintendent Richard Werlin and board members at Chula Vista Elementary School District. Or was it the reverse? Were Werlin and CVESD working on behalf of Jim Groth? It's hard to unscramble the egg.

Jim "No response needed" Groth

In 2002 Chula Vista Educators' grievance chair Jim Groth unexpectedly came to a meeting at Chula Vista Elementary School District and announced that Chula Vista Educators did NOT support a grievance that merely asked that the district RESPOND to a teacher's grievance.

Why didn't Jim Groth (now a member of the state board of directors of California Teachers Association) insist that the district respond?

Well, that question seems to answer itself. Obviously, CTA and CVESD were covering up something. It appears that Groth's CTA directorship may be linked to his otherwise inexplicable decision to get in his car and drive to the district office to say that it was fine with him if the district ignored my June 9, 2001 grievance.

The original, unhacked grievance can be seen on my website. This is what it looks like:



The CTA website says that Jim Groth "is the past chair of the CTA State Council of Education Communications Committee." Perhaps that committee is in charge of hacking teacher websites?



Teflon trustees?

CVESD board members Pam Smith and Larry Cunningham, who spent tax dollars to cover up crimes, are still on the CVESD board, although the careers of several administrators have ended.

It seems that crime pays, as the saying goes, but only for teachers, union officials and board members--apparently not so much for administrators.

But now that I think about it, I realize that school board members are no longer quite so invulnerable. Bertha Lopez, who went along with the criminal actions of Pam Smith and Larry Cunningham at CVESD, is currently charged with criminal actions by the Public Integrity Unit. Maybe I should say that WASP school board members tend to be teflon.

It should be noted that this same case was investigated by school attorney Daniel Shinoff. A large number of documents he collected at Castle Park Elementary School have gone missing, as Mr. Shinoff and his partner Ray Artiano explained in this deposition.

Chula Vista Elementary teachers once again require loyalty to the Castle Park Family at election time for CVE president

Former Castle Park Elementary teachers Robin Donlan and Peg Myers.

The self-titled Castle Park Family seems to have run Chula Vista Educators for over a decade.


Gina Boyd was the first CVE President who was a member of the Castle Park Family

Since Gina Boyd was CVE president, every person who has held the office has been loyal to the group of teachers who rallied to conceal the illegal actions of teacher Robin Donlan and her power-hungry cohort at Castle Park Elementary from 2000 to 2005.

Once CTA and CVESD make up their minds to cover-up problems, they stick to their guns. Fixing mistakes is not on the agenda. Doing the right thing is not a priority. Protecting themselves and their organizations (in that order) is their goal, even when they have to break the law and violate the contract to do it.

Jim Groth and Peg Myers worked hard to keep the lid on things after Castle Park Elementary teachers went out of control. But when Peg Myers fell into disgrace after a few years as CVE President, apparently due to some type of scam, and clambered clumsily across the bargaining table to work with the district, her followers claimed to be shocked and dismayed that she would do such a thing. I guess they forgot why they were following her in the first place.

Jennefer Porch was president for a while, obediently falling in step behind Jim Groth.

But now teachers have rallied behind Manuel Yvellez, who's major difference with Ms. Porch is that he is livid about teachers being asked to implement Common Core standards.



Mr. Yvellez' CVE election victory was made possible by his PERB complaint about election irregularities. Here is a partial decision from the PERB board that includes a mention of this and other CVE problems, including the bizarre mid-term exit of Peg Myers.

I do applaud Manuel Yvellez for having the courage to challenge the corrupt hierarchy of CTA. But Mr. Yvellez actually boasts of having worked at Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz law firm, which has worked behind the scenes with CTA to conceal events in schools, including Castle Park Elementary, so he can hardly claim to be a breath of fresh air for CVESD.

Interestingly, Mr. Yvellez leaves out the name of Dan Shinoff when he refers to the Stutz law firm, calling it "Stutz Gallagher and Artiano." But Mr. Shinoff was a partner at the firm well before Mr. Yvellez was employed. Mr. Yvellez is correct that Robert Gallagher still allowed the firm to use his name at the time Mr. Yvellez was employed. It would appear that Mr. Yvellez was wise to use Mr. Gallagher's name to recall a better time in the firm's history. But how can Mr. Yvellez distance himself from Dan Shinoff when he is so closely connected to individuals who helped Mr. Shinoff conceal events at Castle Park Elementary?

Isn't there any candidate for CVE president who cares about kids, teachers, the rule of law and transparency in government?

Were CVESD and Chula Vista Educators negligent in Kinloch child molestation case?

It seems that CVESD and California Teachers Association were more interested in protecting powerful teachers than in conducting serious investigations of extremely urgent allegations. When a teacher was accused of being likely to "come to school and shoot everybody," the district never did an investigation, and the teachers union never insisted on an investigation.

I recall listening to former Chula Vista Educators grievance chair Frank Luzzaro a few years ago complaining that the district had placed a male teacher on administrative leave due to unproven allegations of child abuse.

John Raymond Kinloch might been that teacher--unless perhaps there were TWO suspected child molesters at CVESD at the same time!

It seems to me that it was around 2003 or 2004, but the District Attorney's office says a child at Feaster was molested in 2004 or 2005. It seems we're both zeroing in on the same time period. Obviously, the school district knows exactly when the teacher was placed on administrative leave, and it knows if the teacher was John Raymond Kinloch.

CVESD HAS LONG HAD A CULTURE OF SECRECY AND CRONYISM

Superintendent Lowell Billings, Asst. Supt. for Human Resources Richard Werlin, and Asst. Supt. Dennis Doyle were in charge when the critical events occurred in the Kinloch case and in other cases in CVESD covered-up wrongful actions and falsified and concealed various documents.

Asst. Supt. Maria Guasp and Superintendent Libia Gil seemed to rubber-stamp whatever the three men decided on. Libia Gil chose covering-up events rather than investigating serious allegations.

Rick Werlin claimed to have "lost" all his notes about a teacher who was accused of being likely to come to school and "shoot everybody." CVESD's lawyer, Dan Shinoff, says he lost about half of the documents he collected at Castle Park Elementary. He lost a few pages here and a few pages there from a single set of about 87 documents. Here are some of the documents that were produced. Those missing pages about a possible mass shooting at Castle Park Elementary would be very interesting to see!

Chula Vista Educators, particularly Jim Groth, who is now on the Board of Directors of CTA, also seemed to support district decisions, especially when the goal was to conceal crimes by teachers who were favored by the administration. (Of course, it was different when one of Jim's pals got in trouble. CVE paid $17,000 in legal fees to contest a district decision to dock Frank Luzzaro one day's pay.)

A 1998 San Diego Reader story revealed Kinloch's connection to an English child pornographer, and Kinloch's admitted attraction to young boys.

An important part of this picture is the fact that California Teachers Association is quite reliable in protecting child molesters such as Albert Truitt.

Obviously, Mr. Kinloch was not fired. CVESD and CVE have a bad habit of protecting the guilty. Perhaps CVESD and CVE don't like effective investigations because facts might interfere with their political goals.

DEPOSITIONS PROVED THE TRUTH

At the same time that it flubbed the Kinloch investigation, CVESD administrators, with the approval of CVE's Jim Groth and other CVE officials, flat-out refused to investigate anonymous allegations against another teacher. Depositions later proved that the allegations against the "dangerous" teacher were false, but that teacher had already been fired. Depositions also proved that teachers who made the anonymous accusations were covering up their own crimes!

THE CASTLE PARK FIVE

The district then realized too late that the accusers, who called themselves "The Castle Park Family," had become out of control. The "Castle Park Five" were prominent members of the Family. The Family felt that it, not the administration, should be in charge. They can't be blamed for thinking this since they had successfully demanded that CTA and the district help them by violating longstanding policies as well as the law, to defend Family members in court. The district spent $100,000s of taxpayer dollars on lawyers to conceal the truth.

Coincidentally, both Frank Luzzaro and his wife work for the Reader, which had profiled John Raymond Kinloch in 1998 as a child pornographer. I have noticed that the Reader avoids delving into problems at CVESD. I have provided information directly to Frank Luzzaro and the Reader, but neither has expressed any interest.

Longtime CVESD board member Pamela Smith

Longtime CVESD board member Larry Cunningham

The school board in 2004 consisted of Pamela Smith, Larry Cunningham, Cheryl Cox, Patrick Judd (who was successfully sued for sexual harassment by a female principal) and Bertha Lopez. All five of these individuals supported the hiring and firing tactics of the administrators named above.









Arraignment for suspect in child porn and molestation case
CBS8.com
Dec 06, 2012

CHULA VISTA (CNS) - A South Bay elementary school teacher accused of molesting a student and possessing child pornography to get boys to expose themselves online is scheduled to be arraigned Friday.

John Raymond Kinloch, a first-grade teacher at Wolf Canyon Elementary in Chula Vista, was initially arrested last Friday after agents with the San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force served a search warrant at his home. He was released on bail that evening.

Authorities began looking into the online activities of Kinloch based on tips received by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said San Diego police sex-crimes Lt. Anastasia Smith.

The investigation allegedly showed that the 41-year-old Kinloch, while posing as a girl on a website called "MeetMe," had persuaded boys to disrobe during live one-on-one webcam interactions, according to Smith.

Kinloch, a San Ysidro resident, was re-arrested Wednesday on suspicion of 11 counts of committing lewd and lascivious acts on a child under age 14 after the alleged victim came forward, according to San Diego police.

The accusations involve sexual contact that allegedly occurred several years ago, when Kinloch was teaching at Feaster Charter School in Chula Vista, Smith said.

The defendant was being held in lieu of $1.15 million bail pending arraignment.



Teacher facing porn charges arrested in molestation
Pauline Repard
UTSD
Dec. 6, 2012

CHULA VISTA — A Chula Vista elementary school teacher arrested last week on suspicion of child pornography is facing new charges alleging he molested a student several years ago, authorities said Thursday.

John Raymond Kinloch, 41, was jailed Wednesday on 11 counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a child under the age of 14, and one count of an attempted lewd and lascivious act on a child age 14 or 15.

His bail is set at $1.1 million, jail records show.

“This is a case many years delayed in reporting,” said San Diego police Lt. Anastasia Smith. “It appears this victim was previously a student of his.”

She said the student attended Feaster Charter School. Kinloch taught there from 2000 to 2009, then transferred to Wolf Canyon Elementary School, where he was teaching first grade, school district officials said.

Kinloch has been placed on administrative leave, district spokesman Anthony Millican said.

“This new case raises the question of whether there are other students involved,” Millican said Thursday.

Kinloch was investigated by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force for allegedly posing online as a girl and soliciting young boys to send him pictures of themselves naked, Smith said. The task force is a joint effort by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

Federal authorities arrested Kinloch on Friday on suspicion of possessing child pornography, using a minor in an obscene manner and luring a minor for a sexual offense. He was booked into jail, then released on bail. Authorities said earlier in the week that no Chula Vista students were involved in the pornography.

On Wednesday, a former student reported being molested, and Kinloch was arrested about 9 p.m. as he was leaving his South Bay home.

“Our hearts go out to the child,” Chula Vista Superintendent Francisco Escobedo said Thursday in a statement. “The allegations raised in the charges against Kinloch are appalling. For a teacher to betray a child in this manner is very upsetting. We are very dismayed by this.”

School district officials were upset that a federal background check on Kinloch when he was hired failed to turn up his connection to a 1998 child pornography case in England.

Millican said the San Diego Reader published a story in June 1998 that said Kinloch, then a San Diego State University student, went to England to testify in the criminal trial of a college student accused in trafficking in child pornography. That student’s files contained information that led investigators to Kinloch, and he was offered immunity by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego to testify, the Reader reported. He testified during the trial that he was attracted to young boys, the Reader said.

The district is investigating how the past case was not flagged during Kinloch’s background check and plans to work with the state’s Teachers Credentialing Commission on how to improve the process.

Photo: December 13, 2006 , Chula Vista,- Second grade teacher John Kinloch at the Feaster Edison Charter School in Chula Vista. — John Gibbinsng Commission on how to improve the process.



Teacher accused of child porn, molesting a student in court: John Kinloch pleads not guilty 10 News 12/07/2012

CHULA VISTA, Calif. - A South Bay elementary school teacher accused of repeatedly molesting a former student and possessing child pornography to get boys to expose themselves online pleaded not guilty Friday to 20 charges, including 18 counts of child molest.

John Raymond Kinloch, 41, was ordered held on $1.9 million bail.

Kinloch, a first-grade teacher at Wolf Canyon Elementary in Chula Vista, initially was arrested last Friday after agents with the San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force served a search warrant at his home. He was released on bail that evening.

Authorities began looking into the online activities of Kinloch based on tips received by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, San Diego police sex crimes Lt. Anastasia Smith said...

The accusations involve sexual contact that allegedly occurred when Kinloch was teaching at Feaster Charter School in Chula Vista, Smith said.

Deputy District Attorney Enrique Camarena told reporters that the first alleged molestation happened around 2004 or 2005, when the student was about 8 or 9 years old.

Camarena said the alleged victim, a boy, had a close relationship with Kinloch, both inside and outside the school.

Some of the molestations occurred on school grounds, the prosecutor alleged.

Besides the child molest charges, Kinloch is charged with one count of attempted child molest of a person 14 or 15 years old and one count of possession of child pornography. The named victim is not the subject of the child pornography charge, Camarena said.

Kinloch faces 43 years and six months in prison if convicted.

"When a teacher commits a crime, especially of this nature on school grounds that is about the most extreme violation we can have," Camarena said.

Defense attorney Dan Greene told South Bay Judge Katherine Bacal that Kinloch had no prior record and had a master's degree, without being specific...

The attorney said community members have come forward to praise Kinloch as a great person and educator...

[Maura Larkins comment: I've noticed that people often say that teachers and parents know who the good teachers are. In fact, they don't. Effective evaluations are needed, but many principals don't bother doing observations, and simply rely on school politics to decide who's good and who's bad.] 10News reporter Michael Chen asked, "If he's attracted to young boys, why did he petition to be a teacher?"

Greene answered, "I can't [answer] that for you right now ... It's unfair to rush to judgment before going through due process."

School district officials said they were upset that a federal background check on Kinloch failed to turn up his connection to a child pornography case in England in 1998.

District spokesman Anthony Millican said the San Diego Reader published a story in June 1998 that said Kinloch, then a San Diego State student, testified in the trial of a fellow college student accused in child pornography trafficking.

Kinloch was granted immunity and testified that he was attracted to young boys, the Reader reported...

See also: Darren Chaker, in violation of the conditions of his release from federal prison, stalks Maura Larkins and impersonates Scott McMillan, the lawyer who beat him in the Mateo case. 

New CVE president Jennefer Porch is as secretive as Peg Myers

The annual CTA Presidents' Conference is taking place at Asilomar State Beach (see photo) near Monterey.

New Chula Vista Educators president Jennefer Porch is up at Asilomar this week at the annual CTA Presidents' Conference, but she left instructions with her staff not to release the names of new CVE officers.

Perhaps CTA President Dean Vogel can give Jennefer some tips about how to run CVE. I myself had a nice chat with Mr. Vogel at the conference a few years ago. (I was a lowly CTA member, not a chapter president, but Mr. Vogel was very nice.)

Jennefer may have replaced Peg Myers as president of CVE, but she doesn't seem to have replaced Peg's policies regarding secrecy. Furtiveness has been in force since 2001 when former presidents Gina Boyd and Jim Groth and executive director Tim O'Neill decided to cover up crimes by Gina's friend Robin Donlan at Castle Park Elementary.

Jennefer held her first meeting as president on July 10, 2012. It was advertised as the meeting when a decision would be made as to who the new vice-president would be. Elections don't seem to be the method of choice for choosing either CVESD board members of CVE officers. Three years ago vice president-elect Barbara Dunwoodie chose to resign right after winning election. What kind of politics is going on behind closed doors on Landis Avenue in Chula Vista?

CTA advertises itself as a democratic institution, but it is actually hierarchical, and the power structure is decided through back room politics, not elections.

Jim Groth and Imperial Valley locals on California State of Emergency rallies

Imperial Valley locals to attend California State of Emergency rallies
By ROMAN FLORES
Imperial Valley Press
May 10, 2011

...“(Monday) was the kickoff of the state of emergency and there were more than 300 current teachers and retired teachers, counselors and librarians to kick off the week,” said Jim Groth, CTA board member, Imperial County representative and Chula Vista teacher, on Monday on his way out of Sacramento.

Groth said CTA representatives met at the state Capitol for interfaith prayer services and a march around to the Capitol building.

“We broke off and had teams of teachers go to the legislative offices and talk to them about passing the next fiscal budget for our students,” he said.

“The Legislature has the authority to extend the taxes that are going to expire June 30,” Groth said.

“It’s going to take two Republicans in the Assembly and two Republicans in the Senate to meet the two-thirds requirement to pass a budget that would include the tax extensions,” he said.

“The issues remain very separated by party lines,” he said. “We’re asking Republicans to do the right thing for the students of California and pass a budget including the tax extensions.”

“What we hope to do is bring awareness of this issue (of budget cuts),” said local CTA chapter president Gaylla Finnell. “During this week, CTA’s hope is that people will contact their representatives and let them know to not cut education.

“We need to take action and put pressure on our representatives,” Finnell said.

Though Imperial County Teachers’ UniServ staff couldn’t comment on exactly who will be attending, UniServ did say two busloads are expected to attend a state of emergency rally Friday in San Diego with others traveling on their own. About 125 to 150 teachers, students and others from Imperial County expect to be in attendance.

Groth also said some school board members from Imperial County will attend Friday’s rally in Sacramento.

Who cares about kids at CVESD?

Chula Vista Elementary School District cut the number of days that teachers were paid to prepare for the current school year. The union, Chula Vista Educators (part of CTA), told teachers not to do any preparation other than what they were paid for. Teachers who obeyed were stressed and disoriented for quite a while at the beginning of the year, and considerably less effective than they normally would have been. Some union leaders just don't use their heads, and neither do the teachers who follow like sheep. I think the union should have accepted that teachers would need to prepare on their own time, then, if it felt it had to take some action, it should have planned a sick-out later in the year. Instead, a great deal of harm was caused for no apparent gain. CVE proved that some teachers are willing to damage the education of children, and it also proved that the school board is willing to harm the education of children. I have long said that there are big problems in Chula Vista, but even I was disappointed at this turn of events.

Calexico union members join in rally denouncing state budget cuts to education

Calexico union members join in rally denouncing state budget cuts to education
By SILVIO J. PANTA, Staff Writer
Imperial Valley Press Online
March 5, 2010

CALEXICO — Members of the Calexico Teachers Association joined scores of educators statewide Thursday to denounce state budget cuts to education.

Wearing yellow “unity” shirts and listening to impassioned speeches about the need to protect education, the CTA members, along with Calexico Unified School District board members Ruben De La Rosa and Gloria Romo, staged their rally behind the Enrique Camarena Memorial Library.

[Maura Larkins comment: Unity is a good thing, but only when it's organized around a good cause. Unity isn't a virtue in itself; after all, one of the best ways to achieve unity is through a dictatorship in which followers are kept ignorant of many essential facts, and intimidated into agreement. (Hmmm. That sounds like the way Jim Groth and Peg Myers run Chula Vista Educators.) Unfortunately, CTA also invokes the need for unity when the cause is to cover up the illegal actions of a group of teachers acting only for their own personal advancement, such as at Castle Park Elemtary in Chula Vista. CTA director Jim Groth has been involved in covering up the teacher actions that led to a $20,000 PTA embezzlement, $100,000s of tax dollars spent on defending teachers, and then a big scandal when the Castle Park Five were transferred out of the school.]

Carmen Durazo, CTA president, said that California is “at a crossroads” for education and said the statewide call asks people to step up and demand that the cuts to education stop.

“It is cutting into the future of our state,” Durazo said.

Last year, 16,000 teachers were laid off statewide, Durazo said. “This year we anticipate another round of layoffs,” Durazo said.

In the past two years, $17 billion was cut from schools and colleges, eliminating art, music and physical education programs in their entirety, according to literature by the California Teachers Association.

Also, 74 percent of school principals surveyed in a University of California, Los Angeles study said they have seen class sizes increase, said Jim Groth, board president of the California Teachers Association.

“California has to reinvest in education,” Groth said.

[Maura Larkins comment: Jim Groth and I are in 100% agreement on this.]

CTA's Jim Groth asks to slow down educational reform as Schwarzenegger visits Chula Vista Learning Center

Jim Groth, my former colleague at Chula Vista Elementary School District, should be suggesting effective methods for evaluating teachers instead of nixing Obama's efforts to allow schools to include student scores in teacher evaluations.

But apparently the California Teacher Association is taking a page from extreme right-leaning Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford in thumbing its nose at stimulus funds.

CTA doesn't want California to participate in the Race to the Top at this time because it wants to protect the current inadequate teacher evaluation system. Longtime loyal Democrats are getting sick of CTA's opposition to school reform.

Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford were overruled by their legislatures. But who will overrule CTA?


Chula Vista Teachers Protest Schwarzenegger Visit
Voice of San Diego
Emily Alpert
Aug. 27, 2009

The Chula Vista teachers union used a visit from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as a platform to protest his education plans, chiefly the push to link standardized test scores to teacher evaluation so that California is eligible for added stimulus dollars from the federal government.

Schwarzenegger was scheduled to visit Chula Vista Learning Community Charter School this morning. The union held a press conference at the school to explain their opposition to his plans. I couldn't make it to their meeting, but I phoned Jim Groth, a Chula Vista teacher and a board member of the statewide California Teachers Association, to talk about their announcements.

"What we are saying is, 'Let's slow down,'" Groth said as he left the Chula Vista school. "Changing the laws at the state would affect all districts. We're talking about local control. Local school boards would not have that control -- it would be dictated by Washington, D.C."...



JIM GROTH AND SARAH PALIN AREN'T THE ONLY PROPONENTS OF REFUSING STIMULUS FUNDS; SOUTH CAROLINA'S GOVERNOR SANFORD ALSO REFUSED $700 MILLION

Embattled South Carolina governor vows to finish term
Aug 26, 2009
Reuters

Republican South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, a conservative once seen as a possible presidential candidate in 2012, rejected a call from his deputy to resign Wednesday in the wake of a sex scandal...

Sanford was a prominent opponent of Democratic President Barack Obama's economic stimulus bill and rejected $700 million of South Carolina's portion of the funds on grounds it would undermine the state's fiscal stability...the state Supreme Court later overruled his opposition...





CHULA VISTA EDUCATORS' OFFICIALS SEEM TO BE CHANNELING SARAH PALIN


Sarah Palin won't stop complaining that the media has portrayed her unfairly. Apparently this is because the media talks about things that Palin herself would prefer not to discuss, such as Palin's using the fact that Russia is within sight of Alaska to prove that she is ready to handle international foreign policy.

Chula Vista Educators' Peg Myers won't stop complaining that this blog has portrayed her unfairly. Again, this seems to be because this blog talks about things that Peg herself would prefer not to discuss, such as her actions against teachers at Castle Park Elementary when Peg was working on behalf of administrator Richard Werlin and some of her other friends.

The teachers union doesn't want to hear from parents

Teachers Union Calls to Remove Budget Survey
VOICE OF SAN DIEGO
EMILY ALPERT
March 3, 2009

The teachers union is pushing to discontinue a budget survey posted on the San Diego Unified website, contending that "the true purpose of the District's survey is to pit parents against educators."

The survey, posted last week, asks parents, community members and employees who are not represented by unions to rate different proposed cuts as options to "strongly consider," "consider if necessary," or "never consider." The website states that it isn't directed to employees who are represented by "employee labor organizations," which excludes almost everyone except for the top managers in the school district.

An e-mail alert sent Monday by the teachers union argues that most of the issues in the survey are so intertwined with the bargaining process that it is inappropriate to consider them outside of the bargaining table. "The survey is laced with issues that are mandatory subjects of bargaining," it states.

It also contends that the survey is a way for San Diego Unified to dodge its own responsibility for financial problems, which it attributes to "top-heavy administration, lack of planning, and excessive spending on testing, consultants, and other non-instructional items." The union wants the survey to be removed from the website entirely.

John McCain and the CVESD board--which one fomented hysteria?

Why didn't CVESD board membersw or CVE leaders Jim Groth and Peg Myers act more like John McCain when the rumor was going around that a teacher at Castle Park Elementary was on the verge of committing mass murder?

Here's what John McCain said:

"No. No, ma'am. He's a decent family man with whom I happen to have some disagreements."

McCain said this to a woman in Minnesota who said she was scared of Barack Obama because "he's an Arab."

Both the district and the teachers union was determined to keep the Castle Park Elementary staff functioning like serfs during the Dark Ages, uneducated, superstitious, prone to hysteria.

A loss for Beverly Tucker and California Teachers Association: child-molesting teachers lose credentials

The California Teachers Association's efforts to protect child molesting teachers from losing the right to teach have come to nothing. Beverly Tucker, the chief counsel for CTA, has lost her long battle.

Calif. lawmakers close teacher license loopholes
By JULIET WILLIAMS - Associated Press
August 12, 2008
SACRAMENTO

The state Assembly approved two bills Tuesday designed to close loopholes in California's teacher licensing laws that had allowed some teachers accused or even convicted of serious crimes to remain in the classroom.

The legislation would allow the state to revoke licenses from teachers who plead no contest to certain sex crimes or drug offenses or have had their licenses revoked in another state.

The bills by Sen. Bob Margett, R-Arcadia, and Sen. Jack Scott, D-Pasadena, were prompted by an Associated Press investigation last year into sexual misconduct by teachers.

The AP's investigation in California confirmed at least 313 cases in which teachers were punished for sexual misconduct from 2000 to 2005.

That included dozens involving pleas of no contest, a common legal agreement that allows a defendant to avoid a trial or civil liability but still leads to conviction.

An analysis by the California Teacher Credentialing Commission following AP's report found that about two-thirds of the educators who face revocation or other serious action are convicted following a plea of no contest to a serious offense.

That triggered a discretionary review by the commission rather than the mandatory loss of teachers' licenses, a process that can sometimes take two or three years.

Margett's bill also targets another problem. Under current law, the results of misconduct allegations are sealed by the credentialing commission after one year. That restricts the ability of school administrators to confirm a teaching candidate's complete record if they learn later that the applicant lied about his or her background.

Margett's legislation makes the records available for five years instead of one...

Chula Vista Educators helps the friends of union leaders

It might seem odd that CVE would help teachers like Robin Donlan, Gina Boyd, and Jim Groth commit and cover up crimes.

But it seems less strange when we consider that CVE spent $17,000 for legal fees for former CVE President Frank Luzzaro to dispute one day's pay.

There is a long history of CVE helping people with close connections to the CVE office. That's why CVE was able to rationalize its criminal actions against a teacher. They figured they were protecting other teachers!

When they had to choose between violating the law again and again, and letting the truth come out, every member of the board of directors helped to commit and cover up wrongdoing.

But what if you're not in a protected group?

I don't belong to a protected group, so CTA didn't think it had to help me when I was targeted by teachers, administrators, union leaders and board members (including Cheryl Cox) who wanted to hide their own crimes.

Dawn Murray's story was horrible. Thank goodness it was finally finished in court. My case was thrown out of court because I didn't file a motion to compel in time.

Here are the first paragraphs of a San Diego Reader story about teacher Dawn Murray. Dawn, if you're out there, what do you think of CTA's actions in the Castle Park Elementary fiasco?

Published on May 20, 1999
A Teacher's Odyssey
By Linnea Due

Oceanside is about as far as you can go in North County without enlisting. Fact is, many people in Oceanside have enlisted, if only indirectly, via their parents. Biology teacher Dawn Murray says that few of the kids who start ninth grade at Oceanside High are still in town by the time graduation rolls around, so she figures she has a maximum of one year to transmit something vital to each student. Murray signed on to teach biology -- and she still does, to the accompaniment of national awards -- but lately the circumstances of her life have added something unexpected to the curriculum: Murray has found herself needing to demonstrate a blend of self-respect and fortitude that should come in handy for her mostly minority students.

Up about a mile from the beachfront, from sidewalks crammed with short-haired guys in pastel-striped short-sleeve shirts, barber shops advertising regulation cuts, and clothing stores specializing in surplus, lies Oceanside High--the underdog school, home of the Pirates. Single-story stucco buildings are strewn across the rise of the hill like a necklace tossed carelessly on a dressing table. The apricot-colored school is faded, grown comfortable with age, with no newfangled architecture to make these '50s ranchers look shabbier than they do already.

It seems like a funny place for someone from Upstate New York to end up, but Oceanside High has been Dawn Murray's home for 16 years, since she got her first teaching job at age 22. "Oceanside is not a school that people die to teach at," she quips. She ticks off the reasons why: gang activity, low test scores, the ancient school, students made transient by military parents. Still, says Murray, "They're good kids, and they need good teachers." It's a simple statement that has made Murray's life a hell. If you count emotional exhaustion as a sort of death, Murray has indeed died to teach at Oceanside.

It started in 1993, when Murray was passed over for a promotion. Discreet inquiries finally netted the reason: the hiring committee had heard Murray was a lesbian. Rumors began circulating around the campus, spread by security and custodial staff: Murray was having sex with a female teacher on the floor, Murray was passionately kissing an employee on school grounds, Murray was "fraternizing on campus during school hours" with another employee. None of this was missed by sharp-eared kids, and Murray did her best to fight, filing complaints with the principal and assistant principal, in each case demonstrating that the rumors were false.

But while she successfully fought each accusation, the employees conducting the rumor mill weren't fired or reprimanded, and the closeted Murray became progressively more isolated and dismayed. Conservative faculty members made disparaging remarks at meetings, formerly friendly colleagues shunned Murray in the hall but phoned her up at night pledging support, and the principal outted her at an in-service on racial discrimination. That meeting turned into such a free-for-all that the facilitator stopped the training. "I didn't say a word," Murray says now. "People were pushing me into a corner and hassling me to come out, but you have to understand, when that first accusation came in, it frightened the hell out of me. People were talking about my sexual orientation -- well, I didn't talk about it."

During the same period, Murray was racking up national awards. She won a fellowship from Princeton and in 1995 was named Outstanding Biology Teacher of the Year. "I could have gone anywhere in the country and written my own ticket," Murray says. She stayed.

"Here's what happened," she explains. "On one of the first days of school, I was asking people's names, and one girl said her name was Patty. A kid in the back spoke up. 'Your name's not Patty, your name's lesbian. I said to him, 'Why do you think calling someone a lesbian would hurt her?' and he said, 'Well, it hurt you, didn't it?' I realized that if I left they would learn that you could run someone out by intimidating them, and I was determined these kids would not learn that from me.

http://www.sdreader.com/php/cityshow.php?id=156

Jim Groth and Peggie Myers play yet another trick on Chula Vista teachers

Peggie Myers is the new president of Chula Vista Educators. Readers may remember Ms. Myers for her role in the Castle Park Elementary fiasco.

Teachers re-elected longtime president Jim Groth, but he had other plans. He moved on the the Board of Directors of California Teachers Association, where he can continue to work closely with lead attorney Beverly Tucker, who helped him and Ms. Myers cover up illegal activities at CVESD.

So Peggie Myers, who had been elected vice-president, became president.

Teachers will be asked to vote for a new vice-president. How about Robin Donlan, to keep the old gang together?

See all posts about Peg Myers.

Michael Hersh says CTA will not change

CTA Legal Dept
Michael Hersh

Hi Michael:

My goodness, you’re not your old self lately! You’ve been following a more imaginative course of action than CTA’s time-honored practice of continually insisting that you weren’t properly served. I was impressed by your filing responses to my lawsuit when you knew I was working on a first amended complaint, and I didn’t plan to serve the original complaint. Tricky! Who gave you that idea?

I called up the court today and found out that you filed pleadings on July 10, 2007 and July 13, 2007. Apparently the court has not filed my motion to dismiss (enclosed) or your motion to declare me a vexatious litigant. But I’m sure it will all get straightened out. There are many different ways to deal with this case, all of which, I trust, will eventually lead to good outcomes for everyone.

I will argue, of course, that you have no right to attorney’s fees or court costs when you were not even served with a summons. It was your choice, your wish, done for your own purposes.

I will also argue that you left out the most significant case of all in terms of vexatious litigants: my suit against Kathleen Elton for filing a false police report. That suit was settled in my favor for $75,000, as you well know, and precludes my being labeled a vexatious litigant.

Have your new advisors ever mentioned that you might want to deal with true facts in this case? Do you really think you can keep the truth hidden forever by continually playing legal games? Are you really that cynical about the justice system? Are you completely convinced that you and Beverly can hide your crimes indefinitely?

Beverly Tucker and CTA certainly made vexatious litigants of themselves in the Turlock case. That case demonstrated how little CTA cares about kids, how much it cares about power, and what a pathetic lapdog Bob Thompson is to Beverly Tucker.

The current case is just a small part of a larger battle between those who want education to be fixed, and those who want to maintain the status quo in the vastly powerful California Teachers Association, which, you once told me, “is not going to change.”

Yours truly,
Maura Larkins


[Note: The Turlock case was about CTA members wearing buttons in the classroom to campaign against the efforts of teachers to have another union replace CTA in the Turlock School District. The administrative law judge at the Public Employees Relations Board (PERB) ruled against the teachers. The judge's decision was clearly correct, since the California Court of Appeal had decided the question of campaign buttons in the classroom in a case from San Diego. But the PERB board overruled its own judge. When Turlock School District appealed, Bob Thompson, general counsel at PERB joined with CTA head lawyer Beverly Tucker to fight the appeal. They lost.

But Bob Thompson and Beverly Tucker did prove that they care more about the power of those who control CTA than they care about the taxpayers or children of California. How did they prove this? They used tax dollars to fight this self-serving lawsuit during the 2003 budget crisis in California.

Bev and Bob lost; the decision is HERE. So what did they do then? They appealed to the state supreme court and lost again. These are truly vexatious litigants.]