CVESD teacher removed for requesting massages: another member of the Castle Park Family causes a scandal

Stephenie Parker-Pettit

Comments regarding this post can be found HERE.

Stephenie Pettit has been placed on administrative leave for requesting massages from students. (See Channel 10 News story below.)

No one, including the police, has found that there was any hint of wrongdoing in Ms. Pettit's classroom--only bad judgment.

(Updated Mar. 14, 2014) But a parent has made me realize that Ms. Pettit's actions could result in serious harm to students in the future because they conditioned children to touch an adult on request. Even worse, kids were given class currency to do the touching. If CVESD used my plan for master teachers, this would not have happened. Our system puts untested teachers in full and solitary control of classrooms right after getting their teaching credentials. There is no close oversight or support to guide them.

Superintendent Francisco Escobedo will need to be careful in this case. A couple of members of his administration have more to hide than a few massages.

Asst. Supt. Sandra Villegas-Zuniga and Human Resources director Peg Myers will want to go easy on Ms. Pettit. They will want to continue the district's policy of avoiding investigations. It's a good policy when the people with the most to hide are not the ones the district is targeting. Ms. Pettit might say more than they want to hear if she were pressed for information.

WHAT KIND OF INVESTIGATIONS DOES CVESD CONDUCT?

Let's compare two situations: kids giving massages in the current case versus a report that a teacher might come to school and shoot everybody in an earlier case involving Peg Myers and Stephenie Pettit. Why was there NO investigation in the earlier case, while the police were called in in the second case? Because no reporters were interested in the earlier case.

The fact is, CVESD doesn't do thorough investigations to keep kids safe. Instead, it tries to protect its reputation. Too often this means covering up truly illegal actions by staff. As soon as as a report of child molestation surfaces in any school, a district administrator runs over to the school and threatens all the teachers that they'd better keep quiet. And they do keep quiet. The public has the right to vote for board members, but clearly does NOT enjoy the right to know what's going on at school districts.

Stephenie Pettit would NOT be the target of any investigation in the earlier case, but she'd be a star witness. She knows the truth about the reports of "fear for their lives" by teachers Jo Ellen Hamilton and Linda Watson when they taught at Castle Park Elementary in 2001. Pettit knows the role that Peg Myers played in the cover-up of crimes by Robin Donlan and other teachers.

And Sandra Villegas-Zuniga and Francisco Escobedo also know, or they should know.


Asst. Supt. Sandra Villegas-Zuniga might want to review her bizarre dealings with Peg Myers.


Peg Myers at her deposition

When Myers was the site representative at Castle Park Elementary School about ten years ago, she kept a tight rein on Stephenie Pettit in order to make sure that illegal actions were kept hidden. Stephenie Pettit was not involved in the original illegal actions, but she did keep her mouth shut after she found out about them. Later, when Myers was President of Chula Vista Educators (CVE), she continued to use her position to cover-up events at Castle Park in 2000-2001.

When she was President of CVE, Myers apparently impressed Villegas-Zuniga as someone who would help the district manipulate teachers. After sitting across from Myers at the bargaining table for a number of years, Villegas-Zuniga convinced Myers to clamber across the table to the other side and accept the job of Director of Human Resources. Obviously, Peg's intimate knowledge of individual teachers, and the workings of the teacher union, have been very helpful to the district in intimidating teachers. [Yes, I know that the district website claims that Myers is in charge of "classified" staff. Don't be fooled. She spends at least some of her time intimidating teachers.]

So here's the problem in the current situation. Stephenie Pettit knows the details of who was involved, and what actions they took, during the years when a large number of violations of civil and criminal laws were committed at Castle Park Elementary School, the district office, and the teachers union. The near-destruction of a school by power-hungry teachers and administrators was just the boost Peg Myers' career needed, and she has catapulted dramatically to higher positions since she was just an ordinary teacher at Castle Park Elementary in 2001.

CASTLE PARK ELEMENTARY

The effects of the decade-long teacher meltdown at Castle Park Elementary--that resulted in the school having 11 principals in 11 years--continue to ripple through the district.

It staggers the imagination to realize how many teachers involved with Castle Park Elementary's descent into a miasma of dysfunction have continued to make news long since the Chula Vista Star-News and San Diego Union-Tribune lost interest in supporting a troublesome group of teachers, parents and administrators that brought the school to its knees during their years of arbitrary power.


Pam Smith and Larry Cunningham

Current Chula Vista Elementary board members Pam Smith and Larry Cunningham oversaw the cover-up of illegal actions by CVESD employees at the school in 2000-2001. (I was a teacher at Castle Park Elementary, with Stephenie Pettit and Peg Myers, at that time.)


Former CVE president Jim Groth wanted a replacement who would continue the teacher versus teacher culture that he had helped create. Peg Myers fit the bill perfectly. See all Jim Groth blog posts.

It should be mentioned that current member of the statewide CTA board of directors Jim Groth played a big role in the concealment of illegal actions. He was then, and still is, a member of the Chula Vista Educators board. I imagine he's already hopped in his car and driven over to the district office to remind the administration that the district and the teachers union need to continue the cover-up.

After the district paid $100,000s of taxpayer dollars in legal fees to lawyers Dan Shinoff and Mark Bresee for their successful efforts to protect teachers and administrators who had committed crimes, the prevailing teachers apparently felt invulnerable. They delighted in their arbitrary power to do whatever they wanted and get away with it. What else could the district expect when it had fired a teacher (me!) simply for demanding an investigation, and for refusing to come back to work until something was done about the relentless harassment of me by teacher thugs.

Kids are being harmed every day in CVESD classrooms by cruel and/or incompetent teachers and administrators as well as those with faulty judgment. The district needs to take steps to prevent and mitigate harm to children.


Former CVE President Gina Boyd. See Gina Boyd's deposition HERE.


Robin Donlan, notorious along with her husband for $7 million Wireless Facilities stock options fraud case. See Robin Donlan's deposition HERE.

The rogue teachers were led by Robin Donlan, a personal friend of both Peg Myers and former CVE president Gina Boyd. Gina Boyd was a member in extremely good standing of the self-styled "Castle Park Family". The self-styled "Castle Park Family" resisted all efforts by a string of principals (averaging one principal per year for 11 years) to get them to settle down and do their jobs. I myself was a target of the ruling teachers. Administrators Libia Gil and Rick Werlin did the bidding of those teachers.

Before my lawsuit was even finished, five teachers were transferred out of the school during the summer of 2004. Stephanie Pettit was one of the "Castle Park Five" group that included the notorious Robin Donlan, Peg Myers, and Nikki Perez.

This district keeps finding that its favored employees have big problems. Perhaps an effective evaluation system for teachers would help? But no, that would interfere with the politics that currently guides employment decisions at the district. And the district wouldn't have hired Peg Myers if it didn't want to keep politics in the forefront of district decisions.

I doubt that the district will try to fire Mrs. Pettit. She knows too much about criminal actions by teachers and administrators. I predict a settlement.

And as far as the parent who says Stephanie should not teach again, I don't see how voluntarily giving a massage to a teacher could seriously harm a child. The situation is no more serious than if Stephanie were rewarding kids to fan her. The problem with the behavior is that the students are being asked to treat the teacher like a queen rather than a professional. The touching was clearly NOT sexual. It's only wrong because kids shouldn't be performing personal services for teachers--like combing hair, cutting hair, shining shoes, etc. Of course, Stephenie used poor judgment, but she's been taught by the district and the teachers union that she and other teachers with political connections are free to indulge any whim without repercussions.

A more important issue is that kids are being damaged by teachers every day in CVESD classrooms. There is psychological damage being done by cruel, rigid teachers who take pleasure in causing pain. Stephanie did not cause pain to the kids who volunteered to give her massages.

It would be interesting to know what else was happening when the kids were giving the teacher a massage. Was she teaching them at the same time? This could very well be the case. But there are so many classrooms where teachers spend huge amounts of time NOT interacting with their students that it would be very dangerous for anyone to criticize Stephanie even if she had not been teaching while receiving a massage. She could easily get plenty of witnesses to talk about the time wasted in classrooms while teachers are doing something other than teaching. I could write a book about it.

Stephanie deserves the due process than she herself helped to deny to me. Lawyer Dan Shinoff of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz took tax dollars for his successful efforts to keep Stephanie from being deposed in my case. I would be happy to deposed in any case she might file--which is exactly why I think that the district won't try to fire her. Here's my deposition in the current defamation lawsuit against me by Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz. Stutz is quite miffed, it seems, that the Court of Appeal says I have a constitutional right to discuss the lawyers who act on behalf of public schools.

Though I was not able to depose Stephanie, I was able to take the depositions of Castle Park Family members Gina Boyd, Peg Myers and Robin Donlan. (I recommend clicking on these links for these depositions if only to see the hilarious expressions on the faces of teachers who don't like being asked to tell the truth.)

NEWS COVERAGE

Channel 10 News and San Diego Union-Tribune have covered this story. Let's see if Channel 10 will investigate further the failure of school districts to do meaningful evaluations of teachers. The SDUT has been covering up for CVESD for years. I hope they will start to cover the real stories instead of only the sensationalistic ones.

EVALUATING TEACHERS

Researches say that 10% of teachers are doing a bad job, failing to add value to their students' academic abilities. Many teachers have serious personality problems. But the fact is that CVESD really doesn't know its teachers. I never met a principal who really observed and really talked to staff members to find out what they were up to.

It's time that ALL teachers in CVESD were properly evaluated.

Chula Vista teacher removed from job, accused of soliciting massages from students
Kandiss Crone
10 News
02/13/2014

CHULA VISTA, Calif. - Some parents at a South Bay elementary school told 10News they couldn't believe what their kids said went on inside their third-grade classroom.

"This behavior, to my son, has become so normalized that he did not report it to me," said parent Andy Stumph.

Some parents say Salt Creek Elementary School teacher Stephanie Petitt solicited massages from the students during reading time in exchange for $10 in class money. The parents also say Petitt also encouraged the third graders to give each other massages.

"The most children I've heard at any one time that was massaging the teacher was seven -- one on each leg, one on each arm, one on each shoulder, one playing with the hair," Stumph said.

The parents voiced their concerns at a school board meeting Wednesday night but weren't happy with the outcome, so they contacted 10News.

Chula Vista Elementary School District Superintendent Francisco Escobedo said Chula Vista police were called in to investigate but did not find any criminal wrongdoing.

"This behavior is absolutely not acceptable. We have professional standards at Chula Vista," Escobedo said.

Escobedo said Petitt is no longer teaching at the school, but is still employed with the district.

"She's on administrative leave; these allegations we take very seriously and we have to do due process to investigate," Escobedo said.

Parents say that's not enough, and they worry the teacher's actions could have a lasting impact on their kids.

"If there's a goal to be had ... Mrs. Petit would never be able to teach again," parent Samantha Trickey said.

Three parents pulled their children out of the school, 10News learned.

The district says a long-term substitute will replace the teacher.

Teacher on leave over massage claims
U‑T San Diego
Feb. 14, 2014 - She reported back to work Monday and taught her class after investigations by the Chula Vista Elementary School District and the Chula Vista ...

The death of teacher Teri Coffey: do CVESD and Chula Vista Educators contribute to stress of teachers?

Teri (Teresa) Coffey

Schools don't do much for the mental health of kids, but they do even less for the mental health of teachers. A few years ago, I was shocked at how officials at CVESD and Chula Vista Educators manipulated teachers at Castle Park Elementary to advance their own careers and protect their friends. Some fragile teachers were put under so much stress by powerful teachers and administrators that they lost touch with reality (or else they lost touch with their moral compass, which is also very psychologically damaging). Teachers were pulled aside at school and pressured to follow instructions by other teachers and by administrators. I remember one teacher whose voice got higher and higher over a period of a few months, as if she were reverting to childhood. She was selected to begin the drama at Castle Park Elementary, but many others were called upon before the crisis calmed down. In a better world, these frenzied teachers would have been given mental health care. They and their students deserve it.

The following is from the Allen Elementary School website:

It is with great sadness that we announce that one of our staff members passed away suddenly last weekend. Because school is out of session, there is not a personal way to inform our school community of this tragedy. We are mourning the loss of our beloved Miss Teri Coffey, 1st grade teacher and Safety Patrol Advisor.

Miss Coffey has been an integral part of our school community the past six years and before coming to Allen she taught at Castle Park Elementary for many years. Her wit, humor, and dedication to students are just a few of the qualities that touched our lives. As the author of the school's Allen Eagle Buddy Pledge, her legacy will be remembered each and every day. The service for Miss Coffey is planned for Friday, June 21 at 10:00am at the Glen Abbey Chapel of the Roses. Families that would like to pay their respects are welcome to attend. Miss Coffey's family requests that people wear bright colors or purple, her favorite color.

We will collect letters and condolence cards at the school and ensure they are given to her family. Condolence cards can be sent to the school. We will ensure they are given to her family.

Allen Elementary School
In Loving Memory of Teri Coffey
4300 Allen School Road
Bonita, CA 91902

Before the new school year begins in July, grief counselors will be available for students, parents, and staff. Those counselors will be at Allen on July 22 from 1:00-4:00 in the school library and private offices near the library. Miss Coffey will be greatly missed.



Teresa Lynn Coffey

Obituary
[Teresa Lynn Coffey Obituary]
Coffey, Teresa Lynn CHULA VISTA -- "TLC" was a beloved elementary school teacher, mother, daughter, sister, and grandma. Her motto was 'life's good' and she truly was the "Queen of Everything." A celebration of life will be this Friday, June 21, at 10:00 a.m. at Glen Abbey's Chapel of the Roses, Bonita. All who knew her are welcome. Please wear bright colors.

Published in U-T San Diego on June 19, 2013

Parents speak out at Castle Park Elementary Meeting

On Tuesday, May 27, 2008 parents spoke out at a meeting at Castle Park Elementary held for the purpose of finding out what traits they want to see in their next principal.

Quite a few parents said: someone just like Carlos Ulloa, the current principal forced to leave by angry teachers.

This morning, "Castle Park Family" teachers were in a fury when they learned from their close associate, Felicia Starr, that parents had spoken against teacher Nikki Perez.

This is ironic, since Nikki Perez famously and publicly asked the Castle Park community in 2004,"What did [I] do wrong?" At the time she and her pals in the "Castle Park Family" were involved in getting rid of Carlos Ulloa's predecessor, Oly "Ollie" Matos.

Parents want to answer Nikki's question, but Nikki doesn't want to hear it.

ADL and the Chula Vista Elementary School District

This program was tried at Castle Park Elementary soon after the Castle Park Five episode. It might have been more appropriate to teach these principles to the teachers! The bullying of principals (and other teachers) by the clique of teachers who called themselves the "Castle Park Family" resulted in eleven principals in eleven years at the school. Teacher bullies and a tiny group of parents also brought about a $20,000 embezzlement at the PTA and large amounts of tax dollars spent on defending teachers for criminal actions.

ADL and the Chula Vista Elementary School District: Working together to make the places we learn No Place for Hate®
May 31, 2012
ADL.org

The Chula Vista Elementary School District (CVESD) has participated in the ADL’s No Place for Hate® initiative since it was launched in San Diego in 2009. We celebrated another successful year with a Banner Presentation Ceremony at the CVESD Education Services and Support Center on May 23, 2012.

Assistant Superintendent Sandra Villegas Zuni began by commending all the educators and administrators for their commitment to providing a learning environment where students feel accepted and safe. Parents, Ms. Villegas Zuni said, entrust their children to the schools, and it is the responsibility of everyone in the school to honor that trust through programs that promote an appreciation for diversity and proactively address bullying.

Tina Malka, ADL Associate Director, spoke about the ADL’s mission to "to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all." ADL recognizes that in order to keep the Jewish community safe, we need to keep all communities safe. Ms. Malka thanked our CVESD partners for their commitment to combating intolerance, bullying, and hatred in their schools.

Antwon Lincoln, Coordinator of Instructional Technology, shared the District’s partnership with iSafe, which provides educational programs that empower students to safely, responsibly and productively use Information and Communications Technologies. iSafe is a valuable tool in addressing cyberbullying. Mr. Lincoln then introduced the winner of CVESD’s 2012 Speech Contest. The 6th grade students’ topic was “How will you positively impact the world?” The winner, Discovery Charter School’s Miguel Aldrete, spoke eloquently and engagingly about his efforts to combat deforestation, educate the youth about obesity, and “motivating for education.” Miguel uses the Internet to spread his message effectively in a positive way.

Representatives for several schools spoke about the No Place for Hate® activities they conducted throughout the year and the impact they have made on the students. The No Place for Hate® banners were then presented to individual schools.

We look forward to another successful partnership with the Chula Vista Elementary School District during the 2012-2013 school year!

Castle Park Elementary is second highest in district with 32 student suspensions per year

The teachers at Castle Park Elementary who called themselves the "Castle Park Family" created an atmosphere of hostility toward students and other teachers. The school has been suffering ever since that group of teachers came to power in the 1990s, even though most of those teachers have left the school, because the community lost faith in the school. Only five members of the "Castle Park Family" are still on the staff, but the "Family" still has power since one of its foremost members, Peg Myers, is now president of Chula Vista Educators.

"Upon review of other Safe School Plans — including Castle Park Elementary with the second highest district suspensions at 32 — previous plans often gave little or no detail regarding school crime.

Castle Park’s solely stated 'The district office publishes regular reports on school crimes and safety data.'"

District revamps safe school plans
By Ashly McGlone
San Diego Union-Tribune
October 22, 2010

CHULA VISTA — The state’s largest elementary school district is revamping the way it compiles its Safe School Plans.

Staff at Chula Vista Elementary School District announced a “call to action” at Tuesday night’s board meeting, laying out new efforts to ensure plans are compiled at school sites properly.

The annual plans — outlined in the California Education Code — require assessments of school safety based on the review of crime data, something that was not happening at some campuses.

Kellogg Elementary school site council member William Perno raised concerns over the plans at the district’s September board meeting, prompting the district to look into the matter.

Among other concerns, Perno cited incongruity with the plan and district-reported data on the California Department of Education website.

For the last two years, the plans at his school included the following statement on crime: “Crime at Kellogg Elementary School is minor and infrequent. Police reports of assault vandalism, theft or other crimes are rare. Graffiti is a minor problem.”

On the state website, 16 suspensions are noted at Kellogg Elementary in the 2008-09 school year, 12 of which are violence and drug related.

Upon review of other Safe School Plans — including Castle Park Elementary with the second highest district suspensions at 32 — previous plans often gave little or no detail regarding school crime.

Castle Park’s solely stated “The district office publishes regular reports on school crimes and safety data.”

Still, board member and Chula Vista Police Chief David Bejarano said on Tuesday that the city, and in turn its schools, are among the safest in the county.

“The City of Chula Vista, and obviously that includes the 44 schools we have in the district, remains one of the safest cities in the county... There’s only two cities — the cities of Coronado and Carlsbad — that have lower violent crime rates than we do; keep in mind we are the second largest city. And then overall, again, we are one of the safest cities in the county.” Bejarano said. He also cited the district’s partnership with the police department providing school resource officers as a district asset, as did other board members.

Nancy Kerwin, executive director of student, family and community services, district Spokesman Anthony Millican and Sgt. Carlos Valdivia presented the report, in which Valdivia gave the district an “A” rating, but improvements were nonetheless identified.

“In reviewing our Safe School Plans, we identified a number of weaknesses,” Kerwin said, citing inconsistency among the school plans, minimal review of crime data and staff unfamiliarity with Education Code requirements.

“Hence, we contacted Stephanie Papas with the California Department of Education’s safe school office and frankly declared that we believe our past plans are insufficient to meet our extremely high standards as a system,” she said. District, state and police crime data will be now be provided to schools.

District Spokesman Anthony Millican said the district will be using a nearly $300,000 federal grant recently awarded to fund the creation of a standardized Safe School Plan template, as well as staff training...

Peg Myers makes interesting claims; CTA continues to oppose use of scores to evaluate teachers

What is Peg Myers talking about? She relied on a tiny group of parents to justify the power of a tiny group of teachers to control principal after principal at Castle Park Elementary. CVESD Superintendent Lowell Billings reported at a board meeting that when he transferred Peg Myers, Robin Donlan, Nikki Perez and other members of the "Castle Park Family" out of the school, scores went up greatly.

Local Schools Weigh In On Reform Bill
January 6, 2010
Channel 10 News

SAN DIEGO -- The San Diego school system could be getting a major overhaul as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to sign a bill that would give parents more power to control what happens in their child's school.

While the state Senate approved a bill that could qualify the state for $700 million in federal stimulus money, some educators and experts feel the changes may not be worth the money.

At a glance, Lincoln High School does not measure up to other schools in San Diego County. The school's overall academic performance rating is at 587.

"It's not until you crack the 750, 800 mark can you be considered one of the elites in the city," said Lincoln High School Principal Mel Collins.,

Lincoln High could be one of the schools targeted by a new bill aimed at reworking state schools. The bill would give parents the power to petition to make sweeping changes, including having a principal removed or closing a school if its performance is not up to certain standards.

Sweetwater Union High School District Superintendent Jesus Gandara told 10News, "If you give one group all that power to say, 'we want this principal out,' without teachers having a say, without management having a say, there's a problem there."

"It should be a collective decision made by a number of different entities," said Collins.

Peg Myers of the California Teachers Association said, "We actually have great results in our schools, and that's because we do work with the parents."

The California Teachers Association opposes the state's plan, which would also make it easier for parents to transfer their children to another school...

25 Chicago middle school students jailed after food fight; lounge food fight by Chula Vista teachers

A comparison of two food fights, a recent brawl by students in Chicago and a 1999 outburst by teachers belonging to the "Castle Park family":

It took two janitors over a week to clean walls and shampoo rugs and upholstered furniture in the teachers lounge at Castle Park Elementary School after a small group teachers went wild after the students left on the last day of school in 1999. (The teachers never reimbursed the taxpayers.) The teachers brought the leftovers from class parties to the lounge, including lots of fruit punch and whipped cream.

These teachers ruled the roost at the school, getting rid of principal after principal that didn't do what the "family" wanted. One principal acceded to so many demands for spending that he plunged the school deep into debt and was fired. Another allowed teachers to engage in so many jailable actions that the district ended up in court for years defending those teachers. Principal Ollie Matos was hired to get the teachers under control, but the teachers union, Chula Vista Educators, prevented him from doing so.

25 Chicago Students Arrested for a Middle-School Food Fight
New York Times
By SUSAN SAULNY
Published: November 10, 2009

CHICAGO — The food fight here started the way such bouts do in school lunchrooms most anywhere: an apple was tossed, a cookie turned into a torpedo, and an orange plunked someone in the head. Within minutes, dozens of middle-school students had joined in the ruckus, and spattered adults were ducking for cover.

By the end of the day, 25 of the students, ages 11 to 15, had been rounded up, arrested, taken from school and put in jail. A spokesman for the Chicago police said the charges were reckless conduct, a misdemeanor.

That was last Thursday afternoon. Now parents are questioning what seem to them like the criminalization of age-old adolescent pranks, and the lasting legal and psychological impact of the arrests.

“My children have to appear in court,” Erica Russell, the mother of two eighth-grade girls who spent eight hours in jail, said Tuesday. “They were handcuffed, slammed in a wagon, had their mug shots taken and treated like real criminals.”...

Harsh disciplinarian=secret rule breaker?

Have you ever noticed that the teachers who are the most harsh disciplinarians of children, severely punishing minor infractions, are often also the most likely to break rules themselves?

In the teachers lounge at Castle Park Elementary a few years ago I saw the aftermath of a food fight by teachers on the last day of school. It took the custodians a week to clean the sticky soda, whipped cream and other food from the walls, carpets and upholstery. One of the participants in the fight explained to me that "we needed to let off steam." How could this teacher pass the age of forty without discovering some form of stress relief that didn't involve vandalism? And how could she show so much contempt for kids who failed on one occasion to finish their homework (she called them "losers"?

This teacher was a charter member of "The Castle Park Family," five of whose members were administratively transferred out of the school in August 2005. These teachers were not into good behavior, they were into power. They didn't lose their jobs; they were simply transferred to another school. But they themselves had caused a good many excellent teachers and principals to lose their jobs or be transferred out of the school.

The behavior of the Castle Park Family (a group that now has taken over Chula Vista Educators) is bullying, dishonest and disruptive, the sort of that would earn children a trip to the principals office for a lecture on playing well with others.

Not surprisingly, this same type of relationship, in which rule-breakers harshly enforce the rules over those below them, occurs in the relationship between CVESD district administrators and teachers.

The situation is somewhat analogous to the village in the new movie The White Ribbon which just won the grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival. (Is this analogy allowable, Mr. Shinoff? I'll grant you that the children in the movie are the generation that grew up to perpetrate the actions you don't want me to discuss, but surely I'm allowed to discuss the Palme d'Or prize winner without getting sued by your law firm!) Reuters describes the setting for the story: An inhuman, never questioned moral code holds sway, especially over the children who are constantly punished, both physically and psychologically, for the slightest infraction. The women are similarly brutalized and under the thumb of the village's unabashed patriarchy. The male adults, on the other hand, engage in clandestine acts of evil and cruelty that are kept hushed up...One day the order of things begins to unravel.

That last part about hushing up wrongdoing makes the analogy with Castle Park Elementary and CVESD complete.

Castle Park Elementary has been a big topic in the comments section of SD Education Report

Here is a recent post from San Diego Education Report. But the best part is the discussion in the comments section.


"Randolph "Randy" Ward and Diane Crosier are using public funds to advance Dan Shinoff's private lawsuit against this blogger"


A sampling of comments:

1. Anonymous said...

I know Maura. She went to San Diego High School in the 60s. She was the kind of girl who always got invited to the science fair, but never got invited to the prom. I don't remember talking to her. I just remember she was pretty quiet, the nut-genius type. Glasses. Long hair and sandals before the hippies, and very serious. I remember some girls followed her one day when she got off the bus, and it turned out she was stopping at a Catholic Church on the way home. Those were the days. Anyone could walk into a Catholic Church, 24/7. It was just like the Middle Ages, when all a hunted man had to do was get inside the railing in front of the altar, and suddenly he was safe from any bloodthirsty band that might be chasing him. No one would kill a man in the sanctuary of a church. Now it seems to be one of the favorite places to kill people.

But back to Maura. She must have been lonely, but what do you say to someone like that? She didn't know how to talk. Zero conversation skills. She talked to the few friends she had, but that's different. There's social skills, and then there's talking to your friends. Friends don't care if you say the right thing.

I remember she was a year younger than the rest of the class. Someone told me that when we were talking about her, as if that explained why she didn't fit in. Maybe it was part of it.

It seems pretty weird that SDCOE is suing her for harassment. That sure doesn't sound like Maura.

12:05 AM





2. Anonymous said...

Well she's not very quiet anymore. It's about time the authorities stepped in and shut down this cuckoo blog.

10:57 AM





3. Anonymous said...

I have experience with school attorneys, and I'm not saying they're all paragons of virtue, but I'm beginning to think that most of them are more decent than Daniel Shinoff and Diane Crosier.

11:28 AM




4. Anonymous said...

I will stongly support anyone who can put a stop to the accusations this woman tosses about. She needs psych meds and professional help. She will never stop, it will only get worse. Anyone who visits her sites can see that her thought processes are scattered, and borderline psychotic!

12:13 PM






5. Blogger Maura Larkins said...

If I were willing to keep my mouth shut about relatively mild wrongdoing, when the retaliation against me is probably going to be limited to the courtroom, what chance is there that I would have the courage to speak out if public officials began to engage in truly serious wrongdoing? To those who want me to be silent: should the citizens of Germany also have kept their mouths shut in the 1930s and '40s? It seems that you are afraid that the truth will come out. If I'm wrong, what do you have to fear? Come forward and address the issues. Prove me wrong. Let's have a public debate. Don't try to crush free speech; take part in the process!

12:20 PM





6. Blogger Maura Larkins said...

To Anonymous Commenter #4: Yes, I do need help. I need you to help me understand what you are talking about. Can you give me an example of a "borderline psychotic" statement I've made? Just one example? From the safety of your anonymity you should be able to do that.

12:43 PM





7. Anonymous said...

Those who disagree should prove her wrong with facts. If what she has written is slanderous than prove her wrong with facts.

To accuse someone of being psychotic is an old trick played out by school officials.

Here is the chance to prove her wrong. Lets find facts that prove her wrong and post them on her own website.

1:31 PM






9. Anonymous said...

One example and only one...you stated that Kelly Dupuis from the Star news stated a "parent" comented on the mexican parents. That comment was made by the then principal Ollie Matos. This comment was one of many the lead to his removal from Castle Park. You were wrong.

2:21 PM




10. Blogger Maura Larkins said...

Thank you for the example. Now we can look at the evidence. I just now looked up the September 10, 2004 issue of the Chula Vista Star-News, and found that reporter Kelly Dupuis quoted parent Felicia Starr as saying, "They [ELAC parents] really are involved with the school, and it would be nice to have them on there [the PTA], but not in an antagonistic way." For those who don't know what ELAC means, it's "English Language Acquisition Committee."

Here is the article.

It looks like I was right. Clearly, you were wrong. If we follow your logic, this would mean you are borderline psychotic, and should get medication and professional help. But this logic of yours is wrong; people can make a mistake without being crazy. Perhaps you have a better example of my scattered thought processes?

3:56 PM



11. Anonymous said...

So where does it say "Mexican parents"? And it was from an ELAC meeting in which the parents were very offended by what he said about them.

7:20 PM





12. Blogger Maura Larkins said...

Dear Anonymous:

The ELAC parents were Mexican, as you well know. Ollie Matos got along great with them. They were upset when "the Castle Park Family" got rid of Mr. Matos. The Mexican parents were also upset by the accusations of Felicia Starr in the Star-News article.

Felicia Starr accused the Mexican parents of printing illegal PTA ballots and hiding them. The parents thought they were allowed to nominate someone to the PTA board, and they weren't being sneaky about it. That's why Felicia Starr saw them at the copy machine--they were not hiding anything.

But perhaps Felicia Starr did the Mexican parents a favor by keeping them off the PTA board. Before the school year was out, $20,000 had been embezzled from the PTA. Kim Simmons, who was elected PTA president with Felicia Starr's help, was arrested for that crime. It certainly puts the accusations of Felicia Starr and Kimberlee Simmons into a fresh light, doesn't it?

Now there is no PTA at Castle Park Elementary. It seems that Kimberlee Simmons had a lot of enablers, including yourself, perhaps, but there is one group that can be completely ruled out as responsible: the Mexican parents.

9:06 PM





13. Blogger Maura Larkins said...

P.S. to Anonymous:

I am intrigued by your reference to an ELAC meeting. Can you tell me more about this meeting? I could do some research into the matter if you would give me more information. What was said that caused offense?

Are you claiming that I made a statement on my website about this ELAC meeting? What do you claim my statement was? Perhaps we could do a search of my website to see if its there.

9:17 PM



14. Anonymous said...

Just because a person is Latino or Hispanic does not make it ok to use the term "Mexican parent" for you to use it to describe the ELAC is disrespecful. Mr. Matos was the ONLY person who used that terminology. Till now, you keep referring to it. My point was no one used the WORD Mexican parent in those articles.

6:55 AM





15. Anonymous said...

There is nothing wrong with using the term “Mexican parent” and absolutely nothing disrespectful. Gee Wizz! What type of comment is this? This is crazy this comment takes me back 70 years. This is precisely what is wrong in San Diego most of the population is undereducated and misinformed. To suggest that a website should be taken down because someone used the word, “MEXICAN PARENT.” It is totally ludicrous and not surprising. It appears to be the same mentality of this judge, SDCOE and the Stutz law firm...






16. Blogger Maura Larkins said...

Dear commenter who thinks "Mexican parents" is a slur:

Clearly, the word "parent" is not a slur, right? So you think "Mexican" is a slur. Why would someone's ethnicity be a slur? But perhaps you don't think "English parents" or "Swedish parents" is a slur. So why would "Mexican parents" be a slur?


Perhaps you are not aware that Mexico was a cultured and wealthy capital of a great empire when the United States was a collection of log cabins. Fortunes come and go in this world, for countries as well as for individuals.

I suspect that you have spent your life in an environment in which "Mexican" was considered a slur. [Above portrait: Mexican Sor Juana de la Cruz]


You're not originally from California, are you? Of course, there are some native Californians who also think that way. Your type of thinking was well-represented among the staff at Castle Park Elementary in Chula Vista.

Do you know that you are making the same argument that Steve Carell (left), the clueless boss in "The Office" TV series, made?





In one episode, the doofus boss asked a Mexican employee (Oscar Nunez, left) what he wanted to be called instead of "Mexican." The employee said that it was fine to call him Mexican. Steve Carell continued to insist that "Mexican" was a slur. Isn't that exactly what you are doing?

10:47 AM








17. Anonymous said...

The parents Matos referred to were insulted by the comment, they expressed this to the district. If a person is offended by a particular comment, one should take care not to use it. And my point was...the WORDS "Mexican parents" were not in the article shown. And you had to turn it into a debate...figures

5:35 PM



18. Blogger Maura Larkins said...

I know several of the parents who were members of ELAC, and they all loved Mr. Matos. I suspect that the parents you are talking about were not regular members of ELAC, and were encouraged by Felicia Starr and Kim Simmons to go to an ELAC meeting and find something to complain about. Was Norma G. one of the parents who complained? The complaint is beyond bizarre. I can imagine what the district thought. Most Mexicans are proud to be Mexican, and don't consider "Mexican" to be a slur.

6:44 PM


Mexican Frida Kahlo






19. Maura Larkins said...

Dear Anonymous:

Now I'm curious. What term should I use to refer to Mexicans, if, as you claim, the word "Mexican" is offensive?

7:13 PM



20. Maura Larkins said...

In my bilingual class, 100% of my students were Mexican. In my twenty-plus years of teaching in Chula Vista I had one Puerto Rican student and one Spaniard, but I believe that all the ELAC parents at Castle Park Elementary were Mexican. Do you know of a non-Mexican Hispanic parent at Castle Park Elementary who made a complaint to the district? I suspect you don't, but if you do, the problem could have been solved by the parent simply raising his or her hand and saying, "I'm Guatemalan (or Cuban or some other nationality)." Who would go to the district to complain about something like that? Only someone who had a separate agenda.

11:30 AM

CVESD case discussed in "White Chalk Crime"

A new book mentions CVESD's illegal actions against Maura Larkins.

From "White Chalk Crime" by Karen Horwitz (page 596)

"California NAPTA member Maura Larkins corroborates this point when she commented on my legal case and discussed the abuse used to silence her: If you had done what I did, which was to refuse to come back to work until there was an investigation, I guarantee you would have been dismissed for refusing to come to work. They were delighted that I wasn't at work for an entire year--UNTIL I FILED SUIT.

"Then they claimed they had wanted me to be at work for that entire year. In fact, my dismissal specifically stated that by filing grievances, tort claims and a lawsuit, I had shown myself to be "unforgiving," an "irremediable character defect"!

"Once they target you, neither the truth nor the law matters. I love having the above statement about why I was fired in writing. It's a clear violation of the Constitution as well as state law. Can you believe that they openly and brazenly fired me for filing grievances, tort claims, and a lawsuit?"

CVESD paid $100,000s of tax dollars to obtain this decision and cover up the truth in the case. Attorney Daniel Shinoff, who was in charge of litigation for CVESD in San Diego Superior Court, wanted the case decided in the Office of Administrative Hearings. Attorney Mark Bresee pulled the job off with the help of phony documents.

Why don't I put my head in the sand, too?

The teachers at Castle Park Elementary want to forget about the crime wave that happened there.

I also would forget about it except for one thing: the culture that triggered these crimes is harming students. If it were just me, I'd forget it. The fact is that I witnessed CVESD's culture of teacher politics superseding the wellbeing of children for two-and-a-half decades before I myself fell victim to that culture.

At that time I learned that the problem isn't just small-minded teachers in the classrooms. It turns out that many of these power-hungry individuals have risen to positions of influence in both the administration and the teachers union. It seems that frequently (not always, of course) those who can't teach, administrate or unionize. What else can a poor or mediocre teacher do to succeed? Politics is the only way.

Felicia Starr, former school board candidate, involved once again in Castle Park Elementary principal attack

Felicia Starr (in pink sweatshirt), former CVESD board candidate, Chula Vista ethics committee member, Castle Park Elementary PTA president and site council chairperson who worked closely with Kim Simmons to attack the previous principal Ollie Matos in 2004, showed up at the meeting on May 27, 2008 at which parents discussed the traits they wished to find in their next principal.

Many of the approximately 50 parents at the meeting told district representative Dr. Leonard Hernandez that they want someone just like Carlos Ulloa, the current principal (who will be leaving next month).

But Felicia Starr and the "Castle Park Family" (a group of teachers and union honchos who have chewed up and spit out one principal after another for the past fifteen years, and forced many excellent teachers to leave, as well) made it impossible for Carlos Ulloa to stay.

Ann Folting is now a third grade teacher at Castle Park Elementary

All the efforts of the "Castle Park Family" to prevent principal Ollie Matos from instituting a more efficient use of an experienced teacher caused a lot of turmoil and cost a lot of money, but the computer teacher is now teaching third grade.

What did the Castle Park teachers accomplish?

They let Superintendent Lowell Billings know that he had seriously underestimated the danger of covering up their crimes in the Maura Larkins case. The district had empowered them tremendously, and rewarded them for dishonesty.

When they turned on the district and Lowell Billings himself, it seems to have come as a great shock to Lowell. He became more hands-off than ever, while going around talking about his "hands-on" approach to his job.

Is the teacher culture at Castle Park Elementary still one of secrecy? Obviously. But the teachers who are there now have learned that they might be able to push Lowell Billings around, but Carlos Ulloa seems to be another story.