CVESD principal (and former lawyer) Monica Sorenson leaves in the middle of the school year

Why did Monica Sorenson depart CVESD suddenly in the middle of the school year?

I noticed a few days ago that a law firm in Los Angeles was reading up on Monica Sorenson (on my blog). Is Monica thinking of returning to the practice of law--and leaving education altogether? Well, she might return to the practice of law, but that does not necessarily mean she'd be leaving the field of education entirely. The law firm that was looking at my blog, Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, employs education attorneys.


Tiffany principal Charlie Padilla also left
in the middle of the school year

I also thought it was odd that Tiffany principal Charlie Padilla left in the middle of the year in December of 2010. It seems somewhat a dereliction of duty. What exactly would propel a principal to make such a move?

In case anyone is wondering, Monica Sorenson was on the Chula Vista Educators board of directors when this grievance was filed. Even though she was a lawyer, CTA was able to keep her in line, assuming that she ever objected to illegal actions. I think she was wrong not to blow the whistle on serious wrongdoing by teachers and the district. But I'm sure her ascent at CVESD would have been curtailed if she'd reported the illegal actions to the authorities. The original, unhacked grievance that Monica ignored can be seen here.

Del Mar district names new principal for Torrey Hills
By Michelle Breier
SDUT
Jan 10, 2014

DEL MAR — The Del Mar Union School District has named Monica Sorenson as principal of Torrey Hills School.

Sorenson comes to the Del Mar district with five years of experience as a principal, most recently at Chula Vista Hills Elementary, officials said. Before that, she was a teacher for 10 years.

Chula Vista Hills Elementary, under Sorenson’s leadership, received numerous awards and accolades for its academic and wellness achievements.

The Del Mar district said Sorensen is known as a principal who works well with parents, teachers and the greater community to create positive and dynamic learning environments in which students excel.

Sorenson takes the place of Barbara Boone, who left Torrey Hills to take a position as director of curriculum and instruction at the San Diego County Office of Education

Here is the hit on my blog from Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton

IP Address 12.146.203.# (Sheppard, Mullin, Richter& Hampton)
ISP AT&T WorldNet Services
State : California
City : Los Angeles
Operating System Microsoft WinNT
Browser Internet Explorer 9.0
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/5.0)
Javascript version 1.3
Time of Visit Jan 8 2014 8:45:03 am
Last Page View Jan 8 2014 8:54:06 am
Visit Length 9 minutes 3 seconds
Page Views 2
Referring URL http://www.google.co...
Visit Entry Page http://cvesdreporter...-sorenson-hired.html
Visit Exit Page http://cvesdreporter...-sorenson-hired.html
Visit Number 34,339

Top-down decision making masquerades as "site-based management"

I recently noted that Richard Hanks and Monica Sorenson have become principals at Chula Vista Elementary School Disrict. I suspect this is an omen that top-down decision making will continue, and will continue based on the same principles of doing what's best for the people in charge.

Former Superintendent Libia Gil remade the district in her own image, and it has remained the same even though she herself was pushed out in March 2002. [I suspect she was pushed out not because she broke the law, but because she made such a mess while doing so.]

Gil beat the union (Chula Vista Educators) by co-opting and corrupting its leaders, specifically Jim Groth, Virginia (Gina) Boyd, Tim O'Neill and the board of directors.

See Site-based management for a peek at some of Libby Gil's cheerleaders.

It was obvious all along that neither Libby Gil nor her assistant superintendent Lowell Billings believed in the democratic principles they were spouting to sell site-based management. Chula Vista Elementary School District's Superintendent Lowell Billings apparently watched closely and learned from his predecessor Libia Gil, who managed to increase her power without ever saying much of anything.

Billings continues to promote the system as implemented at CVESD, which always involved top-down decision-making, never democracy at the school site.

It also involved laziness and neglect. So things would often get out of hand at various schools, and then the district office would swoop in and fire people, or, if they were political allies, bring them back to the district office for their own protection.

In 2008 CVESD superintendent Lowell Billings had a new problem. The school that was trying to make its own decisions was a charter school. The staff didn't think that principal Erik Latoni should make all the decisions.

Once again, Lowell wanted to swoop in and take control. He threatened to to terminate the charter of Feaster Elementary School because the people who run the school actually work at the school. Instead of "site-based decision-making," this is now being called "a conflict of interest" by Mr. Billings. The meaning of the words changes whenever the people in charge feel it's necessary.

It's probably worthwhile to note that CVESD rehired Daniel Shinoff of Stutz, Artiano Shinoff & Holtz in 2008. Apparently the board was impressed with Shinoff's work at MiraCosta College. I notice a striking similarity in the arguments used to attack Feaster Elementary and the arguments used to justify the actions of the majority-bloc of trustees at MiraCosta.

Richard Hanks and Monica Sorenson hired as principals at CVESD

Monica Sorenson

UPDATE JAN. 2014:

Monica Sorenson has suddenly left her job as principal of Chula Vista Hills Elementary to go to Del Mar. Charlie Padilla also left his job as principal of Tiffany Elementary in the middle of the 2010-2011 school year.

Charlie Padilla

ORIGINAL POST:

Two of the three new principals at Chula Vista Elementary School District are political players. They have both shown loyalty to the longtime board majority.

You might be surprised that one of them, Monica Sorenson, is described as a "union leader," but that doesn't really mean much unless you think that CVESD school officials and CVE union leaders don't play footsie behind closed doors.

Richard Hanks is the former husband of former CVESD superintendent Libia Gil.


Chula Vista district has new principals
By Chris Moran,
San Diego Union-Tribune Staff Writer
June 18, 2009

Three new principals have recently been
appointed to run campuses in the Chula
Vista Elementary School District.

Richard Hanks, who had been
principal at Palmer Way Elementary
School in National City, will lead
Hedenkamp Elementary in eastern
Chula Vista.

Monica Sorenson, who had been a
teachers union leader in the district,
will serve as principal of Chula Vista Hills
Elementary.

Del Merlan, an educator from Central
California, has been appointed principal
of Casillas Elementary. Five associate
principals also were promoted to
principal.

The school year begins July 27.

Why is CVE trying to hide the identities of its president and VP?

I knew that Chula Vista Educators had just last week finished counting the votes after its second election in one year to choose a vice president.

I called them up this morning. A cheery woman's voice greeted me, "CVE!"

"I was wondering, who is the new vice-president of CVE?"

Without missing a beat, the woman said, "Peg Myers."

"I thought she was the president," I said.

Also without missing a beat, the woman said, "Yes, she is."

Clearly, this woman had a well-prepared script.

"Then who is the vice-president?" I asked.

"Monica Sorenson."

I thanked her, and began to wonder why CVE is trying to pretend that Jim Groth is still president (he was reelected president in 2007, a few months ago), and that Peggie Myers is still his vice president (she was elected vice president a few months ago). Jim Groth resigned after a couple of months to take a seat on the California Teachers Association board of directors.

I must assume that Peggie Myers told the receptionist to try to hide the truth. Peggie Myers is a forceful advocate for hiding the truth. When she was CVE representative for Castle Park Elementary, she made it clear that teachers had to report to her any contact they had with me. She worked hard to make sure that the truth was kept under wraps about crimes committed at the school. But she didn't succeed despite tremendous effort.

Now Myers seems to think that by continuing to cover up facts that can not be covered up, she will avoid having to deal with the fallout from her past actions. She and Jim Groth and Monica Sorenson would be wiser to quit pretending, and simply apologize and repair the harm they've done.

Monica Sorenson, by the way, was a lawyer (though currently inactive), so perhaps she's had a lot of practice at hiding information. It would appear that this is what the teachers of Chula Vista want.

And we wonder why young people grow up today without moral compasses.