Update 3/5/08: This post now has 2,003 comments! However, it has exceeded the capacities of our server and has been truncated recently at about 1,529 posts. But one of our readers has stepped up to the plate and painstakingly copied all of the comments into three NEW posts:
- SAUSD-Mijares corruption thread, 2008 Comments
- SAUSD-Mijares corruption thread, 2007 Comments
- SAUSD-Mijares corruption thread, 2006 Comments
We have also started a NEW open SAUSD thread, which I hope our readers will post to regarding new SAUSD news and views.
You can also go to our home page and go to the right column. Click on “SAUSD Posts” and you can get links to ALL of our past SAUSD articles.
I must say, I am amazed at the stories that have been posted on this blog in the wake of Al Mijares’ exit from the Santa Ana Unified School District. I am posting this item merely to give SAUSD bloggers a place to post their comments. Post away my friends – we have an opportunity now to finally do away with the corruption left over from the Mijares regime. Change is at hand, but we must remain resolute.
I noted that someone affiliated with the SAUSD administration recently posted a threat on this site – alleging possible legal action against SAUSD employees who post anonymously on this site. That is despicable and a form of terrorism. Do not let fear restrain any of you from revealing the truth.
The final challenge we face in Santa Ana is to replace Mijares with someone competent. We won’t have another opportunity like this anytime soon. This process must be open and focused and whatever else happens we must keep Audrey Noji out of the Superintendent’s position. As a member of the Cerritos College faculty and a member of the teacher’s union at that campus I opposed her when she tried to get a job at our campus. If she goes after the SAUSD superintendent post I will do so again. I know we can do better!
All of my children are in the SAUSD system. For their sake and that of all schoolchildren in the district, I urge those who are rebelling against the last vestiges of Mijares’ broken empire to keep the information flowing and to do whatever it takes to ensure that our next superintendent will be up to the task. Mijares certainly was over his head throughout his doomed tenure.
Here is how they handled the lying, fraud and corruption down in Capo;
http://www.fulldisclosure.net/flash/VideoBlogs/VideoBlog17.php
# 823
While your link didn
#824
Why are you placing the entire burden on the teachers to come forward? The Washington incident should light a firestrom in this community and demand accountability of its elected officials.
It’s been two years since the Remington scandal broke. Why the reoccurance of altering class rosters? CSR has been in place for nearly a decade, at the elementary and high school level, is it possible that there’s been confusion and errors throughout the lifetime of CSR at SAUSD?
I applaud the Washington teachers that stepped out of the district’s corrupt shadow. It’s time parents and community reciprocate with a show of support for these brave and courgeous educators. We weclome those teachers hiding in the dark to seek the light.
# 825
I absolutely agree. I was not placing the entire burdon onto teachers, but of all staff members from A-Z.
But you can’t change the truth that the teachers are the “leaders”. They lead the children who in turn go home and tell parents about what their teachers do. Kids don’t go home and tell parents what the principal, superintendent, or board officials do.
Parents in our community, in all frankness, need to get more involved. In some cases they have, but many are afraid to confront “officials” for obvious reasons. Some won’t even report being crime victims for those same reasons.
All parents need to understand, especially through their children’s teachers, that this is not the way schools are supposed to be run and they can come forward and complain. The teachers are the “leaders” that the parents and community will listen to. That is why my comment was directed primarily at teachers.
It would be nice to see the DA or city officials become alarmed at this latest revelation of fraud. Teachers can resist the intimidation, but change-agents have to be found everywhere – from the community leaders, lawmakers, parents and taxpayers. They are the ones who need to organize. Capistrano had a lot of community wealth and resources to put together a hard hitting campaign. In Santa Ana, what is missing in wealth must be made up in heart and courage.
Union President David Barton is a very good leadership example. He will be hard pressed to keep those teachers from being retaliated against. If the principal was coerced, his life and job will be miserable as well, until momentum can build.
Let’s ask the same of honest principals and administrators: step up and reveal the misdeeds. Leave clues if you need to. Maybe the time for sweeping out the corruption and incompetence has come.
We should all be grateful that Art put this community service blog up to help fix the district.
Staff who have had their jobs threatened, who have suffered sleepless nights because of intimidating tactics and who just want to have the harassment go away are out there in big numbers. We all know it.
This unacceptable atmosphere of threats and bullying has kept us silent and shameful. But as we have learned with the cases of Pedophile Priests, the first one coming forward is a shock to the system. But with time, more and more will come out and say “me too. that happened to me”.
Tell your colleagues to tell each other. start building your cases against all the wrongs suffered in silence. No employee should have to work in a Hostile Workplace and it is time to assert our rights to a dignified learning organization for our students, the consumers.
Here is an excellent resource on Principals who try and bully teachers in the workplace.
Breaking the Silence: Overcoming the Problem of Principal Mistreatment of Teachers. You can read it online.
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=G2WaoKBJ0_0C&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=lawsuits+workplace+bullying&ots=UQ-Bgzhcs-&sig=eozq42iFXc0LmmHUX2ScBvE0n8w
Nativo Lopez morphed into Al Mijares who morphed into Audrey Noji and Rob Richardson. Now it is apparint this has morphed into Jane Russo.
It goes on and on and on….
It is all about corruption. Not individuals. Rather there is somethin systemic that keeps repeating itself despite the flushing out of individual corrupt leaders.
I am so grateful that the LA Times, OC Register and Orange Juice blog is staying on top of this.
http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-classsize3apr03,1,1443234.story?coll=la-news-learning
Allegations that the Santa Ana Unified School District falsified documents to retain state funding for small classes mushroomed Monday, with teachers from more than half a dozen elementary schools saying they were asked to sign inaccurate rosters to make their classes appear smaller.
Meanwhile, documents emerged showing that district officials, including Supt. Jane Russo, had been aware of teachers’ concerns about the rosters for more than a month and that the teachers union was offered a series of inaccurate legal justifications for the policy that created phantom classes.
The cash-strapped district could face a large financial hit if it fails to submit documentation to state officials by May 4 showing that kindergarten through third-grade classrooms maintained an average 20:1 student-teacher ratio for the school year. The state already had given the district $16 million based on that assumption.
The controversy became public last week after a Times article detailed the district’s attempt to meet the 20-students-per-teacher cap by creating separate class rosters and apparently misusing substitute teachers to make it appear that class sizes were reduced.
The problem arose in part because class sizes didn’t shrink as expected.
Eight teachers at Washington Elementary School acted as whistle-blowers, stepping forward after they were asked to sign attendance rosters that omitted several of their students.
Documents revealed that school officials created a second-grade roster of students for a class that didn’t exist. The phantom classroom appeared to reduce the number of second-graders in existing classrooms
Although # 831 only posted the first page of the 3 page news article, if you take the time to read it all, it is very clear that Chestnut administration as well as local principals at the schools knew exactly what they were doing.
Within the article the LA Times lists other schools with teachers who have come forward. Included in this list was Remington. The teacher at that school refused to comply. A copy of his letter to the principal is on page 3 of the article.
Remington was caught 2 years ago playing 3 card monte with absent/tardy slips.
After this latest information does anyone doubt that there are many more schools within the district involved? The district did not just select these 6 schools. Perhaps many of the schools refused to follow the plan, but the 16 million in question came from more than just 5 elementary schools involving 1-5 students.
I never thought I would agree with Mr. Palacio, but he states this may include 9th grade reduction programs as well. Mr. Palacio also took exception with the district hiring its own audit firm (one that has done business with the district before) to investigate this matter. I agree with Mr. Palacio in that this is letting the fox in with the chickens.
I hope other teachers will continue to come forward even if they refused to follow the program. This has to be district wide and there will never be a better chance than now to show how deep the corruption at Chestnut really is.
How many other programs have been manipulated for money? The district needs an independant investigation by the state, not by a firm hired by the district.
No doubt the paper is flying to cover up what hasn’t already been discovered.
Leapin’ Lizards, a $16 million dollar clerical error? As this story unfolds it’s difficult to reconcile the act of a principal asking a teacher to falsify rosters as a clerical error. Or explain away how forms were filled out as a clerical error
I wonder how much money the district will dump into attorney fees to clear up this $16 million dollar error?
Making up fake rules/regulations/guidelines is a hallmark of incompetence. These
Low Incidence funds for blind and deaf students in the district never reach the targeted students who deserve the monies. The district
Anonymous Says:
4/03/2007 11:55 AM
I have seen excellent educators on some of the
Anonymous Says:
4/03/2007 10:14 AM
With a child in the district, and having dealt with inept and evasive SAUSD officials before over the Godinez/Valley issue, I can say that this is definitely more of the same from new Superintendent Russo. As a Santa Ana booster and believer in public education, I
Audrey Noji knows how much money goes to lawyers who have to handle rotten administrator
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1640967.php
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Auditor to review Santa Ana class sizes
San Diego-based accounting firm will begin the audit Thursday, officials said.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
SANTA ANA- Santa Ana Unified has chosen an auditor to determine whether the district followed state law when dozens of class sizes were increased even though the district receives funding to keep classes small, officials said today.
San Diego-based accounting firm Nigro, Nigro and White will review the district’s attendance sheets as well as a controversial policy adopted in February that teams up substitutes with teachers in order to lower student-to-teacher ratios.
The audit will start Thursday and could last a month or longer, Superintendent Jane Russo said.
“What we need to find out is if this new method of tracking student attendance is an acceptable practice,” said school board member Audrey Yamagata-Noji.
Nigro, Nigro and White has previously worked with Santa Ana and other county districts, auditing budgets and other education-related financing. The district will pay for the audit, but the cost still has not been determined, Russo said.
County and state officials said they will review the audit’s findings to determine if Santa Ana Unified will face sanctions or receive less funding from the state class-size reduction program.
The state began contacting Santa Ana Unified last week about the district’s class-size reduction program after several teachers came forward with allegations that principals asked them to sign class rosters of 20 students when up to 26 students were actually assigned to the classrooms.
Under state law, districts receive $1,024 per year per student if schools limit class sizes to 20.5 students in kindergarten through third grade.
District officials said that students were taken off rosters because of the new policy to add substitutes to 27 elementary schools to team up teachers.
Jeffrey Goldberg, a second-grade teacher at Sepulveda Elementary, said the team teaching program doesn’t really work because the regular teachers are still responsible for report cards, parent meetings and the bulk of class work for all students.
State officials have said that a provision in the law allows for districts to bring in teachers to work in teams to reduce ratios, but doing so would require the per-student funding to be cut to $512 annually.
Remington Elementary third-grade teacher Shenandoah Lynd said administrators told him to remove one student from his roster and place him on paper in another class in order to keep his class below the 20.5 student mandate.
“I didn’t really care about having 21 students in my class. I am not complaining that I am overworked,” he said. “I just don’t want to lie about it.”
Chris Anderson, the district’s human resources director, said teachers were never coerced into signing anything they felt was inaccurate.
Teachers always had the option of not participating in the team teaching program, she said.
Anderson said she has spent much of this week visiting elementary campuses to hear teacher concerns.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6687 or fleal@ocregister.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-classsize4apr04,1,1901988.story?coll=la-news-learning
Official apologizes over class-size furor
An administrator for Santa Ana schools tells teachers that rosters will be corrected to reflect the true number of students in class.
By Seema Mehta, Times Staff Writer
April 4, 2007
A Santa Ana Unified School District administrator has apologized to grade school teachers for a district policy that called for falsifying class rosters in order to retain state funding for small classes, and pledged that rosters would be corrected to accurately reflect the number of students in each classroom, according to teachers and a union official.
The apologies were delivered during meetings at at least six elementary schools and came just days before independent auditors were to begin investigating the district’s class-size reduction program.
The probe was prompted by a Times report that the district falsified documents and misused substitute teachers in an effort to retain the $16 million in state funding it receives for keeping kindergarten through third-grade classes at an average ratio of 20 students per teacher.
Teachers at the grade schools said their classes were actually much larger than the district was contending
We have Christine Anderson apologizing and assuring the teachers that they will not be blamed and we have the BOE using their same old auditor to review the books.
It is like the district is bi-polar. Sincerity on one hand and business-as-usual on the other.
When does Jane Russo get to be the real superintendent and have a chance to make a major decision like an unrelated and totally independent audit to ferret out problems in the system?
District parasites made sure that a cover up continues. Or at least that is the appearance of it.
Jane has either been underestimated as being a patsy who will just serve as the front man for the injustices that will swirl from this established system of deception. Or she’ll continue to deliver cover for them.
Like the teachers are faced with on a daily basis: Will she sell her soul under the pressure of intimidation and overstepping by district insiders, or will her moral compass get the best of her and make her assert her right to lead with integrity?
Everyone’s watching.
Great job, Art.
I see you are getting more hits here than last year. You have by far, the most information, news and related comments about the SAUSD than anywhere else on the web.
You are a change agent for our community. Must continued success to you.
According to the LA Times latest report (04-04-07)the Human Resources administrator is running around to all the schools with her hat in her hand apologizing all over the place for the districts inadvertent mistake.
These are pretty contrary statements to her first public responses to the allegations. Not to mention first responses of Jane Russo’s, Lopez’s, Trigg’s, and others.
They got caught with their hand in the cookie jar! It was about as inadvertent as some of the other things reported on this blog.
It doesn’t take a lawyer to know that if you are falsifying public documents and coercing others to sign those documents, you are breaking the law!
Contrary to some comments here, Jane Russo is no beginner as a top administrator. She worked in this district before and came back to work under Mijares for quite a long time.
This scandal was concocted long after Mijares was gone and they got caught! Now they are “buying” the audit firm to review it???
If some heads do not roll over this scandal in 6 months it will be back to business as usual. The district and school administrators who went along with this should be gone!
Jane Russo issues a statement on the district website:
http://www.sausd.k12.ca.us/news/docs/2007-04-03_district_csr_editorial.pdf
Santa Ana Unified School District
Well isn’t that nice. Ms. Russo has put out a very long open letter outlining the justifications for violation of law. I notice the OC Register managed to get this out the same day whereas they have been a day or two late and a dollar short on the original story.
In this letter Ms Russo says roughly no fraud or deceit was made by the district or false rosters submitted to the state to try and secure funds for attendance. I can’t think of any other reason for creating false rosters. This long explanation of trying to be in compliance with the 20-1 ratio is motivated totally for obtaining funds. Otherwise they would not have dreamed up the scheme in the first place!
Why would they continue the practice if they were short on substitutes if they weren’t concerned about the money? If they thought the program was absolutely legal why would they allow teachers to refuse to go along with it? It would have been district policy and required just like other teaching policies.
Ms. Russo goes on to say they are PROACTIVELY hiring an “independent” audit firm to assure they are in compliance and correct any “inadvertent mistakes”.
If by PROACTIVE you mean you got caught and are trying to cover your collective butts, I’ll buy that. If by an independent firm you mean a firm that has never done business with the district before, I do not think so.
Does not this district employ a number of law firms, a superintendent, and other executives to know the education law and maintain compliance? Isn’t that their job? What are we paying Ms. Russo over $200,000 a year for if she doesn’t really know the difference?
Ms. Russo then goes on to toss out a wave of numbers and statistics about how the program was implemented and why. She isn’t even sure if they hired 55 or 60 substitutes, just “about” that many. If she doesn’t even know that number as far as I’m concerned the rest of her numerical explanation is about as worthless.
The words of this open letter were obviously selected carefully to minimize culpability and administrative involvement. If anyone is buying it then you deserve what you get in the future.
There has been a concerted effort to remove exceptional teachers out of the SAUSD mainstream. Some will find sanctuary in the chosen schools, others find their way out of a school district that does not like or respect the community here in Santa Ana. That
Anyone else think that Mijares has got to be thankful that he’s out of this mess?
Russo now gets to be the whipping boy for district incompetence and public humiliation of fraud.
4-1-2007/ 11:35
You wondered about the district preventing the new graduating administrators class from Concordia and who may have had input:
Frances Clear Byfield is a part time instructor for Concordia. Was she the one responsible for the message that Concordia Administrator students cannot conduct professional action research projects in their own schools? Sounds like an arbitrary, control issue that probably was not generated by Superintendent Russo. Issues like this are not happening in
Anonymous Says:
4/05/2007 7:54 AM
The grievance process is totally useless in this district. It is dysfunctional and anyone with a modest amount of competence and a small measure of self motivation to learn from mistakes could fix it.
For anyone who does not know about a
Time to audit what this district is paying out in attorney fees. They seem to be the group that is benefiting the most from this disfunctional organization.
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/local/santaana/article_1642695.php
Here are comments from a Wilson teacher to the Register:
Thank you for your series of articles about SAUSD. It is unfortunate that SAUSD administration has become so focused on finances that they have lost the moral foundation of looking to provide the best possible educational experience for every student. After reading Ms. Russo’s editorial yesterday, I sent her the following email and sent copies to SAUSD board members.
Dear Ms. Russo, I can understand your desire to make the current class-size reduction fiasco look like it was all good decision-making with a view to providing the best for our students, but your editorial isn’t factual. You state Our traditional process, had we enough classroom space, would have included forming new classes with a new teacher to continue Class Size Reduction. Because we did not have the classroom space in order to meet CSR requirements, long-term substitutes were assigned to 27 of the District’s 36 elementary schools where classrooms exceeded the 20-to-1 ratio. This is not true. There is PLENTY of classroom space at Wilson. At Wilson, there are several empty classrooms yet we have two substitutes working phantom-style even to this very day! Wilson has the available space and yet no new classes were formed with new teachers. Why? Perhaps you were uninformed. Perhaps our principal never told you of the many empty classrooms at our site.
Sincerely yours,
Guy Swentek
Wilson Elementary
Ms. Russo nor any SAUSD board members have replied to my email. I believe that SAUSD chose not to hire teachers and tried to use substitutes and spurious documentation to receive the maximum funding while providing less than an adequate education for the affected students.
Sincerely, Guy Swentek 2nd grade teacher Wilson Elementary
I have had a few requests for a new version of Orange Juice in Spanish, but by utilizing a free service from Google.com, I have been able to translate our entire site into Espa
That open letter from Jane Russo was a joke. No way did she craft that thing. Let
Qui Tam Actions
An employee who knows that his or her employer is defrauding the government can file a lawsuit to uncover the fraud, and may be entitled to a percentage of the government
Does this organization have an organizational flow chart for accountability? It is set up perfectly to let anyone making over six figures avoid having to take responsibility. If there is an organizational chart it has got to look like the genealogy of some incestuous cult. A big mish mash of high paid loafers that refer inquiries to other high paid loafers who won
Christine Anderson gets to do Juan Lopez
#854
Does that include school district lawyers and other private contractors?
The union might have enough information to go after the bad people supporting this misuse of public education funds.
I don’t agree that Christine Anderson “gets” to do Lopez’s dirty work. I actually feel she is mutually involved. But as the lowest rung on the ladder she has been forced to go out to the schools and grovel. Remember it was Andersons statement that said 24 schools were involved in this program.
Let us return to the original Times article (s)
Lopez called the substitute plan “teaming,” a process in which a substitute teacher assists a classroom teacher for a portion of the day.
The substitute may spend two or more hours in different classrooms each day assisting various teachers, said Lopez and Christine Anderson, the district’s executive director of human resources.
Anderson said the district had a severe shortage of substitute teachers, so administrators would look into whether similar practices were occurring in the other 24 elementary schools that use substitutes to meet the class-size reduction criteria.
“Clearly, we’ll need to do an investigation,” Anderson said. “If we need to not have subs help with [class-size reduction], we’ll have to do that.”.
In a subsequent Times article Anderson was quoted as stating.
Around the same time, Christine Anderson, the district’s executive director of human resources, told Isensee that the moves were permitted under a formula that allowed the district to receive $512 per child for students who spend half a school day in a classroom with 20 or fewer students, Isensee said. One of the ways to accomplish this was to have a substitute help out for half the day.
In yet a later article Anderson was quoted as stating.
Anderson said she was telling teachers that the district made an “inadvertent mistake”; no one at the schools would be blamed for the matter; the substitute teachers hired to assist in class-size reduction efforts would be allowed to stay; teachers’ attendance rosters would be corrected; and that teachers shouldn’t sign any inaccurate rosters.
To me that seems as if Anderson was part of the original team justifying the situation. Now that the oatmeal has hit the osterizer she has been sent out to try and smooth it all over.
Remember in these articles it was stated
Union President David Barton characterized such statements as disingenuous.
After receiving calls from concerned teachers in four district schools, Barton said he asked district officials more than two weeks ago to provide a legal justification for the practice and has yet to receive a response. He said the union plans to consult its attorneys about the matter.
At a February meeting with Russo and Juan M. Lopez, assistant superintendent of human resources, union officials raised concerns about the altered rosters and the use of substitute teachers and were told that the actions were permissible under the California Education Code, said Jennifer Isensee, who handles grievances for the union.
And let us not forget Triggs great quote.
“In business, you can raise prices or increase sales,” said Donald Trigg, associate superintendent of business services. “Our only source of revenue is students.”
This whole issue of using substitute teachers in place of highly qualified credentialed teachers is another area of fraud. The district, in order to save money, often fills positions with substitute teachers for the entire year rather than hiring fully credentialed teachers. Substitute teachers are only allowed to teach 30 days straight in a classroom. They are identified as Staff-10, Staff-11, etc. At the end of 30 days, in order to keep the substitute in the classroom, the number of the staff position is often changed. Most secondary schools in the district have at least one postion that has been filled the entire year with substitutes. The district saves money, but it is at the expense of students. The district will say it’s because they can’t find highly qualified credentialed teachers. Not true – we have lost many highly qualified credentialed teachers due to declining enrollments and then come back in the fall to see substitutes in their place for the full year.
# 859
If what you say is true, wouldn’t that be an issue for the union to explore? A sub for a whole year sounds like more fraud of some kind too…
Anonymous Says:
4/06/2007 8:06 PM
What’s interesting with the phantom roster debacle is that the often quoted mantra of administrators “what’s best for kids” seems to have been quietly forgotten. Why has no one at the district expressed concern for the students? This debacle certainly has not been in the students’ best interests. One of the requirements of No Child Left Behind is that all students be taught by highly qualified teachers. Substitute teachers, according to NCLB, do not qualify as highly qualified teachers. In all of the district rhetoric, no one has expressed any concern whatsoever about hiring credentialed teachers vs. substitute teachers. This was all about saving money for the district coffers and always has been. They had no intention of actually creating the classes. They just took the money, paid the substitutes, and used the balance of the money to help balance the district budget. Such a sham.
This is the latest article from the Sat. LA TIMES:
——————————-
Santa Ana teachers give a lesson in honesty
For eight instructors, the ethics of signing false class rolls outweighed the district’s instructions.
April 7, 2007
There must be a logical explanation, the teacher told herself. A bookkeeping mistake or some other oversight.
Why else would her second-grade class roster not include the names of students who were still in class? Why hadn’t someone told her ahead of time about the situation? And what would she do when the office wanted her to sign off on a pupil roster that she knew was inaccurate?
From that set of seemingly benign circumstances, a mini-scandal erupted in the Santa Ana Unified School District when it was learned that district officials falsified rosters in a number of classes so they would get state funding for lowering class sizes.
Over the last 10 days, The Times has reported the shenanigans. A school district administrator apologized last week.
Policy is one thing. What has interested me from the start was the decision by several of the teachers first to confront their bosses over the issue and then, when nothing was done after a few weeks, to go public.
I sought out one of the teachers to serve as unofficial representative of the group, to discuss a situation that could face an employee in any company: What to do when you think your bosses are being unethical?
Remain silent? Or do you buck your superiors and risk repercussions? Even if that means that your school district might get a black eye?
For this teacher, the course became clear. Which didn’t mean it was easy.
“I definitely agonized over it,” she said as we talked in her home last week. “I knew by not signing the roster, I was making a statement. By not signing it, it’s almost like you’re not following the rules. My supervisors expected me to sign it. It’s almost like I’m being defiant. In the workplace, you don’t necessarily want to be defiant.”
Decision day was a Friday in February. That’s when the rosters, which teachers are told are legal documents, are normally signed. Of all the things teachers have to worry about during a school week, signing the classroom roster isn’t one of them.
Now it loomed as a crisis of conscience. On the night before, the teacher tried to talk herself out of doing what she knew she would do the next day.
Maybe I’m exaggerating the problem, she thought. Maybe it was an honest error.
But she and other teachers had hashed all that out in the preceding days. She knew this wasn’t a harmless mistake.
And then she got angry at the district for putting her on the spot. The district seemed to think the teachers would willingly go along with the deception over actual class size. “We knew if we signed the documents, we’d be lying,” she says.
That became the line she wouldn’t cross. “I felt the district was trying to define my values for me,” she says. “That’s for me to do. I live my values through my job. My job does not determine what they are.”
It wasn’t a one-day headache. “Every week I’m not signing,” she says, “so the tension is mounting and the pressure is mounting and the consequences are mounting.”
The pressure affected her in the classroom, she says, the one place where she wants to be at her best every day. And while there were no overt threats, all teachers know the games that can be played by administrators.
Although some teachers have been identified in print, the teacher I talked to doesn’t want to be identified now, partly because she doesn’t know if the district might retaliate against her and partly because the teachers don’t want to single out anyone in their group.
Through it all, she says, the dissident teachers talked frequently about what was at stake. Their conversations took on a depth of meaning that included what kind of legacy they’d leave.
“We’re constantly having conversations about our responsibility as educators, our profession, and ethical issues that come up in life, in general,” she says. “You talk about them with your students, you’re constantly talking about character and how character counts, honesty counts and all these other values that we discuss in class along with math and everything else.
We found ourselves at that very moment making that decision about where you draw the line in the sand. We decided we can’t move our line. We’re either going to tell the truth or not.”
The teachers hope they’ve struck a blow for their profession and for social responsibility.
For all the sniping directed at teachers, I hope someone takes note of this group. From my perspective, there were two acts of moral courage.
Refusing to sign a roster is one thing. The teachers could have done that and kept it all inside the schoolhouse doors.
Blowing the whistle publicly on your superiors is a whole other matter. They knew that not all teachers supported them and that they could face repercussions. And that the district’s reputation would take a hit and might lose much-needed money.
With all that, I asked, why go public?
Too often, the teacher says, news stories dwell on negative things. Too seldom, she says, people of faith or conscience explain how those belief systems influence their decisions in a society that challenges people’s personal ethics on a daily basis.
The roster deception was bad policy, she says.
But more than that, it was wrong.
“I think if more and more people were to come forward,” she says, “and tell their stories about whatever it is within them
Being lied to or being forced to be part of a lie is abuse.
Here is a site dedicated to teachers who have abusive administrators/districts:
http://www.endteacherabuse.org/
The district pays hundreds of thousands dollars to Breon and Shaffer because there are numerous lawsuits pending against the district. Could this be the reason Russo and her cabinet decided to boost revenue by altering documents.
Saint Teach – Apr. 07, 2007 03:17 PM
——————————————————————————–
Malfeasance, The BOE could be totally in the dark, however school board member Audrey Noji, kept former Supt. Al Mijares around long enough to get her husband, Gene Noji, a coaching position at Segerstrom. And Audrey Noji enticed Russo to return to SAUSD, after being released a few years prior, to replace Al Mijares. Russo returned in ’05 as Deputy Superintendent. Noji and Richardson knew. Board member John Palacio more than likely did not know, since Noji and Richardson intentionally keep in the dark about serious district matters. Rosie is too busy criss-crossing the country bashing illegal immigrants and Jose Hernandez is still under the tutorial direction of his neighbor Audrey Noji.
Vivien – Apr. 07, 2007 12:19 PM
Part of what drives up the housing prices in the lower-priced cities in orange county is that the houses are close in proximity to the expensive areas. Can
If that fraud letter that is so prominent displayed on the webpage of the district is not of Jane Russo
District lawyer, Keith Breon, probably needs to be sanctioned for all his bad advice and participation in intimidation and corruption.
On his website he lists his area of expertise for Special Education and ELD guidelines. Everyone knows that the Special Education division has withheld money from the students and has practiced dishonestly with the parents. He is also aware of several inappropriate employees allowed to continue to have contact with nonverbal, totally dependent students.
Teachers had begun asking the former Director of Special education Richard Erhard questions about whether certain practices were legal and he assured the teachers that the lawyers for the district told him that it was all legal. Those practices are still in question and now we are thinking we will need to talk to the union after spring break, because apparently lying and making things up is a big part of management decisions.
Keith Breon knows about an SH teacher, Julie Wilson, at Saddleback who was put out on stress leave and then when he met with her attorney to settle a grievance, he promised to address the issues and respond. It has been several months and the only “response” was for that teacher to be given a written reprimand by “new” VP, fred gomeztrejo. Fast freddie had been stalking that poor teacher and denied her weingarten rights even though she had specifically told him she would only meet with him with a representative because he is a known liar to staff familiar with him. She has written proof of weingarten request from last October. He also constantly bad mouths his wife as being mentally unstable. He seems to have personal issues with women in particular.
He brags he knows school “politics” well and he knows how to play them. Right. Terminated from the last two districts for questionable behavior. SAUSD Board of Education was quick to snap him right up. They voted to place him with troublesome principal, Jones, 5-0.
Fred unlocked that teachers classroom well before school hours while she worked on her reports and then he physically menaced her and gave her a falsified written reprimand with no rep present. Because of the stalking, verbal promises that she would be fired this year and menacing her with physical intimidation she was taken off work again by workman comp doctors.
Breon still has not addressed that woman or her attorney. Breon is a huge part of the problem and it looks like it might all come out as we continue to share and organize our information. One thing is for sure Breon and Schaffer don
Last year – Wrongful termination
http://websearch.versuslaw.com/wfrmDocViewerprem.aspx?pp=%5CCA%5C2005%5C20050502_0003942.CA.htm
A jury awarded Margaret Gill economic damages of $61870 against Santa Ana Unified School District (the District) in This wrongful termination lawsuit. …
TO ALL CA NAPTA MEMBERS AND POTENTIAL MEMBERS:
I am proud to introduce Ken Mackie who has been a NAPTA member since 2004 and who has recently become an attorney with the goal of helping abused teachers, an answer to many of our prayers.
Although a few of us have found decent attorneys, and I mean a few, what we need is passion and that is often missing from one who has not experienced teacher abuse. As you know, it is a unique experience and almost impossible to describe and hence still not publicly known. I am working on my book to change that and Ken will be working within the legal system to do so likewise.
Even if you don’t need a lawyer at this time, feel free to make contact with Ken and let him know how much we appreciate what he is doing or to share any ideas you might have with him. Also, feel free to pass this email around to non members. We always hope they will join; but for those who are still too afraid, let them know we are making progress and there is some hope.
Karen
FROM THE LAW OFFICE OF
KENNETH R. MACKIE:
State Bar Number: 248473
3153 Tupelo Drive, Merced, California 95348 ? (209) 631-8395 ? KennethRMackie@hotmail.com
I am a public school teacher with over 18 year’s experience in the classroom, most of which was as a band director. A few years ago I was asked to be my local Association President. In that capacity, I was obliged to document violations of the Brown Act and Conflict of Interest laws.
In short, I am a whistleblower. As a result, my district terminated my band program and reassigned me to teach Social Studies, Language Arts and Remedial Reading. I was given no support by the district. However, I was formally observed for the first time since receiving permanent status some 10 years earlier. My students excelled, and I documented their gains of nearly 2
Anyone know any good lawyers for classified employees too? The game is pretty much the same as what happens to teachers.
http://o-juice.blogspot.com/2006/07/sausd-corruption-coming-out-with.html#comments
Some comments on the Register site:
You know SAUSD has been pretty successful in covering up. They covered up the big warehouse scandal when they got busted and let drivers and a manager go. They covered up the big electrician scandal when they busted that dept. on what they were doing by letting a supv. and electricians go. How are they going to cover this one. We have managers already stating that the auditors have stated that it does not look good
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I hope Mr. Hernandez keeps his word when he said last night he would look at this with “strict scrutiny.” I hope he is part of the solution and NOT part of the problem. I applaud Mr. Palacio, so far, for making all those good questions to Ms. Russo!
#867
You might want to tell Ms. Wilson there might be negligent hiring practices, as well:
Anonymous Says:
4/12/2007 12:56 PM
New VP at Saddleback was canned along with two other administrators from his previous employers.
Only took two calls to find out. Thanks, Santa Ana School Police!
Question: If google turned up the fact that the guy was dimissed from his previous two employers and he USED to be a principal, how was he selected by Juan Lopez and approved by the Board of Education 5-0?
Did the SA School police find him and recommend him to Lopez to hire because the guy “fit the culture”?
Or did Juan Lopez not even do a background check that the SA School police is fully capable of doing?
I thought HR was supposed to be adverse to liability. Seems like they like to hire and keep some of the biggest flakes.
Let’s see how the school board and HR administrators are going to handle this.