Are classrooms overflowing with sexual predators? Some school leaders in Los Angeles think they are.
The Nation reports on a special investigation where teachers are challenged to clear their names.
It starts here with the question of how teachers can prove their innocence.
“Iris Stevenson hurt no child, seduced no teenager, abused no student at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles. This is what her supporters say in rallying outrage that this exemplary teacher has languished for months in the gulag of administrative detention known as “teacher jail”: she doesn’t belong there.
“And she doesn’t.
“Days before being removed from her music classes in December and ordered to spend her workdays isolated on a floor of the LA Unified School District (LAUSD)HQ with other suspect teachers, Stevenson, a legend in South LA and beyond, was at the White House directing the renowned Crenshaw Elite Choir as it sang for President Obama.
“She has not been officially informed of the charges against her. Unofficially, Stevenson is said to have swept off the choir to perform first in Paris and then in Washington without permission—an absurd claim, since parents had to consent, and Stevenson has conducted such foundation-supported field trips untroubled for decades. District authorities say only that Stevenson is under investigation.
“If she were a de facto kidnapper, police should have been called long ago. But, no, this is not about criminality or even misconduct; it is about a larger game of control being played by School Superintendent John Deasy. That game owes quite a lot to sex, because a few years ago a scandal tripped the panic button, which Deasy has kept his finger on ever since, exploiting justified public anger over a classroom pervert to pursue a war on teachers.
“The political question, then, is not just whether Stevenson belongs in teacher jail but what this institutionalized containment regimen, this sub-bureaucracy of punishment, exists for in the first place, and how the specter of sex is the cowing excuse to go after anyone.
“Some form of disciplinary netherworld has long existed in the LAUSD, but teacher jail, also known as “housed employee” locations, entered its high rococo period in early 2012, not long after Mark Berndt, a teacher at Miramonte Elementary School now serving twenty-five years in prison, was arrested for lewd conduct.
“For years, administrators had swatted away complaints about Berndt. When he came under suspicion in January of 2011, they removed him from the classroom but initiated a secretive internal process to pay him to resign. Following his arrest a year later, instead of making a sober assessment of administrative accountability, Deasy pulled the entire staff out of Miramonte. All but the principal were sent to an empty school; there, custodians, cafeteria workers and office staff would perform their regular jobs while seventy-six teachers were to sit facing the wall for six hours for the rest of the school year. The leadership of the teachers union was paralyzed. (It was recently swept from office by a progressive reform slate.)
“The teachers, too, were paralyzed initially but resisted the seating plan and made the best of it together over four months, while the media made hay. The LAUSD’s questioning was minimal. Most were never interviewed by police. All were cleared. Not all got their old jobs back, because in the interim Deasy restructured Miramonte, cutting the teaching staff by almost 50 percent. The new form of district discipline was set.
“Now about 450 teachers languish in sites around the city. They are given no formal explanation. Overwhelmingly, they are past 40. Disproportionately, they are black; disproportionately, they are LGBT, according to Alex Caputo-Pearl, a leader of the union’s progressive slate and the likely next union president. Some, like Stevenson and Michael Griffin, also from Crenshaw, who spent more than a year in teacher jail before the district acknowledged there were no grounds, have actively opposed efforts to privatize their schools. (The district’s “reconstitution” of Crenshaw is its own story.)”
Teachers are guilty until proven innocent.
LAUSD’s terrible, horrible secret: Teacher Jails
http://www.examiner.com/article/lausd-s-terrible-horrible-secret-teacher-jails-1
Three friends entered teacher jail in Los Angeles last year. One retired because he had lost the will to fight. One is still fighting although he has been dismissed. The third is still there. They were all veteran and excellent teachers. Our superintendent is a Broad virus. He stated when he came to LAUSD that his goal was to hire Teach for America recruits to replace veteran teachers. This is one way he is accomplishing his goal to destroy our public schools. LAUSD has more charters than anywhere else in the country. I wish Alex Caputo-Pearl and his slate all the best in fighting this. I hope they won’t ignore it because Deasy will come for them next!
If only this were true, Joan. Deasy and Pearl have been in cahoots since before Deasy’s notorious evaluation last October. Deasy has aided Pearl’s campaign in a number of ways. The fact that Pearl is afddressed with respect in LASR is evidence of that much, but Pearl’s media access, ability to go to schools and campaign when others couldnt along with a meal at swank Dragos that Deasy shared with Pearl and the Power Slate speak to Pearl’s allegiances. They are not to teachers. Please have your freinds in TJ contact me. We are working on legal avenues for all teachers being displaced, dismissed, detained and destroyed by the unfortunate circumstances Deasy and UTLA have thrown its into. http://Www.hemlockonthericks.com
That’s a lie about Alex and you know it!
We know it is the McCarthy era all over again. Called before “The Committee” are very good chemistry & physics teachers, music teachers, teachers with union affiliations who are kept busy filing grievances on behalf of educators who won’t play ball with Pearson or Common Core, teachers who are effective with students that the building administration has written off as ungovernable. But this time around, we aren’t taking The Fifth. We are naming names and these will be the headliners regularly appearing in the tabloids of philanthropy, privatization of public schools, corporate catastrophe curriculum, hedge fund child technology investors and charter schools re-establishing segregation for all students everywhere.
Whoops http://www.hemlockontheROCKs.com
An important read.
Speaking from personal experience, the key element in this is administrative incompetence [going all the way to the top] coupled with being willing to overlook telltale signals because the teacher(s) in question is/are BFFs.
Except for those who have surrendered completely to Rheeality Distortion Fields, the reality is that administrators administer, managers manage, bosses boss, supervisors supervise, those in charge are in charge. Note this citation from the above posting:
“For years, administrators had swatted away complaints about Berndt. When he came under suspicion in January of 2011, they removed him from the classroom but initiated a secretive internal process to pay him to resign. Following his arrest a year later, instead of making a sober assessment of administrative accountability, Deasy pulled the entire staff out of Miramonte.” *Please read what follows for a story that rivals Kafka.*
They can do their jobs with skill and compassion backed up by long years of experience and an exemplary work ethic—and I’ve known some—and they can, well, do I really have to complete this sentence? Read the posting.
How do the leaders of the self-styled “education reform” movement propose to deal with such things? Shred even the slender remnants of checks and balances in public schools [e.g., eliminate due process rights and disappear unions/professional organizations] so that principals and other top administrators have unchecked and unaccounted-for power to do just whatever they need to in order to protect themselves and $tudent $ucce$$.
And the rest of us—school staff, students, parents, community members, taxpayers—are supposed to show “grit” and “determination” by taking as much abuse as the edubullies will deal out.
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.” [Frederick Douglass]
😎
I think you’re wrong about teachers being guilty until proven innocent because once the media smears a teacher’s name, there will always be people who believe they are guilty no matter what the final verdict is and like an incurable disease, that stigma will follow the innocent teachers the rest of their lives.
The reason for that public vigilant verdict is becasue the media never reports the evidence of innocence with the same energy and amount of coverage that they reported the alleged crime.
Tell me about it, Lloyd. It isn’t limited to criminal cases or these stupid administrative hearings which are brazenly flouted by school districts. I was named as a defendant in a utterly fraudulent civil claim against my old school district back in 2008, which was filed a month after my ludicrous termination hearing and had nothing to do with my illegal termination. In this bogus civil suit, the attorney for the parent said I and a counselor “failed to report” two “rapes” that never happened and no case was ever prosecuted by the D.A. because there was no evidence of anything that happened to have risen to the level of a rape prosecution (what it was, I believe, was a miscommunication by the kid to his parent and didn’t know what “rape” was because he didn’t want to go to school and deal with the other kid–supposedly the attacker–whose rights really WERE trashed by the school district and police department). Thanks to a civil court system that is completely and totally broken, there are no sanctions on lawyers who file fraudulent civil claims against school districts for the sole purpose of getting a pre-trial insurance settlement. This lawyer used the boilerplate language of “failure to report” so he could pursue this fraudulent case without having it thrown out by the judge. He made this complaint as lurid as possible to try and getting the district to settle as quickly as possible because of public embarrassment. (The ONLY thing truthful in that complaint was that Washoe County School District is a political subdivision of Nevada.) It’s routine language in these cases despite the fact failing to report anything of this nature is a misdemeanor in Nevada and could result in license sanctions. Of course we didn’t “fail to report” something that we were never made aware happened and didn’t happen. There was nothing to report to authorities. When the administrators were made aware of the kid’s claims, then proper action was taken, all for naught since nothing happened except for the kid’s poor former friend having his and his parents’ civil rights flushed down the toilet.
Hey, it didn’t matter. After three years of dragging the case out in discovery, the district’s insurance carrier settled with the mom so she could blow the money in on a mobile home, trips to California and elsewhere, jewelry, and so forth. Mom and the lawyer got to cash in.
The worst thing, though, was the media. As soon as this lawyer filed the complaint, the Reno Gazette-Journal’s reporter got right in there and she and her editor thought it would be great for newspaper sales to report on this nuisance suit, apparently thinking this damned thing was true and with no understanding anybody can make up anything in a civil case as long as the technicalities of filing the complaint are followed. It was plastered on the front page of the paper as well as a followup article the next day. The absolutely worst thing about this was the fact that this paper did NOT exercise any restraint in publishing my name and the counselor’s names, unlike the Associated Press and most other media outlets. You wouldn’t believe how much this story has ruined my reputation over the years, and I have NO recourse in the courts to clear my name.
The settlement was never reported by the local media, by the way.
I have been called a criminal in public, should be thrown in jail for what I alleged didn’t do, had my name slandered by a Reno blogger who refuses to take down his libelous post despite repeated requests, all the while having no recourse whatsoever to get this trash eliminated off the internet. I keep having this garbage thrown in my face despite the fact I did NOTHING WHATSOEVER WRONG other than the fact I existed as one of this “vicitm’s” teachers, who was in truth victimized by the plaintiffs in a case of what is really insurance fraud.
There needs to be sanctions on the media for publishing names of teaching personnel where there are NO criminal charges filed or no criminal convictions in a case. Furthermore, there needs to be heavy sanctions on lawyers who file fraudulent civil claims, including disbarment. Rule 11 has no teeth whatsoever; judges won’t throw out cases until there is at least a settlement conference.
BTW, these cases NEVER go to trial because insurance companies refuse to pay attorneys’ fees for trials and appeals. Because they will settle rather than go to trial, this encourages more fraudulent claims to be filed.
Also the US Courts website needs to have a policy of redacting ALL teachers’ names in civil suits involving school districts. Right now they don’t. The media regularly trolls on these kinds of websites to get “news” on civil cases.
It is so terrible and true, it makes me sad that years of teachers’ lives become meaningless with a whim.
Lloyd Lofthouse: what you said.
But it needed to be said.
Thank you.
😎
P.S. Let me remind everyone of something that should put things in better perspective. Miramonte Elementary School? From the LATIMES:
[start quote]
As a teacher in an impoverished, gang-ridden area of South Los Angeles, Rigoberto Ruelas always reached out to the toughest kids. He would tutor them on weekends and after school, visit their homes, encourage them to aim high and go to college.
The fifth-grade teacher at Miramonte Elementary School was so passionate about his mission that, school authorities say, he had near perfect attendance in 14 years on the job.
So when Ruelas, 39, failed to show up for work last week, his colleagues instantly began to worry. And their worst fears were confirmed Sunday morning. In the Big Tujunga Canyon area of the Angeles National Forest, a search-and-rescue team with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department discovered Ruelas’ body in a ravine about 100 feet below a nearby bridge.
The Los Angeles County Coroner determined he had committed suicide.
Ruelas’ death stunned Miramonte students, teachers and parents. Many left hand-written notes, flowers, candles and white balloons at an impromptu memorial. By evening, dozens gathered to light candles, sing Spanish-language hymns and recite the Rosary. Ruelas’ family, too, came to the school and slowly walked along the memorial wall, thanking parents and reading the messages.
Ruelas did not leave a suicide note, authorities said, and it remained unclear why he took his life.
Teachers union President A.J. Duffy said his staff was told by Ruelas’ family that the teacher was depressed about his score on a teacher-rating database posted by The Times on its website. The newspaper analyzed seven years of student test scores in English and math to determine how much students’ performance improved under about 6,000 third- through fifth-grade teachers. Based on The Times’ findings, Ruelas was rated “average” in his ability to raise students’ English scores and “less effective” in his ability to raise math scores. Overall, he was rated slightly “less effective” than his peers.
“Despite The Times’ analysis, and all other measures, this was a really good teacher,” said Duffy, who called on the newspaper to take down the database. Many parents also asked that Ruelas’ page on The Times’ website be taken down.
Ruelas’ brother, Alejandro Ruelas, told The Times that the family is boycotting the newspaper and would not comment.
The Times said it extends “our sympathy to his family, students, friends and colleagues,” Nancy Sullivan, Times vice-president of communications, said in a statement.
The newspaper published the database, she said, “because it bears directly on the performance of public employees who provide an important service, and in the belief that parents and the public have a right to judge the data for themselves.”
Miramonte Principal Martin Sandoval described Ruelas, a South Gate native, as a caring teacher who loved the outdoors. For the teachers and staff, he organized volleyball games at the beach, hiking trips and bonfires, said Carmen Jimenez, 24, a Miramonte nurse assistant.
“He was a very happy individual,” Sandoval said. “He grew up in this community and he felt a desire and need to help this community.”
Andromeda Palma, a 13-year-old eighth-grader, stopped by after school to leave a balloon at the memorial. She said she used to struggle at math, but he taught her to succeed and not to give up.
“He told me it is not about where you are from but if you don’t go to school you are nothing in this world,” she said with tears in her eyes. “Now I am doing real good because of him.”
Sandoval said like all teachers, Ruelas apparently felt pressure to perform well. “Things that were happening in the district, budget cuts, testing, seem to put us all under the microscope,” Sandoval said.
Many staff members saw Ruelas at a school celebration on Friday, Sept. 17. While some said he seemed normal, others said he was distracted and upset.
“He wasn’t smiling like he always smiled,” said Maria Jimenez, a school aide. “Other parents noticed it too and were asking what was wrong.”
Crisis counselors were on campus to help students or teachers who sought help. District Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, along with union and school leaders, met with teachers and staff early Monday, and about 100 parents turned out later for an emotional meeting with school officials.
“Mr. Ruelas was a passionate and caring teacher, who put his students first,” Cortines said in a statement. “He made a difference in the lives of so many in his classroom, and by staying after the bell rang to tutor students.”
A community memorial service is scheduled for Wednesday at 5 p.m. at Presentation Catholic Church in Los Angeles.
[end quote]
Link: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/28/local/la-me-south-gate-teacher-20100928
In other circumstances I would apologize for the length of this comment—but in this case, I provided the entire article. No apologies. Rigoberto Ruelas should be remembered.
So now we can add bullying and murder to the crimes of the fake education reformers—Do you hear that Arne Duncan?
What happens to convicted Internet bullies when they drive someone else to take their life by harassing them in the media and/or the Internet?
How is this different?
The two reporters spearheading the reporting based on VAM from test scores are no longer working for the Times. Perhaps their willingness to forge ahead with a “good” story, in spite of evidence to the contrary, finally was no longer tolerated. In the case of this wonderful teacher, it was way too little, way too late. The LA Times right now seems to have a split personality on education issues. It strongly supports Deasy and Broad in their editorials, while stories were published reporting on the failure to meet the goals for which Deasy was hired, and reporting on the debacle of the I-pad purchase. It sometimes reports on the many research articles debunking VAM (now), many of which were out there when they did publish names and results.
“The two reporters spearheading the reporting based on VAM from test scores are no longer working for the Times. Perhaps their willingness to forge ahead with a ‘good’ story, in spite of evidence to the contrary, finally was no longer tolerated.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
… and how!
One of them was fired for having intercourse with a female source that he used for an article on the alleged prevalence of sexual assaults at Occidental College, (located in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles.)
In exchange for the sexual favors she provided him, he then included some dubious, exaggerated, and (later) discredited data regarding sexual assaults on campus. Again, this was information that this Mata Hari-like source—with her own agenda— provided for him to use.
Needless, to say, the guy was toast after his bosses discovered this.
Read the whole story HERE:
http://www.southbronxschool.com/2014/03/karma-smacks-los-angeles-times-reporter.html
How do they get away with this? Polly
“How do they get away with it?”
A corrupt government and powerful elements of both political parties that want to destroy the public schools for different reasons. The few holding public office who are not in the pockets of billionaire oligarchs are not loud enough (yet) to achieve anything without overwhelming public support.
The only way to gain that overwhelming public support is persistence and word of mouth.
Never surrender. When that voice whispers in our heads telling us we can’t win, ignore it and keep putting one foot in front of the other. If the oligarchs buy the Internet through the end of net neutrality, then we use e-mails and start walking door to door in our communities putting fliers in the hands of every neighbor within one mile of each of our houses.
A new model: Teacher Gitmo.
This is a revival of the medieval inquisiton.
The point is when do we stop allowing this to happen? This is systemic in that the Feds know about, the state knows about, yet they condone it and look the other way. Districts like lausd would not be able to do this without the complicit support of the state and Feds. Now California legislators, with the support of CTA, is limiting teacher’s due process rights? Are teachers just the punching bag for all things wrong with public education.? It’s too easy but effective to blame the teacher and that’s why hundreds of teacher, including myself, are in teacher jail waiting to be pushed out. And people, they will have. To push me, hollering and screaming, from a position I have worked proudly, for over 25 years. Yes, I could retire and go on but, don’t I have a right to determine when I should retire?Word of warning-never get old, never be a whistle-blower, never advocate for other teachers and you will possibly survive in the current climate of public education.
I am so sorry you are going through this. I can’t even imagine how difficult this must be. Thank you for standing up for teachers and students, and I hope that ALL of your cases get resolved soon–if not immediately.
While there is clear government complicity fueling, while ignoring LAUSD’s war on teachers at the top of the salary scale, about to vest in lifetime health benefits, disabled, and just trying to educate all students 60 years after Brown said a de facto segregated district like LAUSD with close to 90% Latino and Black should not exist, what is less clear to most is the complicit of the exclusive teacher bargaining unit United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) that continues to do nothing to aid their members and fee payers, even though most targets teachers are hit with variations of the same bogus charges. The LAUSD-UTLA Collective Bargaining Agreement gives the union clear authority to do so under Article V in addition to the egregious denial of fundamental constitutional rights to due process in an independent forum with a presumption of innocence and the burden on LAUSD to prove otherwise is never given. How many of you could fight back when your salary and benefits are deprived for years, before you can get an independent adjudication in court. And how neutral are the courts?
And yet old school liberals are loathe to hold UTLA, CTA, and AFT accountable and label those who seek to do so as anti-union. I guess they don’t find Randi Weingarten getting over $400,000 in salary plus benefits to be offensive in light of the depopulation of high seniority teachers around the country in what clearly is a war on professional teachers. Maybe Randi can talk about this the next time she speaks at The Broad Academy.
http://www.perdaily.com
The ed-reformers and neoliberals continue to leave teachers, and all workers with fewer
and fewer “civil disobedient” options to retaliate. This will all end sooner or later with a
ferocious blowback by the population of workers, poor and disenfranchised.
“Capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction”
-Karl Marx
PSS- Diane, you rock! Thanks for all the sunshine you have brought to this fight for public education. It’s appreciated more than you know.
For a man who pretends to care about students, John Deasy has done more harm to students and their communities than anyone else in LAUSD. The removal of Dr. Stevenson from Crenshaw, like the previous removal of Alex Caputo-Pearl (the new UTLA president) was a blatant attempt to contemptuously silence anyone at that school who did not kowtow to Deasy.
It’s just a way of getting rid of “expensive” teachers by trying to intimidate them to resign or retire.
They also want to eliminate teachers who remember the “old ways.” They want to erase institutional memory.
Very true.
Actually, it’s true, the schools are infested with predators: they call themselves “education reformers.”
Don’t bring more intellect to the Iris Stevenson case than the morons at LAUSD did before targeting her. Chances are that like thousands of other wrongfully targeted teachers, Ms. Stevenson’s only “crime” was that she fit the targeted teacher profile of being: at the top of the salary scale, and/or about to vest in lifetime health benefits, disabled, or actually trying to educate students. 93% of rubber room teachers are over 40 and at the top of the salary scale. The first year LAUSD gets rid of them it saves approximately $60,000 in combined salary and benefits by hiring a novice Teacher For American type fresh out of college on an emergence credential. And that’s just the first year.
LAUSD’S IRIS STEVENSON- GUILTY OF TEACHING WHILE BLACK…AND BEING AT THE TOP OF THE SALARY SCALE
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/02/lausds-iris-stevenson–guilty-of-teaching-while-blackand-being-at-the-top-of-the-salary-scale.html
Just a gut level hunch about this…I had never heard of John Deasy. So…try a search…John Deasy Bill Gates……..try it.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education and commented:
Wow!!
It should be a whole lot easier to fire administrators. That’s the problem in a nutshell. They are backed to the hilt by the higher-ups. After all, if these principals screw up, it’s a bad reflection on the people who hired them, so these principals are not fired but merely moved around from job to job to job.
That’s where the real scandal is.
Administrators have no tenure and can actually be fired very easily. However, what it takes to become an administrator is the ability to uncritically do what you are told to do without question, otherwise they never would have been made an administratorj of you in the first place. At LAUSD several years ago, they even added a requirement for one year out of classroom experience, before you could become an administrator, because those already in power wanted to make sure precisely who you were, before they gave you the keys to the kingdom.
With the thousands of expensive high on the salary scale teachers being targeted in the move to privatize and monetize public education, administrators either get rid of high seniority expensive teachers or they themselves will be removed.
You are right they have no “tenure,” but they have almost absolute job security and total power that simply doesn’t exist for teachers or anybody else. I suspect that’s because these administrators have to be part of the “inner circle” of family or cronies before they are promoted to those jobs. They are protected to the hilt by school district high-ups. It appears the administrators who are the most vulnerable to being sacked are those who dare to speak up on behalf of teachers and students.
Next month I have a court case in Superior Court in Los Angeles against UTLA and their attorneys Trygstad, Schwab & Trygstad for not doing anything to defend teachers for which UTLA is the exclusive bargaining agent. I also have an action filed in federal district court for the clear policy of age discrimination that LAUSD continues to practice with approximately 93% of all rubber room teachers being over 40 and at the top of the salary scale. Virtually all targeted teachers who contact me are: at the top of the salary scale, and/or about to vest in lifetime health- which will cost the LAUSD an addition $300,000 in unfunded benefits to add to what was $13 billion of unfunded benefits as of 2012- and/or disabled, and/or actually trying to educate predominantly poor minority children of color 60 years after Brown said, “separate but equal school districts [like LAUSD] are inherently unequal” and unconstitutional.
While California Government Code section 821.6 gives administrators the ability to target teachers with impunity, since it gives immunity to administrators who action are “malicious and without probably cause,” it doesn’t protect them when their actions are clearly outside the scope of their employment against whistle blowers and amount to a Rico conspiracy to deprive teachers and others of their fundamental civil rights.
While there is no guarantee that the courts are not also fixed, I don’t think we have gotten there yet and I find it inexcusable for teachers to continue ranting and saying
“I can’t believe” and talking it to death, while doing nothing to make the force of their numbers felt through concerted and organized legal actions. If their unions are either colluding with the districts or just plan incompetent is of little concern to me, since there are well established legal procedures for reconstituting unions that do nothing and have long ago given up their primary fiduciary duty to its members and fee payers.
While it may be possible to easily fire administrators, very few (if any) rotten ones actually get the ax. The ones who do get canned or given “freeway therapy” have either broken some law or Board rule, or dared to stand up for kids or teachers against the higher up careerists.
More often than not, these administrators “fail up.” There is little or no accountability for their actions.
The article is extremely biased.
I have to be careful what I post on here since I work for LAUSD but nobody is investigated without prior accusations or some type of evidence. Sometimes, there is just enough evidence that you suspect they are guilty but not enough for criminal action or termination.
That’s all I gotta say.
The reason that you “have to be careful” is that if anybody at LAUSD decides that your 1st Amendment right to freedom of expression about that which is true has gone too far, they will think nothing of fabricating “evidence” against you in the same process of building a file to have you removed. I have literally hundreds of files on targeted teachers- most at the top of the salary scale, etc.- who had files of clearly false and fabricated “evidence” created to support clearly false accusations. How many teachers illegally deprived of salary and benefits can last long enough to vindicate their innocence?
In the lingo of LAUSD administrators, this is called building a file. When a teacher is targeted by administration, it is not uncommon for their fellow teachers to say, “Oh, you must have done something wrong, since LAUSD administrators wouldn’t just target you for no reason.” Ironically, that’s what continues to make the targeting of completely innocent teacher possible. Do you see a whole lot of novice low paid teachers being targeted? Objectively, who would you think is more likely to be a substandard teachers, somebody who has done it for 20 years or somebody fresh out of college?
After 10 years of litigation in the McMartin pre-school case, it turned out that none of the teachers who had been targeted were guilty of anything. Rather, the students had been manipulated into bearing false witness against these teachers and administrators. This case established a procedure for interview minors in a manner that sought to avoid the destruction of educators lives as took place in the McMartin case. Alas, LAUSD and the other corrupt school districts like it around the country completely ignore this procedure of using qualified personnel to interview students about alleged pervert and incompetent teachers. Why do you think that is? To quote Deepthroat in All The President’s Men, “Follow the money.”
They can literally make up charges or throw a bunch of trumped-up ones around. That’s because administrative law isn’t worth the paper it is written on. School districts around the country treat it like toilet paper.
Twice born, you are misinformed. Maybe a teacher was written up for something like a late role book or too many tardies. That happens and it certainly has to be dealt with. As teachers, we must respect operations and model upstanding behavior, but these are not offenses that deserve dismissal unless they become excessive. I was in teacher jail because I reported an abusive colleague and noncompliance. Soon after that, I found myself in the principal’s office being written up for things that were insane. I was not alone, anyone who was critical of administrators, having issues with classroom management or considered ” too old” by a murder of corrupt cronies got harassed. That is all administrators at my school seemed to do. Observe teachers they wanted out and write them up for whatever they could. They interrogated our students. The principal went the deans’ office and encouraged miscreants to file complaints against teachers who sent them for discipline.
My students were very protective of me. They stonewalled the APs who fished for reasons to write me up. The kids told me what was up. At first, I wasn’t too concerned. I knew I was doing a good job becaise I had 200 students, 3-5 preps and a wide range of skills from AP to ESL. My test scores were very good even thoughI was typically assigned students who were behavior problems, slackers, ELs and IEPs. As Ms.LaMotte used to say, they know if you care or not, and I cared. I still do and stand by my choices to report the abusive teachers on campus as well as practices that put my most vulnerable students in harm’s way.
Before my ordeal, I too assumed teachers were housed with good cause. I also felt disgust that our union would protect predetors and opportunists who harm students. Turns out UTLA doesn’t defend teachers at all. LAUSD itself protects the very worst teachers to protect its interests : funding, liability, enrollment.
If you do not believe me google LAUSD and each of these ” Steve Rooney” ;” Telfaire”& “Chapel” , “Marlo Duffin” ;”Robert Pimentel” & del Cuedo” & “Romero” & “Hinjosa”; ” George Hernandez” ; “former Catholic priest” .
That is just the tip of an iceberg that rival the one that sank the Titanic. I understand how employees, teachers, administrators, office techs, etc. are inclined to turn a blind eye to the criminality they are immersed in because to see it is to become complicit with it. The district steals from taxpayers with wanton and reckless regularity. Consider the Cortines conflict of interest case with Scholastic; millions just lost and never accounted for (LAT); the DAC debacle, Belmont Learning Center, ; the staggering costs of RFK, # 9 , Roybals with its suites and methane soaked legacy… Consider the iPad mess, those schools falling apart that will still not get fixed, the unchecked nepotism, the lies Deasy loves to tell and that scam Wasserman and Deasy pulled with those gift cards a couple years ago. Why did Deasy tell the public he was closing down LD offices when he was really making them into teacher jails? There are so many inmates that the 6 facilities run in two hour shifts! At least 300 teachers come to these places daily and they are fired with frightening regularity. Besides the regular inmates there are plenty more under house arrest . This is a practice used to evade detection, as the numbers escalate . Ever October, November and Spring break, there are purges which the BOE approves without ever looking at a single file! What’s more LAUSD takes great pains too obscure the numbers . Look at the BOE transcripts . You will see the maddening graphs designed to confuse anyone trying to figure out how many teachers resigned, retired or were fired. When asked to provide this information , LAUSD denies the freedom of information act and ignores us.
Need more evidence!? How about the fact that LAUSD BOE banned wifi less than five years ago because it presents a true carcinogenic threat to youngsters. Austria, Canada and countries in Europe outlawed wifi in schools some time ago. Recognizing the potential threat LAUSD agreed to remove this from campuses. Indeed, the distruct has been removing that infrastructure and didn’t even stop once Deasy did his deft dealing with Apple. They are well aware of the issue and the many cases the district has where children and staff have developed brain cancer and other malignant conditions likely caused by radio waves at school,
Please understand that LAUSD knew about Berndt, Duffin, Hernandez, and Chapel but chose to allow them access to youngsters. In Hernandez’ case, the distrct compelled the sub to a meeting downtown after the third complaint was filed against him.staff relations wrote him a glowing letter of rec, handed him a check and he resigned. Not too long after that, he was hired at Inglewood Unified, where he raped a little girl and video taped himself as he did this. He became a fugitive in early 2012, molested at least one child while on the run. To me, LAUSD are as guilty for the horrors those kids suffered as Hernandez is. Maybe more so.
I saw the guilty Teachers in TJ get preferential treatment. While innocent teachers were hassled and defamed, they languished . Some still do.
Here are some reasons teachers are being jailed or displaced and ultimately fired for now: having antibacterial soap in class, referring to a student as a black boy (teacher is Nigerian and black as coal) , asking for a transfer, (TA) taking notes in a special Ed class, disarming a gang banger with a loaded gun, writing a harsh letter , teaching a unit on myths that included the creation myths in the bible, reporting a principal who was destroying the school and teachers with his personal demons; being crazy in a principals opinion; being 78 and unable to handle the intentionally unreasonable load she was set up to fail with. Many are victims of children’s fibs but when the kid confesses to lying , his parents and the school admin defend the accused, and there is no other cause for discipline, Deasy fires them anyway. I read these cases and the more serious charges are exceedingly similar, almost formulaic . However, what I find most interesting is what these charges imply about the principal. How long does he or she leave a teacher like that in the classroom knowing these things? Too long, but because the charges are lies , well…the endangerment charges can’t stick but the fraud should.
I am sorry, but before you leap into the fray, I beg of you to open your eyes. When you see the truth, you have a choice. Risk your job and tell the world what you know or risk your soul and pretend it is not going on. It is going on and there is no way you can miss it.
My heart is thumping now. Iris Stevenson was my choir director at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY from 1979-81. I believe she taught at Riverside High School then. It’s no surprise to me that she went on to become a legend in LA. This is shameful.
I agree with most of the response from “leonardisenberg”. Unless we as teachers sue the districts for discrimination in any form…. then talking about it is a waste of time. While Seattle does not have the “rubber room” or teacher jail, it is quite obvious the demographics of just who is being targeted. Most places have “new” evaluation systems. Many have adopted or modified Charlotte Danielson’s rubric. Most state education legislation has been influenced to some degree by ALEC. Unions were forced into compromises with the Devil, as a majority of members were not willing to strike during hard economic times. So why do unions, not support “targeted” members? Because of Union public perception….”Unions support bad teachers”. As long as the public does not see value in unions…unions will naturally do what they can to survive…we targeted teachers are the collateral damage, unions will shy away from “protecting us” because most of our union contracts are incredibly weak when it comes to evaluations. We can only grieve process and not sustenance, meaning if the evaluator says we are ineffective their evidence trumps our evidence which says otherwise. Therefore, we targeted teachers must be demanding the demographic data from districts that discloses age, gender, race etc. for all end of year evaluations… be this through your union or public disclosure… then file lawsuits (class action if possible)… it is the only language the district understands.
No surprise to any one reading the posts at the sensational site Perdaily.com which chronicles the incredible corruption there that has destroyed the lives of teachers. One year , over 800 teachers about to be vested were charged with various things, and all 800 lost at hearings.This is on slink, but reading gthe earlier posts will blow your mind… such incredible lawlessness.
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/lausd-continues-to-target-teachers.html
Deasy was placed in LAUSD to destroy it. Mass firings of teachers if they don’t first snap from all the psychological manipulation, bankrupt the district (illegal $1 billion ipad deal will do it!), then go after their pensions. Teaching will become a temp job. After all, Deasy proudly admits that teachers are no use to him after 5 years. The only thing Iris Stevenson should be chided for is taking her students to perform for that pig, Obama. Has he even uttered one word in her defense? Get a lawyer.
That should be the responsibility of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and the other teachers union around the U.S. who have sat by and done absolutely nothing to defend teachers who pay them $64 a month to be their exclusive representative. Next month I will be in Superior Court in Los Angeles going against UTLA and their attorneys Trygstad, Schwab & Trygstad, without whom the witch hunt against Iris Stevenson and thousands of other teachers at the top of the salary scale could not take place. If I win, The Usual Suspects: LAUSD, UTLA, and those that do their dirty work will know that their is a price to pay. Until then, it will remain open season on teachers- from their point of view, why shouldn’t it?
Lenny@perdaily.com
I went to teacher jail. I was subsequently told that I was accused of telephonically harassing a female student. She had been a math student of mine and a service worker a few years previous. She had contacted me at home (my number having been given to her by my assistant) . She had also visited me in the eve
ning(I had an office in the b I bungalows and worked late) I informed her that both activities were improper but that after school visits to former teachers were okay as long as they were immediately after dismissal and an administrstrator was present. She then curtailed those activities. I had reason to call her mother after some time (her brother was now a student and a bit of a discipline problem) and I called the parent contact number. I was shocked when the person answering informed me that she was the student and her mother had given her the cell phone. I promptly informed her that I could not speak to her, asked her t have her mother call me and hung up. I informed my principal and she asked if I had called the contact number and the nature of the call.
She noted it and said there should be no problem. I subsequently transferred and was shocked to be informed that I was being sent to teacher jail. At my first “hearing” I was accosted by local superintendent who informed me that Ihe knew who I was abd he was going to take my job, my credential and my life from me. I was accused of making numerous calls to this student. I had only my cell phone and records showed only one call to her number(as reported). I was subsequently informed that the calls she received were anonymous and most likely made from pay phones. I laughed. I told t hem to please come to where I l Iived and find a pay phone. I have never seen one. Could they not trace the numbers and find their locations. I was told that even If the phones were located in her neighborhood, I coul be driving there to call. This was preposterous. I lived about 40 miles away, and taught after school. I would then have to explain my absence to my resident girlfriend and why i was driving so often to distant locations. This logic did not prevail and I was informed that had to prove my innocence. How could I do that? I asked if she could identify my voice? No, the callers never spoke. Did they not know that high school students often made prank calls. (When you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras) . I was finally worn down by their insistence on retiring and
promises that I would retain my credenrial. I begrudgingly retired. I was not even informed of subsequent hearings and my credential and benefits were stripped from me. I subsequently heard that the student had recanted her story. (I went to inspect documents) and found a fully fabricated story and especially amazing was that she could not have written that account- above her skill level. I tried to appeal but was told I had no standing as I had retired. The perfect storm for firing me
While I was still teaching in Rowland Unified School District in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles county, (1975 – 2005) a math teacher at one of the other three high schools (I taught in one of the three) in that school district was accused by a former student with allegations similar to what you dealt with.
No teacher jail in that district. The toxic admisntration in that district suspended him without pay just on the 10th graders allegations with no evidence. All she had to do was perjure herself in a police report.
Fortunately for that teacher, he wasn’t poor and he taught because he loved teaching. He lawyered up and went after the school district, crucified the district in court, his lawyers and private investigators proved the girl had lied, and he was reinstated with back pay and the district ended up paying his legal bills, too. It took him about six months to deal with that issue and get back in the classroom. The female student was transferred to one of the other two high schools. No toxic administrators lost their jobs.