Carl Petersen, an education activist in Los Angeles, attended the school board meeting in Los Angeles where the plight of El Camino Real Charter High School and its ethics-challenged leaders was discussed. Peterson is running to defeat Monica Garcia, a charter cheerleader, in the next school board elections.
It is astonishing. Several defenders of the charter school spoke, and they said the board was picking on the school. No defense of the extravagant charges to the school’s credit car. Just attack the board for daring to investigate this school.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I agree with this candidate for this sorry board, it’s pathetic and in the pocket of local businesses and politicians. If you viewed the actions of this board over time you can see this. It has been on the wrong side of important public education issues that affect Los Angeles children for a long time. Don’t expect this board to guard taxpayers funds or public school children’s rights to a decent education. Expect more banboozling of the taxpayers thru bogus charter schools and charter segregation policies.
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Agree Paula…and same goes for most of the Boards of Ed at LAUSD that preceded this current one. Even Clarice Young, the former head of CCSA and now running Gulen’s Magnolia Schools in LA, was a BoE member a few years ago.
Makes you wonder how things can be so corrupt here?
No wonder Voteria’s paid voters got Charter developer and overseer of 16 PUC charters elected to the current BoE…now joining with the very warped and devious Deasy/Broad/charter supporter, Monica Garcia, who seems to stop at nothing to get her way and should have been dumped many years ago. She is running again, now against Carl Peterson who wrote this important report.
Suggest maybe teachers and those who love public schools send Carl a few bucks to help his campaign. You can find a way to donate at his campaign website.
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Got it. Done. It’s not at all complicated. I’m with Carl.
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Me. Peterson, not to be presumptuous, but I have a campaign slogan for you: Not a shill.
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Dang autocorrect! Sorry, that was Mr. not Me.
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I liked how Monica Garcia used the words of charter cheerleaders (oops, I mean “overseers”) when she explained how this was ” “the beginning of a conversation of how we are going to fix issues”! Monica Garcia was the MODEL overseer of charter schools and her language could not have been more similar to Joseph Belluck, the chair of the SUNY Charter Institute, whose response to any charter shenanigans by billionaire funded charter chains is always “we need to convene a committee to talk about convening a committee to look more at this issue”! And 2 or 3 years later, nada!
No doubt Monica Garcia — like Joseph Belluck — is fond of very, very, very long conversations about oversights! In fact, the longer the better! Because as long as we are having that “conversation” they don’t actually have to do any oversight at all!
Truly shameful.
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Diane, it should not be surprising that some of the charter advocates are attacking the board because of the investigation.
It’s what many of them do when charters are questioned, criticized, or investigated in any way- they go on the offensive. You have a couple of those types who comment/have commented on this blog.
It’s extremely difficult bordering on impossible to change their minds. It almost seems like it’s a religion for them.
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Zorba: Please pardon the edit, but I think your last sentence has one word too many—
“It seems like it’s a religion for them.”
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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LOL! Yes, I should have left out the “almost.”
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Let’s drop more words. It IS a religion for them. And, let’s drop a couple more and change one. It is a cult.
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Yes, it does indeed look like and act like a cult, LCT, I agree.
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In years of the test-forced prescripted “programs pushed into our low-income school,” I heard more than one “facilitator” who was hired to keep teachers in line mention the fact that the whole thing was like a top-down cult.
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LeftCoastTeacher:
You do realize that you are damaging the reputation of cults by associating them with fervid charterites and diehard privatizers?
Just sayin’…
😎
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You’re right. Comparing ®eformsters to cults is a disservice to cults. After all, it’s not like you see cult leaders brainwashing impressionable, young people into going out into the public square to proselytize for them like charter scams do.
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a religion bleeding $$$ like the big evangelists/churches
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From experience as a teacher – the louder they yell, the guiltiest they are.
As one might say “I think thou dost protest too much!”
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Sorry, flos56, but teacher experience and wisdom do not count!
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This kind of entitled behavior by this Principal (which Zorba said is possibly “embezzlement”) is so common in LA that perhaps it seems to the BoE it is de riguer. Deasy was infamous as a big spender on taxpayer money, as was our former mayor…and also his close pal, a former Speaker of the House, with his $1500 bottles of wine, who even got his murderer son off with a slap on the wrist and only a couple of ‘easy’ years in jail.
El Camino is one more publicly funded private Charter School. It, like Pali Charter HS in Pacific Palisades, is located in a upper middle to upper class socio economic neighborhood, which helps it to preserve a reputation for outstanding academics, since most students are from privileged families.
Adding to this, that BoE member/candidate, Monica Garcia, already has a hefty war chest, no pun intended, to spend to get re-elected for the umpteenth time. Gossip has it that she does not live in her inner city district, but in the wealthy enclave of Pacific Palisades. (I have no info or proof on this, but maybe some readers here can expand.) Also, she is loved by some in her district for she offers pay days and parties for them to attend orchestrated shows at the BoE building…all in front on the TV cameras and reporters, to influence the weak BoE to do her bidding…which is ALWAYS the Eli Broad scenario.
At the LAUSD BoE, it is too often a game of deception, secret deals behind closed doors, and a district run to benefit the insiders, including Eli who sold them the very building where they cook up all this subterfuge.
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Deasy’s last act as supt was to try to get the district to pay for his trip to South Korea, and that’s after he had been canned. Just amazing.
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BELOW is a detailed story of a sex scandal at the Summit Tahoma Charter School in San Jose, CA,
First, here’s some TV news coverage I just found:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/02/29/police-investigate-whether-sj-principal-broke-law-in-teacher-sex-case/
At this point when this was broadcast, there still existed the possibility that the principal at Summit Tahoma, Nicholas Kim, might face criminal charges, but as the story BELOW indicates, that never happened, or hasn’t yet happened.
And here is that more detailed story:
Here’s a story — relevant to the issue of deregulation of charters — that I’ve been sitting on for a couple months. (long post, but worth reading, trust me)
This sordid tale was going around at the California delegation at the NEA-RA convention held in D.C. in early July of this year. (and yeah, I freely concede that there’s a possibility of the story being embellished in the re-telling, as in the “telephone game” effect. However, I was able to find some corroboration of the main facts in media reports available on the internet. SEE BELOW)
It’s about how a principal at a Summit Tahoma Charter School in San Jose:
1) heard a report that one of his teachers was having sex with a female student;
2) he conducts “an internal investigation,” where he, on his own, concluded that nothing happened, and thus, never goes to the authorities;
(This action is a total violation of California law, and a major dereliction of duty, as he is not allowed to make that call NOT to tell the police. Like all adults working in a school setting — administrators, teachers, counselors, nurses, etc. — he is a mandatory reporter. Under penalty of jail and a steep fine for failing to do so, he MUST IMMEDIATELY contact the police. In LAUSD, we have to watch a video and take a test to this effect twice a year.
This situation is similar to when the officials at St. Hope charter school failed to report what Kevin Johnson was doing.)
2) it’s rumored by some (again, I heard this from some people at the NEA-RA in early July) that during the charter principal’s so-called “internal investigation,” he found out the story was true; it’s further alleged that, instead of reporting this to authorities as he was legally required, he pressured both the student and the teacher to deny the affair if and when any police or any other oversight authority questions them as in “Do this, and it will all go away;
“You don’t want ruin Mr. So-and-so’s life and send him to prison. Do you?” … or words to that effect.
(UPSHOT: the best interests and reputation of the Summit Charter Schools are more important than the well-being of the schools students, or following the law, or removing a teacher whom the principal knows full well likes to get it on with underage girls.)
3) even though the principal allegedly tried to bury the story, the word got out anyway, and — THANK JESUS!!!! — a non-involved parent did what the principal had a mandatory legal requirement to do, but did not — she called the police;
4) the police, responding to the parent’s reporting, show up at the school site while the principal is off-campus, and the assistant principal allows the police to question the girl in question in a private room;
5) the questioning starts just as the principal arrives back at the school;
6) the principal discovers what’s going on, and frantically calls the Summit charter chain’s main headquarters, and talks his superior and the charter chain’s lawyer, who tells them the principal has a legal right (???!!!) to barge in to the room, stop the police questioning, and order the police to leave. Incredibly he attempts to do just that, invoking the legal advice he was just given over the phone to the police present;
7) the police tells the principal that their Summit Charter School chain’s lawyers or management to whom he just spoke are in error, and furthermore, the police allegedly tell the principal that if he doesn’t back off, he will be charged with obstruction of justice, and handcuffed; suitably chagrined, he backs the-hell off, and shuts the-hell up;
8) the police questioning continues, but the girl sticks to her story — the story the principal allegedly pressured her to tell — nothing happened with the teacher;
(Whew! That was a close one! … ehhh … Not so fast, Principal Kim!)
9) later, the girl is questioned again by police at her family’s house, and away from the allegedly obstructing principal, she spills the beans;
10) the teacher is arrested and is currently being prosecuted;
(He’s a goa-teed loser, from the mug shot in the media coverage BELOW… “Seriously Dude, does affecting that ‘Robin Hood look’ help you score with the girls whom you teach?” Sweet Jesus! God save us all! )
11) the principal and Summit Charter School put out a very carefully and legally vetted statement, saying that the school’s administration is happy that the evil pedophile teacher has been removed, that’s what they wanted all along if the story was true, and that, contrary to the gossip that been going around, he and the Summit Tahoma Charter school administration cooperated with authorities at all times, and they view the well-being of the victim and of all their students as paramount blah-blah-blah…
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Quite a yarn? Ayy?
Here’s the actual media coverage I was able to find corroborating the this rumor/story floating around the NEA-RA convention in D.C. this July:
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_29568103/san-jose-house-probe-teacher-student-tryst-elicits
The police and other authorities were furious at principal’s outrageous claim that he could simply conduct his own investigation, and then conclude on his own whether or not this matter did warranted contacting the police.
William Grimm, senior attorney for the National Center for Youth Law based in Oakland was quoted in the above article link, and did not mince words:
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SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS:
” ‘The fact that he decided to take some of his time to investigate it automatically means it crosses the threshold of ‘reasonable suspicion,’ he (Grimm) said. ‘And what expertise does the principal have in identifying potential teacher-student sexual relationships?
” ‘He (the principal himself) posed a danger to the school by doing this and not having the qualifications necessary.’ ”
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When the principal of Summit Tahoma Charter, Nicholas Kim, entered the room where police were questioning the alleged victim of a teacher’s molestation, this transpired:
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SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS:
“And in the early stages of the police investigation at Summit Tahoma Public School, the same principal, Nicholas Kim, burst into a room to demand police stop interviewing the alleged victim, only to be rebuffed by a sex-crimes detective. This came a short time after the detective reminded the principal about his duty to report any potential child abuse allegation; the principal asserted he was following the direction of his management and legal team.”
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Here’s some of Summit’s legally vetted statement about this affair:
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SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS: (with my editorial NOTE’s in parentheses)
“In a statement to this newspaper, Kim (and the Summit Charter chain) wrote that …
” ‘At no point was there any intent by the school to conceal or hide any information. We acted in good faith. Under the circumstances and evidence available to us, we acted immediately and with speed to find all information. When we received information we followed up according to legal requirement.’
(NOTE: “followed up according to legal requirement” = chose not to go to the police when he heard a report alleging sexual abuse of a minor, so that, had the parent not gone on his or her own and reported it to the police himself or herself, no one would have ever been the wiser, and that goa-teed Robin-Hood-looking perv would still be on the loose preying on minors at San Jose’s Summit Tahoma Charter School.)
” ‘Once law enforcement became involved and interrogated the student, new evidence came to light that we acted on immediately.’
(NOTE: while that “new evidence did eventually “come to light” in the context of a police interview, it was no thanks to either Principal Kim, or to the Summit Management or to its legal team who gave Principal Kim the ridiculous and unlawful direction to barge in the room where police were questioning a witness, and attempt to stop this information from “coming to light”. Therefore, it’s DESPITE Principal Kim and his Summit Charter superiors, that the truth DID, in fact, “come to light,’ NOT BECAUSE of them.)
“The District Attorney’s Office said Friday that Kim’s decision not to notify police or Child Protective Services was not a violation of the mandated reporter law because the rumor alone did not create a level of ‘reasonable suspicion’ abuse had occurred, as the state penal code requires.
(NOTE: Now, this bit gets me really steamed.
I don’t know if the Summit charter folks are plugged in with, or have clout with the police in San Jose, so much so that they able to elicit such a statement and treatment from the local police, but I can say with absolute certainty:
THIS NEVER WOULD HAVE BEEN ACCEPTABLE WITH EITHER LAPD, or WITH LAUSD management. (especially in the wake of the Miramonte fiasco a few years back.)
ALL HELL WOULD HAVE RAINED DOWN ON ANY LAUSD PRINCIPAL — or teacher or administrator or other mandated reporter working in an LAUSD school — WHO ACTED THUSLY — both from the police, and from LAUSD administration. He or she would have been canned, banned from education for life, and probably prosecuted and fined, if not imprisoned.
What’s wrong you guys up in San Jose?
Once again, you see the difference between what goes on in a traditional public school setting, and in a deregulated charter setting.)
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SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS:
“The code reads, in part:
” ‘Reasonable suspicion’ does not require certainty that child abuse or neglect has occurred nor does it require a specific medical indication of child abuse or neglect; any ‘reasonable suspicion’ is sufficient.”
” ‘Where we see administrators making mistakes is when they have a victim telling them that some abuse occurred and then the administrator does their own investigation to see if it’s accurate, to see if it’s true,’ Assistant District Attorney Terry Harman said.
” ‘If you have a situation where what you’re hearing is a rumor and you’re not hearing from someone who saw something or someone who experienced something, then can you have a reasonable suspicion from what appears to be a rumor?’ ”
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Here’s more coverage of this:
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/San-Jose-teacher-arrested-for-allegedly-having-6855398.php
As I reflect on this charter school abomination, I wonder how Campbell Brown — that simultaneous privately-managed-deregulated-charter-lover, and crusader against teacher-child-abusers — and her crack team of reporters at The 74 would handle this story, had it happened …
… at a traditional public school
VS.
… at a charter school … as it most certainly did in this case.
The former would have rated a sizzling expose article on Campbell’s The74 website, proving once again how horrible traditional public schools are … “Unionized teachers are pedophiles!!! And their administrators protect them!!! We need to close ’em all down, and convert them to privately-managed charters, where these horrible things NEVER happen.”
The latter? … Ehhh … not so much… as in … “Oh no. We need to bury this one folks. We can’t make charters look bad.”
On that score, here’s a piece about how reporters at The 74 are allegedly barred from reporting anything negative on charter schools. (NOTE: since last fall, the Success Academy charter chain has faced on public relations disaster after another, and not a word from The 74 about any of them. Campbell Brown, naturally, serves of the Board of Directors of Success Academy charter schools)
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DIANE RAVITCH:
“Jennifer Berkshire, aka EduShyster, got a tip about a journalist who applied for a job with The 74. She was told that the 74 news service needed investigative journalists but they would not cover subject of charter school scandals. She shared her story with EduShyster but insisted on anonymity as revealing her name would be “career suicide.” EduShyster repeatedly reached out to a high-level official at The 74. Eventually he responded and insisted that he could not comment based on a report from an anonymous source.
“And of course, the site will be ‘fair and balanced.’ Where have we heard THAT before?”
Here’s the Edushyster story to which Dr. Ravitch refers:
http://edushyster.com/will-the-74-investigate-charter-scandals/
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Indeed, this whole Summit Tahoma Charter School story goes to the heart of why it’s such a danger to allow charter school operators to be so free of regulation — as they so often demand in order to … in their words … “be free to innovate” or whatever.
I’ll say it again: regarding this situation at Summit Tahoma Charter School, these same events would NEVER have played out this way in a traditional public school, at least not without serious consequences for the administrators or any adults who acted the way Principal Kim and the Summit Charter School management did.
Here’s how it works in California, in a traditional public school:
Both teachers and administrators in traditional public schools are “mandated reporters.” They have to attend “mandated reporter” training twice every school year (I’ve taken it over 20 times), in which it is made loud and clear that once you have knowledge or suspicion that abuse has taken place, a 36-hour clock starts from that very moment. If you don’t report it immediately, or within 36 hours at the latest,
1) the teacher or administrator will be fired;
2) the teacher or administrator will lose his/her credentials, and be banned from education for life;
and possibly …
3) be prosecuted as an accessory, if you collude with the perpetrator in covering up or destroying evidence.
In contrast to the way it works in LAUSD, with the adult administrators and teachers at a California charter … they apparently can get away with a lot … even if it puts children at risk of sexual predators.
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I agree with most of what Carl has said. But I’m not so sure this is the end. I think California is going to start having a serious discussion about charter oversight. Those discussions that lead to legislation can take a very long time. At least when they’re not muzzled from the first moment by the CCSA.
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