Monday, October 20, 2008

Education Alliance trustees showing their true colors at CUSD

As you know, several of our trustees (on the SOCCCD board) are associated with Tustin’s right-wing Education Alliance, a “back to basics” organization that is hostile to unions.

SOCCCD board president Don Wagner is on EA’s board.

Not long ago, EA helped seat the five-member “board majority” that now runs the Capistrano Unified School District. These new board members say they stand for openness and transparency and decency.

Sure they do.

Another open-meeting law violation for Capistrano trustees? (Today)
Capistrano Unified trustees tonight will consider admitting to a "highly technical" violation of the state's Brown Act open-meeting law in September.....

In a legal complaint filed last month, the district's teachers union said the school board had created an illegal quorum when two "reform" trustees, board President Ellen Addonizio and Sue Palazzo, attended the school board's Sept. 16 facilities subcommittee meeting as audience members.

The Capistrano Unified School District has been blasted four times in the past year by the Orange County District Attorney's Office for its repeated violations of the Brown Act, a law designed to offer transparency in meetings involving elected officials.

The five "reform" trustees on the school board, including Addonizio and Palazzo, campaigned on the premise of restoring transparency and accountability to the board's activities, including stopping the Brown Act violations....
Capistrano district at crossroads with Nov. 4 school board election (Saturday)
November's election was supposed to end three years of political bloodletting in the Capistrano Unified School District, an unequivocal validation of a parent-driven "reform" movement that has replaced five of seven trustees tainted by scandals and criminal complaints.

Instead it is heating up into a bitter political fight as two former allies–the "reform"-minded parents group and the teachers union–go to war over whether the five replacement trustees are as committed to overhauls as they promised or whether they, too, are tainted by their actions and associations.

Capistrano Unified's "reform" movement was started in 2005 by a group of parents weary of what they viewed as poor planning and fiscal mismanagement by district administrators and the school board.

Galvanized and popularly received, the CUSD Recall Committee, as it became known, replaced three trustees in November 2006 with candidates Ellen Addonizio, Anna Bryson and Larry Christensen and two more in a June 2008 recall with Ken Maddox and Sue Palazzo.

Collectively, the "reform" trustees secured a five-person majority.

But division had already been brewing. Shortly after the November 2006 election, the Recall Committee lost the support of a strong ally–the financially influential, 2,400-member teachers union. The union had endorsed Addonizio and Christensen and spent $85,394 on their campaigns, but later learned they had been funded in part by the anti-union Education Alliance, based in Tustin.

The self-described "back-to-basics" group opposes health clinics and bilingual education in schools, advocates for school voucher programs, and believes teachers unions wield too much power and influence.

The teachers union has slammed the Education Alliance as a right-wing, special-interest group intent on buying influence in the district through the Recall Committee. Union leaders say they feel betrayed and have expressed grave doubts about the "reform" trustees' leadership.

The teachers union doesn't deny the new majority's accomplishments, but says their overall track record has been, at best, "disappointing"–including a purported open-meeting law violation in August, unannounced entry into the superintendent's private office on a day when district offices were closed, and a growing perception the trustees aren't as transparent as promised....

SCHOOL BOARD AWARDED...FOR VIOLATING THE LAW!:

Posted by Daffodil J. Altan (OC Weekly)
October 20

The Capistrano Unified School Board was honored with a coveted "Darkness Award" by the California First Amendment Coalition this past weekend. Winners who earn the award usually, among other things, lie, thwart freedom of speech and subvert the public's right to know. The Capo board had it nailed in at least two of those categories and the First Amendment Coalition agreed, citing their continued inability to abide by open meeting laws. Violations were documented in the not-so-shining report issued by the DA's office in 2007, where egregious violations of the state's open meeting laws were detailed, including a handful of secret meetings used to discuss everything from building contracts to how to manage the fussy press and public opinion.

The DA issued another report last month finding more violations committed earlier this year, when the board debated the superintendent's raise in private session (and where recalled, former board member Marlene Draper said, on tape, "It's not about them..." referring to constituents who might object to the raise). No word on whether any of the recalled former board members, or perhaps indicted former Superintendent James Fleming, were on hand to receive the award.
Congratulations are in order, all around.
SEE ALSO:


Board president Ellen Addonizio wants Spencer Covert's advice
Capistrano trustees found looking through superintendent's desk
New Capo trustees pledge openness
School elections show incumbents' power (1998)

Pictured: Tiger-Ann, Cat

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

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