Mary's garden grows quite well, but Nancy Kerwin's has a bare spot

Mary Guzman (far Left, holding check), a fourth grade teacher at Valley Vista Elementary, received a $1,200 school garden grant from the California Fertilizer Foundation at an all school assembly on Monday, May 19, 2008. Principal Gloria McKearney helped Mary hold the check.

Nancy Kerwin, the Chula Vista Elementary School District’s Executive Director of Student, Family, and Community Services and Support stood behind them.

UPDATE:
Jan. 13, 2008
It seems that Nancy Kerwin's smile in the above photo might have had more than one cause. A month before the photo was taken, Nancy apparently got someone she didn't like, Dale Parent, demoted. Dale Parent's lawsuit may be found HERE.

No blaming the parents and community at this middle School

Keillor Leadership Academy in southeast San Diego improved its test scores.

By EMILY ALPERT
June 10, 2008
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/06/14/education/896keiller061008.txt
"A southeast San Diego charter school has quietly done the improbable, becoming one of only two California middle schools to pull itself out of No Child Left Behind's purgatory...

"It's so easy to blame the parents, or the community" for low achievement, Executive Director Patricia Ladd said. "All those things we can't control. We have to take things as they are and stop the blame game."

"Keiller's director attributes many of its reforms, including its changed culture and new focus on vocabulary, to the freedom it enjoys after converting into a charter school. Charters are independently run but publicly funded schools that are not bound by school district rules..."

Richard Werlin has surfaced again

Richard Werlin has surfaced again
After causing big problems in Chula Vista and Richmond, the amazing Richard Werlin has gotten himself hired in Compton, by none other than his old pal at WCCCUSD, Kay Burnside.

And Kelly Angell, who helped get a lawsuit against Werlin regarding criminal actions thrown out of court on technical grounds, without any findings of fact, is now an employee of Fagen, Friedman and Fullfrost.

Is it a small world, or do certain people just come together naturally? Or both?

Here's the article I found:

School Board [Compton Unified School District] Considers Fourth Audit of District Operations
May 14, 2008
By Allison Jean Eaton

"...Last month, the school board supported three other similar audits at a total cost of $46,000 in the areas of human resources and personnel services, legal services and fiscal services, the latter of which will include an in-depth look at facilities funding and the affect it has on the district’s overall financial status.

"Consultant Richard Werlin is being paid $6,600 to audit the human resources and personnel services department. The Los Angeles-based law firm of Fagen, Friedman & Fulfrost is studying the district’s legal services at a cost of $9,600...

"Superintended Kaye Burnside Ed.D., who officially took the helm of Compton Unified March 1, is exercising an “administrative best practice,” according to district Communications Director Christine Sanchez..."

from Jane Swanson blog

Bilingual education rejected at Castle Park Elementary

Why has Castle Park Elementary in Chula Vista had 11 principals in 11 years?

Because of the bilingual program. And because past is prologue.

The serious problems at Castle Park Elementary started when the bilingual program was introduced in 1994. Many teachers were furious, and took out their anger on the single bilingual teacher who came that year to teach kindergarten. The result? She was dismissed at the end of the year by a district whose policy is to not make any effort to determine why a teacher has been targeted for dismissal; district administrators allow school politics to make those decisions.)

The bilingual program added a teacher a year until it had a final total of four bilingual teachers in September 1997.

The program was sagotaged by the many teachers who refused to allow bilingual classes into their teaming arrangements.

Rae Correira, a district administrator who tried to arrange teaming in the 1997-1998 school year was suddenly transferred to a different job in the middle of the year.

The teachers ran the school. The principal did exactly what teacher leaders told her to do. And that included dismissing another bilingual teacher in 2001 (the dismissal was initiated the day after she filed 3 grievances).

It's June 2008 now, and the teachers have just gotten rid of their 11th principal since the bilingual program started. The twelfth principal in fourteen years will be chosen soon.

by Maura Larkins
Charlotte Blogs

CVESD is suffering from a bad case of "white chalk crime" at Castle Park Elementary

An Interview with Karen Horwitz: White Chalk Crime
By Michael F. Shaughnessy
Senior Columnist EdNews.org
05/29/2008

1) Karen, you have just written a book entitled "White Chalk Crime" The Real Reason Schools Fail. What prompted you to write this book?

The knowledge that those running our schools have absolute power to control what people can know about our schools prompted me to put together a book that would speak truth to this unbalanced power and thus empower the public to force change.

2) Your book, which is published by BookSurge Publishing out of South Carolina seems to document the issue of " teacher abuse". Could you define " teacher abuse " for us?

Teacher abuse...includes a myriad of ways of silencing educators from tormenting them with false evaluations, setting them up as pariahs amongst their colleagues, to pushing them out of their positions and it serves as an example so other educators will know to just go along with whatever the powers that be want even when it is harmful to children and/or illegal...

This culture of abuse invites the worst in people and does lead to teachers abusing others...

3) Now, what do you mean by "teacher cleansing"?

Teacher cleansing is pushing teachers/educators out of their position and out of the profession by using trumped up charges or setting teachers up to fail with stacked classes, impossible, abusive parents, or inappropriate assignments and using these devious set-up's against them. By blacklisting any teacher who speaks truth to power, any teacher who is a nuisance to EducRAT$ will be cleansed from the profession.

4) What are EDucRat$, and how are they influencing education?

EducRAT$ are unethical, self-serving "leaders," administrators, and board members that use this out-of control power to have their way. They are "rats" whose concern for money ($) and power drives them to take advantage of whatever they can from kickbacks when ordering supplies, to squandering tax funds on legal fees to cleanse excellent teachers out of the system – all forms of White Chalk Crime.

The ways they influence education are obvious. They prioritize their needs and corrupt education to the point that it is dysfunctional. Most significantly, part of this corruption is their ability to make sure the public doesn't know they have corrupted it.

Their power to keep the truth from the public is the single most devastating aspect of all. It has enabled them to escalate their bad acts, while the public remains clueless...