Maura Larkins finally provides us with a summary of her case against CVESD

Here's a summary written by Maura Larkins about her case against Chula Vista Elementary School District:

Here's a summary of what happened in my case:

Many people have told me that my case is so complicated that they simply don't understand it. They have asked for a summary, and here it is.

Maura Larkins v. CVESD was the result of an odd confluence of circumstances, and at the same time it was a typical event in the system that prevails at many schools across the United States. This system values politics and personal loyalty among adults over the duty to educate and protect children.

MY EX-SISTER-IN-LAW WANTED TO BE MANAGER OF MY FATHER'S APARTMENTS

I had been teaching at Chula Vista Elementary
School District for 27 years when the problem began.
It started with a family problem: I was
co-administrator of my father's estate,
and one of my brothers was secretly
unhappy about it. He and his ex-wife decided
to use the police to remove me from my position.

MY TROUBLED EX-SISTER-IN-LAW IS TAKEN SERIOUSLY BY THE DISTRICT

I was removed from my classroom
on February 12, 2001 due to a false police report
(see "A False Police Report" on this page)
made by my mentally-ill and substance-abusing
ex-sister-in-law. However, the district didn't
want to admit this, since using the
illegally-obtained police report
(no charges were filed against me)
was a misdemeanor.

THE DISTRICT DECIDES TO COVER-UP ITS MISTAKE

There is no chance that the district
would have been charged with a crime
for its silly little misdemeanor
(Labor Code section 432.7), but the district
decided it would rather spend $100,000s
of tax dollars to pay its lawyers to cover up the mistake
than to simply admit it made a mistake.

THE DISTRICT COMES UP WITH A STORY

The reason given by the district for my removal was that
two teachers had called assistant superintendent Richard Werlin
at home on a Saturday evening and said they believed
I might be about to kill them. Oddly, the district
created NO DOCUMENT at this time to explain
the reason I was removed from my classroom,
nor did it investigate the alarming report.

THE DISTRICT CHANGES ITS STORY

Within a month, the district changed its story,
saying that only one teacher, Jo Ellen Hamilton,
had called Richard Werlin about me. Hamilton later
testified under oath that she had simply called
Werlin at his invitation to discuss a planned meeting.

THE FAX THAT CAUSED CVESD TO DO AN ABRUPT ABOUT-FACE

On April 3, 2001 I sent a
fax to the district. The next day I was abruptly
asked to return to work, and at the
same time the district belatedly
prepared a document to explain why
I had been removed from my classroom
in the first place. The document
contained a new, completely false
accusation by Richard Werlin and
never mentioned the teacher reports.

I GO BACK TO WORK

I went back to teach in April 2001 because
it seemed clear that my accusers had
been deemed unreliable (either crazy
or dishonest or some combination of the two),
and I assumed that the fabricated excuse in
Richard Werlin's document , was merely
an effort by an embarrassed human resources director
to cover up his mistake.


But I was wrong. It was more than a cover-up;
it was, in fact, a set-up.

BIZARRE NEW ALLEGATIONS

A week after returning, Linda Watson, one of the
teachers who had accused me earlier,
and a new accuser who made a written report,
came forward with bizarre allegations.

AN IMPENDING ELECTION CAUSED THE TEACHERS UNION TO ABANDON ITS OBLIGATIONS

I did not know it at the time, but the teachers
union, Chula Vista Educators, was
working with my accuser Linda Watson. CVE President
Gina Boyd had worked at my school until 1995, and
although she did not share the motivations
of her friends at Castle Park Elementary,
she was running for reelection and felt she
needed to keep them happy in order to win.
This effort was supported by California Teachers
Association Board of Directors member Jim Groth.

Richard Werlin, with the approval of the cabinet
(including Libia Gil and Lowell Billings),
had triggered an all-out hysteria at my school.
Two staff members told me that many teachers were afraid
that I was "going to come to school and shoot everybody.”

DISTRICT DOESN'T BOTHER TO INVESTIGATE MASS MURDER RUMOR THAT CAUSES HYSTERIA AMONG TEACHERS

Without making any effort to
establish that a Columbine-type
event was not in the offing, the
district demanded that I come back
to work in September of 2001. This
time I refused.

My lawyer demanded an investigation
to clear my name and cool down the crucible
that Castle Park Elementary had become, but
the district refused. It was clear that anyone
could make any accusation against me, and it
would be believed and acted on: I was not
safe at work.

SCHOOL ATTORNEY MARK BRESEE GETS HELP FROM DANIEL SHINOFF

Attorney Mark Bresee, who was then working with
Parham & Rajcic and was recently chosen as chief counsel
for Terry Grier at SDUSD, had been giving legal advice
to CVESD up to this point.

When I filed a tort claim on October 4, 2001, attorney Diane Crosier and claims adjuster Rodger Hartnett of San Diego County Office of Education Joint Powers Authority, along with their favorite attorney, Daniel Shinoff of Stutz, Artiano Shinoff & Holtz, became involved.

THE DISTRICT RETALIATES WHEN I FILE GRIEVANCES

I filed 3 grievances on November 13, 2001. The very next day the
district threatened me with dismissal. This was a violation of
the Elementary Education Relations Act (EERA) and other laws.

The district took no action on its
threats, however, until I filed a
lawsuit on March 12, 2002. On May
7, 2002 Patrick Judd, Cheryl Cox,
Pamela Smith, Bertha Lopez and
Larry Cunningham voted to dismiss
me, thus violating California Labor
Code section 1102.5 which prohibits
retaliation against employees for
reporting wrongdoing. This was also
a violation of the constitutional right
to petition for redress of grievances.

THE OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATIVE HEARINGS SEEMS TO HAVE A GIFT FOR COMEDY

My dismissal was upheld by the
Office of Administrative Hearings.
Judge H. James Ahler conducted
a hearing that was almost as comical
as it was illegal. At one point
Judge Ahler jumped up and
ordered the panelists to join him in a
side room, where he told them to
disregard my testimony. I heard his
words because I was sitting on the
witness stand a few feet from him.
The court reporter and all the rest of us
sat at attention during the ten
minutes the panel was in the little
room, but the judge's words were
not included in the transcript
because the reporter couldn't hear
them.

The school district spent many tax
dollars, and the California Teachers
Association spent plenty of teachers'
dues, to get my lawsuit thrown out.
Perjury by employees was also
required, but the effort seemed to pay off
for the district and CTA when my lawsuit was
dismissed in 2005.

DISTRICT LAWYERS BRING THE CASE BACK TO COURT IN 2007

As fate would have it, however, my case
is back in court. CVESD’s law firm,
Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz,
brought this case back to San Diego Superior Court
in 2007 by filing a defamation suit against me
for publishing this website.

So it’s still possible that justice and sanity
will find their way back to Chula Vista Elementary
School District.

by Maura Larkins

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...

“Castle Park Five” teacher Robin Donlan needs our help again!

CVESD teacher Robin Donlan is under investigation by the FBI, SEC, US Justice Department. She needs our help.

Robin Donlan has needed our help many times before:

1. Chula Vista Educators President Gina Boyd was a true friend to Robin Donlan, committing perjury and destroying documents to cover up misdemeanors Donlan committed in 2000 and 2001. Current CVE President Jim Groth helped out with a terrific grievance hoax.

2. Yet again, Gina and Jim proved to be reliable in 2004 when Chula Vista Elementary School District Superintendent Lowell Billings tried to return Castle Park Elementary to normal functioning after the crime wave initiated by Robin. Gina and Jim got the transfer ruled illegal! What a way to help children!

3. Now Robin needs help with a little securities fraud. It seems her husband transferred 700,000 shares of fraudulent stock options to her. Then Robin and Vence Donlan bought the stock and resold it at $7.7 million profit. She’s being investigated by the FBI, SEC, IRS and the Department of Justice. Who will pay Robin’s attorney bills now that her assets are frozen?

4. Cheryl Cox, Pamela Smith, Patrick Judd, Bertha Lopez and Larry Cunningham spent several $100,000's of the public’s money to defend Robin Donlan regarding crimes she committed at CVESD. They are our best hope to save Robin from the claws of justice once again.

5. Also, we hope that Chula Vista Educators will step into the lurch as they have so often before. Monica Sorenson, Joyce Abrams and all the rest of the board of directors have always gone along with instructions from CTA attorney Michael Hersh—and they keep quiet about it, too. There shouldn’t be any problem at all!

6. The Castle Park Family is planning a big rally to raise money for Robin. We hope Bob Filner and Jill Galvez will be there, just like they were for Robin’s 2004 rally.

7. I’m sure former Castle Park PTA presidents Felicia Starr and Kim Simmons won’t miss it. They have nothing to fear now that Bonnie Dumanis has declined to press charges regarding the 2004-2005 embezzlement of $20,000 from the PTA.