There is a path to follow in this series regarding the mess here in South Orange County and the Capistrano Unified School Districts Board of Trustees.  The big picture needed to be outlined in one diary, to show how this board was working against the teachers and the bargaining process.  It was merely a snapshot, the picture is bigger and it has been going on for years.

The second piece of the puzzle has to do with Education Alliance, a Political Action Committee in Tustin, CA and a number of other political entities hell bent on dismantling public education (And opposing other important political issues such as health care reform and climate change legislation) so that they can privatize and funnel money into charter schools.  

The argument of the Charter school people is that Capistrano Unified isn’t working, even though it is ranked as 137th in the State out of 870 school districts and it’s the highest ranked school if you consider it’s size by number of students.  Capo also has an amazing graduation rate with over 95% of their students graduating high school with the State average at 79%.

The district is working, the teachers are the reason why our schools are competitive and the students are high achievers as well as passionately involved parents.  Pacific Research Institute would like you to think otherwise, that communities like Capo are dysfunctional.  PRI has been touting their documentary, Not as Good as You Think: The Myth of the Middle Class School which attempts to paint this as an issue of public education, which it is not.  It’s an issue of corrupt and ineffective board of trustees.  And they were corrupt, it’s why so many parents wanted them gone, so beginning in 2006, recall candidates started to replace the corrupt board and replace it with new slate of “reform” candidates who would restore out district to sanity and transparency, or so we thought.

And the story to be told here is about another Board of Trustees that has replaced the last bunch by taking advantage of angry, hurt parents in a unimaginable situation.  This is about the current board of Trustees and it’s not pretty.

“We have been engaged in this battle for many years and it just came to a point where it made sense to end this litigation,” said plaintiff Tony Beall, a Rancho Santa Margarita city councilman and a leader of Capistrano Unified’s “reform” movement.

…

The settlement agreements were authorized by Capistrano’s “reform”-minded school board, the same group many of the families in the lawsuits helped elect. Indeed, the leaders of the politically popular “reform” movement – including Beall and Tom Russell – will receive some of the $653,350 settlement money.

Trustee Ken Maddox defended the board’s decision to award money to some of the parents who helped get him and his colleagues elected, saying it was “silly” to suggest a conflict of interest.

OC Register

Emphasis added by me

Silly?  Really, you think that’s silly?

I don’t think it’s silly, I think it’s a valid point, that Tony Beall, Republican Mayor of Rancho Santa Margarita and political backer of Winsten received settlement money from the board of Trustees just months after he was sworn in.

Capistrano Dispatch 12/12/08 – Winsten was sworn in by reform committee leader Tony Beall (Beall was a donor to Winsten’s campaign and a recipient of settlement funds). Capistrano Dispatch 12/12/08 – Winsten was sworn in by reform committee leader Tony Beall (Beall was a donor to Winsten’s campaign and a recipient of settlement funds).

Source

Then the recall itself cost almost $700,000 because they couldn’t wait for the general election in November, which would have meant a lot more turn out.  But what about saving the district some much needed money?

The school board on Monday authorized paying the Orange County Registrar of Voters Office $677,603 for the full cost of administering the special election.

…

Opponents of the recall say the special election was pointless and a waste of money, as the two recalled trustees would have been up for re-election in November anyway, less than five months after the June recall election.

And now that two of this current board are under recall threat?  Guess what their argument is?  Seriously.  And the writer of this piece happens to be Tony Beall.  I know, it’s so ridiculous, the same players with the same song, singing in tune and together for the same purpose.  Starting to think it’s more than just “silly”?

The recall proponents were roundly criticized when they commenced this recall because it appears virtually impossible for any organization to gather more than 22,000 valid petition signatures in the short nine week period remaining before expiration of the deadline to qualify for the November 2010 general election – thereby making it:

far more likely the recall proponents would force an $800,000 special election upon the cash-strapped school district in the middle of the worst budget crisis in our country’s history; and

far less likely voters would sign the recall petitions because voters do not want to take $800,000 away from the students.

Red County

And then began the broken promises as soon as the votes had come in.

The night they were elected, Lopez-Maddox made promises, lots of them but this is the one that many hoped would stick.

Cost cutting: Maddox said one of the first things he will do is direct administrators to analyze all of the district’s outside service contracts to determine how much the district is paying and whether there are opportunities for cost cutting. Unlike when Bryson and others have asked for similar analyses, the new board majority will ensure district staff completes the tasks they are assigned, Maddox said.

“We had a group of recalcitrant trustees who refused to yield on any issue where they may be determined to be wrong,” Maddox said.

OC Register

Now, rather than reinventing the wheel, I’m going to source two amazingly well researched sites,Capo Recall 2010 and Capistrano Unified Children First for the following information.  I want to thank those who came before me to gather information and keep track of the  current board and their repeated abuse of tax payer funds when our School District can least afford it (When can school districts afford blatant abuse of funds?)

One of the promises of this board was local control, Capistrano Unified is a huge district and a huge piece of reform that would keep influential money out of the system would be voting “by trustee area”.   This would mean candidates from the local cities representing areas from Aliso Viejo for their schools to San Clemente for their local schools.  Rather than it costing a candidate over a $100,000 to run for a seat, they could spend less than $20,000 and rely on the donations of parents rather than special interest groups!

All the Board of Trustees had to do was to request a waiver from having to vote on this issue and the problem is solved.  But they refused to do so, five to one.   So not only will it cost the district more money, they are attempting to make it seem like other entities are trying to waste money in “forcing this election”.

Then there is the Superintendent issue that’s been a tough one for many to swallow since there hasn’t been a new one in place for a little over a year now.   The former Superintendent had a three year contract for almost a million dollars but as it stands, we’re paying an interim superintendent almost a thousand dollars a day who doesn’t have the kind of experience with this sized school district.    How is this helping things?

SPECIAL CUSD BOARD MEETING AT THE LAGUNA CLIFFS MARRIOTT ON APRIL 26, 2010.  The agenda is available is online.    The question is this, why are they meeting at a local Marriott hotel when they have a perfectly good, 38 million dollar District office to meet at?

Ah yes, it’s the Superintendent that they are attempting to hire since currently paying the current one almost $1,000 a day doesn’t seem fiscally sound.  I know.  But this board likes to spend money on things like attorney’s fees.

Rather than retaining in house council as they promised, they’ve retained the services of 11 law firms and a PR firm called Communications Resources for Schools in December 2009,  and have spent 2.3 million dollars of our tax dollars on outside Attorney fees.

And they don’t understand Brown Act laws either.

Judge finds Capistrano Board of Education

Violated “Brown Act” Open Meeting Law

Ruling confirms CUSD Board solicited assistance from attorney with known history of open-meeting violations

CUEA News Release

ALISO VIEJO – ‘This entire school board ran on a campaign dedicated to restoring ‘honesty, integrity, and accountability’ to public education,” said Capistrano Unified Education Association President Vicki Soderberg, “but if their action in this case is their definition of these qualities, I want no part of it, and thankfully, neither do the courts.”

In a writ of mandate issued March 16, 2010 stemming from a lawsuit initiated by CUEA against the Capistrano Unified Board of Education on November 3, 2008, Orange County Superior Court Judge David T. McEachen found that the CUSD board did violate California’s Brown Act open meeting law when it met in an illegal closed session meeting on August 11, 2008. The ruling specifically states that the school board “. . . did not adequately set forth closed session topics and is in violation of the Brown Act as to the unnoticed attendance of Spencer Covert and the proposed disciplinary action against Superintendent Carter.”

Beyond the Blackboard

What’s so upsetting about all of this is that I have only scratched the surface.  There are videos of parents being ignored and belittled by this board during BOT meetings.  There is a lot of evidence of downright hubris by the board for completely turning their back on their promises documented on the blog, Beyond the Blackboard another amazing resource for parents in Capo.  It’s all out there, one just has to dig.  The problem is this, it goes so deep, you feel you might just bury yourself in this mess.

Some very well done videos to pull all this together.

And a video about the endless spending by this Board.  Millions of dollars.  It will make your stomach turn, it did mine.

So how does the local Republican Party feel about this?  It’s Orange County, the local political machine is the Republican Party.  When the Board talks about the powerful unions, it is almost laughable because the unions just don’t have that much power.

Republican Party of Orange County Unanimously Opposes Union-Backed Recall of CUSD Trustees by Tony Beall

County Party Urges All Voters Not to Sign Recall Petitions

(IRVINE, CA) – The Republican Party of Orange County Central Committee unanimously approved the following resolution yesterday pertaining to the new recall campaign which is being promoted by public employee unions and their allies against Capistrano Unified School District Trustees Ken Lopez-Maddox and Mike Winsten.

So, why would the Republican Party care about a non-partisan Board of Trustees being recalled?  Ah yes, they helped get this board elected.  Note who wrote this piece too over at Red County.  And note how they stick to the talking points, “Voters elected Trustees Lopez-Maddox and Winsten to bring positive change and reform to CUSD and that’s exactly what they’re doing,”.

Really?  Do you think they’ve changed much?  Really?

So now you know where the local Republicans stand on this who do run the show down here politically and I don’t hide my political affliation, I write for Daily Kos, Liberal OC and Calitics, it’s not secret.  But I also wrote about the recall in 2008, happy to know that the corrupt BOT at that time were being removed.  A lot of people were duped.

Why keep supporting a corrupt board?  I don’t know, but here’s more posturing from Tony Beall at Red County when the teachers chose to strike and using talking points that have nothing to do with the issue at hand, that the teachers are willing to take the pay cuts they just don’t want them to be permanent.  That’s it.

But he continues to bloviate about the busted promises of this board, this GOP Backed board.

The seven conservative republican trustees serving on the Capistrano Unified Board of Trustees are under attack by the powerful California Teachers Association – and they need the immediate support of all conservatives who are sick and tired of the abuses and undue influence exerted by this powerful union.

…

The seven Republican Reform Trustees in CUSD have proven they’ve got that political courage and resolve to change the status quo!  Under their leadership, test scores across the district have soared to their highest levels.  They have:

Stopped years of deficit spending;

Successfully balanced the budget;

Increased financial reserves;

Enacted strong anti-nepotism and conflict of interest policies;

Completed a district-wide facilities assessment;

Saved millions by cutting and streamlining the bloated bureaucracy; and

Demanded the union accept a 10% cut in their contract.

CUEA has accepted the ten percent pay cut that’s the only honest statement here because even with the cut to teacher’s pay and benefits, the Board of Trustees still have a budget deficit to contend with.

And of course, a lot of teachers and parents want to know what the board has to do with “soaring test scores”.  Teachers are what make schools great.  Teachers are who do the teaching, not Trustees and not bloggers and pundits or textbooks.

It’s about the teachers not a Board of Trustees that has broken it’s promises and spends my tax dollars to line the pockets of lawyers, their political allies and others in order to keep the power structure in Orange County intact.

They are on the wrong side of this issue.  Republicans and Democrats both support Public Education and their teachers.  There is a common ground when it comes to corrupt politicians and liars.  Republicans might want to be careful who they support.

The Teacher’s issued this statement just about an hour ago which changes the whole situation for CUSD.

Capistrano Teachers Issue Bargaining Proposal Designed to Prevent Strike Challenge Capistrano School Board to back up words with action

ALISO VIEJO – Challenging the Capistrano Unified School District Board of Education to back up vague offers to “entertain discussion” related to bargaining, the 2,200 members of the Capistrano Unified Education Association invite the board back to the bargaining table to negotiate, based upon the following proposals:

The board will reverse the permanent nature of salary and benefits cuts they imposed March 31 by making them temporary;

There will be no increase in class size;

The board will restore salary, unpaid work days, and benefits cuts if unforeseen funds are received;

The board will implement already agreed to contract language that deals with working conditions, transfer of teachers, and leaves as stipulated to in the fact finding hearing.

“It has never been the goal of Capistrano teachers to strike,” said CUEA President Vicki Soderberg. “We have always been willing to bargain in good faith, and we immediately accepted the neutral fact finder’s settlement recommendation. Although the CUSD school board’s unilateral imposition forced us into voting a strike authorization, we much prefer to settle our differences through bargaining.”

“In recent media reports and direct communications to teachers, the CUSD Board of Education has implied that they are willing to bargain with the teachers, but the board has yet to make a formal, direct proposal to CUEA. We want our members, our students, the public, and the board to be perfectly clear that we do not want to strike and that we want to reach a negotiated settlement. We challenge the board to live up to their recent statements and accept our proposal for an agreement,” said Soderberg

Over Thursday and Friday of last week, Capistrano Unified School District teachers took a vote on whether to strike due to the total break down in communications with their Board of Trustees over contract negotiations.

The vote was pretty overwhelming for the teachers to strike and the continued obfuscation by the BOT astounds me as I read the local papers take on the back and forth.  The Orange County Register is the paper of record for local residents, it’s where we get information and although it’s their job to report, not decide it disheartens me to see the board continue to misrepresent their position and that of the Teacher’s union.

Follow me…

According to the OC Register almost 87% of the teachers who voted support a strike.  And still the board insists that the Teacher’s Union has negotiated in bad faith even though they agreed to all the terms of the fact finding group, all of which would be temporary.  

This is one of the big sticking points for the parents and the teachers, the BOT is asking for those to be permanent even though many of us hope this economic downturn will be temporary in nature.  And another of the issues has to the do with a clause in the contract that would allow the BOT to make further cuts if necessary without having to go back to the negotiating table.

So this is how the OC Register paints the following scenario by the quotes printed by Lopez-Moddox, one of the Board of Trustees and also a target of a new recall effort led by area parents unhappy with the direction the new board is taking.

Lopez-Maddox said it would be impractical to “begin an entire year’s worth of negotiations over now” and emphasized that the school board has tried to be responsive to teachers, despite the imposed pay cut.

Well, obviously this is misleading because they wouldn’t have to start all over, it wouldn’t be a year’s worth of negotiations.  They would be sitting down and starting with the fact finders proposal which the Teacher’s union has already accepted, it solves the fiscal impasse that the district is facing and is the whole point of such a uninvolved party taking place in negotiations.  There would be no reason to start over unless you aren’t willing to talk at all and you would prefer to make it seem like that’s the only solution.

Just hours before approving the imposition, the school district removed a clause that was generating considerable angst among teachers, Lopez-Maddox noted. The clause stated that Capistrano Unified “reserves the right to implement further reductions, consistent with its pre-impasse offers, should the district’s fiscal outlook deteriorate beyond current budget projections.”

Just an hour prior to the Board of Trustees meeting during a closed door session.  Just hours before.  Yes, they really are kind of doing things last minute and creating a great deal of chaos in the process for teachers and parents, creating chaos and worry, their own little fiefdom of shock doctrine.

Also, trustees on Wednesday expressed a willingness to meet with union leaders to discuss whether the pay cut will become temporary – via a non-bargaining route known as a memorandum of understanding – although they said they would not reopen contract negotiations.

Okay, so how is this being cooperative when everything in this statement says they want to go via a “non-bargaining” route and they “would not reopen contract negotiations”?   If they had merely sat down before they had voted their own contract this wouldn’t be an issue.  And the question is, what’s the point if it’s not even binding?  This is something that I’ve read elsewhere, that this MOU is not binding in cases of salary negotiations.

“We can never make them happy no matter what we try to do,” Lopez-Maddox said. “Every time the teachers union comes to the board and asks for X, we say OK. Then they say, ‘That’s not good enough. We want you to do Y.’ They have a moving target.”

Which of course is not true, there is no moving target, the teachers were clear from the start what was at issue with the Board of Trustee’s contract.  They have been the ones to negotiate via the media, piecemeal and only half-heartedly.  This is not how you take contract negotiations seriously.  This is not how you bargain with a group of professionals and expect a positive outcome.

And the reaction from the board via press release was also rather disappointing as well.

PRESIDENT BRYSON RESPONDS TO STRIKE AUTHORIZATION

“We are very disappointed that teachers in our district have authorized their union leaders to call a strike. A teacher walkout will be a political statement by the union that will not change the fiscal reality we face as a school district or the need to move forward with the level of concessions required in the CUEA contract. Individual teachers will be asked to pay the price in lost wages for that union decision. The Board of Education has made it clear that we are ready to meet with CUEA to discuss a memorandum of understanding about the temporary nature of these cuts should our fiscal situation improve. The union has rejected this sincere offer and is demanding that we resume the same unproductive talks that led us to this point. We simply cannot do that.

It is time to move on for the benefit of our students and our community. Should CUEA notify the district that they will, in fact, strike, we will take appropriate steps to notify our community and continue to move forward with the important job of educating our students.”

Anna Bryson, President

CUSD Board of Education

What unproductive talks, there have been no talks!

And this is priceless, “Individual teachers will be asked to pay the price in lost wages for that union decision.”  No, teachers voted overwhelmingly to vote for this strike, 1,600 hundred of them did, 87% of those who showed up to vote, voted to strike.  This blatant attempt to make it sound like the Union is forcing all these poor helpless teachers to strike against their will is bunk.

We understand that the budget process in Sacramento has been to cut K-12 and hold the budget hostage, but that’s not the Teacher’s fault, that’s the fault of our local State legislators who refuse to do anything to protect education funding (Despite laws that are in place to protect K-12).  Orange County Republicans are the legislative minority who signed a no new taxes pledge before the bottom fell out of our economy and had to stick to that while vying to retain their seats or win higher office in 2008.  But here in the OC they don’t really have to do much to win, the overwhelming voter registration is in their favor, they merely have to put their name on the ballot and in the case of a primary challenge, they are anointed post-primary as the winner of the general election before one vote is cast.

Ultimately the issue comes to this, the Board of Trustees does not understand the bargaining process and does not understand how to run a school district, especially one that is so large.  As I’ve written in another important Diary this has a lot more to do with dismantling public education than it does with bargaining and the improvement of my child’s education.  MY CHILD.

Education Alliance and Pacific Research Institute are behind this mess and the current Board of Trustees are merely stand ins for the experiment.  Let me share some photos from the Capo Recall 2010 to illustrate my point.

And I want to leave with this, with a message from the Teacher’s union, who have been ravaged by this board and supported by parents like me.  You can decide for yourself about the tone and the professionalism of each party.  Aliso Viejo is where I bought my home and decided to raise my daughter, it’s where I chose to make my life.

ALISO VIEJO – “Capistrano teachers have drawn a line to protect our schools and our profession, and sometimes that line is a picket line,” said Capistrano Unified Education Association President Vicki Soderberg, announcing the overwhelming 87 percent thumb’s up from Capistrano Unified School District’s 2,200 teachers in the April 15-16 vote.

With 85 percent of eligible teachers casting ballots, 1,600 CUEA members voted “yes” and 248 voted “no.” The vote does not compel an immediate strike. Instead, it authorizes CUEA’s Executive Board to initiate one if the CUSD Board of Education refuses to revoke its unilaterally imposed contract of permanent, over-the-top cuts in wages and benefits totaling more than ten percent.

“A strike has never been what teachers wanted,” said Soderberg, “but this thundering strike authorization vote – with teachers at many school sites voting 100 percent in favor – shows just how fed up we are with this board’s harsh, dictatorial behavior and duplicitous tactics.” The Capistrano board’s permanent cuts go well beyond the mutually-selected neutral fact finder’s reasonable settlement recommendation. They also exceed those in settlements agreed to by teacher groups and school boards throughout Orange County.

“We are so grateful that Capistrano’s parents and students understand that a short-term disruption of school is worth the fight for long-term stability in the district,” said Soderberg. As reported April 15 on the Capistrano Unified School District’s website, approximately 10,000 students – or about one out of every five – boycotted school attendance on April 13 in a parent-led protest of school board actions. “How can we teach our students to stand up to unfair, bullying behavior, if we’re not willing to walk the walk ourselves? There are life lessons that can’t be taught by a test. It is so heartwarming to know that parents and students understand the school board is forcing this action upon us and them.”