School Board Member Proposes Official District Apology for Steve Dain Firing

School Board Member Donaldson: District Needs To Apologize for "Unjust Firing"

1976 Termination of 'Teacher of the Year' Still Isn't Resolved 

at Emery

A week of rapidly moving events at the Emery Unified School District including bad press from the Bay Area's LGBTQ community have culminated in a board member announcing she will propose the district draft an official apology for the 1976 firing of an Emery teacher who after gender confirmation surgery, transitioned to a man, ending in his termination for what the district called at the time, “immoral conduct”.  School board member Susan Donaldson said she will propose to her colleagues at the beleaguered district they write an official letter of apology to acknowledge the wrong done by the district against its former employee, Steve Dain in his “unjust firing”.

Emery School Board Member
Susan Donaldson

The announcement comes after the Emeryville City Council last week pledged to rename the street fronting the high school where he taught, Steve Dain Drive’.  The City was moved to action a year after the School Board failed to act on promises to honor Mr Dain in some other capacity following a board vote against naming the school gymnasium after Mr Dain.
Mr Dain died in 2007.

Current board president Brynnda Collins drew the ire of the LGBTQ community and the news outlet, the Bay Area Reporter during the naming debate last year after she reprimanded her colleague, then board president Barbara Inch for proposing the district honor Mr Dain with the gym name at all, calling it abjectly “political”.  She proceeded to call down Mr Dain, telling her colleagues that instead they should name the gym after “a pillar of the community”.  It was a comment that City Council member Patz called “transphobia”.
Ms Collins refused to elaborate or clarify her ‘political’ charge for purposes of this story.

The idea for honoring Mr Dain initially came some six years ago from then board member Christian Patz who learned of the fired teacher that earned ‘teacher of the year’ commendation from the district the year before they fired him.  Mr Patz proposed naming the newly rebuilt gym after Mr Dain who had been a PE teacher at Emery.  The concept did not go over well with his colleagues who subsiquently deep sixed the idea.  It wasn’t until later, after Mr Patz was elected to the Emeryville City Council and his spouse, Barbara Inch was elected to the School Board, the idea was brought up again.  The board however still resisted the idea of naming the gym by fiat with a simple up or down vote as they could have.  Instead the board members voted to consider other people to name the gym after and then do ranked choice voting.  That vote allowed three choices and Steve Dain lost to a former coach at the high school, Elio Abrami.

Board President Brynnda Collins
Naming the school gym after
the former gym teacher
Steve Dain is "political".

Steve Dain came in second place in a field of 12 choices.

Board member Brynnda Collins voted for Mr Dain as her third choice while member Cruz Vargas didn’t vote for Mr Dain at all, offering instead a vote for Steph Curry, a person who has no association with Emery Unified School District.
Mr Vargas refused to return calls from the Tattler.

President Collins, aware of a public relations kerfuffle stemming from last year’s rejection of Mr Dain followed by last week’s City Council street renaming, has been contacting local leaders (and the Tattler) to let them know she is happy the City is renaming 47th Street Steve Dain Drive.  However, she refused to comment to the Tattler whether the District would go ahead with their promise to honor Mr Dain in some other way as they promised they would last year.

Here is a portion of the text of Board Member Donaldson’s letter proposing an official apology from the district:

I will be proposing to the school board that we issue an official letter of apology to Steve Dain’s family regarding his unjust firing in 1976.  I am in support of the city naming a street after him and am so happy to see that honor, but I would like the school board to officially apologize for the action it took many years ago.  As a board, we have updated our policies to reflect that we will provide a "Safe, Nondiscriminatory School Environment for Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming” students and staff.  Now we must be the change that we ask our students to be by acknowledging this wrong from our past and apologizing for it.  There is more work to do, but an apology is a start.

Susan Donaldson
Member, Emery Unified School District Board of Trustees

Elio Abrami Gym Name: Not Political (presumably)
However, the newly named Elio Abrami Gymnasium
will have a Steve Dain Drive address.

Discord Returns to School District: Emery School Board President Calls It Quits

Emery Board "Not Invested in Much Needed Change" Says Departing President

Citing an intractable culture resistant to change, Barbara Inch, formerly of the Emery School Board,  announced Friday in a letter to the Superintendent of the Schools, she has resigned from her position as Board Trustee, effective immediately.  The resignation comes after a difficult three year tenure for Ms Inch who has served as President of the Board over the last seven months.
The dramatic departure represents the culmination of a progressive drive for transformation at the beleaguered little school district and heralds a return to Emery politics as usual before Ms Inch led a would be progressive majority in a Board takeover in 2018.

Former School Board member Inch, who was elected in a 2016 landslide election having garnered more votes than any elected official in Emeryville history, later helped shepherd the progressive majority into office with the subsequent election of Susan Donaldson, Sarah Nguyen and Brynnda Collins to the Board in 2018.  Ms Inch soon ran into trouble however after Brynnda Collins and Sarah Nguyen dropped out of the coalition, showing by their accumulated votes they are not the progressives they claimed to be.  As such, those defections seem to have been the death knell for the progressive agenda at Emery Unified, the ensuing resignation of Ms Inch only serving to solidify that prognosis. 

Former Emery School Board President Barbara Inch
She was elected by more voters than
any elected official in Emeryville history.
But seeking the change for Emery she promised voters,
she couldn't get cooperation from her colleagues.

Notably, the Friday resignation letter sent to the Superintendent came on the heels of a Wednesday night Board rejection of an issue forwarded by Ms Inch; the naming of Emery’s gymnasium.  Ms Inch and community supporters called for naming the gym after former Emery PE coach Steve Dain who was fired in 1977 for transitioning from a woman to a man.  By attempting to name the gym in honor of Mr Dain, who was once voted Emery Teacher of the Year and is now deceased, Ms Inch had been using the bully pulpit as Board President to correct Emery’s 1970’s error and help serve as an inspirational signal that the District has changed and is a tolerant place welcoming to everyone.  The conservative Board majority rallied in reaction however and immediately began searching for a different person to name the gym after, eventually settling on a different past coach who was not a Transgender person and consequently not fired for being a Transgender person.
The Steve Dain issue seems to have served as a final straw for Ms Inch, “After Wednesday, it became clear to me that the majority of the Board was not invested in the much needed change this district so desperately needs.” the former Board member told the Tattler.

The four remaining Board members will appoint a replacement of their choice to take Barbara Inch’s seat until the next election in 2020.

City Council Moves to Overturn Family Housing Rules

Council Says Family Housing Rules From 2015  Are Too Onerous

Big Developers to be Helped With Regulatory Rollback

The City Council voted Tuesday night to move forward with a plan to roll back existing family housing regulations for large developments in Emeryville citing claims that developers can't make their projects "pencil out" if they are required to provide such housing in their unit mix.  While the Council made no secret the rollback is primarily meant to benefit the developer of the 58 story Onni project proposed for Christie Avenue, they expressed hopes their proposed deregulation for big developers could spur a flurry of tower building similar to Onni for Emeryville.

Ignoring the pleas of three attending School Board members hoping to safeguard the family housing 'unit mix' rules enacted in 2015, the Council also voted to move to rollback regulatory impediments that dictate how close towers can be to each other, Emeryville's so called 'tower separation' rules meant to stop the manhattanization of our town.  The case was made that the tower separation rules and the unit mix rules were stifling skyscraper tower construction and that the City had blundered in 2015 when they mistakenly enacted the regulations.
Councilman John Bauters lead the charge against the family housing unit mix rules stating that high rise towers are more expensive to build than low rise buildings and that makes the rules too onerous for the developers of those buildings.
Emeryville's unit mix rules for family housing for small developers will remain unchanged by the proposed rollback.

Two Proposed Apartment Buildings
Two Tier Law
The one on the right must provide family
units, while the one on the left gets a pass.

Mr Bauters told the assembled crowd Tuesday the City did not develop the two tier law it now proposes back in 2015 when the regulations were crafted because no one at the City at the time was aware how much more expensive buildings over 100 feet tall are to build and that large developers need the extra help.  Besides, he said, reducing the requirements for large projects like the 700 foot tall Onni tower to supply three bedroom units would result in more families moving to Emeryville.  Board President Barbara Inch dissented, stating "Three bedroom units may not benefit the developers but they do benefit the community."  Her colleague, Board member Susan Collins said the existing unit mix rules should stand and deregulating as the Council proposes will hurt the community, Emery schools and the City's investment in the ECCL, "The community has signed on to the Emeryville Center of Community Life" she said.

With the exception of Councilman Christian Patz who argued to save the existing unit mix regulations stating "If we want families in town we have to do it", the City Council was united and undeterred by his and the School Board member's pleas when they moved to bring on the regulation rollback after another study session planned for the near future.  The biggest fan of regulation rollback on Tuesday however, Councilwoman Dianne Martinez, was clearly agitated over the vote to hold one more study session on the subject.  Warning her fellow Council members that the Onni tower developer needs their help now, Ms Martinez was definitive, "No more study sessions should delay this" she said.

Emery School Board Member Cruz Vargas: An Authoritarian Without Authority

Last Authoritarian Holdout on School Board,

Cruz Vargas Warns that 

President Barbara Inch 

"Must Be Kept Away From the Children"

News Analysis/Opinion
Normally a body of relative comity, the Emery Unified School Board has lately devolved into a place of ugly ad hominem Trumpist vitriol, member Cruz Vargas leading the charge.  His political will thwarted by his colleagues, the City Council and the people of Emeryville, former Board President Vargas used his place at the dais to warn parents and citizens that their newly selected president, Barbara Inch, must be "kept away from the children".
It seems a nadir for Emeryville's last authoritarian political soap box orator, the ostracized and dispossessed board member who sanctimoniously and without a sense of irony, rejects the title 'politician'.   He's here not to play politics he says, rather he's here for the children.

Board member Vargas has become a curiosity.  Among the authoritarian right wing in Emeryville, formerly a syndicate establishment that for decades ran this town, he's the only one of them left standing from what was the entire elected political class.  But following a righteous two year democratic purge at the hands of Emeryville voters, there's now a near total loss of authority for Emeryville's right wing.  It's been a slow motion train wreak that leaves only the impolitic and obstinate Emery School Board member Cruz Vargas standing athwart the rubble of the once mighty right wing power elite.

Mr Vargas has faced a recriminatory and humiliating onslaught from all comers as of late.  But it hasn't been without merit.  This year he was stripped of his Board presidency by a unanimous vote of his colleagues in an epic take down over unnamed behind the scenes transgressions, called out publicly for his lies by the City Council and then in November, Emeryville's voters denied Cruz a sympathetic Board majority he would have needed to build an army of followers to beat back the progressive tide.  Rather than graciously giving way to the will of the voters, an embittered Cruz Vargas is instead howling against the democratic wave that swept the last of his kind away, now telling anyone who will listen that Emery's new School Board president and architect of his demise (at least as he sees it), must be stopped.  It's for the sake of the children he says.  Literally....Board member Vargas announced at the December 12th Board meeting when the new officers were being selected by the Board, positions taken by all members except for him, his new job on the Board is to keep the chosen School Board president, Barbara Inch, away from children.  "For two years I've fought to ensure that we keep politics and politicians away from our children.  Barbara Inch has shown where politics trumps progress." he said.

Abject Politics
It's been two years filled with political drama with Cruz Vargas on the School Board, his authoritarian philosophy of education serving as his guide.  An early supporter of and apologist for former Superintendent John Rubio, Cruz moved to protect the alpha-male schools chief as he drove an authoritarian campaign of disruption leading to the worst teacher retention problem in the Bay Area.  Nine departing teachers inveighed against the Superintendent's bullying and racist tactics at a School Board meeting prompting member Vargas to lead a drive to scrub their outgoing speeches from the official record in retaliation.  Dissenting School Board member Inch was the sole vote to allow the teacher's comments to be part of the record as reflected in the official minutes.
Later, as Board President, Mr Vargas led a drive to stop the Board from endorsing Measure C, Emeryville's $50 million affordable housing bond because the School Board has no interest in helping families move to the District, he said.  Dissenting Board member Inch cast a dissenting vote stating that Emery Unified School District in fact does have interest in having families with children afford to live here. Seventy two percent of Emeryville voters agreed with Ms Inch.
Most prominent over the years was Cruz's failed bid to get the taxpayers to pay for a full time sworn police officer to patrol the school campus; the infamous Emery School Resource Officer (SRO) debacle.  After the idea was forcefully shot down by the entire City Council as a sociopathic exercise in service of the right wing's greater 'school to prison pipeline' syllabus, President Vargas swore a quixotic oath to go around the Council.  Using an emotional pleas to parents, Cruz engaged in a pious go it alone political gambit that came up empty handed.  Countering President Vargas, Mayor John Bauters made a legendary speech calling for evidence-based policy on the SRO issue and to be cautious of politicians using demagoguery in its service.

The downward spiral of the delusional former Board President Vargas is quite a spectacle to behold and his displays of abject hypocrisy would make for some pretty entertaining viewing were it not for the disturbing complete unmooring from reality.  In his failed attempt to derail the vote to make Barbara Inch Board President, she the most popular candidate ever elected to the Emery School Board, Cruz Vargas told the audience at the December meeting (again lacking a sense of irony), "Not every Board member should be president."  The guileless former president Vargas added, "It requires a special level of leadership, presence, demeanor, social skills and composure."   Those being words his Board colleagues believe....and acted upon, when they stripped him of his Board presidency.


EUSD December 12 2018 FULL Board Meeting from Emery Unified School District on Vimeo.
Video Legend:
21:12 - 21:50 Cruz tells his Board colleagues they must protect the children from Barbara Inch.

Correction/Retraction

On December 6th, the Tattler erroneously reported that existing Emery School Board member Barbara Inch was endorsed by the resident advocacy group Residents United for a Livable Emeryville when she ran for that office in 2016.  In fact Ms Inch was not endorsed by RULE at that time or since.  Officially that group did not weigh in on the 2016 Emery School Board election.  After Board candidate Cruz Vargas refused to interview with RULE for their purposes of choosing candidates for endorsement, the group didn't request to meet Ms Inch and subsequently no candidate was picked for that office that year.
After receiving tips that the December 6th Tattler story was inaccurate, we reached out to several RULE members who had memory that Ms Inch was endorsed but a checking of internal RULE documents showed Ms Inch was never actually endorsed.  Ms Inch it should be stated, remains popular with many RULE members regardless.
The Tattler got the false information for the story from two RULE members who's memories were inaccurate.  We apologize for the mistake and have corrected the December 6th story.

E'Ville Eye Editor's Tweet: Council Member & School Board Member Are Illegitimate

E'Vill Eye Editor Makes Criminal Allegation Against Council Member

Nepotism Charged

In an explosive and accusatory tweet, the editor of Emeryville's conservative pro-business blog, the E'Ville Eye, is charging an Emeryville city councilman with criminal nepotism, ostensibly because he is married to an Emery School District school board member.  The editor, Rob Arias, also made references to the City Council as an "Axis of E'Ville [evil]" in the tweet, presumably for their public policy in support of affordable housing and the working poor in our community, both policy concepts he has long railed against in his blog.
The occasion for the tweet, made on October 10th, was a published photograph of a crowd in attendance at the League of Woman Voters Emeryville Council/School Board candidates debate that happened to show Mayor John Bauters and Council member Christian Patz as well as School Board member Barbara Inch that was seized upon by Mr Arias.
The October 10th twitter charge of #Nepotism is added to the same charge made on occasion by Mr Arias over the last two years after the Council member husband and School Board wife, Christian Patz and Barbara Inch, both won their independent elections in 2016.  The election of Ms Inch, incidentally is noteworthy owing to the fact that she won her school board race with more votes than any elected official in Emeryville history.

Instead of the record breaking election of Ms Inch; the people of Emeryville getting the person they voted for elevated to the School Board, the E'Ville Eye apparently sees evil afoot in the form of a stolen election...stolen by Council member Patz in some sort act of depraved nepotism.  Mr Arias refused to return calls to the Tattler to clear up his baffling allegations but with his latest tweet, he is staking his reputation on these accusations against Mr Patz and Ms Inch.

Newly Expanded Definition of Nepotism
For the record, there is virtually no way the charge of nepotism is accurate.  For there to be nepotism at play, Councilman Patz would have had to somehow clandestinely thrown the Alameda County overseen election over to his wife, effectively making her ascension to the School Board an appointment. But both Mr Patz and Ms Inch won their respective elections in a fair and free open plebiscite that the Alameda County Registrar of Voters confirmed in 2016. 
Emeryville citizens that have seen the Arias tweet have expressed confusion (in emails to the Tattler) as to what exactly Rob Arias is alleging with the nepotism charge.  Some are taking the tweet at face value: that Rob is asserting Mr Patz stole the election.  Some have said Rob is using big words he doesn't understand.  One other is conjecturing Rob instead is hoping his readers don't know the meaning of the word nepotism and that he is just fishing for clicks to his ad-laden blog by making explosive charges.

Regardless the reasons for the E'Ville Eye's latest Trumpian tweet, if Mr Arias wants to make a law against family members serving Emeryville in different elected bodies (or the same body), he should speak up (although we're not sure why that is something the people would want).  In the meanwhile, the law of the land allows full democratic expression: the will of the people is allowed to flourish and it's not untoward to have a husband council member and a wife school board member in Emeryville.  It's not nepotism Rob, it's democracy.

'Evil' is an elected body helping provide affordable housing and
helping the working poor by raising the minimum wage. 
'Nepotism' is when the people get to democratically select
their choices for candidates to public offices.
Mayor Bauters is in the cap, Council member Patz is in orange
and School Board member Inch is in between. 

nepotism noun
nep·o·tism | \ˈne-pə-ˌti-zəm  \
: favoritism (as in appointment to a job) based on kinship

After Rubio: School Board Hopefuls Need a Litmus Test

Emery Unified School District:

Emeryville's Last Bastion of 

Pure Civic Dysfunction

With a New Superintendent and a New Board President,
Will We Have Turned a Page?

We're Guessing NO

The only change that will come will be from the ballot box

News Analysis/Opinion
Last week two more teachers announced they will not be returning to Emery Unified School District in the fall.  That adds to the eight that already announced earlier for a total of ten this, the last year of John Rubio as Emery superintendent.  Really bad, but an improvement over last year's 37% teacher exodus.  Emery, under John Rubio, infamously can't hold on to its teachers. 
Mr Rubio's anti-teacher tactics, described by the teachers themselves as "bullying" and "racist", however bad, are nothing new for Emery superintendents.  The last two out of three supes here tried to outright destroy the teachers union.  The last one, Debbra Lindo, offered to testify against Emery's teachers in the union busting Vergara case after receiving a vote of 'no confidence' from 92% the entire teaching staff in their 2012 Teachers Resolution.  Rabidly anti-teacher policy: It's an ongoing pattern and practise at Emery.

 But now it would seem Emery is changing.  The leadership, if you can call it that, is falling like dominoes; we're getting a new superintendent and just last week the School Board ganged up and kicked President Cruz Vargas out of his leadership position.  Normally you would expect after a substantive course change with that kind of power shift, a move towards competency at least would be forthcoming.  But this after all is Emery, and therefore it's ossified.

Every time a superintendent is removed or a School Board is replaced or a breathlessly announced new program is initiated, we inevitably drift back into the same culture of dysfunction centered around incompetency, lack of transparency, authoritarianism and a general aversion to evidence-based policy.  Politics as usual. The results for Emery where the rubber meets the road, are low enrollment numbers and low student academics resulting in failing school 'growth' and a district-wide lowered ranking.  The only way forward by the way (and the only way not tried at Emery), is to support our teachers, not engage in a war against them, the heretofore default Emery programmatic expediency from an uncreative and ossified School Board.

The debacle at the June 14th School Board meeting is emblematic of the culture of decline that has a stranglehold at Emery.
To wit: A power hungry and vituperative Board President pissed off one too many colleagues (as well as the Superintendent) and found himself kicked to the curb.  Stepping in to correct a locus of dysfunction; that would normally be considered a good move made by a public entity trying to center itself around what should be its core duty.  But again, this is Emery.  So what ensued instead was just another political power struggle.  What could have been a moment of accountability  turned instead into just so much more counterproductive churlishness.  Due to Board factious infighting, what the people of Emeryville now have is a School Board president and vice president that none of us ever voted for; in what should be a democratically elected body we now have two unelected and unaccountable leaders.  That's a terrible place to be with a new superintendent coming in.

The Definition of Out Of Touch
He's working for the kids...blah, blah blah.
In reality, Board member Donn Merriam  joined
colleagues Bailey Langner and Cruz Vargas
in saying NO to affordable housing
for Emeryville families. 
72% of Emeryville voters
disagree with them. 

Post Vargas, there is no reason other than pompous impetuosity that the people of Emeryville couldn't have figured into the equation.  What about democracy, Emery? You know, the people themselves getting the chance to have the people they picked govern this public enterprise?

If the Emery School Board weren't so highly dysfunctional, the Board President would now be the people's choice....the one who faced the voters and who the voters said they liked to run Emery; namely Barbara Inch.  But politics as usual has taken hold once again. This is not a good sign.  It foretells that where we're headed is where we've been.  Again.  A new superintendent, who presents us with a moment of great possibility, will be infected by incestuously base and venal Board politics.  Again.

Now presents a rare chance to actually change this District the Board has refused to seize.
It's rare because we have a new superintendent who wants to do the right thing (but needs a competent Board).  Rare, because this time our new superintendent will be the beneficiary of a "threesy" election this November.  Three Board members will be selected by Emeryville voters.  This aligning of the stars could actually change this school district.
But Emeryville voters will have to step up.  We cannot leave this to the usual lying poseurs seeking office.  Anyone running for School Board needs to face a litmus test.  The test need not be anything radical...it only needs to be radical for Emery.  Below are the minimum bars needed for prospective School Board members at Emery:

• Do they accept high teacher retention as a worthy goal? 
• Will they work to ensure high teacher retention is achieved?
• If Emery again fails to retain teachers (as compared with other districts), will the prospective Board member intervene?  How exactly?
• Will criticism from parents or the citizenry be encouraged?  How?
• Will bad news or flawed policies be openly discussed?
• Will rational and evidence-based policy be the default?  Will the prospective Board member be open to public discussion and debate, supported by the evidence, about merging Emery with a neighboring school district if that's shown to be the best course for the students?
• Will all parents be treated equally?  How about law abiding but unpopular and critical parents?  Will they be treated the same as popular and flattering parents by the Board member?
• Will the Board member generally support teachers over administrators?
• Will they own up to failures on their own?
• Will they be available to parents, the citizens and the press?  Even a critical but law abiding press?
• Do they think it's possible to measure the job performance of a schools superintendent?  How?

Three out of four current Emery School Board members would fail every bar above.  If a majority of School Board members passed the above bars, the end result would be better educational prospects for Emeryville's children.
We need to leverage this new Superintendent's skills with a normal, not dysfunctional School Board.  A normal school board.  That's something Emeryville hasn't had for more than a generation so it's easy to see how naysayers will spin this.  Our normal IS dysfunction.  But it really doesn't have to be that way.
This opportunity may not come this way again for another generation.  We can't squander this: We need to elect three new School Board members that have a progressive vision of public education.  That's Emeryville by the way: progressive.  All we need to do is keep out the ego driven charlatans, poseurs and con men.  We only have to elect the same kind of people we've been electing for the City Council: not necessarily great, just competent and reflective of our values.  That should be an easy lift.  Remember, we recently elected Donn Merriam to the School Board and he rallied against Measure C, the affordable housing for families bond initiative that passed by 72% of Emeryville voters.  Donn would never have passed our litmus test.  We could have stopped the sociopathic Donn Merriam.  Let's make sure we don't elect another sociopath to the Board.

Let's use a litmus test this time.

Emeryville voters: Imagine a school district that's not in the news....a school district quietly doing its job.

Cruz Vargas Ousted in School Board Shake Up

Cruz Vargas Forced Out as Board President

Brynnda Collins Voted in New President

Breaking News
Tonight, the Emery School Board took dramatic action against their colleague President Cruz Vargas, stripping him of his presidency in an unprecedented mid season forced "reorganization" initiated by unknown Board member(s) and outgoing Superintendent John Rubio.  Mr Vargas attempted to stop the vote that ousted him, invoking ultimate authority, by a unique interpretation of Board bylaws that would require the president to approve the agenda of any attempt to place such a vote before the Board.
Mr Vargas told the assembled crowd that since he did not approve the issue to be placed on the agenda and that therefore the Superintendent "did not follow appropriate Board bylaws" by bringing it to discussion and ultimately a vote, then any such vote to strip him of his power would not be binding.  However, Mr Vargas could not get any Board members to support his attempt to stop the vote and an attorney retained by the Board attending the meeting disagreed with his attempt to scuttle the referendum and the vote proceeded without incident.

Former Emery School Board President
Cruz Vargas
His colleagues removed him from
Board President position.

Unspecified malfeasance on the part of Mr Vargas has been cited as reason for tonight's dramatic purge according to rumors but no District employees would confirm the allegations on the record.  Without any supporters among his colleagues, the vote tonight leaves Cruz Vargas on the Board but without position; the lowest level Board member.

Further exacerbating the dramatic negative public perception at Emery tonight is the Board's untoward and anti-democratic selection of Brynnda Collins as the new president.  Ms Collins was appointed to the Board of Trustees by the Board itself and she has never faced the people of Emeryville, winning an election.  Compared to Board Member Barbara Inch who is demonstrably the most popular politician in Emeryville history.  Ms Inch won 2773 votes when she ran for the Board in 2016, more than any other elected official on the School Board or even on the City Council.
Regardless, Ms Collins acceded in a 4-1 vote tonight (Merriam dissenting) of her colleagues while Bailey Langner, another appointed Board member who has never faced Emeryville voters, becomes the new vice president, in also a 4-1 vote (Inch dissenting).  Mr Vargas, once he lost his gambit to stop the vote, voted for Ms Collins to be the new president.

Regardless of the vote of no confidence by Mr Vargas's colleagues, Mr Rubio, who's final Emery meeting as Emery Superintendent will be later this month, is credited with bringing the item to a vote; giving credence to rumors of a growing rift between the Superintendent and the now former Board President.  Speculation among the public, already circulating regarding rumored behind the scenes misdeeds and peccadilloes by Mr Vargas, will likely run free in the wake of tonight's Board action.  As such, the Tattler will report any substantiated revelations moving forward.

Mr Vargas has refused to answer questions from the Tattler regarding his controversial tenure as Board President.

At Emery a Second Place Finisher Rises to Top: the Selection of Board President Cruz Vargas

Democracy Stalls at Emery Unified School District

Politics Trumps Fair Play

The People's Choice, Barbara Inch, Skipped Over in Favor of the Rubio Supporting Vargas

New School Board President Cruz Vargas
The people's second choice but the
Board's first choice.
Even after he was caught in a lie, the
Board majority 'Vargas for President'
steamroller rolled on.

In a controversial move at their end of the year December 13th meeting, the Board of Trustees of the Emery Unified School District disregarded the people's choice of Barbara Inch and instead elevated  the less popular Cruz Vargas to the position of Board president for a one year term.  The Board's move to crown Mr Vargas as president also gives a big thumbs up to the Superintendent of the Schools John Rubio, a man strongly disliked by the teaching staff at the struggling district.
The 4-1 vote (Inch dissenting) for the bellicose Mr Vargas, a strong supporter of Mr Rubio, will likely fortify the disputatious Superintendent as he continues on his scorched earth campaign against Emery's teachers, taking last place on his watch among Bay Area school districts in teacher retention.

The Board seemed to be saying they like the direction the district is going in by elevating Mr Vargas, one of the Superintendent's biggest supporters. The move, an affirmation of the status quo of an entrenched Superintendent, caused some Emery watchers to muse about the future of EUSD, a district reeling from a flurry of bad news coming in the form of a devastating academic study from Stanford University and continuing State reports of falling test scores.

School Board Member Barbara Inch
The most popular elected official in
Emeryville is critical of Superintendent
Rubio's public policy. She's the people's
choice but not the Board's choice.  They
want a Rubio flunky as Board President.

Further highlighting the political nature of the Vargas pick is the fact that open lying on the part of member Vargas was not enough to sway the support he has from his Board colleagues.  Mr Vargas last October 5th told colleagues on the City School Committee on an open mic that the "vast majority of parents at the school" are supportive of putting a police officer in the school, a lie that City Council member Dianne Martinez exposed in front of the cameras.  Mr Vargas' supporter on the Committee and on the Board, Bailey Langner used her position as Committee Chair to chastise Ms Martinez and deny that Mr Vargas had lied.  However, a viewing of the video of the meeting shows Mr Vargas in fact did lie; a fact apparent to meeting attendees (and video watchers) all except Ms Langner.
Still however, the revealed and scurrilous fabrication told by member Vargas at the October meeting was not enough to stop the 'Vargas for Board President' steamroller.

Member Inch has been the Board's sole critic of Mr Rubio's policies and the vote to bypass her regardless of her popularity with the people in favor of the obsequious Cruz Vargas, is conspicuous.  The December 13th vote sidelining Ms Inch and elevating Mr Vargas, the second place choice of Emeryville voters in a two person race, also sends a message to the people of Emeryville that their vision for their school district as personified in their choice for School Board, is not something this Board is interested in.
Emeryville voters like the vision of Barbara Inch over that of Cruz Vargas, who with 2773 votes, won her November 2016 election to the Board with more votes than any person has ever received for any office in Emeryville electoral history.  Mr Vargas, with 273 fewer votes, came in a distant second place in the two person race.
Ms Inch's popularity with Emeryville voters however was not enough for the School Board to rise above the politics at play and they voted instead for the second placer Cruz Vargas who promises to retain and buoy Mr Rubio as chief at Emery even as the district sinks.

Elected Official	Election Year	Votes Received	Percent of Vote	Difference from Barbara
				Votes	Percent
Barbara Inch*	2016	2773	44.74%	---	---
Nora Davis**	2003	765	29.55%	2008	15.19%
Dick Kassis**	2005	1220	35.79%	1553	8.95%
Ruth Atkin**	2007	921	25.05%	1852	19.69%
Cheryl Webb*	2009	879	27.37%	1894	17.37%
Jennifer West**	2009	855	36.45%	1918	8.29%
Jac Asher**	2011	924	27.80%	1849	16.94%
John Affeldt*	2014	1255	32.53%	1518	12.21%
Dianne Martinez**	2014	1219	33.32%	1554	11.42%
Donn Merriam***	2014	730	18.92%	2043	25.82%
John Bauters*	2016	2312	22.68%	461	22.06%
Cruz Vargas***	2016	2500	40.34%	273	4.40%

*= Most votes EUSD; **= Most votes City Council; ***= Votes for EUSD Board

Emery USD had several years without or uncontested elections

Barbara Inch received more votes than any other candidate for local election in 

Emeryville history. While acknowledging that her election had a larger voter 

turn out, her percent of the vote was greater than others, the largest percentage 

in modern Emeryville history.

Pledge of Allegiance is Back at Emery!

President Trump Would be Pleased to Know Jesus is Back at Emery!

Colin Kaepernick: If You Ever Find Yourself in Emeryville, Keep Traveling

Yes, THAT Jesus.  After a four month hiatus, the Pledge of Allegiance is back at Emery Unified School District, in all its God fearing automaton-like saccharine inducing patriotic glory.  It would appear the Tattler's story back last August on the demise of the loyalty oath known as the Pledge of Allegiance at Emery Unified School District was premature.  Or maybe the School Board voted to reinstate the Oath (3-2; Inch & Langner dissenting) taken at the start of every meeting BECAUSE of the Tattler.  Either way, under God, the Board can read the tea leaves and they think this kind of symbolic patriotism is de regueur in this age of Donald Trump.
So it's hats off, hands on hearts and to hell with critical thinking at Emery Unified.  Children must learn to support the government, right or wrong, no matter what.  Next comes ROTC, morning flag drills and bonnets for the girls at our patriotic little school district.

Praise be to God, Jesus, President Trump and Board member Cruz Vargas, the true blue American, for bringing this back to Emery.



10/25/17 Video Communist Alert: Listen closely and you'll hear Board President Donn Merriam (center) forsake God during the Pledge.  Board member Barbara Inch (right...should be left) doesn't even partake at all, a tell-tale sign of a godless communist.

Number 7 is not welcome at Emery Unified School District.

Cop in Schools Idea Causes Meltdown Between City Council & School Board Member

Cop on Campus?:

Rift Between City Council and School Board Member Opens

Board Member Vargas Makes a Power Play

Testy Exchanges at Meeting

Vargas to Subvert Will of the Council

In an impassioned imbroglio played out before the cameras on October 5th, Emery School Board member Cruz Vargas, citing student discipline problems at the ECCL campus, proposed to fellow members of the City/School Committee that a full time Emeryville police officer with the right to arrest students exhibiting behavior issues be provided and paid for by the City of Emeryville.  It was an idea that landed with a resounding thud but not before the City Council members present directed a strongly stated contradictory barrage at Mr Vargas leaving him pained but undaunted, pledging to take his idea on the road and go around the holders of the purse strings, straight to parents.  Surprisingly, the cost to the City for such an officer, likely more than $100,000 per year, was hardly even mentioned by the City Council members, concerned as they were over what they characterized as the inappropriateness of the whole thing.  

School Board member
Cruz Vargas
He's going over the City Council's heads
and take his cop in the school
show on the road.

The ‘cop in the school’ idea, called a ‘school resources officer’ (SRO), has many critics but regardless been used by some school districts to bring 'order'.  However, in schools with large numbers of black and brown children, it has been universally panned by pedagogical experts, social justice champions and those concerned with equity issues nation wide.  Police officers trained in arresting adults, thrust into an environment where normal adolescent behavior can be misconstrued as criminal activity, SROs have been credited with contributing to the oft referenced ‘school to prison pipeline’ especially for young African Americans, what Council member Christian Patz calls a “reframe to criminality”. 

Regardless of the popularity of SROs among law and order types, the City Council attendees at the meeting took their turns joining with member Patz soundly rejecting member Vargas’ SRO objective, notably Council member John Bauters who delivered a memorably devastating and indelible riposte from the dais (see link below).  Admonishing Mr Vargas’ claim the SRO would be good for the police as well as the children, Councilman Bauters countered that schools are “not a place for PR for police” adding, “When cops encounter children who are acting like children, their instinct in many cases its treat them with the training they know.”  He talked at length on the negative effects ‘over policing’ has on many African American children before he clarified that he is not anti-police, and specifically not anti Emeryville police he stressed.

Council member Ally Medina expressed concern over inequity resulting from the use of SROs that academic studies have shown.  Noting the lack of training police have in dealing with child psychology, a problem that in America skews against schools with high levels of minority students like Emery, Councilwoman Medina quoted such studies when she addressed member Vargas, “Suspension levels are higher for minority children in heavily secured schools” she said.

Council member Christian Patz told his colleagues member Vargas had not presented a cogent reason why a police officer is even needed at ECCL, noting a lack of complaints over student behavior issues and the large numbers of administrators and teachers on the campus that has a palliative effect on discipline, let alone any possible criminal behavior.  Mr Patz counted 13 administrators on campus making for a top heavy 1:53 admin to student ratio.  If teachers are added, that makes it a 1:14 ratio and if the entire adult staff on campus is added, then there is a 1:10 ratio with students, an extremely large percentage among school districts.  Besides the highly monitored effect this large number of adults watching over the children has on tamping down bad behavior, it is also a primary reason why Emery spends so much money per student, higher than all neighboring school districts it was noted.  Mr Patz reminded Mr Vargas of Emery's low suspension rates and high attendance numbers to further illustrate his point that an SRO is not needed.

"I don't know what it was in my remarks that 

led to the impression I had an open mind on this.  

I want to make it very clear; I'm opposed to it".

-Council member Christian Patz

With a recalcitrant Board member Cruz Vargas and an equally oppositional City Council, a testy exchange between the Council members and member Vargas ensued.  Despite a united front of the City Council against the SRO proposal, the five individuals Mr Vargas would have to sway to pay for it, he saw fit to counter attack, perhaps giving hint to his next move.  After warning them he would go directly to parents to force the issue he scolded the City Council, “I don’t appreciate this issue being politicized” he said adding with vituperative finish, “the majority of the people at this table are out of touch with the parents.”  
Driving his point, member Vargas said he had been to a PTO meeting and gleaned, “the vast majority of parents in the school” support his SRO idea to which Councilwoman Dianne Martinez, who’s husband was at that meeting fired back, “I don’t appreciate you speaking for me as a parent” after asking if he was sure about his “vast majority” deduction, she questioned him; “Are you extrapolating?”   Mr Vargas shot back that the Board supports his SRO idea prompting Mr Patz to inquire, “Are you speaking for the whole Board?”  After some retrenching speech by member Vargas when Board member Barbara Inch volunteered she is not in favor of the SRO idea, it was revealed the School Board had only voted to place the issue on a future agenda to discuss it.  Having caught Mr Vargas in the fabrication of Board support, Mr Patz pounced, “[Putting it on an agenda is] very different than saying the Board supports it. It says the Board supports talking about it”

To get his cop in the school idea funded, these are
the five people Cruz Vargas needs to convince. 
It's the same five he has gone to war with.

After the City Council members finally all had their say, none of it supportive of the SRO idea, member Vargas told everyone present he would hold a town hall type meeting about this and that he was happy the City Council was open to the idea of bringing a police officer to the ECCL campus and spending taxpayer money for it.  He thanked the Council for "having an open mind on this" and for their receptiveness for holding a town hall meeting.  Council member Christian Patz was incredulous upon hearing that, "I apologize, I don't know what it was in my remarks that led to the impression I had an open mind on this.  I want to make it very clear; I'm opposed to it" he said.  Council member John Bauters was less circumspect, "Not one Council member should have given the impression to you [that a police officer on the campus is a good idea]. It would be political adventure for you to hold some sort of meeting to do what we have told you is not of interest to us" he protested. 

The entire dramatic City/School Committee meeting may be viewed HERE.
John Bauter's historic speech within the meeting may be viewed HERE.