Emery School Board Majority Violates Brown Act (Again)

Again With the Brown Act Violation:

School Board Can't Seem to Get It Right

New Superintendent's Baptism By Fire

Board Member Donn Merriam
Violates the Brown Act routinely,
but at least he's sanctimonious 
about it.

The Emery Unified School District's Board of Trustees, known for their ongoing problems with transparency, especially violations of the government accountability sunshine law known as the Brown Act, again violated central quorum provisions of the Act at a special July 13th emergency meeting, the first meeting attended by Emery's new Superintendent of the Schools.  The District, despite having been repeatedly caught violating the Brown Act over the years and having responded with stepped up training sessions administered by their attorney, has had great difficulty staying within the provisions of the law.  The July 13th meeting, conducted without a proper quorum, is technically void and any decisions made at the meeting are consequently not lawful.  It is unclear if the District will acknowledge the encumbrance such an illegal meeting engenders and calls to the District went unanswered.

In their usual vacation month, in what should have been a simple housekeeping event to cross 'T's and dot 'I's, the Brown Act challenged Emery School Board once again managed to bungle it.

Board Vice President Bailey Langner
She's an attorney who doesn't know
about the Brown Act.

The emergency meeting, a one item meeting, was set to clear up an undisputed procedural exigency regarding election order; an item the previous Superintendent John Rubio likely missed at the last regularly scheduled meeting, incidentally his last at Emery.  The problem stemmed from the fact that two Board members, President Brynnda Collins and Barbara Inch were both out of town and unavailable, however member Baily Langner, also out of town, phoned in to the meeting via telephone conference call from her employer's law firm office in San Francisco.  Only members Donn Merriam and Cruz Vargas were present in the room.  The three Board members conducted the meeting in that configuration but the Brown Act, very clear on such meetings, delineates that it is expressly not legal to have one member calling in (with two members not in attendance) from outside the District's boundaries.

Member Donn Merriam has been on the Board for almost four years and has been present at three different Brown Act trainings and Board Vice President Bailey Langner, the Chair of the July 13th meeting, is an attorney and one would expect her to know about the Brown Act.  Member Cruz Vargas, recently ousted from his position as Board President by his colleagues, read the school bylaws around meeting agenda items and claimed that the other Board members didn't understand them yet he was silent during this meeting.  Mr Merriam, it should be noted, was quite sanctimonious in his denials of his previous violations of the Brown Act even in the face of the Superintendent acknowledging the Board's culpability, as was the case in a particularly egregious event reported on by the Tattler and the East Bay Times in 2015.

Ousted Board President 
Cruz Vargas
Clueless.

This latest bungling of the Brown Act by the Board majority could have reverberations in the upcoming election season.  Both Donn Merriam, who was elected to the School Board in 2014 and Bailey Langner who was appointed to the Board but who's term is up, could be seeking election to their seats this November.  Mr Merriam, who has shown a fondness for developers and who has opposed transparency and audits seems especially vulnerable.  Ms Lagner, in addition to showing a laissez-faire view of the Brown Act and transparency in general has been criticized by parents and teachers for being detached from District concerns.

The July 13th meeting, the first Board meeting attended by Emery's new Superintendent Quiauna Scott represents a veritable baptism by fire for the new Schools Chief, a quick introduction to the lackadaisical view the Board has on transparency and legal mandates.

GOVERNMENT CODE 54953 (3) If the legislative body of a local agency elects to use teleconferencing, it shall post agendas at all teleconference locations and conduct teleconference meetings in a manner that protects the statutory and constitutional rights of the parties or the public appearing before the legislative body of a local agency. Each teleconference location shall be identified in the notice and agenda of the meeting or proceeding, and each teleconference location shall be accessible to the public. During the teleconference, at least a quorum of the members of the legislative body shall participate from locations within the boundaries of the territory over which the local agency exercises jurisdiction, except as provided in subdivision (d which only applies only to Health Agencies). The agenda shall provide an opportunity for members of the public to address the legislative body directly pursuant to Section 54954.3 at each teleconference location.

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.

Measure C Beckons Residents to Finally Do Something About Housing

Measure C: A Chance to Finally Do Something Consequential Against the High Cost 

of Housing

The Costs of Doing Nothing Are Too High

Opinion
The Emeryville housing bond initiative known as Measure C is on Tuesday's ballot, giving voters a chance to finally do something about the crazy high cost of housing in our town and deal with its associated problems like chronic homelessness and the displacement of existing but vulnerable renters by helping them buy a home in our community.  Rising housing costs present a problem that has been well described but not adequately dealt with and Measure C puts a solution in our hands rather than simply continuing to trust in market vagaries who's result so far has been the $3600 Emeryville studio apartment owned by foreign investors.  Oops, make that $3700....the rent just went up again.

It's not that we haven't been building housing in Emeryville; our population has doubled in the last ten years.  Over that time we've gone from a city of homeowners to a city of renters as developers keep throwing up apartment buildings as fast as they can, trying to cash in on the high rent bonanza.  But all the harried building hasn't brought down the cost of housing.  In fact, the more housing we build here, the higher the cost of housing becomes, a reverse corollary that turns on its head the old supply and demand saw.  After 20 years building housing at a frenetic pace and with the limited amount of space now available, the sky-high cost of housing in Emeryville is clearly a beast that we, through the private sector, cannot build our way out of moving forward.

It's bad for Emeryville but let's not fool ourselves, the lack of affordable housing is a regional problem and no one thing we do in our little town to address this growing threat, not even the passing of Measure C, the first attempt to deal with it (by plebiscite), will completely solve the problem here.
But make no mistake either, Measure C will go a long way towards solving this existential problem, at least in our little corner of the Bay Area.  And by "a long way" we mean a long way.
This common sense and fair housing solution for Emeryville promises to be a game changer; likely up to at least $300 million spent on our little town to help thwart the seemingly inexorable rise in the cost of housing....that's enough to truly make a difference.  And that's what Measure C is designed to do.

The problems associated with high Bay Area housing costs are hugely complex and the solution can't be facile market dependency; we need a cogent big solution to this big problem.  The critical game changing components of Measure C with its relatively modest $50 million in local bond funding are its attendant State and Federal matching funds, a monster $300-$400 million brick that will bolster the relatively small amount Emeryville property owners are going to kick in.  It's $50 million on steroids, jacked up to as much as $400 million for a 1.2 square mile city.  That's an opportunity we should seize; a chance to face a major problem squarely with a rational solution and a large hammer.

Measure C is a progressive tax.  At $49.12 per $100,000 of assessed property value, a cost born 70% to 80% by businesses in our town, in a town of renters, the average Emeryville resident stands to pay nothing or almost nothing.  Homeowners will pay dependent on when they bought their homes.  Those who have lived here a long time, primarily the elderly, will pay less because the tax is assessed on the value of the property at the time of purchase, not on the current market value.  That means the average homeowner will pay just $10.50 per month.
The business sector picks up 3/4 of the tab for Measure C, taking the pressure off residents.  For instance Pixar/Disney, a miserly multi-billion dollar corporation in our town will pay $10,000 per month, a cost they will not be able to weasel out of as they and other corporations have infamously done with a loophole in Emeryville's business tax.

Another nice benefit of Measure C is that Emeryville will be able to finally clear up its portfolio of blighted and vacant land the City already owns, land set aside by the former Redevelopment Agency for this use.  Taking land acquisition off the table will help deliver more affordable units at a lower building cost.

Measure C is a well written and well conceived solution to this vexing problem and that's why its been endorsed by the Democratic Party of Alameda County, the Sierra Club, the entire Emeryville City Council, the Green Party, Residents for a Livable Emeryville, SEIU Local 1021, the League of Woman Voters and the East Bay Express.  And now to that list add the Emeryville Tattler.

Correction-  Please note, a reader found a misspelled word in the chart below and two mistakes.  See the comments below.

Pixar (and other businesses) will finally pay!
The business community picks up 3/4 of the Measure C tab.  The home-owning elderly in Emeryville like former City Councilwoman Nora Davis, won't have to pay much at all.   
Naysayers representing business interests like local blogger Rob Arias have been railing against it.  But how much does Rob Arias care about Emeryville?  The numbers tell the story: less than $10 per month.

Emery School Board Says NO to Affordable Family Housing

School Board Majority Rejects Affordable Housing and Making Emeryville Family Friendly

Last Wednesday night, Emery School Board members, considering whether to consider supporting Measure C, Emeryville’s emerging June housing bond, demurred, a majority disapproving and refusing to aid citizen efforts to help bring affordable family housing to Emeryville.  The Board's vote to reject affordable housing split fell along familiar lines; the 'affluent majority' made up of Corporate Vice President of Marketing Cruz Vargas, school architect Donn Merriam and lawyer Bailey Langner  rejecting member Barbara Inch’s proposal to discuss the June 5th Measure C with an eye towards endorsing it.   

Board Member Donn Merriam Weighs In
He told Emeryville's right wing blog that providing affordable 
family housing will do "nothing for the greater good". 
Good public policy is something cynically forwarded
only to help politicians he said.  Government solutions 
are not to be trusted.  Then he voted NO to even 
discussing the housing measure by the Board.  

Measure C would leverage some $50 million of Emeryville bond proceeds with State and other funds ultimately providing $300-$400 million to build affordable housing for Emeryville with an emphasis on families.  
The lack of affordable housing has become Emeryville's most intractable problem, especially for the School District.  
Citizens not familiar with politics at the Emery School Board watching the proceedings last Wednesday night, might have been surprised a school board would reject an affordable housing measure that places families with children attending Emery’s schools at the top of the list for housing placement.  Even some veteran Board watchers expressed bewilderment at the Board’s own gas lighting policies.

Board Member Bailey Langner
Let the private sector work it out.
The Board has no interest in helping
low income or middle class families.
Nothing can be done.

The housing crisis that has befallen Emeryville comes on the heels of a 20 year private sector building boom that’s almost doubled the population and caused a shift from a town of majority home ownership into an unaffordable renter majority town.  The results are dramatic; the annual income needed to afford a studio apartment at this point in Emeryville is a shocking $83,772 according to City records.  

Not surprisingly, the effects have hit families hardest; Emeryville already has the fewest families of any town in the East Bay and the private sector is failing to deliver affordability for them in the housing market.  The explosion in rents has chased out middle class and low income residents, especially families with children and fueled a crisis at Emery where attracting students is only possible by inter-district transfers.  Further, the District, struggling to survive, has turned its focus away from the business of educating children and embraced a new role as a real estate enterprise; renting out its two closed schools to shore up its budget in the face of the declining student enrollment.  The low numbers have driven the District's budget into deficit even with the real estate deal making. 

Emery historically has been interested in increasing student enrollment despite the Board’s inexplicable decision Wednesday.  In 2010, the District sold Emeryville voters on the idea that the building of the new school campus, the Emeryville Center of 'Community' Life (ECCL), would generate a large increase in students, a $95 million gambit that has failed to deliver any increase in enrollment.  Years later, the District continues to suffer from low enrollment, driving up the cost per student and turning Emery into the most expensive district in the East Bay, now pegged in excess of $14,000 per student per year.

Interestingly, the same Board members that now can't imagine monies being spent on affordable housing in Emeryville just last month had no problem supporting a renewal of Measure A, a School District proposed sales tax that spends money outside Emeryville, including at one of the private schools that has a sweetheart deal with the District.

The problems the District faces with low student enrollment and its corollary of providing a place for families to live in Emeryville were not considered by the Board Wednesday night however; the majority seeing to it there should be no government action in response to what a rapacious private sector has delivered to us.  
Emeryville voters will go the polls June 5th regardless of the School Board’s precipitous and inexplicable NO on affordable family housing. 

Board President Vargas didn't return calls for this story and member Merriam, running for re-election in the fall, refused comment, allowing his "greater good" statement made to the E'Ville Eye blog to stand.

Correction: We originally reported Measure A as an existing parcel tax.  School District insiders inform us in fact it is a proposed sales tax.  We apologize for the mistake.

Board President Cruz Vargas
Increasing student enrollment is not all it's
cracked up to be.  Who needs more families in Emeryville?
Certainly not the School District. Besides, the private sector is
doing a good enough job providing affordable family housing...

Emery School Board Member Donn Merriam, Announces Re-Election Bid

Audacious Donn Merriam Throws Hat in Ring

Running For Re-Election on Record of Support of 

Superintendent Rubio

November's election season has begun early for Emery School Board, the opening salvo initiated by Board member Donn Merriam in what promises to be the District's first truly contentious board election.

School Board member Donn Merriam has launched a campaign to be selected an Alameda County delegate for a statewide association of school board members, a two year position that would run concurrent with his Emery Board position, putting to rest questions about a possible re-election bid for Emery School Board in November when his term is up.

School Board Member Donn Merriam
Running for re-election as a strong
supporter of Superintendent Rubio.
Notably, Mr Merriam's support
 has never wavered despite the 
Superintendent's terrible record 
that has driven Emery down.

The announcement of Mr Merriam's campaign is a portentous development in a looming and contentious Board election season for the struggling Emery Unified School District pitting Mr Merriam and his existing status quo Board majority supportive of schools Superintendent John Rubio against a probable field of energized opposition candidates seeking to turn the dysfunctional district around.

   

Mr Merriam has been a controversial Board member, having voted in December 2016 to renew the District’s employment contract with embattled and pugnacious Emery Schools Superintendent John Rubio despite Mr Rubio’s lamentable three year record at Emery frequently splashed all over the pages of the Tattler and the East Bay Times.  It has been widely rumored that Mr Merriam would not seek re-election after the drubbing Mr Rubio has received having so definitively dragged the District down during his tenure.  The beleaguered Mr Merriam is closely associated with the Superintendent serving as the Board’s most ardent supporter regardless of Mr Rubio’s bad record at Emery.

Board member Merriam has stood by Superintendent Rubio even as the Superintendent has led the District into the cellar among Bay Area school districts in academic achievement, dropping its ranking to last place in the East Bay under Mr Rubio’s watch.  Additionally, Superintendent Rubio has earned the notorious distinction of the worst teacher retention of any Bay Area school superintendent, a common metric used by educators to evaluate the efficacy of superintendents.  Mr Merriam infamously threw his unconditional support behind Superintendent Rubio during a 2015 contentious fight when the Tattler and the East Bay Times exposed Mr Rubio after he conducted an illegal and secret Board meeting behind closed doors, the beset Superintendent only admitting culpability and apologizing later, Mr Merriam following suit.

Mr Merriam is hoping to be among the four selected by Alameda County school board members to represent the County among 270 delegates representing nearly 1000 school districts statewide. Such a status would likely bolster his chances for re-election in November, a fact probably not lost on Mr Merriam.  The Emery School Board will vote for four (out of seven) representatives for the august seat on the California School Board Association Wednesday night and among his colleagues Mr Merriam is a likely shoo-in (4-1?) however he is less likely to receive enough votes among the other Alameda County school boards owing to Mr Merriam’s thin resume, lacking in educational bona fides as it is.

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.

Follow Up Friday: Pledge of Allegiance Quietly Dropped at School Board Meetings

Loyalty Oath Coercion Deemed Inappropriate at School District 

Follow Up Friday: we look back on previous stories; what's happened after our spotlight shined on it?  If there was a problem identified, has it been solved?  Has there been no change and the amount of elapsed time made the issue newsworthy again by virtue of that fact?  Look to Follow Up Friday to wrap it all up or to highlight for us all how lame our city can be.


First it was the Emeryville City Council meetings, and now it's the Emery School Board meetings: it seems a wave of godless communism has washed over our city.  Or non-divisive rational politics.
A spokesperson from the Emery Unified School District who wishes anonymity reports that Superintendent John Rubio and Board President Donn Merriam have decided the loyalty oath known as the Pledge of Allegiance has no place at School Board meetings and it's been quietly dropped.

Long Time Coming
After decades of dutifully administering the Pledge before meetings, suddenly the Board announced they would consider eliminating the controversial religious and robotic loyalty oath in 2011 after parents complained.  At the time, then Board President Josh Simon told the Tattler he expected they would eventually remove the Pledge agenda item from meetings but cautioned it would take "more than a month or two" of deliberations.

The Tattler long made hay of the mindless recital of the Pledge, noting it had the effect of cancelling out a self stated School District goal that students learn critical thinking skills.  It was an argument that parents took up, several making their views known to the Board.  In the end, the Board deliberations, if they even occurred, stretched on for six more years before they dropped the god and country 'right or wrong' trope and succumbed to rationality based non-divisive meetings earlier this month.

The City Council voted to remove the loyalty oath from public meetings in January after years of cajoling from the Tattler.  It's noteworthy and likely telling the Council finally took action on this fake patriotism right before President Trump took office, avoiding the unseemly spectacle of Emeryville City Council members effectively pledging their loyalty to Donald Trump.
Watching their lips closely over the last few years, it became more and more obvious that neither the City Council members nor the Board members themselves were actually verbalizing the Pledge after they had been asking the public to "stand and join" them each time.

Emeryville from 1896 to 2017

We Need a New Schools Superintendent: Time For Rubio To Go

Three Board Members Hold Emery's Future in Their Hands

Opinion
It has become increasingly clear that it is time for the Emery School Board to fire Emery Schools Superintendent John Rubio.
Seemingly every week, fresh revelations centered on the Superintendent brings the drip, drip, drip of more scandal to a District that's already up to its neck in it.
This last week we are spectators to the ECCL warranty train wreak: the Superintendent hiding the fact that the District only has a few months left on the construction warranty for the new ECCL schools/community center campus, the remainders of just one year, after assuring us for months we would have two full years.  Taxpayers will likely be left holding the bag on a poorly built project, with no recompense because we'll have run out of time to effect repairs under warranty.
A thorough investigation of the construction defects at the ECCL, actively (albeit reluctantly) under discussion by the Board, becomes more imperative with the revelation of the new time constraint.  But in a one-two punch to the taxpayers, this is unlikely because of obstinacy from the Superintendent.  As such, Mr Rubio let his insubordination flag fly last month when he told the Board that he wouldn't be willing to do work towards initiating any audit of the ECCL project, neither construction, performance nor financial.

It was pretty unseemly hearing a superintendent tell his employers he won't do as he's told but three years into the Rubio administration at Emery, we weren't really surprised.  Before last week's scandals, Mr Rubio has been called out for racism by the teachers, accused of breaking the law by hindering transparency by community members, chastised by a City Council member for not paying taxes for the District, failed to provide required documents to the press, booed by parents at an after school celebration (!), charged with holding secret white staff only interviews, and yet another teacher has resigned from the district, despite the Superintendent's assertion that would not happen, bringing the total this school year (2016-2017) to fourteen, fifteen if you include the Elementary Principal.
That degradation only adds to another Rubio fiasco; the deplorable state of teacher retention at Emery, the worst of any school district in the entire Bay Area on his watch.  And of course we shouldn't leave out mention of the 'mandated reporter' scandal; Superintendent Rubio's failing to call police after two reported cases of student sexual assault on campus.  Parents believed their children's accounting and went to the police with the assault allegations on their own but the Superintendent said the students were lying and he never notified the police of the incidents as the law states he must (please use the search bar above for more information on all these scandals).

Indeed, Mr Rubio's entire term here at Emery has been one scandal after another, starting his first week on the job when, without even a cursory public records check,  he hired a well documented sexual predator to serve as principal of the elementary school, costing the District almost $100,000.  Mr Rubio's penchant for secrecy net Emery at least two disparaging newspaper articles by the East Bay Times after he orchestrated a major Brown Act violation.  He was caught holding a behind closed doors meeting in his office with a Board quorum before a regularly scheduled Board meeting.  Under discussion at the secret meeting were fiscal matters, as the District was preparing to sell another municipal bond. After at first lying about the meeting, he later apologized after the East Bay Times made hay of it.

As reported in the Tattler, on June 15th, nine individuals spoke to Rubio's racism and incompetence. Board members Donn Merriam, Cruz Vargas, and Bailey Langer sat in disinterested silence as the parade of disgruntled educators described the toxic environment Rubio has created at the ECCL.  Given the number of speakers and information covered, Mr Rubio took the video of the meeting home to "prepare the minutes." The result was a white wash of the Board minutes; all reference to his poor job performance scrubbed from the official record of the meeting.  
The Board's refusal to rewrite the minutes to accurately document the teacher's charges against Mr Rubio tells us this Board majority isn't interested in doing the work needed to provide a base level of stability or competency any education agency needs to properly function, let alone teach children.  
And that is at the root of Emery's existential problems; a deluded and compliant board majority in the thrall of a dysfunctional superintendent.  Outwardly, this is a seemingly intractable problem for Emery.  That's why we need to throw a monkey wrench into the gears of this thing; cause a change up.  We've been demoralized having now had two bad superintendents in a row.  But we don't believe in fate or the turpitude of original sin.  We're not paying now for some past horrific transgression; we can find a good superintendent for this beleaguered school district.  There are good people out there, we could find one.  Any change in leadership will almost certainly bring relief to the long suffering citizens, teachers, parents and children of Emery Unified.

For these reasons, we call on Board members Donn Merriam, Cruz Vargas, and Bailey Langner, so far inextricably standing by the Superintendent, to acquiesce to the ceaseless drip, drip, drip and fire Rubio now for cause (plenty of that) as opposed to waiting out the end of his contract.

Bailey Langner

Donn Merriam

Cruz Vargas

The three Board members above need to stop looking out after the interests of John Rubio and start looking out after our interests: citizens, parents and children.  We don't deserve all this chaos.

Black People at Emery: Nameless and Not Heard

School Board to Black Teachers:

'We Are Not Listening to You'

Board President
Donn Merriam
'The minutes will not be
made to reflect what
the teachers said.'

News Analysis
Despite Emery teacher's charges directed towards the Superintendent of the Schools, outlining his bullying and racist practices, made at a now infamous June 15th School Board meeting, the Board gave a big thumbs up to embattled Superintendent John Rubio last week when they voted their approval of a scrubbing of the public record; erasing the teacher’s public testimonies in the official minutes.  The teacher’s testimonies condemned a top down racist culture that has risen up at Emery Unified School District and a Superintendent that ignores or subverts the concerns of African American educators at the district.  The official minutes of that meeting, written by Mr Rubio himself and now approved by the the School Board (4-1 Member Barbara Inch dissenting), play down the teacher’s concerns and expunge even any mention of the Superintendent and his central role in the existential dysfunction at the District the teachers testified against.  

The minutes approved by the Board at the follow on June 28th meeting, give ample space for two other (white) speakers at the June 15th meeting who came to praise the District, respectfully providing their names for the record but the black teachers (and their white colleagues) got short shrift, their concerns ignored, their names not even mentioned.  The Board majority approved minutes, by proving the teacher’s claims in its naked ablution, brazenly affirm and help support the racist culture at Emery Unified.  

Board Member Cruz Vargas
'The Board is fine with ignoring
black teachers.'

Some of these black teachers have worked at Emery for years and now, as they quit because of the venality of this Superintendent, the Board disrespectfully ignores their specific concerns, leaving no record of their professional accounting.  These honorable District employees were not even given time to properly say their piece; they were only given the same three minutes to address the Board given to the general public.   

Board Member Bailey Langner, an attorney, said it best among her colleagues at the June 28th meeting; the minutes cannot be used to accurately record any of what the teachers said or even to casually mention that they are dissatisfied with the job done by the Superintendent because according to Ms Langner, “Minutes are not meant to be verbatim.”  We’ll leave it to an authoritarian minded attorney to use a straw man fallacy like that.
Even African American Board member Brynnda Collins, who upon hearing the teacher's testimonies said the "time for action" is upon us June 15th, bizarrely voted with her three colleagues June 28th to approve Superintendent Rubio's minutes to take away from what the teachers had said. 

Presciently and informatively, one of Mr Rubio's first acts as Superintendent almost three years ago was to amend Emery's official Mission Statement.  References to ending racist (and classist) policies, central in the former mission statement were expunged by Mr Rubio with the Board's approval.  At the time it didn't seem ominous to most. 

Board Member
Brynnda Collins
"Now is the time for action"...
and then she voted to approve
the minutes.

There’s a silver lining that’s been revealed by the Board refusing to adjust the minutes of the June 15th meeting to reflect the truth if not to respect the teachers; the good news is the real agenda of the School Board is now irrefutable.  The easiest thing in the world to do would have been for the School Board to adjust these white washed minutes.  It’s actually required by law but here at Emery it seems what matters more is for this Board to support the Superintendent, apparently no matter what; even to lower themselves into this degraded racist culture the teachers alerted us to. Not this Superintendent’s deplorable teacher retention record, the worst in the Bay Area, not even his failure to follow the Mandated Reporter law leaving would be sexually assaulted children and their parents disbelieved at Emery can sway this Board as they go about their prime directive: protecting the Superintendent.

Board Member
Bailey Langner
'Sorry teachers, minutes cannot 
be made to reflect reality.
Not when we have our own
narrative to push.'

The Board’s vote June 28th to disregard the teachers, especially the black teachers at Emery serves now to focus all teachers, parents, and regular citizens to the importance that elected officials not act as renegades but instead to reflect a community's values (appointed Board members Langner and Collins were not elected by the people).  Emeryville is not racist and we won't countenance racist institutions paid to speak and act for us. A correction in the form of a plebiscite will likely be due Emery coming soon to a voting booth near all of us. 

Correction: Board member Collins was appointed to her Board position along with Member Langner.  The story has been changed to reflect that.  Thanks to the commenter who brought it to our attention.

School Board President Insists NO Audit of ECCL Project

Rift Between City & School District

Audit Latest Imbroglio

The City Council has suggested the School District Board of Trustees audit Turner Construction, the builder of the Emeryville Center of 'Community' Life in order to claw back some money the district might have overpaid for the building project but the Board President is demurring, indicating he is more inclined to try to get money out of its ECCL partner, the City of Emeryville instead.  It's part of a growing rift between the District and City Hall born out of differences in how to divide up cost overruns in the contentious schools/community center project.

The City/Schools Committee, consisting of the membership of the City Council and the School Board, met May 4th and the frosty relations were evident when Vice Mayor John Bauters suggested going to construction giant Turner, who has recently been indicted for bilking clients, to see if there may be recoverable costs to help offset the cost overruns of ECCL*.  The idea was embraced by the entire Council but Board President Merriam oddly said it would not be appropriate, a position he has held for quite some time even as he has refused to properly elaborate.
Mr Merriam joined with former Board President John Affeldt last summer in quashing an attempt to audit Turner, citing the existence of the Citizens Oversight Committee (COC) makes it unnecessary.

Emery School Board President
Donn Merriam
'Even though Turner Construction
has been caught overcharging 
clients, we must not audit them'.

Just two years ago the County of Santa Clara held Turner to task for cost overruns and delays.  Turner blamed the city for the issues.

Mr Merriam's odd assertion of no Turner audit brings into question who's interests he has at heart.  The ECCL budget went significantly over budget and is still not complete.  Board member Brynnda Collins, when expressing her support for a Turner audit, questioned the quality of the work stating, "Big chunks of metal (are) falling and almost hitting a teacher."  There have been multiple suggestions of design flaws like lack of storage, concrete poured too thin and poor drainage.

It is clear to many there are enough reasons for an audit.  City Council member Bauters stated it could find enough savings to cover the remaining $370,000 the district owes Turner.
Los Angeles Unified School District routinely audits projects.  It should be noted LAUSD is so large that they have a group that audits every project. Turner recently was found to have overcharged them $190,000 on a $98 million project, almost exactly the same size project as ECCL.

Conflict of Interest?
Clearly audits are done and effective tools to protect taxpayer funds.  Which leads back to the question, does Board President Merriam have a Turner connection in his work as an employee of the architecture firm of Deems Lewis Mckinley (DLM)?  A Tattler search of their projects and Turner's revealed no direct overlap.  However it did turn up a project that involved Swinerton Management and DLM.  Swinerton worked on the ECCL project and frequently partners with Turner.

South San Francisco Unified passed a large bond project and used Swinerton to manage the project.  DLM bid on and was chosen to do the work. It is not clear if the Emery Board President personally worked on the project but the appearance of impropriety is evident.  Of course, an elected official should not be in the position to have to chose between what is best for their constituents and their pocketbooks.

The School Board is scheduled to discuss auditing the ECCL project at their May 10th meeting and Mr Merriam should leave the room while this is being discussed.  If he stays in the room, he should disclose the firm's relationship with Swinerton and have the legal counsel provide guidance.  It should be noted President Merriam has been caught violating simple rules of transparency because he claimed he was unaware of the conflict.

*NOTE: Although Turner Construction is a 'primary partner' with Turner GROUP Construction, it was Turner GROUP Construction that was indicted for bilking it's clients.  Turner Construction, the builder of the ECCL wasn't indicted but they were found to be overcharging their clients as the story states.  The Tattler apologizes for the mix up.

Superintendent's Role in Emery's Rolling Teacher Retention Crisis Revealed

John Rubio On The Defense

Problem Worse Than Initially Reported

37% of Teaching Staff Leaves

Rubio Fiddles

Emery Unified School District's Superintendent John Rubio is facing charges of gross incompetency after it has been revealed he made an executive decision to spend just 1% of parcel tax proceeds out of $2.5 million on retaining teachers that has exacerbated a rolling crisis; teachers quitting Emery en masse. That and the fact he has made work life intolerable for many of the 53 teachers hired by Emery according to teachers themselves.

The regularly scheduled Emery School Board April 12th meeting brought a dramatic public showdown as Emeryville's Mayor led parents and teachers in demanding account from district Superintendent John Rubio for an ongoing and unprecedented exodus of teachers over the last year regardless of the glut of cash received from the taxpayers to stop it.  Mayor Scott Donahue, responding to a Tattler story March 18th and a follow up story March 22nd, requested the Superintendent account for public tax proceeds spent specifically to retain teachers at the troubled district and to get to the bottom of a culture that has manifest a leadership vacuum resulting in 20 teachers leaving in the last year alone (the number may actually be 21, we're still waiting for confirmation from an uncooperative School District).

Candid or truthful answers were not forthcoming from the Superintendent, leading the Board to call for revisiting the issue at a later meeting.  This despite Mr Rubio’s attempt to put the brakes on citizens such as the Mayor (who had made the request for the issue to be on the Board meeting agenda for the April 12th meeting) from making agenda item requests in the future in a proposed bylaws amendment.  The bylaw amendment idea was also shelved by the Board but not before Board member Barbara Inch quoted from Sacramento mandated education code that specifically empowers private citizens the ability to place legitimate school related issues on school board agendas.

$20,000 out of $2.5 million 

spent on teacher retention 

net a loss of 37% of the 

entire teaching staff.

Despite Emery’s abysmal record on teacher retention, by far the worst of any school district in the entire Bay Area, Mr Rubio gave the Board a glowing presentation of his work retaining teachers that inextricably highlighted “improvements” in the number of teachers rushing for the exits this year over last year.  It was a claim refuted by current City Council member and former School Board Trustee Christian Patz, who attended the meeting and noted this year’s teacher retention will not be substantially known until late May, when school districts all over the State view teacher resumes for hiring in the fall.  Added to that and rounding out the final numbers would be Emery teachers vacating after that, up until the end of the year.
Mr Rubio noted “only seven" teachers had left since January 1st, a number he used to show an improvement over last year however Mr Patz told the Board that at this point last year, also about seven teachers had had separated from the District (and that number subsequently rose to 20 by year's end).  The Tattler checked Mr Patz's claim and based on Board minutes, found the number the same; seven teachers had left by this time last year (see chart at below).

When it comes to job satisfaction, Emery teachers are voting with their feet. The numbers are disturbing.  The 20 certified teachers who quit last year, including the five who left mid year, represents a loss of some 37%, far worse than Oakland Unified School District who lost 7% of their teaching staff during the same period.  The next worse district in the East Bay Area is Berkeley Unified who lost 2% of their teachers.  The other districts large and small around the Bay Area all hover around 1.5% teacher loss.

These numbers are likely attenuated by the money spent by the District on retention as determined by the Superintendent.  Of more than $2.5 million taken in last year from Measure K, the parcel tax Emeryville voters passed in 2014, records show only 2% was spent on teacher recruitment and retention, about $41,000.  Ostensibly, only about $20,000 was spent on retention exclusively, a number that dovetailed with the Superintendent’s testimony that teacher retention, feeble by any standards included, “dinners with the Superintendent” and free refreshments served during professional development seminars.  The "signing bonuses" the Superintendent claimed were paid by Measure K parcel taxes last year and count as teacher retention actually came from outside donations specifically earmarked for that purpose; another point corrected by Councilman Patz from the floor.

Notably, Board President Donn Merriam so far is sticking up for Mr Rubio; he voted YES to renew the Superintendent’s contract when it came up for review last December against the admonitions from then School Board member Patz.  It should be noted Mr Merriam, who refused to comment to the Tattler for this story, was aware of the rolling crisis of teacher retention at the time.  The Tattler endorsed Mr Merriam when he first sought election to the Board in 2014.
The Tattler noted in a story in 2014 about Measure K that promoters had refused to quantify how teacher retention would be supported by the ballot measure, but ultimately ended up endorsing it.

Teacher retention is commonly cited as one of the twin poles parents and educators use as a barometer to determine a school district’s function. The other most commonly used metric, test scores, continues to be a stubborn and intractable problem for Emery.

Teacher retention

A summary of departures:

All Certificated	24
Administrators	2
AYE	18
ESS	2
Total Teachers	20
Other Certificated	3
Mid Year	5

Below is a record of Certificated and Administrators staff that separated from Emery USD from Jan 2016 to Jan 2017.  This material is part of Emery USDs public record listed on each Agenda under 'closed session' with a link to actions taken.  AYE refers to Anna Yates Elementary School and ESS is Emery Secondary School (the High School).

Board Meeting Date	School	Effective
1-13-16	AYE	1/15/16
3-9-16	AYE	6/30/16
3-9-16	AYE	6/30/16
3-9-16	AYE	6/17/16
3-9-16	AYE	3/2/16
3-9-16	AYE	6/30/16
3-9-16	Admin	6/30/16
3-23-16	AYE	6/30/16
4-27-16	AYE	6/30/16
5-18-16	AYE	8/10/16
5-18-16	AYE	8/10/16
5-18-16	AYE	8/10/16
5-18-16	Counselor	6/17/16
5-25-16	Speech	8/10/16
5-25-16	Nurse	8/10/16
6-8-16	AYE	8/10/16
6-8-16	AYE	8/16/16
6-22-16	AYE	8/10/16
8-10-16	Admin	7/7/16
8-10-16	AYE	7/19/16
8-24-16	ESS	8/10/16
10-12-16	AYE	9/9/16
1-11-17	AYE	18/28/16
1-11-17	AYE	12/16/16
1-25-17	ESS	1-25-17

Taxpayer Funded Measure A (&K) Expenditures
Note: Measure A is slated to sunset and will be subsequently replaced with Measure K,
passed in 2014 and due to sunset after 20 years.  Both parcel tax measures tax at the
same rate. Emeryville residents are very supportive of their public schools.