Vergara Case: Emery Unified School District, Right Wing Victorious Against Teachers Unions

Emery Plays a Part in the Infamous 

Vergara Case

News Analysis
A Los Angeles judge ruled against California teachers and in support of a Silicon Valley billionaire today in the much watched Vergara Case, a lawsuit with major Emery Unified School District connections.  It's a case that has pitted school privatizers and anti-union right wing forces against teachers and public school supporters.  Emery Unified sent two strong anti-teacher's union supporters, former school superintendents Tony Smith and Debbra Lindo to argue in support of billionaire plaintiff David Welch (57).  The case will have repercussions far beyond California as the plaintiff vows to take the case nation-wide, a prospect that has drawn cheers from all manner of conservative pundits and right wing think tanks across the land.

Both Emery superintendents supplied the plaintiff with 'letters of declaration', using their Emery credentials to bolster their case that teachers are to blame for the poor state of education in Emeryville and in California.

Silicon Valley Tycoon David Welch
The Republican billionaire used
Emery School Superintendent's
help to argue that teachers unions
should be deep sixed. 

The plaintiff used Emery's superintendent's letters of declaration to argue that only the destruction of the teachers union and tying teacher pay with student test scores can save education, something that needs to be done "for the students".  The idea is that well qualified teachers will flock to school districts that offer no job security and pay poorly although neither Emery superintendent nor anyone representing the plaintiff has shown how this will work.  The Vergara plaintiff argued good teachers aren't interested in due process and instead clamor for their job and pay to be dependent upon the capricious whims of superintendents and other things beyond their control like student poverty and associated dysfunctional home life.

Emery Unified: Anti-Teacher Incubator 
Emery, being such a small school district, has played an over sized role in today's victory against teachers.  The district here has long taken an adversarial position against its teachers, most notably when the School Board resolved to support Superintendent Lindo over the teachers in the infamous Teachers Resolution fight.  Tony Smith and his program of shutting down schools, cutting teacher pay and turning over public schools to private charter corporations while he served as Oakland's superintendent is still revered by the School Board here at Emery.
Emery's role in the anti-teacher/ pro-privatization movement has come to be that of an incubator.  The district here collects those with disdain for teachers and elevates them to superintendent.  After attaining superintendent status, Emery sends them out into the world where they can help right wing causes and inflict damage to teachers statewide.
It's a recipe that has rankled teachers here at Emery.  Emery Teachers Association president Dawn Turner told the Tattler today, "We have the dubious distinction of having provided not one but two former superintendents as expert witnesses on the Vergara case.  They are using students to forward a right wing agenda".  Ms Turner echoed her colleagues vow, "We will fight this" she said.

In a tragicomic irony, the ruling in Los Angeles today comes right on the heels of last week's "Teacher Appreciation Week" here at Emery.

Former Emery School Superintendant Tony Smith: Teachers Unions Must Be Destroyed

The Long Shadow Cast By Tony Smith

"We're Doing What's Best for the Children"

Opinion

Remember, I only want what's
best for the children.
(Repeat often)

Recently there's been a national debate begun about public education and while charter schools, most operating at the expense of public schools have proliferated and teachers unions have come under attack on many fronts, public education supporters have begun to push back against this concerted push to privatize the nation's public schools.  At Emery Unified School District however, the course was set years ago and Emery has played its own small role in this conservative attempt to cripple public education, especially where that attempt seeks to destroy teachers unions.  To see this one only needs to look to the legacies of former superintendents of its schools Tony Smith and the recently deposed Debbra Lindo.

Even though they had the same goals in mind, of the two former superintendents, the great mentor and architect-in-chief of Emery's slide into it's current anti-teacher state of affairs is inarguably Tony Smith.  His shadow is long and even though he left Emery years ago to command Oakland Unified and has since left there amid a witness tampering scandal, Tony Smith and his school privatization philosophy continues unabashedly to serve as guiding principles for Emery.  The School Board here is quite clear about their tutelage by Tony Smith, proud even.

Ditto.

While at Oakland, Tony's divisive anti-democratic program of cutting, shutting and chartering schools while taking on the teachers caused a massive grassroots citizen's push back.  He is revered nonetheless by the Emery School Board and they have even picked up some of his affectations: think the oft publicly repeated and ever popular "we're doing what's best for the children" as a way of shutting down those who would disagree, as in; what YOU'RE advocating then must therefore be by definition NOT what's best for the children.

After Tony left Emery, the School Board looked to find a permanent replacement and they ultimately found a near carbon copy in Debbra Lindo (except she lacks Tony's easy going and chipper personality).  Tony's influence was evident as Debbra Lindo and her Board surrogates began their siege against Emery teachers following the release of the Teachers Resolution in 2012.

Mega ditttos.

The Emeryville duo Tony 'n Debbra have now very publicly entered the national debate with their support in the Los Angeles Superior Court's infamous Vergara case.  They tell us that everything will be great if we just tie teacher's pay to high stakes 'bubble' test outcomes, kill due process for teacher's employment and make their jobs teeter on the whims of unelected superintendents.  We'll get the best and the brightest apparently if we de-professionalize teaching: sever their job security, cut pay and make their fates dependent on things beyond their control.


Below is a recent letter to the Oakland Tribune from Tony Smith (filled with right wing memes and dog whistles) that might seem sincere to the uninitiated. To those following the Emery School Board (Tony's begats)  however, it's just part of the continuing attack on and privatize of public education.  Here is Tony Smith, the Great Man to Emery Unified continuing to release his toxic brand of divisive politics even as he has decamped to Chicago, some 2000 miles distant:

Guest commentary:  

Let's start protecting all of our students

By Tony Smith, guest commentary © 2014 Bay Area News Group
POSTED:   03/30/2014 04:00:00 PM
California's education laws are currently designed to almost unconditionally protect a group of adults -- teachers -- at the expense of our children.
And students living in poverty -- those most in need of every opportunity our public schools can offer -- are being disproportionately punished by these laws. The system tells them: sorry, teachers' jobs are more important than your education and your future.
Is that right?
No, it isn't, say the nine students who brought the Vergara v. California case, currently awaiting a ruling in Los Angeles Superior Court. The students are suing the state because five state laws are denying them -- and the other 6.2 million California public school students like them -- their constitutional right to a quality education.
If the court agrees, then the dysfunctional statutes controlling teacher tenure, dismissal and layoffs will be struck down, creating a transformational opportunity to design a new system that puts students' needs first, ensures a high-quality teacher in every classroom and helps all Californians see a better future.
Supporting our teachers really matters. Effective teachers are essential for a well-educated California. Under current laws, though, the system fails to make effective teaching a priority, creating an environment that's bad for both hardworking teachers and students.
The tenure law forces administrators to grant lifetime employment to new teachers after less than 16 months in the classroom. I am aware of no other profession where someone is granted protected status in such a short time and without any real evidentiary basis for the decision.
Once permanent employment is granted, it is nearly impossible to dismiss ineffective teachers for any reason other than criminal activity. The dismissal process is so cumbersome and costly that in the past 10 years, only 19 teachers out of California's 1,052 school districts have been successfully terminated through the dismissal process for reasons including unsatisfactory performance.
When funding reductions instigate layoffs, administrators are not allowed to base staffing decisions on the quality of a teacher's service to children. The primary factor that may be considered is how long he or she has been employed by the district, so every year a district has layoffs, children lose passionate, hardworking, effective teachers -- just because they lack seniority.
As superintendent of Oakland Unified School District, I had to explain why excellent teachers were being let go, while parents pleaded and begged, saying, "Please, please keep this teacher. You don't understand what this year has been like for my child. This is one of the most extraordinary educators I've ever seen in my life."
But under the law, there is nothing we can do to keep that extraordinary educator.
Is the system I just described a system focused on what's best for children?
Not to me.
A system that prioritizes meeting the needs of California's students -- as the state constitution demands -- would focus on enhancing educational quality before protecting seniority.
A system that truly puts students' learning first would evaluate how well our students are doing and how much growth they are making.
We would discuss how to help teachers develop their practice, using growth in student learning as the primary data guiding our efforts.
When teachers demonstrate effective work in service of students, we would do everything in our power to enhance that work and reward those teachers. And when a few adults are consistently failing our children in the classroom, we would hold them accountable.
In a district like the Oakland Unified School District, where I served as superintendent for four years, 70 percent of students come from low-income households. Our students face serious challenges outside of school. For many students, the road leads either to graduation or incarceration. Having caring, attentive, effective teachers along the road makes all the difference.
Let's not lose sight of the goal of our public schools: to ensure that every child in the state has access to a good education, so every child can participate and thrive in our society.
I hope the Vergara student-plaintiffs are victorious in court. I hope the Vergara case marks a turning point in the trajectory of public education in California. Let's make a true commitment to current and future students: educational excellence, starting with an effective teacher in every classroom.

Tony Smith is a former superintendent of Oakland Unified School District.

Emery School District Contributes to the Right Wing Anti-Public School Culture

Opinion
Emeryville is trendy.  It seems like with every emerging bad public policy trend, Emeryville is right there at the front of the pack...or at least right behind the trend setters in the Bay Area. With its 'cut, shut and charter' mindset and its virtual war on teachers, the Emery Unified School District is acting the foot soldier in the right wing privatization play for America's public schools.  The Yes Magazine article below tells the sad tale of what's happening nationally, while here in Emeryville the School Board is also playing its part.   

As you read the Yes story, remember how the School District here has shut down the Ralph Hawley Middle School and now is ready to shut down Anna Yates Elementary School.  Both these school campuses could sit idle or underutilized and will be subject to take over by private charter school concerns because the law says that any underutilized surplus school district property is subject to any private charter school moving in by State sanctioned seizure.  There's no way Emery could stop this eventuality even if the District were of a mind to stop it. 
With the EBI private school already in place on San Pablo Avenue right across from the future Center of 'Community' Life and its Kindergarten through 12th grade school, combined with the former school sites as possible sites for charter schools, Emery is primed for ongoing existential threat.  Charter schools and private schools thrive by only accepting the best and the brightest students, culled from the local public schools leaving them with what's left; driving down test scores and further feeding the loop for public school abandonment and disinvestment. 

Adding to this culture of stoking privatization forces, the Emery School Board has entered into a program of wholesale teacher marginalization after the Board last year very publicly abandoned the teachers in favor of former Superintendent Debbra Lindo in the infamous Teachers Resolution dust up.  The School Board willingly destroyed their relationship with the teachers in order to support the now fired Debbra Lindo.  What's left besides teachers feeling used, abused and unsupported is a further cheapening and erosion of public good will towards teachers.  Our School Board told us in a clear and unified voice that teachers are not worth listening to.  

Insofar as the Emery School Board recalcitrance in the Lindo case has added to the chorus of right wing voices about teacher incompetence and irrelevance nation-wide and as far as the Emery School District's part in the right-wing's anti-public school, anti-teacher paradigm has seeped into the collective mind-set of the citizenry here in Emeryville with its anti-democratic school closures,  we cry foul.   Regardless of what's happening nation-wide, we want our public schools valued and our teachers supported.  They're part of the commons and we're protecting the commons from attack, be it from the City Hall/business nexus or from the School Board/cut, shut and charter nexus.  We want the Emery Unified School District to start acting more old fashioned and stop being so trendy.

Here's the Yes Magazine story:  

The Myth Behind Public School Failure

In the rush to privatize the country’s schools, corporations and politicians have decimated school budgets, replaced teaching with standardized testing, and placed the blame on teachers and students.

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by Dean Paton

posted Feb 21, 2014

Photo by hxdbzxy/Shutterstock

Until about 1980, America’s public schoolteachers were iconic everyday heroes painted with a kind of Norman Rockwell patina—generally respected because they helped most kids learn to read, write and successfully join society. Such teachers made possible at least the idea of a vibrant democracy.

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Since then, what a turnaround: We’re now told, relentlessly, that bad-apple schoolteachers have wrecked K-12 education; that their unions keep legions of incompetent educators in classrooms; that part of the solution is more private charter schools; and that teachers as well as entire schools lack accountability, which can best be remedied by more and more standardized “bubble” tests.

What led to such an ignoble fall for teachers and schools? Did public education really become so irreversibly terrible in three decades? Is there so little that’s redeemable in today’s schoolhouses?

The beginning of “reform”
To truly understand how we came to believe our educational system is broken, we need a history lesson. Rewind to 1980—when Milton Friedman, the high priest of laissez-faire economics, partnered with PBS to produce a ten-part television series called Free to Choose. He devoted one episode to the idea of school vouchers, a plan to allow families what amounted to publicly funded scholarships so their children could leave the public schools and attend private ones.

You could make a strong argument that the current campaign against public schools started with that single TV episode. To make the case for vouchers, free-market conservatives, corporate strategists, and opportunistic politicians looked for any way to build a myth that public schools were failing, that teachers (and of course their unions) were at fault, and that the cure was vouchers and privatization.

Jonathan Kozol, the author and tireless advocate for public schools, called vouchers the “single worst, most dangerous idea to have entered education discourse in my adult life.”

Armed with Friedman’s ideas, President Reagan began calling for vouchers. In 1983, his National Commission on Excellence in Education issued “A Nation At Risk,” a report that declared, “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.”

It also said, “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”

For a document that’s had such lasting impact, “A Nation At Risk” is remarkably free of facts and solid data. Not so the Sandia Report, a little-known follow-up study commissioned by Admiral James Watkins, Reagan’s secretary of energy; it discovered that the falling test scores which caused such an uproar were really a matter of an expansion in the number of students taking the tests. In truth, standardized-test scores were going up for every economic and ethnic segment of students—it’s just that, as more and more students began taking these tests over the 20-year period of the study, this more representative sample of America’s youth better reflected the true national average. It wasn’t a teacher problem. It was a statistical misread.

The government never officially released the Sandia Report. It languished in peer-review purgatory until theJournal of Educational Research published it in 1993. Despite its hyperbole (or perhaps because of it), “A Nation At Risk” became a timely cudgel for the larger privatization movement. With Reagan and Friedman, the Nobel-Prize-winning economist, preaching that salvation would come once most government services were turned over to private entrepreneurs, the privatizers began proselytizing to get government out of everything from the post office to the public schools.

Corporations recognized privatization as a euphemism for profits. “Our schools are failing” became the slogan for those who wanted public-treasury vouchers to move money into private schools. These cries continue today.

The era of accountability
In 2001, less than a year into the presidency of George W. Bush, the federal government enacted sweeping legislation called “No Child Left Behind.” Supporters described it as a new era of accountability—based on standardized testing. The act tied federal funding for public schools to student scores on standardized tests. It also guaranteed millions in profits to corporations such as Pearson PLC, the curriculum and testing juggernaut, which made more than $1 billion in 2012 selling textbooks and bubble tests.

In 2008, the economy collapsed. State budgets were eviscerated. Schools were desperate for funding. In 2009, President Obama and his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, created a program they called “Race to the Top.”

It didn’t replace No Child Left Behind; it did step in with grants to individual states for their public schools. Obama and Duncan put desperate states in competition with each other. Who got the money was determined by several factors, including which states did the best job of improving the performance of failing schools—which, in practice, frequently means replacing public schools with for-profit charter schools—and by a measure of school success based on students’ standardized-test scores that allegedly measured “progress.”

Since 2001 and No Child Left Behind, the focus of education policy makers and corporate-funded reformers has been to insist on more testing—more ways to quantify and measure the kind of education our children are getting, as well as more ways to purportedly quantify and measure the effectiveness of teachers and schools.
For a dozen or so years, this “accountability movement” was pretty much the only game in town. It used questionable, even draconian, interpretations of standardized-test results to brand schools as failures, close them, and replace them with for-profit charter schools.

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Resistance 
Finally, in early 2012, then-Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott kindled a revolt of sorts, saying publicly that high-stakes exams are a “perversion.” His sentiments quickly spread to Texas school boards, whose resolution stating that tests were “strangling education” gained support from more than 875 school districts representing more than 4.4 million Texas public-school students. Similar, if smaller, resistance to testing percolated in other communities nationally.

Then, in January 2013, teachers at Seattle’s Garfield High School announced they would refuse to give their students the Measures of Academic Progress Test—the MAP test. Despite threats of retaliation by their district, they held steadfast. By May, the district caved, telling its high schools the test was no longer mandatory.

Garfield’s boycott triggered a nationwide backlash to the “reform” that began with Friedman and the privatizers in 1980. At last, Americans from coast to coast have begun redefining the problem for what it really is: not an education crisis but a manufactured catastrophe, a facet of what Naomi Klein calls “disaster capitalism.”

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Look closely—you’ll recognize the formula: Underfund schools. Overcrowd classrooms. Mandate standardized tests sold by private-sector firms that “prove” these schools are failures. Blame teachers and their unions for awful test scores. In the bargain, weaken those unions, the largest labor organizations remaining in the United States. Push nonunion, profit-oriented charter schools as a solution.

If a Hurricane Katrina or a Great Recession comes along, all the better. Opportunities for plunder increase as schools go deeper into crisis, whether genuine or ginned up.

The reason for privatization

Chris Hedges, the former New York Times correspondent, appeared on Democracy Now! in 2012 and told host Amy Goodman the federal government spends some $600 billion a year on education—“and the corporations want it. That’s what’s happening. And that comes through charter schools. It comes through standardized testing. And it comes through breaking teachers’ unions and essentially hiring temp workers, people who have very little skills.”

Meet the New Rebels Taking Back Our Public Schools

If you doubt Hedges, at least trust Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul and capitalist extraordinaire whose Amplify corporation already is growing at a 20 percent rate, thanks to its education contracts. “When it comes to K through 12 education,” Murdoch said in a November 2010 press release, “we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching.”

Corporate-speak for, “Privatize the public schools. Now, please.”

In a land where the free market has near-religious status, that’s been the answer for a long time. And it’s always been the wrong answer. The problem with education is not bad teachers making little Johnny into a dolt. It’s about Johnny making big corporations a bundle—at the expense of the well-educated citizenry essential to democracy.

And, of course, it’s about the people and ideas now reclaiming and rejuvenating our public schools and how we all can join the uprising against the faux reformers.

---

Dean Paton wrote this article for Education Uprising, the Spring 2014 issue of YES! Magazine. Dean is executive editor of YES!

Superintendent Lindo: In Her Own Words

Debbra Lindo Speaks!

The Tattler has obtained a copy of the declaration of former Emery Unified Superintendent Debbra Lindo in the anti-public school teacher Vergara v. California lawsuit now under way in Los Angeles.  Her declaration, reported by the Tattler, is embedded in its entirety below.  The document was signed by Ms Lindo on October 30, 2013 and filed with the court on December 13, 2013.

Some notable points from former Superintendent Lindo's declaration:

• Ms Lindo states that the evaluation of a teacher's effectiveness should include the standardized test scores achieved by the teacher's students. (Paragraph 4).
• She says that the teachers in Emery Unified are "well-intentioned and hard-working overall..." before going into a tirade against "grossly ineffective teachers." (Paragraph 6).
• She argues that teachers are granted tenure too early, when there is only one year of student test scores upon which to evaluate them. (Paragraph 9)
• She bemoans the due process rights provided to tenured teachers when a District seeks their dismissal, stating that if the process were easier she and the Emery Unified School Board would have dismissed more ineffective teachers. (Paragraph 14)

After the falsified credentials of a former superintendent, we were promised that Debbra Lindo was fully vetted.  This School Board assured us we knew exactly who we were getting when we hired Superintendent Lindo.  One must conclude then, that this School Board shares Lindo's dismal view of our teachers and the protections that seniority and tenure provide them. This School Board hired Superintendent Lindo.  This School Board stood by her when the teachers presented a vote of no-confidence making it beyond clear that they could not work with her.  This School Board did not flinch when the teachers announced that they were suspending the liaison meetings with her because they were of no value.  And this School Board bemoaned her retirement when it was first announced and have only given the most terse and uninformative response since.
We must thus expect new banners at each school site reading: "Teach to the test!" It is apparently the conviction of not only our former Superintendent, but also our School Board.

Lindo Declaration Vergara v California-2013-12-13 by sophbeau

The document can be viewed larger by clicking the icon in the bottom right corner.

Emery Teachers Scuttle Superintendant Liaison Meetings Indefinitely

Emery Teachers Break Off Talks 

With Superintendent & District 

The Emery School District's frosty relationship with its teachers just got a little colder.
School teacher representative Dawn Turner told the School Board last month the teachers had collectively decided to end talks meant to resolve emerging problems with the Superintendent of the Schools and the District.  It marks the latest step a frustrated Emery Teachers Association has taken after more than a year of discontent with the Emery Unified School District and Superintendent Debbra Lindo.  
Emery Teachers Association President Turner told an indifferent School Board they will "suspend the Liaison Committee until further notice."
Ms Turner added, "If we continue it this year it will give you the false impression that all is well and we don't care to give you that impression.  We want you to understand we are experiencing problems."

The Liaison Committee was intended to serve as a forum to hash out problems between teachers and the District before the issues spiraled out of control but after the School Board ignored the teacher's request for intervention with a recalcitrant Superintendent Lindo last year, the teachers have been feeling disrespected and ignored according to a teacher.  The teacher who spoke to the Tattler but wished to remain anonymous fearing possible District reprisals, condemned the School Board's inaction after last year's Teachers Resolution as a tipping point in District/teacher relations.

Representative Turner summed it up, "We feel in the past, in previous years and past administrations, it [the Liaison Committee] was always very productive" recalling the better days before the School Board hired Superintendent Lindo.  "We don't want to provide lip service to these issues.  We want them addressed, resolved like they've been in the past" she added.

You Tube video courtesy of the Emeryville Property Owners Association

Disgraceful One Year Anniversary at School District

The Emery School District Does Not 

Support Our Teachers

Opinion
Good public schools don't happen in a vacuum.  They require support from the larger community, at least a little.  Here in Emeryville, the schools haven't gotten a lot of support from the community other than voting ourselves a lot of new taxes.  But that's going to have to change.  Because the Emery School Board is marginalizing our teachers, and we're going to have to step in and pick up what the School Board has dropped.  If we don't do anything, our investment in the schools and our children's expectations for a good education will both turn sour.

One year ago today, the teachers at Emeryville's schools sent the School Board and the people of Emeryville a loud and clear response to a crisis.  That response, a document they called the Teachers Resolution, reveals that the teachers can't work with Superintendent of the Emery Schools, Debbra Lindo as they have no confidence in her.  With the public presentation of the Resolution on June 11, 2012, the teachers appealed to the School Board and to the people of Emeryville to help resolve the crisis.  But their pleas have fallen on deaf ears.  The School Board has made themselves equally clear: they do not support the teachers.

However the School Board hasn't simply ignored the teachers in the wake of the release of the Teachers Resolution, they've actively countered with a resolution of their own, rejecting the teachers and throwing their total support to the Superintendent.  With their counter-resolution, the Board is letting the teachers and the public know where their loyalties lie and anyone who thinks teachers should be part of a functioning school district should know that teachers here are considered expendable.

Mark Davis
Acting President, Emeryville
Teachers Association:
The School Board has
done nothing to help the 
teachers

Damning Quotes From Teachers
Superintendent Lindo for her part told the Tattler in December she has heard the teacher's charges against her in the Resolution and she has "fixed" the problems, a remark that has brought guffaws and indignation from every Emery teacher we approached. One teacher who wishes to remain anonymous called such talk from the Superintendent "lip service" based on nothing.
Speaking last week to this claim that the problems the Superintendent has with the teachers have been resolved, Mark Davis, acting Emeryville Teachers Association President countered, "Not according to the feed back I've been receiving from the teachers".   Mr Davis added that the School Board has shown no interest in helping resolve the problems the teachers are having with Ms Lindo,  "The Board has never inquired or sought an update as to what the teacher's position is regarding the lack of confidence in the superintendent"  he said.

Superintendent Lindo is disingenuous when she claims to support the teachers says the anonymous teacher we interviewed, "Ms Lindo is paying lip service to improving transparency and communications with parents, teachers and even administrators as she pursues her personal agenda.  In the process she has brought chaos and discord to the administration of the District and its schools, and so demoralized teachers that many are making 'escape' plans to work in a less pernicious environment"  the teacher said.

Melodi Dice
School Board President:
She says the Board considers 
the teachers at Emery
as "family"

It's Up to Us
We find it very informative that two School Board members we asked about the one year anniversary of the Teachers Resolution drew a blank; they didn't even know what we were asking about.  It's obvious that the teacher's concerns are not on this Board's radar.  It is obvious to anyone paying attention that the Emery School Board will not support our teachers...not after a year waiting.
Teachers are essential to effective public schools and to diminish them like this School District is doing is to threaten this whole endeavour.  So we the people of Emeryville should act.  Beyond Emeryville residents basic desire for decent public schools in support of our children and our sense of inclusion and fair play, we residents have a lot invested in this school district.  We're spending everything we have and more on the Center of Community Life in support of the schools.  We should accept this discounting and marginalizing of our teachers ultimately presents an existential threat to the schools here.
We are especially concerned that this dysfunctional School Board has recently voted themselves another year in office; a subversion of democratic principles and we're beginning to realize to support the teachers and public education here in Emeryville is to replace these School Board members by recall.

Let's resolve to not be having this same discussion this time next year.

Emeryville citizens should move to protect their investment in the schools and support the teachers.  Here's what citizens can do:

• Don't vote for ANY of these School Board members when they run for re-election
• Write or e-mail the School District
• Attend a School Board meeting and speak out
• No more School Board appointments; support elections for EVERY School Board member
• Support a recall of the School Board

Superintendent Of Schools Says More Teacher Lay-Offs May Be Coming

Emery Unified School District's Superintendent raised the specter of another round of possible teacher lay-offs looming next year piled on top of large budget cuts, including lay-offs handed down in 2012.  In a recent interview, Superintendent Debbra Lindo told the Tattler the beleaguered district may have to resort to lay-offs to "allay structural deficit problems."  If the district did indeed resort to another round of lay-offs, it would come on top of teacher cuts already made by the district last summer.

Superintendent Debbra Lindo

In spite of the distressing news, the Superintendent noted she's hopeful about the District's long term economic health even though cuts may be inevitable in the short term, "When a school district is striving to address its structural deficit, there are several options that a [School] Board may consider.  Furlough days, a shortened school year, reductions in teacher hours and/or lay-offs are all options that must be considered.  That being said, because of all the tough work we did last year and the passage of Proposition 30, we're in much better shape than we had anticipated.  We're hopeful there will be minimal impacts to the classrooms" she said.

Superintendent Lindo has been the target of ire from virtually the entire staff of teachers at the school district since she was hired by the Board of Trustees in June 2011.  The teachers released a 'Teachers Resolution' excoriating Ms Lindo last June that was answered by the Board in a letter of full support of the Superintendent.  Since the impasse, Ms Lindo told the Tattler she has been working to restore the trust and respect of the teachers, "We've fixed that.  Things are much better" she said of the teacher's enmity revealed by the Teachers Resolution.

A District official said it would be some months before any teacher furloughs or lay-offs would be imposed and only then not until the public has been apprised and allowed to weigh in.

Emery Unified Is Disdainful Of The Teachers

Opinion
As the amply paid Superintendent of the Emery Unified School District and the School Board of Trustees prepare for another round of teacher lay-offs to help balance the budget we would be well advised to ask, who are public school teachers?  Are they worth so little here at Emery Unified that we should not even acknowledge their grievances?  Is the list of those grievances enumerated in their Emery Teachers Resolution not worth a response?  It's revealing the low esteem the Emery School Board holds for our teachers when they read aloud a resolution of their own, supporting the Superintendent, as an answer, after the reading by teachers of the Teachers Resolution, a document of grievances about the Superintendent.

Our School District may have disdain for the teachers here but for parents, they recognize it's public school teachers that do the actual hard work, the deeply progressive work of educating our children all for barely enough to make ends meet, if that even.  We're appreciative.  We support the Emery Teachers Association, the teachers union.  We think teachers are heroes.  

The following is food for thought from NationofChange:

America’s Teachers: Heroes or Greedy Moochers at the Public Trough?

By Dave Lindorff

I’ll be brief here. Let’s just note that the heroic teachers who died while courageously trying to protect their kids at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, and the others who survived but stayed to protect the kids, were all part of a school system where the employees are members of the American Federation of Teachers.

Let’s just let that sink in for a moment. Those teachers, who are routinely being accused by our politicians of being drones and selfish, incompetent money grubbers worried more about their pensions than about teaching our children (though most, even after 10 years, earn less than $55,000 a year for doing a very difficult job that involves at least 12-14 hours a day of work and prep time counting meetings with parents), stood their ground when confronted with a psychotic assailant armed with semi-automatic pistols and an automatic rifle, and protected their kids. The principal too, a veteran teacher herself, stood her ground, reportedly suicidally charging at the assailant along with the school’s psychologist in a doomed effort to tackle him and stop the carnage.

How many of us would have had to the courage to stand in front of a closet door to keep an armed madman from finding the kids hidden behind it, as one slain teacher died doing? How many of us would charge at an armed shooter, to almost certain death, in an effort top stop him from further killing? How many would bravely hide in a bathroom with a class of kids when we could have run away and saved ourselves?

And this: How many of the politicians in Washington and in state capitals and how many conservative think-tank “researchers” who attack teachers as leeches and drones would have shown such heroism under fire?

My guess is damned few -- if any. Yet it appears from the news reports that not one teacher in that unionized school fled the scene and abandoned the children to their fate. They all stuck with their kids. So did the custodian -- no doubt a unionized worker earning poverty wages -- who ran through the building warning everyone of the attacker’s presence.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Newtown school board, like school boards all over this country, was considering cutting the school’s elementary music program and library program. It should be noted that both the school librarian and the school music teacher, whose jobs were on the line at the school board, stayed with the kids they were teaching when the attack began.

Yet in an attitude all too typical of many Americans’ thinking, one man, in a discussion section of the local paper, discussing the local School Board’s $1-million budget cutting plans last spring, wrote to a teacher last spring:

You, as a public sector employee, don’t generate ANY revenue. Every penny of the budget of your public sector enterprise is TAKEN from producers. It’s other people’s money versus money your organization EARNED. Your salary is not market based. Your salary, nor your benefits, nor your job, is in jeopardy during contracting economic times. If I want a raise I have to prove I have contributed more to the bottom line, and then it doesn’t matter unless the entire firm has grown the bottom line sufficiently to give me that raise. You are insulated from that reality. Your private (sic) sector salary only goes up. How is that fair? Especially in light of the fact that you don’t even generate the revenue that pays for your constantly rising salary?

Some of those “non-revenue-generating” unionized teachers, and the school’s non-revenue-generating principal, just died defending those kids.

I wonder if their tax-obsessed critics would have done the same?

100 Days: School Board To Emery Teachers "We Don't Support You"

School Board Failure:

100 Days

And Counting

What Are We To Make Of The School Board's Refusal To Support Our Teachers?

Opinion

It's been 100 days since the School Board heard from the teachers at the Emery Unified School District about their impasse with the new Schools Superintendent Debbra Lindo.  One hundred days of no action that by itself, has resulted in a defacto clarification of official policy and revealed the workings and the culture at the District.

On June 11th, Emery teachers assembled en masse before the School Board and read aloud their 'Teachers Resolution' a damning treatise enumerating the myriad problems they have had with the Superintendent.  The Resolution, a call for help against a recalcitrant Superintendent, has been completely ignored by the School Board for the last 100 days.

In the wake of the impasse, the Board has shown no interest to do anything by way of helping our teachers, 96% of whom signed the Resolution.  In fact, the only action taken by the Board on this issue was a subsequent reading of a statement of support for the Superintendent by Board president Melodi Dice, on behalf of the entire Board.

un-der-val-ue [uhn-der-val-yoo]

verb (used with object)

1. to value below the real worth; 

to put too low a value on.

2.to diminish in value; to make of less value.

3.to have insufficient regard or esteem for;

hold too low an opinion of.

The Board, by doing nothing, has in fact done something.  They have sent a clear message of indifference to the teachers, the parents of school children at the District or thinking about enrolling them, and the residents of Emeryville.  This vote of indifference by the Board, or disdain really, against the teachers has laid bare the impoverished sense of community they imbue as they build the ironically named Emeryville Center of Community* Life.  The School Board has run roughshod against dissenters to the Center of Community Life, preferring instead a top down 'we-know-what's-best'** style that is reflected in the anti-teacher, pro-staff culture of the last 100 days.

The lack of a response from the School Board to the Teachers Resolution brought reaction from a teacher who wished to remain anonymous, "I would have expected the Board to contact the teachers [after the reading of the Resolution] to at least inquire as to the issues."  This teacher expected too much from the Emery School Board obviously.

And so the Emery School Board has made their choice.  They have sided, unnecessarily, with the staff, to their discredit.  

Manifest in this anti-teacher culture at Emery Unified is a pervasive public relations campaign to feign the empowerment of teachers and parents.  But we now know that is like the Republican Party positing themselves as the "party of low taxes", all the while they push the meme of the shame of the 47% of Americans who pay no income tax...the fix being of course (quietly mentioned to their wealthy base) is to raise taxes on these poor and middle class people.  Republicans in Washington DC and officials at Emery Unified should both be forced to use asterisks when they make their fatuous statements for mass public consumption...as in, "We support our teachers as our family"*

From this point forward, whenever this Board talks smack about supporting ALL the players at our public schools, when they use democratically coded language as they're so often wont to do, talk of empowering stakeholders*** and such to win support for the Center of Community Life, we ask parents, care givers and Emeryville citizens to remember this vote of no confidence in our teachers and ultimately no confidence in our children.  This episode has been an expression of a thoroughly top down culture.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

*not so much

**when pigs fly

***normally, yes...but today the van broke down

It's Time For Schools Superintendent Debbra Lindo To Step Aside

93% Of Emery Teachers Say 

'No Good' To Superintendent

That's Good Enough For Us

Opinion

We've been getting this creeping feeling over the last year; Emery's new superintendent, Debbra Lindo isn't a strong supporter of teachers.  She seems to look to the educational entrepreneur model of education; that being the new out-of-the-box way of imagining public education, much in vogue, that  relies on teams of expensive private education consultants, creating charter schools and ousting the teachers union.  It's a teacher disempowering, management heavy way of structuring education.  In addition to this, as a school superintendent, Ms Lindo seems aloof and she hasn't much engaged parents.
But these failings, admittedly sort of vague and unsubstantiated, fall by the wayside next to the bombshell dropped on June 11th as Emery teachers read a resolution of "no confidence" in the Superintendent, supported by 93% of the teachers at the district.

While the teacher's resolution, covered by The Secret News, is disturbing in it's litany of charges against Ms Lindo, it's the 93% teacher endorsement of the document we find most compelling.  If say, 50% of the teachers had voted no confidence in the Superintendent we would expect the School Board to engage in a serious and introspective look into Ms Lindo's job performance with an eye towards mediation to fix the problem but when more than 90% of teachers make a serious and public move against a superintendent like this, we say the Board has no choice; it's time to look for a replacement.

When more than 90% of teachers 

make a serious and public move 

against a superintendent like this, 

we say the Board has no choice; 

it's time to look for a replacement

To be clear, the teachers did not directly demand the Superintendent be fired.  But the resolution they filed is very definitive: they cannot work with Ms Lindo.  The District needs to take the hint and do the right thing by the teachers.  Anything short of replacing the Superintendent at this point will be correctly perceived as a move against the legitimate and immediate concerns of virtually the entire teaching staff.

We Need To Support The Teachers
This District has been tone deaf on many topics recently but we hope this will not be one of them.  It's abundantly clear by the text of the resolution the teachers have been feeling seriously used and abused and they have circled their wagons.  After a season of under valuing teachers here at Emery United, it's time for the School Board to come to their aid.  This issue promises to be a watershed moment in Emery Unified School District history.  How this plays out is likely to be very illuminating and who's back the Board has covered will likely be revealed.  If the School Board simply ignores this exigent and conspicuous teacher's resolution it will be taken as a snub against the teachers by the Board and the District.
As the teachers themselves made clear at the June 11th meeting, the 7% of their colleagues that didn't sign the resolution expressed fears of retaliation.  The fact that they even consider possible such an outlandish outcome for this resolution makes it imperative that the Board act in support of the teachers.

We intend to not allow this to be simply ignored.  We support our teachers at Emery United and we will make that support tangible if the Board refuses to act on this vote of no confidence in the Superintendent.