In the previous installments we looked at

• The total lack of Superintendent credentials in the Marten resume
• The decision of the Board to pick a weak Superintendent
• The decision of Marten to take a Superintendent Position she knew she was not qualified for and to surround herself with either Bersin devotees or administrators willing to do anything to keep their job
• The negative repercussions on 107,000 students by this inept, secretive and self-serving Superintendent Marten and Board of Education (BOE) members Beiser, Foster, Evans, Barerra and Barnett.

So given this leadership disaster, what is the prognosis for the future of the San Diego Unified School District?

Here are some predictions for the 2014/2015 School Year:

• There are at least 10 Principals currently in high performing schools on September 2, 2014 that have the support of their site stakeholders, Teachers-parents-students-staff-community, that will be ripped from the school site by the end of the school year with no transparency, no notice and no justification because they exceed the credentials of the weak, subservient Superintendent, her operationally interventionist, know nothing Board of Education and her inner circle of drones.

• Marten will continue the rigged principal removal and selection process until a brave Stakeholder decides to sue the SDUSD and MAKE them change their secretive and unfair processes.

• Marten will have more photo ops in one week than she will have visits to some of the individual schools where she will remove principals in the 2014/15 school year. This will follow the pattern of both SCPA and Field Elementary where she visited SCPA once for 20 minutes and Field Elementary not at all but still removed the principals at the high performing schools.

• At least 2 Grand Jury investigations will be initiated regarding internal SDUSD senior management issues at the Central District Office

• Curriculum Development/Common Core will crash and burn – but the SDUSD “Office of Quality Assurance” and “Public Relations” will effectively cover it up through local media.  Supposedly one of the few skills the BOE claims Marten has, and that she bloviates about endlessly, Curriculum Development/Common Core implementation will be turn out to be another ill advised experiment by a rookie administrator.  Keep a close eye on the ELL and Economically Disadvantaged groups along with GATE.  The only thing that might salvage the curriculum developments are dedicated Site Administrators, Teachers and Parents succeeding in spite of Marten’s errors.

• The new so called “Office of Quality Assurance” will turn out to be just another Marten/BOE Public Relations scam that spins lies and half truths non-stop to the media and Stakeholders. Proof of this pattern of lies is already evident…in the channel 10 Newscast on August 1, 2014, (see: http://www.10news.com/news/investigations/hiring-of-san-diego-unified-school-districts-chief-public-information-officer-raises-eyebrows) it states the SDUSD created and filled the Chief Public Information Officer in ONE DAY!  If that is true, then Marten AND the board are either liars (if they actually had conversations about the position prior to that date) or totally inept (creating and hiring a $200,000 position in 1 day) or both.  This mess is so typical…and pretty much the way the Marten and the Board deal with transparency…create and hire a position in secret for a department supposedly promoting transparency!  All we can say is WOW!   

• Marten and the Board will continue to use “Voice” and “for the student” as a cover phrases for their secretive and unscrupulous decisions. The standard “boilerplate” statement (or some variation) by Monarch Marten and the BOE has been and will continue to be:  “We want to give all the parents a Voice.” 0r “It is all for the students”…which will be immediately followed by a unilateral decision based on personal and board political and financial expediency that takes no other stakeholders into account.

• The current SDUSD Senior Administration culture of fear and intimidation will continue...as stated by an administrator: “We are all scared to death…I am keeping my head down and my mouth shut”  This will not only crush innovative collaboration and thought but also result in resignations at all levels in the SDUSD and a mass exodus from the SDUSD by the Parent, Student and Community Stakeholders.

The bright side of this SDUSD Superintendent and BOE debacle is that Marten has completed one year and she is now 1/5 of the way to getting the 5 years of experience STARTING credential required for her position.  Unfortunately 107,000 students, 500,000 parents/community members and over 15,000 SDUSD employees have lost a year to this “on the job” training experiment. 

We can only hope Arne Duncan or some State official actually DOES give her a call…and SOON!  

IF YOU HAVE MORE SDUSD PREDICTIONS FOR THE 2014-2015 SCHOOL YEAR -SEND THEM TO US AT DISTRICTDEEDS@GMAIL.COM AND WE WILL CREATE A FUTURE POST THAT CONTAINS THEM!