Tags
Barrera, Evans, Foster, Lamont Jackson, Marne Foster, McQuary, Mitzi Merino, San Diego Unified School District, San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Marten, Superintendent Marten
District Deeds Meeting Dismemberment
Meeting Bites:
- Foster Screeching to Limit Stakeholder Free Speech
- Board and Superintendent Photo Op Sprint
- Marten Purge Continues – Eliminates 6 More Principals
- The Manchurian Candidate – SDUSD Style
Agenda Items: A1 – D3
Board Meeting Video Time: 0:00:00 – 1:18:30
Board Meeting Link: Board Meeting Video – 06/09/2015
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Foster Screeching to Limit Stakeholder Free Speech
The first hour and eighteen minutes of the San Diego Unified Board of Education (BOE) Meeting on 6/9/15 started with a bang…and a knock…against the Board Policy using faulty division to decide how much Public Comment is allowed.
When Grand Jury Accused Marne Foster proclaimed that all Public Comment would receive only 1 minute to address the BOE, there was a groan from the Stakeholder audience, many of which had attended to support their Stakeholder spokesperson addressing the BOE.
The first three speakers hit the BOE hard with documented violations of law and policy committed by the current Board and Superintendent.
“Citizen”, the first Public Speaker chided the board for ignoring the BOE policy of allowing 3 minutes and limiting Public Comment to 1 minute each “because you don’t want the public to tell you things that you don’t want the public to know.” Citizen also called out the BOE for impugning the integrity of speakers by saying “what we say may or not be true” considering the citizens are not the ones named for misdeeds in Grand Jury reports.
The second speaker hammered the BOE for lying previously at a previous meeting by the Grand Jury Accomplice Superintendent Marten and the BOE and saying that the expenditures “on the Crawford Stadium construction were on the Prop S and Prop Z Ballots…that is just not true” (this was partially addressed for similar expenditures outlined in this Voice of San Diego article) The speaker caught the Superintendent and BOE directly in a lie and asked them to start spending the money LEGALLY for the Taxpayers of San Diego. The speaker quoted the California Attorney General letter that stated the SDUSD attempted “intentionally to circumvent control and avoid accountability contrary to the purpose of Prop 39” when illegally spending Prop S and Z funds.
Being at the meeting we could tell that Grand Jury Accused Foster was not happy with the way the BOE was being successfully indicted by the speakers for their wrongdoing.
The 3rd Speaker, a brave Teacher, who came to the Board Meeting on May 26th and described the dangerous environment at her school, Ross Elementary. She had followed up with an email to each Board Member and Marten not only further describing the safety issues but also OFFERING SOLUTIONS. This dedicated teacher HAD GOTTEN NO RESPONSE to either her testimony or follow-up communication.
Her testimony was very moving, one could tell she was very emotional about what she was experiencing while trying to do her best for her students. She subsequently was backed up by other speakers in Public Comment and later in the Re-organization agenda item. Obviously the school site environment was inadequate as “less than 30% of the neighborhood children attend Ross” which is COMPLETELY counter to the Propaganda spread by Marten, Foster and their BOE cronies.
Trustee Foster had enough Public Comment exposing the BOE and Marten!
When the buzzer sounded precisely at the 1 minute mark the Teacher was in the middle of a sentence…but that did not stop Foster,
Foster cut her off and SCREECHED “THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!” attempting to INTIMIDATE THIS BRAVE TEACHER into silence who was just calling for help to MAKE HER SCHOOL BETTER!
IT WORKED!
The Teacher stopped immediately and walked away from the microphone.
If that sounds familiar it’s because the San Diego Grand Jury Report accused Foster of the SAME TYPE OF TEACHER INTIMIDATION described here: SD Grand Jury: Trustee Abuse of Power in Finding #2.
After the Foster Screeching the rest of the public comment went pretty quickly.
In fact, even though the Meeting agenda allocated 30 minutes for Public Comment, the “fuzzy math” of Foster resulted in LESS THAN 15 MINUTES OF PUBLIC COMMENT INSTEAD OF 30 MINUTES BY PROVIDING ONLY 1 MINUTE TO EACH SPEAKER.
District Deeds Observation:
- Citizen was right on target…the last thing that Foster, the BOE and Marten want is to use the broadcast to actually inform SDUSD Stakeholders of their violations…for the BOE and Marten the the LESS TIME FOR THE COMMUNITY TO SPEAK, THE BETTER!
- For Foster…SCREECHING APPARENTLY WORKS…AT LEAST SO FAR…AS LONG AS HER FELLOW CRONIES ON THE BOE ALLOW HER TO DO IT!
- If the Superintendent and Board cannot be trusted in Operational Governance (Proven by Grand Jury Report), Financial Governance (improper expenditure of Prop Funds) and Site Governance (Ross Elementary), we have to ask: What CAN the Superintendent and Board be trusted with?
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Board and Superintendent Photo Op Sprint
When Agenda Item B4 arrived you could see all of the Board Members and Elementary School Spokesmodel Superintendent Marten perk up and begin salivating.
They all smelled a PHOTO OP WITH SDG&E!!!!
It was lucky no Trustee or Spokesmodel Marten broke a leg rushing to get a good spot in front of the camera with the SDG&E Executives. Too bad they didn’t show as much enthusiasm when listening to school site Stakeholders at Ross asking for help.
District Deeds Observation:
How many propaganda pictures are enough?
How many times will the Superintendent and BOE RUSH to be seen with Corporate Executives but be no where to be found at Ross or other struggling schools where a Photo Op is not so self serving?
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Marten Purge Continues – Eliminates 6 More Principals
As predicted in the Marten/SDUSD Purge series, Agenda Item D1 included adding 6 more Principals to the 11 already PURGED by Marten…most with over 15 years of School Site administrative experience…bringing the GRAND TOTAL OF PURGED PRINCIPALS TO 17!!!
The SDUSD MAY EXCEED the 25 Principals that District Deeds predicted (see: The 25 SDUSD Principal Purge Prediction) that Marten would eliminate since they had better credentials than Elementary School Superintendent Marten herself.
And their replacements?
5 Lateral Moves of existing Principals
1 Former Principal Returning to SDUSD
6 VP Promotions
3 Central Office Resource Teachers Promotions
2 New Hires from outside District
District Deeds Observation:
- 5 of the “new” Principals are coming from being a Principal at another school site….but the movement can disrupt both sites for up to two years.
- The career path for VP’s is being seriously eroded and great administrators are leaving because of it. We know of many current VP’s who are either leaving or preparing to leave the SDUSD because Resource Teachers who have been able to gain visibility at the Central SDUSD Office and “Wild Card” New Hires are taking the prime spots.
- Financial Fact: Resource Resource Teachers that leap-frog VP’s (that have been working for years for a promotion to Principal) typically receive UP TO A $20,000 PAY INCREASE when promoted.
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The Manchurian Candidate – SDUSD Style
In the history of film, there was a theme of “Meeting”…not unlike the theme of this series of posts…District Deeds Meeting Dismemberment.
For instance there was…
Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman
Even Abbot and Costello met Frankenstein, the Wolfman and Dracula!
Similar to that comedy theme…one of the strangest presentations that District Deeds has ever witnessed occurred in Agenda Item D2
The Board was presented the newest production of “Marten and Jackson Meet the Manchurian Candidate”
For the presentation Area 2 Superintendent Lamont Jackson was introduced by “Meddlin” Marne Foster as “A rising star”. The same Lamont Jackson who played a key role in both Human Resources and as the Area Superintendent for the improper intervention at SCPA outlined in the San Diego County Grand Jury Report.
Jackson “led” a group of Administrators, Teachers and Students (including an obviously “green” Resource Teacher promoted to Principal instead of VP’s with years of experience) through an eerily familiar mind bending exercise that immediately reminded District Deeds of scenes from the classic suspense movie, “The Manchurian Candidate”.
And the results of the comedy team of Marten and Jackson would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
As a MAJOR disclaimer…District Deeds IN NO WAY is implying that ANY of the individuals participating in this Cindy Marten and Lamont Jackson “experiment” are doing anything wrong or improper. They are following the direction of the Senior Leadership of the District and trying to be the very best they can be within the misguided constraints of the current Marten Administration. They still MUST display “obedience” and “trust” in Foster, Marten and Jackson (unlike District Deeds)…and they cannot be blamed for trying to better themselves and trying to survive in the SDUSD.
Their choice if these “Candidates” would have decided to NOT fall in line and not participate in pledging their obedience to Marten publicly to thousands of Stakeholders across the SDUSD?
Their Positions might have been announced with new “Candidates” by Cindy Marten in her Administrative Assignments “PURGE” earlier in this meeting.
The crux of this observation is that this “reprogramming” effort is just a “rerun” of the Marten/Foster crude willingness to try and manipulate and intimidate trusting SDUSD Stakeholders with the willing assistance of Lamont Jackson in the process as evidenced by numerous posts on District Deeds including:
The Marten/Jackson strategy is centered around parroting empty eduspeak, catch phrases and slogans…not truth, honestly and transparency.
As a Stakeholder, get ready for the terms “voice”…”agency”…”authentic conversations” …”learning cycle” and “I am because we are” flowing from the mouths of “Candidates” which hold absolutely ZERO meaning to anyone who lives in the real world.
Watching this “Encounter Group Gone Bad” led by Lamont “Dr. Phil” Jackson, the first thing that came to mind was an image from “The Manchurian Candidate” based on the way each of the “Candidates” were displayed on a stage and asked to recite answers to prompts.
Here is a screen shot from the Movie:
Here is a screen shot from the Board Meeting:
The second parallel recollection was that each “Candidate” in the SDUSD Board Presentation told their story and ended it with
“I am because we are.”
Hearing that well respected phrase parroted by the dedicated and well-meaning Administrators, Educators and Students over and over on the stage, we looked at the Board and Superintendent and remembered the statement of Doctor Yen Lo, the “Doctor” responsible for “handling” the American Soldiers in “The Manchurian Candidate”:
“His brain has not only been washed, as they say, it’s been dry-cleaned.”
Part of Lamont Jackson’s closing statement was “This is about how we take Vision 2020 into the our classrooms and connect with our students.”
District Deeds Observation:
If this is how the inept Marten Administration has decided to take the sketchy 2020 Vision into the classroom, our District is really in much more trouble (if that is possible) that we thought! Ay ay ay!
Coming up next:
DISTRICT DEEDS MEETING DISMEMBERMENT: SD BOE Meeting 6/9/15 – PART 2:
“If You Trick Stakeholders as an Area Superintendent…Then You Might Be A Used Car Saleswoman (Sorry Mr. Foxworthy)”
Here is a list of the full series of posts for the SDUSD Board of Education Meeting on 6/9/15:
DISTRICT DEEDS MEETING DISMEMBERMENT: San Diego BOE Meeting 6/9/15 – PART 3: “SHELL GAMES”
DISTRICT DEEDS MEETING DISMEMBERMENT: San Diego BOE Meeting 6/9/15 – EPILOGUE
District Deeds 