District Deeds Sunday Reads – Sunday, June 18, 2023: The T in HAT Trick – The District Deeds SDUSD TRANSPARENCY Analysis with Final GRADES!!

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2023 HAT TRICK RESOLUTION, S D U S D, San Diego Unified School District, SDUSD, SDUSD HAT Trick

We began our 2023 New Year Resolution of San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) HAT Trick of Honesty, Accountability and Transparency through our Uniform Complaint Handbook (UCH). Our UCH provides definitions, strategies and actions that SDUSD Stakeholders can take to expose the abuse, neglect and incompetence suffered by their children at the hands of the SDUSD.

To quickly recap, here is our simple SDUSD HAT Trick formula for our 2023 New Year Resolution:

The core conclusion that must be accepted by ALL SDUSD Stakeholders is that without the HAT Trick components, there can be no REAL trust or community involvement/collaboration in how well our children are being taught despite the millions of dollars of Propaganda and Legal defenses that the SDUSD uses to frame their “false positive” “Trust” narrative.

We took the next step two weeks ago by launching the SDUSD HAT Trick Analysis featuring the letter “H” for the SDUSD “HONESTY” analysis in the June 4, 2023 Sunday Reads, and again last Sunday, June 11, 2023, by presenting the letter “A” for SDUSD “ACCOUNTABILITY”.

This week we address the third and final letter “T” for “TRANSPARENCY”, the trait that is abused most frequently at every level of the SDUSD…from the Pre-K classroom to the office of all elected SDUSD school board trustees.

We will also provide a full SDUSD HAT TRICK grade for each of the violations illustrated below.

Since TRANSPARENCY can only be fulfilled and graded IF the previous two issues of HONESTY and ACCOUNTABILITY are fully embraced, this analysis used references and information (not always quoted) from all of the previous articles cited the last two weeks listed below:

HONESTY ARTICLES:

KPBS: Cybersecurity incident’ hits San Diego Unified computer network

Wayback Archive Link: Cybersecurity incident’ hits San Diego Unified computer network

La Jolla Light: San Diego Unified students’ medical data was compromised in fall cybersecurity breach, school district says

Wayback Archive Link: San Diego Unified students’ medical data was compromised in fall cybersecurity breach, school district says

La Jolla Light: San Diego Unified cybersecurity breach affected more people and sensitive data than previously known

Wayback Archive Link: San Diego Unified cybersecurity breach affected more people and sensitive data than previously known

ACCOUNTABILITY ARTICLES:

Times of San Diego: 4 Former La Jolla High School Students to File Sex Abuse Suit Against District

Wayback Archive Link: 4 Former La Jolla High School Students to File Sex Abuse Suit Against District

Channel 7 San Diego: Former La Jolla High Students Settle Sex-Abuse Lawsuit Against Ex-Teacher, San Diego Unified

Wayback Archive Link: Former La Jolla High Students Settle Sex-Abuse Lawsuit Against Ex-Teacher, San Diego Unified

La Jolla Light: San Diego Unified paid $1.5M to former students who say ex-La Jolla High teacher groped them, records show

Wayback Article Link: San Diego Unified paid $1.5M to former students who say ex-La Jolla High teacher groped them, records show

Voice of San Diego: How Predatory Teachers Stay on the Job

Wayback Archive Link: How Predatory Teachers Stay on the Job

DD TIP: Many publications, and especially the SDUSD Propaganda Department, delete the articles/press releases we refer to in our blog. To counter that strategy each week we will list articles like the ones above with an internet archive link from the Wayback Machine (WM) site so that you can always access the articles we post.

DD TECH TIP – “POP OUT FEATURE“: Some of the graphics and information posted has extremely small type and is difficult to read. When you have difficulty reading or seeing one of these items, just click on that item and it will “pop out” in a larger version. When you want to enlarge the document further, just click on that item again. To go back to the District Deeds article, just use the back arrrow ” Tab key” in your screen header to navigate that action.

SDUSD “TRANSPARENCY” Definition

Instead of a simple definition from a dictionary, this week we provide what education and governmental transparency means to public, governmental and other organizations and entities that dedicate themselves to this objective.

Here is a definition from a “Presidential Action” by former President Barack Obama:

And here is a definition from the politically opposite end of the spectrum, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC):

And TRANSPARENCY is not just an overriding feature in the United States government domestically. TRANSPARENCY is also infused in its foreign policy worldwide by the U. S. Department of State in its membership in The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD):

The following is from Thesaurus Plus listing the Antonyms and Synonyms for the word “TRANSPARENCY”:

The best way to define these SDUSD TRANSPARENCY antonyms and synonyms in real life is to apply them to the actions of the SDUSD in the actual events described in the featured articles. We will start with the “Cybersecurity Breach”.

SDUSD Transparency Violation #1:

SDUSD CYBERSECURITY BREACH

On December 2, 2022 from the KPBS article, Jackson notified “staff and families of students attending SDUSD campuses” of the data breach on December 1, 2023 and did not admit to any “misappropriation of any sensitive data”.

From the May 20, 2023 La Jolla Light article, the actual breach occurred on October 25, 2023. In that same article, the SDUSD finally revealed the REAL damage to families and staff:

An October data breach of the San Diego Unified School District’s network involved students’ medical information, the district told families in a letter this month.

So instead of revealing the full damaging information in December, 2022 or shortly thereafter, the SDUSD waited until May 20, 2023, more than FIVE MONTHS AFTER the initial notification, to just partially reveal the damage to Staff and Families. But it gets worse.

On June 3, 2 weeks later, even more damaging information was revealed in the La Jolla Light:

The San Diego Unified School District says a data breach last fall affected more people and more types of personal data than previously acknowledged.

In addition to students’ medical information, the breach in October affected current and former employees’ sensitive personal data, including Social Security numbers, direct-deposit account information, medical information and more, Dennis Monahan, the district’s executive director of risk services, said the evening of June 2.

To recap, here is the timeline:

October 25, 2022: The SDUSD “cybersecurity breach” occurs. Nobody in the SDUSD knows that their data has been stolen and will not be informed

December 1, 2023: Superintendent Jackson communicates minimal information regarding the “cybersecurity breach” with zero communication about “names and medical information of students” or “current and former employees’ sensitive personal data, including Social Security numbers, direct-deposit account information, medical information and more”

The initial cybersecurity breach article from KPBS on December 2, 2022 attributed the following to Superintendent Lamont Jackson:

District Superintendent Lamont Jackson on Thursday sent a letter to his staff and families of students attending SDUSD campuses to apprise them of what he described as a “cybersecurity incident.”

and…

Though SDUSD officials did not reveal if the breach may have resulted in the misappropriation of any sensitive data or involved any ransom demands, Jackson stated that all the district’s “critical systems continue to be operational, and the incident has not impacted the safety and emergency mechanisms in place at schools and offices.”

May 20, 2023: The SDUSD FINALLY reveals partial breach info. (La Jolla Light)

SDUSD officials did not reveal if the breach may have resulted in the misappropriation of any sensitive data or involved any ransom demands, Jackson stated that all the district’s “critical systems continue to be operational, and the incident has not impacted the safety and emergency mechanisms in place at schools and offices.

And then the corrupt finale…

June 2, 2023: The SDUSD MAYBE reveals the FULL “cybersecurity breach” damage”.

DD NOTE: We use the term “MAYBE” because given the “cunning” and “secretive” ways that the corrupt SDUSD Senior Leadership withholds the FULL truth, we cannot be sure what degree of REAL Transparency has been provided to SDUSD Stakeholders by the SDUSD Senior Leadership pathological liars.

And…

Monahan said additional investigation had revealed those findings in April and that the district had implemented additional security safeguards to help prevent another breach.

The final damning evidence comes from the May 20, 2023 La Jolla Light article in a direct response by the SDUSD to continue its “cunning” and “secretive” anti-transparent ways:

The district did not respond to questions about how many students had been affected, whether staff data also may have been compromised and how the security measures have been enhanced.

SDUSD Transparency Violation: Cybersecurity Breach

Grading System: SDUSD Grading Policies

Evidence: The SDUSD senior leadership, through incompetence and poor operational leadership oversight allowed a major cybersecurity data breach to occur then neglected to be fully TRANSPARENT with all SDUSD Stakeholders by hiding those facts for over SEVEN MONTHS (October 25, 2022 – June 2, 2023) and thereby harmed the privacy and security of thousands of SDUSD Parents, Students and Staff Stakeholders.

District Deeds SDUSD TRANSPARENCY Grade: Violation #1

SDUSD TRANSPARENCY GRADE: “F”

———————————————————————————————-

SDUSD Transparency Violation #2:

SDUSD SEX ABUSE COVERUP

According to an article in the Times of San Diego on February 27, 2020 the following sex abuse violations occured:

Four former La Jolla High School students who allege they were sexually abused by their physics teacher, who allegedly received no discipline from the school district, announced Thursday they were filing suit against both the teacher and the San Diego Unified School District.

and…

When asked for comment regarding the suit filed against SDUSD and now- retired teacher Martin Teachworth, San Diego Unified spokeswoman said, “The district does not comment on pending litigation.”

The suit, filed on behalf of victims Loxie Gant, Emily Mandel, Maura Kanter and Jane Doe, covers conduct stretching from 2003 through 2015, in which Teachworth is accused of groping numerous students.

The coverup of sexual abuse in the SDUSD is common knowledge for anyone who has read District Deeds over the past nine years. In fact we created “The San Diego Unified School District Student Abuse Report” listing a number of sexual and other types of abuse, most of them initially covered up by the SDUSD.

At the time we created our report in April 2016 we were not aware of the sexual abuse violations occurring at La Jolla High School (LJHS) at the very same time.

According to the initial Times of San Diego and other subsequent articles by other news sources, the coverup of the violations went from the school site up through the SDUSD senior leadership and violated public records request laws along the way:

The lawsuit also alleges that Voice of San Diego made a public records request in 2015 regarding any documentation of harassment or inappropriate sexual behavior on Teachworth’s part, but were told “no such records existed, thereby covering up its employee’s years of sexual misconduct,” according to the lawsuit.

The complaint states the records were withheld until last year, when the district was subpoenaed by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

The items listed as allegations were “settled” with a financial payoff of $1.5 million as described in a subsequent article from La Jolla Light titled “San Diego Unified paid $1.5M to former students who say ex-La Jolla High teacher groped them, records show“:

The San Diego Unified School District has paid $1.5 million to five former La Jolla High School students who said their physics teacher had sexually abused them at school, just-released district records show.

Their 2020 litigation accused Martin Teachworth, 66, a teacher at the school from 1990 until his retirement in 2017, of groping them as 16- and 17-year-old students. It also alleged that the school’s principal at the time, Dana Shelburne, and the district were aware of the accusations but let him keep teaching.

According to settlement documents released May 16 to The San Diego Union-Tribune under the California Public Records Act, the district agreed to pay $1.5 million, and Teachworth agreed to finance $25,000 of the settlement.

But despite the settlement, the SDUSD decided to CONTINUE it’s 20 year avoidance of Transparency for Student sexual abuse with the following statement:

San Diego Unified officials declined to comment further May 16 about the settlement or the policies and procedures that have been updated.

Teachworth did not return calls seeking comment.

For ALL SDUSD Stakeholders with any degree of common sense, the HUGE question remains:

How many MORE Students with much less financial and educational support in the neediest areas of the SDUSD have been and continue to be sexually abused WITH SDUSD knowledge and covered up with ZERO Transparency by the SDUSD leadership?

The timeline on this Sexual Abuse lack of transparency is relatively simple:

Prior to and during 2003: In early 2002, Gant attempt to file a complaint against Teachworth and discovers other students have filed similar sexual abuse complaints against same teacher (Times of San Diego)

“In the complaint, Gant says she reported her alleged assault in early 2003, but was asked by then-principal AB 218 “if she was reporting this because of a grade and whether this was worth taking down a man’s career.” Gant was also told that other girls had made complaints against Teachworth and was asked if she was reporting him “because of the others.”

2002- 2015 – for 13 years at least 3 other Students plus Gant are sexually abused by Teachworth with ZERO Transparency by the SDUSD. (Times of San Diego)

2018 – The SDUSD avoids Transparency and violates the California Public Records Act by refusing to provide relevant SDUSD documents to a Voice of San Diego public records request.

2020 – 2023: The SDUSD continues to cover up and deny all sexual abuse claims and forces Gant and 3 other sexual abuse victims to file a lawsuit to hold the SDUSD accountable for its crimes.

2023: The SDUSD is forced to admit its violations agrees to pay $1.5 million as a settlement with Gant and other complainants.

SDUSD Transparency Violation: Sexual Abuse of 4 Victims

Grading System: SDUSD Grading Policies

Evidence: The senior leadership at both the La Jolla High School site and the SDUSD central office avoided all Transparency during at least 13 years of sexual abuse violations with multiple Students at La Jolla High School. The SDUSD senior leadership wasted public funds by using it’s publicly funded legal department to fight against the sexual abuse lawsuit and lost the case with a $1.5 million settlement and thousands of dollars of wasted legal resources. Even with the settlement, it is evidence that there are many more Students who have been sexual abused and afraid or ashamed to come forward because of the expensive legal battle exhibited in this case.

District Deeds SDUSD TRANSPARENCY Grade: Violation #2

SDUSD TRANSPARENCY GRADE: “F”

Tying REAL SDUSD TRANSPARENCY to ALL items directly related with SDUSD Student education and learning enables and enforces a resolution pathway to trust and positive changes in both of the other primary components of Honesty and Accountability in the District Deeds 2023 HAT Trick Resolution:

The SDUSD HAT TRICK – HONESTY-ACCOUNTABILITY-TRANSPARENCY

This concludes the SDUSD HAT TRICK Definition series of posts. IN the coming months we will be referring to this definition and opening NEW SDUSD subjects for our HAT TRICK HANDBOOK initiative.

Now for our Quote of the Week from a fellow San Diegan regarding Transparency:

“Transparency is key to reciprocal accountability, which we use to be both free and smart. It is the miracle tool that enables us to question the lies of monsters.” David Brin

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