School Board meeting not ‘the time or place’ to discuss confidential personnel matter of Teach for America instructor, says Harriet Tubman Principal
By Doug Porter
I didn’t write the headline for today’s column. It’s a headline at Education Week, a nationally recognized print and digital (edweek.org) publication. With a staff of over 70 and budget of over $13 million annually, it’s hardly the product of some basement blogger. Amazingly, it’s about a story nobody else in the San Diego media seems to have covered.
The EdWeek story is about a meeting of the San Diego Unified School Board on Tuesday, March 11th. The charter for the Harriet Tubman Village Charter School was up for renewal. A group of parents, teachers and students wearing blue bravely stood up before the Trustees and proceeded to raise serious questions about the way the school is operated.
Accusations were made suggesting violations of both the Education Code and State Law by the school’s administration. And the suggestion was made that the bullying tactics and leadership style at Harriet Tubman contributed to the death of Sarah Jenkins, “a young, bright, dedicated, caring first year teacher at Tubman.”
Here’s a portion of the testimony of 8th grade teacher Clarisa Mondejar, as transcribed from a video of the meeting by Anthony Cody:
When administration had concerns about Sarah’s abilities and performance they did not provide support for her or guidance. Instead they piled more and more work on, called her names, and criticized her at every single turn. On October 24th, Sarah wrote an email to the administration informing them that she had a medical condition that made it difficult to meet their excessive demands. She ended the email by begging for positive support, writing “being kind, helpful and specific helps me better myself. But calling me incompetent is not helpful but rude and unprofessional.”
The next day, Sarah was terminated, which I believe is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Sarah passed away three weeks ago from complications of stress-related seizures. When administrators found out we did not receive support or compassion. Instead we were told to not share this information with students, not with parents, that Sarah was only at our school for two months, and at the end of the day she didn’t make an impact.
The video of the school board meeting lasts for for more than two hours. The 1hr, 54 min mark is where the testimony begins, the ensuing (and angry) school board discussion starts at about the 2 hr 20 min mark.
Here’s Whitney Carpenter, 7th grade teacher:
We apologize that we have not spoken earlier, as we are a staff that exists in fear of bullying, retaliation and losing our jobs.
Back to the Edweek account (empasis mine):
After the teachers spoke, several parents addressed the board as well, including two who voiced support for the principal. The principal spoke defiantly, reciting their test scores and attendance statistics. “I cannot apologize for putting children first because that is what I signed up to do. Today is not for talk about one confidential personnel matter involving a Teach For America teacher. This is not the time or place for it.”
Janelle Ruley, the attorney representing the charter school, took the mic and stated, “As a reminder, the District must consider, must consider, increases in pupil academic achievement as the most important factor for renewal.“
Board members Richard Barrera and Scott Barnett give impassioned speeches after learning that the Trustee’s hands were tied. Their choices were limited to approving the charter renewal or denying it, which would close the school down. None of those giving testimony wanted that to happen. They did direct the district staff to further investigate and report back to them in April. At that point SDUSD’s only option will be to initiate expensive and time consuming legal action to de-certify the school.
I’m sure there is more to this story. My question today is “Why the hell didn’t this episode get any coverage in the local media?” Anybody? Are charter schools really that much of a sacred cow?
UPDATE: Chris Bertelli w/ Teach for America has added a comment saying Ms. Jenkins was not a TFA teacher.
Another SDPD Sex Crime Alleged
This item didn’t make the Daily Fishwrap, which confirms my suspicion that we’re all expected to ignore the SDPD’s past activities because we have a new chief of police.
I’m going to keep bringing these new episodes up because I’m supportive of the demand by past victim “Jane Doe” that an outside monitor be brought in to investigate the SDPD.
If this newest allegation doesn’t gross you out, nothing will.
From 10News:
Some graphic details about allegations against Christopher Hays, the former San Diego police officer at the center of a sex scandal, are now coming to light.
Dan Gilleon, a local attorney for three of seven alleged victims told 10News on Thursday that one of his clients claims Hays blocked a doorway, opened his pants and performed a sex act in front of her — forcing her to watch. The incident reportedly happened last June during a domestic violence call.
“She is a long-term victim of domestic violence and in this particular case, the police went to her house to save her after being beat up,” Gilleon said. “And they found the person that was beating her up — he was on the roof — and it was a big scene. And they took him away and all the police left, except for Mr. Hays.”
UT on New OT Rules: Cry Me A River…
As predicted in this space earlier in the week, the nattering nabobs of trickle down economics have gone on the war path over President Obama’s decision to have the Labor department change the rules that have allowed employers to deny overtime pay to workers simply by changing their job title.
The UT-San Diego, owned by a man whose continuing enrichment depends of this sort of exploitation, has gone ballistic in today’s sermon from Mission Valley. We’re told this action is almost.as.bad.as–gasp–
…consider the effect the rules would have on an absolutely crucial category of workers: the ambitious go-getters who don’t care how many hours they work because they’re so determined to do a great job and move up quickly. Such workers would suddenly become a legal risk.
Why on Earth would our government want to discourage such productive passion?
Because it is led by people who fret about income inequality but are indifferent to millions of people making the impoverishing decision to leave the workforce. Because it is led by people who claim to want well-paying jobs but pass a law — Obamacare — that gives tens of thousands of big companies major financial incentives to shift workers from full-time to part-time status. Because it is led by people who look at the feeblest economic recovery in U.S. history and shrug it off as the “new normal” and something for which they bear no responsibility.
Yes…Why on earth…. Could it be that so many employers have little regard for their employees no matter how hard they work?
From today’s New York Times:
McDonald’s workers in California, Michigan and New York filed lawsuits this week against the company and several franchise owners, asserting that they illegally underpaid employees by erasing hours from their timecards, not paying overtime and ordering them to work off the clock…
….All told, seven lawsuits have been filed, including one against the roughly 100 McDonald’s restaurants in California that are company-owned and operated. That lawsuit aims to be a class action representing 27,000 current and former McDonald’s employees.
The lawyers said most McDonald’s franchisees used software provided by the company that calculates employee-to-sales ratios and instructs restaurants to reduce staffing when sales drop below a certain level in any given hour. As a result, the lawyers said, some McDonald’s workers in the suit were ordered, upon reporting to work, not to clock in for an hour or two and instead wait until more customers arrived.
In several lawsuits, workers contend that they were at times told to clock out but remain in the restaurant or parking lot for an hour to two after business slowed down — perhaps when business slackened after the breakfast rush — so they could be on hand to clock back in when hourly sales picked up.
Another Mess for DA Dumanis
Poll from National Organization for Marriage
District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis pledged back in 2007 not endorse political candidates except under unusual circumstances, telling the press that public corruption probes were difficult enough “without the possibility of having our motives questioned or impaired by politics.”
That didn’t stop her from endorsing San Diego County Clerk Ernie Dronenburg for re-election this year. In fact, she endorsed him even before (April 2013) he filed paperwork to run, back in October.
The ‘unusual circumstances’ surrounding that endorsement stem from Dronenburg’s asking the California Supreme Court to stop same-sex marriages last July after the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court’s ruling that invalidated Proposition 8, a measure that outlawed same-sex marriages. Dumanis, by the way, is gay.
From KPBS:
Dumanis says she voiced her disappointment and concerns directly to Dronenburg about his petition to halt gay weddings. She said he assured her his actions were not “anti-gay, but rather an attempt to clarify the law.”
“As a member of the LGBT community, I continue to be a strong supporter of equality and same-sex marriage,” Dumanis said in a written statement.
Really? Perhaps she can explain this, from SDGLN.com:
San Diego County Clerk Ernest Dronenburg outed himself Friday for all the world to see that he is a flaming homophobe.
The 69-year-old Dronenburg teamed up with noted anti-gay attorney Charles LiMandri from Rancho Santa Fe to petition the California Supreme Court to halt same-gender marriages because they believe that Proposition 8 is the law.
LiMandri, who was a prominent supporter of the discriminatory Prop 8 that took away same-gender marriage rights from Californians from 2008 until last month, is known to take any case that involves denying equality to LGBT Americans. On the Human Right Campaign’s NOM Exposed blog, LiMandri is called NOM’s nakedly hostile Founding Father.
Activist People’s Ball: It’s a Party
Community supported KNSJ Radio and Activist San Diego are throwing their 13th annual concert, dance party and fundraiser this weekend. It’s a gala event celebrating community radio featuring former Air America host John Elliot as emcee and music by Liquid Blue.
Ticket are $25 in advance and $30 at the door. Showtime is 7pm on Saturday (March 15th) at the World Beat Center (2100 Park Ave, San Diego). For tickets or further information call 619-871-9354 or email them at info@activistsandiego.org
Does Today Seem a Little Punny to You?
It’s national PI day!
On This Day: 1743 – First American town meeting was held at Boston’s Faneuil Hall. 1914 – Henry Ford announced the new continuous motion method to assemble cars. The process decreased the time to make a car from 12½ hours to 93 minutes. 1956 – The movie “Rock Around the Clock” (with Bill Haley) made its premier in Washington, DC.
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Doug Porter
Latest posts by Doug Porter (see all)
- Last Call. Last Column. - December 14, 2018
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- Mounting the Assault on Big Gay and Other Drivel From SDSU’s Minimum Wage Scrooge - December 12, 2018
I wonder if the UT will ever make note of the fact that when San Jose raised the minimum wage by $2 in 2012, the unemployment rate went down by almost 25%, and the number of businesses increased?
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_25315215/san-jose-minimum-wage-year-old-success-story
Heh, heh… See my column from yesterday…
Thank you, Doug, for publishing the account of Sarah Jenkins’ death. It is unconscionable that the story was first published in EdWeek, and thankfully, you monitor that. Not only does Jenkins’ experience speak to the ways charter schools can skirt basic due process and collectively bargained policies, but it also points to some of the central problems with Teach for America, where young people coming out of that program have had only 7 weeks of training and are then placed in schools not as interns but as fully accredited teachers. It’s a perfect storm of exploitation and if teachers in these situations are at risk, imagine how this impacts the students–the children. I’m just sickened by the whole thing. Thank you again, though, for bringing it to light. Of course it’s the San Diego Free Press that’s on it!
Why cant I find any evidence of Sarah Jenkins. there is no obituary from October. I cant find a single thing on her but this story. Does she even exist? I just find it interesting that this sad story results in a fire sale of real estate for developers. Do you at least have a picture from her? an interview from her parents maybe? something besides a bunch of heresay from random teachers.
If she was only at the school 2 months how do we know this story isn’t being made up?
If you had clicked on the video of the School Board meeting you would have seen the Principal (why would she make it up?) of the school talking about her, in addition to the teacher who made the claim. Links are put into stories so you can check things out further without having to make comments like this.
Furthermore it is the stated purposed of this column (which runs Monday thru Friday and has ever since June2012) to be a review of the day’s news, along with my commentary. (See graphic at beginning, see tag line at end). Sorry you missed that.
Chill out Doug. I clicked the link and watched the vid. But I still haven’t seen any real evidence. I would like to see the actual emails that she sent and were sent to her. I mean what is odd about the group in blue and their hand holding is that their objective was to have not just this charter school shut down but ALL charter schools. I just find it odd that all these social justice stories are so fortuitous for developers. The end result is Charter school is shutdown and City sells the land off.
Not getting why the solution to this girls death is to shut the school down rather than just to fix it. That’s where I find the whole thing suspect.
Nobody who testified at the SDUSD hearing on either side of that issue wanted to shut the school down. Nobody on that video said anything about shutting down all charter schools. Those kids and their parents uniformly praised the school–which is very high performing. They just want the abusive treatment of teachers to stop.
yeah those links don’t tell me a darn thing. If I am a juror in a court of law I have not seen any clear evidence at this point. Take the emotion out of it. I get it there a victim here, but you still need to prove this is not just an effort to shut down the school for other reasons. like I said I could not find an obit on Sarah Jenkins or anything on her at all other than this.
Sure it would be awful for people to make a story like this up but not unheard of considering the value of the real estate. the fact that the girl was only there 2 months makes me ask questions. I am just doing my homework. Not sure why you have to be so defensive. Can you point me to some evidence other than this meeting? Again where are the emails? Those should be made available. I would find it odd if they would not release the emails so the public can see them for themselves.
Not saying the story didn’t happen, saying there are still a lot of questions that should be EASY to answer…like a photo of sarah, a bio somewhere, an obituary, a parents testimony etc, something solid to corroborate these events…
Back up a minute here. Just a comment ago you said those teachers in kids dressed in blue said they wanted to shut down the school and all charters. I just re watched the video to be 100% sure, but not one of them even suggested that. I don’t know what your game is here, but your obviously trolling. So, bye.
For clarification purposes, Sarah was not a TFA teacher.
There is no obituary for Sarah in October because she died two weeks ago, and her celebration on life is next week. Check Facebook, because there is a site for her that started when she was in a coma and continues through today. Just because there isn’t a obituary in the UT, doesn’t mean this isn’t real. Her parents don’t even live in San Diego. By the way, the Teachers do NOT want the school shut down, but rather to stop the bullying and illegal actions and continue with their happy and successful school.
parents aren’t here but should still be speaking out on this. The TFA thing is weird. It really calls into question the other facts being reported. My friend and I cant find the memorial page anywhere. can you please give us a link?
Parents are meeting with superintendant this week.
Do not say they “should be speaking out”. Their daughter just died. Let them grieve please.
I was one of Sarah’s best friends.
I have seen the emails, there is evidence.
The emails have been sent to the school board.
Re: National Pi Day …
Kitchen math is different from other math:
Pi ‘r’ round, cake ‘r’ square … and 700º for half-an-hour does NOT equal 350º for one hour.
Wow, some of the comments seem to be bullying Doug, more than actually watching the tape and seeing what happened. The whole thing is sad. And, checking obits to prove a point is just “weird” at least to me. Oh by the way, I’m a “shrink” not a teacher or a charter school board member.
the guy who transcribed the meeting just tweeted this: Anthony Cody @AnthonyCody · 3h
San Diego charter tchr died of stress rlted seizures *not* TFA accdg to TFA spokesmn. Why did principal say she was? . …Cody also tweeted this: Anthony Cody @AnthonyCody · 4h
@WestbrookMel @DianeRavitch TFA’s CA Communication director @CJBertilli says Sarah Jenkins was *not* TFA. Odd that principal wd say she was.
Sarah Jenkins NOT TFA. “Chris Bertelli @CJBertelli · 5h
@Kiwigirl58 I work for TFA and checked to be sure.”
something aint adding up here. How could the principal get the fact that she was not TFA wrong?
So this event occurred on October 24th but she died as a result of the event a few weeks ago? was she in a coma for 4 months? or did she have the seizure 4 months later?
The principal merely messed up her speech probably because she had no idea this was coming. There was aTFA teacher at the school that happened to be Mrs. Jenkins best friend. Mrs. Jenkins began to suffer from Gran Mal seizures because of the stress at school. She was terminated in the end of October. She continued to have seizures and stress problems because of the horror she experienced. Her best friend and teacher on staff the TFA teacher began to be a target now and for a few months dealt with it. The day Mrs. Jenkins went into a coma from another Gran Mal seizure, the TFA teacher was extremely targeted and the day after Mrs. Jenkins died, the TFA teacher was terminated. There is way more emails, information, and details that cannot be published online at this point, but believe me, this is a horrible and very true story. Her parents are involved, but not in the public forum for Tuesday Night because as I said before, they do not live her, but are very much involved and informed. There may not even be an obituary, not everyone has one. As for her Facebook page, it is not a memorial page, but merely started as a prayers and information page for her. All positive and dedications, now continues as an information or her celebration of life for family and friends. It has no information about her previous employment because that was such a terror in her life the family did not dare speak of it, the mere mention of the name would effect Mrs. Jenkins very greatly. This terror of bullying and many violations to law, ed code, and the brown act are what the teachers want stopped. The bullying has happened to MANY teachers over the years, but this is the first time they were able to gather together and make a stand against what was going on. Past teachers, the TFA teacher, parents, and teachers stood together that night. Get all of your facts before you start assuming teachers are lying. They have already gone through enough, support them, don’t question if their experiences were real. Local news was at the school yesterday to do interviews.
A couple things:
1. The Education Week piece isn’t a reported story by a professional journalist. It’s a blog post by a teacher.
2. I don’t know if any local journalist will pursue this story. But it’s important to note that a complex story like this raises major questions and challenges for any professional journalist.
Based on what little I’ve read, there are many potential minefields here in terms of privacy, fairness and sensitivity, not to mention avoidance of libel. . And then there’s the wider issue of whether there’s a story to be told that’s relevant to the public and sheds light.
Everyone involved deserves more than a quick-hit, next-day he said/she said news story. Any journalistic examination will take significant time and great care.
-Randy Dotinga
Readers should know that Randy Dotinga usually comes to our site with snide comments. He often spends his days trashing the SDFP and it’s contributors on Twitter. It must make him feel very manly to be so much better than all us, especially those who dare to–gasp–write poetry and other “cringe inducing” articles here.
In this case because the story involves charter schools–a seemingly sacred subject with his primary source of funding–Randy’s trying to sound like a serious journalism critic.
Reconsideration about policies towards charters schools is guaranteed plenty of local coverage. This story that might negatively reflect on charters wasn’t covered.
The complaints voiced at the at the SDUSD meeting are a five year old problem with the Harriet Tubman School. They were voiced last time the school’s charter was up fopr consideration. The lack of oversight in charter schools and the abusive treatment of instructors is a nationally recognized problem. The school board meeting occurred on Tuesday; apparently the complaints of the students, teachers and parents weren’t even enough of a problem for local news media to follow up on. Or maybe nobody covered the meeting. Or watched the publicly available video of the meeting.
A well recognized educator (http://www.teacherslead.com/Bio.html, with a significant track record who contributes via the blog format to EdWeek.org isn’t enough of a “journalist” to merit consideration in Dotinga’s opinion. (That’s probably because he couldn’t think up anything nasty or snarky to say.)
Because of the story in EdWeek, which was based on what was actually said at the school board meeting, there are now “journalists” looking into the situation at Harriet Tubman.
My “baggage” in this situation is that I’m sick and tired of his internet bully persona. This “concern troll” persona on display today is one he uses on occasions where multiple interests are involved. Trust me here, his only real concern with this story is trashing SDFP. I have reached out to him in the past to try and reason with him, but he has ignored my requests.
Readers would be advised to keep Mr Dotinga’s baggage in mind when reading his comments in any forum. I would expect that he’ll be a tad upset when he realizes he’s been banished to troll-land around here and can’t respond to this.
Adios, Randy. You won’t be missed.
Thank you Doug for posting this story. I am a parent at this school. What happened to Mrs Jenkins was an unfortunate consequence to whats been an ongoing problem at this school.
What the teachers are doing here is amazing.
They were not all bullied but are standing up for those who were and are still being threatened, they’re also standing up for all of the teachers that have been fired in the last 5 years…and there’s been quite a few, all great teachers.
This school focuses a lot on “community” and the teachers and parents are working together as a “community” for the better of their students, because what happens to the teachers affects the children directly. This is an unfortunate situation. I’m saddened to see the school administration belittling and ignoring the teachers and parent concerns, instead of working with them to solve this issue. We want the school to stay a charter, we love the school…but it’s not ok that the teachers are being treated like disposable objects.