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| "Special orders don't upset us" |
So I wanted to find out what Renatta Cooper was up to when she got herself recycled as Board of Ed President. Mary Brandenburg and I did a PRA for all texts and emails of Renatta Cooper, Bill Bogaard, Adam Wolfson, and Mark Jomsky.
We just got our answer from our pals at PUSD’s lawfirm du jour, Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, et al. The first thing the attorneys told us is that they didn’t have to honor the texts or personal email addresses because a legal precedent had not been established. Good try on Mary’s part to try to test Smith v. City of San Jose (click here). A not so epic fail, but a fail nonetheless.
Are you on the winning team? Are you on Team Bogaard?
What could have been and what could be? What if Mayor McCheese got his druthers? What was he up to? Is/was he trying to keep Anthony Portantino in the limelight (click here) until his patron (click here) Carol “I hire Idiots to be Educational Consultants” Liu's freshness dating is past? That’s a three year commitment Billyboy!
So. Pasadena City Clerk Mark Jomsky of Calabasas, sends an email on behalf of the big boss, Mayor McCheese aka Team LeaderBogaard. The Mayor is putting forth former movie producer Anthony Portantino to get his name back out there in order to make way for his bid to replace the eventually to be termed out Carol Liu. Now, the burning question is why would Jomsky pull a politician from all the possibly available people? Why would he not choose someone who is unencumbered with partisan politics? Maybe someone like, uh, like a judge? I know of one that would be perfect (click here). Why, oh why, Mr. Jomsky of Calabasas, are these suggestions stacked like an ad hoc committee of *special* community members?
Date: Wed, 15 May 2013
From: “Jomsky, Mark
To: Cooper, Renatta, Adam Wolfson
Subject: FW: Resource Articles
Hi Renatta and Adam,
Below are links to some articles and resources that I found doing research on the web. Interesting outcomes for some of the agencies, and maybe something to glean from those where there was controversy. There are examples of appointment processes where a large pool of applicants was culled down to a manageable number by an ad hoc committee for interviews by the legislative body. There was also one example where an agency ended up interviewing 19 applicants in one day (oy!) and then making a selection. When researching the City Council appointment process, I found it helpful to contact staff members from those cities to get feedback and learn some do’s and don’ts. Just a suggestion.
If you chose to utilize a community-based committee to reduce the number from 38 down to ____, the thought occurred to me that Anthony Portantino might still be a very good option for Chair. Perhaps, since he is not from the district, he might consider being a non-voting member of the ad hoc committee unless his vote was necessary to break a tie vote. So the composition would be as follows:
Seven District Representatives selected by the Board of Education
One City of Pasadena Rep selected by Pasadena City Council
One Altadena Rep selected by Supervisor Antonovich
One Sierra Madre Rep selected by the Sierra Madre City Council
Anthony Portantino to Chair and vote only to break a tie.
Anyway, let me know what you think. I will be happy to discuss further.
Regards,
Mark Jomsky
City Clerk
City of Pasadena
That is an interesting cast of characters, by the way. Why are Anthony Portantino and Michael Antonovich pitched by Jomsky to be involved with this? I mean, Portantino kind of makes sense. That’s just keeping his name in the papers, so to speak. But why Antonovich? And who would the mighty Sierra Madre City Council have suggested? Bart Doyle? The mind reels.
So. Speaking of Team Bogaard, CouncilmemberSteve Madison of Voter Annulment Court (click here) is another high profile Team Bogaard team player. Word is his main squeeze is over at the All Saints Church Office of Creative Connections (click here), the incubator which creates the ideas you know you need and stocks the people you need to know. Of course that is just a hop, skip, and a jump from the retaining wall of the Pasadena Council Chambers (click here)----like that Young & Healthy Program that partners with PUSD. Now I’m not one to suggest another, uh, marriage between mayoral hopefuls and connected Episcopeople, but when I hear Renatta Cooper sing holy praise to the Boston Schools/Community Model which is overseen by the Mayor of Boston, I can’t help but smell something fishy.
Someone should tell our fearless president self-reelect-reelect that fish fries are a Friday Night event, and not a Tuesday Night event. If she has any doubt, just ask that health food guy Tyron Hampton. Tuesday night board meeting menus should be saved for salads.
Oh. And be sure and invite our buddy, Ed “Salad Magnet” Honowitz, ok?
Too Bad there was no Chaser for Sheryl Orange; but, hey, thanks for the Wraparound
Oh, by the way. I went to the Board Meeting Tuesday night, the last of the current budget year. I was interested to see if The Invincible Principal Principle would be upheld before the close of the budget year. This is the little administrator clause that saves useless principals who ignore the will of the families they serve and should be fired, but are kept in place, somewhere, ad nauseum.
No, I am not talking about Gilbert Barraza or Marcheta Williams. At least not this month.
I am speaking of Sheryl Orange, former Muir High School principal who is apparently now retiring as the layoff of her coordinator position (see below) was not rescinded, and this was the last board meeting where that was possible. She was formerly so invincible a principal that the previous superintendent announced his retirement in late February of 2011 rather than give her notice by the mandated March 15 date that year, so scared he was of the potential for backlash from segments of the Muir community. So she stayed on at Muir for the 11-12 school year.
Of course, we can’t forget that ol’ Eddy the Phonemaster Diaz was also trying to dodge the Brandenburg/Honowitz/Sierra Madre PTA situation.
So. Exactly where was Sheryl Orange in the 2011-2012 year when she was the principal of Muir? Well she sure wasn’t in Las Vegas, and if she had been, the rule is that it stays there and we don’t know about it, anyway.
Think of Sheryl Orange’s 2011-2012 year as PUSD Area 51.
What I can tell you she got a new job by the 2012/2013 school year because it was brought up at a Board Meeting we attended with Ron Thomas one year ago when a new program was pitched that night. I remember because Ron applauded the program. I should update him, I guess.
Anyway, she became the coordinator for this new program, a leftover from the previous academic chief, Alice Petrossian. The latter had created this ghost program called The Academy for Success set up at Burbank School (i.e. the pasture). At $120,000 for Ms. Orange’s salary plus benefits, and a teacher at salary plus benefits, that’s a lot of money that went for a program that apparently never enrolled any students.
So, money was given to a middle school program that was supposedly housed at an elementary school. Well, this is a program that really didn’t exist. Not only were the actual students placed in Learning Works or elsewhere, their magical doppelgangers were never enrolled. Can someone call for an accountant please?
A program that cost over $200,000 or so in real dollars, for students who were never actually enrolled at an elementary school that is technically closed except for preschool offices and community programs. That makes sense.
In a few days Ms. Orange will retire, probably with a little shove, and no thus no accountability for the outcome of the program, nor for the money, will ever take place.
All in the Family
Speaking of dynamic administrators..... Way back when, Hoori The Food Gal Chalian (click here) used to be the principal of Jefferson Elementary School. To make a short story shorter, she went to battle a while back with Ramon Miramontes and the Latino families (click here) and set in motion a Parent Revolution of sorts. She was then transferred to the Alice Petrossian Wing at PUSD and a new position was created for her. Now known as the Coordinator of Innovation and Intervention, Hoori’s godmama established a future for the principal who couldn’t, but should’ve.
If nothing else, all of those purchase orders for food that keep showing up on monthly Board items really drives my curiosity and imagination. I am known as a bit of a Gandolfinist in the art of cuisine, myself. I mean, where does she put it all? Perhaps it’s French food. You know, high prices, but very little edible product.
Bon apetit!
¿Cómo se dice inútil USELESS?
Another couple of topics were related to the Pasadena Unified Unwelcome Center, a place designed at one point to be an inviting sunshiny room that made all newcomers to the PUSD feel cheery, welcome, and aglow with the promise of education. It hasn’t quite panned out for whatever reason, and it has now become necessary to rethink the whole idea and restructure a couple of jobs. Uh oh. Seems that a board member or two may be of the belief that an Arabic-speaking staff person providing a rousing Pasadena welcome to a small portion of a small ethnic percentage of Pasadena’s school community is a wiser choice than a Spanish-speaking staff person to offer a rousing Pasadena welcome to a large portion of the ethnic majority of the district. That, plus the nearly impossible navigation of the office, has pretty much extinguished its usefulness altogether.
Here’s a Couple of Grand Ideas
The time has come to start doling out the school representatives and subcommittees. That means the Brandenburgs need to start calling and emailing Elizabeth Pomeroy and asking her to take care of the mess over at Marshall Fundamental. The futbol and football cloverfield. The disaster that is a tennis court. The mess that is the gym.
Once upon a time there were paraprofessionals at the schools who used to handle the follow up on absent kids. The positions were eliminated. Now as the district examines the current state of unexcused absences, most likely dumping the task on teachers, or not following up at all, comes the very real problem of lost revenues in ADA. Hey, maybe the money brought back in through a system that follows up on these absences could actually pay for the hires that got these kids back to school. Or the PUSD could do what Sierra Madre Principal Emeritus Gayle Bluemel did with my son for 8 months. Tell the state the kids are really just in school.
Or say that the students are enrolled at The Academy for Success over at Burbank.
Eugenics and You, Tee-Pee
Sandy Goodwick made a public comment about Eugenics and limned the need to include this history in the PUSD curriculum. Her comment discussed the infamous painting in Gosney Hall at Polytechnic, as well as the connection between The Human Betterment Foundation and the atrocities that would follow both in California and in Germany under the Third Reich.
Personally I believe it is time for us to call upon Polytechnic to remove the painting and rename Gosney Hall. I would suggest renaming it Jack Parsons Hall myself.
Anyway, last month a certain United Teachers of Pasadena bargaining representative made the following statement as a PUSD employee and Webster Elementary School Teacher:
Some of the kids that have been included into our classrooms are not placed properly. Not all children with special needs are fit to be included in a general education classroom.…...it is not a healthy learning environment for the special needs kids, for the general ed kids and it’s definitely not a healthy environment for the teacher.
See, that isn’t really about what is best for the kids, it is about what is best for the teachers. Oh, but I digress.
In fact, the statement, “Not all children with special needs are fit to be included in a general education classroom” sounds to me just like the echo of eugenics, a popular Pasadena pastime and pseudo-science that Pasadena Unified still choose to ignore (click here). I am curious if the Pasadena Museum of History has touched the subject.
In any event, to assume that the idea of being “fit” to participate in society is hardly a novel idea. It goes back at least one hundred years. In fact, back to times when leading scientists and philosphers went as far as to determine who was fit to reproduce.
Back to 1921 when Margaret Sanger (click here) spoke of “fitness” as well:
As an advocate of Birth Control, I wish to take advantage of the present opportunity to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the "unfit" and the "fit", admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes.
Sanger, as you may be aware, was a Eugenicist and the founder of the group Planned Parenthood. The Pasadena connection cannot be denied as ol’ Maggie had a connection to a little friend of the Proctor and Gamble Soap Family, Dr. Clarence J. Gamble and the Gambles are not an unknown name here in Pasadena. Clarence was known to visit the Gamble House, which was the home of David and Mary Gamble, his parents, and lived in the house as a child. He would practice medicine in Carmel and elsewhere. The connection: Clarence was a co- founder of the Human Betterment League of North Carolina in 1947. The other co-founder was James Hanes, a hosieries maven (click here). Think about that next time you put your socks and chonis on.
In a 1992 article titled The Truth About Margaret Sanger, which ran in Citizen Magazine and was reprinted on blackgenocide.org (click here), the following was revealed:
Gamble lost no time and drew up a memorandum in November 1939 entitled "Suggestion for Negro Project." Acknowledging that black leaders might regard birth control as an extermination plot, he suggested that black leaders be place in positions where it would appear that they were in charge as it was at an Atlanta conference. It is evident from the rest of the memo that Gamble conceived the project almost as a traveling road show. A charismatic black minister was to start a revival, with "contributions" to come from other local cooperating ministers. A "colored nurse" would follow, supported by a subsidized "colored doctor." Gamble even suggested that music might be a useful lure to bring the prospects to a meeting.
Sandy Goodwick’s remarks and research helped direct me to an interesting quote by G.H. Parker in a paper titled A Biological Forecast (click here) page 315 :
Not all children are fit for formal education. They have no business in either school or college, except in the former for the merest rudiments of learning.
Is it just me, or doesn’t part of eugenicist GH Parker’s 1913 quote sound uncannily similar to our Webster teacher/UTP Bargaining Representative’s 2013 quote? Is this what our local union representative intended? I want to assume it is not.
In any event, I think someone owes the disabled community an apology for her remarks.
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