U.S. agency investigates peer sexual harassment at Paly

How can it be the case that going on a national media tour to publicize the idea that Paly is infected with “rape culture” be fine while merely disclosing the fact of an OCR investigation into the systemic issues reported in that media coverage is “confidential.” This is just mind boggling. Our district leaders and board apparently only saw the Verde story and coverage as one more opportunity for Paly and the district to receive honors, prizes, and attention. What they didn’t count on was that what they saw as a chance to absorb praise for the student journalism was reporting on events that are very problematic — no sexual violence policy, no training, no investigation — no real recognition that sexual violence and related bullying are civil rights issues. When it turned from another chance to praise the schools into another “oops,” then they cynically said it was all confidential.

Kandell and his students were on NPR. They were in HuffPo. They took a victory lap and got an award from PTAC. It is too late in the day, and also infuriating, for anyone to say that now they can’t disclose that those stories and radio spots caught the attention of the feds. Paul Kandell sounds very weasely in his comment. And is this the real reason Phil Winston is resigning? Has Skelly made him the fall guy for the district’s failure here?

I just read the letter from the US Education Department linked from the article. It has nothing confidential in it.
The previous writers are right. I read the Verde articles because I have a daughter at Paly (a freshman) and I am worried about this. The idea that it is OK to write articles like that but no followup about what is going on and then burying a federal investigation? It is not OK to be asleep at the switch about this, whether you are the principal or the school board or the superintendent. We need to make sure that our girls don’t have their educations harmed because of harassment or rape (god forbid).

Paly mom —

We don’t know that there was “no follow up (by Paly) about what is going on.” The letter from the OCR said: “Please note that opening an investigation in no way implies that OCR has made a determination with regard to its merits.”

Dear Chris Kenrick,
Thank you, but I read in your article that Supt. Skelly has no comment about the review and he is trying to not talk about that it is even happening? Also we never heard from Mr. Winston about it before he stopped being principal that day.

Paly mom —

Superintendent Skelly said the Title IX investigation is “a confidential student matter and the student’s privacy interest far outweigh the disclosure of a pending investigation.”

I was trying to make a different point, which is that just because there’s an investigation we cannot assume that Paly did not comply with the law. That is what the investigators are trying to determine.

So Dana Tom said Kevin Skelly’s work was satisfactory during his June 18 evaluation even though a letter was sent June 3? In what district is Kevin Skelly’s performance satisfactory? I would love to hear from Retired Teacher and other Skelly and board supporters how great this district is because in my view, great districts do not have the multiple OCR complaints and investigations. To say that we are like other districts is to admit that we do not have a district of excellence. This district is now officially leaderless. Skelly’s six-year tenure has been extraordinary, but each reader can fill in the descriptor of how extraordinary it has been. The last two years with Charles Young have been disastrous. And now that the Weekly has revealed that Skelly received a letter investigating Paly on June 3, it makes me believe that the investigation played a small part, at least, in Winston’s decision to be “reassigned.”

It is clear by Skelly’s latest email to the Weekly that Skelly had no intention of living up to his promise of transparency. The board, notably silent, appears corrupted to me. They all have to go. The Santa Clara County Office of Education or the state Department of Education needs to come in and provide leadership, and yes I know how mediocre they can be, but that is how low our district has slipped

Just found an earlier Weekly article on this and a few things popped out:

“[Michelle] Dauber said the district was ‘legally obligated to … ensure that the victim was free from retaliation and additional harassment.'”

How is it possible for schools to “ensure” that students on their campuses will never, ever harass someone else? The law says that federally-supported agencies, like public schools, “may” act to overcome these kinds of things. But is has to “ensure” success? Really?

“Dauber said she had little information on how the district was following up on her call for a Title IX investigation [and] suggested that the district seek ‘technical assistance’ from OCR… [and engage] experts in the federal government.”

I am a Paly parent, with daughters attending Paly, who also cries “enough is enough.” But I direct my cries at the Palo Alto Weekly and at the individuals who are hell bent on crucifying the school board and superindendent. As Chris Kenrick says above, just because there is an investigation does not mean there is wrong doing. The i”nvestigation”, I feel certain, was prodded by the same people who have objected loudly to nearly everything 25 Churchill has done in the past two years.
The story written about by the Verde is a vitally important story. Clearly this is not something that is unique to Paly or PAUSD. It seems to be frighteningly widespread, and I’m certain recent news stories are just the tip of the iceberg. We need to refocus on re-educating our daughters and our sons. Schools, perhaps everywhere, need to have frank discussions and education about sex, consent and rape. Victims must be respected, perpetrators must face justice.
But after the suicide of the high school girl from Saratoga HS, and the abuse of the victim Ohio, I applaud school officials for making this PAUSD high school victim’s privacy paramount.
And really, enough is enough. If you are among those who feel our elected board members are delinquent (and I do not), then please, please, please run for School Board yourself. The slingshots from sidelines are hurting our district more that they are helping.

Enough, care to comment on the contradiction between celebrating an issue of the Verde about rape culture at Paly and then claiming that even mentioning a federal investigation of the same facts violates privacy?

STC is lifting the rock on the rationale that has evidently animated much of the district’s response to this situation, and that inspired school board members Barb Mitchell and Dana Tom’s editorial defending the district and attacking OCR several months ago: the idea that OCR’s authority to enforce federal civil rights law is somehow illegitimate.
STC’s legal quotes are frankly laughable. The first one allows schools to use affirmative action to redress gender inequality even in the absence of evidence of discrimination, after they conduct an investigation. It does, however, contain a passage that she left out, “If the Assistant Secretary [that is, the head of OCR, until recently Russlynn Ali] finds that a recipient has discriminated against persons on the basis of sex in an education program or activity, such recipient shall take such remedial action as the Assistant Secretary deems necessary to overcome the effects of such discrimination.”
The second section STC cites includes the statement that “no person shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any academic, extracurricular, research, occupational training, or other education program or activity operated by a recipient which receives Federal financial assistance.” That obligation falls to the school.
At root, STC is playing the same game that Barb Mitchell and Dana Tom did in trying to call civil rights law into question rather than complying with it. I’m referring specifically to their editorial (http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=18575) in which they falsely suggested that federal and state civil rights laws are in conflict, and cited a National School Board Association opinion in calling OCR’s legal authority into question that turned out to be based on a misunderstanding of Ali’s DCL. Their citation, in turn, followed a similar false statement by Laurie Reynolds, an (actually discredited) attorney from Fagen, Friedman and Fulfrost who made numerous false and misleading statements to the public at a school board meeting, presumably at the behest of the Superintendent). (On the NSBA letter, see http://www.nsba.org/SchoolLaw/Issues/Equity/ED-Response-to-NSBA-GCs-Letter-to-ED-on-OCR-Bullying-Guidelines.pdf).
Ali left at the end of the first Obama term. There was no firestorm of criticism. STC’s quotation saying otherwise turns out, upon Googling it, to come from a website that is run by men fighting against domestic violence laws, and is full of “press releases” about men falsely accused of rape and women beating up their own babies. (http://www.saveservices.org/2012/12/press-release-under-fire-for-sex-directive-dept-of-education-russlynn-ali-steps-down/).
No one except right-wing Tea Party adherents, unfortunately including our school board trustee Barb Mitchell, believes that the DCL letter (which actually just restated positions going back to the Clinton administration) violated the Constitution. The statement that Ali’s leaving “discredited” the DCL is thus just ridiculous. But unfortunately STC is obviously not alone in her hostility to federal civil rights law.

STC’s prior post nicely illustrated a key idea held by some people who have achieved authority in the school district, notably Barb Mitchell — OCR’s authority to enforce federal civil rights law, and perhaps even the law itself, is somehow illegitimate. STC actually hints darkly that it violates the Constitution, a typical if baseless Tea Party claim.
Her last post is based on another, closely related idea: that there is something fundamentally wrong and unfair about OCR’s enforcement of civil rights law in Palo Alto.
Her first quote, incidentally, is of herself from an earlier post: “It is unlikely that this inquiry was ‘initiated’ by the OCR”. Perhaps her next post will cite herself as authority for the idea that civil rights enforcement violates the Constitution
Unfortunately for STC, the idea that the federal government — which the large majority of use are citizens of, support with our taxes, and probably voted for the current leader of — is somehow an alien force makes sense only at 25 Churchill Street, and among the Mitchell-Munger Tea Party crowd.
Russlynn Ali is a long-time advocate for children’s rights, founder of the Education Trust West, which advocated here in California for equal educational opportunity for all California children, and was nominated to her post by President Obama on the recommendation of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. STC may think she’s the bogeyman, but the large majority opinion in Palo Alto supports civil rights, wants the federal government to step in when local agencies fail to do their job, and don’t buy Barb Mitchell and Dana Tom’s call to reject civil rights laws.
I suspect that the growing recognition of that fact might be behind some of the hysteria showing through in STC’s posts.

Sorry, I actually should have noted STC’s authority for the idea that Russlynn “resigned after having set off a firestorm all around the country because her positions in that letter violated the US constitution.” It comes, as I found from Google and noted in my earlier post, from a website set up by domestic violence perpetrators to fulminate against the unfairness of laws about sexual violence and assault. Here’s the link to the site: http://www.saveservices.org.
I am not suggesting, I hasten to add, that STC supports domestic violence and sexual assault, just because she gets her legal information from this site.

It is absolutely possible to find people who don’t like federal civil rights law as actually enforced, even if they claim to appreciate it in the abstract. Libertarian law professors and the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal are fertile hunting ground, as STC is demonstrating — though even they don’t throw around the idea that it is contrary to the Constitution, or that somehow federal agencies aren’t allowed to enforce the law.
We’ll see where the majority opinion in Palo Alto lies on this question. As I said, I suspect that it doesn’t lie with STC, and I also suspect that she agrees with that diagnosis.
As to damage to the school district: I can’t think of a more damaging course than the one we are on right now, with incompetent leadership bent on hiding facts from the public and thumbing its nose at the federal government. Rather than criticizing those who are pointing out the nakedness of the empress, perhaps “Almost done” should get her some clothes.

For those of you that are concerned that Paly has a problem, just google “rape high school” and you will see that this is something that occurs in probably every high school across the country. The numbers are huge. Also google Stanford and rape. You’ll be surprised. Instead of blaming the school district, why don’t you try parenting your kids. Teach them about alcohol, consent, etc. Don’t expect the schools to raise your kids. On another thread someone stated that PAUSD better get serious about drinking, bullying etc. A better thought is that parents better get serious about these issues and start taking responsibility for their children’s behaviors.
It would be so much more helpful if the Weekly focused on why these behaviors occur instead of blaming the schools and their responses to these incredibly complex problems. Again, just google Stanford and rape.

I am not a member of any small group, except maybe the small group of parents who don’t blame the schools, we blame the people we have elected and have paid to run our schools to make them high-functioning, safe places. The other small group is the handful of supporters of the current regime which has appeared to be woefully ineffective in leading this district: Skelly, Young, the board, and others. The vast majority of parents are simply just not that interested. The Skelly supporters are fearmongering and fingerpointing at those of us parents who would dare criticize these incompetent politicians and administrators. They claim that criticism is ruining the excellence of PAUSD. Well, lets look at the evidence of this excellence in thr six Skelly years, we had several of our children commit suicide followed by an ineffective response, we had almost a complete turnover of adminstrators (which continued just a few weeks ago), and we got caught violating the civil rights of a child. Throw in no accountability and no transparency, and it is easy to see how a rape culture environment was allowed to continue and how our district has been made so vulnerable to lawsuits. The victims are not trying to weaken the district, the critics are not trying to weaken the district, the elected board, Skelly, Young, Wade, Baker, Grierson, and others have already done that.

This story reports that the Office for Civil Rights has initiated a Compliance Review of Paly’s Title IX compliance. As reported this review concerns the question whether PAUSD responded appropriately to peer sexual harassment based on sexual violence. Such a review will examine PAUSD’s policies, procedures, and practices; whether Paly responded promptly and effectively to stop the peer harassment and whether the victims of such harassment are protected insofar as possible from any negative educational effects. The Verde story reported on “Rape Culture.” “Rape Culture” in the vernacular of civil rights means a potentially hostile educational environment — something that the district must intervene to prevent and remediate.

The story is very well reported and written. To it, I would add only this. It would be very unlikely given OCR’s general practice of working cooperatively with districts that OCR would simply unilaterally and without warning launch a Compliance Review against a district before first offering a district the opportunity to work cooperatively with OCR through a technical assistance process on a voluntary basis.

It is only an educated guess but I think it is very likely that OCR became aware of the media coverage regarding the Rape Culture at Paly, contacted PAUSD to offer technical assistance, and such offer was rejected. At that time, perhaps fed up with the district’s burgeoning caseload of OCR complaints, the Department of Education launched the Compliance Review.

This seems to be a reasonable interpretation of the facts. Given that, PAUSD parents are now confronted with the fact that Dr. Skelly appears not only to have managed to ignore the urgings of community members to investigate the Title IX matter at Paly, but to have perhaps ignored an offer of free assistance from OCR that would have spared us another investigation, finding, and resolution agreement.

I shall also state the obvious. If Kevin Skelly was truly interested in protecting the rights and interests of the victims of sexual assault he would have (1) not presided over a district in which rape culture could flourish; (2) provided appropriate sexual violence training to Dr. Young, Phil Winston, and the district’s other Title IX officers; (3) provided sexual violence training to high school students; (4) reacted proactively to the Verde story by initiating an approprite, prompt, and effective investigation without being prompted to do so by community members and the federal government; (5) ensured that the Paly climate is not hostile to female students as required by law.

Having taken none of these steps to protect the victim is not particularly believable that he is keeping the very fact of the investigation secret in order to somehow protect the victim. Rather, it seems he is protecting himself. That is at least consistent with his pattern of keeping such investigations secret in the past.

All forms of bullying, if they are severe, pervasive, and based on discriminatory factors are prohibited by law. When students engage in this conduct, and the school knew or reasonably should have known of the conduct, then the school has a responsibility to intervene to stop the harassment, and then to prevent it from recurring and to remediate any harm.

The law does not contemplate that there will be no harassment. On the contrary, the law contemplates that there will be harassment. That is why it prescribes what a school must do in that event. What PAUSD has been found in noncompliance for in the disability harassment case is of failing to have intervened effectively. We do not yet know what the outcome will be in the Paly case, though the unexpected and swift departure of the principal shortly after the Compliance Review was launched, coupled with the obviously lawyered statement from Kandell suggests that there may well be issues for Paly to address uncovered in the audit. Doubtless Gunn will have some of the same problems as there was a highly publicized and very similar incident involving relationship abuse there just a few years ago (also prohibited discriminatory harassment under Title IX).

On the subject of district-wide policy, PAUSD’s current sexual harassment policy does not include sexual violence and does not provide for training in sexual violence. (It also fails to utilize the required state-mandated Uniform Complaint Procedure for claims of sex discrimination, including sexual harassment, as required by California law). See http://www.pausd.org/community/board/Policies/downloads/AR5145.7_Harassment.pdf

While OCR does not mandate that the policy include sexual violence specifically, it also states that :

“Title IX does not require a recipient to adopt a policy specifically prohibiting sexual harassment or sexual violence. As noted in the 2001 Guidance, however, a recipient’s general policy prohibiting sex discrimination will not be considered effective and would violate Title IX if, because of the lack of a specific policy, students are unaware of what kind of conduct constitutes sexual harassment, including sexual violence, or that such conduct is prohibited sex discrimination. OCR therefore recommends that a recipient’s nondiscrimination policy state that prohibited sex discrimination covers sexual harassment, including sexual violence, and that the policy include examples of the types of conduct that it covers.”

Thus, it appears that PAUSD’s sexual harassment policy likely “violates Title IX” because student [and teachers such as Mr. Kandell] appear to have been “unaware” that the conduct described in the Verde story constituted prohibited sex discrimination.

These issues and others, including such things as whether PAUSD’s TItle IX coordinators were properly trained, will all be within the ambit of the Compliance Review. This training and procedures will help to maintain a nondiscriminatory environment for our female students (in the phrasing of the Verde, it will help to reduce or eliminate the effects of Paly’s pervasive “rape culture.”). That is all to the good.

What is not to the good is that this had to be forced on the district. Dr. Skelly should have voluntarily sought technical assistance from OCR, or accepted it when and if it was offered. It is disgraceful that we are now the subject of a Compliance Review and appear to be resisting cooperating with OCR. How does that help our students?

My god, our Palo Alto schools are a cesspool of rape, sexual assault, violence against disabled children, bullying.

What is going on with the children of Palo Alto that make them do these things! Bad or indifferent parenting?

Just awful.

Since rape occurs relatively frequently on the Stanford campus, I wonder what it is that they are doing to prevent it. They did change their review process but it took them three years to do so. You have to wonder why it does still occur on their campus when they have all the talent imaginable to prevent it. Again, google rape and Stanford. I’m curious as to what Edmund Burke feels about this. It seems the students at Stanford feel the same way the students at Paly, profiled in the article, do. If only they could show us the way.
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/12/05/culture-of-silence-surrounds-sexual-assault/

These problems, dire as they are, occur at practically every school in the nation. The climate I enjoyed at Paly over my four years was one that was above all mild-mannered and politically correct to the letter. In my four years at Paly, I don’t remember hearing a single racist or ableist comment. I believe there might have been one physical aggression after school my freshman year, but that was about it.

I was involved in an international service organize in high school and had the opportunity to meet students from and visit high schools all around the state. I was shocked to find out how prevalent fights, teenage pregnancies, and jeers like “that’s so gay/retarded” were at other schools. Most of these would have been unthinkable at Paly in any social circle.

I don’t doubt that these instances occurred and I think it’s tragic that they happened. But I think we need to stay focused on the bigger picture. These incidences happen everyday throughout the country and at much higher frequencies in less fortunate and progressive districts. It’s great that they are being brought to light, but the reality is that they would have been largely ignored were it not for Paly’s award winning publications and for the sue-happy Palo Altan mentality. At the schools where intolerance and a “rape culture” truly pervade, it’s most often case that the parents and victims don’t have the means or knowledge to file a complaint.

Edmund Burke,

Disclose that the source of your authority for your statement that “PAUSD’s sexual harassment policy likely ‘violates Title IX’” is the Russlynn Ali letter.

As I reported above, that letter has very serious legal problems like being unconstitutional in the eyes of constitutional law experts and creating new laws that completely circumvented the legislative process and boxed the public out of both notice and comments. These criticisms concern me, a Democrat, and should concern everyone; they are not limited to those who Really? summarily dismisses as having fringe political bents and affiliations.

Ms. Ali wrote these things into a letter because she knew if she had put her points in federal regulations, where interpretations and guidance of federal laws belong and which allow for public comments before they are finalized, they would never, ever have gotten through the first stage of review without serious, crippling challenges.

Even if this boils down, as you say, to a finding that PAUSD’s policy needs revamping, that’s an easy fix and has zero to do with PAUSD having created an environment that allows rape/harassment (anyone who says that must not have kids at Paly or Gunn) or having to “ensure” that harassment not happen on campus (an admirable but impossible and unsupported standard, yet Michelle Dauber’s and your read of the law).

Whomever turned PAUSD into the federal government this month might want to ask former Board Member Barb Klausner why she recommended that the board adopt this policy. If I recall, it came in when the board revamped its policy manual, a project Klausner led. Certainly you don’t think that Klausner, a well-respected female lawyer with daughters who is known for championing the interests of children in the margin, presented the board with a policy that hurt women and was illegal.

And please, please stop the speculation that always ends with you assuming the worst of people. If you don’t know, don’t guess/say.

By now everyone gets that you have an axe to grind. But publicly “outing” by name the many principals, staff members, teachers, students and superintendent who do not bow to your views saying that they are insensitive, hiding information, evading responsibility, acting illegally, leaving their jobs under a cloud of suspicion etc without evidence hurts reputations (think slander) and sounds certifiable. Come on – “presid[ing] over a district in which rape culture could flourish.” I repeat, certifiable.

“saw this coming” is back, but this morning we have some more context for her argument that OCR’s enforcement of civil rights law somehow violates the constitution: Barb Mitchell, our school board VP, has been peddling that same line in secret memos and school board closed sessions (see http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=19197).

STC now claims to be a “Democrat” but she/Mitchell are pressing (STC publicly, Mitchell privately) a standard Tea Party doctrine that exercise of federal authority somehow violates civil rights law. Mitchell, as the Weekly is reporting, wants to roll back the district’s own agreement with OCR, and prevent the federal government from protecting kids except if they receive a specific complaint.

The idea that federal civil rights law in this area (which has been consistent since at least the Clinton administration) is unconstitutional is a pure fantasy, bolstered by STC with quotes from a website that peddles stories calling domestic violence laws into question by retailing accounts of mothers beating up their own babies (look above for STC’s earlier posts and my replies).

Unfortunately, STC’s crackpot theories are shared by our school board trustee Barb Mitchell, who along with Dana Tom, our school board president, has engaged the board in a secret and quixotic effort to resist federal enforcement of civil rights laws in Palo Alto.

Why secret? Because STC, Barb Mitchell and Dana Tom know that the community in Palo Alto supports civil rights laws, doesn’t see the federal government as an interloper, and will be unhappy to learn that we are spending taxpayer dollars on a program of resistance.

I hope that readers look carefully at STC’s comments above and compare them to Mitchell’s constitutional theories, revealed in the Weekly story this morning.

As a mother of a daughter at Paly and a son who will go to Paly, I am very disturbed by this story and the reactions on this board.

Have we, as a community and a district, really done our best to teach our children right from wrong in this area? Shown them how to get help? Supported them when they asked for help?

If Palo Alto is so great, I wonder why this is the best we have been able to do. Surely we can do better.

We do not have to reinvent the wheel here. We just have to be willing to listen to and adopt best practices as developed by experts in the field. Are we too arrogant to do that? To listen to the OCR?

Ashamed for us.

Really?

Again, no one is saying that federal civil rights laws are unconstitutional. Re-read my posts carefully.

What is troublesome is that the OCR is making up its own civil rights laws in a letter (not in the US Code where the other laws of the land are found) and which have not been debated by Congress or shared with the public for comment. That, among other things, is what people are calling unconstitutional.

Here is someone’s quick overview of how the US system of laws work. http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/fedregulations.htm

One-off letters from governmental agency heads blasted to public schools and universities overreach if they create new laws, as is clear from the OMB, the US Governmental Agency so concerned about these loose practices that it issued lengthy guidance to agencies to address these abuses:

“OMB has been particularly concerned that agency guidance practices should be more transparent, consistent and accountable. Such concerns also have been raised by other authorities, including Congress and the courts [which then lists governmental agency “guidance” letters that have been struck down.]”

“guidance documents may not receive the benefit of careful consideration accorded under the procedures for regulatory development and review [including] public participation, including notice and comment under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA)… Congressional oversight and judicial review. Because it is procedurally easier to issue guidance documents, there also may be an incentive for regulators to issue guidance documents in lieu of regulations.”

“rules which …establish new policy positions that the agency treats as binding must comply with the APA’s notice-and-comment requirements.”

“Poorly designed or misused guidance documents can impose significant costs or limit the freedom of the public”

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/fy2007/m07-07.pdf

I am not a school board member ghost writing this post. I am just an informed US citizen tired of “self-professed” experts posting in black and white what they are smart enough to know are inaccurate, incomplete and misleading statements of the law and by doing so taking advantage of people who don’t know better, hoping they will buy it.

Saw this coming sounds like a self-professed expert, unfortunately, I am not buying the idea that OCR is the one responsible for our malfunctioning district. The victim whose civil rights is not responsible, nor are the other victims. The parents who sought help, including those who sought that help from a lawyer, are not responsible, either. The board is responsible. They are elected to oversee this district and direct the superintendent to act. Kevin Skelly is responsible. He has received close to $2 million of public money to lead the district. One of his acts was to hire Charles Young to ensure that Title IX and the Uniform Complaint Procedure were followed. You decide if Young deserves a raise or termination. Some of the posters are defending the district by asking us to Google rape culture so that we will see that PAUSD is just like every other school, but rarely have I heard a Palo Altan brag that our schools are as mediocre as any other school. Our homes sell because our schools are great, A-plus, but the revelations of the last 12 months have not supported that assertion. Suicides, rapes, civil rights violations, lawsuits, and corruption do not make schools great, they do not support the continued employment of our leaders, and they do not help sell homes.

> I disagree that I misrepresented any information that
> is available in the public domain [portion removed.]

There is no point contributing, or reading, this topic.

Clearly the Weekly has an agenda–and they are using their publishing platform to aggressively suppress discussion, and the truth about what happened, or what should happen, going forward.

I readily admit that I do not know enough of the facts to comment on this story or the other OCR related stories. However I do have a POV that seems to be lacking on this thread, as well as the others.

The anger and finger-pointing at PAUSD may or may not be justified. But what I don’t see here, is the same level of criticism towards the *parents* of the transgressors.

PAUSD’s role is not and should not be a substitute for parenting. Those who expect PAUSD to be your parent extension (or your nanny) are conveniently letting the those with the highest responsibility off the hook.

I hope that Ken Dauber will run again for School Board. I am sorry now that I voted for Heidi and Melissa. At the time, I recall that there was a group that advocated just voting for Ken on the theory that it would make your vote count more. I didn’t like that at the time, but now I am very disappointed. I now think that if Dauber had won, there would at least be one voice on the board for transparency and one is better than none which is what we have now. Dear Mr. Dauber, please run again. I can understand if you don’t want to after what happened, but lots of people do win the second time. I had a sign, and donated, but not very much. I didn’t talk to my friends about you because some of my neighbors in Duveneck were for Camille. I am now so furious about all this that if you run again I will put 2 signs and I will go door to door. Maybe people will be more open-minded this time. I hope you are going to run.
Sincerely,
Nancy

Bob

I agree with you, the Weekly certainly has an agenda. There is some good information, but most of this reminds me of Fox News – one sided stories, talking over people, censoring the comments with opposing ideas etc. I enjoy this (and Fox) for entertainment value but it is hard to take much of this seriously.
I think most voters/parents are intelligent enough to understand what is going on. It is not good.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Paly’s less-than-positive reaction to students’ sexual assault claims came from the knowledge that, as of right now, schools can’t do much in the face of sexual violence. As anyone who’s been to college has learned, it is unbelievably difficult for schools to take any sort of punitive action against a student who allegedly committed rape or another sexual offense, because 1) the school itself has no legal authority, and 2) when a student reports sexual assault, it’s their argument against their assailant’s. Add that uncertainty to an already sue-happy community and what do you have? A silenced victim and a liberated rapist. And that’s not good for anyone.

Communities around the nation are reluctant to address the everpresent elephant in the room, the most easily addressible of the many factors promoting rape culture, and that is alcohol abuse. Both of the Paly incidents involved alcohol. Nearly every sexual assault case at my university in the last three years involved alcohol. This is not to say that alcohol creates rapists (a rapist’s a rapist, no matter how drunk, in my opinion), but it certainly creates environments where people are vulnerable and more likely to find themselves in dangerous situations. It also blurs the lines of consent, making it difficult for couples to know what is rape and what is not. Stopping alcohol abuse doesn’t start with schools. It starts with parents.

Kids are going to drink if they want to, and have sex if they want to. The only control parents have over this is how much they know about it. Talk to your kids about alcohol and alcohol abuse. Talk to them about consent, and how alcohol blurs the lines. Talk about behaviors that could be considered sexual assault, and talk to them about how to get out of situations they don’t want to be in. If your kids drink, lay out your expectations about their behavior, or even better, work together to come up with a set of expectations. Discipline them if they don’t follow them, and then support them to get back on the right track. If our community begins these kinds of conversations at home, then the effects will trickle back into the schools. The people I know who are in the most trouble in college are those with parents who, either out of fear and embarrassment or excessive leniency, stayed silent.

Mad – the rapes aren’t occurring at our high schools. They are occurring by and to our high school students, usually when intoxicated. The schools are not responsible. They are not providing the alcohol. The kids and their parents are. The girl in question decided to leave Paly as she was being shamed by other students. There is no way the school can prevent the kids from being mean. She made the right decision to change schools. It made her life easier. She also decline to press charges. There is nothing the school can do. Sure they can give classes telling kids it’s wrong to have sex when drunk, that no mean no, etc. Even Stanford hasn’t figured out how to stop students from committing rape.

Just the Facts – did you know that Michele Dauber is, by her report in a town square forum in February 2013, a close friend of Russlyn Ali “The 2010 letter (from my dear friend Russlynn Ali, the Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights and head of OCR at the time)”. Hmm, makes you wonder why the OCR is so involved in Palo Alto… She stepped down from her position for unknown reasons and now is at West Ed… where Ken Dauber is a consultant….Connect the ….

Anybody notice that Robert Kennedy was John Kennedy’s brother? And that he was also the Attorney General? And that he prosecuted civil rights violators in the South? And that Kennedy (the Robert one, not the John one) wrote an article called “Suppose God Is Black?” (look it up, it’s on the Internets!)
Oops, sorry — wrong conspiracy theory. Somehow I got them mixed up…

@Edmund
“Three times is an enemy action.”

This is too long and involved for me to get fully up to speed about, I don’t know the people, but anyone could say that if you are a girl who is attacked, then you should file a police report. I imagine it is difficult months later to try to know what happened, it hasn’t been documented, and there will be he said/she said. This happens all over, not just at PALY, c’mon folks, so I disagree with the laser focus on PALY; it isn’t good, but individual persons involved and their parents are the ones who should handle personal relationships, drinking choices, and regrettably, sometimes the police are needed if underage/non-consenting sexual activity has occurred.
I also disagree that the school (any school) can police off campus parties and social media activity.
Social media is a real poison and at a minimum a distraction to teens; I would minimize tech use on campus if possible.
The school needs to focus on what happens in school and to be work to make the on-campus atmosphere appropriate for learning in a safe and supportive environment. I do think sports teams are part of school so fall in that venue of oversight.
Student journalists are trying for ever more cutting-edge angles to attact attention to gain admissions to “top” colleges – this is one trend I have personally seen (and I do not mean only at PALY).

THERE IS NO RAPE CULTURE AT PALY!! Just cause a couple of students wrote something outrageous to get themselves accecpted into Journalism school doesn’t make it so. The culture my girls talk about at Paly is one in which girls use alcohol purposefully to excuse their promiscuity.

Re: Edmund Burke

I always find it fascinating when someone refers to themselves in the third person. But even Bob Dole didn’t refer to himself as “Senator Bob Dole”…

“Posted by Almost done with PAUSD, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, 12 hours ago

Mr. Winston resigned from his position as principal because of his health, nothing else. He had a very serious health scare at the end of the school year and decided he needed to protect his health and have a more of a family life by going back to a less demanding position than that of principal for a high school with 2000 students. There is nothing else to it.”

False. Ask any Paly teacher or employee for the truth.

@ false

What tells you that I am not a Paly teacher or employee?
Are you one?

To Almost Done: if you were a Paly High employee, you would know the truth.

Obviously, by your “he resigned for health reasons” comment, you didn’t work at Paly High.

If you did, you’d know.

Fred –

I’ve worked on the technical side of the computer business since the ’70s, working mostly in networking, OS, and telco.

When I tell my son to be careful using social networks, he hears, “blah blah blah” and tells me, “…you’re only saying that because you think you know so much about it.”

His data point is correct. But as a rationalization for fighting me and doing what he wants anyway, he is not using sound reasoning.

He’s finding reasons to discount the message he’s hearing in order to squirm away and do whatever seems convenient or desirable to him. He’d be better off trying to understand the value in what I’m saying.

Excessive attention may seem unfair, but it’s only one of the consequences of our school district’s current weaknesses. If the district leadership were less self-righteous, it could keep its delegation of responsibility to the sites and also be done with this whole thing.

Is it a success if the district squirms away from providing better support for those of its students who need it? Even if it did have some sort of legal grounds for doing so?

“Edmund Burke” = Bill Abrams, attorney

Phil Winston had a very positive impact at Paly, re-invigorating a climate of caring about the well being and success of all students. That climate had gone downhill prior to Phil’s arrival, to the detriment of many students. Both of our kids, and the student body as a whole, really appreciated him personally and his impact on the school culture. He had a significant positive impact on them during those important years.
We have spoken to many teachers since Phil took over. While we all have our strengths and weaknesses, most teachers who we have spoken with appreciated him. In particular, those who seemed to have a “students first” rather than a “teacher centric” outlook were most supportive of him.
We wish Phil well in the next few years. Students will be fortunate to have such a caring teacher. We expect that, as his own young children grow older, he will return to administration and be an even more effective leader.

It’s pitiful to see you all spinning out theories of how a Stanford Law professor might have a friend in the government legal office that might have somehow caused someone to take a look at PAUSD. The Secretary of Education is not a school principal. You can’t just pick up the phone and be like, hey we’re friends, can you make up some shite about PAUSD?

You guys are hilarious, out on the prowl with your conspiracy theories. This isn’t Mississippi, Dauber isn’t Medgar Evers, and you aren’t the Klan. Stop acting like it.

Can you not understand that families filed complaints with OCR? OCR investigates complaints from families in your schools in your neighborhoods who are being injured by illegal behavior.

You know how to have less attention from the feds? Screw up less. Follow the law. Hurt fewer students. Ensure that every child is treated with equal dignity regardless of race, sex, or disability.

I don’t see the problem. Sounds like she was defending her admin. Nothing wrong with that. And why do you keep putting “dear friend” in quotes like it’s some kind of indictment? Why are you Google stalking this person? You are obsessed with this woman. If I was here I would hire security you sound deranged.

I’m not really following this. Here is what we have going on:
– Dana Tom and Barb Mitchell, president and vp of the school board, lied to the public about the agenda for a closed meeting
– Barb Mitchell wrote a memo that can charitably be described as “nutty” that secretly advances the theory that PAUSD should defy federal authority over civil rights law. When confronted about it, she asked for the memo back rather than explain herself.
– Paly teachers and staff, and district staff, published a student piece about “rape culture” at Paly including descriptions of sexual harassment directed at students, and somehow didn’t understand that they had any obligation to find out what was going on.
– Toss in half a dozen OCR complaints, including a finding of violation of federal rights laws,
– And a district attorney, Laurie Reynolds of Fagen, Friedman and Fulfrost, who made false and misleading statements to the public (though probably not to the school board, who on the evidence of the last couple of days was probably in on it).
So we have lying school board members, asleep at the switch district staff, violations of civil rights, and prevaricating lawyers.
Any of that stimulate any outrage for you? No? Here’s a couple of random facts for you:
Dana Tom’s next door neighbor is Charlie Munger, who gave $70 million in the last election to causes that fit hand-in-glove with Barb Mitchell’s semi-secret Tea Party proclivities.
Barb Mitchell’s old school chum is Joe Simitian, who also endorsed her for school board.
Could Dana be doing Charlie Munger’s bidding in return for some of Munger’s change from behind his sofa cushions, or perhaps for free use of the Munger gardener? Could Joe Simitian also be a secret Tea Party wingnut?
In both cases — almost certainly not. But it’s a treat to speculate!
Why do criminals rob banks? Because that’s where the money is. Why is OCR investigating Palo Alto? Because that’s where the violations are. If our elected leaders don’t clean up their act, I suspect they will look fondly back to the time when the only investigations were of civil rights violations.

Paly mom: seriously? A random person? Don’t you realize that if every school district had a random person like this, the OCR would be overwhelmed with complaints. I’m not saying that is a bad thing, but I am saying I don’t trust the random person’s motivations.