New civil-rights complaints filed against Palo Alto district

We already know that at least one of these complaints concerns Duveneck because Chris Grierson sent an email to the entire Duveneck parent community denying that the school did anything wrong. To quote Mike Birbiglia, what he should have said was nothing. But instead what he said was that OCR is merely responding to “”…a national rally cry on the issue of bullying.”

OCR does not investigate national rallying cries. It investigates individual complaints of discrimination. In this case, Grierson has called the family in question liars for filing a complaint that he says is spurious. That is an ill-advised thing to have done since (1) people know who the family is and that is further bullying and stigmatizing them. A more appropriate statement would have been “A complaint has been received. We take all complaints of this nature very seriously and we will work cooperatively with OCR and the family to see that it is resolved correctly. (2) He’s probably wrong. PAUSD has no proper or effective policy in place. We have already been caught out several times on this. There is too much smoke for there to be no fire. Is Grierson that sure that he hasn’t made any mistakes at all, not even procedural mistakes? Has the family complained in writing? If so, why wasn’t the complaint logged as a UCP complaint. Ooops. Mistake number 1. I guess it’s not just a “rallying cry.” Maybe you should do the taxpayers of this district a favor and stop issuing statements so that we aren’t sued.

The facts of this case aren’t likely to paint Skelly/Young et al in any better light than the facts of the last two.

When will Kevin Skelly and his team be replaced? How many lawsuits and complaints are we doing to have to settle before this board does what it has to do?

Without details .. there is nothing to do but engage in idle speculation. At least the public was notified about the pending/on-goinng OCR action this time.

Best to wait until these matters are resolved, and then discuss the public details/resolutions that are publicly available at that time.

> The District didn’t notify the public ..

The Board of Trustees is the oversight mechanism for the public.

As the article states —

Superintendent Kevin Skelly said the district received letters
from the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) last Wednesday
and he immediately informed school board members.
—

Of course, exactly how the Superintendent notified the BoT is not in this article.

Until these matters are resolved by the OCR–all we are going to get is rumor, hearsay, and a lot of vitriol towards the District.

The District is being investigated for possible violations of CIVIL RIGHTS of two of its students. If proven true, then these students have been denied their civil right to a public education.

In the case already resolved, there was a pattern of inattention to complaints and concerns about a disabled student, which created a hostile environment for that child to learn.

People, this is NOT bullying. It’s a civil rights violation by the District.

Sandra Pearson for interim superintedent. Leaadership. Trust. Experience.

It’s definitely time to change leadership. The Board has been totally spineless. It’s time to end this crap. It’s hard to find a more dysfunctional organization than PAUSD. We’re in a hole and we continue to dig.

@Bob:
You are correct that the Board is the oversight mechanism for the public. However, not everything told to the Board is shared with the public (as is appropriate). Thus, the Board is not the same as the public.

sted by j99, a resident of the Barron Park neighborhood, 38 minutes ago

With the City Council’s obsession with “affordable housingi” and equal rights for illegal aliens it has become a terrible place to live. Go walk around Saratoga and Los Gatos and see how normal people live. Recall all left wing City Council members.

Jack^$$99. So you are saying that normal people dont live where there are any minorities around. Why not move to nazzi germany.

The school board is clearly NOT the representatives of the public. They act like Skelly’s subordinates.

Maybe the Board of the PAUSD, or better yet the city council should do an intervention, and simply show Skelly the exit door; put in a place an interim PAUSD director who is not currently on staff; and let’s move forward now. Why wait for another filed complaint, and which one of these complaints if not satisfactorily resolved for the complainant will lead to a civil lawsuit? Stop this now.

Will we ever hear the simple truth about what happened at Duveneck and why some family has filed a complaint? There are a lot of vague innuendos flying around and it is very difficult to judge whether there is a real problem or not.

As a Duveneck parent with special needs kids, I have worked with Chris Grierson and his predecessors to address issues with my children. Chris has been willing to engage, offer school resources and make practical changes in the classroom. Our school has had 4 principals in 8 years. Short of egregious behavior (which I haven’t seen personally) we need to keep our principal. Stability is very important in the lives of children. If we had a change of principal, next year’s 5th graders would have their 4th principal in 6 years.

The site counsel members and PTA leadership tend to be the worst possible choices. Nevertheless, they are elected by the parents. The bad apples stand prominently versus the many kind parents who happily avoid center stage.

My kids are happy there. They are very fond of Chris Grierson. They have their heart in the right place. I have seen them stand up for other kids. I have personally dealt with bullying. It is exceedingly difficult.

We need to rally around and support the family. A witch hunt will not help anyone. We need to choose to be part of the solution. As a member of the Duveneck family, I am willing to lend a hand to any parent who is struggling. There are many more like me.

I will add to the rumor mill.

It appears that when a special needs student case is particularly difficult, and teachers (or site admins) cannot properly attend to the student and family needs, teachers in particular can refuse to handle the situation, which makes sense because it’s hard for them to pay attention to one student, over the rest of the class.

The public OCR cases have demonstrated the district offers no real support systems for these students, except to leave the pressure on the specific sites. Pressure, no support, child gets hurt. Multiply this by all the various sites and grade levels. It seems chaotic. This likely has been happening all the time, we just never heard about the plight of these families.

About the only support Chris Grierson may get from the district is the newly hired district PR person, once the ….has hit the fan. But any chance the district could have better management?

New ways to support students with special needs, other than PR?

Floyd: You ask a number of important questions. I will answer them one at a time.

The first OCR case mentioned in the story was the case of a disabled middle school girl who was severely bullied, including physically, socially, verbally and emotionally on the basis of her disability. She was taunted, teased, excluded, hazed, punched, kicked, and pushed. She was physically injured in one bullying episode so severe that that the police were called and a doctor visit was required. She was called “retarded” and stupid and other similar names. The family complained repeatedly for years, which only got them labeled and seen as troublemakers. They complained up the chain in the district and were repeatedly shooed back to the school to “work things out” and “trust” the school. The school board president Dana Tom, the Superintendent, and the District Compliance Officer Charles Young all failed to treat this as a discrimination complaint even though the family at one point warned the district that it was considering going to OCR prior to filing the complaint because they felt that they had no choice.

Once the complaint was filed, the district did not appear to take it very seriously. It appears that the district was overconfident that there was nothing to the claim. The Assistant Principal was not truthful with investigators. The Principal told the investigators that her staff did not need any disability discrimination training because they were “very sophisticated,” and not much information was given to the board. The district did not engage in any form of early resolution, apparently due to the fact that it was confident that there would be a finding against the family. When the finding came, district leadership did not inform the board or the public and tried its best to get through compliance with the resolution agreement without having to admit what had happened.

Charles Young’s email informing the board of the finding was quite revealing because he said that word had come of the finding and that the staff was sure to be disappointed. He expressed no remorse for the pain endured by the child or the family, nor any need to make things right with them or to reform the district’s policies. A reasonable question can and should be raised about whether Charles Young has performed competently as the district Compliance Officer.

There were 2 cases before — with these two the district now stands at 4 complaints in the past year. The second case involved disability discrimination as well, but in the provision of a 504 plan and in the procedures for considering 504 plans rather than in the disability harassment context.

Both cases are tied together by the failure to have proper complaint procedures. Both kinds of discrimination (hostile environment and denial of FAPE) are supposed to be handled under the Uniform Complaint Procedure, mandated by California law. Discrimination complaints, when they are in writing, cannot be handled merely at the site level and informally. They must be placed into a formal complaint procedure that has procedural protections for the victim and family. This procedure is not optional. The district treats it as optional at best.

In answer to your third question: The district waited for a judgment (called a finding of noncompliance) in the first case but not the second. As I said above, it appears that the district was overconfident that no one would believe the family of the bullied child. In PAUSD the pattern is to isolate and stigmatize those who complain. The Duveneck principal’s email, which was obviously written by the district’s lawyer, is an effort to do this to the Duveneck family, and not a very subtle one.

First, by revealing the school the family feels it will be revealed at least within the school community, further cutting the family off from support and friendship. Then, by revealing the type of discrimination (bullying) more information is revealed to threaten the complainat’s sense of privacy and security. Then, by claiming that the school is doing all it can and that the OCR is motivated by something other than a fair and impartial investigation, the principal implies that the family is not to be believed. It is hard to understand what he plans to cover in his “coffee” about this topic. But the entire effect is to isolate, stigmatize, and delegtimate the family’s complaint.

Your fourth question is whether this is fixed. No, the systemic issues identified by OCR have not been “fixed” . The district’s effort to hold on to its “site based” policy has led it to construct a new series of conflicting and incomrehensible policies and regulations that do not satisfy the law. The district has committed itself to use the UCP, which is the law. The district is still not doing this and OCR will most likely not approve the district’s effort to handle written complaints of discrimination at the site level on an informal basis. Moreover, the policies are an incoherent mess that even a lawyer cannot read or understand. The district is currently still engaged in digging the hole. It appears that it will be some time before they start to try to fill it in.

In part, the fact that the problems are not yet “fixed” is evidenced by the fact that complaints continue to roll in. If the district was behaving like a rational actor it would have ensured a district level review of every bullying situation in the hopper when the first claim came to light and would have worked night and day to ensure that none of those complaints was handled according to any procedure other than the UCP, and that each was resolved to the satisfaction of the family. Instead, they just carried on as normal with no UCP, no oversight, and no resolutions thus allowing more claims to be filed. And because the practices were not reformed, each of these claims is likely to be valid for the same reasons that the other claim was valid.

Your final question about Dr. Skelly is that the board praised his apology for the first and second cases and for not telling them about those cases. Many people might ask whether Dr. Skelly should have been dismissed for breach of his contract for not informing the board about the finding of noncompliance and the Resolution Agreement. Many people might ask whether that shows that he committed malfeasance and is in dereliction of his duty. The board did not think so.

Now there are more claims. As noted above, a very reasonable question is why when the first claims were lost and the district was informed that it had a serious systemic problem by the federal government it did not launch a full investigation into what happened, who made the errors, what the errors were, what cases were in the system but were not being handled correctly, and how to get those cases on track before they matured into more claims. Ken Dauber, Andrea Wolf, Patricia Davis, Kathy Sharp, Wynn Hausser, Amy Balsom, and many other citizens and parents called for just such and investigation at the time.

Had they been listened to, these complaints would likely not have been filed. Now matters are worse.

Now is the time for that investigation. Just from a litigation avoidance perspective the district is in a needless mess and headed for worse. If district’s counsel is approving this course of events (and leaked documents suggests that they are) then a reasonable question has been raised about whether the district is being well-served by its current lawyer, Laurie Reynolds of Friedman, Fagan, and Fulfrost.

Thank you, Mr. Edmund Burke,for an informed and reasoned analysis.

@Edmund Burke,
Instead of hiring a PR person, the district would have done well to listen to the Last Lecture of Professor Randy Pausch:

“Proper apologies have three parts:
1) What I did was wrong.
2) I’m sorry that I hurt you.
3) How do I make it better?
It’s the third part that people tend to forget…. Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself.”

(Did our superintendent remember #1 or #2 either? I can’t even remember, it didn’t come across as sincere and about the families who had been wronged.)

@Le plus

I read your post with interest. I believe that if you file your claim you will receive the help you are seeking and I hope that you do what you believe is necessary to obtain necessary services. It should not be necessary however that is the course that has been elected by district leadership as you clearly have set forth. Many people are quite fearful of retaliation but in my experience retaliation is less likely once there are external authorities monitoring the situation rather than more likely. Filing a complaint should bring relief because the district should wish to avoid more negative publicity associated with more investigations, more findings, and more Resolution Agreements.

You are correct that Dr. Skelly and his senior leadership have not apologized for failing to have proper procedures or for harming the child and have not made amends in a sincere way. His apology was to the Board for not informing them about the Resolution Agreement.

That was the offense for which reasonable questions can be raised about whether it was misconduct and dereliction to fail to inform them. Many people might have the opinion that it was dereliction of his duty and a breach of his contract that would have allowed the district to dismiss him without financial penalty. That ship has now sailed as the board accepted his “apology.”

There is much to be desired in every part of these situation(s). However, the most important thing to note is that all that has transpired since December 26, 2012 was optional. Any competent chief executive when told that his company has been found liable for, for example, selling a defective product, would immediately order a halt to all production and distribution of that product and an immediate investigation into how many pieces are on the market, where they are, what complaints have been received, what settlements are possible. Even the Catholic Church did as much.

PAUSD seems to have done nothing but just carried on in its decentralized business as usual, just waiting to be blindsided by complaint after complaint. It is very puzzling indeed.

@jodie

I am so sad for you and your child – this is my experience

My child goes to a Palo Alto elementary school

My Child does not have a learning disability

My Child has not been teased, picked on, made fun of

My Child tells me some of the kids with special needs are not treated well

My Child told his teacher about an incident on the playground where a special needs child was treated poorly

My Child was told he/she did not see what he/she said she saw. My child was told he/she must have misunderstood.

I spoke to the principal about the environment on the playground and I was treated as if I were 3 years old

The school has never done no more then ask the kids to please be nice. Some kids are very mean.

PAUSD is toxic on this issue

i can’t help wonder if the OCR is picking on PAUSD at this point. Parents, based on the past 6 months, are taking advantage of the situation.

Parents need to start being parents and stop blaming the schools.

@ I wonder….

…you’re kidding, right? Or ….. I wonder…. are you the new PR Director?

Totally agree with I Wonder.

The link I posted to the Merc: http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_23040067/audrie-pott-case-saratoga-highs-handling-student-suicide

explains that the parents are filing a claim against the district because the incident and the photographs that the boys took constituted bullying. She left notes and information that she took her life because she was panicked about the photos and her feeling that “the whole school knew.” One of the things the boys did was write degrading messages on her naked body and then photograph them (allegedly). This was sex-based bullying, in addition to sexual assault. It is both.

As in the PAUSD cases, the principal denied any responsibility prior to the investigation. Both district’s have the same lawyer. Not a coincidence?

“Le plus ca change” wrote:

“Instead of hiring a PR person, the district would have done well to listen to the Last Lecture of Professor Randy Pausch:

“Proper apologies have three parts:

“1) What I did was wrong.

“2) I’m sorry that I hurt you.

“3) How do I make it better?

“It’s the third part that people tend to forget…. Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself.””

Unfortunately today’s legal system usually doesn’t allow Management (school principals, superintendents, etc.) to sincerely apologize for anything, as suggested above, until after there is a legal settlement. A sincere apology could be interpreted as an admission of guilt and increase liability. It is too bad. I’m sure in some cases a sincere apology would avoid the need for a legal settlement.

I do see a possible pattern emerging from these recent incidents as well as other complaints I have heard, including those posted on these forums. It appears that the majority of situations involve students with some kind of special needs: learning disability or disorder, other disabilities, or otherwise on an IEP. It is curious that PAUSD was once known as a magnet district for students with disabilities, attracting students from other districts. Now, everything seems driven exclusively by SAT and AP scores. It is also curious that so many parents who presumably scored off the charts on their own SATs, don’t accept that 50% of students are below average. They should realize that the student with a disability could be their own.

@ I wonder,

This is exactly why the district is in this mess. Certain persons in power start from a place, just as you have, of knowing NOTHING about the facts in a given situation, but charging forward in bad faith nevertheless, assuming disrespectful things about parents when they have no idea (just as you have).

For your information, when I say “district” I mean district level, not school level. In our situation, many of the school personnel (with a few exceptions) have been great and seemingly walking a fine line with district administrators. District administrators, not parents, hire and show principals and teachers the door after 2 years if they don’t want them tenured. We lost some great people along the way who were well-loved and supported by the school community, but didn’t fall in line well enough with district administrators.

Dr. Skelly and his assistants, with perks, make more than twice the California governor’s salary each. Well more than twice. Complying with such laws is a pretty basic part of a superintendent’s job. He’s hired to serve the families of this district — who pay his exorbitant salary through their taxes — lucky for them that they pay for the privilege of spending their time in conflict with the dismissive administrators rather than just sending their kids to school. Or do you think we should never expect any level of performance from people at the top?

The fix is in. Kevin Skelly and Charles Young are not going anywhere because they don’t have to. There is no accountability from the board because the message they receive from Skelly is that these postings are the only negative reviews. Didn’t the recent survey show that almost all parents are satisfied with him?

The site-based policy of Dr. Skelly should be ground enough for his dismissal, not that there aren’t plenty of other reasons to get rid of him. It allows bad and ineffective school principles to screw up while the district turns its back on civil rights violations, supposedly for the sake of more school autonomy. It’s analogous to the police department allowing residents of different neighborhoods to determine the driving rules in their neighborhoods for the sake of neighborhood autonomy. In Barron Park there’ is no need to obey stop signs. etc.

Out of the mouths of babes. My Duveneck kid asked, “Aren’t some of those people online being bullies to Mr. Grierson?” Could we kindly bifurcate the discussion of the district versus our school. After reading Edmund Burke’s enlightening comments, Dr. Skelly should be taken to task and perhaps shown the door.

I read Chris Grierson’s email to parents. I was happy to get a heads up. I am glad this family is speaking out and I completely support them. I support our principal. I hope that everyone can get off the litigious band wagon and support these kids and our school. I have walked a mile in these shoes. I have a 2 special needs kids. Despite the best efforts of their kinder teacher, only one kid would play with my kid. Everyone else shunned her. When I asked a parent to have a play date with my child, she told me that her daughter had no interest in having a play date with mine.

I have one word. Parents. They can be a major part of the problem. They can be a major part of the solution. Choose people!

Your elementary school child is reading Palo Alto Online? Do we really have to go there?

Agree that the problem is Dr. Skelly and that Chris, who used to teach at Hayes (where we live) and has a reputation for being supportive, might not be fully responsible.

No I do not discuss paloaltoonline postings with my elementary school child. For one thing, I doubt they would care. Civil rights? OCR? But for another, the discussion is not age-appropriate. I might ask them if they think there is bullying at school and what do the teachers do, but that’s not the same as showing them paloaltoonline and then having a discussion on whether or not the anonymous parents are being fair to Chris. I call BS on that.

Sometimes it is so sad to read these boards because it makes me realize how out of touch Palo Alto parents are with the real world.

@jewel At least in the 2 OCR cases we know about the complaints followed long unsuccessful efforts by parents to work with the district. What should they have done next? Give up? If anyone is to blame for these complaints it is district employees not doing their jobs properly.

When restaurants get health inspections, it’s usually after a complaint from the public. One of two things then typically happens: 1) the restaurant is a good place to go because they’ve just been inspected and have cleaned up any problems, or 2) the restaurant is a bad place to go because they have just been inspected and they figure they can relax because the inspectors won’t be back.

Unfortunately, district administration seems to have been doing the equivalent of the latter, at least in our situation. Don’t expect the complaints to stop until the motivations of people in charge and their attitude toward families changes — how do you do that without a change of personnel? I keep hoping it won’t be necessary, but they just make things worse for everyone else and themselves.

Upon receipt of the first OCR case report, the only reasonable response was to audit the current situation with respect to bullying and discrimination complaints at every site, and to immediately ensure that every case was handled by the book and in accordance with state and federal law.

From a practical perspective this means opening up not digging in. Dr. Skelly should have ordered a review of every case at the superintendent level, should have met with each family, should have offered them whatever it took from a resource perspective to settle their claims without a federal investigation, and should have ensured that every family felt that he was personally invested in ensuring that their child received the services necessary to succeed.

None of that happened. That is a failure by district counsel to conduct the audit. District counsel has a probable conflict of interest in conducting such an audit as district counsel seems to have been advising the district on these cases, and on its policies and therefore seems to have been in charge of digging the hole.

An independent, impartial investigation is required. It should have already happened. These new complaints should never have been filed and a competent team would have either headed them off or would have ensured that they were handled in such a way that they would be groundless. Unfortunately they are very likely to be found to be valid because the same flaws in the PAUSD site-based process that were present in the first 2 cases are also present still to this day.

Up to the present moment in time, PAUSD still does not have a handbook or policy prohibiting harassment based on disability. That has not yet been amended.

Up to the present moment in time, PAUSD still does not use the UCP for handling discrimination complaints, including those of bullying and harassment as required by both state law and the Resolution Agreement.

PAUSD is in violation of state law, in violation of federal law, and in violation of its own Resolution Agreement in OCR case #1.

We must stop digging the hole. In order to do that we need to have a speedy impartial public transparent and independent audit, and we need to make personnel adjustments as needed given the results of that audit.

This problem will not fix itself. OCR will not fix it for us. Only the school board can fix it and the school board seems to have abdicated its responsibility in this matter.

In response to anonymous, this matter is governed by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Here is a link to some information about it: https://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html

There is a separate FERPA compliance office within DOE. If you feel your FERPA rights have been violated you can file a complaint. They have a helpline you can call for information or to ask questions as well: 1-800-USA-LEARN (1-800-872-5327)
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/index.html

There may also be state privacy laws that are violated. However, without more information about your concern it is impossible to tell whether or not FERPA or another law may have been violated. It appears to me that the Superintendent in particular is quite loose in his observation of FERPA and often makes statements about individuals or divulges information that I consider to be close to a FERPA violation. For example a few years ago during the A-G debate he created a slide for the school board giving the SAT scores of black students in one graduating co-hort that I think could have rendered them individually identifiable with very little effort. There have been other such incidents as well.

FERPA appears to be implicated in the cystic fibrosis case, and in some of the district communications about bullying. It appears to be another area of weakness for PAUSD vis a vis federal law.

It is highly irresponsible (and nonsense) for a law professor writing under an assumed name – aka Edmund Burke – to assert the district is violating state and federal law.

Fascinating – one can be “disappeared” on this Forum. How often does that happen?

As regards PA Dad – there was no finding of violation of Federal Civil Rights law. If there was, there would be consequences from the Feds. These “Dear Colleague” letters are nothing but “dicta” – instructions/commentary that do not have the force of law.

BTW – did you happen to hear the NPR story about state government over-reach on this issue (states involved in that were NJ and IN). This is a widespread debate/morass/controversy.

Paly Parent would like to turn the discussion to anything other than PAUSD’s noncompliance with federal and state law. However, Paly Parent has a rough row to hoe, since OCR made a specific finding of noncompliance against the district. OCR found that the district violated federal law by failing to protect a disabled child from disability-based harassment. This harassment deprived that child of her right to an education. You can read the federal report here:

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/media/reports/1361818413.pdf

In the Resolution Agreement, the district agreed to implement the Uniform Complaint Procedure. That procedure is mandated by state law to be used for cases of discrimination, including discriminatory bullying (Seth’s law). The fact that the district does not use the UCP for written discrimination complaints does violate state law. And it violates the Resolution Agreement, paragraph III.A.4 See: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/media/reports/1361818478.pdf

Paly Parent does not want to talk about those facts or the fact that now two additional complaints have been filed. Paly parent does not want to talk about the fact that the district has had every opportunity to amend its policies in the year since the district was notified that it was found noncompliant (April 2012) in the first OCR case, and in the four months since the report and resolution agreement were issued. Paly Parent does not want to talk about the fact that PAUSD’s UCP still does not to this day apply to disability discrimination. See: http://pausd.org/community/board/Policies/downloads/BP1312.3_Uniform_Complaint_Procedures.pdf

That would have been a one-word amendment to bring it into line with state law but that has not been done. Thus, the district still has no correct complaint procedure covering disability harassment or other disability discrimination. Now another OCR complaint has been filed and that family will be able to correctly contend that PAUSD has no complaint procedure for disability discrimination. Because it does not.

Paly Parent would prefer that no one explain the law to the community other than Laurie Reynolds, who is being paid by the district and who has not been truthful and who called the public’s search for truth “tiresome.”

I have in the past urged PAUSD residents to speak up against discrimination in all its forms — whether it is bullying of female rape victims, or bullying of disabled children or other forms of discrimination. Palo Alto is facing a fork in the road. We can either continue on the road we are on and face lawsuits, complaints, PR spin, and endless litigation expense or we can choose to be a community that is open, honest, transparent, and takes responsibility for errors and also commits to fixing them. I advocate for the latter. Which kind of community does Paly Parent want?

I am re-posting my comment from a previous article on this subject.
I posted it Monday, April 15th at 10:25 pm on the previous posting regarding the letter written by the principal of Duveneck.

Yes, an outside impartial review of our school district’s management around these issues is essential. We now know that three schools have been investigated by the Office for Civil Rights. Are there more that we will hear about in the future? How can it be that a community with our resources, both financial and intellectual, is being run by a group of people that cannot even manage to comply with federal standards regarding the protection of a student’s civil rights?

It is a travesty that this is happening in Palo Alto. Nothing that the district’s soon to be employed “Communications Officer” can say will rectify this situation.

Perhaps now the School Board will do the right thing and put together a group of impartial community members to look into the district’s problems with compliance. I believe that Sandra Pearson, former Principal of Paly, would be an excellent choice to be on this investigative body.

I believe this community is faced with two central questions regarding our school district.
One, do we want a district that is “honest, transparent, and takes responsibility for errors and also commits to fixing them?”
Two, how much work are we (the many posters on this and other forums regarding the schools) willing to do to achieve this goal?

It is not enough to post your opinions on “Town Square.” People must also be willing to come to the board meetings and speak out about their concerns. At each board meeting since this story broke in February there have only been a few people who have consistently come, spoken in open forum, and told the board that they want an investigation and change. Unless more community members invest the time to appear before the board it will be easy for the district leaders and the board to reassure themselves that there are only a hundred or so people that are distressed enough to spend their time writing on an anonymous posting site. Standing in front of them and asking for an investigation or a dismissal is much more powerful.

Please take the time to come to next week’s board meeting, Tuesday, April 23rd at 6:30 pm and tell the school board what you are upset with and ask for change.

“show your support” is right. The school board trustees aren’t interested in knowing what is going on here, otherwise they would already be asking questions. Probably there is some egg on those faces, as one poster earlier said. A bunch of angry parents might convince them. Since PA parents don’t usually show up at board meetings though except for their own personal issues, Eileen and others will have to wait until the next election to get some change. If then, look at how reform did in the last election.

How does the Post know about the other complaint? Is the district announcing details? Seems like a privacy violation to me.

Yes, I am wondering too, why did they say the name of the schools in these cases, but not in the first complain? I believe that the district now does not want to keep any secrets, may be they have learned the lesson. But they should had kept the names of the school’s private, but no, they clearly say Jordan, and Duveneck. With this information, it will be very easy to find out who the parents are, specially if your work in the school, or if you have children who attend those school.

You are right Racial Profiling,
In today’s Daily Post, they even give more information about the cases. i am sure they got it from the district. There is no other way. They even say what the race case is about. Yes, you are right, they might be still discriminating. The principal’s letter is so bad. She is bullying the family with it too, unbeliaveable. At least Palo Alto On line did not give all this information out to the public. I am wonder if they did not give it, because they did not have it or because they have better ethics. I hope is the last one. This is what makes Palo Alto Weekly the number one paper in Palo Alto

“”This is what makes Palo Alto Weekly the number one paper in Palo Alto”
Actually the Post is. The Weekly only survives with subsidies.

@Racial Profiling

This case raises two issues. The first is the question of racial profiling and there the key issue is whether the school officials had what is known as “reasonable suspicion” that the child in question may have contraband or evidence of wrongdoing. Although in the school context the requirements of probable cause are relaxed, the Supreme Court recently restated that some individualized information of wrongdoing is required. There must be some “reliable knowledge” that there is “a moderate chance of finding evidence of wrongdoing.”

That knowledge has to be based on specific facts and information. It cannot be based on racial stereotyping because that is not “reliable knowledge” that would lead to any chance of finding anything. If the parents’ allegations to OCR in this case are that the substitute selected the student for a search for contraband based on nothing more than his or her race, then that is an allegation that, if proved true, would be unlawful. As in other contexts of racial profiling, there must be some specific, articulable, individualized basis for suspicion. There must be information such as “Johnny saw Susie with the cigarette.” It cannot merely be “someone had a cigarette and I figured it was probably the kids from East Palo Alto.”

This is likely the sort of racial bias claim that OCR would investigate because if true it would constitute racial discrimination in an educational program.

Beyond the claim of racial bias in the selection of the search target there are questions of civil rights that are implicated by the search itself. The Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures obtains in the school context, albeit in a relaxed form. What is “unreasonable” in a school context may differ from that of a non-school context. Nevertheless, students do have some rights to personal privacy and freedom from intrusive searches. The standard, as recently articulated by the Court is that “a school search “will be permissible in its scope when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the
nature of the infraction.” See Safford v. Redding (2009).

In Safford, the principal of a middle school had specific information that a student may have had some ibuprofen tablets, which were prohibited. In the course of searching a 13 year old female student for the tablets, the principal conducted a search of the student’s backpack and outer clothing, found nothing, and then sent the student to the nurse’s office where she removed her outer clothing and had to shake out her bra and underwear to show that there was no ibuprofen concealed in her clothing. This search, the Court held, violated the Fourth Amendment because it was overly intrusive in light of the nature of the infraction.

The court held that this constitued a “strip search” even though the child did not remove her undergarments, holding that this type of search of a 13 year old girl was so intrusive that the mere possibility of finding some ibuprofen tablets was simply not justified. This has been interpreted by most districts (as well it should be) as a straightforward ban on all searches beyond outer clothing. LAUnified, for example, has promulgated rules that are typical in this regard and permit searches on individualized suspicion only of pockets, purses, backpacks, and jackets. All searches that involve “removing or rearrange a student’s clothing in order to permit a visual inspection of the student’s underclothing, breasts, buttocks, or genitalia” are banned.

In sum, while the Constitution provides leeway to schools in order to preserve school safety, that leeway is not infinite. It is bounded by the protections in the Constitution. One of those protections is that of some quantum of reasonable, individualized suspicion that is based on some articulable facts rather than upon racial bias, stereotyping, or prejudice. The other protection is that even if a search is based on that kind of individual fact, the search itself must be conducted in a reasonable manner that is tied to the type of harm and calibrated to the age and sex of the child. Searches that involve the removal of outer clothing are always dubious and should be banned by policy where the search is not for weapons or dangerous instrumentalities.

Does PAUSD have appropriate search policies? Sort of. http://pausd.org/community/board/Policies/downloads/BP5145.12_SearchSeizure.pdf

The policy correctly requires individualized suspicion to conduct any search. However it does not give staff much guidance as to what may be searched once that individualized suspicion is present. “The types of student property that may be searched by school officials include, but are not limited to, lockers, desks, purses, backpacks, student vehicles parked on district property, cellular phones, or other electronic communication devices.”

The policy does not state that searches of persons are limited to outer clothing and does not state, as does the LAUSD policy that removing or rearranging outer clothing is prohibited. Thus, the current PAUSD policy prohibits strip search (but does not define it in light of the 2009 Supreme Court case that includes removal of outer clothing as a strip search).

We will not know the facts of the case until the investigation is concluded, if then.

However, it takes little imagination to believe that some PAUSD teachers may act on the basis of stereotypes. The State of California found as much in its disproportionality finding. Ginny Davis and Debra Lindo stated to the board that PAUSD teachers have assigned minority children to special education based on no more than stereotypes and low expectations. These kinds of implicit biases do influence judgments such as those about who may have taken something or committed some infraction.

I hope this helps you “Racial Profiling.”

“they don’t know how to care for children and their families.”
Yeah, the board are really in it for themselves…what?
They care far more about the children and families than anonymous post(er)s on these forums.

I’m a former Duvy now living in Los Altos and the idea of calling upon the Santa Clara County Board of Education for help with this situation is terribly naive and laughable. The county board is itself bumbling through its own dysfunction – being more the source of this kind of problem than any solution – bought and paid for by a “reform” movement started in Palo Alto by board president Grace Mah herself. Palo Alto schools and Santa Clara County public schools generally have long been exemplary, but the past ten years’ experiments with of high stakes testing, API scores, charter schools and a for-profit “education reform” industry have drawn the attention of parents, administrators and lawmakers away from the core principles of equity, free access and diversity. No wonder the students draw vicious attention to anyone who doesn’t fit the ideal. We won’t see the end of division and predation among students and communities until education leaders stop drawing lines of preference and privilege between. This is what the latest wave of “reform” has brought us. Let’s send it packing – and that includes the inciters like Grace Mah. Enough already.

Tomorrow is a national day of silence against bullying particularly of gay and lesbian youth. GLSEN is calling for students to take some form of silence in schools to protest school-based bullying which falls particularly hard on gay youth:

The National Day of Silence is a day of action in which students across the country vow to take a form of silence to call attention to the silencing effect of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools.

Here is more information: http://dayofsilence.org/resources/

As the parent of an LGBT young adult who experienced constant bullying in PAUSD for being gender nonconforming I hope that our schools will observe some solidarity with LGBT kids. With all the bullying issues in PAUSD finally (finally) coming to a head, perhaps people will recognize the impact on gay kids of bullying, and the fact that gay kids have the highest rates of suicidal thinking of any group. Groups like the boy scouts that discriminate, coaches like the one at Rutgers who call their players homophobic slurs as insults, elevating Prop 8 funders to the status of community heros for giving money for a gym — yes, we are watching that with sadness — all those things combine to make some kids feel that it is open season on gay youth.

I hope PAUSD will endorse the Day of Silence against bullying.

Yes well some of them like Charles Young should probably go to those places then because they aren’t competent in their current positions. This is a standard bullying tactic — no one is criticizing all PAUSD staff. But being well meaning is not enough. Being well-doing is the issue. Not everyone is doing a great job and the sooner we drop that pretense the better. And some people would do a better job if they worked in a better system with better policies.

wow, “anon,” I have to disagree with you. Some of didn’t have major issues (past parents, in my case) however were overlooked and on rare occasion of trying to contact a teacher or administrator, received weak response.(Incidentally, our students did not receive any special attention.) I do realize there are some bigtime parents who demand and somehow receive special attention or are overly-complaining, but don’t place all parents in that category. I did have the feeling that people coming from a powerful position in society (name, money, position) may have a more favorable opinion of their experience. We are not “nobody”s” but had that feeling at times in this district. Sorry to be blunt. And no, we are not “low achieving” as some parents like to categorize those who are not fully satisfied. I like to go along and get along.
THe teachers in this district, like all school districts, vary along an big spectrum in abilities, work ethic, knowledge, politeness…I guess we all have individual experiences owing to many factors and so it IS difficult to make blanket statements. STILL, there is district leadership and they should be professional, accountable people and some of us are dismayed at the spending of over 100K for a PR person – I believe this is an incorrect use of taxpayer money.
As a past parent, I have continued to follow district activities with some interest – because it IS interesting and we hope that the way youth are education and experience school can continue to be improved! This recent revelation of OCR complaints and/or lawsuits and such IS distressing and one would hope to avoid that.
While not having ANY personal knowledge, I have been greatly concerned about these reports of bullying and/or harrassment and think real steps should be taken to minimize that (some say it can’t be stopped entirely). The buck stops with district leadership.

I think that Duvy dad is probably right. While we don’t yet know the facts of this case, Chris Grierson has been well regarded as a teacher and principal.
The larger and systemic issue centers on a current missguideded credo of “site based autonomy”. It is hard to imagine any rational defense for applying this approach to legal obligations, such as compliance with state and federal civil rights mandates. Policies, programs training and oversight are the responsibility of the district administration. Public communication about a federal investigation should not be left to the discretion of the site principal.
Where appropriate, “site discretion” should apply to policies and programs that foster innovation and allow flexibility in methods of implementing common objectives. Oddly, we have “site autonomy” without a culture of innovation. The common thread here is simply a lack of real district leadership and poor leadership to the degree any exists.

The current PAUSD “site based autonomy” philosophy, along with a too narrow committment to academic achievement success at the expense of broader student well being, has been in place for several years now and we have been witnessing the steady deterioration of many aspects of our school system over that time. Fortunately, we have many very committed and capable teachers and school administrators along with greater financial resources than most school districts which have allowed us to maintain some exceptional aspects within our schools. In many ways, our staff and financial resources have often cloaked the missguided district vision and leadership shortcomings.
One revelation after another over the last few years has revealed what lies behind the curtain. These deficiencies have now become apparent to much of the community. Even those whose visceral respnse was to defend the district from negative exposure are steadily loosing faith.
Unfortunately, the school board has made it clear, publicly and privately, that they continue to support Skelly no matters how bad things have deteriorated. Unless they change that perspective, it may be too late to right the ship for years to come. This is a sad reality for our district that rightfully earned its exceptional reputation over many decades.

I meant to say “It is not our children’s fault they bullied others,” it is that the school does not take it seriously and teach them right there at the spot. if they did our students and parents will learn, and the school environment will be a better place for “all”Kids’ the normal, and the ones who do not look or sound so normal.

I wonder where our PTA leaders are on making sure our city’s children have their rights protected. I have heard only about Sigrid Pensky (sp?) criticizing parents and excusing the district. The PTA leaders used to advocate for students and parents. Now that seems to be other parents. Getting the PTA involved again would be a great step!

Thank you anonymous and do you care. You said our frustrations better than I could. I know 2 school board holders and I agree, nice but not big enough to stand up for parents and our kids.

Long time, I do wonder too about the PTA. They are awfully quiet. I have not seen them at the board demanding the school oficcials to do their job or else. All they do is come and give the big check that all our community gives, Skelly like always poses for the picture, pretend all is well, and off the go. I would love to know what PTA thinks about this issue. They are the ones who should be doing something about it right now, and not wait for later.

And people wonder why it is hard to find a parent interested to serve as PTA president.

@ long time Palo Alto

Pinsky is a long time Kelly fan.

Our PTA president doesn’t even read the paper and was “surprised” to learn of the first OCR — weeks and weeks after it hit the news. She’s a complete lightweight who is more interested in running PTA like a sorority…. and making sure her kids are first at everyone else’s expense. We had an outstanding PTA president last year and the year before – but those parents burned out trying to do the right thing and now their kids are in private school.

This third, forth complain clearly tells that our schools and their administrators need to improve, and someone needs to make sure that our students are treated fairly. How much longer are we going to wait for the superintendent to really earn the money he get paid for. Are we too intimidated, like the school board, to let him go and try someone else. He was bad since the beginning when he said that Latinos, and African Americans, could not achieve like Asians or other white kids. He keeps making mistake, after mistake. Does any one have any idea how many cases has he set out of court and how much money has been spent to settle out of court since he came to our district? Can we get that information? I am sure there is more skeletons in the PAUSD closet, and it is time to get them out.

“His claim that he didn’t reveal the news of the OCR findings because he was “embarrassed” is beyond belief!”

That’s because he never said that. Ken just claimed he did in his opinion piece.

PTAC is pointless. In a district where everything is site based what is the purpose of a PTA council that is district-wide? Here’s my 2 cents: PAUSD is undergoing a crisis. We have a bunch of civil rights violations based on race and disability and sex. Yet our district-wide PTAC leaders haven’t said one word to support parents and kids. Youth well-being should be at the top of the list. Bullying prevention is great. What do you do when prevention didn’t work? Why is the PTAC leader defending the district? Why is she saying to Jay Thorwaldson that the district “has gone above and beyond”? How does she know that? Is she the new PR officer. I am disgusted. You can bet we won’t be giving to PIE this year.

Sometimes you have to use your money to make a point. The PIE board is one of the most powerful organizations in PAUSD — probably more than the school board. If the PIE board told the school board that it had lost confidence in Kevin Skelly and Charles Young they would be on the next bus out of town. So PIE board, step up and defend the rights of disabled children. Stop handing over 5 million dollar checks to incompetent leadership that squanders it on PR officers. Then we will be glad to give you money. I personally pledge $5K to PIE if the entire PIE board will sign a statement calling for an independent investigation into the OCR complaints and disability-based bullying and objecting publicly to the hiring of a $150K PR officer. $150K would pay for a lot of therapy for the victims of disability-based bullying.

I have to agree with Observer and Jordan mom. I can’t support the PR officer or the legal fees.

@Jordan mom of 3 and Observer: Couldn’t agree with both of you more!

Jordan mom: It is commendable that you would like to personally donate 5K of funds that would have gone to help our kids to try to get some answers.

“I personally pledge $5K to PiE if the entire PiE board will sign a statement calling for an independent investigation into the OCR complaints and disability-based bullying and objecting publicly to the hiring of a $150K PR officer. $150K would pay for a lot of therapy for the victims of disability-based bullying.”

I will be giving my former PiE pledges to the candidates who will be stepping up to the plate in the next election. I would like to see the board and PTA demand an independent investigation; however, I don’t think that is something that will become a reality anytime soon. I would hate to lose my big bucks trying to affect a change through an independent investigation. I have a feeling that the board as well as the PTA folks would just shrug their shoulders and say “oh well”if a bunch of awful revelations came up. That has been the business as usual with Skelly calling the shots. I am so disgusted with the whole ball of wax. Methinks the Voodoo Lilly that is PAUSD is already producing odors of rotting flesh.

The only way we are going to change things is with a whole new slate of candidates and new leadership at the top (Skelly etc.). I don’t trust any of the current board or administrators to give our children what they deserve which is better (WAY BETTER!). I am beginning to think that those WCDBPA people have been on to the truth for some time now. I wish I had listened to them more carefully when they first started to bring up so many of the recent revelations. We would not be in the pickle we are in now had more people known that they were right all along.

We can make a choice to move forward with “truth, honesty, and the American Way” any time. There is no time like the present! Or, we can do nothing and risk more outrageous actions from Skelly on down. How many more “Skellytons in the Closet” will we have to endure???????

@Thankful Parent

This sounds like a great idea! I would hope that others who read these postings would contribute some ideas as to how we can get a movement started here.

That gentleman, Edmund Burke, who has been adding so many facts to these threads could be our advisor (or at least a committee member) if he would be willing. I think I may have seen him on one of the school board meeting videos (not sure it was a while back!). Edmund, if you are reading this would you kindly advise of your potential availability? We really really need you to turn this thing around.

WCDBPA: would you help us with this? First off I think we need to get some help in understanding how this all works and a comprehensive history of what has led us to the dreadful place we find ourselves in as a district now. Are you planning any meetings (such as the one you did at Saint Mark’s a year or so ago?). Please, please, help us help our kids.

Bottom line, our kids are suffering greatly (ivy league admissions and stratospheric test scores not withstanding). I will do anything in my power to get this investigation off the ground. My name should say it all. I will not let go until our kids get what they deserve.

Powers that be (board, PTAC etc.), why not get proactive and take on an investigation yourself? No more money from PiE should be spent on protecting the lying liers. No PR person should be required. Let’s take that 150K and buy something that is constructive. Even pencils would be better than a well constructed pack of lies dressed up as information. I can see it coming! Enough is enough! Save our children!

The election was close and I think we all know how it would come out if it was held after these revelations came out. Skelly and the board knew that. Do you think Camille Townsend, who was board president and running for re-election didn’t know that if she publicly announced that PAUSD had been found to be violating student civil rights on her watch that she would have lost to Dauber? That’s why they didn’t come out until December. Because she concealed it.

As “PA Dad” says below, he posted his comment on the previous thread on this subject. I responded to him on that thread, but I am also posting our comments here because I would like everyone who is following this thread to be able to easily find them:

Posted by PA Dad, a resident of the Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhood, 1 hour ago
PA Dad is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online

Posting here for a couple of reasons. The other thread has become too long and second, most of the comments there miss a key point.

This is not an issue of bullying, this is an issue of violations of State and Federal law. And the law is clear that two individuals are personally responsible for compliance. The Superintendent and the Principal. Kevin Skelly AND Chris Grierson.

So while bullying, mismanagement of funds, weak oversight, conflicts of interest, violations of privacy, and some truly awful other district employees are bad, the United States Department of Education has concluded that sufficient cause exists to investigate actions taken under our policy of site control by Principal Grierson and others.

Note that Skelly said he had no further information, but that Grierson took the time to issue essentially a press release to admit the Federal government was investigating HIS school and to deny blame.

So while many fish may be rotting in PAUSD, and while Chris Grierson may be a fine and upstanding young man, the fact remains that HIS SCHOOL is the target of a Federal investigation. Not of bullying, but of violating Federal laws, regulations and codes.

Site control and the California Education Code are clear about who is responsible for the safety of our children. Not Charles Young, but Kevin Skelly and Chris Grierson.

Posted by Eileen 1, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, 0 minutes ago
Eileen 1 is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online

@PA Dad

I agree with your comments. I think it is extremely important to focus on the fact that this is not about bullying it IS about a violation of state and federal law. It IS about a failure to protect the civil rights of our communities children.

The reason Charles Young is at fault in this mess is because he is the “Compliance Officer” for the school district. His job is to make sure that the schools comply with the state and federal law. He is the district officer who should have been involved with the individual schools – ensuring that they were following the law.

I urge you to come to the next school board meeting, this Tuesday, April 23rd at 6:30, and address the school board directly. Take your 3 minutes during the open forum section on the agenda and tell them that you want an investigation into this mess that will finally reveal to the community how the district got to the point that it failed to comply with the Office of Civil Rights. If more people would actually come to the school board meeting and speak their minds on this issue the school board would have to act. Or, look even worse than the do now.

One reason for coming to the School Board meeting this week is that it would give those of us who want change an opportunity to meet one another. I think many people in Palo Alto are disturbed by this situation, but they do not have a child in the district any more, and/or they do not belong to a group; for example, CAC, WECDBPA, etc… Coming to this school board meeting would give all of us a chance to meet outside this posting forum and put together an email list of people who would be interested in working together for change.

I would be happy to put together the email list as I will most certainly be at the board meeting.