This gets worse and worse. I don't read the Post so I didn't see this. Thanks for bringing it out Curious.

[Post removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

[Post removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

@Gunn parent,
Did OCR interview kids without a parent or guardian present? Do you condone this practice as well?

I don't understand what wow! is saying. The law says they have to have parental consent. They had parental consent. The law doesn't say that parents have to be present and why would they have to be present? 35 parents signed consent forms, so 35 parents did not feel that they wanted to be present. They agreed.

Wow, are you condoning insisting that parents be present even if they don't want to and are fine consenting without being present? Why are you interested in interfering in family decision-making? Why are you questioning parental judgment in 35 of our middle school families?

[Portion removed.]

These are minors. They are being interrogated by OCR without parents being present. This behavior is deplorable.
Legal action has already been taken against the district because of the OCR findings from these interrogations. It's unacceptable that OCR is not including parents in these interrogations, which leaves the kids and families so exposed. OCR knows this and did nothing about it.
You really believe it's OK for OCR to interrogate kids like this without the kids having any support? Were the parents fully informed of the implications of these interviews? Where they given the option of being present and declined? Judgement only comes into it when you are informed.

I don't understand why the Weekly locked this thread. It is very informative to see the bizarre fearmongering posts suggesting that federal agents are "interrogating" our children.

Federal civil rights investigators are not police, and children are not being "interrogated." There are rules governing these interviews and they were scrupulously followed. Barbara Mitchell lied and said that parents didn't consent when they did. Now caught in that lie, the argument has shifted to "parents were not present."

Parents did not feel the need to be present. If they did, they could have refused consent for the interview (which is not an interrogation). The children were not suspected of any offenses -- the government lawyers were there investigating malfeasance by the district not by the students. Students were not "exposed" to any risk of anything.

The real complaint which is made clear in Charles Young's email to the board is that the school officials wanted to be present and wanted their lawyers present. That's the actual district request that was declined, and that's the real issue here.

OCR investigates schools and districts, not kids. Kids are witnesses to the bullying that went on, unaddressed by Kathy Baker, for months. The district didn't object that it wanted parents present. It objected that it wanted the district lawyers present. They are interested in protecting themselves and are merely hiding behind children now to gin up fear and anger at the government.

Your school board thinks you are idiots and are manipulating the public's emotions. But let's be clear -- they are worried about themselves not parents, who had no objection, and not children, who told the truth about what they saw.

I cannot even believe how sick and dysfunctional this is. Where is Melissa Caswell while all this insanity is going on? I thought you were an "experienced manager." Please tell us how you are "managing" this? If you don't support this crazy Tea Party BS please speak up.

It is hard to express in words how lunatic this situation has become. No wonder Castilleja is increasing its enrollment.

If you had the rapiest high school in America, which is actively out advertising itself as suffering from extreme Rape Culture as your option, with sexual-violence related bullying as its defining characteristic, and a board digging in so that it can keep its super-rape-super bullying culture I would think that all-girls' school looks pretty darn good.

Of course, those Casty girls won't be able to get all the awards and praise for their great stories about how rapey it is at their school.

@wow!
OCR contacted the parents and received parental permission to interview 35 students. OCR does allow parents to be present during an interview. OCR does not however allow district staff or attorneys to be present. "We have found that the presence of school staff or counsel could unintentionally make some students less willing to share their experiences," Ram wrote in an email to Damian Huertas, the district's special education coordinator. Web Link

The 35 students were broken into six groups that represented four of the middle school student’s classes and two groups from the student's PE class. The students were interviewed in these small groups consisting of 4-6 students. Each interview lasted 35 minutes.

I credit the parents and students for agreeing to the interviews and validating the student’s story. Students will be upstanders when they know that there is a safe structure in place to protect them.

That structure appears to be lacking in our district. I am deeply saddened to learn that at least one and possibly two additional board members are engaged in pushing back on OCR recommendations to update our policies and procedures to align with state and federal law designed to protect our children. I believe that the board’s most important job is to make sure policies are in place that safeguard our children. I was glad to read in the Weekly last week that board members Melissa Baten Caswell and Heidi Emberling were willing to go on record in support of cooperating with the Office for Civil Rights and working with it to improve district practices. Web Link

There is a difference between "interrogating" and interviewing. What the OCR did is question the children regarding their observations and experiences. The OCR followed the law and asked for parental consent for their meetings with the children. A certain number of parents decided that they were fine with their children being interviewed/questioned and they signed the consent forms.

@ Wow: when you ask if the parents were "fully informed of the implications of these interviews?" I am not sure what you are saying. None of the interviewed children's families have complained. So far the biggest result of the OCR investigations have been a growing awareness on the communities part that the PAUSD and the Board believe they may pick and choose which state and federal laws they need to follow. The OCR is attempting to guide the PAUSD into following federal regulations that will ensure that children that are in protected classes are not discriminated against as a result of their disabilities. This can only improve the school experience for all of our district's children.

It seems that Ms. Mitchell is so opposed to some of the changes the OCR is asking for that she is now trying to attack the way the OCR conducts their investigations. Even though there appears to be a lot of evidence that the OCR followed the law and their own procedures, and even though the school district did not protest the interviewing of the Terman students at the time of the investigations, now Ms. Mitchell is crying "foul."

It is very disappointing to see a school board member spending this kind of energy trying to derail the OCR's efforts to improve this district's policies and procedures regarding the protection of the civil rights of all our district's children.

Below is what was reported by Charles Young in his Educational Services Weekly dated October 21, 2011 right after the OCR interviews at Terman Middle School. The district's legal counsel assured him that the interviews would only shed positive light on the school.



“Office for Civil Rights
This week, our students and staff at [ ] were taken away from the classroom and their work to address and respond to an Office for Civil Rights (OCR) complaint brought against the District on behalf of a student last year. The complaint alleged that a sixth grade student was harassed and bullied because of her disability by other
students and that the school did not respond. The district addressed the complaint but OCR requested the opportunity to meet with students and staff to investigate the claim. With the leadership of [ ], parents were informed and were able to dismiss their children from the interviews if desired. On Thursday, OCR investigators came to
[ ] and interviewed 35 students, 4 teachers, 1 counselor and 2 administrators. The staff was unable to be present during student interviews, but both our District Attorney and a CTA attorney were present with staff. [ ] indicated that it went well; the day was long but the attorneys felt like it shed only a positive light on the school and our support of students. Apparently, students shared with investigators how much they liked their school. The results will be available by January. “ Web Link



Would Ms. Mitchell have protested if the Terman had been exonerated ? Also, if OCR is strong arming the district as Ms. Mitchell suggested in her email Web Link then why has this still not been resolved more than two years after the initial complaint was filed?

I would like Ms. Mitchell to answer the simple question posed by this story, "When you told the newspaper that OCR interviewed middle school children in Palo Alto without their parents' consent, were you telling the truth?"
On the evidence presented here, the answer is no, Ms. Mitchell was not telling the truth. However, if there is some other information on which she is basing her statement, she should come forward with it.
Otherwise, I am afraid that Ms. Mitchell is deliberately misleading the public with a false statement, and tarnishing the reputation of some public servants in the federal government to boot.

Thank you Curious for your detailed posting. After reading the first link you provided (Web Link , dated Oct 2012, I understood that school and district officials were in the loop, knowing the procedures the OCR followed - asking for parents permissions etc. I hope I understood correctly. I want to think that any school or district official who has any doubt about any outside entity interacting with any student on school grounds during school time will raise that doubt - laud and clear - in a time frame relevant to that interaction.
I am wondering if questioning the way the OCR interacted with the students would have been on the agenda now if the information about the settlement with the OCR would have stayed out of the public eye. I want to thank, again, the family for coming forward to the Weekly.

Thank you "village fool". It does seem obvious that if Ms. Mitchell's concerns were sincere, she would have raised them at the time of the Terman interviews or interviews at other schools since then.
However, since Ms. Mitchell's claim that students in Palo Alto were interviewed without notifying their parents and allowing them to prevent the interviews is false, it is hard for me to understand what she would have been objecting to.
For me, the question of basic honesty and integrity is one that runs through this affair, and that deeply concerns me about certain of our school board trustees. Democracy depends on elected officials telling the truth to the public, particularly in local government where the press may not have as many resources as on the national stage.
Ms. Mitchell has not told the truth to public, either on this narrow question or about her views as expressed in her secret memo. Mr. Tom and Ms. Mitchell together have apparently collaborated to make false statements to the public about the purpose of closed meetings of the school board. They both seem to believe that it is acceptable to simply hide the public's business from the public, and then to refuse to speak about it when questioned.
I am quite upset about all of this, because it really does seem to me to violate the fundamental trust that the public has a right to have in its elected officials, and to threaten the viability of our local democratic government. I have been hopeful that our other elected officials, such as Supervisor Simitian and our Mayor and City Council, would step in to help correct this breakdown. I have been disappointed that there is no sign that is happening.

@Patsy Mink: I found your comments above quite illuminating. Thanks for your take on these events.

You reminded me about the excellent meeting that a group of parents groups sponsored over at Ohlone School, "Know Your Rights" which Kevin Skelly and Camille Townsend attended. Their presence was quite unwelcomed by those parents who may have wanted to ask a question of the attorneys from OCR. I know several people who wanted to ask questions but felt intimidated by the presence of the above named. Your quote in a comment above applies to the parents that were silenced because of fear of intimidation from the Supe and Board:

"OCR does not however allow district staff or attorneys to be present. "We have found that the presence of school staff or counsel could unintentionally make some students less willing to share their experiences," Ram wrote in an email to Damian Huertas, the district's special education coordinator. Web Link

We were lucky to have had those groups (spearheaded by Ken Dauber's parent group We Can Do Better Palo Alto) support an event where we could have gotten all of our questions answered by the OCR attorneys present. Because of Skelly and Townsend's presence the meeting was not as productive or as informative as it could have been.

I am also reminded of the fact that PAUSD had agreed to co-sponsor the event and then backed out at the last minute. Does the district have something to hide from us? [Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

I am sick and tired of this disgraceful behavior by our elected officials and the people they hired to run the district. [Portion removed.] Not extending Skelly's contract beyond 2016 is the only sign I have seen at all from the Board that maybe they are getting the idea that Skelly is not good for our kids or our district. Come on Board, get a grip and start doing the right thing for a change. We have had enough!

There has been too much spin from the school board about the OCR. Two parents in our district, Christina Schmidt and Mary Vincent have volunteered to be part of the solution and are working hard to inform our administrators about the true mission of OCR. There work with several elementary school site councils was recently reported by the Weekly. Web Link

"Schmidt begins her site council presentation with a careful review of the facts in the Office for Civil Rights report, line by line.

"There is a lot of misunderstanding based on a lack of grounding in the report," Schmidt said. "There is a great opportunity to use the information in the report to improve the schools and community."

Schmidt and Vincent share a belief that the district needs more central direction and monitoring of schools as and are glad to see the movement now in that direction. With school autonomy, responsibility can be "too diffused" and accountability too difficult, Schmidt said."

Unfortunately Barb Mitchell is leading the board and the district in the opposite direction. Rather than read the OCR report and reflect on how we can improve our policies Ms. Mitchell has made inaccurate claims that the OCR is strong arming the district in order to enforce laws that are not on the books.

Peggy Duncan - I agree with your posting above. Actually I agree with all your postings that I have read before. As to other influential elected representatives - I would not hold my breath, nor expect any meaningful act from any representative who is aware of what is going on and who has not already stepped forward. More than that - I would not try to address such representatives. I think that if the occurrences are not compelling enough for the representatives to step forward - it is probably a waste of time to try to convince them. The above is about anyone who is local, and is probably aware of the (first) OCR settlement, at least. Keep in mind, this was all triggered by bullying... I have expectations only of those who are not by-standing.
spectator at large - how sad it is to watch things deteriorate, knowing that something is rotten. Who knows what we do not know? You mentioned Nixon not too long ago. If it were not for the Washington Post, he probably would be remembered in a completely different way in any history text book. Nixon, too, seemed to believe himself to have Divine Right, otherwise - how would those who organized the Watergate break-in think that no one would talk? Many knew. I think it is reasonable to assume that Watergate was not the first unethical (understatement) action - those in the know were trained (took cues?), were expected and assumed to shut up.
Here is a quote of the superintendent - sorry for repeating (I have posted in other threads), I find this one very revealing: "...As I often say, the community and staff take their cues from us in terms of how they relate to each other..." 9/2010
Patsy Mink - Thank you. I second.

Perhaps the right thing to do is to start organizing. Look at the way the Maybell Avenue people were able to get a referendum organized in a matter of days while we impotently bemoan far worse wrongs in our schools. It is very sad when you compare the wrong committed by the City Council (procedural, primarily) with that committed by the school district in this case -- allowing disabled children to be abused, resisting federal investigators sent her to get to the bottom of such charges, having no sexual assault policy or protection for students, and more. The City Council made mistakes on Maybell, yes, but no one became so mentally ill as a result that they had to be institutionalized as in the Terman case. And we don't even know about the other cases, which are probably just as bad.

We need to take a page from the Maybell book. "Action comes from keeping the heat on. No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough.” -- Saul Alinsky.

@jls mo2,
Go for it! One thing that has been sadly lacking in all the opposition is the effort to actually *do* something. Lots of verbiage, very little action. That was Eileen's experience when she went to the district to complain about Skelly and found she was the only one!
Maybell did it in a couple of weeks. If you truly believe there is so much opposition to the district, you should be able to better that. I await seeing a petition of any kind.
Good luck!

confused:

YOU ARE REALLY CONFUSED!!. I would say that the "opposition" (your word) to the status quo has actually "done" quite a bit. There has been tons of action ranging from speaking out at school board meetings to putting together the "Know Your Rights" presentation by the OCR officials. Don't forget that the "opposition" ran a candidate, Ken Dauber, for school board who was pushing for transparency and open governance from the top down.

There is more than one parent group that is actively trying to affect change as evidenced by their co-sponsorship of the OCR parent education event. If Ken had been elected we would most assuredly not have had to witness a spineless Board who refuse to do their jobs...namely give direction to Skelly and hold him to task to do the will of the voters who elected them. The Board is the real group guilty of "Lots of verbiage, very little action".

So much could have been done by now to improve the lot of ALL of the kids in the district if Ken Dauber had been elected. Now we have Heidi and Camille added to the disgracefully ineffective trio of Tom, Mitchell and Baten-Caswell. Might as well just give up any hope of any positive changes until the next election. Confused, as you say, the Board's behavior consists of "Lots of verbiage, very little action" when it comes to protecting our children as well. Their actions in trying to protect Skelly are stellar!

I just hope that there are people of the caliber of Ken Dauber that are willing to run in the next election. [Portion removed.]

@SaL,
The reason Ken ran was because the Weekly challenged WCDBPA to field a candidate. Not the best of reasons and, as you've noted, he lost. As did the previous WCDBPA candidate. Not the best start or greatest claim to having *done* something.
@jls mo2,
I'm still waiting for that petition to be circulated. Is it happening?

Confused:

Now I am convinced! You are confused as well as spreading non-factual information.

I would like you to provide evidence of the "Challenge" that the Weekly issued to WCDBPA to "field a candidate". Ken Dauber is a good and dedicated man committed to helping all kids and I know that the reason he ran was so that there might be a chance for positive changes in the district and so that the Board and administrators could start getting honest and open with the people who elected them or pay their salaries. Ken did not run just to take on a "challenge" from a local newspaper. Get serious! And, as you mentioned that the other WCDBPA candidate (I am assuming that you are referring to Wynn Hauser who lost by a very small number of voted to Camille) was not a "WCDBPA candidate" as WCDBPA had not even been established as a parent committee with a name attached to it. I believe that Wynn has been active with WCDBPA and would agree with their goals for improving the district. But to say that the other WCDBPA candidate lost is just an outright lie. Get your facts straight and maybe you will be less "confused".

It is plain to see that without another candidate coming forth we would be stuck with Townsend and Emberling as there would have been no election. As it stands right now, we got stuck with this abominable duo (as evidenced the abomination of not getting any meaningful changes implemented for our kids). Combined with the trio of Tom, B-C and Mitchell this has been a formula for inertia at best and disaster resulting in system failures at worst. These failures (among other things which are too numerous to mention here) include failing to provide for ALL of our students. This would include the developmentally disabled girl who was punched in the face and finally had to go to OCR to try and get some help. Thankfully the Weekly broke the story several months after the fact which revealed Kevin Skelly's failure to mention to the Board that PAUSD had been cited as by the Feds (a rare occurrence and a fact that I as a citizen of PA am not proud of!). [Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

Are you hoping to goad those that are part of the "opposition" into starting a petition? Maybe you will be successful if you continue to open up the box for those of us with factual information to come forward. Think about it.....perhaps you will become less confused.

[Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

Timeline: June 24, 2012
Web Link

[WCDBPA] member Wynn Hausser, who was narrowly defeated by incumbent Townsend when he sought election in 2007, has said he does not intend to run this year. We Can Do Better cofounder Ken Dauber, who in the past said he would consider running, answered a query this week with an email saying, "Election long ways off."

Timeline: Friday, August 3, 2012,
Web Link
"The parent group We Can Do Better Palo Alto, which has both developed impressive data in support of its positions and made many uncomfortable by its assertiveness and blunt criticisms of district administrators, has so far not put forward a candidate. We hope they will, since that is the only way to ensure a public discussion on these issues and for all candidates to clearly articulate their views so they can be held accountable."

Timeline: Tuesday, August 7
Web Link
"Ken Dauber enters Palo Alto school board race "

Then amongst his excuses when he lost he claimed that he "started late". A bit of a climb-down from his original "Election long ways off" comment above.

You will need to find better candidates if you hope a re-call will succeed. Do you have them lined up?

@jls mo2,
Here's something to help you get started: Web Link

confused:

It is true that Wynn has been supportive of WCDBPA and Ken Dauber but you implied that Wynn ran under the banner of WCDPA which did not exist in 2007. And, Camille lost by a very small margin.

It is true that Ken Dauber did jump in late and that is because he could not stand the thought of there being no election if another candidate did not come on board for very good reason. Look what we got with Heidi and Camille! We have a totally spineless and ineffective board let's face it.

I'll bet that if there were an election today in light of all the revelations since the election and the hideous performance of the Board we would have a very different result.

I just hope that candidates are willing to come on board. [Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.] I think there are all kinds of very qualified people out there. Barbara Klausner was an excellent board member who left because she couldn't stand the operational style of Skelly and the current board. Can you blame her? I wouldn't mind being on the board if there were a quality supe and four other people who were interested in doing business honestly and openly. Bottom line, those 4 others would have to be interested in protecting and promoting a quality education for all of our students which is not what is happening now.

Timeline: July 22, 2013.

The school board is useless.

Timeline: July 22, 2012.

The school board is useless.

Timeline: July 203, 2011.

The school board is useless.

Timeline: July 19, 2010.

The school board is useless.

@confused: My timeline seems to have less variation than yours.

I see several obstacles standing in the way of public grass rooting, organizing petitions, etc. The biggest one is fear of retaliation. I doubt anyone who currently has a child in PAUSD will risk the child well being, especially if there are current concerns regarding the child. Fear of retaliation was not publicly discussed prior to the first OCR settlement becoming public. I asked for feedback back in March, here is a link - Web Link It seems to me that even the vocabulary used to discuss PAUSD have changed during the past few months. Also, I think that it is impossible to compare the venues available for those who are concerned about PAUSD to the venues available for those who do not agree with the rezoning decision, for example. PA citizens who did not agree with the rezoning decision had a formal option. Collecting signatures was part of a very specific, defined process. It seems to me that parents will avoid "going public" with concerns. Given all we learned - I can not blame anyone who has a child in the district. I think that no correction can start prior to a broad independent investigation. An investigation that will look also to past events that set the current tone.

@SaL,
You're responses have turned from "You are confused as well as spreading non-factual information" to "it is true". Glad to bring you up to speed.

@jls mo2,
As I mentioned above, if you've got better candidates, go for it!

Good luck!

@vf,
"The biggest one is fear of retaliation".
If you're so certain of success, this shouldn't be an issue. You'll have the board recalled in no time and can then replace Kevin & Charles. It's been done before. Could it be that you really believe you don't have the numbers?

@confused:

Your speed is obviously "slow". Please reread the thread and accompanying links and try to digest it a bit better before posting.

I shall not try to engage with you as you aren't really paying attention. Please take your confusion elsewhere. Your confusion adds nothing to the commentary.