LAUSD Principals Furious at Superintendent Deasy for Demanding They Dig Up Years of Teacher-Misconduct Complaints

By Simone Wilson Wed., Feb. 29 2012 at 4:35 PM

Ready, set -- find the sex offenders!

LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, who oversees nearly 670,000 campuses as head of the nation's second largest school district, got some more great press today from the Los Angeles Times.

Despite the overall horrificness of the Miramonte sex scandal (turned districtwide sex scandal) of 2012, the Times has been patting Deasy on the back for taking extreme measures like replacing the entire staff at Miramonte and, just last week...

... ordering the district to send every last accusation of teacher misconduct in its file cabinets to the California State Commission on Teacher Credentialing. And officials have already sent in 65 complaints, according to KPCC.

However, those records only go back four years. After that, because of a sketchy clause in the United Teachers Los Angeles union contract, the Times reports that any unproven accusations are sent back to teacher's individual campuses and locked up in an "expired file."

That's where Deasy gets more great press today -- by demanding that the teachers union wipe this molester-protecting clause from its contract. (Or else more sex monsters may be allowed to roam free amongst our children!)

Yet at the same time, he's demanding that principals at all the district's schools go through all teacher-related files they can find on campus. They have 60 days to turn over any evidence of past misconduct -- not just sexual.

The principals union was quick to fight back. Judith Perez, president of Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, wrote in an angry letter to Deasy that mixed messages from district officials over the years would make this ambitious task nearly impossible. We've bolded the most absurd bits:

Procedures for Site Documents and Working Folders: The District has never established clear procedures or guidelines for what goes into site files or working folders. Furthermore, District procedures regarding reporting of suspected child abuse cases have changed over the years. Administrators have been told, for example, never to place such documents in an individual's site personnel file. During some years, they were told never to keep copies of suspected child abuse forms at the site because of confidentiality. However, during other years, administrators were told to keep them, but file them separately in a locked drawer. Some years they were told to send copies to a District operations coordinator; other years they were told to send them to the District's General Counsel's Office; other years they were told to send them to the District's Child Abuse Office (which was eliminated years ago).
Access and Time Frame: There is no indication in your directive as to the number of years the review of former employees' files should extend. Should principals go back three years, five years, ten years? As you are aware, most of our schools are over fifty years old. In addition, due to lack of space, inactive files may be kept at the school in attics, basements or storerooms. Some may have been taken home or damaged during construction, severe weather or by rodents. An incoming principal may have no idea where old files are kept and, in fact, may have never seen them. The reduction of clerical norms and the resulting turnover of classified staff coupled with storage space issues have exacerbated this problem over time.

Perez tells the Weekly that Deasy responded to some of her concerns in a letter yesterday, but there are still huge gray areas.

For instance, how far back should they be looking? Some schools have been around for as long as 100 years. And she says misconduct complaints can be as minuscule as a parent calling the front office and saying, "My child is upset because his teacher yelled at him," and an administrator scribbling it down.

She says turning a campus upside down for every last piece of paper in 60 days is a tall order. Especially considering that once they've located any complaints, Deasy has ordered the principals to scan them ("Schools don't have scanners," says Perez), PDF them and send them to a particular website.

Sure, this is another union complaining about its members having to do more work than they signed up for. But it sounds as if principals, who have much better things to do, are being punished for LAUSD's terrible history of record-keeping.

And under teachers' cushy contracts, will all this looting even make a difference?

Tom Waldman, LAUSD spokesman, says he has no idea what the Commission on Teacher Credentialing or the district will do with this evidence, seeing as "the 'expired files' cannot be used for dismissal or suspension." He agrees that everything is very up-in-the-air right now.

Looks like Deasy's big noble demand for accountability might be more a passing of the buck.

[@simone_electra / swilson@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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Burio2sch

From Roque Burio Jr. one of the lemons who can dance but can also sing. Here is my song for the lawyers who are talking out of their ignorance or lack of knowledge on how teachers become tenured at least in LAUSD. Teachers are evaluated by their principals for at least three years or more consecutive years and under the very rigorous observations of administrators. If after those three years or more they come out satisfactory, then they become tenured or permanent. The tenure status of teachers is never automatic as these lawyers are trying to mislead the public. Also all those tenured teachers must have professional Clear Teaching Credential issued by the State of California. My email is burio2sch@yahoo.com if you need more information lawyers.

T K Nagano

"LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, who oversees nearly 670,000 campuses..."

Fact Checker?

ChanceLaRue

There's an odd caveat in the issue of Deasy's culpability as far as these lost files go as he was installed just over a year ago and had no clue to what a horrible mess tge district is after brief stints in smaller, less dysfunctional district's in a affluent areas. I have heard, however, these districts were glad to done with him and his dictatorship. I would be behind his efforts to protect students in light of Miramonte and the rape of a little girl in Inglewood his staff facillitated by breaking the law and using a pervert's credential as leverage in forcing his resignation. S a teacher in this sick sad system, I have witnessed UTLA's duplicity and indifference to the plight of students, innocent teachers and our collective mission as educators. I am spearheading an effort to PERb thier bad behavior and urging teachers to put their dues in law firms ( that are NOT Trykstaad and Swabb) as a more viable option to protect themselves from escalating attacks on tenure and veteran teachers. Perversely, Lausd protects the worst offenders to insulate itself from liability. AP gets caught in unseemly sexual relationship with a HS girl in the hood, waves a gun at her fed up father and gets promoted by the district. He goes on to kidnap and rape a child. Lausd is above the law, as gov code 826 has infected the system with ethical equivocations to justify wantin transgressions like those we see in agreement made with cookie monster Berndt. We can also visit reaches housed in local district offices for doing court mandated duty to report noncompliance& abuse, victims of petty, punitive principals and cases wherbteachers were accused of felonies, cleared and never returned to school because lazy officials have not gotten around to investigations. I tend to doubt much effort is employed in these.Not much of policy is upheld when the 120 days Deasy tried to impose of housed teachers remained unobserved. Moreover Deasy himself has made serious mistakes, most notably his failure to inform parents heir children were victims in a castle stir on campus. He clearly hoped this case would evaporate and allow him to skate free. He did not concern himself with the children who may have been infected by HIV, HEp or StDs. He could not care less about their damaged psyches. His criminal indifference was punctuated my untruths about police proceedure and the upheaval of Miramintes entire staff to assure they did not compromise the district in statements made to police.Those teachers are under a gag order. You see, some knew there was something wrong at tgat school. A few probably reported concerns to the principal . But perverts and sadistic fascists who act like little Hilers in the classroom will gravitate towards tge principal's inner circle to insulate themselves and leadership in unholy alliances that will no doubt see many charges never materialize given principals control in the search for bad recordes that Deasy said will not be limited to merely sexual and physical and or emotional abuse. absentism, late roll books, personality conflicts and other minor Mis counduct will be scrutinized. And no doubt used to just teacher cleansing.