Guffanti's Sour Grapes

I read the article in the San Diego Union Tribune today regarding the magnificient victory of the PRO-public education parents and teachers over Guffanti and his group of ANTIs. You will not be surprised to know that Guffanti left our VUSD board spewing bitterness and nastiness. What else would we expect? A scorpion is a scorpion is a scorpion. Here are his final words to Bruce Lieberman the fair-minded, Union Tribune reporter,

“What I think the voter doesn't understand is the teachers union is not the classroom teacher . . . and that their purpose is not to educate kids,” Guffanti said. “Their (the union) purpose is to get more money for their teachers for less work.”

Isn't Guffanti a lovely man. According to Guffanti all the work we did to save public education from the fringe political agenda of the his group of ANTIs was just for money.

I am retired. I will make a lot more money by saving public education in VUSD. Yeah Guffanti it was all about me getting more money, the six hours I spent on the phone calling more than three hundred VUSD, voters the scores of hours I put in on this blog--all of that was about me making more money. Right! What a jerk!

The parents who supported us by the hundreds will get a lot more money, too. Right Guffanti?

Dr. G has never been gracious in victory, so who would expect him to be gracious in defeat?

He cost our district tens of millions of dollars and years of over crowded schools with his stubborn and purposeless delaying tactics whenever the majority wanted to pass a bond or build a new school. We could have had a new high school in town at least three years ago and perhaps as much as a decade ago if Guffanti had supported building new public schools instead of organizing opposition. So yes, Guffanti your devastating and humiliating defeat was a bit about money. It was about the money YOU WASTED that could have educated our children.

The comments after the UT article are even more revealing about the nasty and hateful ANTI education views of Guffanti and his supporters. Read them below and you will again see why the decent and good folk of this district fought so hard to keep Guffanti and his small gang of malcontents out of power and off our VUSD board.
Here are the Guffanti Gang's ugly and false comments:

1. The teacher's union does not care about quality of education... the teachers union does not care about test scores...the teacher's union does not care about your kids
2. What the teacher's union wants is money. Money for their members, money for their political action committee, money, money, money...........That's it!
3. We keep throwing good money into bad schools, bad because the teachers would rather be the students (sic) buddy than teacher
4. bad schools because these teacher's students cannot pass tests aimed at testing the most basic of knowledge
5. Teachers make more than most of us already. They make more than those of us who work 12-months each year while they work 8-months each year. They have better benefits than most of us; they have better retirement than most of us.
6. the three "winners" of this election will make sure the rest of us are losers with higher taxes so they can pay off their buddies who sponsored them

Guffanti and his gang do not have children in our VUSD schools or any public schools so they have no point of reference. They only hear how evil teachers are. They do not know any. They have never visited our schools or seen our classrooms. Except for passing out campaign literature on campus or barging into a classroom unannounced causing a security alert, can anyone name any other time Guffanti (or Gibson) or any of the other Gang members ever came to any public school any where? NO! All Guffanti and the Gibson Gang can do is hate and spew lies.

Let's take the six lies above that either Guffanti or one of his Gang associates wrote about our good district, wonderful teachers and incredible teacher's union.

1. We do not care about children, right. That is why we take low paying, high work jobs with virtually NO chance of promotion and no chance of advancement. How could someone who was not a caring giving person survive in a classroom full of needy students? The attrition rate for teachers is OVER FIFTY PERCENT in the first five years!** The highest for ANY profession. The attrition rate for peace officers and fire fighters is not as high.
2. The union is about money? Then why did we organize four different times to pass school bonds. We spent time and money trying for twenty years to pass those bonds. Finally we passed Prop O on the FOURTH attempt. When new schools are built in a district, there is never enough bond money and teacher's salaries ALWAYS go down. We accepted the probable loss of pay and still acted as the PRIME MOVERS in getting Prop O passed. Secondly our salaries and benefits have consistently been reduced compared to the San Diego County average over the last 16 years that we have backed school board candidates. With board majorities backed by our union, our salaries went from third highest unified district in the county to second lowest! Our fight for decent school board candidates was always about getting folks who supported PUBLIC EDUCATION and who believed in FACT BASED education especially in science, health, history and sex ed. Guffanti was one of the first members of a nationwide organization dedicated to the DESTRUCTION of PUBLIC EDUCATION. Read the year 2000 NCTimes articles about the organization and Guffanti's involvement here: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2000/10/20/export19941.txt and here: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2000/10/21/export20028.txt and here:http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2000/10/24/export20272.txt
3. Again Guffanti's Gang only reads inaccurate reports about teachers on hate sites. The Gang has no idea what really happens in public schools. Teachers that are "buddies" with their students and do not exert authority do not last in a classroom, not even as a substitute. I wish Guffanti's Gang Associates would try "sub"bing for a few days. It would give them a bit of perspective. But then again learning new ideas in foreign to the Gang.
4. The tests that are given in public schools do not test the most basic of knowledge anymore. I am betting that most of Guffanti's Group could not pass the third grade benchmark test. The math alone would floor them. examples here:
5. No public school teacher now or ever worked only eight months. When I started over thirty years ago it was 9 and 1/2 months. Today it is a full ten months of ten and twelve hour days. Teachers put in more hours over those ten months then eight hour factory workers do in twelve months and we are paid about half as much as high school graduate makes in a factory.
6. The good and noble victors in the VUSD school board race Jaka, Chunka and Lilly CANNOT RAISE TAXES. That is correct. They have NO POWER TO RAISE TAXES. A school board can vote to put a bond measure on a ballot but the state strictly limits the use of the money raised by a bond to the construction related costs. BY LAW BOND MONEY CANNOT BE USED FOR TEACHER SALARIES. Guffanti knows this. He also knows that over 90% of VUSD operating budget comes from the state of California and not from the residents of this district. Prop 13 transferred the cost of running schools from local districts to the state. The only other way to raise money locally for VUSD is to raise developer fees on new home construction. The state of California strictly limits the percentage that can be charged to a VERY LOW amount after successful lobbying by home builders. However it does not matter as there is almost no free land left for development in Vista and if there was a bit of land some where, there is no money for construction loans in this economy.

To read the entire article in the San Diego Union Tribune with the comments that follow go here:http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20081106-9999-1mc6skuls.html

Note that Bruce Lieberman wrote the article for the UT. He is good and fair reporter that many of us remember from the great VUSD Evolution and Recall Wars of 1992-1994. He worked then for a now defunct North County newspaper. (was it the Blade Tribune?) We are glad he landed on his feet at the Union Tribune.

**From the book, "Relentless Pursuit," by Donna Foote.

No Child Left Behind gets an "F" from Professor

'No Child' law gets an 'F' from education professor at Illinois
11/5/08
Phil Ciciora, News Editor217-333-2177;pciciora@illinois.edu


Sarah J. McCarthey, a professor of language and literacy in the department of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education, says the controversial No Child Left Behind law has forced teachers in low-income school districts to craft a curriculum that marginalizes writing at the expense of teaching to the test.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The controversial No Child Left Behind law has forced teachers in low-income school districts to craft a curriculum that marginalizes writing at the expense of teaching to the test, resulting in educators who feel straitjacketed by a high-stakes test, according to a U. of I. education professor who has studied the issue.Sarah J. McCarthey, a professor of language and literacy in the department of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has studied the impact of the 7-year-old law on teachers’ writing instruction in both high- and low-income schools. She discovered that teachers, especially those in low-income schools, are increasingly jettisoning writing from their language arts block in favor of reading comprehension, one of the subjects along with mathematics used to benchmark a school’s progress through an annual battery of federally mandated tests administered by the states. The federal government then uses the test score data to either reward states with federal education funds or to impose punitive measures.

McCarthey, who published her findings in an article titled “The Impact of No Child Left Behind on Teachers’ Writing Instruction” in the October issue of Written Communication, said that because the federal government uses only math and reading scores to measure a school’s progress, there’s little incentive for schools to teach students non-tested subjects such as writing, music, art and science.

“Writing instruction has been neglected at the expense of teaching to the test,” McCarthey said, noting that from a pedagogical standpoint, that strategy is somewhat counterintuitive, considering that reading and writing are complementary cognitive activities.

“Being able to write well can make a student a better reader,” she said. “But only teaching reading isn’t going to make that student a better writer.”

The effect on writing instruction has hit underperforming lower-income schools the hardest. In those schools, teachers often had pre-packaged teaching materials foisted upon them by their district, McCarthey said.

“Because they were deemed an underperforming school based on the test results, the district had to legislate the curriculum they were using in both reading and writing. So when they taught reading and writing, they had to use this canned material.”

For teachers in struggling schools, the imposition of a district-mandated, one-size-fits-all curriculum turns all the fun and spontaneity of learning into a forced march.

“Both teachers and students became so tired of focusing on and preparing for the test that by test time, they were mentally exhausted,” McCarthey said.

“For teachers still on probation or in their first three years of teaching, that loss of control over curriculum inevitably leads to a loss of morale and, in some cases, turnover.”

McCarthey found that younger teachers in low-income schools felt more pressure to teach to the test than their more experienced counterparts in high-income schools.

“Young teachers in low-income schools are monitored to a greater degree than teachers in high-income schools,” she said. “When that happens, there’s that much more pressure to perform. Veteran teachers have the latitude to be a little more cavalier, but younger teachers felt much more beholden to the test because the stakes were so high for them.”

The problem is compounded because the best veteran teachers invariably end up in higher-income schools, leaving the least prepared and least experienced teachers disproportionally assigned to schools with the greatest needs and challenges.

“Our most-qualified veteran teachers are not ending up where they’re needed most,” McCarthey said. “They’re typically in the higher-income schools because they can afford to pay them more money.”

For all of its negatives, McCarthey did note that one positive consequence of No Child Left Behind was that teachers were forced to lavish attention on low-achieving students.

“This is actually one of the benefits of the law, that teachers are thinking a lot more about their low achievers,” she said.

But even that benefit has a downside that is symptomatic of the unintended consequences brought about by the law.

“The flip-side is that average and high-achieving students in high-income schools don’t receive the attention they deserve,” she said. “So we’re undermining their educational progress by not challenging them enough.”

Final Results--Clean sweep for the PROs

From http://www.sdvote.com/ at 9:10 am. Dr. Steve Lilly, Elizabeth Jaka, and Angela Chunka are in. Dr. Stephen Guffanti is no longer a member of the VUSD school board. Neither of his political allies, Patty Anderson or Eileen Fernandez were elected either.

The only ANTI-public education board member left is Jim Gibson. Gibson remains on our board because he was rejected by Oceanside Voters for Oceanside City Council. This was his second attempt at getting on the Oceanside City Council. He was also rejected in his run for State Assembly several years ago. His attempt to use our VUSD school board as a springboard for higher office has failed again.

Gibson now will sit on our VUSD board ALONE! Four nice, normal, rational people will occupy the other school board seats. Fringe political issues and obstructionism will no longer dominate our school board. The new high school will be built! In two years we have a chance to retire Jim Gibson to the same porch where Guffanti will be seating.

Here are the final results of the 2008 VUSD School Board Election:
VISTA UNIFIED SCHOOL
Precincts: 102Counted: 102Percentage: 100.0%
Vote for: 3
STEVE LILLY
19825
21.35%
ELIZABETH JAKA
18980
20.44%
ANGELA D. CHUNKA
18931
20.39%
-----------------------------------------
STEPHEN GUFFANTI
14558
15.68%
PATTY ANDERSON
11822
12.73%
EILEEN FERNANDEZ
8723
9.40%

Clean Sweep

It is 5:12 am. With over 85% of the ballots counted, it looks like a clean sweep. Steve Lilly, Elizabeth Jaka and Angela Chunka appear to have an unbeatable lead. I am finding it difficult to type. I do not want to jinx the outcome, but I cannot see how any of Guffanti's gang can make up the ground on our Pro-public education candidates. Guffanti in fourth place trails Chunka in third by over 3700 votes. Amazing!

Many, many thanks to all of VUSD's Education Heroes who saved our district. Congratulations to the students and staff of VUSD! You have a PRO-PUBLIC EDUCATION MAJORITY FOR AT LEAST FOUR MORE YEARS!

We now appear to have a 4 to 1 school board majority of trustees who will get the new high school built and put educating our children as the number one priority. Fringe issues, stalling new school construction, purposeless obstruction, and putting personal political views over the welfare of our students, are all finished in VUSD for the foreseeable future.

These next four years for our newly elected trustees will be very tough. Guffanti and Gibson incessant delaying tactics and stubborn refusal to support a third high school managed to waste somewhere between 16 and 25 million dollars of our Prop O school bond funds. The LindaMood Bell program has taken millions more from our school site councils and district funds. The California budget is billions in debt. I see virtually no chance that the state can bail out our district. We will all have to tighten our belts. We need to support our new Pro-education trustees in the upcoming difficult financial decisions forced on them by Guffanti and Gibson's irresponsibility. I do not envy our four brave and good board members their jobs or the agonizing decision they will have to make.

But still, I am so happy! In the difficult financial times ahead, our district will be lead by four decent and rational people who will make the "Sophie's Choice" decisions ahead with wisdom and compassion.

HUGE RALLY---HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS ATTEND

Today's rally was incredible.

Hundreds and hundreds of PRO-public education supporters came together today. It was by far the biggest bunch yet. People just kept coming and coming. There were babies in strollers and teachers and folks with backpacks and gray haired folk. Every segment of our VUSD community joined in one massive demonstration for PUBLIC EDUCATION!

Thank you heroes!

Who knew that there were so many good people in our community ready to support our public schools? After months and months of vicious lies told about our good public school district teachers and schools by Gufanti and his ANTI followers, the community still overwhelmingly supports public education.

The forces of good are on the rise in VUSD. No matter what happens tomorrow in the election, we have made Guffanti and his nasty team of liars eat their lies and fear the ability of the good descent folks in our district to fight back against their unfounded smears against our good public schools and teachers.

I remain hopeful of a clean sweep tomorrow. All three PRO-public education candidates elected and Guffanti shown the door.

There is still a lot to do. First vote. Second get your (PRO) friends to vote as well.
AGAIN:
(1) MAKE SURE YOU VOTE
(2) HELP BRING IN PRO VOTERS TOMORROW.

(3) JOIN THE GET OUT THE VOTE CAMPAIGN AT THE VTA OFFICE 10AM-7;30PM TOMORROW, 1717 East Vista Way, Vista.

COME FOR AS LONG AS YOU CAN.

EVEN A HALF AN HOUR VOLUNTEERED TOMORROW COULD BRING IN A HALF DOZEN MORE PRO-PUBLIC EDUCATION VOTES.

Last Rally Today 4pm-5:30pm Meet at Chili's

I found a Barbara Franklin email in my inbox. I thought I would share it.

Barbara Franklin is our great VUSD hero and organizer of the Community Resistance to the Intolerance of the ANTIs. Her official title is VTA PAC chair person. We should all thank her every time we see her for her months of 18 to 20 hour days dedicated to saving the children of our district.

Please remember the following:

Today is the LAST RALLY! Vista Village Dr. At Chili's 4pm -5:30pm
(note earlier meeting time due to daylight savings time change)

Tomorrow is the last and perhaps the most important campaign event--GET OUT THE VOTE. VTA office 1717east Vista Way 10AM to 7:30pm

We need to get every one of our supporters to the polls. Any time you can contribute is helpful. Each volunteer could get another dozen PRO-education voters to the polls and another dozen nails in the coffin of Guffanti's political career. Bring family and friends.

Let's get a sweep--all PRO public education candidates in office on Wednesday and Guffanti a well deserved boot off our board.


Dear Colleagues,

This Sunday finds us in the last push for the election. We had several members work today to get the last of the signs up in time for the election. We have only a few more events scheduled.

Monday is our last rally. The rallies have been a great strategy for the campaign. We have gotten a lot of positive feedback from people about how visible we have been.

Our last rally will be at a different time because of the time change. We will meet from 4-5:30 on Vista Village Drive by the Chili's Restaurant. You can park anywhere in the lot by Staples.

We would love to have a couple of hundred people show up wearing their T-shirts(if you don't have one yet we have extras). Please come and bring family and friends, it is important that this last rally is the biggest and makes a statement to the community that we are behind our candidates.

After the rally we will all head over to Lamppost Pizza by the Krikorian Theater for Pizza and beverages. Please come and join the celebration, we have worked hard on this campaign.

Tuesday we will meet at the VTA office for Get Out the Vote (GOTV) activities. We will call supporters and conduct some poll watching to make sure every vote counts. If you would like to join us come over when you can, we will have someone at the office from 10:00 AM until 6:30-7:00 PM.

Thank you for all you have done, we could not have accomplished all the work we have without your support.

Hopefully when we all wake up Wednesday we will have the results we need to make the Vista School Board again one of the best in County!

See you tomorrow,
Barbara Franklin
VTA PAC Chairperson

Desperate Guffanti, Dirty Tricks for our Children

Poor Guffanti, he just cannot figure out appropriate behavior for dealing with others. He reminds me of Sheldon on the Big Bang show on TV. Normal human interactions are just so difficult for him. This time the poor dufus used the trick or treat baskets of our children as waste receptacles for his campaign literature.

Yes, that is correct. Our happy lovely children came to the door of Guffanti and a few others in his ANTI education gang and were given an ugly trick in their basket. He and his tiny band of extremists put a half sheet of Guffanti Garbage printed on orange paper in the baskets of the poor unsuspecting, innocent children of our district that showed up at their doors.

The paper contained Guffanti's usual rants about evil unions and teachers, that goes like this, 'if you hate teachers and unions the way I hate teachers and unions, then you should vote for me and my fellow ANTI education co-conspirators.' How sad, and how pathetic is poor Guffanti!

I cannot help but wonder how many parents were angered by his inappropriate use of their children. Imagine ruining a bit of our children's fun at Halloween by putting political garbage in their Halloween baskets! Well that is Guffanti for you.

He well earns his nick name: "NO RULES FOR ME, GUFFANTI"

Jaka corrects another Guffanti email

Vistaschools blog spot editor note: I found the post below in my inbox. I felt it needed to be shared with more people so I am posting it on the blog today. It contained both a Guffanti disingenuous and self serving email along with corrections by Elizabeth Jaka, one of our courageous PRO-public education candidates. As before what Guffanti wrote is in brown. The correct information written by Elizabeth Jaka is in blue.


Still working backwards on these. This one's almost two weeks old and, depending on how busy I am for these next couple of days, may be the last "old" g-mail I get around to correcting.

I'm actually surprised that there hasn't been anything new in the past couple of days. I HAVE heard that his supporters passed out fliers with candy for Halloween. I still feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it's getting a little late for them to pull anything.

;-D EJ
From: Stephen Guffanti [mailto:sguffanti@cox.net] Sent: Monday, October 20, 2008 To: sguffanti@cox.netSubject: FW: Please Read and Forward

Hi,
I was asked to respond to a young man's video on youtube about the school board race.

[Here's the link to the video. It's the one that made the rounds not long ago, and was the first of the two videos created by a VUSD student. http://webmail.west.cox.net/do/redirect?url=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.youtube.com%252Fwatch%253Fv%253DoWVKleR22LY]

The child has three reasons why you should not vote for me. His logic seems to be if you are not going to vote for me you must then vote for Lilly, Jaka and Chunka. Perhaps, he forgot about Hernandez and Anderson.

[At the forums, Fernandez and Anderson-Johnson just parroted statements found in DocG's e-mails. If you're not going to vote for DocG, then you won't want to vote for Fernandez or Anderson-Johnson either, since it appears they think exactly the same as he does.]

His reasons are:
1. Lmb cost 9 million for only 3% of the children. For some reason even though Lilly, whom he is promoting, has voted for LmB I am the only one accountable. Not logical, but attached is the documentation. Bottom line LmB is for 17% of the students and the cost was about $2.1 million per year or 1% of the budget. (75% of the $2.1 million goes to teacher training not students at all.)

[The district spent $3.5M the first year, and $3.4M last year on LmB.The numbers were shared with the Budget Advisory Committee. I don't have a breakdown handy for two years ago, but I'm attaching a copy of the Budget Committee handout for last year's figures. The committee was also told that the district had planned to spend $3.6M on LmB this year, but because of budget cuts they cut back by 6.9%, to $3.4M.

LmB Intensive is only used for about 3% of the students. The numbers go back and forth, and sometimes the figures include the same kids twice. There is a push to use some facets of LmB more widely, but while some of the tools may in some cases, it's of little benefit to students who already read at or above grade level, or to students who speak little or no English.
The district's budgeted General Fund for 08-09 is $211.0M. Of that amount, $161.8M (82%) goes to salaries and benefits. That leaves about $49M for books, supplies, operating costs, capital expenses, etc. AND the state required 3% reserve. The district has actually budgeted $34M of that for those things, which means the $3.4M budgeted for LmB represents about 10% of that part of the budget. However, (and to be fair) even that's an oversimplification of the entire budgeting issue. For one thing, LmB is partially paid for from Title 1 funds, which aren't part of the general fund. So, LmB's place in the budget is far too complex to just state that it only represents "1% of the budget." And even if 75% is for teacher training, it's STILL part of the cost of the program.]

2. He seems to think that a 16% test score gain is insignificant because we had an 18% test score gain before Bails. Actually, he is talking about API which is a state rating system somewhat correlated with test scores, but not test scores. See attached scores. Students reading at proficient or Advanced are considered at or above grade level. You will notice that the percentage of students reading at or above grade level are consistently moving up. It is literacy, not API that our children really need. This turnaround started with the teachers and the superintendent has worked with the teachers to help them sustain it, which is why 75% of LmB goes to teacher training.

[The young man never says that a "16% test score gain is insignificant." He simply points out that DocG has been claiming that the district's scores did not increase for 8 years before Dr. BaLEs came to VUSD, when in fact we had an 18 POINT (not percent) increase the year before she came to the district. And yes, that is API. He never attached the scores, but the fact is that the API goes up because we have better test scores, and a big part of that is literacy. Our scores had the biggest jump when the district moved away from the bilingual program they were using, to Structured (or Sheltered) English Immersion (SEI). The turnaround not only started with the teachers, they have perpetuated it.]

3. Honor students don't use Lmb why are the other 97% of the students being ignored?
Well the other 97% aren't ignored they just use other programs like Gate for the gifted, etc. our district gets $42 million set aside for special issues like staff development, gifted and talented, special ed, poor performing students and low income students. It is illegal to use these funds on the general population. Why would an honor student need a remedial reading program?

[This is all fine, except that money for other programs is being pulled and reallocated. In most cases it's not going directly to LmB (it can't), but it's being applied to areas that previously used other funding. THAT funding is then freed up for LmB. That's actually the nature of education funding: Fund X can't be used to pay for Item A, but it can be used for Item B. Since Fund Y has more flexibility, we'll use it for Item A instead. The issue is whether or not the funds are being allocated in a way that allows the district to get the greatest possible benefit.
He uses "honor student" interchangeably with GATE student, but GATE students aren't always honor students, and there are many honor students who are not GATE. However, to answer his question, an honor student probably wouldn't need remedial reading, but they often need support in other areas, and they need to be challenged.]

Here is the kicker. Lilly, Chunka and Jaka know these things already. Lilly saw this video and states as far as he knows it has nothing to do with his campaign. Chunka and Jaka have actively promoted this misunderstanding. At the same time they are asking for better communication.

[He's right, we do know those things. And while we all heard about the video - and even shared it with people on our e-mail lists - not one of us had anything to do with its production. Speaking for myself, I'm honored to have the young man's support.
Yes, we're still asking for better communication - something more accurate than the déjà moo (same old bull) that DocG puts out, and more informative than anything the district puts out.

I hope you will look at this documentation and ask me any follow-up questions that you wish.

Your servant on the board, Your eyes and ears at the board,
Stephen Guffanti, MD Elizabeth Jaka, parent and observer

Sign Committee Heroes, GRAINGER AND ROBINSON

GRAINGER AND ROBINSON--COMMUNITY HEROES

I just talked to Randy Weins. contrary to what I have posted on this site, Randy is NOT the chairman of the Sign Committee. He is working on the Community Rallies.

Randy says the credit should go to CHRIS GRAINGER and MARK ROBINSON for the plethora of Pro-public education signs.

KUDOS TO CHRIS, MARK and the other HEROES on the sign committee. You folks have kept our pro-public education candidates names in the public eye!!

You have turned JAKA, LILLY and CHUNKA into household names in the VUSD.

TOUGH, DANGEROUS, and DAILY

For those of you who have never been on the sign committee, you need to know that it is a tough dangerous and daily job.

ROCK HARD GROUND

It is tough because the ground is hard. Wooden stakes do not go in easily. Pre-holes need to be made with a piece of iron bar (re-bar is good). Only then can one attempt to get a wooden stake into the ground. It still does not always go in. After seven months with no rain, the ground can be absolutely as hard as a rock. Sign committee members pray for rain to soften the soil.

SLEEP DEPRIVED

It also costs sleep. Good sign viewing (posting) locations are grabbed up a short time after the City of Vista sign ordinance allows campaign signs to be first posted. Sign Committee members have to show up early in the morning between 2-4am on the first day to get those locations. Then the locations have to be defended. Our signs are the most frequent target of stealing of any campaign signs. Committee members have to constantly monitor are prime locations and be ready to replace stolen signs.

PILES OF SIGNS, HAMMER AT THE READY

You can identify a vehicle of a sign committee member by the pile of signs inside. A sign committee member goes nowhere without extra signs ready to post. He/she also always has a hammer. Downed signs must be put back up. So many of our signs have been knocked over by wind or our ANTI friends.

THANK A HERO

If you see a vehicle in your school's parking lot with a hammer on the seat next to the driver and signs pile up in the back seat, leave a thank you note on the windshield. You are thanking a Public Education HERO.

DANGEROUS

It is also dangerous job. Sign committee members are stopped by the side of the road with cars whizzing by at 50 to 60 miles and hour. One sign member out posting signs came within an inch or two of grave bodily injury when a car speeded up and swerved toward him. He was barely missed as he jumped back. That was four years ago. He has still not told his wife. Hope she does not read this blog.

DAILY PATROL

Did I mentioned it is daily job lasting the better part of two months. Every day the sign committee member patrols his string of signs looking for missing or down signs. If more than a day or two goes by without defending our signs, our ANTI friends can steal or destroy hundreds of them. So all sign committee members learn the routine of the 'daily patrol.'

OUR HEROES

Now you know a few more reasons why the actions of CHRIS GRAINGER and MARK ROBINSON and the others on the signs committee make them all PUBLIC SCHOOL HEROES.

TWO DAYS TO CHANGE OUR DISTRICT

What can I do? With two days left there is still a lot left to do to help.

(1) WEAR YOUR JAKA, LILLY, CHUNKA SHIRTS when in public, shopping, getting gas, going to the theater, anywhere and everywhere the public can see you. Those who have been wearing them have gotten tremendous amounts of POSITIVE feedback. There are a lot of people in VUSD who want to be done with the negative and nasty excesses of Stephen Guffanti and his ANTI friends. Also wearing the shirts gives potential voters an opening to ask you about the election. We have gotten many votes for PRO-public education candidates JAKA, LILLY, and CHUNKA just by people remarking on our shirts and asking us questions.

(2) SIGN PARTY—last one meet at VTA office 4pm Sunday 1717 East Vista Way to put up the last of the campaign signs. We will be replacing the hundreds stolen by our ANTI friends.

(3) COMMUNITY RALLY—Monday from 4pm to 5:30pm (earlier time due to time change) near Chili’s at Vista Village Way. We will ROCK the town. It is the last and biggest rally. Our rallies have changed the way this district will vote. They are the talk of the town. No campaign of any kind for any office has been able to duplicate our success. Do not be left out. Show up Monday.

HEARD ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
Lilly, Jaka and Chunka Local Celebrities!

Someone came up to Steve Lilly and ask him how it felt to be a celebrity. He knew Steve must be a celebrity because there were so many signs with his name all around our district! Good job sign committee—Randy Weins, et. al (Luke? Goologaly?) I may not know all your names but you all are doing a great job.

One Stolen Sign, Twenty Replace It!

One local teacher had his PRO-Public Education candidate sign stolen from his front yard last week. He was so incensed that one of our ANTI friends would come onto his property and take his sign that he went down to VTA office and got twenty more. Then he went up and down his street for a quarter mile in each direction and put up all twenty signs. Of course our ANTI friends came back and took a few more and knocked down most of the others. But now our local teacher hero checks “his” signs every day and puts up the knocked down signs and replaces the stolen ones.

Moral of the story for our ANTI’s friends: steal one sign and get twenty more in its place!

NCTIMES TREMBLES!

The ANTI-public education, anti-union, anti-middle class editors at the NCTimes that have done so much to try to elect ANTI-education candidates to our VUSD school board have been so inundated by protests that they have not run their every two year ‘hit piece’ editorial or news story attacking our candidates or campaign in the days before the election.

Today even the in the editorial by the delusional Jim Trageser, who sees ‘conspiracies”**
everywhere, there were no lies about us! His editorial today (Sunday) decried campaign sign stealing. He did not mention that Jim Gibson, our VUSD board chairman who is also running for Oceanside city council, was caught stealing campaign signs for other Oceanside city council candidates. But then no one really expects an editorial from the extremist editors of the NCTimes to be completely fair.

The big news is he did not lie about us! Had we not called and called and called demanding fairness from the editors at the NCTimes, I am sure that Trageser would have put in a paragraph of lies accusing the good and honest PRO-public education campaign of stealing the signs of Trageser’s ANTI allies. For the last 18 years, the editors have always run a lying hit piece about us just before the election, but not this time. Neither was there a front page story of falsehoods about us! You folks have really put fear into the hearts of the partisan editors of the NCTimes. Good job!

I am betting that Trageser, partisan nut case that he is, probably had a paragraph in the draft of today’s editorial ripping us, but his publisher, worried about you folks, decided to take it out. Of course I am speculating, but this I know, for the first time ever the editorial staff of the NCTimes has not done anything blatant to swing the election to their ANTI friends.

The only reason NCTimes did not run a hit piece has to be because you folks held the NCTimes accountable this election. We know their tricks and we called them on those tricks. They trembled. They held back. A victory for the good guys! A victory for public education in VUSD! Pat yourselves on the back.

NCTIMES STILL IN THE TANK for the ANTIs
Where are our thirty letters?

The NCTimes still has not printed our thirty campaign letters in favor of PRO public education candidates. Where are they? Will they publish them all at once in tomorrow’s paper? Or will they never publish them? The editors at the NCTimes are still trying to get Guffanti back in office. His extremism and nastiness warms their hearts. They love the hate he spews at unions, teachers, and parents. It helps them sell papers. So they have held back our letters. One more day until the election, will we see the letters ever? Who knows? Keep calling if your letter has not been published. Demand that it be in the paper BEFORE the election.
--------------
Jim Trageser, Delusional Editorial Writer for NCTimes

**For a view into the paranoid and delusional thinking of Trageser read about his fantasy that there was a nationwide secret conspiracy against Christians running for office. You must read the comment section after his article to see how fully delusional he is. See his editorial of lies about unions particularly the VTA and read his paranoid follow up comments after the article here:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/08/10/opinion/trageser/z354f6144e8d0282d8825749f0060debd.txt
In the body of the above "editorial", he makes a series of demonstrably false allegations about our good Vista Teachers including the out right lie that we disrupted board meetings (There are recordings of all board meetings proving this allegation to be false) and that our disruptions caused the national media including the New York Times to cover our local school board meetings. Yes it is nuts, but he wrote it in his "editorial". According to Jim Trageser, the New York Times, LATimes, SF Chronicle, CNN, FOX NEWS all came to our VUSD district to cover noisy teachers at a board meeting. I told you he was delusional. See my reply to his series of nutty paranoid rantings that the NCTimes published as an editorial! in my blog of September 4, 2008 entitled "Jim Trageser editorial, a reply."

How weird and nuts does he have to be to believe the nonsense he wrote? We all know that 95% plus of all candidates for all offices in the US for all of US history have been Christians. A few Jews and an agnostic or two get elected somewhere and Trageser thinks there is a conspiracy against Christians. Does he demand 100% of all candidates elected be Christian? How did he get and hold a job of importance at the NCTimes? What does that say about the hiring and retention policies at the NCTimes?

Answers to Guffanti's email

Vistaschools.blogspot EDITOR'S NOTE:
I was forwarded the following email and thought I would post it so others could read it as well. The blue answers to Guffanti accusations were put together by Elizabeth Jaka--one of our PRO-public education candidates. Again Elizabeth Jaka's responses are in blue. Guffanti's accusations and ramblings in brown. My comments are in black.

I mentioned in a previous e-mail, that DocG was putting out e-mails fast and furious, and that I haven't been able to keep up with all of them. I'm trying to work my way backwards through them during quiet times (I'm up with my daughter, who's working on a project for school).

;-D EJ

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: sguffanti@cox.net
To: sguffanti@cox.net
Subject: Pickets near Lake Elementary
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2008

Hi,

The traditional way for the union bosses to do a campaign is to promote various rumors to cast doubt in voters' minds. This approach continues in this campaign:

[As a rule, the teachers run a campaign that includes mailers and signs, and (depending on the manpower available) precinct walking and phonebanking in support of their candidates. The information they put out is positive, along the lines of: "this is what our candidates will do for the district." Near the end of the campaign, there is one final mailer that responds to the negative campaigning from DocG's camp. This election is no exception.]

The head of the CSEA, Henrietta Black, protested loudly at the last board meeting that there had been no "Bail out on Bales" campaign. She said that I just made it up. Well, let's look back at what happened.

[Most of the people who were at the last board meeting agreed that Henrietta was very professional in her presentation. She was very adamant about the fact that there is not now, nor has there ever been, a "Bail out on Bales" campaign.]

In late November/early December of 2007, Steve Hargrave, then assistant principal at RBVHS, started selecting 10th graders for a Lindamood Bell study to be conducted the next semester. The union bosses didn't want Lindamood Bell anywhere near RBVHS. In particular, Randy Weins, a previous teachers' union president who calls himself an "ex-officio member of the executive committee," has opposed Lindamood Bell since October 2006. He doesn't want any teachers taught this new method of teaching.

[I'm not sure how any of this "proves" anything, but as usual, a lot of it's wrong. LmB had already been used at the school for at least a semester. I have the test scores of the students who were in it in the spring of 2007. I'll attach the scores for Rancho and Vista.
In the fall of 2007, the district commandeered the teachers' lounge at Rancho, for the LmB program. This was public knowledge, and I don't think ANY of the teachers were happy about it. That doesn't seem like a union thing.
I've never heard Randy say that he opposes LmB, nor have I heard him say that he doesn't want any teachers "taught this new method of teaching." Of course, it's not REALLY a new method of teaching. ]

On December 6, 2007, Raylene Veloz, the superintendent's secretary, received a phone call from VUSD parent, Alejandro Sanchez, about the high school students protesting Lindamood Bell at Lake elementary. On the same day I received this email from another district parent, Jackie Piro:

From: Jackie Piro [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 3:37 PM
To: Stephen Guffanti, MD (Stephen Guffanti, MD)
Cc: Dan Piro (armando@cox.net)
Subject: Pickets near Lake Elementary



Stephen - I was driving Thelma to the bus stop around 3pm today on Lake Blvd and on the way we saw a group of what looked like mostly children (a small group, at most about 7-8 kids in all) holding colorful signs right where the parents turn into Lake Elementary to pick up their kids. I only remember a couple of the signs, one that said "Bail on Bales" and another said "Stop Cronyism" or something like that. On the way back a few minutes later I tried to look more carefully because I thought there was one adult in the crowd but either she had left or it was actually a tall teenage boy with longish hair. None of the cars that passed by the group when I was there honked or anything.



Jackie

Vistaschools.blogspot EDITOR'S NOTE--The Piros are long time supporters of the ANTI-public education group in VUSD. Any advanced search for 'Piro" of the NCTimes archives will turn up dozens of anti-public education letters to the editor written by the Piros.

Dan Piro was also instrumental in the firing of Leo Fletes, RBVHS varsity baseball coach. Piro allowed his home to be used by a few disgruntled parents who wanted Fletes fired because Fletes did not play their precious children enough. Read here:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/11/16/sports/highschool/21_42_9411_15_07.txt

Here is one sentence from the article above showing the Piro/Guffanti/Bales connection:
"...a July meeting that school board member Stephen Guffanti organized at the home of friend Dan Piro for parents to voice their displeasure. Superintendent Dr. Joyce Bales also attended."


[There's really not enough information here to get a fix on what's going on. About the only thing that seems clear is that someone was protesting outside of Lake. She says children, but doesn't say how old she thinks those children are. And why hasn't he mentioned the sign about cronyism? This occurred right after Dr. Gecewicz and Mr. Sinn were brought to the district from Pueblo. She thought there might have been one adult, but it could have been a teenage boy with longish hair? It's all pretty ambiguous.

I also heard from a parent that afternoon, asking me if I knew about the pickets. I didn't know anything, and called a couple of parents in that area to find out what they knew. They didn't know anything either.]

__________________________________________________________________________________________



Note that no matter how you skew the facts the signs said it clearly: "Bail out on Bales."

[The way I read it, ONE of the signs said "Bail on Bales." I didn't see anything about teachers being there, about multiple signs, or even any indicator that there was an adult there (except for the one maybe).]


However, given these facts, let's go further and ask three questions:

1. How would high school kids know about Lindamood Bell when it was not yet on their campus?

[LmB WAS on the campus, and a group went through the program in 2007. I'll attach their test scores. In addition, the district had just commandeered the teachers' lounge to turn it into a LmB center.]

2. Neither Lake nor Madison were Lindamood Bell schools. Why would they protest at Lake?

[IF they were Rancho students, they would protest at the closest school that would allow them to be seen. Lake and Madison both got out after the high school students.]

3. What would motivate their attack on the superintendent?

[The teachers lost their lounge, AND the district was getting ready to ban refrigerators, and other similar appliances, from the classroom. Word was also getting around about other changes, such as field trips being canceled. These things were all common knowledge.

When I sent people the unedited version of this, a parent e-mailed me back to tell me that her daughter was part of that protest. She told me, " In no way was she pressured by the Union boss or her lackeys. K just has a healthy understanding of what's right and wrong." Students do care. We've had involved students for a long time. Not only do we have student reps on the board, but students attend board meetings AND Candidate Forums and they get excited about elections. This is a GOOD thing.]

The union officials who come to the board meetings knew about the study. Randy teaches at RBV and could motivate some of his high school students to protest. In fact, one RBV student, a friend of the Chunka family, has entered the Lilly-Chunka-Jaka campaign with a YouTube video against Lindamood Bell.

[His "proof" uses neither inductive, nor deductive reasoning. Instead, he makes a couple of wild leaps based on unfounded assumptions. The last sentence is even more off the mark. A Rancho student has made a video supporting Jaka, Lilly and Chunka (two in fact). As part of that video, he questions LmB - the expense and application. It has no connection to the rest of this. If you missed the video, here are the links to both of them: 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWVKleR22LY and 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXhU-cm3BuE.]

Madison and Lake are also highly union-influenced schools that would be sympathetic to this message, and they are closest to RBV. It seemed to me the simplest explanation is this was a union-organized protest to test the waters. When it failed -- no honks, no sign of support -- the union went to Plan B. (Plan B was to take away funding for Lindamood Bell via the school site council. It failed when the state denied the Casita School Site Council's protest on all 6 counts.)

[What are "highly union-influenced schools"? Again, wild leaps, unfounded assumptions, and fantastic conclusions. A convoluted conspiracy theory is hardly the "simplest explanation." We have only Ms. Piro's e-mail to indicate that there was "no sign of support." And, according to Guffanti and the district office, LmB isn't funded through School Site Council - it's a federally funded program that can't be taken away.]

Only the union leadership had access to the information, the motivation and the students. Usually, the response I get from the union is "Yeah, it happened, but you can't prove it was us." To that I say there are millions of things we can't prove, like gravity, but if no other explanation handles all the facts then you are left with this conclusion: despite their protests to the contrary, the union bosses

and the union-supported candidates, Jaka and Chunka, are part of Plan C - take over the board and eliminate Lindamood Bell and if the superintendent protests that she can't do her job without it then fire her. (By the way Lindamood Bell is less expensive than the long used reading specialist that many schools have and we currently have several schools that are self-sufficient using Lindamood Bell. When all our teachers are trained the cost will be about 15% of what it is now.)

["Yeah, it happened, but you can't prove it was us." That doesn't even make sense.I don't know anyone stupid enough to say something like that to him. His facts aren't facts, and his conclusions are an attempt to justify his position. It certainly doesn't prove there's a plan for us to eliminate LmB, or to fire the superintendent.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: We had LmB in this district long before Dr. Bales came here, and because it does work for some students, it should be here for some time to come. However, it concerns me that he would indicate that Dr. Bales can't do her job without it. There are other districts that are having marvelous success without LmB, and so far I've seen no indication that our increased test scores are because we've expanded the use of LmB. The scores have continued to increase at the same rate they were already increasing.

By the way, the "long used" reading specialist program he refers to was begun a year before LmB, and some believe the rise in test scores can be directly attributed to that program. Reading First is a state funded program. Unlike LmB, which the district pays for out of several different funding sources, the state gives the district funds specifically for Reading First. This year, the district delayed applying for Reading First funds until very recently. We risked losing the grant for this year AND next year. That would have been a loss of $670K a year. Once they applied for the grant, they had to pull teachers back out of the classroom to return to their reading specialist positions.

Why do ALL the teachers have to be trained in a program that doesn't even work for many of the students? For example, it can't be used for students just starting to learn English. It's also of little or no use to students who are successful readers. And why, once all the teachers are trained, will it continue to cost us anything?]

If we simply let the superintendent do her job, VUSD will be one of the best districts in the county during the next four years.

[Dr. Bales should be allowed to do her job. However, it's the job of the board to ask questions and confirm what they THINK is happening is indeed what's happening. If it's not happening, then they need to find out why, and they need to work with the superintendent to correct the situation. THEN the district has a chance to be one of the best districts in the county.]

Your servant on the board, Your tired eyes and ears at the board,
Stephen Guffanti MD Elizabeth Jaka, parent and observer

Valerie Wade endorses Jaka, Lilly, Chunka

Former VUSD school board member and prominent local Republican, Valerie Wade was able to get a PRO-public education letter published in the NCTimes today. I wonder how many times she had to call to get the NCTimes to publish her letter. It has been extremely tough for PRO public education letters to get past the NCTimes censor but Valerie did it! Good job, Valerie Wade! Our newest hero in the PRO-Public education Hall of Fame.

Valerie strongly endorsed Elizabeth Jaka and Angela Chunka for VUSD School Board. Her opinion of the ANTI-education and anti-social Guffanti is the same as everyone who has to work with him--not good. See her letter to the editor on line here:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/10/31/opinion/letters/z08f10f594d74d347882574f2007dfbbd.tx

Or read it here:

Voters have a clear choice for Vista schools

As a former Vista Unified Trustee, I strongly recommend Elizabeth Jaka and Angela Chunka for Vista Unified School District Board. I have known both for many years. They are extremely knowledgeable, compassionate individuals determined to educate all students to their capacity instead of funding and focusing on a select few.

They show consistent respect for parents, teachers and those who may disagree with them. They are fiscal conservatives who will finally get the taxpayer-mandated new high school opened. They have served on many VUSD district-parent committees. They will use that experience and common sense in selecting academic programs. They have already demonstrated they are willing to personally invest long hours on your children's behalf.

Mr. Guffanti has been very consistent over his years on the school board that he is there for his own political agendas (like his recent demand that the board endorse Prop. 8). He seems suspicious of parents and teachers (like his recent refusal to attend a PTA forum).

You, the voter, have a clear choice: two informed and dedicated women, Mrs. Jaka and Mrs/ Chunka, or a self-serving Mr. Guffanti. Vote for Elizabeth Jaka and Angela Chunka for your children's sake!

Valerie Wade
Vista

Connections between VUSD ANTI education candidates and Grossmont UHSD ANTI candidates

Speaking of ANTI-education board members, Jim Kelly of Grossmont Union High School located in east San Diego County, is making outrageous statements and lying about sitting board members in GUHSD in order to get more ANTI-education members elected to the Grossmont board.

Jim Kelly is a known political ally and associate of Guffanti and Gibson, the two ANTI-education members of our board. He is following the ANTI candidate playbook that we have seen here in Vista. Read Kelly's lies here: http://www.10news.com/news/17783553/detail.html

Guffanti trotted out similar lies during a KOCT interview a year ago when he accused the VUSD teachers of protecting child molesters. Read what the liar Guffanti said here:
http://www.vistata.org/VTAdvocate032607.pdf

ANTI education folks like Guffanti and Kelly get elected by scaring voters with outrageous, emotional falsehoods about schools and teachers. The good folks in the education community are often too tired from working long hours and too nice to think that anyone would believe liars like Guffanti and Kelly. Sadly more often than not the fear and smear campaigns of deception work. No matter how tired we are or how busy, we must fight them now or suffer for years. We have only four days to stop the ANTI's from taking control of our board.

You may have read on this blog that Grossmont is the other district that the ANTI folks have been targeting in our county for the last twenty years. Why they go after Grossmont and VUSD every two years no one knows. But there is a direct link of some kind. The two groups of ANTI's known to associate with each other.

Gary Cass, former ANTI member of the Grossmont School Board, has moved to Vista and founded something called the Christian Anti-Defamation League with articles on its home page--"Obama disavows Christianity" Read his hate site here: http://www.christianadc.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=23063
or his web page here:
http://garycass.org/
Gary Cass knows, respects, and politically supports both Jim Gibson and Stephen Guffanti. (confirmed by one source).

If the ANTI's are able to seize a majority on our VUSD board, look for Gary Cass and other hate mongers to have a larger role in running our district and creating political chaos by advocating for the VUSD board to make fringe political agendas the number one priority in VUSD rather than the education of our children.

Call the VTA today 760-758-2690 and volunteer to help with the last walk and drop--precinct walk is being done on an individual basis. There will be no for organized precinct walk tomorrow.)

Signs for Candidates rally at 4pm Sunday Nov. 2. Meet at the VTA office 1717 East Vista Way. All the campaign signs held back for the last days of the campaign will be posted on Sunday to replace the hundreds of our signs that have been taken. We want our signs up for the regular voters to see on their way to the polls.

Be ready for the MASSIVE COMMUNITY RALLY after school on Monday for JAKA, LILLY, and CHUNKA. We will rock the community! Rally will be earlier than others. It will go from 4pm until 5:30 pm due to time change. Meet at the corner of Vista Village and West Vista Way by Chili's. After the rally many of us will go to Lamp Post Pizza for food and beverages. See you there!

New PRO Jaka,Chunka, Lilly U-tube offering

There is a new post on U-tube supporting our PRO-public education candidates--Elizabeth Jaka, Angela Chunka, and Steve Lilly. It is really good. It defends our public school teachers, parents and candidates. We are the good guys. We are the ones who want our children to have the best possible education. We are the ones whose number one priority is education.

Our ANTI foes give only lip service to education. they are running a stealth campaign with a hidden agenda that they do not want the public to know. They are so afraid of the public that they refused to come to the largest public forum for school board candidates. they also declined to be on our public access TV program on KOCT. They are attempting to again steal the majority of the our school board seats from PRO-education candidates.

The three ANTI candidates want to use their position of VUSD school board member as a platform to promote fringe political views. Let's not let them. Every minute is crucial. We must contact every VUSD voter. I believe we can defeat all three candidates of the ANTI candidates. Let's shut them out in this election. With your help we will do it.

You will see in the U-tube video below that our children know the stakes in this election. They are out working to get Guffanti and his fellow ANTI zealots off our board. We cannot let our children down.

See the U-tube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXhU-cm3BuE

made by
vusdkidsthatcare

Watch it today and share it with a friend.

Guffanti District Email open door? update

I just heard that the CTA lawyers are looking into his violation of the NCLB ruling. However preliminary thoughts say Guffanti is skating a very fine edge but it does not amount to union busting to just "inform" members how to get out of the union. Guffanti would argue that information is permissible as long as he does not threaten to fire teachers who join.

If he or other district administrators have advised new teachers not to join the union if they want to be re-hired for next year which may have happened, then he definitely would be in violation. Anybody who knows a first or second year hire, ask them if they were told this. If they were, encourage them to tell their story anonymously to the VTA at 758-2690.

He certainly has violated VUSD rules for using district email for political purposes. CTA lawyers are looking into the mis-use of email as well. If he is defeated the investigation will stop, if the worse happens and he is re-elected he will likely be given a slap on the wrist and told not to do use the email again. Of course no one expects Guffanti to abide by any ruling against him.

So sad. Unions have always had the right to use employer's mail boxes to communicate with membership until recent NLRB decisions made by Bush appointees took that right from us along with the right to use employer's email.

Votes have consequences. If an anti-labor forces control the US presidency, it can hurt us right here in Vista.

Guffanati Opens Door to Union Use of District Email

Guffanti may have opened the door to UNLIMITED use of the district email by the union. Yes indeed! The good guys may now be able to use the district email for any union activity.

Why? because "no rules for me" Guffanti, as our employer, has used the district email to try to bust our union. Not only has he put out his lies and political hit pieces for his own benefit over district email. Not only has he solicited money for his campaign using district email, the idiot has sent email through our district email to our membership telling them how to opt our of our union and our PAC contributions. THAT IS UNON BUSTING. Read the NLRB ruling about it online here:
http://www.allbusiness.com/labor-employment/labor-relations-labor-unions/8894677-1.html

Here is the key phrase from the report:

The National Labor Relations Board ruled in a split 2007 decision that employers can ban union solicitations on their e-mail systems. An employer "may lawfully bar employees' non-work-related use of its e-mail system, unless the (company) acts in a manner that discriminates" against union organizing and collective bargaining rights under the National Labor Relations Act, the NLRB ruled in a 3-2 decision.

In other words if Guffanti "discriminates against union organizing" or engages in union busting, we are no longer limited by this NLRB ruling!

At least that is what it sounds like to me. I will be checking with the CTA tomorrow morning. If I am right, I will be sending out a number of PRO-Education messages to our (my former) membership using district e-mail.

I wonder if we can use site teacher mail boxes as well?

I will post the CTA answer as soon as I get it.

RETRACTION Guffanti (NOT) Caught stealing Campaign Signs!!

RETRACTION--GUFFANTI NOT CAUGHT STEALING SIGNS. It was Jim Gibson, VUSD Board President, who was again caught stealing signs. My new source says Gibson was caught with Oceanside City Council candidate signs other than his own. As you probably know he is running for Oceanside City Council while still serving as our VUSD board president. If you read this blog you know that Gibson was caught two years ago stealing our VTA pro-public education campaign signs by Jan O'Reilly, our VTA president.

My same source says that the NCTimes will run a story on Gibson stealing the signs before the election. Whether they run the story before or after the election will be an interesting test of the NCTimes willingness to be a community paper for the entire North County and not just one small special interest group.

The Union Tribune has criticized Jim Gibson in the past. The NCTimes to date has been unwilling to follow suit no matter what Jim Gibson does. Depending on whether this story holds up and who publishes it, will determine for me which newspaper best serves the needs of all members of the North County and which one I want to subscribe to.

'Poor Judgement' Doc endorses Guffanti

Guffanti has sent out an email with an endorsement from Mark C. Diamond PHD of Temecula. This is the same Mark C. Diamond who thought it appropriate to bring his own nine year old son, Mathew Diamond, into a doctor/patient counseling session with a distraught mother.

The mother had a teen age son who suffered from bipolar disease. She recently had found suicide notes and homosexual material in her teenage son's room and was especially distraught. She called for a session with Dr. Diamond to discuss those issues--teenage suicide and homosexuality. She was crying and upset. Dr. Diamond thought this would be a great session for his NINE YEAR OLD son to observe to learn about his father's job. Weird! But anyone who would endorse Guffanti has to be a little bit weird. In this case Guffanti found someone A LOT WEIRD!

Even thought Dr. Diamond saw no problem with his own NINE YEAR OLD son listening to description of homosexual material and suicide, the Board of Psychology, State of California Department of Consumer Affairs apparently thought differently. Dr. Diamond had to pay over $10,000 and was put on probation for this instance of unprofessional conduct and POOR JUDGMENT!

Guffanti really gets great endorsements. he must be pretty hard up if the only endorsement he can get is from someone who was found by a STATE BOARD of CALIFORNIA to have POOR JUDGEMENT!!!

I wonder how hard it would be to find another psychologist in our area to be certified in a state board hearing to have POOR JUDGEMENT!!! Guffanti likely found the ONLY ONE and used him for an endorsement for himself. WOW! He emailed multitudes of copies of the Dr. Diamond endorsement to email inboxes all over our district. What does Guffanti's pride in Dr. Diamond's endorsement say about Guffanti's judgement?

Read the board's finding about Mark C. Diamond's poor judgement here:
http://www.psychboard.ca.gov/consumers/diamond-mark.pdf

Read what Mark C. Diamond, the guy with POOR JUDGEMENT said about Guffanti and sent out by Guffanti via his notorious Guffanti emails here:

My friend, Stephen Guffanti, M.D., has asked me to write for him a public character reference. It is my pleasure to do so. I am a psychotherapist and have been a licensed clinical psychologist in California since 1985. I have known Dr. Guffanti for well over twenty years. During this time I have witnessed him perform in a number of forums, including as a medical doctor and as an advocate for children's education. From his medical patients, to students, teachers, and school administrators, Dr. Guffanti encourages others to take personal responsibility for their actions while empowering them to reach their life's potential. As one of the finest natural healers I have ever known, Dr. Guffanti urges others to view their life's problems as challenges—not obstacles.

Dr. Guffanti's credibility is the key in his helping others. It is my belief that he would never ask another person to do anything that he himself was not willing to do. He is as ethical, forthright, and brave an individual as any I have ever known. Dr. Guffanti is not afraid to be direct with a patient, even though he knows that some of his patients might rather hear falsely soothing words from the physician than encouragement from them to take greater responsibility for their physical health.
Dr. Guffanti's philosophy of doing the right thing, despite the cost, is further underlined by a lifetime of volunteering his time and financial resources towards making both his clients and his community more efficient in publicly and privately educating our children. I have never seen him waver from this commitment. He has been a personal role model for my own integrity.
Mark D. Diamond, Ph. D.
Temecula, CA October 25, 2008

Predictions for the Last Week of the Campaign

Predictions for the Last Week

We know from years of experience to expect nasty tricks from Guffanti and the ANTI education crowd. Whatever they do will be aided and abetted by the NCTimes on their editorial pages and in their “stories” about our district and this election.

In the past the ANTI’s have always had a “press conference” on Wednesday or Thursday before the election which the NCTimes education reporters are forced to cover. Lengthy articles will be published on Thursday, Friday, or Sunday before Tuesday’s election. In the articles will be all the ridiculous charges that the ANTI’s have fantasied about and concocted over the last two months.

If an ANTI candidate Guffanti, Anderson or Fernandez have a bird fly into one of their home windows, they will claim that “teachers are throwing birds at their windows.” If one single ANTI sign blows over in the wind, they’ll cry “teachers knocked over hundreds of our signs.” Perhaps one of their neighbor burns something with a foul smell in their fireplace and an ANTI candidates smells it, they’ll scream “the teachers are using WMD on us.” “They are terrorists!”

No matter how ridiculous and completely unfounded the charge, an NCTimes reporter will be forced to write a straight article that pretends to take the charge seriously. The article will get prominent play on the front page of the NCTimes.

There is no limit to ANTI paranoia. It is part of the strategy that our ANTI friends were taught at the training ‘to get extremists in public office.’ The training used to be at a “church” down in the south east San Diego County. I had a chance to attend the training myself, back in the summer of 1992, but did not. Too bad I would have known their strategy sooner and would have their materials to reproduce on this site. Now it does not matter. We have seen the ANTI education’s crowd election strategy seven times. It is always the same.

We are no longer surprised by their unscrupulous tactics, as at least I was, the first election or two. As a local church leader, a decades long Sunday School teacher, and a Christian Scouting director, I used to think that people who called themselves Christians had a certain set of moral and ethical standards that were inviolate. Having fought the ANTI’s who cloth themselves in the mantle of Christianity to deflect criticism and who use the trust of our fellow church members to get elected, I, now, know that some who call themselves Christian have no standards whatsoever.

We also can expect vicious “hit piece” mailers with slanderous lies about our district and our teachers to arrive in our mail boxes this coming Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. In the past we called the NCTimes to complain about the lies and slanders in the mailers. We hoped to get an article correcting the lies before the election. We were listened to. They agreed with our complaints. They wrote an article and then published it the day after the election.

We all know that the NCTimes is in the tank for the extremist ANTI education crowd. Do not be disheartened. We have beaten the ANTI’s in every election since 1994—SEVEN IN A ROW. There is no reason to think we cannot beat them again. Personally I am hoping to totally sweep of them off our school board.

Three more heroes get letters past NCT's censors

VOTE JAKA, LILLY and CHUNKA for VUSD School Board on NOVEMBER 4

In today’s (Sunday October 26, 2008) Letter to the editor section of the North County Times three brave heroes of the PRO-Public Education Resistance were able to get their letters published. I cannot help but wonder how many calls to the letter editor it took.

Apparently the NCTimes’ embargo on PRO-public education letters can be broken. Those of you who have sent in the more than thirty letters to the editor that the NCTimes has been withholding for last three weeks, KEEP CALLING! Demand your letters be published. Demand a date for publication. Do not give up. Please complain loudly and often to Pattie Leipert (letters editor at 433-7333, ask for Leipert).

We know based on past election experience that Leipert will wait to publish those thirty plus letters until just before the election and then put them all together in a giant letters to editor section, not on the letters page, in order to dilute the effect of the PRO-public education majority in the North County.

The NCTimes owners and even their biased editors realize that they must also sell papers to us. We are the majority of the North County. We are NOT in favor of extremism on school boards and school children being used for fringe political issues. We should be represented in a community paper like the NCTimes purports to be. We can be if you call. The bias at the NCTimes can be broken. The editors cannot take a chance of alienating more than half of their readership. The three letters below prove that the PRO Education letter embargo can be broken.

Today’s Education Heroes are:
(1) DONNA MARA of Vista
(2) DEBBIE RAYNER of Vista
(3) THOMAS MULLEN of San Diego

You can read their courageous letters here:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/10/26/opinion/letters/zec5ee85b6e983672882574ec007d101b.txt

or reproduced below.



The right thing to do in Vista

North County Times, what were you thinking of? Certainly not the 25,000 students in Vista Unified who rely on trustees to actually be proponents of public education. With the exception of Dr. Lilly, your endorsements fell excruciatingly short of the mark ("Lilly, Guffanti, Anderson best for VUSD," Oct. 2).Let's look at the facts: Dr. Guffanti has a long history promoting causes against public education. He authored one of the first voucher initiatives to be placed on a ballot, intending to divert public funds to pay for tuitions to private schools. ... His voting history on the board is one that has undermined the completion of the magnet high school. ...To support our students, and serve with Dr. Steve Lilly, we need to elect Angela Chunka and Elizabeth Jaka. Both are parents of students in our schools and have spent many years as volunteers supporting and enriching our students. They are familiar with teachers, standards and curriculum. Most important, their only agenda is to ensure that every child, every family in our district is heard and their needs addressed, while protecting your tax dollars from those who would divert them to other causes.Please vote for Lilly, Chunka, and Jaka for VUSD. It's just the right thing to do.

Dona Mara
Vista

Jaka, Lilly, Chunka will give us respect

Teachers and parents are looking for school board candidates who genuinely care about our concerns.Three candidates have been available to share their vision for the future of Vista Unified School District at all three candidate forums. They are Elizabeth Jaka, Steve Lilly and Angela Chunka. Their presence at the PTA and League of Women Voters forums shows their commitment to serving our students, parents and teachers. Questions posed to them were answered thoughtfully, with an impressive depth of knowledge of what is needed to keep our district healthy.We need board members who will respectfully listen and respond to the people they serve. Please vote for Jaka, Lilly and Chunka for the Vista Unified School District board.

Debbie Rayner
Vista

Personal views don't belong in school business

Congratulations are in order to trustees David Hubbard, Steve Lilly and Carol Herrera for their common sense and collective stand against religious fundamentalism on the school board ("School board stays out of gay marriage debate," Oct. 18).Taking a stand on this issue is very emotional and very decisive, even though to me it is a simple call: No on 8. I would rather see the trustees not cause any consternation among their constituents, especially when this issue has nothing to do with educating our kids.For trustees Jim Gibson and Stephen Guffanti, they both have no business invoking personal and political views as being representative of Vista on the whole, again, that have nothing to do with their service on the school board. Gibson and Guffanti are supposed to be nonpartisan and nonpolitical ��“��“ and it goes to show you how dangerous religious fundamentalists are when they try, at any level, to promote their agenda. It is an outrage.

Thomas Mullen
San Diego

Fleeing Administrators Identified--Wirth and Fitzpatrick

The latest administrators to flee the Bale’s Bailiwick of Bad Treatment are Shawn Wirth, the AP at Madison who has gone to Fallbrook and Susan Fitzpatrick principal of Breeze Hill who has fled to Del Mar.

These two are the 36th and 37th administrators to leave VUSD in the last two years according to VUSD sources. This rate of attrition is close to twenty times the normal rate (pre-Bales) in VUSD. Gee, I wonder why so many administrators are leaving? Guffanti’s group has frequently said the ones leaving are the “lazy” administrators that have never had to work and never did any work before the Bales became our “dear leader”. One of Guffanti’s lovely friends calls them “rats leaving a ship.” The true answer is they leave because they can. They belong to the one group of employees that have the ability to run away to freedom from “Bale-ery” without taking a massive pay cut.

Sadly, it is not as easy for teacher’s to leave a district as it is for administration. Teachers have to start all over again at the bottom of a new district’s pay scale costing them as much as thirty thousand dollars a year whereas administrators are allowed to move laterally and get equal or higher pay when they change to a new district.

It is not fair, but that is the way it is in California. Teachers with experience, our very best teachers, are stuck here under the Bales regime. Good for the kids of our district, not so good for our best teachers. Their only hope is a change on the VUSD board of education. They need new school board members who are willing to take control and ‘tone down’ Joyce Bales more extreme and dictatorial actions.

Good Anderson, Bad Anderson

Good Anderson, Bad Anderson

Seen around town today our large banner signs, “Teachers endorse Anderson” I am sure those of you who have seen them have been enraged that Patty Anderson would stoop so low as to blatantly lie on giant signs.

Bad enough her small campaign signs strongly imply she has been endorsed by the teachers. She is also using the VUSD teacher’s long time campaign symbol of an apple. Would she out and out bald faced lie? Guffanti’s unethical influences are everwhere in this campaign. Perhaps he convinced her to post these signs?

We know that Patty Anderson has attempted to keep her ranting anti-education letters to the editor a secret by signing the letters with variations of her married name, Patricia A. Johnson, Patty Johnson, and Pat Johnson. So we know she is deceptive like Guffanti, but would she so deliberately and boldly lie?

Actually no. That is correct, in this case Patty Johnson is not responsible. She did not put up the "Teachers endorse Anderson signs." She has not stooped that low as of yet.

It turns out the teacher’s really have endorsed an Anderson, the good Anderson, the one who supports public education and is running for the County Board of Education. His name is Mark C. Anderson.

In the past twenty years our ANTI public education friends have had three targets in San Diego county—Grossmont Union High School District which they captured and held, Vista Unified School District which they captured and lost, and the County Board of Education which they have not yet fully captured. But the dark forces have not given up. They still want our VUSD Board of Education and they still want to control the County Board of Education. They hope to use the County Board of Education as a "bully pulpit" to promote their fringe politics.

In this County School Board election, running against good guy, Mark C. Anderson, is one of the dark heroes of the ANTI crowd, a person named Rose Urdahl. She is endorsed by both Guffanti and Gibson. She needs to be defeated. Mark Anderson should be elected.

By a sad coincidence, the PRO-public education candidate for the County Board of Education, Mark C. Anderson, happens to have an identical last name to the one that Patty Anderson (Johnson) decided to use to run for our VUSD school board. Of course she uses Anderson to hide from her published letters to the editor and other writings under the name Patricia A. Johnson that would reveal her for the wild eyed, fringe extremist that she really is. If she had not chosen to hide from her married name (Johnson), we would not have had this problem. Too bad she did not run for school board as Patty Johnson. "If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride."

Mark C. Anderson is using the same name he uses everywhere. It just is really unfortunate that his real last name is the same one that Patty is using to try to escape from her previous extremist writings found in the NCTimes letter section under her married name ( search NCTimes archives under Patricia A. Johnson, Patty Johnson or Pat Johnson for look into an unfiltered view of her thoughts on public education).

In our town we get a chance to vote for a GOOD ANDERSON---MARK C. ANDERSON and vote against a BAD Anderson—Patty Anderson. The name Anderson has truly become a two-headed Janus for the voters of VUSD. We should look ahead with Mark C. Anderson on the county board and ignore the backward looking "vinegar" Patty Anderson running for our VUSD board.

"Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time." Merchant of Venice William Shakespeare

Tacky, Tacky, Tacky, sounds like Guffanti

PARTY CRASHERS AT THE VUSD ARTS FESTIVAL

Did you ever have a party and have uninvited guests show up. You really did not want them but you did not want to be rude. Mistakenly you let them in and then they returned your nice gesture with obnoxious and rude behavior? Something very similar to that happened at the VUSD Arts Festival this morning (Saturday, October 25th).

Today VUSD had a beautiful celebration called the VUSD Arts Festival. This festival to showcase the talents of our VUSD children was held today at the Vista Village Shopping Center. Our amazing and talented children showed off their art work, musical abilities, preformed brief dramatic scenes, demonstrated group drumming, and singing. It was as always a wonderful annual event. Our children seemed so proud of themselves and so excited. It has always been a politics-free zone.

ARTS FESTIVAL--A POLITICS-FREE ZONE

All of us involved in local politics (school board, water district, city council) have in the past realized that this day is for our kids, to showcase their talents. Even the ANTI-public education folks, who generally place no limits on themselves, have in the past respected this politics-free zone, but not today.

PRO-PUBLIC EDUCATION FOLKS ALWAYS FOLLOW THE RULES

Of course others have been tempted, we even had some of our more enthusiastic PRO-public ed. folks bringing up the idea to leadership that PRO public education literature should be available to parents at the Arts Festival. The leadership of the PRO-public education groups including the VTA-PAC gently reminded our more zealous friends that the event was for the children, not for us. No matter how much better off our children would be with PRO-public education candidates, we could not justify handing out literature at the children’s Arts Festival. We would not be party crashers.

GUFFANTI DOES NOT RESPECT RULES OR TRADITION

Guffanti as we know does not respect rules or traditions. He repeatedly has violated district and state laws and regulations regarding the separation of public resources (ie those of the VUSD) from politics. He routinely uses VUSD district email to send ANTI-public education tirades and asks for campaign support for himself and the other two ANTI school board candidates. He has inappropriately reproduced OFFICIAL district correspondences with his campaign literature on the back. He has gone on school campuses during school hours and passed out his literature. For all of these reasons many in our community now refer to him by his new nickname, “no rules for me” Guffanti.

It should come as no surprise that he decided to break the Arts Festival non-political tradition and to intrude on the joy of our children at an OFFICIAL VUSD event. I guess he forgot it was supposed to be a day to celebrate our children. I guess he also forgot it was an OFFICIAL event of a non-partisan PUBLIC institution. Oh that Guffanti, he is so forgetful when forgetting benefits himself.

DARK PRESENCE WANDERING AMONG OUR HAPPY CHILDREN

Wandering among the crowds of happy smiling children and proud parents were seen his dark minions furtively passing out Guffant, Anderson, Fernandez ANTI public education campaign literature. How rude to put his crass political ambitions above our children. To see the pinched faces of his tiny group of “nasties” slithering through the crowds was bad enough. His mindless minions were also accosting parents and children and practically forcing them to take Guffanti’s false political propaganda. Most of our good parents simply dropped his ANTI public education trash into the nearest trash cans where it belonged. Others refused to touch it and it fell to the ground as litter.

NOTE: The two ANTI education candidates seen trying to give away ANTI education campaign literature were Guffanti himself (spent the whole day there), and Eileen Fernandez. I wonder what happened to Patty?

Trash and litter is what party crasher Guffanti and his group contributed to the VUSD Arts Festival today.

Huge Rally Success Today!

Fifty-five pro public education heroes showed up today at one of our two rallies for Pro public education candidates JAKA, LILLY, and CHUNKA!!! Nearly as many showed up at our second rally location. Tired and exhausted teachers and others after a long day and long week of work found energy to go out tonight and demonstrate for Public Education in VUSD. They are all Education Heroes. Good job all!

Remember there will be no rally next Friday as it is Halloween night.

Our last rally for public education will be Monday November 3rd . It will be the largest yet. We plan to rock our VUSD community with our enthusiasm. Be there or wish you were.

Rumors swirl that Guffanti is trying to imitate our tremendous rally success. Whatever we do he tries desperately to copy. He has organized two rallies for himself and the other ANTI education candidates. The first as you may recall from this blog was a fiasco—only two people (one related to him) showed up. But I am told he had a far more successful rally this week than the first. This week he apparently had five people. One of whom was said to be his fellow ANTI public education henchman on the VUSD board, Jim Gibson. Wow, Guffanti really can inspire people, can’t he?

Where does Guffanti find anybody at all that believes him? We should be impressed (or saddened) that he still finds four or five gullible souls left in Vista that swallow his malarkey.

Rumor has it that even the good, long suffering folks at his base of operations, North Coast Church, are tiring of his constant use of their congregation and church directory for his own personal political purposes rather than for church purposes. He is even getting blow back from members of the congregation. Guffanti has such a hard time getting along with people, especially those who know him best.

Phone banking is going well. We have finished all the lists of strong supporters of public education. We are now calling on the final phone lists which consist solely of those voters who never supported Pro-public education candidates in the past. Even on these lists we are finding votes for our candidates. Amazing! Guffanti’s actions and reputation are even turning around what used to be his strongest supporters.

Ten days until the election. Volunteer today! Show up tomorrow at 9AM at the VTA office 1717 East Vista Way for our Walk and Drop. It is great exercise. We go to specific areas of the city and drop off campaign literature at the front doors of potential swing voters. These voters can make the difference.

Remember we do not only want to beat Guffanti. We need a victory large enough to repudiate him and his tactics. Let’s send him off the board in a landslide!