I notice Patty Anderson is an adjunct marine science professor at Palomar College. Since she supported the side of the creationists in a previous election, I have some questions.
Does she accept the evidence for the universe being 13 billion years old as credible and convincing? Did God just make it appear to be old?
Was the Grand Canyon really created by Noah's flood? How does she explain the layers of volcanic ash interspersed with layers created at the bottom of oceans and in coastal mud flats? how did that all happen in forty days? Why didn't the wet mud from the flood collapse into the mile deep very vertical cliffs at the Grand Canyon? Why are there foot prints in the coastal mud flat deposits on top of a level leading straight back into the solid rock that towers hundreds of feet above the tracks and is thousands of feet above the canyon floor? etc. etc. etc.
Does she accept the evidence the earth is 4.6 billion years old as credible and convincing?
Does she accept the fossil evidence of a line of transitions for early whales from hoofed land animals with four legs and nostrils at the front of their snouts to finned marine creatures with the nostrils (blowhole) near the top of their heads? Does she find these fossils credible and convincing evidence that the ancestor of all whales and dolphins was a four legged land dwelling mammal?
Has she ever heard of the term closet creationist? What does she think of creationists who get jobs as science teachers in public institutions by stealth and deception?
Will she level paranoid and crazy charges at the our school district's teachers and run off to the local FOX affiliate with her nutty charges this election as she did last time?
Her charges were so nuts that even FOX would not air them nor would the North County Times print them. I will not dignify her fantasies by repeating them but I will say they had to do with her daughter and her dog and VUSD teachers. Completely nuts. Of course her daughter is NOT a VUSD student. Patty takes her out of district to "protect" her from the "evil" VUSD teachers.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Guffanti wastes 25 million taxpayer dollars!
Guffanti likes to pretend that he is against wasting taxpayer money but he really does not care. Political power, the joy of a feeling righteous, weird hatred of teachers who knows what motivates Guffanti but it certainly is not saving taxpayer money!
Today we have no third high school in VUSD and we have lost 25 million big ones all thanks to Guffanti. If we had had a rational school board member these last eight year instead of Guffanti, we now would have that new high school up and running for at least the last two years and we would have money left over form the bond issue.
The Guffanti Liars Club likes to blame the three rational board member for the delay in finishing landscaping and other finishing touches at Rancho Minerva Middle School and for the new high school not being built first and on budget. But of course they would. Guffanti (and Gibson) have caused the delays and over budget problems. With great glee, they did everything they could to sabotage bond issues before Prop O. Three bond issues down in flames with the help of their group. Finally without any help from Guffanti or Gibson we finally get a bond issue passed and start building badly needed schools.
So what do Guffanti and Gibson do? Of course they sabotage the process and throw sand in the gears. Just a great big fun game for Guffanti, but for our kids years of unnecessary overcrowding and less than ideal school situation.
How did Guffanti cost us so much money? Easy. After the district search committee looked at 19 sites in the district, the committee picked Strawberry Hill—50+ acres located BEHIND the strawberry fields. The fair market value of the land was ONE million dollars but the owner did not at that time want to sell his land. (In fact he later contributed generously to Gibson and Bradford campaigns in school board campaign of 2002. Both G and B were against the purchase.) For condemnation proceedings to occur the California Department of Education REQUIRES four of five board members to vote in favor of the proceedings.
Guess what Guffanti and Gibson did? Of course they both in lockstep REFUSED every attempt by the three rational board members to get one or the other to be the fourth vote. After months of this delay and after Bradford (but sadly not Gibson) lost in November 2002, the board lead by David Hubbard convinced Gibson to be the fourth vote for the condemnation of the current site of the dual magnet high school at highway 76 across from Home Depot. The fair market value of that site was SEVENTEEN MILLION DOLLARS. Do you remember what the cost of the strawberry hill site? That’s right ONE MILLION DOLLARS! Had Guffanti cared about tax payer money, he could have been the fourth vote for the strawberry hill site condemnation.
So he cost us SIXTEEN MILLION DOLLARS for no reason just in the difference in the cost of the sites.
(North County Times said, "Board members Jim Gibson and Stephen Guffanti said they refuse to support condemning the Kawano (blog editor note: owner of strawberry hill site is named Kawano) property because of existing high traffic volumes and lack of sewer service."The Strawberry Hills site is unacceptable," Gibson said. "That's not the only site out there, and there are other possible sites that they could look at." article published on Saturday, August 9, 2003 11:14 PM PDT , title of article: "Vista still searching for home of magnet high schools" written By: DAVID STERRETT)
How does that get to 25 million? Well, our district school board knowing that we would need a third high school, since both Vista and Rancho were at DOUBLE their capacity, both the full architectural drawings of a high school (with state hardship funds) at the bargain basement price of $80,000 far below what original plans would have cost. The plans were of Mission Hills High School in San Marcos.
Guffanti and Gibson accepted campaign money from the owner of Strawberry Hill (Kawano) site in the joint funds they used in the 2002 school board election where Jim Gibson and Steve Bradford were the running as the extremist duo against Carol Herrera and Letha McWey. For the last four years Guffanti and Gibson have complained about traffic problems and lack of services problems at the highway 76 site proving their opposition to strawberry hills was really based on their desire to stop a third high school from being built at ANY LOCATION.
Gibson and Guffanti INSISTED that the new high school be a dual magnet high school or he would not vote to authorize the bond (prop O). It turned out that three board members could put a bond issue on the ballot but it would need a 2/3 majority vote to pass. However a new California proposition Prop 39 allowed school bonds to passed by 55% majority if at least four of five trustees agreed. Because the three previous bonds had garnered between 61 and 65% in failing, and the district overcrowding was so great (remember year around schools?) the three rational board members went along with the Guffanti Gibson blackmail. Prop O passed by about 69% so we did not even need their votes. Too bad. Now dual magnet high schools were in the language of the bond issue.
A few hundred of thousands more dollars wasted for the UNIQUE architectural plans for a first in California dual magnet high school, $80,000 for the other plans down the drain. By the way that $80,000 was entirely out of state hardship money and did not cost our district ONE PENNY. State taxpayers still our out the money, true, but what does Guffanti care as long as new public schools are not built. We are up to 18 million that Guffanti cost our taxpayers.
The rest is just a SWAG—scientific wild a** guess. No one can say for sure but those six years of delays that Guffanti caused by not being the fourth vote for strawberry hill resulted in millions of dollars of increased construction costs for supplies and workers. Conservative estimates have to be at least a 10-20% rise in construction costs in that period. It was a time of unparalleled rise in materials due to rapid rise of transportation costs (gas and diesel) and also declining supplies particularly aggregate (for concrete) and wood. These increased costs must be at least seven to eight million dollars on a large project like a high school.
Because of the delays there is not enough money to build out the new dual magnet high schools with full set of facilitates at new high school or for that matter to finish off the facilities at Rancho Minerva Middle school. Most unbiased observers believe that was exactly what Guffanti's goal was all along. Stop building schools in Vista. Create a campaign issue for him.
Guffanti hates public education. He derogatorily calls our public schools “government schools.” Government schools is a code term for a small group of crazies who believe that government schools and government teachers are out to destroy the moral fiber of all American children. He belonged to an organization dedicated to the “destruction” of all “government” schools and only quit the organization when his membership was made public. He speaks at home school conventions where young earth creationist (6000 year old earth) also speak along with other anti government paranoid types. More will be written about this in later posts.
Additional point--one of the 19 sites investigated was the site where the North Coast Church is now building their new mega church. Interesting that all the anti-public education group including Guffanti, Gibson, Patty Anderson, Eileen Fernandez, Reed Miller and Dan Piro all attend the North Coast Church and that the property they wanted for their church was NOT chosen for the new high school site.
Interesting but apparently not a conspiracy. It turns out a natural gas pipeline runs under the site making it forbidden for a school but OK for a church.
I really wanted to start a false rumor that had true parts to it, but I just do not have enough of what Guffanti seems to have in spades. I would call what Guffanti has a kind of reverse morality, a kind of screwtape letters type of morality.
I want to our rational normal people candidates to win, but I cannot throw away my ethics. Winning at all costs is contrary to my Christian upbringing. Of course I never attended the North Coast Church. A different set of morals may be taught there. Weird that one church in town wants to control our entire school board. Shouldn't someone from Calvary Chapel, the Assembly of God or the Baptist church also be on our VUSD board?
Today we have no third high school in VUSD and we have lost 25 million big ones all thanks to Guffanti. If we had had a rational school board member these last eight year instead of Guffanti, we now would have that new high school up and running for at least the last two years and we would have money left over form the bond issue.
The Guffanti Liars Club likes to blame the three rational board member for the delay in finishing landscaping and other finishing touches at Rancho Minerva Middle School and for the new high school not being built first and on budget. But of course they would. Guffanti (and Gibson) have caused the delays and over budget problems. With great glee, they did everything they could to sabotage bond issues before Prop O. Three bond issues down in flames with the help of their group. Finally without any help from Guffanti or Gibson we finally get a bond issue passed and start building badly needed schools.
So what do Guffanti and Gibson do? Of course they sabotage the process and throw sand in the gears. Just a great big fun game for Guffanti, but for our kids years of unnecessary overcrowding and less than ideal school situation.
How did Guffanti cost us so much money? Easy. After the district search committee looked at 19 sites in the district, the committee picked Strawberry Hill—50+ acres located BEHIND the strawberry fields. The fair market value of the land was ONE million dollars but the owner did not at that time want to sell his land. (In fact he later contributed generously to Gibson and Bradford campaigns in school board campaign of 2002. Both G and B were against the purchase.) For condemnation proceedings to occur the California Department of Education REQUIRES four of five board members to vote in favor of the proceedings.
Guess what Guffanti and Gibson did? Of course they both in lockstep REFUSED every attempt by the three rational board members to get one or the other to be the fourth vote. After months of this delay and after Bradford (but sadly not Gibson) lost in November 2002, the board lead by David Hubbard convinced Gibson to be the fourth vote for the condemnation of the current site of the dual magnet high school at highway 76 across from Home Depot. The fair market value of that site was SEVENTEEN MILLION DOLLARS. Do you remember what the cost of the strawberry hill site? That’s right ONE MILLION DOLLARS! Had Guffanti cared about tax payer money, he could have been the fourth vote for the strawberry hill site condemnation.
So he cost us SIXTEEN MILLION DOLLARS for no reason just in the difference in the cost of the sites.
(North County Times said, "Board members Jim Gibson and Stephen Guffanti said they refuse to support condemning the Kawano (blog editor note: owner of strawberry hill site is named Kawano) property because of existing high traffic volumes and lack of sewer service."The Strawberry Hills site is unacceptable," Gibson said. "That's not the only site out there, and there are other possible sites that they could look at." article published on Saturday, August 9, 2003 11:14 PM PDT , title of article: "Vista still searching for home of magnet high schools" written By: DAVID STERRETT)
How does that get to 25 million? Well, our district school board knowing that we would need a third high school, since both Vista and Rancho were at DOUBLE their capacity, both the full architectural drawings of a high school (with state hardship funds) at the bargain basement price of $80,000 far below what original plans would have cost. The plans were of Mission Hills High School in San Marcos.
Guffanti and Gibson accepted campaign money from the owner of Strawberry Hill (Kawano) site in the joint funds they used in the 2002 school board election where Jim Gibson and Steve Bradford were the running as the extremist duo against Carol Herrera and Letha McWey. For the last four years Guffanti and Gibson have complained about traffic problems and lack of services problems at the highway 76 site proving their opposition to strawberry hills was really based on their desire to stop a third high school from being built at ANY LOCATION.
Gibson and Guffanti INSISTED that the new high school be a dual magnet high school or he would not vote to authorize the bond (prop O). It turned out that three board members could put a bond issue on the ballot but it would need a 2/3 majority vote to pass. However a new California proposition Prop 39 allowed school bonds to passed by 55% majority if at least four of five trustees agreed. Because the three previous bonds had garnered between 61 and 65% in failing, and the district overcrowding was so great (remember year around schools?) the three rational board members went along with the Guffanti Gibson blackmail. Prop O passed by about 69% so we did not even need their votes. Too bad. Now dual magnet high schools were in the language of the bond issue.
A few hundred of thousands more dollars wasted for the UNIQUE architectural plans for a first in California dual magnet high school, $80,000 for the other plans down the drain. By the way that $80,000 was entirely out of state hardship money and did not cost our district ONE PENNY. State taxpayers still our out the money, true, but what does Guffanti care as long as new public schools are not built. We are up to 18 million that Guffanti cost our taxpayers.
The rest is just a SWAG—scientific wild a** guess. No one can say for sure but those six years of delays that Guffanti caused by not being the fourth vote for strawberry hill resulted in millions of dollars of increased construction costs for supplies and workers. Conservative estimates have to be at least a 10-20% rise in construction costs in that period. It was a time of unparalleled rise in materials due to rapid rise of transportation costs (gas and diesel) and also declining supplies particularly aggregate (for concrete) and wood. These increased costs must be at least seven to eight million dollars on a large project like a high school.
Because of the delays there is not enough money to build out the new dual magnet high schools with full set of facilitates at new high school or for that matter to finish off the facilities at Rancho Minerva Middle school. Most unbiased observers believe that was exactly what Guffanti's goal was all along. Stop building schools in Vista. Create a campaign issue for him.
Guffanti hates public education. He derogatorily calls our public schools “government schools.” Government schools is a code term for a small group of crazies who believe that government schools and government teachers are out to destroy the moral fiber of all American children. He belonged to an organization dedicated to the “destruction” of all “government” schools and only quit the organization when his membership was made public. He speaks at home school conventions where young earth creationist (6000 year old earth) also speak along with other anti government paranoid types. More will be written about this in later posts.
Additional point--one of the 19 sites investigated was the site where the North Coast Church is now building their new mega church. Interesting that all the anti-public education group including Guffanti, Gibson, Patty Anderson, Eileen Fernandez, Reed Miller and Dan Piro all attend the North Coast Church and that the property they wanted for their church was NOT chosen for the new high school site.
Interesting but apparently not a conspiracy. It turns out a natural gas pipeline runs under the site making it forbidden for a school but OK for a church.
I really wanted to start a false rumor that had true parts to it, but I just do not have enough of what Guffanti seems to have in spades. I would call what Guffanti has a kind of reverse morality, a kind of screwtape letters type of morality.
I want to our rational normal people candidates to win, but I cannot throw away my ethics. Winning at all costs is contrary to my Christian upbringing. Of course I never attended the North Coast Church. A different set of morals may be taught there. Weird that one church in town wants to control our entire school board. Shouldn't someone from Calvary Chapel, the Assembly of God or the Baptist church also be on our VUSD board?
Monday, September 29, 2008
How to Fight the Lies
What can we do to confront the Guffanti Team of Liars?
Volunteer at the VTA office 1717 East Vista Way Suite 203 Vista CA
760-758-2690
There are activities every work day and often on Saturday and Sunday.
Volunteers are needed to:
(1) stuff fliers into Walk and Drop bags to be left at VUSD voters homes
(2) make phone calls to VUSD voters who have supported us in the past (this is our very best weapon—our phone bank has turned the tide on past lies by Guffanti and his group)
(3) attach campaign signs to wooden stakes
(4) put campaign signs up around down
(5) GOTV—Get Out the Vote on the day of the election, helping to get our voters to the polls
(6) And many more easy but needed clerical jobs
(7) donate money, time, materials
Reasons given for NOT helping with answers for why you should/could:
(1) I am too busy. ANSWER--Yes, you are. It seems there has been a deliberate strategy to keep teachers working on so much Bales Busy Work, that they are too exhausted to help with the campaign. Will you let that strategy be successful?
(2) I do not live in the district. Is it somehow ‘wrong’ for me to put my nose into district politics? ANSWER--No, of course not. You are an American. You are an American. You can help in any election in America and what election is more important than the one that has to do with YOUR JOB?
(3) I am not a teacher and I do not know a lot of teachers. ANSWER--So what? Who cares if you are a plumber, a house wife or Indian chief, the campaign for truth welcomes all help. The campaign located at the VTA office is a community campaign. It is only at the VTA office because there is available space there. All people no matter where they live or what they do are invited to come help.
(4) I hate talking on the phone. ANSWER--There are lots of other jobs. But for me talking on the phone became my favorite even though I was very nervous and not very good at it my first time at the phone bank. It truly is a joy to talk to the good voters of VUSD and know how few have been influenced by the Guffanti Lie and Smear machine.
(5) We do this every two years! ANSWER—Yes indeed we do but this may be the last year. Jim Gibson the other school board member who if VERY truth challenged is running for Oceanside City Council. Guffanti could well lose this year. He has made numerous enemies of parents and site council members. He does “not play well with others” and it is catching up with him.
If the G and G dynamic duo of liars both are off our board, we might have just normal board members with no hidden, hate filled agendas. Imagine five board members who vote only on what they think is in the best interest of our children. This election could finally nail the coffin shut on the lie and smear campaigns of the Guffanti group.
Don’t you want to be a part of the team that finally regained our board for the good of VUSD and not what is good for Guffanti’s or Gibson’s political careers. Come join us at the VTA office. Be part of a team for the good of our kids. We look forward to seeing you.
Volunteer at the VTA office 1717 East Vista Way Suite 203 Vista CA
760-758-2690
There are activities every work day and often on Saturday and Sunday.
Volunteers are needed to:
(1) stuff fliers into Walk and Drop bags to be left at VUSD voters homes
(2) make phone calls to VUSD voters who have supported us in the past (this is our very best weapon—our phone bank has turned the tide on past lies by Guffanti and his group)
(3) attach campaign signs to wooden stakes
(4) put campaign signs up around down
(5) GOTV—Get Out the Vote on the day of the election, helping to get our voters to the polls
(6) And many more easy but needed clerical jobs
(7) donate money, time, materials
Reasons given for NOT helping with answers for why you should/could:
(1) I am too busy. ANSWER--Yes, you are. It seems there has been a deliberate strategy to keep teachers working on so much Bales Busy Work, that they are too exhausted to help with the campaign. Will you let that strategy be successful?
(2) I do not live in the district. Is it somehow ‘wrong’ for me to put my nose into district politics? ANSWER--No, of course not. You are an American. You are an American. You can help in any election in America and what election is more important than the one that has to do with YOUR JOB?
(3) I am not a teacher and I do not know a lot of teachers. ANSWER--So what? Who cares if you are a plumber, a house wife or Indian chief, the campaign for truth welcomes all help. The campaign located at the VTA office is a community campaign. It is only at the VTA office because there is available space there. All people no matter where they live or what they do are invited to come help.
(4) I hate talking on the phone. ANSWER--There are lots of other jobs. But for me talking on the phone became my favorite even though I was very nervous and not very good at it my first time at the phone bank. It truly is a joy to talk to the good voters of VUSD and know how few have been influenced by the Guffanti Lie and Smear machine.
(5) We do this every two years! ANSWER—Yes indeed we do but this may be the last year. Jim Gibson the other school board member who if VERY truth challenged is running for Oceanside City Council. Guffanti could well lose this year. He has made numerous enemies of parents and site council members. He does “not play well with others” and it is catching up with him.
If the G and G dynamic duo of liars both are off our board, we might have just normal board members with no hidden, hate filled agendas. Imagine five board members who vote only on what they think is in the best interest of our children. This election could finally nail the coffin shut on the lie and smear campaigns of the Guffanti group.
Don’t you want to be a part of the team that finally regained our board for the good of VUSD and not what is good for Guffanti’s or Gibson’s political careers. Come join us at the VTA office. Be part of a team for the good of our kids. We look forward to seeing you.
Guffanti's Liars Club and some infamous fabrications
What lies do the Anti- Public Education crowd tell about us in VUSD?
In Saturday’s edition of the North County Times an article ran discussing the six school board candidates for VUSD. Read the article here:
After the article the Anti Public Education bunch that supports Dr. Stephen Guffanti, Patty Anderson, and Eileen Fernandez posted their usual inflammatory lies and comments. Nothing they say is true, but when one reads their lies, the lies almost feel like they might be true, enough to scare community members or church members who are not familiar with our VUSD schools.
Below I list the three plus one lies they told yesterday.
Of course those three plus one are not all the despicable set of lies they have used against our good teachers in the last year.
Guffanti said in an NCTimes editorial in November 2007 all VUSD teachers are lazy and do not want to work and that is why they do not support Joyce Bales because she is making them work for the first time.
A year before that Guffanti said that Vista Teachers support child molesters and try to keep them in the classroom on an interview on KOCT.
Guffanti supporters also regularly post comments that teachers get full time pay for half time jobs. VUSD teachers are the best paid in the nation. (Heck VUSD teachers are not even in the top ten in San Diego County).
If you want to read more of the Guffanti Liars Club lies, (if you have the stomach for it) you can see dozens more if you do an advanced search on the NCTimes website. Use VUSD as your search item. Cover the period from August 2007 to September 2008.
I warn you that you will be heart sick, then enraged when you read what the Guffanti Liar’s Club members are saying about our good VUSD teachers.
The most recent set of lies posted at 8:03 in the comment section for the article above contained the following lies:
Lie one
VUSD teachers are giving “pockets of condoms” to our “11 year old daughters”
Lie two
VUSD teachers “…give them (our 11 year old daughters) information about getting an abortion with out (sic) parents knowing about it.”
Lie three
VUSD teachers “terrorize our 4 grader with the Al Gore firm scaring them that the world is coming to an end because of our president.”
The Guffanti group liar followed up Lie one with ‘details’ of the where and when Lie one and two happened (that is the plus in their three lies). The Guffanti Liars Club member said that these incidents (lie one and two) happened at the “Spring Assembly” at Rancho Minerva Middle School in 2008.
I checked with a Rancho Minerva Middle School teacher. At first she just laughed at how ridiculous the lies were, but then realized that these lies were being told in our community and good people were being fooled by those lies into believing terrible things about our VUSD schools and teachers particularly her school. She was then angry and incensed.
“Of course that those things never happened. The only assembly we had was a student awards assembly.” She told me.
She also pointed out that if anything even remotely like that happened the incident would have made the news in local TV radio and newspapers. Of course she is right, the situation would have made the local news, but I personally think it would have made national news as well.
As crazy nasty and horrible as lies one and two are, most of our community does not know that the Guffanti Group lies routinely and for political advantage. Our community does not realize that the reality challenged Guffanti supporters cannot get their candidates elected unless they lie and lie often and loudly. It is a POLITICAL technique called “throwing everything at the wall and hoping at least one thing will stick.” By the time the lies are exposed (if ever) the election is over and they have won.
The technique might work here because our VUSD voters like most voters are honest nice down to earth folks. It is inconceivable to normal honest folk like our VUSD voters that Guffanti and his friends would make up lies to get elected—especially such egregious ones. Yet that is exactly what Guffanti group and their supporters have been known for in every election he has been in.
The lies work on the community. Even if our voters do not believe it all intellectually, the begin to wonder about the teachers and about the school district. This uncertainty delays their vote and makes our good VUSD voters wonder about us. It is very effective in making inroads into the vote that our three honest and reasonable candidates should get.
Regarding the lie number three above about Al Gore’s documentary being shown 4 (sic) grader, the Guffanti Liar never did write back to give made up where and when details. So it obviously was not shown to any 4 (sic ) grader in our district. Of course the Al Gore documentary does not ‘terrorize’ and it does not blame President Bush for human contribution to global warming. It was given an Oscar and Al Gore won the Nobel Prize largely as a result of the documentary and his efforts to warn about the dangers of burning massive amounts of fossil carbon. Oscars and Nobel Prizes are hardly given to those who “terrorize.”
What can be done about the lies? First is for you to know what is being said. Second inform others about this campaign of lies. The next post will give you some information on how.
In Saturday’s edition of the North County Times an article ran discussing the six school board candidates for VUSD. Read the article here:
After the article the Anti Public Education bunch that supports Dr. Stephen Guffanti, Patty Anderson, and Eileen Fernandez posted their usual inflammatory lies and comments. Nothing they say is true, but when one reads their lies, the lies almost feel like they might be true, enough to scare community members or church members who are not familiar with our VUSD schools.
Below I list the three plus one lies they told yesterday.
Of course those three plus one are not all the despicable set of lies they have used against our good teachers in the last year.
Guffanti said in an NCTimes editorial in November 2007 all VUSD teachers are lazy and do not want to work and that is why they do not support Joyce Bales because she is making them work for the first time.
A year before that Guffanti said that Vista Teachers support child molesters and try to keep them in the classroom on an interview on KOCT.
Guffanti supporters also regularly post comments that teachers get full time pay for half time jobs. VUSD teachers are the best paid in the nation. (Heck VUSD teachers are not even in the top ten in San Diego County).
If you want to read more of the Guffanti Liars Club lies, (if you have the stomach for it) you can see dozens more if you do an advanced search on the NCTimes website. Use VUSD as your search item. Cover the period from August 2007 to September 2008.
I warn you that you will be heart sick, then enraged when you read what the Guffanti Liar’s Club members are saying about our good VUSD teachers.
The most recent set of lies posted at 8:03 in the comment section for the article above contained the following lies:
Lie one
VUSD teachers are giving “pockets of condoms” to our “11 year old daughters”
Lie two
VUSD teachers “…give them (our 11 year old daughters) information about getting an abortion with out (sic) parents knowing about it.”
Lie three
VUSD teachers “terrorize our 4 grader with the Al Gore firm scaring them that the world is coming to an end because of our president.”
The Guffanti group liar followed up Lie one with ‘details’ of the where and when Lie one and two happened (that is the plus in their three lies). The Guffanti Liars Club member said that these incidents (lie one and two) happened at the “Spring Assembly” at Rancho Minerva Middle School in 2008.
I checked with a Rancho Minerva Middle School teacher. At first she just laughed at how ridiculous the lies were, but then realized that these lies were being told in our community and good people were being fooled by those lies into believing terrible things about our VUSD schools and teachers particularly her school. She was then angry and incensed.
“Of course that those things never happened. The only assembly we had was a student awards assembly.” She told me.
She also pointed out that if anything even remotely like that happened the incident would have made the news in local TV radio and newspapers. Of course she is right, the situation would have made the local news, but I personally think it would have made national news as well.
As crazy nasty and horrible as lies one and two are, most of our community does not know that the Guffanti Group lies routinely and for political advantage. Our community does not realize that the reality challenged Guffanti supporters cannot get their candidates elected unless they lie and lie often and loudly. It is a POLITICAL technique called “throwing everything at the wall and hoping at least one thing will stick.” By the time the lies are exposed (if ever) the election is over and they have won.
The technique might work here because our VUSD voters like most voters are honest nice down to earth folks. It is inconceivable to normal honest folk like our VUSD voters that Guffanti and his friends would make up lies to get elected—especially such egregious ones. Yet that is exactly what Guffanti group and their supporters have been known for in every election he has been in.
The lies work on the community. Even if our voters do not believe it all intellectually, the begin to wonder about the teachers and about the school district. This uncertainty delays their vote and makes our good VUSD voters wonder about us. It is very effective in making inroads into the vote that our three honest and reasonable candidates should get.
Regarding the lie number three above about Al Gore’s documentary being shown 4 (sic) grader, the Guffanti Liar never did write back to give made up where and when details. So it obviously was not shown to any 4 (sic ) grader in our district. Of course the Al Gore documentary does not ‘terrorize’ and it does not blame President Bush for human contribution to global warming. It was given an Oscar and Al Gore won the Nobel Prize largely as a result of the documentary and his efforts to warn about the dangers of burning massive amounts of fossil carbon. Oscars and Nobel Prizes are hardly given to those who “terrorize.”
What can be done about the lies? First is for you to know what is being said. Second inform others about this campaign of lies. The next post will give you some information on how.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
What to Expect as the Election Nears
What to expect.
In the last few weeks of this campaign, it is likely that we will see the same pattern that we have seen in each school board campaign since 1994.
WORKING THE REFS
The anti group will “work the ref” by complaining loudly about perceived injustices that they have been dealt. These injustices are in their minds only, but they will go in mass to the NCTimes.
(Patty Anderson went to the local FOX Affliate before the last election two years ago. Her unfounded and "crazy" charges were so over the top that even the FOX affiliate would not broadcast them.)
The NCTimes will publish, uncritically, their charges in a series of articles. The editors of the NCTimes are VERY anti-union whether it is teacher, firefighter, law enforcement, or store clerk. Even without the biased editorial staff, it would be very difficult for any local paper to stand up to the concerted action of a large group of potential subscribers, especially as newspapers see their circulation stagnate and their ad revenues fall.
CAMPAIGN SIGNS
The anti folks are zealots. They do not think as others think. They project onto others the kind of actions that they, themselves, are taking.
For instance the issue of campaign sign removal. The Anti’s have a long history of removing opposing campaign signs as fast as they go up. Campaign signs for teacher endorsed candidates on Melrose within a half a mile of North Coast Church are taken down within hours of being put up—according to a source who worked on signs in the 1994, 1996 and 1998 campaigns.
A few elections ago, this person said he made a route on a Saturday around Vista posting signs. Near the beginning of the route was Melrose Ave where the North Coast Church is located. On his way back from his three hours of sign posting, he found all the signs within a mile of the church to be already down. All kinds of other political signs for other political offices were still up. All the anti campaigns signs were up including in front of the church; but every single VTA endorsed candidate sign, that had been posted less than three hours before, was gone.
The signs where coming down so fast that another person on the sign committee stamped his wooden posts with an ink stamp. I think he said that he normally used the stamp on student papers. It was a typical teacher stamp.
He came back to the locations where he had posted signs a few days later to find that his signs were gone. There was no trace of them. They were not down or blown off in the weeds. However, he did find his stamped wooden posts. The posts that VTA had bought, the posts he had laboriously affixed to VTA endorsed candidate signs, now were in nearly identical locations with “anti” endorsed candidate signs in place of VTA endorsed candidate signs.
WILD ACCUSATIONS
The anti folks always insist on putting a sign in the vegetation area in front of the offices where the VTA office is. We have always put up our sign next to it. A previous president used to straighten their sign or put it up again if it blew down. During the school board election of two years ago, the owner of the office building site, without consulting the VTA, took down the anti-public education candidate sign as the anti group had not asked his permission to post their signs on his property. He left the VTA sign up because the VTA had asked permission.
The anti group immediately took notice. Apparently they were daily tracking the sign in front of the VTA office.
Our anti crowd howled to the newspaper and without substantiation or investigation accused the teachers of taking down their signs all over the city (not just at this location). They used this location and the removal of their signs as proof. They went to the North County Times and demanded an article. They never checked with the owner of the property or the VTA. The VTA only found out about the “outrage” after being contacted by the NCTimes. The VTA leadership investigated and found out what had happened.
BE THE BETTER PERSON
In every campaign so far, it has been the instructions of the VTA leadership to NEVER, NEVER take down the anti-public education campaign signs. Better to not even touch their signs at all. However, we have had at least two past members of the sign committee who when they stop to post new signs and find one of the anti signs down actually put the anti signs back up again.
We are better people than they are. We have better ethics. We care about the children of the district. They care only about the joy of being in a zealot cause, a crusade. For them the intense emotional pleasure of being in a righteous cause trumps all sense of fairness or ethics. We are not that way. Besides every sign they lose to wind or weather, they blame on us. They also have in the past had followers with cameras sitting in cars waiting to take pictures of anyone touching their signs. DO NOT TAKE DOWN THEIR SIGNS under any circumstance.
FALSE FLAG CAMPAIGN SIGNS
In the last election Patty Anderson put up campaign signs that imitated our signs. She claimed to be the 'teacher's choice' even though she was not endorsed by the teachers. She even had a school symbol (an apple) on her signs that imitated the same symbol on the pro-public education signs in that campaign and ALL PREVIOUS CAMPAIGNS. The apple logo had been used by us the pro-public education folks in the PREVIOUS SIX CAMPAIGNS. Patty and her anti crowd well knew what our symbol was. We cannot copyright our symbol but the anti's knew what it was. It speaks very poorly of their ethics to use it to try to confuse voters.
ILLEGAL AND UNTRUE CANDIDATE STATEMENTS IN THE OFFICIAL REGISTRAR OF VOTER -- VOTER INFORMATION GUIDE.
Guffanti claims to be a teacher in each of his candidate statements. Intentionally confusing voters who think he is or was a classroom teacher. He also ususally has some slanderous statements. This time he illegally endorsed another "anti" candidate in his statement. NO candidate is allowed to endorse any other candidate in a candidate statement in the official Registrar of Voters booklet. Guffanti knows this. He has run for school board time after time. Knowing something is illegal and unethical dis not stop him from trying to get this illegal statement included. His statement was not removed or checked by the Registrar's office. There 'wasn't enough time'.
Our 'anti' friends never play by the rules. They never play fair. Those of you who expect candidates like Guffanti who use their 'christian' credentials as major election tools are sometimes surprised by the lack of morals and ethics by the self-identified 'christian' candidates. Don't be. They are on a crusade. Methods and tactics do not matter in their 'holy' quest, only winning counts--by any means necessary.
OUTRAGEOUS AND UNTRUE ARTICLE IN NCTIMES, DAYS BEFORE ELECTION
A week before the election the anti’s will come up with some incredible, outrageous, even paranoid and always false set of charges that they will take to the NCTimes and demand an article be written.
This article will appear the Wednesday or Thursday before the election. The false charges and the article of lies have appeared in every election cycle since 1994.
They always do it. Expect it again. The NCTimes always goes along with this carefully planned campaign tactic that our “anti” friends use election after election. No retraction or correction are ever printed until the election is over.
SLANDER MAILER
On Saturday before the election a four page, very expensive multicolor circular will come to every registered voter in VUSD with outrageous lies about the VTA and the VTA endorsed candidates. These lies will be slanderous. They will be easily disproved. However the NCTimes will refuse to run an article about the lies in the circular until at least Wednesday following the election. Or the editor may refuse to run an article at all. However, if the VTA makes any mistakes in any flier, the lovely editors at the NCTimes will published an outraged editorial that very day.
Something the NCTimes never asks of the anti folks is where their vast sums of money to pay for the production and mailing of such a flier come from. After the election we find out in the election records that the money always comes from outside our district. Last time a developer who wanted to put up ticky tacky apartments and houses on the new high school site paid.
There are other outsiders who hate the middle class, hate unions, hate benefits for workers and who are extremely wealthy. They have in the past been willing to donate vast sums to the anti-group campaigns.
The anti group usually howls that the VTA and CTA are spending thousands of dollars to defeat their candidates but no one ever complains about their outside money. They always have as much or more money to spend than the pro-public education group.
ROBO PHONE HARRASSMENT
All voters in VUSD will receive numerous calls from the robo-phone (said to have been bought by Darrel Issa). These phone messages will be nasty and less and less true as the election nears.
In the past those people on the side of district students and teachers and who were especially effective at countering the slander and slime of the “anti” group would get dozens of robo calls--enough to be considered harassment by any impartial observer. However, no article about the harassment has ever been published in the NCTimes.
I expect that VTA leadership and our endorsed candidates will again be harassed daily by these robo phone calls as the election nears. No one should be surprised.
In the last few weeks of this campaign, it is likely that we will see the same pattern that we have seen in each school board campaign since 1994.
WORKING THE REFS
The anti group will “work the ref” by complaining loudly about perceived injustices that they have been dealt. These injustices are in their minds only, but they will go in mass to the NCTimes.
(Patty Anderson went to the local FOX Affliate before the last election two years ago. Her unfounded and "crazy" charges were so over the top that even the FOX affiliate would not broadcast them.)
The NCTimes will publish, uncritically, their charges in a series of articles. The editors of the NCTimes are VERY anti-union whether it is teacher, firefighter, law enforcement, or store clerk. Even without the biased editorial staff, it would be very difficult for any local paper to stand up to the concerted action of a large group of potential subscribers, especially as newspapers see their circulation stagnate and their ad revenues fall.
CAMPAIGN SIGNS
The anti folks are zealots. They do not think as others think. They project onto others the kind of actions that they, themselves, are taking.
For instance the issue of campaign sign removal. The Anti’s have a long history of removing opposing campaign signs as fast as they go up. Campaign signs for teacher endorsed candidates on Melrose within a half a mile of North Coast Church are taken down within hours of being put up—according to a source who worked on signs in the 1994, 1996 and 1998 campaigns.
A few elections ago, this person said he made a route on a Saturday around Vista posting signs. Near the beginning of the route was Melrose Ave where the North Coast Church is located. On his way back from his three hours of sign posting, he found all the signs within a mile of the church to be already down. All kinds of other political signs for other political offices were still up. All the anti campaigns signs were up including in front of the church; but every single VTA endorsed candidate sign, that had been posted less than three hours before, was gone.
The signs where coming down so fast that another person on the sign committee stamped his wooden posts with an ink stamp. I think he said that he normally used the stamp on student papers. It was a typical teacher stamp.
He came back to the locations where he had posted signs a few days later to find that his signs were gone. There was no trace of them. They were not down or blown off in the weeds. However, he did find his stamped wooden posts. The posts that VTA had bought, the posts he had laboriously affixed to VTA endorsed candidate signs, now were in nearly identical locations with “anti” endorsed candidate signs in place of VTA endorsed candidate signs.
WILD ACCUSATIONS
The anti folks always insist on putting a sign in the vegetation area in front of the offices where the VTA office is. We have always put up our sign next to it. A previous president used to straighten their sign or put it up again if it blew down. During the school board election of two years ago, the owner of the office building site, without consulting the VTA, took down the anti-public education candidate sign as the anti group had not asked his permission to post their signs on his property. He left the VTA sign up because the VTA had asked permission.
The anti group immediately took notice. Apparently they were daily tracking the sign in front of the VTA office.
Our anti crowd howled to the newspaper and without substantiation or investigation accused the teachers of taking down their signs all over the city (not just at this location). They used this location and the removal of their signs as proof. They went to the North County Times and demanded an article. They never checked with the owner of the property or the VTA. The VTA only found out about the “outrage” after being contacted by the NCTimes. The VTA leadership investigated and found out what had happened.
BE THE BETTER PERSON
In every campaign so far, it has been the instructions of the VTA leadership to NEVER, NEVER take down the anti-public education campaign signs. Better to not even touch their signs at all. However, we have had at least two past members of the sign committee who when they stop to post new signs and find one of the anti signs down actually put the anti signs back up again.
We are better people than they are. We have better ethics. We care about the children of the district. They care only about the joy of being in a zealot cause, a crusade. For them the intense emotional pleasure of being in a righteous cause trumps all sense of fairness or ethics. We are not that way. Besides every sign they lose to wind or weather, they blame on us. They also have in the past had followers with cameras sitting in cars waiting to take pictures of anyone touching their signs. DO NOT TAKE DOWN THEIR SIGNS under any circumstance.
FALSE FLAG CAMPAIGN SIGNS
In the last election Patty Anderson put up campaign signs that imitated our signs. She claimed to be the 'teacher's choice' even though she was not endorsed by the teachers. She even had a school symbol (an apple) on her signs that imitated the same symbol on the pro-public education signs in that campaign and ALL PREVIOUS CAMPAIGNS. The apple logo had been used by us the pro-public education folks in the PREVIOUS SIX CAMPAIGNS. Patty and her anti crowd well knew what our symbol was. We cannot copyright our symbol but the anti's knew what it was. It speaks very poorly of their ethics to use it to try to confuse voters.
ILLEGAL AND UNTRUE CANDIDATE STATEMENTS IN THE OFFICIAL REGISTRAR OF VOTER -- VOTER INFORMATION GUIDE.
Guffanti claims to be a teacher in each of his candidate statements. Intentionally confusing voters who think he is or was a classroom teacher. He also ususally has some slanderous statements. This time he illegally endorsed another "anti" candidate in his statement. NO candidate is allowed to endorse any other candidate in a candidate statement in the official Registrar of Voters booklet. Guffanti knows this. He has run for school board time after time. Knowing something is illegal and unethical dis not stop him from trying to get this illegal statement included. His statement was not removed or checked by the Registrar's office. There 'wasn't enough time'.
Our 'anti' friends never play by the rules. They never play fair. Those of you who expect candidates like Guffanti who use their 'christian' credentials as major election tools are sometimes surprised by the lack of morals and ethics by the self-identified 'christian' candidates. Don't be. They are on a crusade. Methods and tactics do not matter in their 'holy' quest, only winning counts--by any means necessary.
OUTRAGEOUS AND UNTRUE ARTICLE IN NCTIMES, DAYS BEFORE ELECTION
A week before the election the anti’s will come up with some incredible, outrageous, even paranoid and always false set of charges that they will take to the NCTimes and demand an article be written.
This article will appear the Wednesday or Thursday before the election. The false charges and the article of lies have appeared in every election cycle since 1994.
They always do it. Expect it again. The NCTimes always goes along with this carefully planned campaign tactic that our “anti” friends use election after election. No retraction or correction are ever printed until the election is over.
SLANDER MAILER
On Saturday before the election a four page, very expensive multicolor circular will come to every registered voter in VUSD with outrageous lies about the VTA and the VTA endorsed candidates. These lies will be slanderous. They will be easily disproved. However the NCTimes will refuse to run an article about the lies in the circular until at least Wednesday following the election. Or the editor may refuse to run an article at all. However, if the VTA makes any mistakes in any flier, the lovely editors at the NCTimes will published an outraged editorial that very day.
Something the NCTimes never asks of the anti folks is where their vast sums of money to pay for the production and mailing of such a flier come from. After the election we find out in the election records that the money always comes from outside our district. Last time a developer who wanted to put up ticky tacky apartments and houses on the new high school site paid.
There are other outsiders who hate the middle class, hate unions, hate benefits for workers and who are extremely wealthy. They have in the past been willing to donate vast sums to the anti-group campaigns.
The anti group usually howls that the VTA and CTA are spending thousands of dollars to defeat their candidates but no one ever complains about their outside money. They always have as much or more money to spend than the pro-public education group.
ROBO PHONE HARRASSMENT
All voters in VUSD will receive numerous calls from the robo-phone (said to have been bought by Darrel Issa). These phone messages will be nasty and less and less true as the election nears.
In the past those people on the side of district students and teachers and who were especially effective at countering the slander and slime of the “anti” group would get dozens of robo calls--enough to be considered harassment by any impartial observer. However, no article about the harassment has ever been published in the NCTimes.
I expect that VTA leadership and our endorsed candidates will again be harassed daily by these robo phone calls as the election nears. No one should be surprised.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Posting comments
This blog is intended to be a forum where all comments are welcome.
Both the group that supports Guffanti and the group that supports the pro-public education school board candidates are encouraged to post.
There are no plans to censor any comment.
Ocassionally there will be slight delays in posting for which I apologize.
Both the group that supports Guffanti and the group that supports the pro-public education school board candidates are encouraged to post.
There are no plans to censor any comment.
Ocassionally there will be slight delays in posting for which I apologize.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
No Third High School in VUSD
The anti-public education crowd was louding crowing and bragging of their success in stopping the third high school from opening in VUSD in the comment section following an article published on April 7, 2008 in the NCTimes indicating money had run out to build new Mission High School at Highway 76 before the start of the 2008 school year. Of course had Guffanti and Gibson voted in favor of the Strawberry Hill site four years ago, then there would already be a third high school in VUSD, but the angry anti crowd want no new public high school. Here is what the angry nasty ones wrote in comment section followed by my comment that I tried to post in response to their jubliant celebrations and pats on the back.
Their comments:
TAXPAYER[-] wrote on Apr 7, 2008 5:41 PM:Build the school at Lincoln as Dr. G and Jim Gibson had said for years.
Taxpayer[-] wrote on Apr 7, 2008 6:02 PM:For years both Steve Guffanti and Jim Gibson have been telling everyone including their fellow Board members that there wasn’t enough money to complete the magnet high school campus at the proposed location. It appears that they have been right all this time. What will this wind up costing the taxpayers? Thank you Dr. Guffanti and Mr. Gibson for trying. You did your job.
Observer[-] wrote on Apr 7, 2008 6:34 PM:As a taxpayer it is heartening to note there are at least two members on the VUSD board who are awake and alert. Too bad the rest didn't listen to their request to look at Lincoln before all this. Onward Gibson and Guffanti!
I've heard this before[-] wrote on Apr 7, 2008 7:29 PM:It seems to me that Guffanti and Gibson have been saying this for about 6 years now, - the cost is too high. They kept being voted down by the other three. Even when adminitration admitted it would be half the price at the Lincoln site. It's a shame that Hubbard and Lilly insisted on wasting time and money on this site we would have had the school built by now if they would have cooperated
Unbelievably true![-] wrote on Apr 7, 2008 8:55 PM:Wow! Can't believe that it is true! The Board Majority finally admits that there really isn't enough money to build Mission Vista at Melrose. Dr. Guffanti and Mr. Gibson have over the past 6 years said so again and again. It is finally time to listen to reason.
Parent[-] wrote on Apr 7, 2008 9:37 PM:Thank you teachers union and thank you Herrera
My response (perhaps you could do better? I would be happy to hear your rebuttals to tne anti folks above.)
Yeah thanks a lot Guffanti and Gibson, your opposition to a new high school has finally succeeded. The delays you two caused now mean no new high school at 76 or anywhere else in the district including the better site at Strawberry Hill. Tens of millions of dollars wasted, children continue to be in overcrowded high schools all thanks to Guffanti and Gibson.
The Lincoln Middle school site NEVER will work for a full sized comprehensive high school. Here are four reasons that even Guffanti and Gibson cannot pretend away.
ONE-- the sewer system is inadequate. If two people happen to flush two different toilets at the same time and they both overflow—teacher’s bathroom.
TWO there is NOT ENOUGH PARKING. You G and G sycophants should go look at the parking disaster at the current Vista High School. The SINGLE parking lot at Lincoln is HALF the size of the horribly overcrowded STUDENT parking lot at VHS and VHS has a second separate teacher parking lot that Lincoln does not have. Lincoln does not have enough parking for a middle school staff let alone all the extra spaces needed for student vehicles.
THREE the Lincoln site acreage is TOO SMALL! Lincoln is maybe twenty to twenty five acres. It takes at least forty for a FULL SIZED third high school.
FOUR Lincoln is riddled with termites and ALL the flat roof rooms LEAK in every rain storm. The underlying wood of those roofs is filled with dry rot. You can smell it when you walk into any classroom in the 400 or 500 wing. How will students with allergies fare in those rooms?
Why don't you G and G lovers admit your real priority is to make sure as few public (or as you call them ("government schools") open as possible? You folks do not like public schools because they must teach facts and not mythology. Be honest and admit it, you all belong to the huge REALITY CHALLENGED group here in Vista that has opposed every bond and every new public school being opened. Doesn't your mythology require HONESTY? Why do you PRETEND you care about money when your opposition is all
about IDEAOLOGY?
Their comments:
TAXPAYER[-] wrote on Apr 7, 2008 5:41 PM:Build the school at Lincoln as Dr. G and Jim Gibson had said for years.
Taxpayer[-] wrote on Apr 7, 2008 6:02 PM:For years both Steve Guffanti and Jim Gibson have been telling everyone including their fellow Board members that there wasn’t enough money to complete the magnet high school campus at the proposed location. It appears that they have been right all this time. What will this wind up costing the taxpayers? Thank you Dr. Guffanti and Mr. Gibson for trying. You did your job.
Observer[-] wrote on Apr 7, 2008 6:34 PM:As a taxpayer it is heartening to note there are at least two members on the VUSD board who are awake and alert. Too bad the rest didn't listen to their request to look at Lincoln before all this. Onward Gibson and Guffanti!
I've heard this before[-] wrote on Apr 7, 2008 7:29 PM:It seems to me that Guffanti and Gibson have been saying this for about 6 years now, - the cost is too high. They kept being voted down by the other three. Even when adminitration admitted it would be half the price at the Lincoln site. It's a shame that Hubbard and Lilly insisted on wasting time and money on this site we would have had the school built by now if they would have cooperated
Unbelievably true![-] wrote on Apr 7, 2008 8:55 PM:Wow! Can't believe that it is true! The Board Majority finally admits that there really isn't enough money to build Mission Vista at Melrose. Dr. Guffanti and Mr. Gibson have over the past 6 years said so again and again. It is finally time to listen to reason.
Parent[-] wrote on Apr 7, 2008 9:37 PM:Thank you teachers union and thank you Herrera
My response (perhaps you could do better? I would be happy to hear your rebuttals to tne anti folks above.)
Yeah thanks a lot Guffanti and Gibson, your opposition to a new high school has finally succeeded. The delays you two caused now mean no new high school at 76 or anywhere else in the district including the better site at Strawberry Hill. Tens of millions of dollars wasted, children continue to be in overcrowded high schools all thanks to Guffanti and Gibson.
The Lincoln Middle school site NEVER will work for a full sized comprehensive high school. Here are four reasons that even Guffanti and Gibson cannot pretend away.
ONE-- the sewer system is inadequate. If two people happen to flush two different toilets at the same time and they both overflow—teacher’s bathroom.
TWO there is NOT ENOUGH PARKING. You G and G sycophants should go look at the parking disaster at the current Vista High School. The SINGLE parking lot at Lincoln is HALF the size of the horribly overcrowded STUDENT parking lot at VHS and VHS has a second separate teacher parking lot that Lincoln does not have. Lincoln does not have enough parking for a middle school staff let alone all the extra spaces needed for student vehicles.
THREE the Lincoln site acreage is TOO SMALL! Lincoln is maybe twenty to twenty five acres. It takes at least forty for a FULL SIZED third high school.
FOUR Lincoln is riddled with termites and ALL the flat roof rooms LEAK in every rain storm. The underlying wood of those roofs is filled with dry rot. You can smell it when you walk into any classroom in the 400 or 500 wing. How will students with allergies fare in those rooms?
Why don't you G and G lovers admit your real priority is to make sure as few public (or as you call them ("government schools") open as possible? You folks do not like public schools because they must teach facts and not mythology. Be honest and admit it, you all belong to the huge REALITY CHALLENGED group here in Vista that has opposed every bond and every new public school being opened. Doesn't your mythology require HONESTY? Why do you PRETEND you care about money when your opposition is all
about IDEAOLOGY?
The Angry Ones
I wrote the following comment to NCTimes comment section after a Guffanti supporter called Elizabeth Jaka "a meddling mom." That rude comment was posted by the comment censor at the NCTimes but my response below was not. Gee, is there a double standard at the NCTimes by any chance?
Interesting how angry the anti-public education crowd is on this forum. I cannot help but wonder why? How many of them have ever had one child who attends or ever attended any school in Vista Unified? My guess is zero. Yet still they launch vicious tirades against those who believe in public education and building new schools. I wonder why? Do they get some kind of perverse pleasure from berating those with better motives than their own?
The angry ones who post here pay just a few dollars a year for new schools that educate the children of our community. For those paltry few dollars they get new schools our community can be proud of and an educated workforce. Yet they malign us as "meddling moms" or teachers who do not want to "actually teach."
I hope the good intentioned people of our district and all good hardworking teachers read these posts. The angry anti-public education group is currently just one voting member from controlling the VUSD board. If they get that third board member elected in November, these black and white thinkers who view "government schools" as evil will have complete and utter control over our district.
I pity the teachers and administrators who are forced to live under their malicious and capricious rule. There will be no appeal to reason or fairness. They can close schools, sell off VUSD school sites, and irretrievably splinter this proud district into dozens of tiny powerless charters. Once broken, VUSD can never be put together again. Its shattered remnants will be a blight on our community for years to come, the proud legacy of the angry ones.
Protests or appeals to fairness were useless when the angry crowd controlled our district in from 1992-1994 and I expect it will be useless again if they re-gain a majority. As before, it will be their way or the highway.
I hope readers of this blog notice that this angry group supports Dr. Joyce Bales. They applaud ever action she takes in VUSD. These angry blog writers are not finesse and compromise types which is probably why they love Dr. Bales. Her management style seems to so closely mirror their own views. Already VUSD has lost more than a dozen of our best administrators. I fear young teachers with options are already leaving to other more education friendly districts and that older, experienced teachers will be retiring too soon.
The angry ones were in the majority a decade and a half ago. It was the most tumultuous time in the VUSD history. It was the only time that articles that VUSD board meetings made the front page of New York Times. I have clippings from the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times as well. Dozens of news stories making it into out of town papers about OUR VUSD school board meetings.
There were news vans and satellite trucks (including CNN, CBS, NBC etc.) parked in front of school board meeting locations. I remember one meeting where I counted ten such trucks parked in the (bus?) circle in front of Roosevelt Middle School for a special board meeting held in The RMS cafeteria. The board meeting was moved to RMS cafeteria to try to accommodate the overflow crowds. Even the RMS cafeteria site was not big enough. Several hundred people were seated inside, but scores more who could not fit inside milled around outside in the lunch area. It was a circus. Today we are one voting board member from that chaos again.
Interesting how angry the anti-public education crowd is on this forum. I cannot help but wonder why? How many of them have ever had one child who attends or ever attended any school in Vista Unified? My guess is zero. Yet still they launch vicious tirades against those who believe in public education and building new schools. I wonder why? Do they get some kind of perverse pleasure from berating those with better motives than their own?
The angry ones who post here pay just a few dollars a year for new schools that educate the children of our community. For those paltry few dollars they get new schools our community can be proud of and an educated workforce. Yet they malign us as "meddling moms" or teachers who do not want to "actually teach."
I hope the good intentioned people of our district and all good hardworking teachers read these posts. The angry anti-public education group is currently just one voting member from controlling the VUSD board. If they get that third board member elected in November, these black and white thinkers who view "government schools" as evil will have complete and utter control over our district.
I pity the teachers and administrators who are forced to live under their malicious and capricious rule. There will be no appeal to reason or fairness. They can close schools, sell off VUSD school sites, and irretrievably splinter this proud district into dozens of tiny powerless charters. Once broken, VUSD can never be put together again. Its shattered remnants will be a blight on our community for years to come, the proud legacy of the angry ones.
Protests or appeals to fairness were useless when the angry crowd controlled our district in from 1992-1994 and I expect it will be useless again if they re-gain a majority. As before, it will be their way or the highway.
I hope readers of this blog notice that this angry group supports Dr. Joyce Bales. They applaud ever action she takes in VUSD. These angry blog writers are not finesse and compromise types which is probably why they love Dr. Bales. Her management style seems to so closely mirror their own views. Already VUSD has lost more than a dozen of our best administrators. I fear young teachers with options are already leaving to other more education friendly districts and that older, experienced teachers will be retiring too soon.
The angry ones were in the majority a decade and a half ago. It was the most tumultuous time in the VUSD history. It was the only time that articles that VUSD board meetings made the front page of New York Times. I have clippings from the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times as well. Dozens of news stories making it into out of town papers about OUR VUSD school board meetings.
There were news vans and satellite trucks (including CNN, CBS, NBC etc.) parked in front of school board meeting locations. I remember one meeting where I counted ten such trucks parked in the (bus?) circle in front of Roosevelt Middle School for a special board meeting held in The RMS cafeteria. The board meeting was moved to RMS cafeteria to try to accommodate the overflow crowds. Even the RMS cafeteria site was not big enough. Several hundred people were seated inside, but scores more who could not fit inside milled around outside in the lunch area. It was a circus. Today we are one voting board member from that chaos again.
Guffanti built schools?
Stephen guffanti and his supporters have falsely maintained that he built schools in VUSD without school bonds and could have "built" all the schools the district needed without a bond. Here is what one said in the comment section of the NCTimes:
To "to Guffanti needs to go" Your post at 8:04 PM said that: "Guffanti has built more school in VUSD while sitting on the board than any other Board member past or present"
(If the To to part above is confusing read the following; otherwise skip the blue.) The To "to..." part at the beginning is a response to parent who wrote in as "Guffanti needs to go' complining correctly that Guffanti has never been interested in building full service public schools in VUSD. Guffanti or one of those he has deluded wrote in a response to the parent saying that Guffanti has built more school (sic) in VUSD..." I responded with a post To 'to Guffanti need s to go.)
What a joke. LOL
Name one thing that Guffanti ever did to pass a bond issue. Did he support any bond with a guest editorial in the NCT? Did he write one letter to the editor in support of a bond? Did he ever make a single favorable comment at a school board meeting about any bond?
Did he make a phone call to a potential voter in support of a bond? Did he stuff mailers in support of a bond? Did Guffanti ever publicly say that he voted for a school bond? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding NO!
Why don't you ask him if he voted for Prop O?
As you know Prop O was the only successful VUSD bond in the last twenty years. It is the bond that built all the new schools in Vista. I wonder what Guffanti would say if asked if he voted for Prop O. After decades of overcrowded schools caused by bond failure after bond with each new school bond being opposed vocally and publically by Stephen Guffanti, a sitting VUSD board member . Shouldn't the VUSD community know whether your "champion" of new schools voted for Prop O himself? Shouldn't he have some accountability for the editorials he wrote in the NCTimes opposing previous bonds? Shouldn't he bear the a significant share of the responsibility for our VUSD kids being subjected to overcrowded classrooms for the two decades after the first school bond, that he opposed, failed?
There were at least three bonds while Guffanti lived in Vista, tell us how he helped to get them passed. Tell us if he claims to have voted for any of them. Why did he write letters to the editor and editorials opposing those bonds? Doesn't he care about VUSD kids? Is that because his teenage daughter has NEVER attended any VUSD school or any other public school?
If Guffanti never supported any school bond, then how did he "open any school"?
School bonds are the only way to raise new funds to finance the construction of new schools. So how did Guffanti help "build schools"? How are schools built without money?
To "to Guffanti needs to go" Your post at 8:04 PM said that: "Guffanti has built more school in VUSD while sitting on the board than any other Board member past or present"
(If the To to part above is confusing read the following; otherwise skip the blue.) The To "to..." part at the beginning is a response to parent who wrote in as "Guffanti needs to go' complining correctly that Guffanti has never been interested in building full service public schools in VUSD. Guffanti or one of those he has deluded wrote in a response to the parent saying that Guffanti has built more school (sic) in VUSD..." I responded with a post To 'to Guffanti need s to go.)
What a joke. LOL
Name one thing that Guffanti ever did to pass a bond issue. Did he support any bond with a guest editorial in the NCT? Did he write one letter to the editor in support of a bond? Did he ever make a single favorable comment at a school board meeting about any bond?
Did he make a phone call to a potential voter in support of a bond? Did he stuff mailers in support of a bond? Did Guffanti ever publicly say that he voted for a school bond? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding NO!
Why don't you ask him if he voted for Prop O?
As you know Prop O was the only successful VUSD bond in the last twenty years. It is the bond that built all the new schools in Vista. I wonder what Guffanti would say if asked if he voted for Prop O. After decades of overcrowded schools caused by bond failure after bond with each new school bond being opposed vocally and publically by Stephen Guffanti, a sitting VUSD board member . Shouldn't the VUSD community know whether your "champion" of new schools voted for Prop O himself? Shouldn't he have some accountability for the editorials he wrote in the NCTimes opposing previous bonds? Shouldn't he bear the a significant share of the responsibility for our VUSD kids being subjected to overcrowded classrooms for the two decades after the first school bond, that he opposed, failed?
There were at least three bonds while Guffanti lived in Vista, tell us how he helped to get them passed. Tell us if he claims to have voted for any of them. Why did he write letters to the editor and editorials opposing those bonds? Doesn't he care about VUSD kids? Is that because his teenage daughter has NEVER attended any VUSD school or any other public school?
If Guffanti never supported any school bond, then how did he "open any school"?
School bonds are the only way to raise new funds to finance the construction of new schools. So how did Guffanti help "build schools"? How are schools built without money?
Friday, September 12, 2008
Who wants to fire Joyce Bales?
Not only does the NCTimes refuse to publish any posts on the very pertinent subject of Guffanti's poor temperament for a public official, the censor also refuses to post comments about Joyce Bales imperious management style as the cause of friction in the school district. The ANTI group is pretending that their group is running to save superintendent, Joyce Bale's job. No one has brought up her firing except the ANTI folks.
The nctimes blog editor does allow the Guffanti group to call our VTA president, Jan O' Reilly "a slob with bad grammar." Those insults are just fine with the nctimes blog standards but answering the false charges that we want to fire Bales is not. Our friends at the nctimes are showing their political biases more and more openly as the campaign continues.
Below is a post I wrote trying to answer the false charges made by the Guffanti group to rally their troops. Everyone knows that firing Bales is not in the cards. She has a long term expensive contract that would have to bought out. All we want is to get her to modify her poor treatment of parents and staff.
Here are my comments that the NCTimes censor refused to post. See if you can find the part that is so inflammatory or derogatory that it could not be allowed on the nctimes blog.
Firing Bales is not on the table. It has never been discussed by anyone that I have heard at the VTA, PTA or board meetings.
The next School Board might ask her to be less rigid in her decision making and suggest that she allow parents to have more input. Asking her to change leadership style to be more inclusive of other stakeholders in the district is not a call for her firing.
The complaints about Bales are not about her goals to increase test scores. Everyone supports those goals. The complaints are regarding her imperious management style.
Saying that some board members want to fire Bales is a best a misunderstanding based on a failure to listen to the actual complaints about her. At worst it is a deliberate distortion used to try to gain political leverage.
The nctimes blog editor does allow the Guffanti group to call our VTA president, Jan O' Reilly "a slob with bad grammar." Those insults are just fine with the nctimes blog standards but answering the false charges that we want to fire Bales is not. Our friends at the nctimes are showing their political biases more and more openly as the campaign continues.
Below is a post I wrote trying to answer the false charges made by the Guffanti group to rally their troops. Everyone knows that firing Bales is not in the cards. She has a long term expensive contract that would have to bought out. All we want is to get her to modify her poor treatment of parents and staff.
Here are my comments that the NCTimes censor refused to post. See if you can find the part that is so inflammatory or derogatory that it could not be allowed on the nctimes blog.
Firing Bales is not on the table. It has never been discussed by anyone that I have heard at the VTA, PTA or board meetings.
The next School Board might ask her to be less rigid in her decision making and suggest that she allow parents to have more input. Asking her to change leadership style to be more inclusive of other stakeholders in the district is not a call for her firing.
The complaints about Bales are not about her goals to increase test scores. Everyone supports those goals. The complaints are regarding her imperious management style.
Saying that some board members want to fire Bales is a best a misunderstanding based on a failure to listen to the actual complaints about her. At worst it is a deliberate distortion used to try to gain political leverage.
Guffanti's temperament
The NCTimes refuses to allow any reference to Stephen Guffanti volatile temperment and his hostility toward teachers and their leadership. I tried twice to publish the comment that follows about his behavior in the comment section following this article:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/09/11/news/coastal/vista/ze6329058762e704f882574c100757cce.txt
The NCTimes allows posts calling our president Jan O'Reilly a slob. Here:
but did not allow the following post--two tries.
Guffanti has not sought teacher endorsement in many years. He has refused to meet with the interview committee for at least his last three elections. The charge that he seeks teacher endorsement is misinformed at best or an outright lie at worse.
The problem with Guffanti is he seems to be a bomb thrower. He often seems to get angry and makes wild accusations with no basis for either the anger or the accusations. He has consistently displayed an attitude of contempt and anger when dealing with the teachers and their representatives. His anger and smoldering antipathy has not changed even as the VTA leadership has changed. His anger seems to come from some internal source not from any slight the ever changing VTA leadership has ever given him.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/09/11/news/coastal/vista/ze6329058762e704f882574c100757cce.txt
The NCTimes allows posts calling our president Jan O'Reilly a slob. Here:
but did not allow the following post--two tries.
Guffanti has not sought teacher endorsement in many years. He has refused to meet with the interview committee for at least his last three elections. The charge that he seeks teacher endorsement is misinformed at best or an outright lie at worse.
The problem with Guffanti is he seems to be a bomb thrower. He often seems to get angry and makes wild accusations with no basis for either the anger or the accusations. He has consistently displayed an attitude of contempt and anger when dealing with the teachers and their representatives. His anger and smoldering antipathy has not changed even as the VTA leadership has changed. His anger seems to come from some internal source not from any slight the ever changing VTA leadership has ever given him.
Union bosses?
The term union bosses is being used by the anti public education crowd in our district. They imply our elected VTA leaders have some sinister power over teachers in the district. Consider this:
There are no VTA union bosses. The term is deliberately deceptive piece of political propaganda. Neither the VTA president nor any other member of the VTA leadership team has any power over the hiring, firing, discipline, or pay of any teacher in the district. The president cannot order any teacher to do anything at anytime. Calling a person a boss implies hiring firing, discipline and authority over employees. The use of the term union bosses applied to VTA leadership can be safely categorized as a lie.
The VTA leadership positions are elected by a secret ballot of the entire membership. No one elects a boss. All VTA leadership positions are filled by classroom teachers who volunteer to help out. Only the president is classroom release during his or her term. All others are full time teachers.
There are no VTA union bosses. The term is deliberately deceptive piece of political propaganda. Neither the VTA president nor any other member of the VTA leadership team has any power over the hiring, firing, discipline, or pay of any teacher in the district. The president cannot order any teacher to do anything at anytime. Calling a person a boss implies hiring firing, discipline and authority over employees. The use of the term union bosses applied to VTA leadership can be safely categorized as a lie.
The VTA leadership positions are elected by a secret ballot of the entire membership. No one elects a boss. All VTA leadership positions are filled by classroom teachers who volunteer to help out. Only the president is classroom release during his or her term. All others are full time teachers.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Despicable and Vile charges against ex-Nun
The North County Times continues to allow despicable, slanderous and baseless charges to be published in their newspaper comment section. These comments are directed at the teachers of the district and against pro-public education VUSD school board members. Today the attack was against former nun, Carol Herrera. We, who genuinely care about VUSD students and their learning, must call the extremists on these malicious and false accusations.
Here is the URL of the NCTimes article:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/09/08/news/coastal/vista/z1f435e3f71213eeb882574be005c4b32.txt
The article explained the VUSD school board's misgivings and musing about allowing a particular charter school. Since we have had at least two failed charters in our district, careful scrutiny of a charter proposal would be not only prudent it would be the school board members legal obligation--the term is fiduciary responsibility.
Here is the despicable comment with its vile accusation:
Mika[-] wrote on Sep 8, 2008 4:17 PM:
Here we go again! A board member threatened by a successful charter school coming to town. I guess if the district was doing such a great job, they wouldn't even care about the Classical Academy. But to stand in opposition makes VUSD look foolish. I guess the teachers union is still holding the purse strings of Carol Herrera and her jacket has a slit in the back where the union places their hand through to control her lips and words to the community. Oh well, unions are never about the students.
Here is a response by a blogger "delightful" to the above slander. I suggest we all take our cue from "delightful" and never let the anti-public education group ever get away with their vicious lies and accusations.
delightful[-] wrote on Sep 8, 2008 8:25 PM:
Mika, such a pleasant and tempered set of comments.
Let me summarize your post. Carol Herrera, former nun, who has volunteered countless hours to the community and her church does not have the moral courage to think or act in the best interests of the students of VUSD. She lets those self serving teachers tell her what to do and she listens and does just as she is told. She cares so little for her own integrity and for the good of our students that she will act to harm their best interests if she is directed to.
Love that black and white thinking. No shades of gray for Mika. We have two seated VUSD board members with that same inability to see nuances. Safe bet that Mika is one of their supporters.
Inflammatory, slanderous and despicable charges are thrown around constantly in our district by these “anti” folks and their two “anti” board members. I guess that is why the Mikas and others in the "anti" group are called extremists.
Here is the URL of the NCTimes article:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/09/08/news/coastal/vista/z1f435e3f71213eeb882574be005c4b32.txt
The article explained the VUSD school board's misgivings and musing about allowing a particular charter school. Since we have had at least two failed charters in our district, careful scrutiny of a charter proposal would be not only prudent it would be the school board members legal obligation--the term is fiduciary responsibility.
Here is the despicable comment with its vile accusation:
Mika[-] wrote on Sep 8, 2008 4:17 PM:
Here we go again! A board member threatened by a successful charter school coming to town. I guess if the district was doing such a great job, they wouldn't even care about the Classical Academy. But to stand in opposition makes VUSD look foolish. I guess the teachers union is still holding the purse strings of Carol Herrera and her jacket has a slit in the back where the union places their hand through to control her lips and words to the community. Oh well, unions are never about the students.
Here is a response by a blogger "delightful" to the above slander. I suggest we all take our cue from "delightful" and never let the anti-public education group ever get away with their vicious lies and accusations.
delightful[-] wrote on Sep 8, 2008 8:25 PM:
Mika, such a pleasant and tempered set of comments.
Let me summarize your post. Carol Herrera, former nun, who has volunteered countless hours to the community and her church does not have the moral courage to think or act in the best interests of the students of VUSD. She lets those self serving teachers tell her what to do and she listens and does just as she is told. She cares so little for her own integrity and for the good of our students that she will act to harm their best interests if she is directed to.
Love that black and white thinking. No shades of gray for Mika. We have two seated VUSD board members with that same inability to see nuances. Safe bet that Mika is one of their supporters.
Inflammatory, slanderous and despicable charges are thrown around constantly in our district by these “anti” folks and their two “anti” board members. I guess that is why the Mikas and others in the "anti" group are called extremists.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
VTA is in it for the money?
Today in the NCTimes comment thread which follows the article indicating the CSEA is also endorsing Jaka, Chunka, and Lilly anonymous bloggers repeated the same lie that is often heard from Guffanti supporters. See the article and the comments here:
<http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/09/04/ap/strange/d93038io0.txt>
The truth is that during the endorsement process for school board members neither salaries nor benefits are ever mentioned--not in the candidate questions, not in the discussion.
The slanderous and despicable charge that teachers are selecting candidates so they can get big pay raises is given lie to by the fact that during the fourteen years that the VTA has been forced to endorse school board candidates the salaries of VUSD teachers has fallen from third highest to one of the lowest in the county.
VTA only goal is to find candidates that support public education.
VTA was forced to form a Political Action Committee and to participate in local school board politics only after a gang of three stealth candidates seized the majority on our VUSD board in 1992. Immediately upon being seated, they put creationism on the VUSD school board agenda. By the second meeting the elimination of all contraception information from the sex ed program came up. Shortly they started turning down millions of dollars of federal grants that could have helped VUSD students. They did not believe in federal government giving money to local schools.
When it became painfully clear that the number one priority of the "anti" group of three was an extremist political agenda and not the education of our VUSD students, a community led recall was started. The union joined that recall effort months later.From that time until now, the "anti" have tried to regain the majority on our board. So far they have failed.
The teachers of this district would be thrilled to get out of local politics, but the last time we took no action in a board election, chaos ensued (1992-1994). Our then Extremist school board majority and their "anti" agenda made headlines in major newspapers across this country. Vista became infamous as one of "those" places. No one wants that to happen again—not teachers or parents and especially not local businesses.
Notice that the not-endorsed candidates raise the vast majority of their overwhelming and massive funds from OUTSIDE the district. Generally these outside groups out spend the teachers and the locals by thousands of dollars. Local businesses do not support the "anti" group or their OUTSIDER AGENDA. Chaos is not good for business.
<http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/09/04/ap/strange/d93038io0.txt>
The truth is that during the endorsement process for school board members neither salaries nor benefits are ever mentioned--not in the candidate questions, not in the discussion.
The slanderous and despicable charge that teachers are selecting candidates so they can get big pay raises is given lie to by the fact that during the fourteen years that the VTA has been forced to endorse school board candidates the salaries of VUSD teachers has fallen from third highest to one of the lowest in the county.
VTA only goal is to find candidates that support public education.
VTA was forced to form a Political Action Committee and to participate in local school board politics only after a gang of three stealth candidates seized the majority on our VUSD board in 1992. Immediately upon being seated, they put creationism on the VUSD school board agenda. By the second meeting the elimination of all contraception information from the sex ed program came up. Shortly they started turning down millions of dollars of federal grants that could have helped VUSD students. They did not believe in federal government giving money to local schools.
When it became painfully clear that the number one priority of the "anti" group of three was an extremist political agenda and not the education of our VUSD students, a community led recall was started. The union joined that recall effort months later.From that time until now, the "anti" have tried to regain the majority on our board. So far they have failed.
The teachers of this district would be thrilled to get out of local politics, but the last time we took no action in a board election, chaos ensued (1992-1994). Our then Extremist school board majority and their "anti" agenda made headlines in major newspapers across this country. Vista became infamous as one of "those" places. No one wants that to happen again—not teachers or parents and especially not local businesses.
Notice that the not-endorsed candidates raise the vast majority of their overwhelming and massive funds from OUTSIDE the district. Generally these outside groups out spend the teachers and the locals by thousands of dollars. Local businesses do not support the "anti" group or their OUTSIDER AGENDA. Chaos is not good for business.
VTA Union bosses get exorbitant salaries?
VTA Union bosses get exorbitant salaries?
In an online thread at the North County Times blog comments following another NCTimes anti-union article, a member of the VUSD anti public education group charged that union 'bosses' are paid exorbitant salaries.You can read the article and the comments (thread) here:
No member of any union leadership team gets exorbitant pay or benefits. All union leadership gets the same pay as before they were elected to their leadership position. It is the same teacher salary as all other members of their association.
In Vista, the president, in addition to her or his salary, gets a pitifully small stipend that hardly covers her or his extra hours of service to the district.
It should also be emphasized that all union leaders are elected from among a slate of candidates who self select to run for office. They are elected by a secret ballot of the entire membership.
The elected union leadership of the Vista Teacher’s Association changes greatly every two years at election time. The turn over problem is one of the greatest challenges for the VTA smooth functioning.
It is difficult for full time teachers to make room in their busy full time teaching day for any extra duties let alone the huge commitment of time a leadership position requires. VTA leaders seldom stay in leadership positions for more than a very few years.
In Vista all union leadership, except the president, teaches full time.
When the Vista Teachers Association president's term is over, the president goes back to a regular classroom as a regular teacher. That classroom may be anywhere in the district and likely will not be the same position she or he left to take the job as president.
The extra hours of work, the incredible stress of the job, and her or his probable inability to return to her or his former classroom and school site mean very few members run for president. It is a hellish job with few rewards. Additionally the president virtually has to give up on her or his personal and family life for the full term of office.
Public school teachers are by far the most caring and giving people I have ever known. Teachers do not deserve the disrespect and out right hostility that they are getting. The only fault of public school teachers is to exist. As with all unfairly denigrated groups in history, all we did wrong was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when demagogues needed a scapegoat. Those of you who listen to those demagogues and repeat their baseless accusations should be ashamed.
In an online thread at the North County Times blog comments following another NCTimes anti-union article, a member of the VUSD anti public education group charged that union 'bosses' are paid exorbitant salaries.You can read the article and the comments (thread) here:
No member of any union leadership team gets exorbitant pay or benefits. All union leadership gets the same pay as before they were elected to their leadership position. It is the same teacher salary as all other members of their association.
In Vista, the president, in addition to her or his salary, gets a pitifully small stipend that hardly covers her or his extra hours of service to the district.
It should also be emphasized that all union leaders are elected from among a slate of candidates who self select to run for office. They are elected by a secret ballot of the entire membership.
The elected union leadership of the Vista Teacher’s Association changes greatly every two years at election time. The turn over problem is one of the greatest challenges for the VTA smooth functioning.
It is difficult for full time teachers to make room in their busy full time teaching day for any extra duties let alone the huge commitment of time a leadership position requires. VTA leaders seldom stay in leadership positions for more than a very few years.
In Vista all union leadership, except the president, teaches full time.
When the Vista Teachers Association president's term is over, the president goes back to a regular classroom as a regular teacher. That classroom may be anywhere in the district and likely will not be the same position she or he left to take the job as president.
The extra hours of work, the incredible stress of the job, and her or his probable inability to return to her or his former classroom and school site mean very few members run for president. It is a hellish job with few rewards. Additionally the president virtually has to give up on her or his personal and family life for the full term of office.
Public school teachers are by far the most caring and giving people I have ever known. Teachers do not deserve the disrespect and out right hostility that they are getting. The only fault of public school teachers is to exist. As with all unfairly denigrated groups in history, all we did wrong was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when demagogues needed a scapegoat. Those of you who listen to those demagogues and repeat their baseless accusations should be ashamed.
Retired Teacher benefits bankrupting school districts?
Retired Teacher benefits bankrupting school districts?
The North County Times published a blatantly false article in the news section of the newspaper alleging that medical benefits for retired teachers are having adverse financial impacts on local districts. Retirement benefits and pensions may have contributed to San Diego City financial problems but have nothing to do with North County districts. The article can be found here:
I fear that there are some misinterpreted statistics in this article. I am a retired classroom teacher. I have worked in four different districts. I have relatives who retired form three other districts in the area as well. None of those districts GIVES medical benefits to retirees.
In VUSD you can pay the full and total cost that VUSD is charged by the insurance company for the privilege of joining the VUSD insurance pool. VUSD is out NO MONEY for retired teacher coverage. The cost to the retiree is an exorbitant MONTHLY fee of many hundreds even thousands of dollars but it is certainly NOT FREE!
When that retiree reaches sixty five, the retiree is cut loose. They are not allowed to remain in the pool no matter how much they offer to pay. At sixty five the VUSD classroom teacher retiree is left with no medical insurance and no options. However, I believe several of our former superintendents were given life time free medical coverage.
Second there is no way that the average classroom teacher salary in North County is $65000. 65K is the amount that the most experienced classroom teachers can get for a year or two at the END of their thirty year career just before retiring. Sometimes news reporters look at the average for certificated (credentialed) personnel and believe that it is the average for classroom teachers. It is not.
Certificated salaries include the salaries for school principals and psychologists and the truly obscene salaries of district office staff members--superintendents and their yes men. Averging all certificated salaries together including superintendent pay and calling that the average teacher pay is like averaging Bill Gates salary with microsoft computer techs salaries and calling that the average pay at Microsoft.
In addition most classroom teachers’ salaries are diminished even more by the amount they spend on buying supplies and supplementals for their students. I believe I saw a statistic by the NEA that indicated the average spending of the typical classroom teacher on her or his students approaches $1000 each and every year of his or her teaching career.
The North County Times published a blatantly false article in the news section of the newspaper alleging that medical benefits for retired teachers are having adverse financial impacts on local districts. Retirement benefits and pensions may have contributed to San Diego City financial problems but have nothing to do with North County districts. The article can be found here:
I fear that there are some misinterpreted statistics in this article. I am a retired classroom teacher. I have worked in four different districts. I have relatives who retired form three other districts in the area as well. None of those districts GIVES medical benefits to retirees.
In VUSD you can pay the full and total cost that VUSD is charged by the insurance company for the privilege of joining the VUSD insurance pool. VUSD is out NO MONEY for retired teacher coverage. The cost to the retiree is an exorbitant MONTHLY fee of many hundreds even thousands of dollars but it is certainly NOT FREE!
When that retiree reaches sixty five, the retiree is cut loose. They are not allowed to remain in the pool no matter how much they offer to pay. At sixty five the VUSD classroom teacher retiree is left with no medical insurance and no options. However, I believe several of our former superintendents were given life time free medical coverage.
Second there is no way that the average classroom teacher salary in North County is $65000. 65K is the amount that the most experienced classroom teachers can get for a year or two at the END of their thirty year career just before retiring. Sometimes news reporters look at the average for certificated (credentialed) personnel and believe that it is the average for classroom teachers. It is not.
Certificated salaries include the salaries for school principals and psychologists and the truly obscene salaries of district office staff members--superintendents and their yes men. Averging all certificated salaries together including superintendent pay and calling that the average teacher pay is like averaging Bill Gates salary with microsoft computer techs salaries and calling that the average pay at Microsoft.
In addition most classroom teachers’ salaries are diminished even more by the amount they spend on buying supplies and supplementals for their students. I believe I saw a statistic by the NEA that indicated the average spending of the typical classroom teacher on her or his students approaches $1000 each and every year of his or her teaching career.
Paying unions dues is a waste?
Paying unions dues is a waste?
A person claiming to be a retired CTA teacher posted to a thread on the North County Times blog, he claimed he was "forced" to pay union dues for years and never got anything for his money. Below is my response to his entry:
(1) No one has to join a teacher's union. Any public school teacher is free to quit and go to work at a private religious school with no benefits, at half the salary and with no job security. Any union member can even donate his or her dues to charity.
(2) So the CTA never did anything for you? Have you checked the salary and benefits at a non-union school? The HUGE difference is the result of the CTA constant work and efforts.
(3) You have retirement income. Without the CTA I doubt you would have any.
Only due to constant vigilance on the part of CTA is there any retirement for public school teachers. Our STRS funds would be stolen away to pay state budget deficits without the CTA. Many governors have attempted to do so in the past—Pete Wilson George Deukmejian, Gray Davis and even our current governor.
If you are not informed enough to know how many times the CTA has protected your retirement, I am sorry for your ignorance. But you are welcome anyway. The CTA protects the rights and retirement benefits even of the uniformed and ungrateful.
A person claiming to be a retired CTA teacher posted to a thread on the North County Times blog, he claimed he was "forced" to pay union dues for years and never got anything for his money. Below is my response to his entry:
(1) No one has to join a teacher's union. Any public school teacher is free to quit and go to work at a private religious school with no benefits, at half the salary and with no job security. Any union member can even donate his or her dues to charity.
(2) So the CTA never did anything for you? Have you checked the salary and benefits at a non-union school? The HUGE difference is the result of the CTA constant work and efforts.
(3) You have retirement income. Without the CTA I doubt you would have any.
Only due to constant vigilance on the part of CTA is there any retirement for public school teachers. Our STRS funds would be stolen away to pay state budget deficits without the CTA. Many governors have attempted to do so in the past—Pete Wilson George Deukmejian, Gray Davis and even our current governor.
If you are not informed enough to know how many times the CTA has protected your retirement, I am sorry for your ignorance. But you are welcome anyway. The CTA protects the rights and retirement benefits even of the uniformed and ungrateful.
Jim Trageser editorial NCTimes, a reply.
Jim Trageser editorial NCTimes, a reply.
Jim Trageser of the North County Times published an attack piece against the Vista Teachers Association and the California Teachers Association. On line he followed up his inaccurate and despicable editorial with even greater fantasy and paranoia. You can read his article and the online here: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/08/10/opinion/trageser/z354f6144e8d0282d8825749f0060debd.txt
Jim's online fantastic delusions posted in the blog following the article accuse the VTA of chanting and disrupting school board meetings to such an extent that the New York Times made the disruption of an obscure school district's board meetings a front page article.
Such a charge does not pass the smell test. Really? The New Times made our school board meetings front page news because of loud unhappy teachers. Poor Jim.Jim has a bias and he is willing to fit his "facts" around that bias.How can he write about what happened at the VTA meetings that he did not attend?
The VTA has Executive Board and Representative Assembly minutes for that whole time period on file at the VTA office. There was NO ACTION concerning recall or even discussion of recall until MONTHS after the new board majority took office in December 2002. Never was salary given as a reason for VTA to consider joining the community effort to recall the Extremist VUSD School Board members.
At the VERY FIRST meeting of the new Extremist VUSD School Board Majority in December creationism WAS the major topic. I was there. I saw the scientist hold up the fossil and ask the extremist if they thought it was only 6 thousand years old. They took the bait.
I attended virtually every board meeting after that while the Extremist held the majority. I NEVER once heard any chanting or disruption of the school board meetings by teachers. All the Vista School Board meetings are ON TAPE. Anyone listening to those tapes can verify that the teachers NEVER organized a disruption of those meetings.
I defy Trageser and his editor who allowed his nonsense to be published to find even one incident where teachers are heard chanting or disrupting the meetings.
The teachers were extremely respectful at all the meetings I attended.
The craziness and boos came from the other side during public comment by teachers and parents asking questions about the new board’s policies.
Trageser says there was a meeting the same night as the Board election to discuss recall. If so, document it, Jim. Aren't newspapers supposed to have TWO INDEPENDENT SOURCES? Can you tell us "Who came to the meeting?" or "Where it was held?" No, I did not think so. I believe your meeting is a made up fantasy concocted out of whole cloth to make the recalled board members feel better.If your only source is from that group of sour grape recalled board members, then it is a BIASED source and should be suspect until independently confirmed. It should only be reported at that point. That is basic reporting protocol, right Jim?
The recall had nothing to do with being “part of a national campaign against Christian conservatives on school boards.” That statement by Jim gives us a bit of a view into the fantasy paranoia that informs his thinking and writing.
The truth is that virtually every Vista School Board member has been and continues to be a Christian. The board majority has always been Christian since the formation of the district over eighty years ago. I defy Trageser to find one atheist, agnostic Muslim, Buddhist or other non Christian Board member in the history of the Vista School Board.
I bet he cannot find one. He has not lived in our community. He would not know. I have and I actually do know of two and only two who were not a Christian. They were Jewish. Were they the people with the anti-Christian bias Jim is writing about? Did they start the “national campaign”? Who or what is Jim writing about? It needs documentation.
Having religious school board members was never the issue. It was attempts by the Extremist VUSD School Board Majority to insert non-science non-educational nonsense into the VUSD curriculum. Creationism was added to the public school curriculum by them--see VUSD Board Policy 6019. This pro-creation science policy was added to the social studies middle school curriculum by the Extremists after their attempts to insert it into the science classroom failed.
The second issue was the destruction of VUSD’s comprehensive sex education program and replacement by a little or no information program called Sex Respect which among other things encouraged teenagers to "pet their dogs and not their dates and had racially questionable cartoons.
The third issue involved rejecting MILLIONS of DOLLARS of APPROVED grant money which would have helped VUSD students. The extremists did not believe that the federal government should give money to local schools. This is the reason they turned away MILLIONS of DOLLARS of help for our district. NO OTHER SCHOOL BOARD IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY HAS EVER TURNED DOWN FEDERAL GRANTS!
The fourth issue was the chaos at the board meetings where needed school business did not get done because the new majority was so concerned with their personal agenda driven fringe issues.
Fifth it had to do with the three member extremist board majority putting their personal political and religious agendas ahead of educating our children. No other VUSD Christian Board majority in our eighty year history had ever done that before.
The Extremist VUSD School Board Majority that was recalled was from a splinter Christian group called Young Earthers. They believe contrary to all geologic, radiographic, and astronomical evidence that the ENTIRE universe is only 6 to ten thousand years old based on a single priest’s interpretation of Biblical genealogical records (see the begats) in the Bible.
The early Christians closest to the time of Jesus did not have that view. It came 1500 years after the books of the New Testament were first written. Most Christians today do not share the young earth view either.
Had the Extremists stuck to School Board business and kept their religious minority extremist views out of the school board meetings and school board decisions, there would have been no recall. They caused their own recall with their outrageous actions and behaviors. It had NOTHING to do with some agenda against Christians. Every board majority in the history of VUSD has been a Christian Board majority including the board majority today.
The Recall certainly had nothing to do with teacher salaries. Again I repeat, there are Executive Board and Representative Assembly minutes for the Vista Teacher’s Association going back decades. There is NO MENTION of salaries as a reason for recall in those minutes. There was NEVER even a discussion of salary issues as a reason for the VTA to join the recall.
The decision of the VTA to join the recall did not happen UNTIL MONTHS after the extremists board majority was seated in December. The VTA did not instigate the recall. Community members started the process and asked the VTA to join. There were very large misgivings on the part of many Executive Board and Representative Assembly members. It took several meetings of those two boards and some really outrageous behavior of the Extremist VUSD School Board majority members before the VTA joined with the community to attempt to recall those two board members and unseat the third (Deidre Holliday) if she decided to run for an additional term which she decided not to do.
Those community members and teachers who recalled the extremists did a great and valuable service for the students of VUSD. Educational issues come first in our district again. The brave Recallers also helped the businessmen and homeowners in the community as well. The chaos and craziness caused by the extremist board majority and its supporters was giving the City of Vista a terrible reputation and a terrible business climate.
In fact didn’t the Business Roundtable support the recall as well? I am a bit hazy here but I do remember there were many, many local businessmen who helped with the recall because of the effect that the national, regional, and local headlines were having on their businesses.
On the plus side it is the only time in my senior citizen life that I ever saw Vista on the front page of the New York Times. I guess we can be grateful to the Extremists for giving our community its fifteen minutes of fame or was it infamy?
Thankfully the extremists have been defeated every two years since then. They have not been successful at getting a majority in the last decade and hopefully will not succeed this November. They do have two on our board currently. Hopefully they will not get that third one for a majority allowing them to again bring our district to the brink of chaos.
Extremist revisionist history as published by today by Jim Trageser is a stain on the fine reputation of the North County Times and if his fictions are accepted as accurate by the voters in VUSD, it would do a great disservice to the children who are counting on VUSD to give them a well rounded education sheltered from extreme political and religious agendas.
Jim Trageser of the North County Times published an attack piece against the Vista Teachers Association and the California Teachers Association. On line he followed up his inaccurate and despicable editorial with even greater fantasy and paranoia. You can read his article and the online here: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/08/10/opinion/trageser/z354f6144e8d0282d8825749f0060debd.txt
Jim's online fantastic delusions posted in the blog following the article accuse the VTA of chanting and disrupting school board meetings to such an extent that the New York Times made the disruption of an obscure school district's board meetings a front page article.
Such a charge does not pass the smell test. Really? The New Times made our school board meetings front page news because of loud unhappy teachers. Poor Jim.Jim has a bias and he is willing to fit his "facts" around that bias.How can he write about what happened at the VTA meetings that he did not attend?
The VTA has Executive Board and Representative Assembly minutes for that whole time period on file at the VTA office. There was NO ACTION concerning recall or even discussion of recall until MONTHS after the new board majority took office in December 2002. Never was salary given as a reason for VTA to consider joining the community effort to recall the Extremist VUSD School Board members.
At the VERY FIRST meeting of the new Extremist VUSD School Board Majority in December creationism WAS the major topic. I was there. I saw the scientist hold up the fossil and ask the extremist if they thought it was only 6 thousand years old. They took the bait.
I attended virtually every board meeting after that while the Extremist held the majority. I NEVER once heard any chanting or disruption of the school board meetings by teachers. All the Vista School Board meetings are ON TAPE. Anyone listening to those tapes can verify that the teachers NEVER organized a disruption of those meetings.
I defy Trageser and his editor who allowed his nonsense to be published to find even one incident where teachers are heard chanting or disrupting the meetings.
The teachers were extremely respectful at all the meetings I attended.
The craziness and boos came from the other side during public comment by teachers and parents asking questions about the new board’s policies.
Trageser says there was a meeting the same night as the Board election to discuss recall. If so, document it, Jim. Aren't newspapers supposed to have TWO INDEPENDENT SOURCES? Can you tell us "Who came to the meeting?" or "Where it was held?" No, I did not think so. I believe your meeting is a made up fantasy concocted out of whole cloth to make the recalled board members feel better.If your only source is from that group of sour grape recalled board members, then it is a BIASED source and should be suspect until independently confirmed. It should only be reported at that point. That is basic reporting protocol, right Jim?
The recall had nothing to do with being “part of a national campaign against Christian conservatives on school boards.” That statement by Jim gives us a bit of a view into the fantasy paranoia that informs his thinking and writing.
The truth is that virtually every Vista School Board member has been and continues to be a Christian. The board majority has always been Christian since the formation of the district over eighty years ago. I defy Trageser to find one atheist, agnostic Muslim, Buddhist or other non Christian Board member in the history of the Vista School Board.
I bet he cannot find one. He has not lived in our community. He would not know. I have and I actually do know of two and only two who were not a Christian. They were Jewish. Were they the people with the anti-Christian bias Jim is writing about? Did they start the “national campaign”? Who or what is Jim writing about? It needs documentation.
Having religious school board members was never the issue. It was attempts by the Extremist VUSD School Board Majority to insert non-science non-educational nonsense into the VUSD curriculum. Creationism was added to the public school curriculum by them--see VUSD Board Policy 6019. This pro-creation science policy was added to the social studies middle school curriculum by the Extremists after their attempts to insert it into the science classroom failed.
The second issue was the destruction of VUSD’s comprehensive sex education program and replacement by a little or no information program called Sex Respect which among other things encouraged teenagers to "pet their dogs and not their dates and had racially questionable cartoons.
The third issue involved rejecting MILLIONS of DOLLARS of APPROVED grant money which would have helped VUSD students. The extremists did not believe that the federal government should give money to local schools. This is the reason they turned away MILLIONS of DOLLARS of help for our district. NO OTHER SCHOOL BOARD IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY HAS EVER TURNED DOWN FEDERAL GRANTS!
The fourth issue was the chaos at the board meetings where needed school business did not get done because the new majority was so concerned with their personal agenda driven fringe issues.
Fifth it had to do with the three member extremist board majority putting their personal political and religious agendas ahead of educating our children. No other VUSD Christian Board majority in our eighty year history had ever done that before.
The Extremist VUSD School Board Majority that was recalled was from a splinter Christian group called Young Earthers. They believe contrary to all geologic, radiographic, and astronomical evidence that the ENTIRE universe is only 6 to ten thousand years old based on a single priest’s interpretation of Biblical genealogical records (see the begats) in the Bible.
The early Christians closest to the time of Jesus did not have that view. It came 1500 years after the books of the New Testament were first written. Most Christians today do not share the young earth view either.
Had the Extremists stuck to School Board business and kept their religious minority extremist views out of the school board meetings and school board decisions, there would have been no recall. They caused their own recall with their outrageous actions and behaviors. It had NOTHING to do with some agenda against Christians. Every board majority in the history of VUSD has been a Christian Board majority including the board majority today.
The Recall certainly had nothing to do with teacher salaries. Again I repeat, there are Executive Board and Representative Assembly minutes for the Vista Teacher’s Association going back decades. There is NO MENTION of salaries as a reason for recall in those minutes. There was NEVER even a discussion of salary issues as a reason for the VTA to join the recall.
The decision of the VTA to join the recall did not happen UNTIL MONTHS after the extremists board majority was seated in December. The VTA did not instigate the recall. Community members started the process and asked the VTA to join. There were very large misgivings on the part of many Executive Board and Representative Assembly members. It took several meetings of those two boards and some really outrageous behavior of the Extremist VUSD School Board majority members before the VTA joined with the community to attempt to recall those two board members and unseat the third (Deidre Holliday) if she decided to run for an additional term which she decided not to do.
Those community members and teachers who recalled the extremists did a great and valuable service for the students of VUSD. Educational issues come first in our district again. The brave Recallers also helped the businessmen and homeowners in the community as well. The chaos and craziness caused by the extremist board majority and its supporters was giving the City of Vista a terrible reputation and a terrible business climate.
In fact didn’t the Business Roundtable support the recall as well? I am a bit hazy here but I do remember there were many, many local businessmen who helped with the recall because of the effect that the national, regional, and local headlines were having on their businesses.
On the plus side it is the only time in my senior citizen life that I ever saw Vista on the front page of the New York Times. I guess we can be grateful to the Extremists for giving our community its fifteen minutes of fame or was it infamy?
Thankfully the extremists have been defeated every two years since then. They have not been successful at getting a majority in the last decade and hopefully will not succeed this November. They do have two on our board currently. Hopefully they will not get that third one for a majority allowing them to again bring our district to the brink of chaos.
Extremist revisionist history as published by today by Jim Trageser is a stain on the fine reputation of the North County Times and if his fictions are accepted as accurate by the voters in VUSD, it would do a great disservice to the children who are counting on VUSD to give them a well rounded education sheltered from extreme political and religious agendas.
Why wasn't Patty Anderson endorsed by the VTA?
Why wasn't Patty Anderson chosen?
The VTA school board endorsements are fair and impartial. Financial gain has nothing to do with endorsements. Union membership has NOTHING to do with endorsements. I was on a panel that interviewed a Police officer who was a union member. He was not chosen.
The decision regarding Patty Anderson was made in the same way as for every other candidate. It was made as a result of her interview responses and for no other reason. I will also point out that questions about salaries and benefits are NOT asked and NEVER discussed.
Here is a summary of the VTA interview process: All school board candidates are invited to be interviewed by a VTA panel of the membership. The panel is usually about eight to ten VTA members. The panel members ask each candidate the same set of questions. Each panel member privately and independently ranks the candidate’s answers to each question on a numeric scale while the candidate answers the question.
When the interview is completed, the panel member's numbers are averaged separately for each of the twenty or so questions. These averages along with a few outstanding quotes from the candidate are put on a summary sheet for viewing of the membership.
After the panel interviews all the candidates, the panel members compute a single total average of all questions for each candidate. This single number gives a tentative ranking. The panel members discuss candidates from strongest to weakest on the candidate's answers regarding his or her support for PUBLIC education.
Coming to a decision about the final recommendations can take a great deal of time and discussion. One candidate has a marginally better answer on one question, but a much worse one on another, so which candidate to chose. This candidate is a really nice person, but does not seem to grasp what a campaign is about. Could she or he be an effective campaigner? Other times the choices are easy as the "anti" group's candidates generally refuse to talk with the VTA at all. If there are only three slots on the ballot and only three candidates will interview with the VTA, then the choice becomes obvious.
Once the candidates are ranked and chosen by the panel, the names of the panel recommended candidates are first discussed with the VTA Executive Board. The VTA Ex. B. passes on its recommendations (usually the same as the panel) to the Representative Assembly. The Rep Assembly makes the final decision about which, if any, candidates will be supported.
NOTE: All VTA Executive Board and Representative Assemby members are elected by the total membership of VTA in secret elections.
The Rep Assembly meeting is usually very long and involved as panel members present their report and answer questions from the membership. Often this "endorsement" meeting takes two or three hours.
WORTH REMEMBERING:
(1) All members of the VTA Executive Board and Representative Assembly are VUSD, credentialed, full time employees with full time work responsibilities in the Vista Unified School District.
(2) The president of the VTA is not on the interview panel. The president does not pick the panelists. All responsibility for the panel and its interviews lie with the Political Action Committee.
(3) There was no VTA political action committee before the “anti” group seized control of the School Board Majority in 1992 through a “stealth” political campaign.
Before 1992 Vista Teachers Association did not engage in politics have a political action committee, an interview panel or an interview process. All of the political action of the VTA is a direct result of attacks on our VUSD community’s traditional forms of public education by the “anti” group.
In the first months after the 1992 election, the stealth majority and their “anti” agenda turned down millions of dollars of Federal funds and grants and attacked the teaching of comprehensive sex education, and evidence based science in our VUSD classrooms. Only many months, after the chaos generated by the “anti” majority was well underway, did the VTA first begin to organize a political response. Months later the VTA joined in the already established community organized recall of those “stealth” candidates.
This timeline can be verified in the official notes of the VTA Representative Assembly and Executive Board.
If Patty Anderson was not chosen it had nothing to do with anything but her answers to the questions about her support for public education.
In my time on the panel none of the questions were about salary or benefits for anyone. I have been assured that money and salaries have never been part of the discussion for any subsequent endorsement. I repeat again, NO discussion about which candidate would be better for salary or benefits was ever heard at those panels or at the various Rep Assemblies. To falsely assert, as the Anti group does, that the VTA endorses candidates so teachers can get more money is not only false in fact, it is despicable in inference.
In my time the VTA panel questions had to do with the various educational issues of the day—vouchers, charters, sex education, and creationism. They were very straight forward and exactly the kind of questions everyone in out district would like answers to.
I wish every voter in VUSD could see the candidates answer those questions. I believe that if our VUSD community heard the candidate’s answers and saw the professionalism of the interview panel, our community would overwhelmingly support the candidates that are endorsed by the Vista Teachers Association; even Jim Trageser's anti-VTA editorials in the NCTimes might soften.
The VTA school board endorsements are fair and impartial. Financial gain has nothing to do with endorsements. Union membership has NOTHING to do with endorsements. I was on a panel that interviewed a Police officer who was a union member. He was not chosen.
The decision regarding Patty Anderson was made in the same way as for every other candidate. It was made as a result of her interview responses and for no other reason. I will also point out that questions about salaries and benefits are NOT asked and NEVER discussed.
Here is a summary of the VTA interview process: All school board candidates are invited to be interviewed by a VTA panel of the membership. The panel is usually about eight to ten VTA members. The panel members ask each candidate the same set of questions. Each panel member privately and independently ranks the candidate’s answers to each question on a numeric scale while the candidate answers the question.
When the interview is completed, the panel member's numbers are averaged separately for each of the twenty or so questions. These averages along with a few outstanding quotes from the candidate are put on a summary sheet for viewing of the membership.
After the panel interviews all the candidates, the panel members compute a single total average of all questions for each candidate. This single number gives a tentative ranking. The panel members discuss candidates from strongest to weakest on the candidate's answers regarding his or her support for PUBLIC education.
Coming to a decision about the final recommendations can take a great deal of time and discussion. One candidate has a marginally better answer on one question, but a much worse one on another, so which candidate to chose. This candidate is a really nice person, but does not seem to grasp what a campaign is about. Could she or he be an effective campaigner? Other times the choices are easy as the "anti" group's candidates generally refuse to talk with the VTA at all. If there are only three slots on the ballot and only three candidates will interview with the VTA, then the choice becomes obvious.
Once the candidates are ranked and chosen by the panel, the names of the panel recommended candidates are first discussed with the VTA Executive Board. The VTA Ex. B. passes on its recommendations (usually the same as the panel) to the Representative Assembly. The Rep Assembly makes the final decision about which, if any, candidates will be supported.
NOTE: All VTA Executive Board and Representative Assemby members are elected by the total membership of VTA in secret elections.
The Rep Assembly meeting is usually very long and involved as panel members present their report and answer questions from the membership. Often this "endorsement" meeting takes two or three hours.
WORTH REMEMBERING:
(1) All members of the VTA Executive Board and Representative Assembly are VUSD, credentialed, full time employees with full time work responsibilities in the Vista Unified School District.
(2) The president of the VTA is not on the interview panel. The president does not pick the panelists. All responsibility for the panel and its interviews lie with the Political Action Committee.
(3) There was no VTA political action committee before the “anti” group seized control of the School Board Majority in 1992 through a “stealth” political campaign.
Before 1992 Vista Teachers Association did not engage in politics have a political action committee, an interview panel or an interview process. All of the political action of the VTA is a direct result of attacks on our VUSD community’s traditional forms of public education by the “anti” group.
In the first months after the 1992 election, the stealth majority and their “anti” agenda turned down millions of dollars of Federal funds and grants and attacked the teaching of comprehensive sex education, and evidence based science in our VUSD classrooms. Only many months, after the chaos generated by the “anti” majority was well underway, did the VTA first begin to organize a political response. Months later the VTA joined in the already established community organized recall of those “stealth” candidates.
This timeline can be verified in the official notes of the VTA Representative Assembly and Executive Board.
If Patty Anderson was not chosen it had nothing to do with anything but her answers to the questions about her support for public education.
In my time on the panel none of the questions were about salary or benefits for anyone. I have been assured that money and salaries have never been part of the discussion for any subsequent endorsement. I repeat again, NO discussion about which candidate would be better for salary or benefits was ever heard at those panels or at the various Rep Assemblies. To falsely assert, as the Anti group does, that the VTA endorses candidates so teachers can get more money is not only false in fact, it is despicable in inference.
In my time the VTA panel questions had to do with the various educational issues of the day—vouchers, charters, sex education, and creationism. They were very straight forward and exactly the kind of questions everyone in out district would like answers to.
I wish every voter in VUSD could see the candidates answer those questions. I believe that if our VUSD community heard the candidate’s answers and saw the professionalism of the interview panel, our community would overwhelmingly support the candidates that are endorsed by the Vista Teachers Association; even Jim Trageser's anti-VTA editorials in the NCTimes might soften.
Why does the VTA endorse?
This site will post factual information to counter the smear and fear campaign being waged against the Vista Unified School District, the Vista Teachers Association and the local California State Employee Association. I urge all voters in VUSD to vote in November for Elizabeth Jaka, Angela Chunka, and Dr. Steve Lilly—the three pro-public education candidates.
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Why does the VTA endorse?
Until 1992 there was no involvement of the VTA with school board elections. The VTA reluctantly was compelled to enter into the ugly field of politics in response to the election of a board majority that did not support the goals of public education. These candidates were stealth candidates that carefully hid their extremist agenda from the public. Only after they were elected did they unveil their attempts to destroy traditional public education in Vista. The chaos and discord their actions unleased made national headlines. The goings on of the VUSD anti group, which held the board majority, landed VUSD on the front page of the New York Times and other major newspapers across the country.Before 1992 Vista Teachers Association did not engage in politics have a political action committee, an interview panel or an interview process. All of the political action of the VTA is a direct result of attacks public education by the “anti” group.In the first months after the 1992 election, the stealth majority and their “anti” agenda turned down millions of dollars of Federal funds and grants and attacked the teaching of comprehensive sex education, and evidence based science in our VUSD classrooms. Their nuttiness eventually resulted in a community wide effort to recall them. Two were successfully recalled (Joyce Lee and John Tyndall) and a third declined to run for re-election (Deidre Holliday).Only many months, after the chaos generated by the “anti” majority was well underway, did the VTA first begin to organize a political response. Months later the VTA joined in the already established community organized recall of those “stealth” candidates. The VTA did not initiate the recall. The VTA does not support candidates with the hope of personal financial gain. VTA supports candidates who are most likely to put the public education needs of our students first and personal political agendas second.
Vista teachers would love to be out of local politics. When all candidates for school board are pro-public education, we can all go back to our regular lives.The timeline in this entry can be verified in the official notes of the VTA Representative Assembly and Executive Board.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why does the VTA endorse?
Until 1992 there was no involvement of the VTA with school board elections. The VTA reluctantly was compelled to enter into the ugly field of politics in response to the election of a board majority that did not support the goals of public education. These candidates were stealth candidates that carefully hid their extremist agenda from the public. Only after they were elected did they unveil their attempts to destroy traditional public education in Vista. The chaos and discord their actions unleased made national headlines. The goings on of the VUSD anti group, which held the board majority, landed VUSD on the front page of the New York Times and other major newspapers across the country.Before 1992 Vista Teachers Association did not engage in politics have a political action committee, an interview panel or an interview process. All of the political action of the VTA is a direct result of attacks public education by the “anti” group.In the first months after the 1992 election, the stealth majority and their “anti” agenda turned down millions of dollars of Federal funds and grants and attacked the teaching of comprehensive sex education, and evidence based science in our VUSD classrooms. Their nuttiness eventually resulted in a community wide effort to recall them. Two were successfully recalled (Joyce Lee and John Tyndall) and a third declined to run for re-election (Deidre Holliday).Only many months, after the chaos generated by the “anti” majority was well underway, did the VTA first begin to organize a political response. Months later the VTA joined in the already established community organized recall of those “stealth” candidates. The VTA did not initiate the recall. The VTA does not support candidates with the hope of personal financial gain. VTA supports candidates who are most likely to put the public education needs of our students first and personal political agendas second.
Vista teachers would love to be out of local politics. When all candidates for school board are pro-public education, we can all go back to our regular lives.The timeline in this entry can be verified in the official notes of the VTA Representative Assembly and Executive Board.
Vista Teachers Endorse School Board Candidates
Vista Teachers Endorse School Board Candidates
Fresh from the North County Times the Vista Teachers Association has endorsed the following candidates for the 2008 Vista Unified School board election:
Elizabeth Jaka
Angela Chunka
Steve Lilly
For VUSD School Board in November
According to the VTA Advocate, the official newsletter of the Vista Teacher's Association, the candidates were endorsed based on their support for public education, knowledge of VUSD issues, willingness to involve all stakeholders in decision making, support for academic excellence and a balanced approach to testing.
Fresh from the North County Times the Vista Teachers Association has endorsed the following candidates for the 2008 Vista Unified School board election:
Elizabeth Jaka
Angela Chunka
Steve Lilly
For VUSD School Board in November
According to the VTA Advocate, the official newsletter of the Vista Teacher's Association, the candidates were endorsed based on their support for public education, knowledge of VUSD issues, willingness to involve all stakeholders in decision making, support for academic excellence and a balanced approach to testing.
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