Vistaschools.blogspot EDITOR'S NOTE:
I was forwarded the following email and thought I would post it so others could read it as well. The blue answers to Guffanti accusations were put together by Elizabeth Jaka--one of our PRO-public education candidates. Again Elizabeth Jaka's responses are in blue. Guffanti's accusations and ramblings in brown. My comments are in black.
I mentioned in a previous e-mail, that DocG was putting out e-mails fast and furious, and that I haven't been able to keep up with all of them. I'm trying to work my way backwards through them during quiet times (I'm up with my daughter, who's working on a project for school).
;-D EJ
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: sguffanti@cox.net
To: sguffanti@cox.net
Subject: Pickets near Lake Elementary
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2008
Hi,
The traditional way for the union bosses to do a campaign is to promote various rumors to cast doubt in voters' minds. This approach continues in this campaign:
[As a rule, the teachers run a campaign that includes mailers and signs, and (depending on the manpower available) precinct walking and phonebanking in support of their candidates. The information they put out is positive, along the lines of: "this is what our candidates will do for the district." Near the end of the campaign, there is one final mailer that responds to the negative campaigning from DocG's camp. This election is no exception.]
The head of the CSEA, Henrietta Black, protested loudly at the last board meeting that there had been no "Bail out on Bales" campaign. She said that I just made it up. Well, let's look back at what happened.
[Most of the people who were at the last board meeting agreed that Henrietta was very professional in her presentation. She was very adamant about the fact that there is not now, nor has there ever been, a "Bail out on Bales" campaign.]
In late November/early December of 2007, Steve Hargrave, then assistant principal at RBVHS, started selecting 10th graders for a Lindamood Bell study to be conducted the next semester. The union bosses didn't want Lindamood Bell anywhere near RBVHS. In particular, Randy Weins, a previous teachers' union president who calls himself an "ex-officio member of the executive committee," has opposed Lindamood Bell since October 2006. He doesn't want any teachers taught this new method of teaching.
[I'm not sure how any of this "proves" anything, but as usual, a lot of it's wrong. LmB had already been used at the school for at least a semester. I have the test scores of the students who were in it in the spring of 2007. I'll attach the scores for Rancho and Vista.
In the fall of 2007, the district commandeered the teachers' lounge at Rancho, for the LmB program. This was public knowledge, and I don't think ANY of the teachers were happy about it. That doesn't seem like a union thing.
I've never heard Randy say that he opposes LmB, nor have I heard him say that he doesn't want any teachers "taught this new method of teaching." Of course, it's not REALLY a new method of teaching. ]
On December 6, 2007, Raylene Veloz, the superintendent's secretary, received a phone call from VUSD parent, Alejandro Sanchez, about the high school students protesting Lindamood Bell at Lake elementary. On the same day I received this email from another district parent, Jackie Piro:
From: Jackie Piro [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 3:37 PM
To: Stephen Guffanti, MD (Stephen Guffanti, MD)
Cc: Dan Piro (armando@cox.net)
Subject: Pickets near Lake Elementary
Stephen - I was driving Thelma to the bus stop around 3pm today on Lake Blvd and on the way we saw a group of what looked like mostly children (a small group, at most about 7-8 kids in all) holding colorful signs right where the parents turn into Lake Elementary to pick up their kids. I only remember a couple of the signs, one that said "Bail on Bales" and another said "Stop Cronyism" or something like that. On the way back a few minutes later I tried to look more carefully because I thought there was one adult in the crowd but either she had left or it was actually a tall teenage boy with longish hair. None of the cars that passed by the group when I was there honked or anything.
Jackie
Vistaschools.blogspot EDITOR'S NOTE--The Piros are long time supporters of the ANTI-public education group in VUSD. Any advanced search for 'Piro" of the NCTimes archives will turn up dozens of anti-public education letters to the editor written by the Piros.
Dan Piro was also instrumental in the firing of Leo Fletes, RBVHS varsity baseball coach. Piro allowed his home to be used by a few disgruntled parents who wanted Fletes fired because Fletes did not play their precious children enough. Read here:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/11/16/sports/highschool/21_42_9411_15_07.txt
Here is one sentence from the article above showing the Piro/Guffanti/Bales connection:
"...a July meeting that school board member Stephen Guffanti organized at the home of friend Dan Piro for parents to voice their displeasure. Superintendent Dr. Joyce Bales also attended."
[There's really not enough information here to get a fix on what's going on. About the only thing that seems clear is that someone was protesting outside of Lake. She says children, but doesn't say how old she thinks those children are. And why hasn't he mentioned the sign about cronyism? This occurred right after Dr. Gecewicz and Mr. Sinn were brought to the district from Pueblo. She thought there might have been one adult, but it could have been a teenage boy with longish hair? It's all pretty ambiguous.
I also heard from a parent that afternoon, asking me if I knew about the pickets. I didn't know anything, and called a couple of parents in that area to find out what they knew. They didn't know anything either.]
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Note that no matter how you skew the facts the signs said it clearly: "Bail out on Bales."
[The way I read it, ONE of the signs said "Bail on Bales." I didn't see anything about teachers being there, about multiple signs, or even any indicator that there was an adult there (except for the one maybe).]
However, given these facts, let's go further and ask three questions:
1. How would high school kids know about Lindamood Bell when it was not yet on their campus?
[LmB WAS on the campus, and a group went through the program in 2007. I'll attach their test scores. In addition, the district had just commandeered the teachers' lounge to turn it into a LmB center.]
2. Neither Lake nor Madison were Lindamood Bell schools. Why would they protest at Lake?
[IF they were Rancho students, they would protest at the closest school that would allow them to be seen. Lake and Madison both got out after the high school students.]
3. What would motivate their attack on the superintendent?
[The teachers lost their lounge, AND the district was getting ready to ban refrigerators, and other similar appliances, from the classroom. Word was also getting around about other changes, such as field trips being canceled. These things were all common knowledge.
When I sent people the unedited version of this, a parent e-mailed me back to tell me that her daughter was part of that protest. She told me, " In no way was she pressured by the Union boss or her lackeys. K just has a healthy understanding of what's right and wrong." Students do care. We've had involved students for a long time. Not only do we have student reps on the board, but students attend board meetings AND Candidate Forums and they get excited about elections. This is a GOOD thing.]
The union officials who come to the board meetings knew about the study. Randy teaches at RBV and could motivate some of his high school students to protest. In fact, one RBV student, a friend of the Chunka family, has entered the Lilly-Chunka-Jaka campaign with a YouTube video against Lindamood Bell.
[His "proof" uses neither inductive, nor deductive reasoning. Instead, he makes a couple of wild leaps based on unfounded assumptions. The last sentence is even more off the mark. A Rancho student has made a video supporting Jaka, Lilly and Chunka (two in fact). As part of that video, he questions LmB - the expense and application. It has no connection to the rest of this. If you missed the video, here are the links to both of them: 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWVKleR22LY and 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXhU-cm3BuE.]
Madison and Lake are also highly union-influenced schools that would be sympathetic to this message, and they are closest to RBV. It seemed to me the simplest explanation is this was a union-organized protest to test the waters. When it failed -- no honks, no sign of support -- the union went to Plan B. (Plan B was to take away funding for Lindamood Bell via the school site council. It failed when the state denied the Casita School Site Council's protest on all 6 counts.)
[What are "highly union-influenced schools"? Again, wild leaps, unfounded assumptions, and fantastic conclusions. A convoluted conspiracy theory is hardly the "simplest explanation." We have only Ms. Piro's e-mail to indicate that there was "no sign of support." And, according to Guffanti and the district office, LmB isn't funded through School Site Council - it's a federally funded program that can't be taken away.]
Only the union leadership had access to the information, the motivation and the students. Usually, the response I get from the union is "Yeah, it happened, but you can't prove it was us." To that I say there are millions of things we can't prove, like gravity, but if no other explanation handles all the facts then you are left with this conclusion: despite their protests to the contrary, the union bosses
and the union-supported candidates, Jaka and Chunka, are part of Plan C - take over the board and eliminate Lindamood Bell and if the superintendent protests that she can't do her job without it then fire her. (By the way Lindamood Bell is less expensive than the long used reading specialist that many schools have and we currently have several schools that are self-sufficient using Lindamood Bell. When all our teachers are trained the cost will be about 15% of what it is now.)
["Yeah, it happened, but you can't prove it was us." That doesn't even make sense.I don't know anyone stupid enough to say something like that to him. His facts aren't facts, and his conclusions are an attempt to justify his position. It certainly doesn't prove there's a plan for us to eliminate LmB, or to fire the superintendent.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: We had LmB in this district long before Dr. Bales came here, and because it does work for some students, it should be here for some time to come. However, it concerns me that he would indicate that Dr. Bales can't do her job without it. There are other districts that are having marvelous success without LmB, and so far I've seen no indication that our increased test scores are because we've expanded the use of LmB. The scores have continued to increase at the same rate they were already increasing.
By the way, the "long used" reading specialist program he refers to was begun a year before LmB, and some believe the rise in test scores can be directly attributed to that program. Reading First is a state funded program. Unlike LmB, which the district pays for out of several different funding sources, the state gives the district funds specifically for Reading First. This year, the district delayed applying for Reading First funds until very recently. We risked losing the grant for this year AND next year. That would have been a loss of $670K a year. Once they applied for the grant, they had to pull teachers back out of the classroom to return to their reading specialist positions.
Why do ALL the teachers have to be trained in a program that doesn't even work for many of the students? For example, it can't be used for students just starting to learn English. It's also of little or no use to students who are successful readers. And why, once all the teachers are trained, will it continue to cost us anything?]
If we simply let the superintendent do her job, VUSD will be one of the best districts in the county during the next four years.
[Dr. Bales should be allowed to do her job. However, it's the job of the board to ask questions and confirm what they THINK is happening is indeed what's happening. If it's not happening, then they need to find out why, and they need to work with the superintendent to correct the situation. THEN the district has a chance to be one of the best districts in the county.]
Your servant on the board, Your tired eyes and ears at the board,
Stephen Guffanti MD Elizabeth Jaka, parent and observer
Friday, October 31, 2008
Valerie Wade endorses Jaka, Lilly, Chunka
Former VUSD school board member and prominent local Republican, Valerie Wade was able to get a PRO-public education letter published in the NCTimes today. I wonder how many times she had to call to get the NCTimes to publish her letter. It has been extremely tough for PRO public education letters to get past the NCTimes censor but Valerie did it! Good job, Valerie Wade! Our newest hero in the PRO-Public education Hall of Fame.
Valerie strongly endorsed Elizabeth Jaka and Angela Chunka for VUSD School Board. Her opinion of the ANTI-education and anti-social Guffanti is the same as everyone who has to work with him--not good. See her letter to the editor on line here:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/10/31/opinion/letters/z08f10f594d74d347882574f2007dfbbd.tx
Or read it here:
Voters have a clear choice for Vista schools
As a former Vista Unified Trustee, I strongly recommend Elizabeth Jaka and Angela Chunka for Vista Unified School District Board. I have known both for many years. They are extremely knowledgeable, compassionate individuals determined to educate all students to their capacity instead of funding and focusing on a select few.
They show consistent respect for parents, teachers and those who may disagree with them. They are fiscal conservatives who will finally get the taxpayer-mandated new high school opened. They have served on many VUSD district-parent committees. They will use that experience and common sense in selecting academic programs. They have already demonstrated they are willing to personally invest long hours on your children's behalf.
Mr. Guffanti has been very consistent over his years on the school board that he is there for his own political agendas (like his recent demand that the board endorse Prop. 8). He seems suspicious of parents and teachers (like his recent refusal to attend a PTA forum).
You, the voter, have a clear choice: two informed and dedicated women, Mrs. Jaka and Mrs/ Chunka, or a self-serving Mr. Guffanti. Vote for Elizabeth Jaka and Angela Chunka for your children's sake!
Valerie Wade
Vista
Connections between VUSD ANTI education candidates and Grossmont UHSD ANTI candidates
Speaking of ANTI-education board members, Jim Kelly of Grossmont Union High School located in east San Diego County, is making outrageous statements and lying about sitting board members in GUHSD in order to get more ANTI-education members elected to the Grossmont board.
Jim Kelly is a known political ally and associate of Guffanti and Gibson, the two ANTI-education members of our board. He is following the ANTI candidate playbook that we have seen here in Vista. Read Kelly's lies here: http://www.10news.com/news/17783553/detail.html
Guffanti trotted out similar lies during a KOCT interview a year ago when he accused the VUSD teachers of protecting child molesters. Read what the liar Guffanti said here:
http://www.vistata.org/VTAdvocate032607.pdf
ANTI education folks like Guffanti and Kelly get elected by scaring voters with outrageous, emotional falsehoods about schools and teachers. The good folks in the education community are often too tired from working long hours and too nice to think that anyone would believe liars like Guffanti and Kelly. Sadly more often than not the fear and smear campaigns of deception work. No matter how tired we are or how busy, we must fight them now or suffer for years. We have only four days to stop the ANTI's from taking control of our board.
You may have read on this blog that Grossmont is the other district that the ANTI folks have been targeting in our county for the last twenty years. Why they go after Grossmont and VUSD every two years no one knows. But there is a direct link of some kind. The two groups of ANTI's known to associate with each other.
Gary Cass, former ANTI member of the Grossmont School Board, has moved to Vista and founded something called the Christian Anti-Defamation League with articles on its home page--"Obama disavows Christianity" Read his hate site here: http://www.christianadc.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=23063
or his web page here:
http://garycass.org/
Gary Cass knows, respects, and politically supports both Jim Gibson and Stephen Guffanti. (confirmed by one source).
If the ANTI's are able to seize a majority on our VUSD board, look for Gary Cass and other hate mongers to have a larger role in running our district and creating political chaos by advocating for the VUSD board to make fringe political agendas the number one priority in VUSD rather than the education of our children.
Call the VTA today 760-758-2690 and volunteer to help with the last walk and drop--precinct walk is being done on an individual basis. There will be no for organized precinct walk tomorrow.)
Signs for Candidates rally at 4pm Sunday Nov. 2. Meet at the VTA office 1717 East Vista Way. All the campaign signs held back for the last days of the campaign will be posted on Sunday to replace the hundreds of our signs that have been taken. We want our signs up for the regular voters to see on their way to the polls.
Be ready for the MASSIVE COMMUNITY RALLY after school on Monday for JAKA, LILLY, and CHUNKA. We will rock the community! Rally will be earlier than others. It will go from 4pm until 5:30 pm due to time change. Meet at the corner of Vista Village and West Vista Way by Chili's. After the rally many of us will go to Lamp Post Pizza for food and beverages. See you there!
Valerie strongly endorsed Elizabeth Jaka and Angela Chunka for VUSD School Board. Her opinion of the ANTI-education and anti-social Guffanti is the same as everyone who has to work with him--not good. See her letter to the editor on line here:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/10/31/opinion/letters/z08f10f594d74d347882574f2007dfbbd.tx
Or read it here:
Voters have a clear choice for Vista schools
As a former Vista Unified Trustee, I strongly recommend Elizabeth Jaka and Angela Chunka for Vista Unified School District Board. I have known both for many years. They are extremely knowledgeable, compassionate individuals determined to educate all students to their capacity instead of funding and focusing on a select few.
They show consistent respect for parents, teachers and those who may disagree with them. They are fiscal conservatives who will finally get the taxpayer-mandated new high school opened. They have served on many VUSD district-parent committees. They will use that experience and common sense in selecting academic programs. They have already demonstrated they are willing to personally invest long hours on your children's behalf.
Mr. Guffanti has been very consistent over his years on the school board that he is there for his own political agendas (like his recent demand that the board endorse Prop. 8). He seems suspicious of parents and teachers (like his recent refusal to attend a PTA forum).
You, the voter, have a clear choice: two informed and dedicated women, Mrs. Jaka and Mrs/ Chunka, or a self-serving Mr. Guffanti. Vote for Elizabeth Jaka and Angela Chunka for your children's sake!
Valerie Wade
Vista
Connections between VUSD ANTI education candidates and Grossmont UHSD ANTI candidates
Speaking of ANTI-education board members, Jim Kelly of Grossmont Union High School located in east San Diego County, is making outrageous statements and lying about sitting board members in GUHSD in order to get more ANTI-education members elected to the Grossmont board.
Jim Kelly is a known political ally and associate of Guffanti and Gibson, the two ANTI-education members of our board. He is following the ANTI candidate playbook that we have seen here in Vista. Read Kelly's lies here: http://www.10news.com/news/17783553/detail.html
Guffanti trotted out similar lies during a KOCT interview a year ago when he accused the VUSD teachers of protecting child molesters. Read what the liar Guffanti said here:
http://www.vistata.org/VTAdvocate032607.pdf
ANTI education folks like Guffanti and Kelly get elected by scaring voters with outrageous, emotional falsehoods about schools and teachers. The good folks in the education community are often too tired from working long hours and too nice to think that anyone would believe liars like Guffanti and Kelly. Sadly more often than not the fear and smear campaigns of deception work. No matter how tired we are or how busy, we must fight them now or suffer for years. We have only four days to stop the ANTI's from taking control of our board.
You may have read on this blog that Grossmont is the other district that the ANTI folks have been targeting in our county for the last twenty years. Why they go after Grossmont and VUSD every two years no one knows. But there is a direct link of some kind. The two groups of ANTI's known to associate with each other.
Gary Cass, former ANTI member of the Grossmont School Board, has moved to Vista and founded something called the Christian Anti-Defamation League with articles on its home page--"Obama disavows Christianity" Read his hate site here: http://www.christianadc.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=23063
or his web page here:
http://garycass.org/
Gary Cass knows, respects, and politically supports both Jim Gibson and Stephen Guffanti. (confirmed by one source).
If the ANTI's are able to seize a majority on our VUSD board, look for Gary Cass and other hate mongers to have a larger role in running our district and creating political chaos by advocating for the VUSD board to make fringe political agendas the number one priority in VUSD rather than the education of our children.
Call the VTA today 760-758-2690 and volunteer to help with the last walk and drop--precinct walk is being done on an individual basis. There will be no for organized precinct walk tomorrow.)
Signs for Candidates rally at 4pm Sunday Nov. 2. Meet at the VTA office 1717 East Vista Way. All the campaign signs held back for the last days of the campaign will be posted on Sunday to replace the hundreds of our signs that have been taken. We want our signs up for the regular voters to see on their way to the polls.
Be ready for the MASSIVE COMMUNITY RALLY after school on Monday for JAKA, LILLY, and CHUNKA. We will rock the community! Rally will be earlier than others. It will go from 4pm until 5:30 pm due to time change. Meet at the corner of Vista Village and West Vista Way by Chili's. After the rally many of us will go to Lamp Post Pizza for food and beverages. See you there!
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
New PRO Jaka,Chunka, Lilly U-tube offering
There is a new post on U-tube supporting our PRO-public education candidates--Elizabeth Jaka, Angela Chunka, and Steve Lilly. It is really good. It defends our public school teachers, parents and candidates. We are the good guys. We are the ones who want our children to have the best possible education. We are the ones whose number one priority is education.
Our ANTI foes give only lip service to education. they are running a stealth campaign with a hidden agenda that they do not want the public to know. They are so afraid of the public that they refused to come to the largest public forum for school board candidates. they also declined to be on our public access TV program on KOCT. They are attempting to again steal the majority of the our school board seats from PRO-education candidates.
The three ANTI candidates want to use their position of VUSD school board member as a platform to promote fringe political views. Let's not let them. Every minute is crucial. We must contact every VUSD voter. I believe we can defeat all three candidates of the ANTI candidates. Let's shut them out in this election. With your help we will do it.
You will see in the U-tube video below that our children know the stakes in this election. They are out working to get Guffanti and his fellow ANTI zealots off our board. We cannot let our children down.
See the U-tube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXhU-cm3BuE
made by
vusdkidsthatcare
Watch it today and share it with a friend.
Our ANTI foes give only lip service to education. they are running a stealth campaign with a hidden agenda that they do not want the public to know. They are so afraid of the public that they refused to come to the largest public forum for school board candidates. they also declined to be on our public access TV program on KOCT. They are attempting to again steal the majority of the our school board seats from PRO-education candidates.
The three ANTI candidates want to use their position of VUSD school board member as a platform to promote fringe political views. Let's not let them. Every minute is crucial. We must contact every VUSD voter. I believe we can defeat all three candidates of the ANTI candidates. Let's shut them out in this election. With your help we will do it.
You will see in the U-tube video below that our children know the stakes in this election. They are out working to get Guffanti and his fellow ANTI zealots off our board. We cannot let our children down.
See the U-tube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXhU-cm3BuE
made by
vusdkidsthatcare
Watch it today and share it with a friend.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Guffanti District Email open door? update
I just heard that the CTA lawyers are looking into his violation of the NCLB ruling. However preliminary thoughts say Guffanti is skating a very fine edge but it does not amount to union busting to just "inform" members how to get out of the union. Guffanti would argue that information is permissible as long as he does not threaten to fire teachers who join.
If he or other district administrators have advised new teachers not to join the union if they want to be re-hired for next year which may have happened, then he definitely would be in violation. Anybody who knows a first or second year hire, ask them if they were told this. If they were, encourage them to tell their story anonymously to the VTA at 758-2690.
He certainly has violated VUSD rules for using district email for political purposes. CTA lawyers are looking into the mis-use of email as well. If he is defeated the investigation will stop, if the worse happens and he is re-elected he will likely be given a slap on the wrist and told not to do use the email again. Of course no one expects Guffanti to abide by any ruling against him.
So sad. Unions have always had the right to use employer's mail boxes to communicate with membership until recent NLRB decisions made by Bush appointees took that right from us along with the right to use employer's email.
Votes have consequences. If an anti-labor forces control the US presidency, it can hurt us right here in Vista.
If he or other district administrators have advised new teachers not to join the union if they want to be re-hired for next year which may have happened, then he definitely would be in violation. Anybody who knows a first or second year hire, ask them if they were told this. If they were, encourage them to tell their story anonymously to the VTA at 758-2690.
He certainly has violated VUSD rules for using district email for political purposes. CTA lawyers are looking into the mis-use of email as well. If he is defeated the investigation will stop, if the worse happens and he is re-elected he will likely be given a slap on the wrist and told not to do use the email again. Of course no one expects Guffanti to abide by any ruling against him.
So sad. Unions have always had the right to use employer's mail boxes to communicate with membership until recent NLRB decisions made by Bush appointees took that right from us along with the right to use employer's email.
Votes have consequences. If an anti-labor forces control the US presidency, it can hurt us right here in Vista.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Guffanati Opens Door to Union Use of District Email
Guffanti may have opened the door to UNLIMITED use of the district email by the union. Yes indeed! The good guys may now be able to use the district email for any union activity.
Why? because "no rules for me" Guffanti, as our employer, has used the district email to try to bust our union. Not only has he put out his lies and political hit pieces for his own benefit over district email. Not only has he solicited money for his campaign using district email, the idiot has sent email through our district email to our membership telling them how to opt our of our union and our PAC contributions. THAT IS UNON BUSTING. Read the NLRB ruling about it online here:
http://www.allbusiness.com/labor-employment/labor-relations-labor-unions/8894677-1.html
Here is the key phrase from the report:
The National Labor Relations Board ruled in a split 2007 decision that employers can ban union solicitations on their e-mail systems. An employer "may lawfully bar employees' non-work-related use of its e-mail system, unless the (company) acts in a manner that discriminates" against union organizing and collective bargaining rights under the National Labor Relations Act, the NLRB ruled in a 3-2 decision.
In other words if Guffanti "discriminates against union organizing" or engages in union busting, we are no longer limited by this NLRB ruling!
At least that is what it sounds like to me. I will be checking with the CTA tomorrow morning. If I am right, I will be sending out a number of PRO-Education messages to our (my former) membership using district e-mail.
I wonder if we can use site teacher mail boxes as well?
I will post the CTA answer as soon as I get it.
Why? because "no rules for me" Guffanti, as our employer, has used the district email to try to bust our union. Not only has he put out his lies and political hit pieces for his own benefit over district email. Not only has he solicited money for his campaign using district email, the idiot has sent email through our district email to our membership telling them how to opt our of our union and our PAC contributions. THAT IS UNON BUSTING. Read the NLRB ruling about it online here:
http://www.allbusiness.com/labor-employment/labor-relations-labor-unions/8894677-1.html
Here is the key phrase from the report:
The National Labor Relations Board ruled in a split 2007 decision that employers can ban union solicitations on their e-mail systems. An employer "may lawfully bar employees' non-work-related use of its e-mail system, unless the (company) acts in a manner that discriminates" against union organizing and collective bargaining rights under the National Labor Relations Act, the NLRB ruled in a 3-2 decision.
In other words if Guffanti "discriminates against union organizing" or engages in union busting, we are no longer limited by this NLRB ruling!
At least that is what it sounds like to me. I will be checking with the CTA tomorrow morning. If I am right, I will be sending out a number of PRO-Education messages to our (my former) membership using district e-mail.
I wonder if we can use site teacher mail boxes as well?
I will post the CTA answer as soon as I get it.
RETRACTION Guffanti (NOT) Caught stealing Campaign Signs!!
RETRACTION--GUFFANTI NOT CAUGHT STEALING SIGNS. It was Jim Gibson, VUSD Board President, who was again caught stealing signs. My new source says Gibson was caught with Oceanside City Council candidate signs other than his own. As you probably know he is running for Oceanside City Council while still serving as our VUSD board president. If you read this blog you know that Gibson was caught two years ago stealing our VTA pro-public education campaign signs by Jan O'Reilly, our VTA president.
My same source says that the NCTimes will run a story on Gibson stealing the signs before the election. Whether they run the story before or after the election will be an interesting test of the NCTimes willingness to be a community paper for the entire North County and not just one small special interest group.
The Union Tribune has criticized Jim Gibson in the past. The NCTimes to date has been unwilling to follow suit no matter what Jim Gibson does. Depending on whether this story holds up and who publishes it, will determine for me which newspaper best serves the needs of all members of the North County and which one I want to subscribe to.
My same source says that the NCTimes will run a story on Gibson stealing the signs before the election. Whether they run the story before or after the election will be an interesting test of the NCTimes willingness to be a community paper for the entire North County and not just one small special interest group.
The Union Tribune has criticized Jim Gibson in the past. The NCTimes to date has been unwilling to follow suit no matter what Jim Gibson does. Depending on whether this story holds up and who publishes it, will determine for me which newspaper best serves the needs of all members of the North County and which one I want to subscribe to.
'Poor Judgement' Doc endorses Guffanti
Guffanti has sent out an email with an endorsement from Mark C. Diamond PHD of Temecula. This is the same Mark C. Diamond who thought it appropriate to bring his own nine year old son, Mathew Diamond, into a doctor/patient counseling session with a distraught mother.
The mother had a teen age son who suffered from bipolar disease. She recently had found suicide notes and homosexual material in her teenage son's room and was especially distraught. She called for a session with Dr. Diamond to discuss those issues--teenage suicide and homosexuality. She was crying and upset. Dr. Diamond thought this would be a great session for his NINE YEAR OLD son to observe to learn about his father's job. Weird! But anyone who would endorse Guffanti has to be a little bit weird. In this case Guffanti found someone A LOT WEIRD!
Even thought Dr. Diamond saw no problem with his own NINE YEAR OLD son listening to description of homosexual material and suicide, the Board of Psychology, State of California Department of Consumer Affairs apparently thought differently. Dr. Diamond had to pay over $10,000 and was put on probation for this instance of unprofessional conduct and POOR JUDGMENT!
Guffanti really gets great endorsements. he must be pretty hard up if the only endorsement he can get is from someone who was found by a STATE BOARD of CALIFORNIA to have POOR JUDGEMENT!!!
I wonder how hard it would be to find another psychologist in our area to be certified in a state board hearing to have POOR JUDGEMENT!!! Guffanti likely found the ONLY ONE and used him for an endorsement for himself. WOW! He emailed multitudes of copies of the Dr. Diamond endorsement to email inboxes all over our district. What does Guffanti's pride in Dr. Diamond's endorsement say about Guffanti's judgement?
Read the board's finding about Mark C. Diamond's poor judgement here:
http://www.psychboard.ca.gov/consumers/diamond-mark.pdf
Read what Mark C. Diamond, the guy with POOR JUDGEMENT said about Guffanti and sent out by Guffanti via his notorious Guffanti emails here:
My friend, Stephen Guffanti, M.D., has asked me to write for him a public character reference. It is my pleasure to do so. I am a psychotherapist and have been a licensed clinical psychologist in California since 1985. I have known Dr. Guffanti for well over twenty years. During this time I have witnessed him perform in a number of forums, including as a medical doctor and as an advocate for children's education. From his medical patients, to students, teachers, and school administrators, Dr. Guffanti encourages others to take personal responsibility for their actions while empowering them to reach their life's potential. As one of the finest natural healers I have ever known, Dr. Guffanti urges others to view their life's problems as challenges—not obstacles.
Dr. Guffanti's credibility is the key in his helping others. It is my belief that he would never ask another person to do anything that he himself was not willing to do. He is as ethical, forthright, and brave an individual as any I have ever known. Dr. Guffanti is not afraid to be direct with a patient, even though he knows that some of his patients might rather hear falsely soothing words from the physician than encouragement from them to take greater responsibility for their physical health.
Dr. Guffanti's philosophy of doing the right thing, despite the cost, is further underlined by a lifetime of volunteering his time and financial resources towards making both his clients and his community more efficient in publicly and privately educating our children. I have never seen him waver from this commitment. He has been a personal role model for my own integrity.
Mark D. Diamond, Ph. D.
Temecula, CA October 25, 2008
The mother had a teen age son who suffered from bipolar disease. She recently had found suicide notes and homosexual material in her teenage son's room and was especially distraught. She called for a session with Dr. Diamond to discuss those issues--teenage suicide and homosexuality. She was crying and upset. Dr. Diamond thought this would be a great session for his NINE YEAR OLD son to observe to learn about his father's job. Weird! But anyone who would endorse Guffanti has to be a little bit weird. In this case Guffanti found someone A LOT WEIRD!
Even thought Dr. Diamond saw no problem with his own NINE YEAR OLD son listening to description of homosexual material and suicide, the Board of Psychology, State of California Department of Consumer Affairs apparently thought differently. Dr. Diamond had to pay over $10,000 and was put on probation for this instance of unprofessional conduct and POOR JUDGMENT!
Guffanti really gets great endorsements. he must be pretty hard up if the only endorsement he can get is from someone who was found by a STATE BOARD of CALIFORNIA to have POOR JUDGEMENT!!!
I wonder how hard it would be to find another psychologist in our area to be certified in a state board hearing to have POOR JUDGEMENT!!! Guffanti likely found the ONLY ONE and used him for an endorsement for himself. WOW! He emailed multitudes of copies of the Dr. Diamond endorsement to email inboxes all over our district. What does Guffanti's pride in Dr. Diamond's endorsement say about Guffanti's judgement?
Read the board's finding about Mark C. Diamond's poor judgement here:
http://www.psychboard.ca.gov/consumers/diamond-mark.pdf
Read what Mark C. Diamond, the guy with POOR JUDGEMENT said about Guffanti and sent out by Guffanti via his notorious Guffanti emails here:
My friend, Stephen Guffanti, M.D., has asked me to write for him a public character reference. It is my pleasure to do so. I am a psychotherapist and have been a licensed clinical psychologist in California since 1985. I have known Dr. Guffanti for well over twenty years. During this time I have witnessed him perform in a number of forums, including as a medical doctor and as an advocate for children's education. From his medical patients, to students, teachers, and school administrators, Dr. Guffanti encourages others to take personal responsibility for their actions while empowering them to reach their life's potential. As one of the finest natural healers I have ever known, Dr. Guffanti urges others to view their life's problems as challenges—not obstacles.
Dr. Guffanti's credibility is the key in his helping others. It is my belief that he would never ask another person to do anything that he himself was not willing to do. He is as ethical, forthright, and brave an individual as any I have ever known. Dr. Guffanti is not afraid to be direct with a patient, even though he knows that some of his patients might rather hear falsely soothing words from the physician than encouragement from them to take greater responsibility for their physical health.
Dr. Guffanti's philosophy of doing the right thing, despite the cost, is further underlined by a lifetime of volunteering his time and financial resources towards making both his clients and his community more efficient in publicly and privately educating our children. I have never seen him waver from this commitment. He has been a personal role model for my own integrity.
Mark D. Diamond, Ph. D.
Temecula, CA October 25, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Predictions for the Last Week of the Campaign
Predictions for the Last Week
We know from years of experience to expect nasty tricks from Guffanti and the ANTI education crowd. Whatever they do will be aided and abetted by the NCTimes on their editorial pages and in their “stories” about our district and this election.
In the past the ANTI’s have always had a “press conference” on Wednesday or Thursday before the election which the NCTimes education reporters are forced to cover. Lengthy articles will be published on Thursday, Friday, or Sunday before Tuesday’s election. In the articles will be all the ridiculous charges that the ANTI’s have fantasied about and concocted over the last two months.
If an ANTI candidate Guffanti, Anderson or Fernandez have a bird fly into one of their home windows, they will claim that “teachers are throwing birds at their windows.” If one single ANTI sign blows over in the wind, they’ll cry “teachers knocked over hundreds of our signs.” Perhaps one of their neighbor burns something with a foul smell in their fireplace and an ANTI candidates smells it, they’ll scream “the teachers are using WMD on us.” “They are terrorists!”
No matter how ridiculous and completely unfounded the charge, an NCTimes reporter will be forced to write a straight article that pretends to take the charge seriously. The article will get prominent play on the front page of the NCTimes.
There is no limit to ANTI paranoia. It is part of the strategy that our ANTI friends were taught at the training ‘to get extremists in public office.’ The training used to be at a “church” down in the south east San Diego County. I had a chance to attend the training myself, back in the summer of 1992, but did not. Too bad I would have known their strategy sooner and would have their materials to reproduce on this site. Now it does not matter. We have seen the ANTI education’s crowd election strategy seven times. It is always the same.
We are no longer surprised by their unscrupulous tactics, as at least I was, the first election or two. As a local church leader, a decades long Sunday School teacher, and a Christian Scouting director, I used to think that people who called themselves Christians had a certain set of moral and ethical standards that were inviolate. Having fought the ANTI’s who cloth themselves in the mantle of Christianity to deflect criticism and who use the trust of our fellow church members to get elected, I, now, know that some who call themselves Christian have no standards whatsoever.
We also can expect vicious “hit piece” mailers with slanderous lies about our district and our teachers to arrive in our mail boxes this coming Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. In the past we called the NCTimes to complain about the lies and slanders in the mailers. We hoped to get an article correcting the lies before the election. We were listened to. They agreed with our complaints. They wrote an article and then published it the day after the election.
We all know that the NCTimes is in the tank for the extremist ANTI education crowd. Do not be disheartened. We have beaten the ANTI’s in every election since 1994—SEVEN IN A ROW. There is no reason to think we cannot beat them again. Personally I am hoping to totally sweep of them off our school board.
We know from years of experience to expect nasty tricks from Guffanti and the ANTI education crowd. Whatever they do will be aided and abetted by the NCTimes on their editorial pages and in their “stories” about our district and this election.
In the past the ANTI’s have always had a “press conference” on Wednesday or Thursday before the election which the NCTimes education reporters are forced to cover. Lengthy articles will be published on Thursday, Friday, or Sunday before Tuesday’s election. In the articles will be all the ridiculous charges that the ANTI’s have fantasied about and concocted over the last two months.
If an ANTI candidate Guffanti, Anderson or Fernandez have a bird fly into one of their home windows, they will claim that “teachers are throwing birds at their windows.” If one single ANTI sign blows over in the wind, they’ll cry “teachers knocked over hundreds of our signs.” Perhaps one of their neighbor burns something with a foul smell in their fireplace and an ANTI candidates smells it, they’ll scream “the teachers are using WMD on us.” “They are terrorists!”
No matter how ridiculous and completely unfounded the charge, an NCTimes reporter will be forced to write a straight article that pretends to take the charge seriously. The article will get prominent play on the front page of the NCTimes.
There is no limit to ANTI paranoia. It is part of the strategy that our ANTI friends were taught at the training ‘to get extremists in public office.’ The training used to be at a “church” down in the south east San Diego County. I had a chance to attend the training myself, back in the summer of 1992, but did not. Too bad I would have known their strategy sooner and would have their materials to reproduce on this site. Now it does not matter. We have seen the ANTI education’s crowd election strategy seven times. It is always the same.
We are no longer surprised by their unscrupulous tactics, as at least I was, the first election or two. As a local church leader, a decades long Sunday School teacher, and a Christian Scouting director, I used to think that people who called themselves Christians had a certain set of moral and ethical standards that were inviolate. Having fought the ANTI’s who cloth themselves in the mantle of Christianity to deflect criticism and who use the trust of our fellow church members to get elected, I, now, know that some who call themselves Christian have no standards whatsoever.
We also can expect vicious “hit piece” mailers with slanderous lies about our district and our teachers to arrive in our mail boxes this coming Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. In the past we called the NCTimes to complain about the lies and slanders in the mailers. We hoped to get an article correcting the lies before the election. We were listened to. They agreed with our complaints. They wrote an article and then published it the day after the election.
We all know that the NCTimes is in the tank for the extremist ANTI education crowd. Do not be disheartened. We have beaten the ANTI’s in every election since 1994—SEVEN IN A ROW. There is no reason to think we cannot beat them again. Personally I am hoping to totally sweep of them off our school board.
Three more heroes get letters past NCT's censors
VOTE JAKA, LILLY and CHUNKA for VUSD School Board on NOVEMBER 4
In today’s (Sunday October 26, 2008) Letter to the editor section of the North County Times three brave heroes of the PRO-Public Education Resistance were able to get their letters published. I cannot help but wonder how many calls to the letter editor it took.
Apparently the NCTimes’ embargo on PRO-public education letters can be broken. Those of you who have sent in the more than thirty letters to the editor that the NCTimes has been withholding for last three weeks, KEEP CALLING! Demand your letters be published. Demand a date for publication. Do not give up. Please complain loudly and often to Pattie Leipert (letters editor at 433-7333, ask for Leipert).
We know based on past election experience that Leipert will wait to publish those thirty plus letters until just before the election and then put them all together in a giant letters to editor section, not on the letters page, in order to dilute the effect of the PRO-public education majority in the North County.
The NCTimes owners and even their biased editors realize that they must also sell papers to us. We are the majority of the North County. We are NOT in favor of extremism on school boards and school children being used for fringe political issues. We should be represented in a community paper like the NCTimes purports to be. We can be if you call. The bias at the NCTimes can be broken. The editors cannot take a chance of alienating more than half of their readership. The three letters below prove that the PRO Education letter embargo can be broken.
Today’s Education Heroes are:
(1) DONNA MARA of Vista
(2) DEBBIE RAYNER of Vista
(3) THOMAS MULLEN of San Diego
You can read their courageous letters here:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/10/26/opinion/letters/zec5ee85b6e983672882574ec007d101b.txt
or reproduced below.
The right thing to do in Vista
North County Times, what were you thinking of? Certainly not the 25,000 students in Vista Unified who rely on trustees to actually be proponents of public education. With the exception of Dr. Lilly, your endorsements fell excruciatingly short of the mark ("Lilly, Guffanti, Anderson best for VUSD," Oct. 2).Let's look at the facts: Dr. Guffanti has a long history promoting causes against public education. He authored one of the first voucher initiatives to be placed on a ballot, intending to divert public funds to pay for tuitions to private schools. ... His voting history on the board is one that has undermined the completion of the magnet high school. ...To support our students, and serve with Dr. Steve Lilly, we need to elect Angela Chunka and Elizabeth Jaka. Both are parents of students in our schools and have spent many years as volunteers supporting and enriching our students. They are familiar with teachers, standards and curriculum. Most important, their only agenda is to ensure that every child, every family in our district is heard and their needs addressed, while protecting your tax dollars from those who would divert them to other causes.Please vote for Lilly, Chunka, and Jaka for VUSD. It's just the right thing to do.
Dona Mara
Vista
Jaka, Lilly, Chunka will give us respect
Teachers and parents are looking for school board candidates who genuinely care about our concerns.Three candidates have been available to share their vision for the future of Vista Unified School District at all three candidate forums. They are Elizabeth Jaka, Steve Lilly and Angela Chunka. Their presence at the PTA and League of Women Voters forums shows their commitment to serving our students, parents and teachers. Questions posed to them were answered thoughtfully, with an impressive depth of knowledge of what is needed to keep our district healthy.We need board members who will respectfully listen and respond to the people they serve. Please vote for Jaka, Lilly and Chunka for the Vista Unified School District board.
Debbie Rayner
Vista
Personal views don't belong in school business
Congratulations are in order to trustees David Hubbard, Steve Lilly and Carol Herrera for their common sense and collective stand against religious fundamentalism on the school board ("School board stays out of gay marriage debate," Oct. 18).Taking a stand on this issue is very emotional and very decisive, even though to me it is a simple call: No on 8. I would rather see the trustees not cause any consternation among their constituents, especially when this issue has nothing to do with educating our kids.For trustees Jim Gibson and Stephen Guffanti, they both have no business invoking personal and political views as being representative of Vista on the whole, again, that have nothing to do with their service on the school board. Gibson and Guffanti are supposed to be nonpartisan and nonpolitical ��“��“ and it goes to show you how dangerous religious fundamentalists are when they try, at any level, to promote their agenda. It is an outrage.
Thomas Mullen
San Diego
In today’s (Sunday October 26, 2008) Letter to the editor section of the North County Times three brave heroes of the PRO-Public Education Resistance were able to get their letters published. I cannot help but wonder how many calls to the letter editor it took.
Apparently the NCTimes’ embargo on PRO-public education letters can be broken. Those of you who have sent in the more than thirty letters to the editor that the NCTimes has been withholding for last three weeks, KEEP CALLING! Demand your letters be published. Demand a date for publication. Do not give up. Please complain loudly and often to Pattie Leipert (letters editor at 433-7333, ask for Leipert).
We know based on past election experience that Leipert will wait to publish those thirty plus letters until just before the election and then put them all together in a giant letters to editor section, not on the letters page, in order to dilute the effect of the PRO-public education majority in the North County.
The NCTimes owners and even their biased editors realize that they must also sell papers to us. We are the majority of the North County. We are NOT in favor of extremism on school boards and school children being used for fringe political issues. We should be represented in a community paper like the NCTimes purports to be. We can be if you call. The bias at the NCTimes can be broken. The editors cannot take a chance of alienating more than half of their readership. The three letters below prove that the PRO Education letter embargo can be broken.
Today’s Education Heroes are:
(1) DONNA MARA of Vista
(2) DEBBIE RAYNER of Vista
(3) THOMAS MULLEN of San Diego
You can read their courageous letters here:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/10/26/opinion/letters/zec5ee85b6e983672882574ec007d101b.txt
or reproduced below.
The right thing to do in Vista
North County Times, what were you thinking of? Certainly not the 25,000 students in Vista Unified who rely on trustees to actually be proponents of public education. With the exception of Dr. Lilly, your endorsements fell excruciatingly short of the mark ("Lilly, Guffanti, Anderson best for VUSD," Oct. 2).Let's look at the facts: Dr. Guffanti has a long history promoting causes against public education. He authored one of the first voucher initiatives to be placed on a ballot, intending to divert public funds to pay for tuitions to private schools. ... His voting history on the board is one that has undermined the completion of the magnet high school. ...To support our students, and serve with Dr. Steve Lilly, we need to elect Angela Chunka and Elizabeth Jaka. Both are parents of students in our schools and have spent many years as volunteers supporting and enriching our students. They are familiar with teachers, standards and curriculum. Most important, their only agenda is to ensure that every child, every family in our district is heard and their needs addressed, while protecting your tax dollars from those who would divert them to other causes.Please vote for Lilly, Chunka, and Jaka for VUSD. It's just the right thing to do.
Dona Mara
Vista
Jaka, Lilly, Chunka will give us respect
Teachers and parents are looking for school board candidates who genuinely care about our concerns.Three candidates have been available to share their vision for the future of Vista Unified School District at all three candidate forums. They are Elizabeth Jaka, Steve Lilly and Angela Chunka. Their presence at the PTA and League of Women Voters forums shows their commitment to serving our students, parents and teachers. Questions posed to them were answered thoughtfully, with an impressive depth of knowledge of what is needed to keep our district healthy.We need board members who will respectfully listen and respond to the people they serve. Please vote for Jaka, Lilly and Chunka for the Vista Unified School District board.
Debbie Rayner
Vista
Personal views don't belong in school business
Congratulations are in order to trustees David Hubbard, Steve Lilly and Carol Herrera for their common sense and collective stand against religious fundamentalism on the school board ("School board stays out of gay marriage debate," Oct. 18).Taking a stand on this issue is very emotional and very decisive, even though to me it is a simple call: No on 8. I would rather see the trustees not cause any consternation among their constituents, especially when this issue has nothing to do with educating our kids.For trustees Jim Gibson and Stephen Guffanti, they both have no business invoking personal and political views as being representative of Vista on the whole, again, that have nothing to do with their service on the school board. Gibson and Guffanti are supposed to be nonpartisan and nonpolitical ��“��“ and it goes to show you how dangerous religious fundamentalists are when they try, at any level, to promote their agenda. It is an outrage.
Thomas Mullen
San Diego
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Fleeing Administrators Identified--Wirth and Fitzpatrick
The latest administrators to flee the Bale’s Bailiwick of Bad Treatment are Shawn Wirth, the AP at Madison who has gone to Fallbrook and Susan Fitzpatrick principal of Breeze Hill who has fled to Del Mar.
These two are the 36th and 37th administrators to leave VUSD in the last two years according to VUSD sources. This rate of attrition is close to twenty times the normal rate (pre-Bales) in VUSD. Gee, I wonder why so many administrators are leaving? Guffanti’s group has frequently said the ones leaving are the “lazy” administrators that have never had to work and never did any work before the Bales became our “dear leader”. One of Guffanti’s lovely friends calls them “rats leaving a ship.” The true answer is they leave because they can. They belong to the one group of employees that have the ability to run away to freedom from “Bale-ery” without taking a massive pay cut.
Sadly, it is not as easy for teacher’s to leave a district as it is for administration. Teachers have to start all over again at the bottom of a new district’s pay scale costing them as much as thirty thousand dollars a year whereas administrators are allowed to move laterally and get equal or higher pay when they change to a new district.
It is not fair, but that is the way it is in California. Teachers with experience, our very best teachers, are stuck here under the Bales regime. Good for the kids of our district, not so good for our best teachers. Their only hope is a change on the VUSD board of education. They need new school board members who are willing to take control and ‘tone down’ Joyce Bales more extreme and dictatorial actions.
These two are the 36th and 37th administrators to leave VUSD in the last two years according to VUSD sources. This rate of attrition is close to twenty times the normal rate (pre-Bales) in VUSD. Gee, I wonder why so many administrators are leaving? Guffanti’s group has frequently said the ones leaving are the “lazy” administrators that have never had to work and never did any work before the Bales became our “dear leader”. One of Guffanti’s lovely friends calls them “rats leaving a ship.” The true answer is they leave because they can. They belong to the one group of employees that have the ability to run away to freedom from “Bale-ery” without taking a massive pay cut.
Sadly, it is not as easy for teacher’s to leave a district as it is for administration. Teachers have to start all over again at the bottom of a new district’s pay scale costing them as much as thirty thousand dollars a year whereas administrators are allowed to move laterally and get equal or higher pay when they change to a new district.
It is not fair, but that is the way it is in California. Teachers with experience, our very best teachers, are stuck here under the Bales regime. Good for the kids of our district, not so good for our best teachers. Their only hope is a change on the VUSD board of education. They need new school board members who are willing to take control and ‘tone down’ Joyce Bales more extreme and dictatorial actions.
Good Anderson, Bad Anderson
Good Anderson, Bad Anderson
Seen around town today our large banner signs, “Teachers endorse Anderson” I am sure those of you who have seen them have been enraged that Patty Anderson would stoop so low as to blatantly lie on giant signs.
Bad enough her small campaign signs strongly imply she has been endorsed by the teachers. She is also using the VUSD teacher’s long time campaign symbol of an apple. Would she out and out bald faced lie? Guffanti’s unethical influences are everwhere in this campaign. Perhaps he convinced her to post these signs?
We know that Patty Anderson has attempted to keep her ranting anti-education letters to the editor a secret by signing the letters with variations of her married name, Patricia A. Johnson, Patty Johnson, and Pat Johnson. So we know she is deceptive like Guffanti, but would she so deliberately and boldly lie?
Actually no. That is correct, in this case Patty Johnson is not responsible. She did not put up the "Teachers endorse Anderson signs." She has not stooped that low as of yet.
It turns out the teacher’s really have endorsed an Anderson, the good Anderson, the one who supports public education and is running for the County Board of Education. His name is Mark C. Anderson.
In the past twenty years our ANTI public education friends have had three targets in San Diego county—Grossmont Union High School District which they captured and held, Vista Unified School District which they captured and lost, and the County Board of Education which they have not yet fully captured. But the dark forces have not given up. They still want our VUSD Board of Education and they still want to control the County Board of Education. They hope to use the County Board of Education as a "bully pulpit" to promote their fringe politics.
In this County School Board election, running against good guy, Mark C. Anderson, is one of the dark heroes of the ANTI crowd, a person named Rose Urdahl. She is endorsed by both Guffanti and Gibson. She needs to be defeated. Mark Anderson should be elected.
By a sad coincidence, the PRO-public education candidate for the County Board of Education, Mark C. Anderson, happens to have an identical last name to the one that Patty Anderson (Johnson) decided to use to run for our VUSD school board. Of course she uses Anderson to hide from her published letters to the editor and other writings under the name Patricia A. Johnson that would reveal her for the wild eyed, fringe extremist that she really is. If she had not chosen to hide from her married name (Johnson), we would not have had this problem. Too bad she did not run for school board as Patty Johnson. "If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride."
Mark C. Anderson is using the same name he uses everywhere. It just is really unfortunate that his real last name is the same one that Patty is using to try to escape from her previous extremist writings found in the NCTimes letter section under her married name ( search NCTimes archives under Patricia A. Johnson, Patty Johnson or Pat Johnson for look into an unfiltered view of her thoughts on public education).
In our town we get a chance to vote for a GOOD ANDERSON---MARK C. ANDERSON and vote against a BAD Anderson—Patty Anderson. The name Anderson has truly become a two-headed Janus for the voters of VUSD. We should look ahead with Mark C. Anderson on the county board and ignore the backward looking "vinegar" Patty Anderson running for our VUSD board.
"Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time." Merchant of Venice William Shakespeare
Seen around town today our large banner signs, “Teachers endorse Anderson” I am sure those of you who have seen them have been enraged that Patty Anderson would stoop so low as to blatantly lie on giant signs.
Bad enough her small campaign signs strongly imply she has been endorsed by the teachers. She is also using the VUSD teacher’s long time campaign symbol of an apple. Would she out and out bald faced lie? Guffanti’s unethical influences are everwhere in this campaign. Perhaps he convinced her to post these signs?
We know that Patty Anderson has attempted to keep her ranting anti-education letters to the editor a secret by signing the letters with variations of her married name, Patricia A. Johnson, Patty Johnson, and Pat Johnson. So we know she is deceptive like Guffanti, but would she so deliberately and boldly lie?
Actually no. That is correct, in this case Patty Johnson is not responsible. She did not put up the "Teachers endorse Anderson signs." She has not stooped that low as of yet.
It turns out the teacher’s really have endorsed an Anderson, the good Anderson, the one who supports public education and is running for the County Board of Education. His name is Mark C. Anderson.
In the past twenty years our ANTI public education friends have had three targets in San Diego county—Grossmont Union High School District which they captured and held, Vista Unified School District which they captured and lost, and the County Board of Education which they have not yet fully captured. But the dark forces have not given up. They still want our VUSD Board of Education and they still want to control the County Board of Education. They hope to use the County Board of Education as a "bully pulpit" to promote their fringe politics.
In this County School Board election, running against good guy, Mark C. Anderson, is one of the dark heroes of the ANTI crowd, a person named Rose Urdahl. She is endorsed by both Guffanti and Gibson. She needs to be defeated. Mark Anderson should be elected.
By a sad coincidence, the PRO-public education candidate for the County Board of Education, Mark C. Anderson, happens to have an identical last name to the one that Patty Anderson (Johnson) decided to use to run for our VUSD school board. Of course she uses Anderson to hide from her published letters to the editor and other writings under the name Patricia A. Johnson that would reveal her for the wild eyed, fringe extremist that she really is. If she had not chosen to hide from her married name (Johnson), we would not have had this problem. Too bad she did not run for school board as Patty Johnson. "If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride."
Mark C. Anderson is using the same name he uses everywhere. It just is really unfortunate that his real last name is the same one that Patty is using to try to escape from her previous extremist writings found in the NCTimes letter section under her married name ( search NCTimes archives under Patricia A. Johnson, Patty Johnson or Pat Johnson for look into an unfiltered view of her thoughts on public education).
In our town we get a chance to vote for a GOOD ANDERSON---MARK C. ANDERSON and vote against a BAD Anderson—Patty Anderson. The name Anderson has truly become a two-headed Janus for the voters of VUSD. We should look ahead with Mark C. Anderson on the county board and ignore the backward looking "vinegar" Patty Anderson running for our VUSD board.
"Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time." Merchant of Venice William Shakespeare
Tacky, Tacky, Tacky, sounds like Guffanti
PARTY CRASHERS AT THE VUSD ARTS FESTIVAL
Did you ever have a party and have uninvited guests show up. You really did not want them but you did not want to be rude. Mistakenly you let them in and then they returned your nice gesture with obnoxious and rude behavior? Something very similar to that happened at the VUSD Arts Festival this morning (Saturday, October 25th).
Today VUSD had a beautiful celebration called the VUSD Arts Festival. This festival to showcase the talents of our VUSD children was held today at the Vista Village Shopping Center. Our amazing and talented children showed off their art work, musical abilities, preformed brief dramatic scenes, demonstrated group drumming, and singing. It was as always a wonderful annual event. Our children seemed so proud of themselves and so excited. It has always been a politics-free zone.
ARTS FESTIVAL--A POLITICS-FREE ZONE
All of us involved in local politics (school board, water district, city council) have in the past realized that this day is for our kids, to showcase their talents. Even the ANTI-public education folks, who generally place no limits on themselves, have in the past respected this politics-free zone, but not today.
PRO-PUBLIC EDUCATION FOLKS ALWAYS FOLLOW THE RULES
Of course others have been tempted, we even had some of our more enthusiastic PRO-public ed. folks bringing up the idea to leadership that PRO public education literature should be available to parents at the Arts Festival. The leadership of the PRO-public education groups including the VTA-PAC gently reminded our more zealous friends that the event was for the children, not for us. No matter how much better off our children would be with PRO-public education candidates, we could not justify handing out literature at the children’s Arts Festival. We would not be party crashers.
GUFFANTI DOES NOT RESPECT RULES OR TRADITION
Guffanti as we know does not respect rules or traditions. He repeatedly has violated district and state laws and regulations regarding the separation of public resources (ie those of the VUSD) from politics. He routinely uses VUSD district email to send ANTI-public education tirades and asks for campaign support for himself and the other two ANTI school board candidates. He has inappropriately reproduced OFFICIAL district correspondences with his campaign literature on the back. He has gone on school campuses during school hours and passed out his literature. For all of these reasons many in our community now refer to him by his new nickname, “no rules for me” Guffanti.
It should come as no surprise that he decided to break the Arts Festival non-political tradition and to intrude on the joy of our children at an OFFICIAL VUSD event. I guess he forgot it was supposed to be a day to celebrate our children. I guess he also forgot it was an OFFICIAL event of a non-partisan PUBLIC institution. Oh that Guffanti, he is so forgetful when forgetting benefits himself.
DARK PRESENCE WANDERING AMONG OUR HAPPY CHILDREN
Wandering among the crowds of happy smiling children and proud parents were seen his dark minions furtively passing out Guffant, Anderson, Fernandez ANTI public education campaign literature. How rude to put his crass political ambitions above our children. To see the pinched faces of his tiny group of “nasties” slithering through the crowds was bad enough. His mindless minions were also accosting parents and children and practically forcing them to take Guffanti’s false political propaganda. Most of our good parents simply dropped his ANTI public education trash into the nearest trash cans where it belonged. Others refused to touch it and it fell to the ground as litter.
NOTE: The two ANTI education candidates seen trying to give away ANTI education campaign literature were Guffanti himself (spent the whole day there), and Eileen Fernandez. I wonder what happened to Patty?
Trash and litter is what party crasher Guffanti and his group contributed to the VUSD Arts Festival today.
Did you ever have a party and have uninvited guests show up. You really did not want them but you did not want to be rude. Mistakenly you let them in and then they returned your nice gesture with obnoxious and rude behavior? Something very similar to that happened at the VUSD Arts Festival this morning (Saturday, October 25th).
Today VUSD had a beautiful celebration called the VUSD Arts Festival. This festival to showcase the talents of our VUSD children was held today at the Vista Village Shopping Center. Our amazing and talented children showed off their art work, musical abilities, preformed brief dramatic scenes, demonstrated group drumming, and singing. It was as always a wonderful annual event. Our children seemed so proud of themselves and so excited. It has always been a politics-free zone.
ARTS FESTIVAL--A POLITICS-FREE ZONE
All of us involved in local politics (school board, water district, city council) have in the past realized that this day is for our kids, to showcase their talents. Even the ANTI-public education folks, who generally place no limits on themselves, have in the past respected this politics-free zone, but not today.
PRO-PUBLIC EDUCATION FOLKS ALWAYS FOLLOW THE RULES
Of course others have been tempted, we even had some of our more enthusiastic PRO-public ed. folks bringing up the idea to leadership that PRO public education literature should be available to parents at the Arts Festival. The leadership of the PRO-public education groups including the VTA-PAC gently reminded our more zealous friends that the event was for the children, not for us. No matter how much better off our children would be with PRO-public education candidates, we could not justify handing out literature at the children’s Arts Festival. We would not be party crashers.
GUFFANTI DOES NOT RESPECT RULES OR TRADITION
Guffanti as we know does not respect rules or traditions. He repeatedly has violated district and state laws and regulations regarding the separation of public resources (ie those of the VUSD) from politics. He routinely uses VUSD district email to send ANTI-public education tirades and asks for campaign support for himself and the other two ANTI school board candidates. He has inappropriately reproduced OFFICIAL district correspondences with his campaign literature on the back. He has gone on school campuses during school hours and passed out his literature. For all of these reasons many in our community now refer to him by his new nickname, “no rules for me” Guffanti.
It should come as no surprise that he decided to break the Arts Festival non-political tradition and to intrude on the joy of our children at an OFFICIAL VUSD event. I guess he forgot it was supposed to be a day to celebrate our children. I guess he also forgot it was an OFFICIAL event of a non-partisan PUBLIC institution. Oh that Guffanti, he is so forgetful when forgetting benefits himself.
DARK PRESENCE WANDERING AMONG OUR HAPPY CHILDREN
Wandering among the crowds of happy smiling children and proud parents were seen his dark minions furtively passing out Guffant, Anderson, Fernandez ANTI public education campaign literature. How rude to put his crass political ambitions above our children. To see the pinched faces of his tiny group of “nasties” slithering through the crowds was bad enough. His mindless minions were also accosting parents and children and practically forcing them to take Guffanti’s false political propaganda. Most of our good parents simply dropped his ANTI public education trash into the nearest trash cans where it belonged. Others refused to touch it and it fell to the ground as litter.
NOTE: The two ANTI education candidates seen trying to give away ANTI education campaign literature were Guffanti himself (spent the whole day there), and Eileen Fernandez. I wonder what happened to Patty?
Trash and litter is what party crasher Guffanti and his group contributed to the VUSD Arts Festival today.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Huge Rally Success Today!
Fifty-five pro public education heroes showed up today at one of our two rallies for Pro public education candidates JAKA, LILLY, and CHUNKA!!! Nearly as many showed up at our second rally location. Tired and exhausted teachers and others after a long day and long week of work found energy to go out tonight and demonstrate for Public Education in VUSD. They are all Education Heroes. Good job all!
Remember there will be no rally next Friday as it is Halloween night.
Our last rally for public education will be Monday November 3rd . It will be the largest yet. We plan to rock our VUSD community with our enthusiasm. Be there or wish you were.
Rumors swirl that Guffanti is trying to imitate our tremendous rally success. Whatever we do he tries desperately to copy. He has organized two rallies for himself and the other ANTI education candidates. The first as you may recall from this blog was a fiasco—only two people (one related to him) showed up. But I am told he had a far more successful rally this week than the first. This week he apparently had five people. One of whom was said to be his fellow ANTI public education henchman on the VUSD board, Jim Gibson. Wow, Guffanti really can inspire people, can’t he?
Where does Guffanti find anybody at all that believes him? We should be impressed (or saddened) that he still finds four or five gullible souls left in Vista that swallow his malarkey.
Rumor has it that even the good, long suffering folks at his base of operations, North Coast Church, are tiring of his constant use of their congregation and church directory for his own personal political purposes rather than for church purposes. He is even getting blow back from members of the congregation. Guffanti has such a hard time getting along with people, especially those who know him best.
Phone banking is going well. We have finished all the lists of strong supporters of public education. We are now calling on the final phone lists which consist solely of those voters who never supported Pro-public education candidates in the past. Even on these lists we are finding votes for our candidates. Amazing! Guffanti’s actions and reputation are even turning around what used to be his strongest supporters.
Ten days until the election. Volunteer today! Show up tomorrow at 9AM at the VTA office 1717 East Vista Way for our Walk and Drop. It is great exercise. We go to specific areas of the city and drop off campaign literature at the front doors of potential swing voters. These voters can make the difference.
Remember we do not only want to beat Guffanti. We need a victory large enough to repudiate him and his tactics. Let’s send him off the board in a landslide!
Remember there will be no rally next Friday as it is Halloween night.
Our last rally for public education will be Monday November 3rd . It will be the largest yet. We plan to rock our VUSD community with our enthusiasm. Be there or wish you were.
Rumors swirl that Guffanti is trying to imitate our tremendous rally success. Whatever we do he tries desperately to copy. He has organized two rallies for himself and the other ANTI education candidates. The first as you may recall from this blog was a fiasco—only two people (one related to him) showed up. But I am told he had a far more successful rally this week than the first. This week he apparently had five people. One of whom was said to be his fellow ANTI public education henchman on the VUSD board, Jim Gibson. Wow, Guffanti really can inspire people, can’t he?
Where does Guffanti find anybody at all that believes him? We should be impressed (or saddened) that he still finds four or five gullible souls left in Vista that swallow his malarkey.
Rumor has it that even the good, long suffering folks at his base of operations, North Coast Church, are tiring of his constant use of their congregation and church directory for his own personal political purposes rather than for church purposes. He is even getting blow back from members of the congregation. Guffanti has such a hard time getting along with people, especially those who know him best.
Phone banking is going well. We have finished all the lists of strong supporters of public education. We are now calling on the final phone lists which consist solely of those voters who never supported Pro-public education candidates in the past. Even on these lists we are finding votes for our candidates. Amazing! Guffanti’s actions and reputation are even turning around what used to be his strongest supporters.
Ten days until the election. Volunteer today! Show up tomorrow at 9AM at the VTA office 1717 East Vista Way for our Walk and Drop. It is great exercise. We go to specific areas of the city and drop off campaign literature at the front doors of potential swing voters. These voters can make the difference.
Remember we do not only want to beat Guffanti. We need a victory large enough to repudiate him and his tactics. Let’s send him off the board in a landslide!
Guffanti's Teacher Insults are Wrong
Guffanti’s Group Verbal Abuse of Teachers Exposed
Guffanti and his group of followers have repeatedly said that VUSD teachers are lazy and over paid. They have also said that many teachers especially the older teachers in the district need to be fired. Jim Gibson the other ANTI public education VUSD Board Member and current board president has advocated firing 10% of all VUSD teachers every year just like his hero the infamous Jack Welch did at General Electric. Guffanti and the ANTI’s have also said that VUSD teachers were not doing their job of teaching children until Joyce Bales and Guffanti forced them to. One of the Guffanti group said that teaching was full time pay for a half time job. They have repeatedly said that we are the highest paid teachers in the nation. They accuse teachers and others who oppose Guffanti of only being interested getting more of the district money for themselves at the expense of our VUSD students.
FALSE ACCUSATIONS
These are all false accusations of course. They are also slanderous and despicable charges to level against over-worked VUSD teachers. The comments show an incredible ignorance of what teachers do and a complete lack of empathy for our incredible job responsibility. Worst of all they show just how dark of heart, how mean, and how irrational these folks would be if we allow them to get another majority on our board. There is no telling how much damage they would do to our students, our schools, our teachers and our district.
'PUPPETS" TAKE US FROM THIRD FROM TOP TO NEXT TO BOTTOM IN SALARY
Now some facts, twenty five years ago VUSD teachers were ranked as the third highest paid teachers among unified districts in San Diego County. Our school board at that time made a commitment to never let VUSD fall out of the top three. That was twenty five years ago, a time when ordinary folks without hidden agendas were elected to our board. The only concern of those elected VUSD board members was how to make VUSD a better place of our students. Today of course we are one election away from a majority who wishes to use their position of power on our school board for fringe politics to benefit their personal political agendas rather than improve educational opportunities for our students. We have had to fight this group for the last 18 years. During those 18 years something very negative has happened to our VUSD teacher salaries and benefits. Today we are second from last in salaries in the county of San Diego. (CTA office San Marcos)
PUPPET CHARGE DOES NOT PASS SMELL TEST
Our ANTI-public education friends have consistently charged over those 18 years that the Pro-public education candidates that we have gotten elected are "union puppets". Weird that our "puppets" have so lowered our VUSD teachers' standings in wages and benefits among San Diego County school districts. You would think we would have better control of our "puppets" if they were puppets as the ANTI charge. Again the lies of the ANTI crowd (Guffanti's gang) just do not pass the smell test.
TOUGH TEACHING JOB CAUSES HIGHEST ATTRITION RATE OF ANY PROFESSION
Here is another thing that our ANTI friends never acknowledge, public school teaching is so difficult that on average 14% of new teachers quit in the first year. (from Donna Foote, “Relentless Pursuit”) This is the percentage of first year teachers who quit. Remember they have spent four years getting the education to be a teacher and a further fifth year of UNPAID student teaching education classes and UNPAID classroom teaching to get their credential. These are the cream of the crop of all graduates from our Education Institutes. These new teacher who quit in droves after the reality of public school teaching hits them are the very best of the various graduating classes each year. They are the ones with the best grades, successful recommendation from student teaching and most able to interview well. Of this cream of the crop that gets a job in the first place--14% quit. Seems high to me. But it is not high enough for the Guffanti's dark-hearted, angry haters. They want even more teachers gone.
YOUNG TEACHERS GIVE UP TEACHING AT AN ALARMING RATE
Think of the incredible investment of time and money these first year teachers give up. Six years of their young lives have been invested if we count their first year of teaching, yet they quit teaching in huge numbers. Six years amounts to a quarter of their young lives. They give up on all that hard work and all of their dreams. Do they quit teaching because the job is so easy?
Many still have to pay their student loans but they no longer are willing to work as teachers to raise the funds to pay off those loans. Would young teachers, deep in debt, quit an easy job with half time work for full time pay? It seems to me that people burdened with tens of thousands of dollars of student loans would try to keep a high paying easy job. Hey Guffanti, if the money is so good and the work so light why do so many first year teachers leave the profession?
DARK HEART OF GUFFANTI
The accusations of Guffanti's group of nasty dark hearts make no sense to any one willing to look at the facts. Problem is facts never favor Guffanti and his group, but his group doesn't care. When the facts do not fit their prejudice they make up new facts.
GUFFANTI GROUP TERRIFIED OF CHILDREN
Weird Guffanti’s group is so disrespectful to teachers. Most of Guffanti's gang are afraid of having six or seven of their children’s friends over for a couple hour birthday party. They get so exhausted after the party. Yet when we put in six plus hours a day with thirty children and we do not just entertain them we teach them, Guffanti's group gives us no credit. you will never see Guffanti, Gibson or any of their group voluteer as a Sunday School teacher. Children are so scary for them.
Even more damning to the litany of lies, hate and disrespect that Guffanti’s Group spews is the fact that by the end of the fifth year of a new teaching career, more than 50% of all new young teachers have gotten out of teaching. There is no profession with a higher attrition rate.
OUR OLDER TEACHERS ARE OUR BEST RESOURCE
The older teachers in our district are the hardest working, most successful teachers and they are the survivors who have overcome all obstacles and thrived. Their students learn more in an hour than Guffanti’s group could teach in a year. Yet the older teachers in the district are the ones that Guffanti's group targets with words like "tired", "old" and lazy" If you have the stomach for it , you can read the actual quotes that the Guffanti haters have used about teachers. All quotes are from the NCTimes newspaper in the last two years. See their quotes in the October 19th post on this blog entitled, "Outrageous quotes from Guffanti's Group."
STATISTICS FROM DONNA FOOTE'S BOOK, "RELENTLESS PURSUIT"
NOTE: All statistics in this blog post come from the book by Donna Foote, “Relentless Pursuit” and were confirmed by Paul Cummins, New Vision Foundation. I heard them both speaking together on CSPAN book TV recently.
Donna Foote followed new teachers around in an LAUSD high school (Locke Senior High School, http://www.lockehs.org/ ) and wrote down exactly what she saw. She read some excerpts from her book on the air. They were the most accurate description of classroom problems and student behaviors that I have ever heard. Her beautifully and accurately written words created a realistic picture of problems teachers face. Her words probably would scare away nearly any one contemplating teaching. I wish the editors of the NCTimes would read this book and see what teaching is really about. Any in the Guffanti group that are capable of learning would benefit from reading this book as well. Perhaps they might quit hating teachers and start helping instead.
Most teaching books are sanitized and turned into a Pollyanna version of the real thing. This book is not.
Guffanti and his group of followers have repeatedly said that VUSD teachers are lazy and over paid. They have also said that many teachers especially the older teachers in the district need to be fired. Jim Gibson the other ANTI public education VUSD Board Member and current board president has advocated firing 10% of all VUSD teachers every year just like his hero the infamous Jack Welch did at General Electric. Guffanti and the ANTI’s have also said that VUSD teachers were not doing their job of teaching children until Joyce Bales and Guffanti forced them to. One of the Guffanti group said that teaching was full time pay for a half time job. They have repeatedly said that we are the highest paid teachers in the nation. They accuse teachers and others who oppose Guffanti of only being interested getting more of the district money for themselves at the expense of our VUSD students.
FALSE ACCUSATIONS
These are all false accusations of course. They are also slanderous and despicable charges to level against over-worked VUSD teachers. The comments show an incredible ignorance of what teachers do and a complete lack of empathy for our incredible job responsibility. Worst of all they show just how dark of heart, how mean, and how irrational these folks would be if we allow them to get another majority on our board. There is no telling how much damage they would do to our students, our schools, our teachers and our district.
'PUPPETS" TAKE US FROM THIRD FROM TOP TO NEXT TO BOTTOM IN SALARY
Now some facts, twenty five years ago VUSD teachers were ranked as the third highest paid teachers among unified districts in San Diego County. Our school board at that time made a commitment to never let VUSD fall out of the top three. That was twenty five years ago, a time when ordinary folks without hidden agendas were elected to our board. The only concern of those elected VUSD board members was how to make VUSD a better place of our students. Today of course we are one election away from a majority who wishes to use their position of power on our school board for fringe politics to benefit their personal political agendas rather than improve educational opportunities for our students. We have had to fight this group for the last 18 years. During those 18 years something very negative has happened to our VUSD teacher salaries and benefits. Today we are second from last in salaries in the county of San Diego. (CTA office San Marcos)
PUPPET CHARGE DOES NOT PASS SMELL TEST
Our ANTI-public education friends have consistently charged over those 18 years that the Pro-public education candidates that we have gotten elected are "union puppets". Weird that our "puppets" have so lowered our VUSD teachers' standings in wages and benefits among San Diego County school districts. You would think we would have better control of our "puppets" if they were puppets as the ANTI charge. Again the lies of the ANTI crowd (Guffanti's gang) just do not pass the smell test.
TOUGH TEACHING JOB CAUSES HIGHEST ATTRITION RATE OF ANY PROFESSION
Here is another thing that our ANTI friends never acknowledge, public school teaching is so difficult that on average 14% of new teachers quit in the first year. (from Donna Foote, “Relentless Pursuit”) This is the percentage of first year teachers who quit. Remember they have spent four years getting the education to be a teacher and a further fifth year of UNPAID student teaching education classes and UNPAID classroom teaching to get their credential. These are the cream of the crop of all graduates from our Education Institutes. These new teacher who quit in droves after the reality of public school teaching hits them are the very best of the various graduating classes each year. They are the ones with the best grades, successful recommendation from student teaching and most able to interview well. Of this cream of the crop that gets a job in the first place--14% quit. Seems high to me. But it is not high enough for the Guffanti's dark-hearted, angry haters. They want even more teachers gone.
YOUNG TEACHERS GIVE UP TEACHING AT AN ALARMING RATE
Think of the incredible investment of time and money these first year teachers give up. Six years of their young lives have been invested if we count their first year of teaching, yet they quit teaching in huge numbers. Six years amounts to a quarter of their young lives. They give up on all that hard work and all of their dreams. Do they quit teaching because the job is so easy?
Many still have to pay their student loans but they no longer are willing to work as teachers to raise the funds to pay off those loans. Would young teachers, deep in debt, quit an easy job with half time work for full time pay? It seems to me that people burdened with tens of thousands of dollars of student loans would try to keep a high paying easy job. Hey Guffanti, if the money is so good and the work so light why do so many first year teachers leave the profession?
DARK HEART OF GUFFANTI
The accusations of Guffanti's group of nasty dark hearts make no sense to any one willing to look at the facts. Problem is facts never favor Guffanti and his group, but his group doesn't care. When the facts do not fit their prejudice they make up new facts.
GUFFANTI GROUP TERRIFIED OF CHILDREN
Weird Guffanti’s group is so disrespectful to teachers. Most of Guffanti's gang are afraid of having six or seven of their children’s friends over for a couple hour birthday party. They get so exhausted after the party. Yet when we put in six plus hours a day with thirty children and we do not just entertain them we teach them, Guffanti's group gives us no credit. you will never see Guffanti, Gibson or any of their group voluteer as a Sunday School teacher. Children are so scary for them.
Even more damning to the litany of lies, hate and disrespect that Guffanti’s Group spews is the fact that by the end of the fifth year of a new teaching career, more than 50% of all new young teachers have gotten out of teaching. There is no profession with a higher attrition rate.
OUR OLDER TEACHERS ARE OUR BEST RESOURCE
The older teachers in our district are the hardest working, most successful teachers and they are the survivors who have overcome all obstacles and thrived. Their students learn more in an hour than Guffanti’s group could teach in a year. Yet the older teachers in the district are the ones that Guffanti's group targets with words like "tired", "old" and lazy" If you have the stomach for it , you can read the actual quotes that the Guffanti haters have used about teachers. All quotes are from the NCTimes newspaper in the last two years. See their quotes in the October 19th post on this blog entitled, "Outrageous quotes from Guffanti's Group."
STATISTICS FROM DONNA FOOTE'S BOOK, "RELENTLESS PURSUIT"
NOTE: All statistics in this blog post come from the book by Donna Foote, “Relentless Pursuit” and were confirmed by Paul Cummins, New Vision Foundation. I heard them both speaking together on CSPAN book TV recently.
Donna Foote followed new teachers around in an LAUSD high school (Locke Senior High School, http://www.lockehs.org/ ) and wrote down exactly what she saw. She read some excerpts from her book on the air. They were the most accurate description of classroom problems and student behaviors that I have ever heard. Her beautifully and accurately written words created a realistic picture of problems teachers face. Her words probably would scare away nearly any one contemplating teaching. I wish the editors of the NCTimes would read this book and see what teaching is really about. Any in the Guffanti group that are capable of learning would benefit from reading this book as well. Perhaps they might quit hating teachers and start helping instead.
Most teaching books are sanitized and turned into a Pollyanna version of the real thing. This book is not.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Two more administrators flee VUSD
BREAKING NEWS--just in from the district office, two more administrators have resigned. At least one is being picked up by Del Mar, another to Fallbrook or so goes the rumor. I cannot publish their names at this time, but the district will soon (probably after Nov. 4) make an announcement.
Funny how many administrators want out of this district. What is it about being treated as children who are not smart enough to make their own decisions that drives administrators batty?
Remember: Joyce Bales knows all and decides all. She and she alone knows what is best for each and every site and each and every administrator. No one else needs to think. No one else needs make a decision. The mighty Bales will make all decisions.
Funny how many administrators want out of this district. What is it about being treated as children who are not smart enough to make their own decisions that drives administrators batty?
Remember: Joyce Bales knows all and decides all. She and she alone knows what is best for each and every site and each and every administrator. No one else needs to think. No one else needs make a decision. The mighty Bales will make all decisions.
Webster's Guffanti Chicken Cartoon
I have tried since Sunday to figure out how to post the Webster political cartoon showing Guffanti, Anderson and Fernandez as chickens afraid of the PTA (the big bad wolf). Many of us were delightfully surprised to see it published in the Sunday edition of the NCTimes.
In past VUSD school board campaigns about this time in the campaign season, we would see one of Mark Thornhill's nasty "puppet" cartoons making fun of the candidates who support Public Education. So it was a real pleasure to see the NCTimes actually being a tiny bit critical of Guffanti and his group. Your phone calls to the editor of the NCTimes are paying off.
Sadly my computer skills have not yet been up to reducing the cartoon in "size", reformating, whatever I am supposed to do for it to show up on the blog.
I can post pictures. I tried putting it into my picture file but still could not get it on the blog. To see the excellent Webster cartoon point your browser at this web address:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/10/20/opinion/cartoon/local/webster102008.txt
Enjoy!
In past VUSD school board campaigns about this time in the campaign season, we would see one of Mark Thornhill's nasty "puppet" cartoons making fun of the candidates who support Public Education. So it was a real pleasure to see the NCTimes actually being a tiny bit critical of Guffanti and his group. Your phone calls to the editor of the NCTimes are paying off.
Sadly my computer skills have not yet been up to reducing the cartoon in "size", reformating, whatever I am supposed to do for it to show up on the blog.
I can post pictures. I tried putting it into my picture file but still could not get it on the blog. To see the excellent Webster cartoon point your browser at this web address:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/10/20/opinion/cartoon/local/webster102008.txt
Enjoy!
Education Badge of Courage-phones and rallies
Phones and Street Corner Rallies
I have spent almost six hours over the last two days phone banking. I had 301 contacts! Great fun. There are really nice people in this district. Almost no one wants the ANTI’s back in charge of our district.
Our personal calls to individual voters in our district are making a difference. They are worth one hundred of the annoying Guffanti robo calls. Who wants to hear a Guffanti robot lying about VUSD on the phone? Most people hang up the moment the robot starts talking.
When the teachers and employees of the district call in person our good VUSD voters listen. You would be surprised at how many of our VUSD conservative voters and regular church members are tired of Guffanti using them and their churches to get elected. They are ready to make the switch to PRO-public education candidates. All they need is a phone call.
Keep coming to the phone bank whether it is your night or not call the VTA (758-2690) find out the location of that night’s bank and go. It is great meeting other dedicated teachers in our district at one of the phone banks. Only four more nights next week and the fun is over. Don’t miss the chance to be part of the movement to save our classrooms from extremists and their fringe agendas. We do not get enough chances to see other colleagues and phone banks are a great place to see other dedicated, pro-public education, VUSD employees. There are extra phone at the VTA office and phoning can be done at there any night of the week.
Kudos to the sign committee and to the street corner demonstrations! Nearly every person I talked to while phone banking had seen our signs for the PRO-Public education candidates. Nearly all of them knew who the teachers of this district were recommending. Also many had seen the Street Corner Rallies. You folks that have been putting up signs, making phone calls, and going to the rallies are true heroes. You all deserve the Education Badge of Courage!
Two more rallies tomorrow. Check your email to find the locations or call the VTA 760-758-2690. I hope to see you folks tomorrow. Most people who see us out their honk there car horns and wave. We get huge numbers of thumbs up gestures and big smiles. This community is ready to rid itself of Guffanti.
Our biggest rally will be the day before the election on November 3 at Vista Village. There is no more important place for you to be after school on the 3rd. Work your 7and 1/2 hour day on Tuesday. Do not give Bales the extra three hours of unpaid time she demands of you on that day. Give that time to your students and the future of VUSD by showing up for the rally.
This Saturday is another Walk and Drop. Meet at the VTA office at 9:00 AM. Get great exercise and some sun. I know Joyce Bales wants you inside working on some survey monkey every free hour of your weekend. But take a break from Bales Busy Work and come on down to the VTA office 1717 East Vista Way, Saturday at 9 AM. Another great chance to meet the good people of our district. The "Resistance" is larger than you know. You will be surprised by the people who have joined. Come see for yourself on Saturday.
I have spent almost six hours over the last two days phone banking. I had 301 contacts! Great fun. There are really nice people in this district. Almost no one wants the ANTI’s back in charge of our district.
Our personal calls to individual voters in our district are making a difference. They are worth one hundred of the annoying Guffanti robo calls. Who wants to hear a Guffanti robot lying about VUSD on the phone? Most people hang up the moment the robot starts talking.
When the teachers and employees of the district call in person our good VUSD voters listen. You would be surprised at how many of our VUSD conservative voters and regular church members are tired of Guffanti using them and their churches to get elected. They are ready to make the switch to PRO-public education candidates. All they need is a phone call.
Keep coming to the phone bank whether it is your night or not call the VTA (758-2690) find out the location of that night’s bank and go. It is great meeting other dedicated teachers in our district at one of the phone banks. Only four more nights next week and the fun is over. Don’t miss the chance to be part of the movement to save our classrooms from extremists and their fringe agendas. We do not get enough chances to see other colleagues and phone banks are a great place to see other dedicated, pro-public education, VUSD employees. There are extra phone at the VTA office and phoning can be done at there any night of the week.
Kudos to the sign committee and to the street corner demonstrations! Nearly every person I talked to while phone banking had seen our signs for the PRO-Public education candidates. Nearly all of them knew who the teachers of this district were recommending. Also many had seen the Street Corner Rallies. You folks that have been putting up signs, making phone calls, and going to the rallies are true heroes. You all deserve the Education Badge of Courage!
Two more rallies tomorrow. Check your email to find the locations or call the VTA 760-758-2690. I hope to see you folks tomorrow. Most people who see us out their honk there car horns and wave. We get huge numbers of thumbs up gestures and big smiles. This community is ready to rid itself of Guffanti.
Our biggest rally will be the day before the election on November 3 at Vista Village. There is no more important place for you to be after school on the 3rd. Work your 7and 1/2 hour day on Tuesday. Do not give Bales the extra three hours of unpaid time she demands of you on that day. Give that time to your students and the future of VUSD by showing up for the rally.
This Saturday is another Walk and Drop. Meet at the VTA office at 9:00 AM. Get great exercise and some sun. I know Joyce Bales wants you inside working on some survey monkey every free hour of your weekend. But take a break from Bales Busy Work and come on down to the VTA office 1717 East Vista Way, Saturday at 9 AM. Another great chance to meet the good people of our district. The "Resistance" is larger than you know. You will be surprised by the people who have joined. Come see for yourself on Saturday.
Campaign Anecdotes
Campaign anecdotes
Rumors swirl that at the public street-corner rallies for PRO-PUBLIC EDUCATION candidates JAKA, LILLY and CHUNKA that there have been a number of administrators holding up signs. They cannot be identified by name or whether they are district office or site personnel. But just like the teachers the district administration is tired of the top down rule of Joyce Bales. Some of them think that even though they are not from Pueblo, they are smart enough people to occasionally be allowed to make a decision or two for themselves.
Also heard on the street, Guffanti has seen the PRO-public education rallies and tried to organize one for himself. He set a time and a date. He had signs ready. The only problem is only two people showed up. Only one not related to himself. Very sad. I feel so bad for Guffanti. NOT!
Guffant has been getting blow back from his attempt to bring up one of his fringe issues for the VUSD board to vote on. He and Gibson thought our VUSD students should be used for their personal dislike of our gay friends. They wanted the VUSD board to go on record in support of Prop 8.
Only one other school board in our county voted in favor of this resolution—the Grossmont Union High School District. That is the only other district that the ANTI-public education forces were able to take over in our county. That take-over occurred at the same time as we were taken over in 1992. The difference is that in Grossmont, the good, decent, PRO education folks of the district never were able to get the majority back. Finally the teachers at their biggest high school, Helix, formed their own charter and removed themselves from control of the Anti folks on their school board.
Unlike Grossmont Union High School District, the good people of VUSD will not put up with another majority on our board who put “fringe” non-educational politics ahead of learning. So Guffanti has been trying to justify his vote to put VUSD on record supporting Prop 8.
He has written an elaborate justification for his vote that is not worthy of repeating here. He also has been backing off his vote to use the VUSD board and our children as pawns in his fight to to use "hate politics" to advance his political career. Apparently some people have called and demanded he take back his political signs that had been posted at their homes and businesses. Poor Guffanti, don’t you just feel sorry for him? NO WAY!
Patty Anderson (Johnson) rumor--apparently she and her husband, the infamous Stan Johnson of anti-education letters to the editor fame, have acted so badly at Palomar Faculty Federation's "get-togethers" that it is not just the science department faculty that cannot stand them. It is the entire faculty. I do not know the particulars--only unconfirmed rumors, but there was "a lot" behind the Palomar Faculty Federation's refusal to endorse Patty.
Also heard on the grapevine that Patty Anderson's Marine "science" class is so easy that it is the favorite science requirement class for the less gifted or less dedicated students among the "jock"set at Palomar. Apparently real students are insulted by her classes featuring gluing paper cut-outs to rocks. Some students go to Palomar to actually learn. Surprised, Patty?
Gee, in one Guffanti "fantasy" commentary in nctimes, he claimed our school district paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to someone to instruct district teachers to make pet rocks. While that "fantasy" was as false as all of Guffanti's fevered imaginings, maybe he was actually channelling a session of his running mate's supposedly "college" class. Could be. Where else does he come up with his delusions?
Rumors swirl that at the public street-corner rallies for PRO-PUBLIC EDUCATION candidates JAKA, LILLY and CHUNKA that there have been a number of administrators holding up signs. They cannot be identified by name or whether they are district office or site personnel. But just like the teachers the district administration is tired of the top down rule of Joyce Bales. Some of them think that even though they are not from Pueblo, they are smart enough people to occasionally be allowed to make a decision or two for themselves.
Also heard on the street, Guffanti has seen the PRO-public education rallies and tried to organize one for himself. He set a time and a date. He had signs ready. The only problem is only two people showed up. Only one not related to himself. Very sad. I feel so bad for Guffanti. NOT!
Guffant has been getting blow back from his attempt to bring up one of his fringe issues for the VUSD board to vote on. He and Gibson thought our VUSD students should be used for their personal dislike of our gay friends. They wanted the VUSD board to go on record in support of Prop 8.
Only one other school board in our county voted in favor of this resolution—the Grossmont Union High School District. That is the only other district that the ANTI-public education forces were able to take over in our county. That take-over occurred at the same time as we were taken over in 1992. The difference is that in Grossmont, the good, decent, PRO education folks of the district never were able to get the majority back. Finally the teachers at their biggest high school, Helix, formed their own charter and removed themselves from control of the Anti folks on their school board.
Unlike Grossmont Union High School District, the good people of VUSD will not put up with another majority on our board who put “fringe” non-educational politics ahead of learning. So Guffanti has been trying to justify his vote to put VUSD on record supporting Prop 8.
He has written an elaborate justification for his vote that is not worthy of repeating here. He also has been backing off his vote to use the VUSD board and our children as pawns in his fight to to use "hate politics" to advance his political career. Apparently some people have called and demanded he take back his political signs that had been posted at their homes and businesses. Poor Guffanti, don’t you just feel sorry for him? NO WAY!
Patty Anderson (Johnson) rumor--apparently she and her husband, the infamous Stan Johnson of anti-education letters to the editor fame, have acted so badly at Palomar Faculty Federation's "get-togethers" that it is not just the science department faculty that cannot stand them. It is the entire faculty. I do not know the particulars--only unconfirmed rumors, but there was "a lot" behind the Palomar Faculty Federation's refusal to endorse Patty.
Also heard on the grapevine that Patty Anderson's Marine "science" class is so easy that it is the favorite science requirement class for the less gifted or less dedicated students among the "jock"set at Palomar. Apparently real students are insulted by her classes featuring gluing paper cut-outs to rocks. Some students go to Palomar to actually learn. Surprised, Patty?
Gee, in one Guffanti "fantasy" commentary in nctimes, he claimed our school district paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to someone to instruct district teachers to make pet rocks. While that "fantasy" was as false as all of Guffanti's fevered imaginings, maybe he was actually channelling a session of his running mate's supposedly "college" class. Could be. Where else does he come up with his delusions?
Guffanti sniffles, "teachers trying to fire me"
Heard around town in couple of weeks:
When Guffanti is challenged on his lies and slanders about our good VUSD teachers and the courageous opposition to his deceptive and nasty campaign against public education, he now has a standard response. He sniffles that, “the teachers are trying to fire me” and “that it is not team building.”
He uses this mantra as a rationale to break every state campaign law and every rule our VUSD school district has against using district resources for political campaigns. (He is now routinely, even more than once a day, is using district email on a massive scale to send out political emails and requests for donations from district personnel.) Because in his mind the teachers were “mean” to him he can do anything he wants. He is “no rules for me” Guffanti.
Let’s talk about team Building. It is not the teachers who are the ones who do not believe in any team except the personal self-aggrandizement team of which Guffanti is the one and only member.
(1) Who was it who called the teachers of this district “LAZY”? In an editorial in the NCTIMES, no less, for the entire readership of the NCTimes to see?
(2) Who said the good teachers of VUSD never did any work in the classroom and never cared about their students until he and Bales forced them to?
(3) Who says the teachers are just in it “for the money”?
(4) Who said this election is only about who controls multi-million dollar budget?
(5) Who wants to run our public school district yet does not believe in the concept of public education and FACT-BASED science, history and sex education?
(6) Who joined an organization whose goal was “the complete destruction of public education in the United States?”
The answers to all of the above questions is, of course,--Guffanti. the man who is a team builder as long as the team is a team of one person consisting of Guffanti.
What a cry baby. Guffanti throws the first punch. We turn the other cheek . He hits us again. We do not respond. So he hits us with more and more lies and slander. Finally we respond and he cries and sniffles that “they are not being nice to me.”
Guffanti knows nothing of team building. He never has. Perhaps that is why he has had so many jobs. Of I forgot Guffanti has different rules for himself then for ever one else. If people keep “firing” him from jobs, it is never his fault. It is always the fault of others.
When Guffanti is challenged on his lies and slanders about our good VUSD teachers and the courageous opposition to his deceptive and nasty campaign against public education, he now has a standard response. He sniffles that, “the teachers are trying to fire me” and “that it is not team building.”
He uses this mantra as a rationale to break every state campaign law and every rule our VUSD school district has against using district resources for political campaigns. (He is now routinely, even more than once a day, is using district email on a massive scale to send out political emails and requests for donations from district personnel.) Because in his mind the teachers were “mean” to him he can do anything he wants. He is “no rules for me” Guffanti.
Let’s talk about team Building. It is not the teachers who are the ones who do not believe in any team except the personal self-aggrandizement team of which Guffanti is the one and only member.
(1) Who was it who called the teachers of this district “LAZY”? In an editorial in the NCTIMES, no less, for the entire readership of the NCTimes to see?
(2) Who said the good teachers of VUSD never did any work in the classroom and never cared about their students until he and Bales forced them to?
(3) Who says the teachers are just in it “for the money”?
(4) Who said this election is only about who controls multi-million dollar budget?
(5) Who wants to run our public school district yet does not believe in the concept of public education and FACT-BASED science, history and sex education?
(6) Who joined an organization whose goal was “the complete destruction of public education in the United States?”
The answers to all of the above questions is, of course,--Guffanti. the man who is a team builder as long as the team is a team of one person consisting of Guffanti.
What a cry baby. Guffanti throws the first punch. We turn the other cheek . He hits us again. We do not respond. So he hits us with more and more lies and slander. Finally we respond and he cries and sniffles that “they are not being nice to me.”
Guffanti knows nothing of team building. He never has. Perhaps that is why he has had so many jobs. Of I forgot Guffanti has different rules for himself then for ever one else. If people keep “firing” him from jobs, it is never his fault. It is always the fault of others.
NCTimes ends PRO letter embargo! Keep up the calls!
NCTimes stops embargo
The NCTimes editors have stopped the embargo of Pro-Public education candidate letters to the editor. They have started publishing some of the thirty plus letters to the editor in support of JAKA, LILLY and CHUNKA that have been withheld from publication for almost a month. Our protest phone calls have paid off. Good job to all who called the NCTimes editors!
Today two courageous, PRO public education, VUSD voters were allowed to have their letters published in support of our three PRO-PUBLIC EDUCATION CANDIDATES: Elizabeth JAKA, Dr. Steve LILLY and Angela CHUNKA.
Read them online here: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/10/23/opinion/letters/z6de26879dd90032b882574ea007a7448.txt
Now that so many of you have called in to complain about the attempts of the NCTimes editors to swing the election to the ANTIs, our editor friends seem to have decided to dole out one or two letters every other day or two until the day of the election when they will publish all the rest together in one big batch. This strategy allows for them to say they are “fair and balanced,” but still eliminate most of the impact of the overwhelming letter support for PRO public education candidates: JAKA, LILLY and CHUNKA.
I have reproduced today’s pro-public education letters at the end of this blog. Check them out. Notice that the first letter from Thomas Streeter discusses how the Anti-public education members of our current school board, Guffanti and Gibson, introduced and voted in favor of one of those “fringe” political issues that have nothing to do with our VUSD students. “Fringe’ politics are what the ANTI’s are known for.
Our ANTI friends do not have children in our district schools or any public school anywhere. They never will either. Their goal always is personal aggrandizement and personal political power first, VUSD students last. They seem to think that “fringe” issues will generate headlines and support for themselves. If they win this election look for many more headlines about “fringe” political issues.
The NCTimes may be looking forward to a return of the kind of disruptions to teaching and education in the district that we all saw during the least reign of error of our ANTI friends in 1992-1994. I am sure it will sell more papers for them. However, it is hardly good for our students and children here in VUSD. Fight the ANTI’s and their attempts to insert “fringe” politics into our VUSD classrooms.
The second PRO-public education letter deals with the divineness that our ANTI friends have brought into our district. Divisive, nasty elections and a divided community are the greatest legacies of the ANTI’s.
If Guffanti/Gibson, and the gullible ones who believe them, had not been spewing hate and slander against classroom teachers and public education for the last 14 years, then we would have a united community, a third high school (years ago) and a plan for dealing with the ever increasing numbers of non-English speaking students. Instead of helping with our VUSD problems, the ANTI’s continue election after election driving a wedge deeper and deeper into divisive issues in order to get re-elected.
The ANTI’s often falsely accuse the teachers of starting the divisiveness by entering into the politics of VUSD by recalling the first ANTI majority. Ridiculous! The teachers did not want to be involved in politics. There never was a Political Action Committee at VTA before the first set of ANTI’s were elected in 1992. The teacher’s did not start the recall of the first ANTI board, we only entered into it many MONTHS after a community organization had started the recall. There were long discussions at the Executive Board about whether or not it was appropriate for the teachers to be involved. (see Ex. Bd. Notes from Feb-April 1993)
The teachers did not have any interest in politics. We only responded to attacks on our classroom’s FACT based curriculum by the first ANTI majority on our school board from 1992-1994. The ANTI attacks were on FACT based science, history and sex education teaching inside our PUBLIC school classrooms. I, for one, am proud of our teachers for defending the students of VUSD against the ignorance and intolerance of the ANTI’s.
The teachers will get out of the business of local politics when the ANTI’s leave our district alone and no sooner. The ANTI’s feign outrage that PUBLIC school teachers would dare to defend our PUBLIC school classrooms. I guess the British were pretty outraged as well when American colonists defended themselves against unfair attacks and limits on American commerce. Southern slave owners were outraged when northerners helped run-away slaves escape the horror of slavery in the South. Good Americans should always wear outrage of intolerants as a badge of honor proudly on their sleeves. I know the more outrage Guffanti and his group express the more successful the good people of our district have been at thwarting his ANTI-public education agenda of extremism, fringe politics and the destruction of public education in VUSD.
Here are the two PRO-public education letters from the NCTimes reproduced here:
Elect those who support public educationJim Gibson, with Dr. Guffanti's support, asked the Vista Unified School District Board of Trustees to pass a resolution supporting Proposition 8, a proposition on the ballot pertaining to gay marriage ("School trustee pushes for support of Prop. 8," Oct. 14). What in the world does this have to do with providing our children with the best education possible?Our school trustees are supposed to be concerned with providing a quality education, not to use the meetings to propagate personal political agendas. Fortunately, our three remaining trustees recognized this had nothing to do with educating our students and refused to support the resolution.Dr. Guffanti has done enough to hinder our schools' success. ... We should not support someone whose actions display a lack of support for public education. And we should not re-elect someone who consistently attempts to use meetings to advance his own personal agenda.It's time for Vista to take back the control of our schools and elect people who have actually demonstrated a concern for the quality of education we provide. This coming election let's elect Angela Chunka and Elizabeth Jaka and re-elect Steve Lilly. These are people who actually want to allow our schools and students to succeed.Thomas StreeterVista
And
Let's mend our divided communityBoth of my children attended Vista Unified School District schools, K-12, and with few exceptions had very good teachers. My daughter will be completing college in December, and I believe her readiness for and success in college was made possible by her diligence, her parents and her community. Yes, it does take a village.I am also a teacher, and every day I am thankful for this opportunity. On a small scale, I see a glimpse of the future. Besides parenting, teaching is the hardest and most-rewarding work I've done.To read the vitriolic descriptions of VTA and unions is disheartening, and casts a negative light on individual teachers. It divides the community and ultimately hurts the students by threatening their success. I am a proud member of the VTA, but also see myself as an ethical teacher striving to meet the responsibilities of the profession. The most dedicated teachers I've met over the years have often been the most involved in their union.I don't vote along party lines; I vote the person/legislation based on research, and in this election, my research tells me that Lilly, Jaka and Chunka will be the best candidates for strengthening and bringing this community together.Teresa GerentVista
The NCTimes editors have stopped the embargo of Pro-Public education candidate letters to the editor. They have started publishing some of the thirty plus letters to the editor in support of JAKA, LILLY and CHUNKA that have been withheld from publication for almost a month. Our protest phone calls have paid off. Good job to all who called the NCTimes editors!
Today two courageous, PRO public education, VUSD voters were allowed to have their letters published in support of our three PRO-PUBLIC EDUCATION CANDIDATES: Elizabeth JAKA, Dr. Steve LILLY and Angela CHUNKA.
Read them online here: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/10/23/opinion/letters/z6de26879dd90032b882574ea007a7448.txt
Now that so many of you have called in to complain about the attempts of the NCTimes editors to swing the election to the ANTIs, our editor friends seem to have decided to dole out one or two letters every other day or two until the day of the election when they will publish all the rest together in one big batch. This strategy allows for them to say they are “fair and balanced,” but still eliminate most of the impact of the overwhelming letter support for PRO public education candidates: JAKA, LILLY and CHUNKA.
I have reproduced today’s pro-public education letters at the end of this blog. Check them out. Notice that the first letter from Thomas Streeter discusses how the Anti-public education members of our current school board, Guffanti and Gibson, introduced and voted in favor of one of those “fringe” political issues that have nothing to do with our VUSD students. “Fringe’ politics are what the ANTI’s are known for.
Our ANTI friends do not have children in our district schools or any public school anywhere. They never will either. Their goal always is personal aggrandizement and personal political power first, VUSD students last. They seem to think that “fringe” issues will generate headlines and support for themselves. If they win this election look for many more headlines about “fringe” political issues.
The NCTimes may be looking forward to a return of the kind of disruptions to teaching and education in the district that we all saw during the least reign of error of our ANTI friends in 1992-1994. I am sure it will sell more papers for them. However, it is hardly good for our students and children here in VUSD. Fight the ANTI’s and their attempts to insert “fringe” politics into our VUSD classrooms.
The second PRO-public education letter deals with the divineness that our ANTI friends have brought into our district. Divisive, nasty elections and a divided community are the greatest legacies of the ANTI’s.
If Guffanti/Gibson, and the gullible ones who believe them, had not been spewing hate and slander against classroom teachers and public education for the last 14 years, then we would have a united community, a third high school (years ago) and a plan for dealing with the ever increasing numbers of non-English speaking students. Instead of helping with our VUSD problems, the ANTI’s continue election after election driving a wedge deeper and deeper into divisive issues in order to get re-elected.
The ANTI’s often falsely accuse the teachers of starting the divisiveness by entering into the politics of VUSD by recalling the first ANTI majority. Ridiculous! The teachers did not want to be involved in politics. There never was a Political Action Committee at VTA before the first set of ANTI’s were elected in 1992. The teacher’s did not start the recall of the first ANTI board, we only entered into it many MONTHS after a community organization had started the recall. There were long discussions at the Executive Board about whether or not it was appropriate for the teachers to be involved. (see Ex. Bd. Notes from Feb-April 1993)
The teachers did not have any interest in politics. We only responded to attacks on our classroom’s FACT based curriculum by the first ANTI majority on our school board from 1992-1994. The ANTI attacks were on FACT based science, history and sex education teaching inside our PUBLIC school classrooms. I, for one, am proud of our teachers for defending the students of VUSD against the ignorance and intolerance of the ANTI’s.
The teachers will get out of the business of local politics when the ANTI’s leave our district alone and no sooner. The ANTI’s feign outrage that PUBLIC school teachers would dare to defend our PUBLIC school classrooms. I guess the British were pretty outraged as well when American colonists defended themselves against unfair attacks and limits on American commerce. Southern slave owners were outraged when northerners helped run-away slaves escape the horror of slavery in the South. Good Americans should always wear outrage of intolerants as a badge of honor proudly on their sleeves. I know the more outrage Guffanti and his group express the more successful the good people of our district have been at thwarting his ANTI-public education agenda of extremism, fringe politics and the destruction of public education in VUSD.
Here are the two PRO-public education letters from the NCTimes reproduced here:
Elect those who support public educationJim Gibson, with Dr. Guffanti's support, asked the Vista Unified School District Board of Trustees to pass a resolution supporting Proposition 8, a proposition on the ballot pertaining to gay marriage ("School trustee pushes for support of Prop. 8," Oct. 14). What in the world does this have to do with providing our children with the best education possible?Our school trustees are supposed to be concerned with providing a quality education, not to use the meetings to propagate personal political agendas. Fortunately, our three remaining trustees recognized this had nothing to do with educating our students and refused to support the resolution.Dr. Guffanti has done enough to hinder our schools' success. ... We should not support someone whose actions display a lack of support for public education. And we should not re-elect someone who consistently attempts to use meetings to advance his own personal agenda.It's time for Vista to take back the control of our schools and elect people who have actually demonstrated a concern for the quality of education we provide. This coming election let's elect Angela Chunka and Elizabeth Jaka and re-elect Steve Lilly. These are people who actually want to allow our schools and students to succeed.Thomas StreeterVista
And
Let's mend our divided communityBoth of my children attended Vista Unified School District schools, K-12, and with few exceptions had very good teachers. My daughter will be completing college in December, and I believe her readiness for and success in college was made possible by her diligence, her parents and her community. Yes, it does take a village.I am also a teacher, and every day I am thankful for this opportunity. On a small scale, I see a glimpse of the future. Besides parenting, teaching is the hardest and most-rewarding work I've done.To read the vitriolic descriptions of VTA and unions is disheartening, and casts a negative light on individual teachers. It divides the community and ultimately hurts the students by threatening their success. I am a proud member of the VTA, but also see myself as an ethical teacher striving to meet the responsibilities of the profession. The most dedicated teachers I've met over the years have often been the most involved in their union.I don't vote along party lines; I vote the person/legislation based on research, and in this election, my research tells me that Lilly, Jaka and Chunka will be the best candidates for strengthening and bringing this community together.Teresa GerentVista
Monday, October 20, 2008
Community Times III
I was just given a large campaign flier on white 12”X 18” paper entitled Community Times III. It was very interesting with lots of information that I have had no access to. At the bottom, on the back, of the paper is an ‘ad” for this website. I appreciate the ad but should someone think that I wrote the articles or helped to publish or distribute the “Community Times III” I am sad to say, I did not.
I can take no credit for the Community Times. I do not know who wrote it or distributed it. However I welcome whoever made it to the campaign. I applaud the efforts of the “Community Times III” authors and distributors.
Any help for the political campaign to rid the VUSD School Board of Dr. Stephen Guffanti is useful. Every good person in VUSD should be doing whatever they can now to rescue our children from the influence of a man who cares far more about himself and his fringe political goals then about the children of this district. We have barely two weeks to give our school board back to rational people who care about our school children, first and foremost.
Of the six running for our board, two have joined Guffanti’s slate. The three Guffanti Slate members are of course Guffanti himself, Eileen Fernandez, and Patty Anderson (Johnson) [Patty Anderson Johnson has written numerous anti-education, pro-extremist letters to the editor under her married name (noms de plume) Patricia A. Johnson, Patty Johnson, and Pat Johnson—try an advanced search using those names on the nctimes search engine for a real eye opener on who she really is]
Both Eileen Fernandez and Patty Anderson have taken money and help from the Guffanti Group. Virtually none of the tens of thousands of dollars showered on Guffanti have come from anyone inside our VUSD community. He spends between $60,000 and $80,000 on each of his previous campaigns, almost none from any one living in VUSD, most from developers hoping to get a friend on our school board. Guffanti is now showering the campaigns of Fernandez and Anderson with this money. They in turn have pledged their loyalty to the Guffanti agenda.
The three School Board Candidates for an Independent Child Centered VUSD are:
Elizabeth JAKA, Dr. Steve LILLY, and Angela CHUNKA.
Volunteer now to help JAKA, LILLY and CHUNKA help our children.
Visit the VTA office, 1717 East Vista Way, Suite 203, Vista CA between 9AM and % PM or call to volunteer at (760) 758-2690
I can take no credit for the Community Times. I do not know who wrote it or distributed it. However I welcome whoever made it to the campaign. I applaud the efforts of the “Community Times III” authors and distributors.
Any help for the political campaign to rid the VUSD School Board of Dr. Stephen Guffanti is useful. Every good person in VUSD should be doing whatever they can now to rescue our children from the influence of a man who cares far more about himself and his fringe political goals then about the children of this district. We have barely two weeks to give our school board back to rational people who care about our school children, first and foremost.
Of the six running for our board, two have joined Guffanti’s slate. The three Guffanti Slate members are of course Guffanti himself, Eileen Fernandez, and Patty Anderson (Johnson) [Patty Anderson Johnson has written numerous anti-education, pro-extremist letters to the editor under her married name (noms de plume) Patricia A. Johnson, Patty Johnson, and Pat Johnson—try an advanced search using those names on the nctimes search engine for a real eye opener on who she really is]
Both Eileen Fernandez and Patty Anderson have taken money and help from the Guffanti Group. Virtually none of the tens of thousands of dollars showered on Guffanti have come from anyone inside our VUSD community. He spends between $60,000 and $80,000 on each of his previous campaigns, almost none from any one living in VUSD, most from developers hoping to get a friend on our school board. Guffanti is now showering the campaigns of Fernandez and Anderson with this money. They in turn have pledged their loyalty to the Guffanti agenda.
The three School Board Candidates for an Independent Child Centered VUSD are:
Elizabeth JAKA, Dr. Steve LILLY, and Angela CHUNKA.
Volunteer now to help JAKA, LILLY and CHUNKA help our children.
Visit the VTA office, 1717 East Vista Way, Suite 203, Vista CA between 9AM and % PM or call to volunteer at (760) 758-2690
Guffanti's latest email and commentary
The following email commentary dissecting Guffanti's latest email has been making the rounds of private personal email accounts of dedicated teachers and other staff members in VUSD. I received it yesterday. I received permission to post it with a few minor changes.
(1) Guffanti again sent his campaign emails to DISTRICT email accounts in violation of his own rule against using district email for campaigning. For Guffanti rules only apply to other people never to himself. He and his causes are too important for rules.
(2) The printing in blue below was written by an expert in our district who does not want to be identified. The blue sections are inserted into the body of Guffanti's email.
(3) This expert refers to Guffanti as 'DocG"and to his emails as "gmail"
(4) I labelled the Guffant parts of the post as Guffanti says: followed in black the words from his email
blog editor vistaschools.blogspot.com
-------------------------
One thing that's interesting, I'm told that this piece went to more district e-mail addresses than before. That's interesting because he (Guffanti) was told that he can't send campaign materials through district e-mail addresses, and with his statements about his running mates, and the inclusion of the web address for their campaign website, this sure looks like a campaign piece.
(And there's already another piece out. This guy (Guffanti) has too much time on his hands - I can't keep up!)
-----Original Message-----From: Stephen Guffanti [mailto:sguffanti@cox.net]Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008
Subject: board goals expanded, union reports
Hi,
Here are the highlights of last night's school board meeting.
Union reports
Guffanti says: Every election season the union's "reports" include attacks on the candidates they oppose. This meeting was no different. They denied that they want to get rid of our superintendent, but said they don't like her plan to turn around our schools -- and, in fact, don't want a plan at all! They know that by state law, we are required to have a plan, but the law is of no interest to them. They know we have just two weeks of pay in reserves, and then we are broke -- but they still insist on a raise.
REAL INFO: [Every election season, certain candidates resort to shameful, dishonest and even unethical tactics in a "no-holds barred" drive to win the election. Each time it becomes necessary for district leaders to respond, to increase awareness of the inappropriate behavior. This year is no different. This time, Randy Wiens addressed the board for the teachers. He talked about out how disrespectful it was to parents and community members for Dr. G and his running mates not to participate in the PTA Forum that was run and moderated by the non-partisan League of Women Voters on Wednesday night.
Henrietta Black also addressed the board. Among other things, she wanted to clarify that there is not now, nor has there ever been, a "Bail out on Bales" campaign.
There was never any talk of not liking Dr. Bales' plans to "turn around our schools" from either person, nor did they say that they didn't want a plan. As for raises, Mr. Weins pointed out that teachers voluntarily gave up their overdue raises (money that the district had set aside) to protect smaller class sizes. When the budget cuts loomed, DocG voted to eliminate Class Size Reduction, but now he keeps taking credit for protecting the program.]
Guffanti says: Our government was built on a system of checks and balances and the quickest way around that is to let the employees buy board seats. The fundamental difference between Anderson, Fernandez and Guffanti and the union PAC is that we represent bringing the public back into public school. We are publicly funded with scores of small donations while they have $20,000 dumped into their campaign by the people with whom they will sign a $170 million contract.
REAL INFO: [According to DocG, the unions have been "buying" board seats by endorsing candidates. There is a certain amount of irony to this claim since his first paragraph talks about the "unions" insisting on a raise. If they owned the board, they'd have the raise.
Ms Anderson-Johnson interviewed for an endorsement from the teachers' union, and DocG participated in the forum held by the classified employees in an attempt to secure their endorsement. (Ms Anderson-Johnson had a family emergency and couldn't make it.) If they have such a low opinion of the PACs, they shouldn't be trying to get their endorsements. As for "bringing the public back into public school," neither Anderson-Johnson, nor DocG put their children in Vista's public schools. It's also important to remember that DocG co-authored the 1992 voucher initiative, and actively supported the 2000 voucher initiative. He's also a big proponent of any and all charter schools. In addition to his connection to Vista Literacy Academy Charter (which went under a little more than a year after opening) he and Gibson tried to bring Options for Youth/Opportunities for Learning into the district in 2001. OFY/OFL is a chain of charter schools currently in trouble for overcharging the state by $57M.
The Anderson/Fernandez/Guffanti public funding? $5000 of it is a 2006 donation from Hillcrest Homes (even though DocG was not running that year). For those who don't know, Hillcrest Homes was the developer who tried to stop the purchase of the Melrose site for our new high schools. In 2004, Hillcrest spent over $33,000 on DocG's campaign by paying for automated calls, and those poisonous mailers (with crying children and blood dripping fonts), AND gave him $5,000 cash. He also received nearly $15,000 in donations from area growers who fought the purchase of the first planned site for the high schools, AND the purchase of the Melrose site. In the end, more than $56,000 was spent on HIS 2004 campaign alone. This time around he has more large donations ($1000 apiece) from those same growers. That's not exactly "scores of small donations," and some people are questioning what those growers hope to gain if he's re-elected.
Yes, the teachers have spent about $20,000 on the three campaigns combined. They bought signs with the names of the three candidates they endorsed, and they bought other advertising. Any normal candidate would be proud to have the endorsement of the teachers and the district's support staff. These are the people who work with parents to make this district successful, and their endorsement means that they believe we are in agreement in at least one thing: we have similar ideas of what's best for our children. We won't agree every time, but we will be able to work out our differences like adults.]
Guffanti says: What is the difference? Standards! When only 1 in 3 students were reading at grade level none of the union candidates complained and the union took no notice. But when the way a teacher teaches reading isn't working, and we ask them to use a proven program that is working, they put signs in elementary students' hands that say "Bail out on Bales." The bottom line is that before the unions took over the district's board we were the best district in North County. After 14 years of union rule we have one-third of North County's federally sanctioned schools! That's three times more than our dwindling school enrollment justifies. Isn't it time to return the schools to the public and let the community do the job of running the board? Can the community possibly do any worse than the candidates the union has selected over the years?
REAL INFO: [He keeps saying only 1 in 3 students were reading at grade level in 2004, but the CA Dept. of Ed. (CDE) website says it was 40% - still way too low, but not quite how he paints it. That year, we also met 42 out of 42 criteria for Adequate Yearly Progress. That's something we have not achieved since. I HAVE been told that when you factor out students because of mobility, the proficient/advanced level drops to the 37% figure he gives, but for now I'll go with the straight CDE numbers.
Contrary to what DocG says here, EVERYONE serving on the board was concerned about the numbers, and that's why they selected Dr. Bales for the new superintendent - she came to them as someone who could turn the numbers around. Teachers were (and are) also concerned since it's their reputation on the line.
The "proven program" DocG's referring to has been "proven" by the vendor, but no one has been able to get the raw numbers. District scores have gone up and credit has been given to one program, but no one can tell if numbers for students in THAT program have gone up. As for the signs, I have never seen a "Bail out on Bales" sign, and I don't know when or where teachers are supposed to have put them "in students' hands." DocG's the only one who ever mentions that.
DocG often compares the current status of the district to what it was before, but he fails to factor in the changes in the community that have taken place since then. There really isn't much data readily available to back up his claims either. On the CDE website, test score information doesn't go back 14 years, but some demographic numbers come close, and they give a little insight into changes that have taken place in our district that have an effect on test scores. For example, the CDE website shows that VUSD had an English Language Learner population of 28.2% in 1995-1996. In 2006 it was 39.2%, and in 2008 it was 41.5%. I can only track the socio-economically disadvantaged students back to 2002, but that year they comprised 43.2% of our student population. In 2006 it was 50.0%, and in 2008 they made up 51.2% of the student body. Both subgroups are the areas where the district is struggling, and the rate of increase would seem to show that they were an even smaller part of the population in the district's much touted earlier days. That doesn't mean that the district has an excuse to fail students; it's simply a factor in the district's struggles, and a clue as to where we need to work harder.
DocG's right about one thing: the community should be running the board. It should be comprised of people who believe in public education, and support it instead of wanting to tear it down.]
Guffanti says: Board Goals Expanded
One improvement: we changed our first goal from students gaining one year of skill each year to English-language learners will become fluent in English in five years. This goal now more closely states what we really want to achieve.
REAL INFO: [They've finally acknowledged what many of us have been saying for a while: students gain fluency faster in the beginning, but need more time to refine their skills as they become more proficient.]
Guffanti says: We will keep our second goal, literacy, which states all students will perform at or above grade level within 3 years of enrollment, but intensify our intervention for students who come to us in grades 7 to 12. They just don't have three years to get up to grade level.
REAL INFO: [I've been talking for some time about upper grade students who come to the district with no English. For a while there's been an assumption on the part of some people that all ELL students come to us in elementary school, and that there's no reason for them to be learning English in middle school and high school. This change takes that into consideration.]
Guffanti says: Our third goal is 98% average daily attendance. It turns out our students' attendance is better than our employees' and there was some debate over whether we should have a goal for the employees. We will see.
REAL INFO: [The point was made that this is about the students, and an employee goal was not appropriate. If they do decide to pursue an employee goal, they need to bear in mind that, unlike students, employee absences are often caused by illness of a child or other family member, household emergencies and other factors, as well as their own health.]
Guffanti says: Our fourth goal, adopted in 2006, is to develop and implement a district homework policy. This goal never got guidelines, but these will be coming in the next few months.
REAL INFO: [People who served on the homework committee were surprised to learn that the district does not have a policy. They spent many hours on research and discussion to create a homework policy and, as you may recall, even included the community with an extensive survey. Hopefully they'll move forward from what was already done instead of starting from scratch.]
Guffanti says: Our sixth goal is develop a comprehensive plan to expand and strengthen vocational and career preparation courses of study. Our newest high school, Trade Tech High, is a perfect step in that direction.
REAL INFO: [Opening the Mission Vista High Schools in the fall of 2009 is the perfect next step in this goal. We need to follow that with more career oriented programs at the two existing high schools.]
Guffanti says: The fifth goal is to reduce the number of school site discipline referrals, dropouts, suspensions, and expulsions. We will continue to work on reducing our expulsions - only 120 last year - most of whom have severe problems in reading. We will break out the dropout problem into another goal. I have a concern with the discipline referral part of this goal; it seems this goal is being accomplished in part simply by allowing children to remain undisciplined at school so the principal's numbers stay down. Dr. Lilly again reiterated that he doesn't see that happening. I wonder if our parents, school site employees and students agree?
REAL INFO: [Strangely enough, I agree with him on the referral issue, up to a point. I have heard from teachers at several schools that they're being discouraged from writing referrals, and even told to rescind them when they do write them. Some teachers have had incidents where a referral might have headed a problem off early, but when they weren't allowed to write one, the student escalated his/her behavior and ended up getting into additional trouble and even being suspended. Teachers are not feeling supported on discipline issues, and most of the teachers I've heard from seem to believe that the orders came from the district office to reduce referrals any way possible. I've also heard from some parents who feel that appropriate action is not always taken.
If we want to reduce referrals, suspensions and other disciplinary actions, we need to pinpoint problems early and use more preventive interventions. Ignoring a student's problems does not make them go away - they just become bigger and badder down the line.]
.
Your servant on the board,
Stephen Guffanti, MD
http://www.vistaschoolboard.com/ *
*(Please notice that Guffanti provides no disclaimer that his campaign site, www.vistaschoolboard.com, is not an official site of the Vista Unified School District, but actually an election site--But then who expects Guffanti to be honest?)
(1) Guffanti again sent his campaign emails to DISTRICT email accounts in violation of his own rule against using district email for campaigning. For Guffanti rules only apply to other people never to himself. He and his causes are too important for rules.
(2) The printing in blue below was written by an expert in our district who does not want to be identified. The blue sections are inserted into the body of Guffanti's email.
(3) This expert refers to Guffanti as 'DocG"and to his emails as "gmail"
(4) I labelled the Guffant parts of the post as Guffanti says: followed in black the words from his email
blog editor vistaschools.blogspot.com
-------------------------
One thing that's interesting, I'm told that this piece went to more district e-mail addresses than before. That's interesting because he (Guffanti) was told that he can't send campaign materials through district e-mail addresses, and with his statements about his running mates, and the inclusion of the web address for their campaign website, this sure looks like a campaign piece.
(And there's already another piece out. This guy (Guffanti) has too much time on his hands - I can't keep up!)
-----Original Message-----From: Stephen Guffanti [mailto:sguffanti@cox.net]Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008
Subject: board goals expanded, union reports
Hi,
Here are the highlights of last night's school board meeting.
Union reports
Guffanti says: Every election season the union's "reports" include attacks on the candidates they oppose. This meeting was no different. They denied that they want to get rid of our superintendent, but said they don't like her plan to turn around our schools -- and, in fact, don't want a plan at all! They know that by state law, we are required to have a plan, but the law is of no interest to them. They know we have just two weeks of pay in reserves, and then we are broke -- but they still insist on a raise.
REAL INFO: [Every election season, certain candidates resort to shameful, dishonest and even unethical tactics in a "no-holds barred" drive to win the election. Each time it becomes necessary for district leaders to respond, to increase awareness of the inappropriate behavior. This year is no different. This time, Randy Wiens addressed the board for the teachers. He talked about out how disrespectful it was to parents and community members for Dr. G and his running mates not to participate in the PTA Forum that was run and moderated by the non-partisan League of Women Voters on Wednesday night.
Henrietta Black also addressed the board. Among other things, she wanted to clarify that there is not now, nor has there ever been, a "Bail out on Bales" campaign.
There was never any talk of not liking Dr. Bales' plans to "turn around our schools" from either person, nor did they say that they didn't want a plan. As for raises, Mr. Weins pointed out that teachers voluntarily gave up their overdue raises (money that the district had set aside) to protect smaller class sizes. When the budget cuts loomed, DocG voted to eliminate Class Size Reduction, but now he keeps taking credit for protecting the program.]
Guffanti says: Our government was built on a system of checks and balances and the quickest way around that is to let the employees buy board seats. The fundamental difference between Anderson, Fernandez and Guffanti and the union PAC is that we represent bringing the public back into public school. We are publicly funded with scores of small donations while they have $20,000 dumped into their campaign by the people with whom they will sign a $170 million contract.
REAL INFO: [According to DocG, the unions have been "buying" board seats by endorsing candidates. There is a certain amount of irony to this claim since his first paragraph talks about the "unions" insisting on a raise. If they owned the board, they'd have the raise.
Ms Anderson-Johnson interviewed for an endorsement from the teachers' union, and DocG participated in the forum held by the classified employees in an attempt to secure their endorsement. (Ms Anderson-Johnson had a family emergency and couldn't make it.) If they have such a low opinion of the PACs, they shouldn't be trying to get their endorsements. As for "bringing the public back into public school," neither Anderson-Johnson, nor DocG put their children in Vista's public schools. It's also important to remember that DocG co-authored the 1992 voucher initiative, and actively supported the 2000 voucher initiative. He's also a big proponent of any and all charter schools. In addition to his connection to Vista Literacy Academy Charter (which went under a little more than a year after opening) he and Gibson tried to bring Options for Youth/Opportunities for Learning into the district in 2001. OFY/OFL is a chain of charter schools currently in trouble for overcharging the state by $57M.
The Anderson/Fernandez/Guffanti public funding? $5000 of it is a 2006 donation from Hillcrest Homes (even though DocG was not running that year). For those who don't know, Hillcrest Homes was the developer who tried to stop the purchase of the Melrose site for our new high schools. In 2004, Hillcrest spent over $33,000 on DocG's campaign by paying for automated calls, and those poisonous mailers (with crying children and blood dripping fonts), AND gave him $5,000 cash. He also received nearly $15,000 in donations from area growers who fought the purchase of the first planned site for the high schools, AND the purchase of the Melrose site. In the end, more than $56,000 was spent on HIS 2004 campaign alone. This time around he has more large donations ($1000 apiece) from those same growers. That's not exactly "scores of small donations," and some people are questioning what those growers hope to gain if he's re-elected.
Yes, the teachers have spent about $20,000 on the three campaigns combined. They bought signs with the names of the three candidates they endorsed, and they bought other advertising. Any normal candidate would be proud to have the endorsement of the teachers and the district's support staff. These are the people who work with parents to make this district successful, and their endorsement means that they believe we are in agreement in at least one thing: we have similar ideas of what's best for our children. We won't agree every time, but we will be able to work out our differences like adults.]
Guffanti says: What is the difference? Standards! When only 1 in 3 students were reading at grade level none of the union candidates complained and the union took no notice. But when the way a teacher teaches reading isn't working, and we ask them to use a proven program that is working, they put signs in elementary students' hands that say "Bail out on Bales." The bottom line is that before the unions took over the district's board we were the best district in North County. After 14 years of union rule we have one-third of North County's federally sanctioned schools! That's three times more than our dwindling school enrollment justifies. Isn't it time to return the schools to the public and let the community do the job of running the board? Can the community possibly do any worse than the candidates the union has selected over the years?
REAL INFO: [He keeps saying only 1 in 3 students were reading at grade level in 2004, but the CA Dept. of Ed. (CDE) website says it was 40% - still way too low, but not quite how he paints it. That year, we also met 42 out of 42 criteria for Adequate Yearly Progress. That's something we have not achieved since. I HAVE been told that when you factor out students because of mobility, the proficient/advanced level drops to the 37% figure he gives, but for now I'll go with the straight CDE numbers.
Contrary to what DocG says here, EVERYONE serving on the board was concerned about the numbers, and that's why they selected Dr. Bales for the new superintendent - she came to them as someone who could turn the numbers around. Teachers were (and are) also concerned since it's their reputation on the line.
The "proven program" DocG's referring to has been "proven" by the vendor, but no one has been able to get the raw numbers. District scores have gone up and credit has been given to one program, but no one can tell if numbers for students in THAT program have gone up. As for the signs, I have never seen a "Bail out on Bales" sign, and I don't know when or where teachers are supposed to have put them "in students' hands." DocG's the only one who ever mentions that.
DocG often compares the current status of the district to what it was before, but he fails to factor in the changes in the community that have taken place since then. There really isn't much data readily available to back up his claims either. On the CDE website, test score information doesn't go back 14 years, but some demographic numbers come close, and they give a little insight into changes that have taken place in our district that have an effect on test scores. For example, the CDE website shows that VUSD had an English Language Learner population of 28.2% in 1995-1996. In 2006 it was 39.2%, and in 2008 it was 41.5%. I can only track the socio-economically disadvantaged students back to 2002, but that year they comprised 43.2% of our student population. In 2006 it was 50.0%, and in 2008 they made up 51.2% of the student body. Both subgroups are the areas where the district is struggling, and the rate of increase would seem to show that they were an even smaller part of the population in the district's much touted earlier days. That doesn't mean that the district has an excuse to fail students; it's simply a factor in the district's struggles, and a clue as to where we need to work harder.
DocG's right about one thing: the community should be running the board. It should be comprised of people who believe in public education, and support it instead of wanting to tear it down.]
Guffanti says: Board Goals Expanded
One improvement: we changed our first goal from students gaining one year of skill each year to English-language learners will become fluent in English in five years. This goal now more closely states what we really want to achieve.
REAL INFO: [They've finally acknowledged what many of us have been saying for a while: students gain fluency faster in the beginning, but need more time to refine their skills as they become more proficient.]
Guffanti says: We will keep our second goal, literacy, which states all students will perform at or above grade level within 3 years of enrollment, but intensify our intervention for students who come to us in grades 7 to 12. They just don't have three years to get up to grade level.
REAL INFO: [I've been talking for some time about upper grade students who come to the district with no English. For a while there's been an assumption on the part of some people that all ELL students come to us in elementary school, and that there's no reason for them to be learning English in middle school and high school. This change takes that into consideration.]
Guffanti says: Our third goal is 98% average daily attendance. It turns out our students' attendance is better than our employees' and there was some debate over whether we should have a goal for the employees. We will see.
REAL INFO: [The point was made that this is about the students, and an employee goal was not appropriate. If they do decide to pursue an employee goal, they need to bear in mind that, unlike students, employee absences are often caused by illness of a child or other family member, household emergencies and other factors, as well as their own health.]
Guffanti says: Our fourth goal, adopted in 2006, is to develop and implement a district homework policy. This goal never got guidelines, but these will be coming in the next few months.
REAL INFO: [People who served on the homework committee were surprised to learn that the district does not have a policy. They spent many hours on research and discussion to create a homework policy and, as you may recall, even included the community with an extensive survey. Hopefully they'll move forward from what was already done instead of starting from scratch.]
Guffanti says: Our sixth goal is develop a comprehensive plan to expand and strengthen vocational and career preparation courses of study. Our newest high school, Trade Tech High, is a perfect step in that direction.
REAL INFO: [Opening the Mission Vista High Schools in the fall of 2009 is the perfect next step in this goal. We need to follow that with more career oriented programs at the two existing high schools.]
Guffanti says: The fifth goal is to reduce the number of school site discipline referrals, dropouts, suspensions, and expulsions. We will continue to work on reducing our expulsions - only 120 last year - most of whom have severe problems in reading. We will break out the dropout problem into another goal. I have a concern with the discipline referral part of this goal; it seems this goal is being accomplished in part simply by allowing children to remain undisciplined at school so the principal's numbers stay down. Dr. Lilly again reiterated that he doesn't see that happening. I wonder if our parents, school site employees and students agree?
REAL INFO: [Strangely enough, I agree with him on the referral issue, up to a point. I have heard from teachers at several schools that they're being discouraged from writing referrals, and even told to rescind them when they do write them. Some teachers have had incidents where a referral might have headed a problem off early, but when they weren't allowed to write one, the student escalated his/her behavior and ended up getting into additional trouble and even being suspended. Teachers are not feeling supported on discipline issues, and most of the teachers I've heard from seem to believe that the orders came from the district office to reduce referrals any way possible. I've also heard from some parents who feel that appropriate action is not always taken.
If we want to reduce referrals, suspensions and other disciplinary actions, we need to pinpoint problems early and use more preventive interventions. Ignoring a student's problems does not make them go away - they just become bigger and badder down the line.]
.
Your servant on the board,
Stephen Guffanti, MD
http://www.vistaschoolboard.com/ *
*(Please notice that Guffanti provides no disclaimer that his campaign site, www.vistaschoolboard.com, is not an official site of the Vista Unified School District, but actually an election site--But then who expects Guffanti to be honest?)
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