Would Joyce Bales deliberately tank teacher negotiations in hopes of helping the Recall?

One has to wonder if Dr. Joyce Bales is deliberately trying to create a ill will in the teacher contract negotiations in hopes that enough strife can be generated to gain community support for the current recall. This recall if successful will eliminate VUSD school board members that have voted against her. I know such an idea sounds a bit paranoid. After all what school superintendent would want labor strife in her district? It seems like it would be more trouble than it is worth.

In Bales case she has a documented history of getting rid of school board members when they disagree with her. (see below, the article from the Pueblo newspaper). We know she was angry that LindaMood Bell reading program was temporarily suspended, would that have made her angry enough to try to get rid of our school board members who were in favor of spending a bit less on LMB? What was here role in the organizing and filing of the Recall petitions against three school board members, if any? Prominent ANTI blogger Vista Watchdog 1 has said that there have been many meetings at his house with Jim Gibson, Dr. Joyce Bales, and Dr. Stephen Guffanti in attendance.

Joyce Bales actions in the negotiations also seem to lend support to the idea that she is purposely trying to antagonize the teachers of the district. When she called for a 5% cut in pay for VUSD teachers next year at last December's bargaining session, she refused to consider taking such a pay cut herself. When her proposal for the permanent 2% pay cut plus another 3% cut in days paid was brought by the district bargaining team to the teachers bargaining team. the teacher's team asked if she would take the pay cuts too. The district team members thought that would be no problem, they would just have to go and check with her. A few minutes later they returned looking like beaten dogs with their tales between their legs, they were sorry to inform the teachers bargaining team that no, Dr. Joyce Bales would not take the same pay cut she was demanding of the teachers.

Bales has also demanded that the 2% pay cut be permanent and not be temporary until funding is restored. She has demanded the right to move any teacher at any time to any other school or position in the district solely at her say so with no hearings or reason given. VTA leaders are rightly concerned that she would use willy nilly transfers of leaders as a way of silencing an opposition from VTA leaders. She also wants to get rid of all vestiges of site based decision making at schools in the district. Not only does she not want any opposition from board members or VTA leaders, she seems to be determined to take all site powers away from site administration as well. Why is she afraid of school principals making decisions for their own sites?

As we all now know, Dr. Joyce Bales only agreed to take the same pay cut when the teachers organized and came to a school board meeting and publicly embarrassed her about her lack of reciprocity in pay cuts. Only after that public embarrassment did she grudgingly agree to take the same percentage pay cut as the teachers.

NOTE: The cut she took is still far less than most teachers, because she has far more discretionary income to spend after her costs for food and shelter are paid. A 5% cut to her pay will be tenths of one percent of a cut in her discretionary income while for a beginning teacher a 5% cut could eliminate all discretionary income and eat into funds needed for food and shelter.

Read below how Joyce Bales got rid of three different school board members that opposed her policies in Pueblo in less than two years. In Pueblo she used Greg Sinn, a employee of the Pueblo school district as her political muscle. (After she got the job with VUSD, she brought Greg Sinn in as a "grant writer". A VUSD job in which he was rumored to do nothing but rubber stamp other folks grant proposals).

For a time she had two school board members who opposed her in Pueblo and three members who always voted in her favor. A recall campaign was organized against the two that she did not like (Sound familar?). Enough signatures were obtained to run a recall election against only one of the members that Bales opposed. That member was recalled and replaced with a supposedly pro-Bales school board member.

However later the replacement member decided he did not like Bales either. When he no longer voted with Bales, a campaign of whispers and innuendo was conducted against him. Since he was finishing out the term of the board member who was recalled, he was up for election in only a few months. The campaign of whispers was successful and he was not re-elected for a full four year term. A new school board member that supported Bales was voted in to replace the replacement who had the nerve to vote against Bales.

The last remaining school board member (Christine Pacheco-Koveleski) that opposed Bales was also removed from the school board. That final school board member had taken a job in the east and was commuting between her job and her home in Pueblo which probably meant she should have resigned on her own. Maybe she would have, but Bales took it upon herself to prove this one remaining voice of opposition should be removed. Bales as superintendent of the Pueblo Colorado school system ACTIVELY participated in trying to prove that her last remaining opponent was violating residency rules. Hardly appropriate conduct for a superintendent. Bales proved successful and finally forced out this last Pueblo board member who had the nerve to vote against her and to criticized some of Bales actions.

In less than two years, Bales had remove all opposition from her school board. She had five lackeys who would agree with any position she took, on a school board made up of only five members.

Joyce Bales does not take kindly to opposition. She has gotten rid of school board members before that she did not like using recall and other means. Is it any wonder that many of us in the community are asking what role does Joyce Bales have in the recall against the three members of our school board who opposed her on LindaMood Bell?

In Colorado, Bales was ACTIVELY involved in removing the final board member who did not support her. Bales actually TAPED CONVERSATIONS between herself and her final target and used those taped conversations against the last school board member.

All VUSD school personnel school remember: DO NOT SAY ANYTHING ON SCHOOL PHONES ABOUT POLITICS!! OR ABOUT BALES LEADERSHIP. BALES HAS ACCESS TO ALL PHONE CONVERSATIONS ON VISTA UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT PHONES!!! We know that Bales is willing to use all means necessary to achieve her ends, be careful out there. All conversations on school phones are recorded with our current phone system. The conversations can be accessed at any time by Bales or one of her henchmen.

Published: Friday September 16, 2005
School board member: staffer sent to check claim of new residence
By JOHN NORTON
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
A day after a news story appeared listing what Christine Pacheco-Koveleski said was her new Pueblo residence, School District 60’s community relations director appeared on the apartment doorstep.

Greg Sinn acknowledged that he went to the apartment in a fourplex at 616 W. 10th St. Thursday morning. He said he had been sent by Superintendent Joyce Bales to hand-deliver a letter presented to the school board Tuesday night by local citizen Arnie Carlsen, calling for Pacheco-Koveleski to resign or for the board to declare her seat vacant.

Bales said she wanted to make sure Pacheco-Koveleski, who did not attend this week's meeting, had a copy of the letter. In the letter, Carlsen, who led an unsuccessful attempt to recall Pacheco-Koveleski last year, said that since she had sold her home at 2225 N. Greenwood St. and has a home in Spotsylvania, Va., where she also works for Rappahannock Legal Services, she no longer was a resident of the district.

Pacheco-Koveleski said that she had sent an e-mail to Geri Patrone, the board's secretary, asking to have the letter sent to her law office at 612 W. 10th St., not to the apartment.

Sinn said after knocking on apartment No. 1 and finding it wasn't hers, he went to apartment No. 2 and Pacheco-Koveleski's son answered the door.

Sinn said he recognized her son and asked if his mother lived there. "He said, 'No,’ ” Sinn said. "Then he said, ‘Did you want me to give her a message? She's not here right now.' ”

An angry Pacheco-Koveleski said in a phone interview later in the day that she was very upset by the incident.

"I find it very inappropriate," she said. "I actually became very concerned. I've been on the board for six years and I've never had any staff member show up at my house. I wanted to know what was so dire that he would show up at my personal home. I consider it to be very unprofessional."

Sinn said that was not the case.

"I've probably delivered stuff to her house five or six times at her former residence," he said.

Pacheco-Koveleski said her son told her Sinn was not holding any papers and did not offer to leave anything.

Sinn said he had the letter in his back pocket.

"He was being the investigator since the address was in the newspaper," she said.

Pacheco-Koveleski phoned both Sinn and Bales to complain. Sinn, who said he was in a district foundation meeting when she called, said he saved the voice mail message.

The message on his phone, which he said was from Pacheco-Koveleski, asked: "Since when do you show up at my house? I think I might have to talk about that at the next board meeting."

She also implied he was ignoring the call and said, "Get yourself some huevos, as we say in Spanish."

Bales also taped her conversation during which the voice she said was Pacheco- Koveleski's also complained about Sinn's visit.

During their conversation, Bales asked, "Are you in Pueblo right now?" to which the answer was, "That's none of your business."

Sinn said later in the day, Pacheco-Koveleski left a message with his assistant questioning why he'd come to her apartment and saying she would get a restraining order against him if she had to.

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