Monterey Bay Forum

One child’s homemade lunch rejected by a Teacher & replaced with chicken nuggets from the school cafeteria may be “a misunderstanding” as West Hoke Elementary School (WHES) officials opine.

But, when this happens to the parents of two children from the same school — and the same Teacher appears involved — then it begins to look like a pattern.

Here’s how the press and public can find out who how many Teachers are involved:

The following information is from the home page for West Hoke Elementary School (WHES), North Carolina:

There are roughly 25+ Teachers at West Hoke Elementary School
Address: 6050 Turnpike Road, Redford N.C, 28576 910 875-2584

There are three (3) Site Administrators for West Hoke Elementary School. See name, picture and telephone above for one of the Site Administrators.

Kristin Anderson Ross teaches First Grade and is also a Site Administrator.

The other two Site Administrators — the Principal and Vice Principal — do not list contact information. That’s odd. Why no contact information for 2 of 3 Site Administrators? (more…)

Teacher tenure keeps bad teachers on the payroll?

Disgraced New York City typing teacher has collected 100 K a year plus benefits for the last 10 years.

In a defiant raspberry to the New York Department of Education — and to taxpayers — disgraced teacher Alan Rosenfeld, 66, won’t retire.

Deemed a danger to kids, the typing teacher –with a $10 million real estate portfolio — hasn’t been allowed in a classroom for more than a decade.

He continues to still collect $100,049 a year in city salary. And he gets health benefits, a growing pension nest egg, vacation and sick pay.

New York City Mayor Bloomberg and New York Gov. Cuomo can call for better teacher evaluations until they’re blue-faced.

But Rosenfeld and six peers with similar gigs costing about $650,000 a year in total salaries remain untouchable.

Under the New York City system, shackled by protections for tenured teachers, they can’t be fired, says the Dept. of Education.
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Why is it harder to fire a teacher than a lawmaker?

For more Firenze Sage:
JAJ48@aol.com http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/109312

Time ripe for an i-PAD app “In the beginning there was this gay caveman …”

The California state Senate has approved legislation that requires California’s public schools to include gay history in social studies lessons.

Will they budget for field trips to public restrooms?

This fall, the school district in Auburn, Maine will hand out iPads to nearly 300 kindergartners, “confident the education apps will accelerate their learning.” Let see, give 5 year olds a game player and expect them to read, spell, and do math.

written by Firenzie Sage48@gmail.com

These parents have money. Connections. Why steal? I do not get it. Do you? Is it arrogance?

See story below:

“A former partner at a well-known law firm and his marketing consultant wife were arrested Wednesday on felony charges of bilking the San Francisco school district and private insurers out of about $400,000 via fraudulent bills for treatment of their autistic son, officials say.

“The San Francisco couple, Jonathan S. Dickstein and Barclay J. Lynn, both 43, surrendered Wednesday and are expected to appear in court this morning for arraignment on 30 counts of fraud, theft and conspiracy, authorities say.

They were briefly jailed Wednesday on $100,000 bail each but were released on bond.

“This was an elaborate scheme to defraud the school district and insurance companies out of a lot of money,” said Chief Assistant District Attorney David Pfeifer. “They used this scheme to make money off their child’s special needs – that’s terrible.”

Until this year, Dickstein, who graduated from Stanford and then Harvard Law School, was a partner at the internationally recognized San Francisco firm of Morrison & Foerster, specializing in intellectual property issues and the law surrounding life sciences. He has since started his own practice, according to his Facebook page.

He and his wife had arranged for the home care of their young son through another school district before transferring to the San Francisco school district. Under state guidelines, school districts are obligated to provide or compensate parents for home education of autistic or other severely disabled children.

By law, parents are required to use licensed private educational providers to develop individual treatment plans that meet state guidelines for their disabled children.

Dickstein and Lynn had employed such a private provider, but in 2006, they created their own: Puzzle Pieces. Prosecutors said it was actually a dummy company that was not licensed to develop autism education.

Double dipping

In fact, they say, the couple used Puzzle Pieces to overbill and “double dip” – charging both the school district and insurers for the exact same services – from 2006 to 2008. They billed for counselors and doctors at allegedly inflated rates and charged both the district and insurers for the same hours of treatment. They allegedly told insurers the district would not pay.

Gentle Blythe, spokeswoman for the district, said it was school officials who raised red flags to prosecutors last year.

“The parents weren’t allowing the district personnel to talk to the service providers,” Blythe said. She said it was then that the district uncovered the fact that Puzzle Pieces was not a licensed provider and in fact had been started by Lynn in 2006.

Dickstein’s attorney, Garrick Lew, said the couple were devoted to their severely challenged son, but admittedly took efforts too far.

“They put a lot of work into getting whatever the child needed,” he said. “In the process of getting all those needs met, there were problems.”

He said he hopes to “try to work something out” with prosecutors.

Douglas Rappaport, Lynn’s attorney, said that it was too soon to comment in detail but that there was “some indication that their conduct could be construed as lawful.”

He said the couple volunteered many hours of their time to causes associated with autism.

The alleged fraud went undetected for about three years, until the school district assigned a new case supervisor over the education and treatment of the child last year.

Blythe said the district’s earlier efforts to supervise the child’s care met with resistance from the couple, but officials acted quickly when the problem was uncovered by the new supervisor.

The new supervisor noticed that Puzzle Pieces was charging twice what would typically be paid for in-home autism care and counseling for autistic children, prosecutors say.

A doctor who supposedly provided help had no specialty in autism, prosecutors say. Dr. Robert Schenck describes himself on the Internet as a specialist in depression in adults. He declined to comment.

When confronted about the questionable billings, the couple told authorities at the district that they did not have copies of the checks used to pay Puzzle Pieces.

Prosecutors said the couple attempted to pass off Puzzle Pieces as a company that they were not directly involved in, saying they would have to talk to the company people and get back to the district. But, Pfeifer noted: “They are the company.”

Thousands in losses

According to prosecutors, the district lost as much as $240,000 while Anthem Blue Cross lost an estimated $100,000 and CIGNA, which administered the law firm’s health plan, lost about $40,000.

In an Internet profile, Lynn said that from March 2006 until June of this year, she was a “director” of “private autism services” and that she “designed and directed (an) individualized home education program for (a) child affected by Autism” that combined “best practices” in ” therapies and techniques …”

She said that the “10 year old child in question went from an ‘untestable’ IQ in 2004 to being able to reach (sic) at a 2nd grade level, write several pages of text and is able to do 2nd grade math.”

Lew, Dickstein’s attorney, said the couple got overwhelmed as they worked with the many intricacies involved in securing care for their son.

“They were dealing with multiple agencies,” he said. “Somehow things kind of went south. It’s really unfortunate for them, as people, and also for their kid.”

E-mail Jaxon Van Derbeken at jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/26/MNUI1F3CFL.DTL#ixzz0xrvRHDwD

According to Dr. Bryna Seigel, for treating autism Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) IS the best method and it needs to be done from a developmental perspective.

That’s the problem. The ABA folks far too frequently do not use a developmental framework. Too often the ABA trainers do not use anything other than the one tool they know: stimulus – response. And far too often, ABA trainers do NOT know what is appropriate developmentally or culturally for that child.

The bottom line is that the ABA folks are narrowly trained and practise a narrow technique. It is good that they stay within the boundaries of their knowledge. Thank god for that! It is not good that they think that their method is the only way to go.

For example, too often ABA trainers will train the child during a time of day that typically the child naps. Does that make sense? Not from a developmental perspective. (more…)

Unions sue state for more school funds
By Sharon Noguchi, Mercury News

“To secure billions of dollars in additional funding for education, two school employee unions filed a lawsuit against the state of California on Thursday.

“The lawsuit argues that the state must repay schools the amount it’s taking away — and sooner than other funding schemes would allow.

“Faced with a state budget crisis, Sacramento has taken $8.6 billion from K-12 and higher education over two years. The lawsuit argues that the state must repay much of that, and cites a 1988 voter initiative that guaranteed minimum funding for education.

This week, the state Department of Finance suggested that schools may lose an additional $3.6 billion.

That threatened reduction “made it imperative to file” the suit, said Marty Hittelman, president of the California Federation of Teachers, which filed the suit in San Francisco Superior Court. It was joined by the Service Employees International Union Local 99, in Southern California, which represents janitors, secretaries and other support staff. The CFT represents about 100,000 teachers, librarians and other credentialed school employees, and is the smaller of two unions representing public school teachers in California.

Hittelman denied that the CFT filed the suit after polls showed most of the six propositions on the May 19 ballot badly trailing. Two of those, Propositions 1A and 1B, are key to funding education. Prop. 1B sets how much the state owes education and outlines a repayment schedule.

Even if 1B passes, the teachers union argues that schools would be shortchanged by freezing the repayment amount at $7.9 billion and deferring repayments until 2011-12.

The lawsuit argues that the state uses the wrong formula to determine whether schools will be reimbursed in the future for reduced funding.

H.D. Palmer, deputy director of the state Department of Finance, said the state owes school districts money for 2007-08, but not the current school year. “The Constitution is straightforward in this regard.”

Contact Sharon Noguchi at snoguchi@mercurynews.com or 408-271-

The teachers’ unions seek to maximize teachers’ wages, benefits, hours and working conditions. Student achievement, higher test scores, more minorities taking Honors classes, a lower absentee rate — these are not goals sought by the teachers’ unions.

So who represents the students’ interests? The administrators? Half the people employed by California schools are not in the classroom. The administrators cannot unionize. They do have their own interests: to keep their jobs.

So, who really cares about the students’ interests? Parents of course. Well, most parents, not all parents. But parents have little power relative to the teachers’ unions. What collective power has the parents ever exerted over Pajaro Valley Unified School District? None.

The school board Trustees are supposed to represent the students. But if the Trustees, or some of them, are in the hip pocket of the unions, then the students are not represented by those Trustees.

One solution might be to unionize the students. Yes, I’m serious. Every student could be represented by one parent (or other adult of their choosing) and those adults choose representatives to sit down collectively with the teachers’ union. At the same table with the administrators. Together they could create “goal focused cooperation” – necessary in school districts where systemic change has lead to impressive advances in student achievement.

Bruce Woolpert, home grown in Santa Cruz County and President and CEO of Graniterock, wrote an article titled, “Unions exists to support teachers, not students”. Woolpert cites an article by Terry M. Moe published in the current issue of the American Review of Political Science. Moe’s article argues that unions are detrimental to student achievement particularly so in large districts that are predominantly minority. Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) is large (about 20,000 students) and predominantly minority (78 percent).

In response to Woolpert’s article, Sandra Nichols, 8 year school board Trustee for PVUSD, wrote 4-19-09 in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Her article is ” Teachers are in it for the good of society”. Yes, Sandra, some individual teachers do seek the good of society Whatever that is.

But, the PVUSD teachers’ union does not seek other than what is good for their members. Sandra, over the last 8 years have you ever seen as a union priority that teachers’ salary increases will be tied directly to student achievement increases? What a novel thought.

Sandra Niichols side steps Bruce Woolpert’s thesis that collective bargaining harms student achievement particularly in large districts with large minority enrollment. Districts like PVUSD. Nichols has been on the PVUSD board for 8 years. What objective evidence does she offer that the PVUSD teachers’ union has helped students to excel? Had she any objective evidence she would have offered it.

Since it is highly unlikely we can get rid of collective bargaining in the near future, let’s unionize the students and have parents sit across the table from the teachers’ union. And together let them work towards “goal focused cooperation”. Let them work together that all students achieve regardless of family income.

written by Cameron S. Jackson, Ph.D., psychologist living in Aptos
(831) 688-6002 P.O.Box 1972, Aptos, CA 95001-1972
Monterey Bay Forum, www.freedomOK.net/wordpress

Aptos, CA 831 688-6002
send comments to Cameron Jackson THIS IS FROM:

A Tangled Web At Berkeley
By John Ellis
Minding the Campus | Wednesday, April 08, 2009

In his Prologue to the Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer distills the betrayal of trust by corrupt public servants into a memorable expression: “If gold rust, what shall iron do?” This is the metaphor that his honest parson lives by, and it reflects on the venal churchmen among the pilgrims who betray the ideals of the church and set a terrible example when they should be a guiding light.

This theme—one of high expectations for integrity cruelly disappointed—is timeless: it is exemplified yet again by the sorry tale of malfeasance in the Chancellor’s office at UC Berkeley that follows. Yet Chaucer’s miscreants are not cardinals and bishops, but only a lowly monk, friar and pardoner, while Chancellor Robert Birgeneau of UC Berkeley is the leader of the flagship campus of the greatest public system of higher education in the world.

And while Chaucer’s folk cloak their transgressions in the mantle of devotion, Birgeneau wraps his in the mantle of diversity. Already in late 2007 California’s deteriorating budget led to reductions in UC’s state support, and President Robert Dynes announced that his system-wide staff would be reduced. A severance pay incentive was offered to those who retired voluntarily, but when the Regents were asked by recently appointed President Mark Yudof in November 2008 to approve severance pay of $100,202 for Linda Williams, alarm bells went off: Williams had transferred from her job as Associate President in system headquarters to the position of Associate Chancellor at nearby UC Berkeley without missing a day’s employment. She sought severance pay though she had never been severed. Astonishingly, President Yudof recommended it and the Regents approved the recommendation.

It said much about the entitlement mindset at UC that top administrators were surprised by the outcry that followed. The public easily grasped that it was offensive for Williams to ask for $100K of public money as a “severance package,” but that simple point seemed lost on UC’s leadership. President Yudof hid behind the notion that the rules for UC’s buyout program were not his responsibility, having been written before he took office. That left an obvious question unanswered: why didn’t he tell Williams that what she was asking was unseemly, and that it would be an embarrassment to the university if he sought regent approval of this payment when a deepening financial crisis was forcing an increase in student fees? The culture of administrative self-serving in the President’s office that had brought down the presidency of Bob Dynes was apparently still in place—a great disappointment for those who hoped that Yudof would be a new broom.

Evidently feeling exposed in an indefensible position, Williams released a statement saying that the Berkeley job opportunity came up after she had applied for the buyout from her UCOP job and had “therefore played no role whatsoever in my decision making.” In other words, she had not arranged a transfer from one office to another within UC, but instead resigned one job and later found another. This was not true.

Williams applied for the severance payment on January 22, 2008, a day after the Daily Californian, the campus newspaper, reported the announcement of her new job.

A request by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Jim Doyle under the Freedom of Information Act produced additional damning evidence. Already on January 18, a UC Berkeley organizational chart had shown Linda Williams as Associate Chancellor. Chancellor Birgeneau had discussed the position with Williams as early as November 7 of the previous year. The FOIA material included a January 18 memo from Williams saying “The news is all over the place… getting the announcement out will be helpful.” Doyle’s material also confirmed that the Berkeley post was filled without competition—it was indeed a transfer without an application process.

Much more serious for the campus was how the FOIA material implicated Chancellor Birgeneau in the deception. Birgeneau had backed Williams’ false account by telling the SF Chronicle in December of 2008 that Williams “applied for the severance program before the Associate Chancellor position became available and before I offered her the position.” This was not true. The material in the stories in the Daily Californian and the SF Chronicle made it clear that the Berkeley job was essentially a done deal well before Williams’ application for severance.

Worse yet, more disinformation came from Birgeneau’s spokesman Dan Mogulof. In December 2008, rejecting the suggestion that Williams’ new position had been created specially for her—one acutely embarrassing for the official version—Mogulof told Jim Doyle that she took the job of retiring chief of staff John Cummins. That also was not true. Cummins’ position as Associate Chancellor and chief of staff was assumed by someone else, and Williams’ job was created by making a new position out of some of the less central functions of Cummins’ job. That’s right: during a budget crisis Birgeneau beefed up his administration with an extra Associate Chancellor position at a $200K salary.

But the FOIA material had still another effect: it shredded President Yudof’s defense of his actions. Birgeneau and Williams were now in an acutely embarrassing position. Campus spokesman Dan Mogulof then told a story to tell which insulted the intelligence of his listeners. The impression created by Williams that she was unaware of future Berkeley employment was “unintentional,” said Mogulof. But what she had said was clear and categorical: the Berkeley position “played no role whatsoever (my italics) in my decision making” because it was not open at the time of the severance application. What could be unintentional about that? Mogulof went on to say “We had no reason to be intentionally misleading.” Another of Mogulof’s gems was this: “We sacrificed clarity and detail for the sake of brevity.” By telling that story, presumably at the behest of Birgeneau, the spokeman destroyed his own credibility.

Birgeneau’s next move was exceptionally sordid. He wrote an op-ed for the Daily Californian touting his dedication to equity and inclusion, then complained of lingering racism on campus: “Most recently, there have been scurrilous attacks with outright misrepresentation of facts by print media, bloggers and even some of our own faculty and staff against Associate Chancellor Linda Williams, the first African-American woman to serve on the Chancellor’s Cabinet in Berkeley’s 141-year history…. Many members of our African-American community are rightly outraged by the media harassment of a successful and accomplished black woman and see these actions as creating a chilling climate for all African-Americans on campus.” No details of the alleged “misrepresentations” were given and an email asking for examples was not answered.

Desperate to save himself from the consequences of his duplicity, Birgeneau was willing to whip up racial strife on campus to create a smokescreen. But throughout this story, administrative self-serving, bloat and deceit were always entwined with the issue of diversity.

In the Latin mottos of the nation’s great universities, one word appears again and again: Veritas, meaning truth. Yale’s motto is Lux et Veritas (Light and Truth), Harvard’s is Veritas. Northwestern elaborates: Quaecumque Sunt Vera (Whatever is True), as does Miami University: Magnus est Veritas (Great is the Truth).

Universities put the concept of Truth up front for a reason. General Motors should be truthful about its cars, but its business is cars. Truth is our business. That’s what we academics deal in. Whether in the classroom or in research, knowledge is only knowledge if it’s based in truth. One lesson of this story is that the concern with diversity must never trump the academy’s core value, Veritas.

A university that stops caring about truth will soon be of no use to anyone, minorities included. When a great university is led by someone who misleads seemingly without compunction, contrition, or consequences, it is sick at its core.

Each year, thousands of fresh-faced undergraduates come to UC to be initiated into a campus culture that is dominated by the idea of Veritas. It is painful to picture this innocent young flock being watched over by Chancellor Birgeneau. Once again, Chaucer captured the essence of the situation in another memorable line in his Prologue, one which, in the interest of delicacy, we’ll leave in Chaucer’s Middle English original:

For if a preest be foul, on whom we truste,
No wonder is a lewed man to ruste;
And shame it is, if a preest take keep,
A shiten shepherde and a clene sheep.

Aptos, California
(831) 688-6002

* Begin educational services as soon as a child is suspected of having an autistic spectrum disorder.

* Services should include a minimum of 25 hours a week, 12 months a year.

* What constitutes those 25 hours will vary according to the child’s chronological age, developmental level, specific strengths and weaknesses and family needs.

* Each child needs sufficient individualized instruction on a daily basis so objectives are implemented effectively.

* Objectives include achieving functional spontaneous communication, social instruction delivered throughout the day in various settings, cognitive development and play skills, and proactive approaches to behavior difficulties.

Source: Educating Children with Autism, Natioal Academy Press, 2001

How to provide religious education for your special needs children [autism, intellectual disability, other disabilities]?

In brief, use short teaching blocks of 15 minutes, remove distractions, combine pictures with words …Check with your local elementary school and observe the methods used with children in SDC (Special Day Classes) for children. More than likely your congregations has some experienced teachers who could create a cirriculum that works for your church families who have children with substantial disabilities. See more below:
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Catholic dioceses in  at least 31 states offer specialized religious education for students with autism, intellectual disability/ mental retardatin and other developmental delays.  Teaching aids included removing distractions as autistic children may fixate on unexpected objects.  Education is in blocks of 15 minutes set up to maximize routine and accommodate short attention spans.  Classes are kept to 2 to 3 students.  Teachers use pictograms to discuss God, the Holy Spirit, the church and to pray the Lord’s Prayer.