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Helpful Faculty Activists
Led To Slaughter By Current Administration
Four years ago, the Beverly Hills Unified School District (BHUSD) ventured out to help students develop socially, ethically and academically by injecting five common values-respect, responsibility, integrity, caring and citizenship-deep into the veins of the district's culture and curriculum. With posters tacked to classroom walls and buttons pinned to teachers' shirts, the BHUSD's “Beverly Hills Way” campaign was launched, spreading the new mission and spirit everywhere.
One would think that the campaign, the brainchild of the
administration and the district, and all of its intents of fostering character education in students, would rub off on its creators; however, quite the opposite can be said for some members of the latest group of administrators
and supervisors in the district.
The school board allegedly announced to Beverly Vista School Principal Irene Stern that the only position that would be open to her for the following school year is that of the Adult School Director this February. “I didn't have any options. [They wanted me] to take a job I really didn't want,” Stern said. “[They knew] I wanted to stay at Beverly Vista. I wanted to finish the school, [a project] I started in 1994. But I'm not afforded that opportunity, so [as a result of their carefully orchestrated plan, leaving me no choices but to retire] I’m retiring from the district.”
Irene Stern
The
problem with this process is that it is behind closed doors.
In a public school these kinds of changes, "for the good of the
district," need to be open for review by the public and
district parents, students, and teachers that are supposedly served by
such decisions. It seems that absolute power is corrupting
absolutely.
Stern's colleagues, who feel that she has dedicated her entire life to education, agree that this
new position offer was a “slap in the face” to her. "That’s the gratitude they show you for over 30 years of dedication and devotion to Beverly Vista and the School District as well as award-winning administrating skills."
Again, we ask, why now? It makes you wonder what the agenda
is? Doesn't the public, they are supposedly serving, have the right
to know?
“If you're going to let someone go, you need to pay them homage for all that they've done with this place,” said a teacher at Beverly Hills High School and friend of Stern. (This source wishes to remain anonymous for fear of how the School Board might react, and what repercussions
she/he might suffer, if they learned he/she has discussed the controversy with
a reporter.) “You do it in a humane, nurturing way; not one that completely blindsides you. I'm sitting here, looking at this ‘Beverly Hills Way’ poster, and I'm thinking to
myself - our district office doesn't even model the Beverly Hills way.” What hypocrisy!
In fact, fear is rampant. It was next to impossible to get
anyone to agree to an interview, and everyone wanted anonymity.
Seeing what they can do to Principal Stern scares everyone that
works in the district. Last time I checked, our district was
not based on the model of a totalitarian state.
In the BHUSD's mission statement, it is claimed that “[ensuring] that our students are humane citizens” and providing a “nurturing environment” are among
its top priorities. But how can one expect these things of a district whose own members have violated its very intents?
“The students in this community have a sense of compassion and humanity,” said Anonymous. “You can feel it when you walk down the halls. The kids are what make this place so amazing. And to not have this modeled [by some of our administrators and school board members], it just doesn't make any sense.”
Stern's case is not the first in which our district's
behavior seems contradictory to that promoted in the “Beverly Hills Way.”
It is not the first that was hidden from view. It is not the
first that seemed to give in to the dark side.
Towards the end of the 2004 school year, the board laid off journalism advisor Jennifer Moulton, allegedly pulling the “not-the-kind-of-teacher-we-were-looking-for” card. By law and contract, the school board and Site Administration have every right to make this decision about a teacher during the probationary period. 
Jennifer
Moulton
Superficially, this could have been a legitimate argument, but in digging further into the situation, too many “coincidences” would prove otherwise. Sticking true to the first amendment rights, Moulton supported the Highlights staff’s desire to cover more controversial issues, to report the truth through investigative journalism.
Among these issues was the oil tower scandal. Despite the negative image that reporting on the well would
give Beverly, Moulton supported the coverage of it. Actually, no faculty Highlights supervisor has a choice in this matter, as it is a free speech right
of the students, as Dr. Step learned with
Zack Anderson, and Beverly Underground. However, they have
ways of making you do what they want.
Apparently the only way to have the same effect on a tenured teacher
or Principal is to give them a job they don't want and will not
take, forcing them to resign, gaining the same outcome, as with Ms.
Mouton. The incredibly talented and universally liked counselor,
John Lisowski threatened resignation and finally did resign in
protest over the ultimate firing of Ms. Moulton, but even that did
not change the system. "When the district is willing to suffer, at
our student's expense, a terrible loss of wonderful people like John
Lisowski, one wonders where they are headed and what their agenda
is," from a former student that did not wish his or her name
published, still afraid long after graduation. An
interesting side note is that the district doesn't use the word
fire, instead they say they are "releasing" the faculty
member, as if they are doing them a favor to seek bigger and better
positions, as they did with Coach Douglas, belying the fact that his
stats with water polo and swimming showed amazing improvement for
the two years he was here.
Fortunately students do not work for them, and have the right to print whatever they desire, as long as it is not slanderous, false, defamatory, libelous, or insights others to violence. However, school administrators, particularly the present ones, held
Ms. Moulton responsible for all printed articles in the school newspaper. One could read the
oily writing on the wall that when Highlights started printing about the oil well,
it was not going to end well for Ms. Moulton.
But this is not just about Stern or
Moulton,
it's about every faculty member who has been treated less than kindly. With
the secrecy that surrounds this process, they are free to wield
absolute power over the lives and livelihood of the faculty and staff,
without public, parental, or student input. "Vie have
ways of making you talk," came from another regime of total
control, and apparently the current district regime has ways of
making its personnel do whatever their bidding, completely without
oversight or review.
In an article by Tanya Caldwell printed on March 14, 2006 in the LA Times, it is reported that Stern tried to “rescind her retirement.” But according to
Jeffrey Hubbard, Ed.D - Superintendent, “once a resignation or retirement is received…the employee may not withdraw it.”
Dr. Jeffrey Hubbard
However,
according to the L.A. Times, "Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld has said that he twice offered his resignation to President
Bush during the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and that the
president denied it." If on a presidential level, with such a critical
position in a time of war as Defense Secretary, it is possible to
decline a resignation, one would think that it would surely be possible
for a Superintendent to decline a resignation on a local level. Suspicions regarding Hubbard’s statement have arisen, and many feel that if the district wanted to keep Stern on its payroll, her resignation could have
easily been denied, especially when she changed her mind and tried
to withdraw it herself. That would have allowed her to stay.
It is doubtful that Mr. Hubbard was powerless to refuse her
resignation that is of course if he wanted to. While the district claims that it wants Stern to
stay, its actions prove otherwise. It
seems to be a well orchestrated plan of making sure they could get
rid of her by offering her a position, which had to be respectable
to dispel suspicion of a premeditated plan, but clearly one she
would not want to engage in at this point in her career. If
that is not the case, again we ask why offer her the change, and why
now? Why not continue
her in her Principal position for which she is so well qualified?
Clearly they could do this same thing to any Faculty member,
and it has made many very afraid, unwilling to
even talk about it.
“They never said I [should] retire, but the implication was there,” said Stern in her interview with Caldwell. “I’m disappointed, and I’m angry, but the truth of the matter is, we work at the pleasure of the
board." At Beverly we always thought, as Principal Ben Bushman
would always say, that they were working for the students because
without the students there would be no need for the school, the superintendent,
or the school board. However that does not seem to be the case
today. Every person I spoke with could
say nothing but positive laudatory comments about Principal Stern's
tireless work for the students. Apparently, that wasn't
enough to keep her job.
Faced with budget deficits and the like, Beverly, along with many other schools across the country,
seems to have devised a cunning cost-cutting procedure, which has long remained under wraps. Simply put, the plan involves getting rid of older, higher paid personnel and replacing them with newer, lower paid personnel to do the same jobs.
Clearly a form of illegal age discrimination. Incidentally, since Principal Ben Bushman left Beverly,
it is interesting that there seems to be very few Administrators left at Beverly who are over the age of
40, and there seems to be an overwhelming propensity to hire either
new grads or very nearly new grads rather than seasoned professionals
as teachers. Quite a dramatic change over the last two years
since Principal Bushman "retired." He was only 63.
If Beverly Hills School District is going to put the “Beverly Hills Way” where their mouth is, then they need to open up the hiring and firing to public review, which must include student and parent input,
and an open policy—which includes what criteria is being used for evaluations—available for review by any current or prospective faculty member. The administrators argue that this will open them up to more lawsuits regarding the causes of their action. However, if the causes of their action are just, even if it is their personal opinion in review of the employee, then their can be no reason for dispute, since due process will have been followed allowing all to weigh in before the ultimate decision is made. No one would dispute that it is the prerogative of the employer to hire and fire, but at a public school system there must be some way to make sense of these decisions, since the bottom line is the students’ welfare.
“I’m
disappointed, and I’m angry, but the truth of the matter is, we
work at the pleasure of the board.”-Irene Stern
We as students are more than a commodity. We are the future. It seems that mere corporate principles of profit and loss of harmony with the boss are not enough to improve the bottom line, particularly when some excellent teachers feel like they are virgins in a whorehouse, and are eliminated from the school system as a result.
Given the current policy and procedure, there is no incentive for anyone to buck the system and do what is right by the students. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and it appears the present state of affairs in the school district leads one to conclude we are headed in that direction, or perhaps we have already gotten there. We are at a public institution, in a democracy, and hiring and firing of Faculty that affect the daily lives of every student must be more transparent than it is at present.
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