LAUSD BLACKLISTING THOUSANDS OF TEACHERS- HOW THEY DO IT - Perdaily.com:
LAUSD BLACKLISTING THOUSANDS OF TEACHERS- HOW THEY DO IT
(Mensaje se repite en Español)
One fundamental principal of any honest legal system is that those who are party to a dispute are not allowed to call all the shots as to what is relevant and what is not in investigating and fairly resolving the dispute. If this were allowed to take place, that party's own actions or interests in arriving at a predetermined unfair result would never be scrutinized by a truly neutral party. And yet that is precisely what has now gone on for years at the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) without any outside governmental intervention in a process where thousands of teachers have not only been removed from their jobs based on completely fabricated charges, but it has also subsequently led to their being blacklisted in a manner that almost assures they will never work again as a teachers in any setting.
The euphemistically named Student Safety Investigation Team (SSIT) at LAUSD- that sounds and seems to function in a manner similar to the Committee of Public Safety in the French Revolution- who determined those who were to be sent to the guillotine- now has 15 members, including six full-time investigators, four LA school police, two forensic specialists and one supervising investigator. However, the problem here is that SSIT is headed by 30 year LAUSD veteran José Cantu, who in no way shape or form is independent enough from LAUSD to be given the power of a sole arbiter as to whether predominantly senior teachers should lose their jobs- especially when LAUSD has the strong incentive of saving $60,000 a year for every top-of-the-salary scale teacher they remove.
One might also note as past LAUSD Board President Richard Vladovic pointed out that, "No exculpatory evidence of innocence or right-doing is ever presented to the LAUSD Board in actions brought before it to terminate [these expensive teachers]."
So what ensues is a completely one-sided process where a file is built that not only fabricates charges against teachers, it also solicits false statements in support of these fabricated charges, which LAUSD students and employees seeking to ingratiate themselves with their superiors are only too happy to give- especially since their statements are not verified under penalty of perjury as the law requires- but this fact continues to be ignored.
Faced with the daunting task of trying to defend oneself without any help from your union United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), most teachers without the financial or emotional ability to sustain and defend themselves for what becomes years against this formidable array of LAUSD power, jump at the chance to resign, when they are told by LAUSD, "We will take no further action against you if you resign." What they don't tell these teachers is that this "no action" doesn't include reporting them to California Teacher Credentialing (CTC), where they might have their credential suspended or lifted.
