Thanks Edmund for your clear analysis of the two tier system. My first reaction to this proposal was that it would place an undue burden on principals to determine whether bullying encompassed the definition of harassment of a protected class. Even if they have a clear understanding of the definition, as you point out in your example, what on the surface looks like typical school yard bullying upon investigation may turn out to be harassment of a protected class. This notion was confirmed by a high school principal last year in this newspaper:

Palo Alto High School Principal Phil Winston told the Weekly that he has never seen bullying that was not based on the characteristics protected by discrimination laws. ?If you take the time and are patient enough to strip it away, absolutely," he said. "I've never not seen it that way."
Web Link

I also doubt that having one policy for all bullying would result in hundreds of complaints per month. I agree that if bullying that rises to the level of administrative intervention is this rampant in PAUSD, then this is something our Compliance Officer should be aware of and tracking. With data collected through the Uniform Complaints, the Compliance Officer would see if it is a site based or district wide problem and then could implement systemic changes in staffing or training to reduce the problem.

Thanks for pointing out that although the superintendent claimed the second tier was for the benefit of bullying victims, in that it would streamline resolution, that in fact there is no timeline provision for resolutions of complaints that are appealed to the district.

Why are we going against the recommendations of CSBA? If we had followed the advice of the CSBA in the first place and adopted their boilerplate policy on harassment with the UCP provision when it came out many years ago we would not be in this mess today. In addition if we do not adopt the CSBA policy we will not have the benefit of applying their updates in the future which means more legal bills for policy review and potential lawsuits for policies that are not in compliance with state and federal laws. Although CSBA does not understandably provide legal indemnification they are still the gold standard for legally compliant policies.

I haven't yet heard from the district about why we can't just use a simple one-tier system. Dr. Skelly's argument at the board meeting that the UCP would take longer than the "site-based" process isn't persuasive. Is it because we want to maintain the "site-based control" for bullying complaints? I think getting consistency across sites is important in this case.

@fairmeadow parent
I share your concern about the deference for site based control by our district leadership. While touted as empowering for each site it often results in abdication of responsibility at the district level.

@Fairmeadow parent
I assume that we will hear from the district about why they are recommending a two tier policy at the next Board Policy Committee meeting. I read in the Weekly that the meeting that was scheduled for November 15th had to be cancelled when it was discovered that the BPC was operating illegally outside the constraints of the Brown Act that requires public noticing and public participation for standing committees such as this. Does anyone know if this meeting has been re-scheduled? I hope that it is taped so that we can all hear the reasoning behind this recommendation. There did not seem to be much clarity around this issue when the Weekly interviewed Dr. Skelly and Melissa Baten Caswell.

Edmund,

THANK YOU for laying out all of the information in such a clear and logical way. I had just read the Superintendent's message about this and was totally confused about what exactly he was trying to say (guess the communications director didn't scrub that one well enough!). It is a breath of fresh air to get the information presented by you.

Reading through all of this, I was struck by the similarities of this problem to that faced by women and men in the military who have suffered sexual harassment or abuse. In both cases, the administration is trying to keep assessment, judgement, and enforcement close to the incident site. In both cases, the administration is trying to block accountability and accurate reporting of incidents. In both cases, the administration is relying on the managers that oversaw the abuse to overcome the abuse appropriately.

Isn't the evidence pretty clear that none of these approaches work? How many more military personnel need to be raped and how many more kids need to be bullied (to death) before we get serious about addressing these problems?

Putting blind faith in individual managers whose careers and jobs are on the line if they don't handle bullying correctly is just setting up EVERYONE to fail.

We are all tired of the district trying to avoid the problem with double-speak and contradictory instructions. All they have succeeded in doing so far is opening up the district to law suits, OCR investigations, and community ire.

PAUSD Administration - take bullying seriously, follow a straight-forward policy consistently, track your results, improve your process, and start obeying the law.

Especially today, the anniversary of Kennedy's assassination, our elected officials should be ensuring that all men, women, and children are equal under the law.

Here is a link to The Superintendent's newsletter addressing the the bullying/harassment policies. Web Link The newsletter says that "the next [Board Policy Review Committee] meeting is scheduled for December 3 from noon to two in the Staff Development Center at the district office. We will review these [bullying and harassment] policies at this time, unless we are still waiting for feedback from CSBA/CDE."

As the parent of children who fit into one of the categories which is protected, I am against the two-tier system. Most students encounter bullying in their school careers at some point. While it is true that students in the protected categories are more vulnerable, the worst bullying any of my children ever encountered was for being overweight. It was much more intense and frequent and hurtful than any of the other incidents. It is still perfectly okay in this society to bully people for being ugly and fat and it happens in our schools everyday.

I think Phil Winston is just quoting the party line when he says all of the bullying can be stripped down to those protected categories. Another example would be the many straight but uncoordinated people out there who get made fun of for not being good at sports. Sometimes a cigar......

@Emund Burke ? Thank you for your thoughtful blog, for responding attentively to questions and for providing a space free of content editing/censoring(?).

With all due respect, it seems to me that at this point, analyzing the policies suggested by PAUSD is, unfortunately, a waste of your time. Your response to my question in your first post (link #1) verified to me that my understanding of the current situation is correct. I asked:
...
Your response verified to me that basically PAUSD seems to be repeating the same pattern of not promptly disclosing an on going investigation to the public. The investigation du jour: CDE.

What?s next? a year long deliberation of what investigation is? What should the public know? Why should the public be informed? who is the public?
It seems to me that there is no way around the simple need for going back to basics. Transparency, accountability etc. Yes ? back to the need for an impartial investigation that will spell out loud and clear all that went wrong. Or if not all, most, or at least some of what went wrong.
...
I posted just ten days ago my perspective of a backward process. Policies preceding findings. I did not know then, just ten days ago, about the CDE investigation.
Your blog presents a very different approach to questions and perspectives. I hope you will be able to continue this way. I wish you were in charge back in July when the thread dealing with secret discussions by PAUSD Board, discussions about what seemed to be the possibility of challenging the OCR ?Standing? in PAUSD was published. The title of the thread was: ?In secret, school board weighs not cooperating with federal agency? (link #2). I think that this was one of the most important threads in the past 6 months. Unfortunately, many posts disappeared or were cut (mine included). I posted on July 15 a short question: ?I am confused ? is it certain that the recent agreements with the OCR will be followed??
...
Here we are, only a year after the OCR investigation was NOT made public by PAUSD, realizing that another investigation is going on while PAUSD officials present to the board great successes, not mentioning the CDE .? Let?s cheer? noted that only Ms. Gaona Mendoza reminded the truth (link #3). That thread was locked, completely. Why?
I want to thank, again, the family who came forward to the Weekly with the settlement. I hope that your courageous act was not wasted. It seems to me that sadly, so far the education system did not learn much. Sadly, since by the end of the day it is about children.

The above is an excerpt from my post, here - Web Link

@ parent
In regards to Mr Winston's comment you should read the article Web Link to get the full context. My take away from the article is that an administrator should handle all bullying that rises to the need for adult intervention in the same manner, protected class or not. Gunn High School Assistant Principal Trinity Klein echoed this sentiment saying: "Bullying and harassment, for working purposes, don't differ very much." We expect principals to protect all of our children. Why burden principals with a two tier system?

EB,

Thank you for this blog and thanks to the Weekly for letting you have it. I have long enjoyed reading your posts. You provide cogent, detailed analysis. I know that these posts must take you some time to draft and edit, and I appreciate your dedication to these matters.

Whether you are a lawyer or not, male or female, should not matter. If anything, it is a sad state of affairs if many people believe that only a lawyer can draft reasoned, fact-based mini-essays. I only hope that the Palo Alto schools help train my children to write as well as you do.

You have made many of the arguments that I have made when I discuss these issues with my wife. The points I want to highlight:

1) A one-tier system allows for no confusion. If any adult believes there is bullying, it gets reported.
2) The UCP's should be centrally collected so we get accurate data as to the extent of the problem. Only with data can we analyse where problem spots are and turn things around.
3) After all that has happened, PAUSD should strive as much as possible for transparency. Having the data will let us, the parents, know what is going on.
4) It seems that the best argument that PAUSD has against a single-tier is that the district office will get overwhelmed with complaints. If that is the case, I do not see why the district simply could not hire a compliance officer. Part of a recent Board meeting was devoted to how to allocate $2 million in "found" money. Seems to me that shoring up some of PAUSD's weaknesses would be the best use of the funds.

Keep up the good work EB.

@parent

I agree that the two-tier policy will be difficult for administrators to manage. That is one reason that it is going to lead to errors. Some "protected status" cases will be misclassified as a result. Administrators who mean well simply will not have sufficient information about what happened at the point at which this policy requires that they make a decision. The determination whether or not an act of bullying or aggression is linked to protected status simply cannot be made before the investigation.

This policy is something that looks "legal" and appears to work only on paper, if at all. Once an effort to actually implement it is made in the real world it will become clear very quickly that it will be difficult to administer. The lack, for instance, of any guidance about how to make the decision about "protected status" will be a failure point, as will documentation.

@village fool

Thank you for your trenchant observations. You ask "isn't this a waste of time"? You, with some justified discouragement, note that it was less than a year ago that we discovered from the Weekly that PAUSD had been investigated and found to be noncompliant with federal civil rights law by the OCR. We learned that Dr. Skelly and his staff had failed to handle that bullying case within the law and then had failed to disclose that fact to the board and to the public, a failure for which Dr. Skelly publicly apologized and promised not to repeat.

Now, we learn -- again from the Weekly -- that the district is under investigation by CDE, and again we learn that the district has not apparently not disclosed the reason for that investigation to the board or the public.

In the face of this somewhat repetitive situation you wonder whether it matters what policy is adopted. Without appropriate transparency, you ask, how will we ensure that the policy-- whatever its provisions -- is properly implemented and that rights are protected? In your view, the process is backwards. You write that a new policy is of little value without a "culture of transparency and accountability" in which PAUSD has an "impartial investigation that will spell out loud and clear all that went wrong. Or if not all, most, or at least some of what went wrong. . . .[and] identif[ies] the patterns that enabled those occurrences."

You conclude that "A culture of best practices and trust can not emerge before such an investigation is performed, and the findings are presented in a simple way."

In principle, I can agree that it would be preferable to have an independent investigation conducted by an impartial inspector with full public participation and transparency (other than needed to protect confidentiality and student records) prior to engaging in policy drafting.

However, it seems unlikely that such an investigation will be performed. Many citizens have called repeatedly for an independent review of the district's conduct with respect to disability based bullying. The district and board have ignored these requests.

Transparency of the sort you are suggesting is even less likely. Both the board and the superintendent are seemingly growing less transparent over time. The district takes far too long to comply with the Weekly's Public Records Act requests -- sometimes months elapse before requests are fulfilled. When the documents are given to the Weekly and posted to the internet, much of each document is blacked out under a claim of legal privilege -- many of which claims seem spurious. The Board for its part has violated the Brown Act by creating these policies in the the Board Policy Review Committee, a standing committee subject to the Brown Act but which has held closed meetings that did not have any published agenda or noticing.

Under current conditions, you suggest, there is little point in writing new policies. We don't know why the old policies were ignored or by whom, so we cannot know whether new policies will work or not.

While your perspective is not without merit, I think it is worthwhile to try to ensure that policies are adopted which will enhance transparency and accountability in the future if properly implemented. It seems nihilistic and defeatist to do otherwise.

@WH Dad

Thank you for your comment. I agree with your observation that the district would do well to hire a dedicated Compliance Officer, preferably one with a law degree and experience in education and/or employment law (given that educational civil rights laws are modeled on employment discrimination law, and the caselaw is very similar).

I am confident that there are many skilled and elite educated lawyers who have left or would like to leave high-pressure large law firm jobs and who would very much like to have the opportunity to have a part-time job as the inside counsel/Compliance Officer of PAUSD. This would both cut legal bills and increase access to legal services and advice within the district. As you point out, the district is in a position to afford to hire inside counsel because there is a surplus.

In addition, often such hires help to pay for themselves because would help to reduce legal bills by increasing compliance. I strongly suspect that would be the case here. Studies have shown that legal compliance in organizations improves when inside counsel are present.

Such a hire seems like a much better and more rational investment than a PR officer, so if need be that position could be eliminated in preference to the Compliance Officer.

This will be the subject of a future post, so please be sure to keep reading.

Perhaps hiring a compliance officer might even give the PR officer fewer messes to clean up after. Killing two birds with one stone, as it were.

@Edmund Burke ? Thank you for your very detailed response.

The bottom line seems to be that we do agree regarding these policies. You concluded that the policies that were drafted by PAUSD were not reasonable for all the legal reasons you so nicely articulated. In this case I got to the same bottom line as you did for very different reasons, while armed with none of your legal knowledge. I happen to believe that I cannot trust policies that are drafted by an organization which consistently refuses to bear some accountability and transparency.

On June 14 the Weekly published several articles related to the issues being discussed now. One thread was titled: ?In-depth report: How a federal inquiry is changing the way schools respond to bullying? (link #6). I had no way to express my astonishment. Only later we learned that... I ended my comment saying that ?? Transparency and accountability will be the first signs of change. I must be missing something.?

I think that the fact that PAUSD failed to promptly let the public know of the current CDE investigation is yet more evidence that nothing has changed, even given the OCR settlements etc. ...

On the same day, June 14, I responded to a thread dealing with the possibility of PAUSD having an Ombudsman (link #5). I wrote, asking:
?
Will the ombudsman report to PAUSD Board? Superintendent?

My responses back in June apply to any suggestion that has PAUSD monitoring itself. Sadly, since nothing seemed to have changed...

The above is part of my post here - Web Link

@village fool

I went to your blog and read your post. My suggestion would be to post your entire posts here rather than just a piece of it. It is losing something by being shortened and it is a very cogent statement in its original form. I think you have an excellent point, which is what good does the UCP do in the absence of transparency? How will the public have confidence that it is being correctly and fairly administered? How can special education parents whose trust in the district has been damaged or eroded by the mishandling of the bullying of disabled students have their confidence restored? How can they trust that the UCP will be fairly administered?

I particularly like your formulation "the dogs bark but the caravan moves on." Parents make a stir, some go to the board meetings, Edmund Burke makes a post, but the systemic changes are not made.

While I continue to think that this is an overly bleak outlook, I certainly can understand your view. One aspect that I find hopeful is that decisions made under the UCP are appealable to the California Department of Education and parents who file a complaint will be told that and given the appeal process.

In addition, if PAUSD fails to implement the UCP parents can directly appeal for CDE intervention. This was always true, of course, and few took that step. Perhaps in light of the CDE compliance audit and the publicity it will generate more will do so.

There is no perfect legal response to what is at bottom a political problem. As you correctly note this is a problem of political accountability. Legal solutions can help individuals to vindicate rights, and can help to bring about change through oversight and through publicity, but ultimately you are correct that change emanates from a political rather than legal process.

By the way, these debates are not new. There has long been a vigorous debate in public interest law about whether or not law can bring social change or whether law only reinforces existing patterns of dominance and inequality and for real change you need political and social movements. The general consensus is that law plays a role in building a successful social movement in inspiring and energizing people by educating them that they have rights (i.e., right to vote, right to use public accommodations, right to equal education, right not to be bullied).

Thank you "village fool" and Mr. Burke for these thoughts. As to political accountability, what I have been most surprised and disappointed by is the role that the school board has played in these events, and in particular the Board President and VP, Dana Tom and Barb Mitchell.
It is not quite true that "the caravan moves on" without interruption. In fact, the board has discussed extensively how to respond to the OCR complaints and findings, and now the CDE -- but it has done so almost entirely in secret, behind closed doors, with no public accountability.
One mechanism for doing so has been a series of closed meetings, improperly noticed in violation of the Brown Act. For coverage, see Web Link At those meetings, Barb Mitchell has advocated resisting federal authority over civil rights in Palo Alto.
Since the meetings have been secret, the public has no way of knowing whether the district is pursuing Mitchell\\\'s advice or not.
Another mechanism has been the misuse of the attorney-client privilege to black out dozens of emails and other documents relating to the district\\\'s handling of OCR and CDE regulations. In fact, Mitchell\\\'s memo advocating resistance to federal authority was entirely redacted by the district, and its content only came to light through another unredacted version. For coverage, see Web Link
Yet another mechanism has been the discussion of the bullying matter in multiple meetings of the Board Policy Review Committee without notice or public agenda, another violation of the Brown Act.
Until the school board decides to follow the law and have its discussions in public, we are not going to get full public accountability or participation in these decisions.

@district parent

You are correct that there have been irregularities concerning some of the redactions and closed meetings, as well as a Brown Act issue with the Board Policy Review Committee that created these policies.

These events tend to support village fool's perspective that trying to create good policies is a fool's errand in an environment that has little transparency and low accountability.

I continue to believe, perhaps against the evidence, that educating parents about their rights, and trying to put policies into place that protect those rights will help to bring about that accountability. In my view, the empirical evidence on social movements and legal rights support the notion that when people understand their rights, they begin to organize to protect them and enforce them. Rights can be demotivating "fly paper" that stick people in hearings and processes. But they can also be inspirational. When people understand that their rights are being violated, they often organize to stop the violations.

Some of the rights that people will want to see enforced are rights to an equal education. Some are rights to an open and transparent government.

A legal strategy is part, often a critical part, of a reform movement. The Brown v. Board of Education litigation and decisions did not desegregate any schools. But the symbolic importance of the rulings in the case launched the largest and most far-reaching social change in the history of the US -- including making it possible for Barack Obama to be President only 60 years later.

Despite the facts that you recount regarding secret meetings and closed sessions and excessive redaction and other efforts to keep the public from participating in the public's business, I do not think it is at all beside the point to engage in education on this subject. On the contrary, I think it is directly on point.

Elementary Single Plans for Student Achievements (SPSAs)
The video from this meeting is online:
http://www.midpenmedi Elementary Single Plans for Student Achievements (SPSAs)

A presentation by a speaker who does not give his name at about 40 minutes in makes some dubious claims. He gives the false impression that services are being provided for all schools when they are not. He says for the past three years "our speech language pathologists now do small group instruction in the actual classroom" and that "we once had a model known as pull out, and we now have the opposite known as push in."
This is not accurate. Maybe at his school, but it is NOT done at our school. Kids fail at group work but they don't do speech language push ins even if parents ask. They say it is not possible.

The presenter speaks of the success of TOSAs, saying they have taught teachers "...how to engage students with autism, or Asperger's or whatever it might be." This did not happen in the last two years, as both school years the teachers told us they did not receive training to work with "autism or Asperger's or whatever it might be."

He speaks of no more fixed support and now doing a fluid consultancy. He sites Occupational Therapists no longer have "fixed niche of expertise." That is what Occupational Therapists are, that is why they have to have licenses to do it. Are therapists who are NOT specialists in their fields providing therapy? Does this mean therapists now only give consultancy but do not provide the actual services to the disabled children?

He says the therapists now do "co-teaching." Occupational Therapists and Speech Language Pathologists are not general education teachers and do not have teaching credentials. They should not be teaching. Does this also mean teachers are now expected to provide Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy in the classroom based on consultancy? He speaks of the new model providing services to 22 or 24 kids at once. Are licensed therapists expected to provide services to 22-24 kids who don't need it?

He sights a conclusion of exceptional benefits and faster academic gain. We have seen just the opposite, with dramatic decreases in academics under these new policies. It is not accurate that all children benefit and do better by providing watered down push in services and co-teaching to disabled students. When he says push ins for disabled kids include "all 22 or 24 kids... at one time", that means they are not actually helping the children on the Individual Educational Plans. It means they are providing more help to the other children who already have a teacher trained to teach them effectively.

He says "and this year... all students were welcomed into general education communities..."
Maybe welcomed in word, but not in action. The schools did not have Special Education staff present at the beginning of the school year for both of the last two school years are not really welcoming.

He speaks of how families feel more connected, how disabled kids are included on field trips, birthday parties. He goes on to speak of "great academic outcomes" and how "we are seeing so many families report on" increases in empathy, resilience, hope, optimism. He says it is a wonderful place.
These are pretty extreme claims to make, that PAUSD has achieved such success and such joy and happiness in one-two years? Would he share his data and report? If he is citing only parent anecdotes, he should also cite anecdotes from the families who it is not working for. It is doubtful the bullied kids and families of children failing in mainstream feel this way.

It is okay for him to say these things about his school. It is okay to say them if he really believes it. But it is wrong to present it as occurring at all PAUSD schools.

This statements are dangerous. They lead the public and the Board of Education to believe services are being provided at all schools when they are not. It means they can stop trying to provide them since it's been done. By leading the Board to believe this, they are harming disabled children.

@Edmund Burke - Thank you!
You wrote - "I continue to believe, perhaps against the evidence, that educating parents about their rights, and trying to put policies into place that protect those rights will help to bring about that accountability."

I totally agree with your take about educating parents, and education in general. Knowledge is power. However, I cannot start to address policies when fundamental failures are going on such as having secret meetings to discuss the "standing" of the OCR, not letting the public know of investigations, etc. That was the reason that had me address Ken Dauber, back in March, calling to form a Shadow Board - (link Web Link That was a very weird thread, I know. I could not think of another way to "force" a check. A Shadow Government is a mechanism of "checks and balances".

Here is my most recent post, as you requested - copied from (Web Link

@Edmund Burke ? Thank you for your very detailed response (link #1).

The bottom line seems to be that we do agree regarding these policies. You concluded that the policies that were drafted by PAUSD were not reasonable for all the legal reasons you so nicely articulated. In this case I got to the same bottom line as you did for very different reasons, while armed with none of your legal knowledge. I happen to believe that I cannot trust policies that are drafted by an organization which consistently refuses to bear some accountability and transparency.

On June 14 the Weekly published several articles related to the issues being discussed now. One thread was titled: ?In-depth report: How a federal inquiry is changing the way schools respond to bullying? (link #6). I had no way to express my astonishment. Only later we learned that the principal was to move etc. I ended my comment saying that ?? I think of the Federal investigation as the first, alarming lab result. Transparency and accountability will be the first signs of change. I must be missing something.?

I think that the fact that PAUSD failed to promptly let the public know of the current CDE investigation is yet more evidence that nothing has changed, even given the OCR settlements etc. I am asking myself ? would the Kings families (whom I addressed here (link #2)), or BusyMom (to whom you responded here (link #3)) buy a used car from PAUSD? The Kings families and BusyMom are just a tiny sampling of very different situations. It seems to me that many who need to rely on PAUSD for the well being of their kids have lost trust.

On the same day, June 14, I responded to a thread dealing with the possibility of PAUSD having an Ombudsman (link #5). I wrote, asking:

As to the ombudsman ? Will it be a paid potion? if so ? who will pay? PAUSD? Salary, health, retirement? To who the ombudsman will report?
I can not see how an ombudsman can be independent if it will be a paid position, and salary and benefits will be coming out of PAUSD budget, or controlled by PAUSD officials.

The following is copied from ? (Web Link), ombudsman in organization:

?
Will the ombudsman report to PAUSD Board? Superintendent?

My responses back in June apply to any suggestion that has PAUSD monitoring itself. Sadly, since nothing seemed to have changed, I do not know if the Kings families would trust PAUSD to check a UCP. You remarked on the consistent refusal to enable more transparency, and to bear some accountability. I believe that given all we know, PAUSD can not be trusted to supervise itself for any correction needed. It seems to me that the past shows us that what we know is possibly only the tip of the iceberg, mentioned in the editorial accompanying the story of the OCR in PAUSD.

Some questions about why the CDE audit is occurring might be found in the documents posted as a result of a Palo Alto Weekly public information request:

Communications regarding California Department of Education pertaining to the special education audit
Web Link

There is also a link about Bullying Complaint process.

Edmund, thank you for the article. Detailed, informative, and way more information than we have received here in the trenches.

To ED and Public Information Link,
Thanks for what you are doing for our kids. I went into the link, and I was dismayed of how much money the school district has spend on lawyers? fees, when they could had very well provide an aide for the child in the first OCR case. That is really a waste of our tax $$. Also, I see the district knew about the review from CDE and my question is why? Why? Why did they decide to invite only few people to this important CDE review meeting? They are really acting fishy. It seems to me that they tried to leave out any people who might complain. I and other parents only attended the meeting, because someone mentioned about it in post here at Palo Alto On Line and we started to ask if it was true or not. Even when I was getting to the meeting I was almost sure that it was not going to happen because we never got noticed of it. We have more than one kid in IEPs. I can?t believe that the media is doing more than the district to help our kids.
In another link, someone mentioned that Scott Bowers should be the superintendent. Please think about it before you consider making this change. We need fresh and unbiased people to support our kids. Remember Scott Bowers, also agreed on hiring the former principal at Terman, and gave her the promotion to become assistant superintendent after she very clearly violated the special education student involved in the first case. They were all involved in the violation of the child's rights, Scott Bowers supervises Young, Holly Wade and all credential Palo Alto School District workers who work with our kids. He knew what was going on too, and I believe he is as guilty as Skelly Young, Katherine Baker, Holly Wade and the rest of the people who violated the rights of this child. Keep him out!

Edmund for PR officer! Facts not spin is refreshing. Not to mention the 150,000 dollars we could spend in the classroom.

There is a presenter on bullying in the PAUSD Elementary Single Plans for Student Achievements video starting at about 1:25 into the meeting -
Web Link
He doesn't give his name or position or school. His comments show how out of touch the District is. He says he only just heard an advertisement for anti- bullying for the first time? These ads have been produced for a long time. Bullying has been unacceptable to the society for a long time. It is only PAUSD who has just figured that out.

He presents a belief in PAUSD when he says, "I think the pendulum is way out to one end, though, and I think a lot of the parents especially are super sensitive to small issues or small behaviors that are bullying or their child is sensitive to this."
Accusing the victim of being too sensitive is a major sign of an abuser. The abuser uses their imbalance of power (a school district requiring child to be in a place while harming them) over the weaker party (disabled children and their families, children who have to remain under school District control because it controls if they receive a free and fair public education). They demean the weaker party to try to make them feel responsible for what happened, to make them think the harm inflicted is "small" and not as bad as it really is, to prevent complaints so abuse can continue. He says he wants the pendulum to swing back and be more "balanced", then reads parent statements about how great 'Steps to Respect' is. Trying to lower the self esteem of children and families who had to remove their children from your public school District as the only way to protect them is not respectful, it is hurtful and insulting. It showed very little respect for parents when abused children are denied a FAPE.

He reads parent reflections from a survey from last year. Please provide the results of the entire survey you site, both data and comments. Reading a few hand picked positive statements is not balancing the pendulum. He says kids now understand. Where is the data? Which kids understand, and what do they understand? Where is the report on this? FYI, the belly breathing you read about that parents say is so effective - your teachers are not interested in it.

You emphasize parents at home, although the bullying is happening at your schools, not in our homes. You read a parent comment "...we as parents should be educated about where learn how to draw lines for bad behavior. We should learn these lessons." Blaming the parents for what happens at your school is not respectful nor effective. You indicate that through parent education nights YOU have now taught parents to be better parents. You say you hope parents will change their cultures at home. It is not your role to change a child's family culture. Despite what your PAUSD culture tells you, parents do not attend your school and do not control bullying that happens at your school.

You do illuminate a common element of PAUSD culture, which is to blame and criticize the parents for their children's disabilities. Parents commonly hear schools say it is all bad behavior at home, just bad parenting, not enough homework pressure at home, not making the child be deep enough, not doing the homework for them to contribute to an inquiry fair or class group project. Parents know you blame them, but what parents also learn is that school officials are here one year, gone the next. Parents will care for the disabled child all day, every day, for the rest of their lives. Parents have respectfully listen when you told them their child is not disabled because your latest Special Education policy says it, so the real source must just be a problem at home. And we have seen that you are very, very wrong. We respectfully pay attention in IEP meetings when PAUSD blames parents for a disabled child's inability to do the homework they do not understand, despite the enormous amount of data the District said is being taken every day on all the other children. Eventually, what parents learn is that the worst thing to do is to let you judge them for having a disabled child and interfere with their private home life. For your part, the best thing for you can do is to work to reduce the harm you do to children at school through bullying and your failure to provide inclusion services. You can let parents take care of their children at home.

Wow! so many things happening in our so sophisticated school district. It was an aye opening experience to see so many requests for copies of e-mails between skelly and the OCR cases, and a lot more of what we knew. Do not even starte to dig into employee discrimination because you will find that a lot of our tax went into settlements too. Thanks again to the media and all the people speaking of behalf of all parents and students. I know that some families might know the law, and do not need help, but many of our parents know. After IEP's I felt like a rat trapped in the PAUSD mouse trapped, and that I could do nothing but cry and ask God to help me and my child pass the school years. Finding that my child had a disability was nothing compared to dealing with teachers, administration and special ed. representatives.

@Edmund Burke -
An off topic question - I wonder what the late Edmund Burke would have advised about my dilemma regarding my postings in your blog. My posts seem to be protected by you. I doubt that my comments would have remained untouched without your protection.
I have posted few samples of editing/censoring(?) before&after here - Web Link

Wishing us all that a time will come, hopefully soon, when your very informative and caring blog will not be needed anymore. Meanwhile, Thank you!

@village fool

Thank you for your question which gives me the opportunity to discuss Burke's political philosophy and how it is relevant to our local school politics.

Burke was an 18th century philosopher, statesman, and political writer who was best known for his advocacy against the arbitrary abuse of government power, and against injustice. President Theodore Roosevelt was a student of Burke, and famously quoted him during his April 1907 Speech at the Jamestown Exhibition announcing his plan for economic reform. Burke, according to TR ?combined unshakable resolution in pressing the reform with a profound temperateness of spirit which made him, while bent on the extirpation of the evil system, refuse to cherish an unreasoning and vindictive ill-will toward the men who had benefited by it. Said Burke : "If I can not reform with equity, I will not reform at all. . . . (There is) a state to preserve as well as a state to reform."

Though Burke came to be seen as a conservative due to his opposition to the excesses of the French Revolution, this is an oversimplification. According to one biographer, Conor Cruise O?Brien, Burke had four primary causes all of which were characterized by his zeal against the arbitrary use of power. As an Irishman serving as a British Member of Parliament, Burke advocated the cause of the American colonists against the Crown, for the rights of the Catholic minority in Ireland, against the excesses of the French Revolution, and against the exploitation of India by the colonial government. According to Yeats, resistance to the unchecked abuse of the individual by the powerful state was the ?great melody? of Burke?s career. As he wrote in his most famous work, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), ?Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.?

In modern society the relationship between the family and the school is one in which student confidentiality, lack of clear procedures, and the lack of accountability can combine to produce the very sorts of arbitrary abuses of the individual by more-powerful government actors that concerned Burke (albeit on a smaller scale). No where perhaps is the individual more vulnerable to the state having ?no policy at all? than when a parent turns over his or her child to its care. Real procedural and substantive protection against arbitrary state action, including arbitrary state inaction, must be provided and enforced. And, in Burkean tradition, reform must be pursued with vigor but also with care to preserve the institutions that are needed for the crucial task of educating and caring for our children.

We need to take care that we do not attack or censor those in the community, like yourself and others, who are pursuing reform by raising difficult issues and shining a light on questionable practices.

Edmund,
Your sound arguments ignore a critical element in the district's decision making, their underlying libertarian social and political philosophy that has quietly driven PAUSD decisions in recent years. This mindset of fighting for the least and most de-centralized government explains both the district's opposition to state and federal regulations and their adherence to school site based autonomy. Our strongest and effective (at achieving their agendas) have been successful at transforming what was once a progressive and innovative district focused on a broad education into our present quagmire. Super Skelly has willingly aligned himself with this outlook for reasons that are worth a separate discussion.
The rest of the board has been willing to go along or too ineffective at governing to alter the course.

@Edmund Burke - Thank you for your fascinating writing about Edmund Burke. While I was intrigued by a Burke quote I found back in March when I started a thread trying to get feedback about fear of retaliation within the school system (link- Web Link all the rest is news to me. Back in March I cited:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke.

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I dare think now, that my following comment on my blog, written on Oct 15 regarding the recent CF law suit had grounding in the Burkeian philosophy as you so nicely explained it, above. (link- Web Link

Responding to the article about the CF carrier lawsuit titled: ?Family says teacher breached son?s privacy? (Web Link

The family faced, then, an arbitrary decision. There was some discussion, then, about discrimination (Link #1). Luckily, the family was able to challenge that decision, and won in court (link #2).
I think that situation gave a glimpse of the modus operandi of PAUSD. All is not disconnected from the recent discussion about Special education, the reasons that brought the OCR to PAUSD, the lack of accountability, lack of transparency , and yes ? a much needed independent investigation.
While I hope that the court looking into ?behind the scenes? of this matter will unveil some of the practices, I assume that this law suit will be signed, privately, and we?ll never know the details.
I think that the family suing is not the right ?address? for complains, but the PAUSD officials who got used to operating without accountability. Ms. Mendoza who addressed the PAUSD Board last week is another example of parents who had enough.
I would not be upset by the family suing, I think there is no way to imagine the impact of an arbitrary decision made by those in power. It seems to me that the community can benefit from an objective inquiry that may spare others these type of situations.

Happy Thanksgiving!

@JBirch

Thank you for your post. Yes I agree that the policy of site-based control evinces an ideological bias that is aligned with small-government conservatism. In fairness many people feel comfortable having decisions made by those who know their children (and themselves) best. This has likely inhibited a parent demand for district control over certain issues.

However, the last Strategic Plan survey showed clear majority support for handling bullying at the district level.

Nevertheless, the district's policy which I discuss here, as well as its new bullying forms, which I will discuss in my next post, show a clear intention to keep the handling of bullying at the site level, including discriminatory bullying, to the maximum extent possible. This is directly in conflict with state law (indeed the district's bullying forms conflict even with its new policy on this score). Doubtless you are correct that site-based control reflects some resistance to state and federal control of education for at least some board members.

You write "Super Skelly has willingly aligned himself with this outlook for reasons that are worth a separate discussion. " I wonder if you care to elaborate on this statement as I do not have a well-developed theory regarding his reasons.

If my child gets bullied, how could the school administration possibly know if my child is bisexual? American born and white but Latino? Have a disability that we have opted to keep private? Very curious how this triagging will take place without violating privacy? Is it really any of the administration's business? Shouldn't they instead be focusing on the perpetrator and the bullying actions?

How about we just declare every child in Palo Alto in a "protected" class and actually protect them?

Outed, you raise a very good point, and one I also have concerns about.

When a teacher or principal receives a report of bullying, they will be required under the two-tier system to make a determination about whether or not it is based on a protected characteristic. There are no guidelines in the policy for making that determination. The training that has been provided does not appear from the powerpoint slides to have covered it. Nor do the forms distributed by the district to teachers and principals acknowledge that this is a step that has to occur or give any information (or even checkboxes) to assist in this task.

This leaves teachers and principals in the unenviable position of having to guess whether or not a student is gay, for example. Will they begin to ask this question? Surely that is not the right result, and may itself pose legal difficulties. The same is true of certain disabilities, gender identity, and more. This policy, which may appear to be "legal" facially will pose insurmountable obstacles at the level of implementation.

I myself am quite skilled at the interpretation of policies and procedures and had great difficulty deciphering this policy, spending hours poring over the various pieces and flipping back and forth among the UCP, bullying, nondiscrimination, and conduct/discipline policies, CDE regulations, and statutes. Is that what we want our teachers and principals to do with their time rather than teach our students? Or do we want a skilled Compliance Officer at the district level to handle all complaints cleanly and clearly under one policy?

I cannot understand how any bullying can be disconnected from discrimination? When the Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the bullied is in the whim of the bully, losing voice. It seems to me that whenever a whim becomes bullying, it is discriminatory. Whatever the whim may be. Discrimination is the act of the bully, the powerful. An arbitrary act that many times does not fall nicely into predefined category. The definitions have changed during the years, a work in progress that takes attentive listening to those who were bullied.

@ JBirch
I think a proper analysis of the site-based control would analogize to states' rights versus federal control that has been a tension in our system since the founding.
What makes sense to keep at the state (i.e., site-based) level?
What makes sense to keep at the federal (i.e., district) level?
As we learned nationally, discrimination laws had to be federalized because certain states would not protect their citizens who were being discriminated against. In the same way, the bullying policy should be centralized at the district level because certain schools have proved unable to protect those students being discriminated against.

I am somewhat new to the site-based wars, but I would appreciate reading a short history of it sometime, and especially an explanation by proponents of site-based control as to what functions they think are best handled at the site and what functions are best handled at the district.

I believe that we should treat the principal as the CEO of the school, with broad powers to run the school as she/he sees fit. This also would create increased accountability, and we would hold the principal's feet to the fire when mistakes happen. On the flip side, we also need strong controls in place so that a bad, or even so-so principal, can be brought to account by the district. Sort of how the SEC has oversight of public companies.

I don't know where the line should lie, and unfortunately, do not have the time to think it all through, but would enjoy reading the work of someone who has thought it through.

@Edmund Burke - another off topic question:
John Mack wrote here (Web Link -
"...Let's remember how we got this "consultant" in the first place. Skelly hired Dora Dome to provide training on bullying and civil rights, rather than having OCR provide free training. Why? Because the OCR resolution agreement requires the training, and Skelly was still trying to comply with the agreement while keeping the fact of the agreement secret. Having OCR lawyers in town giving training would have made that impossible..."

Would it be reasonable to expect a federal agency which found issues in need of correction to make that fact known to the public (without names of specific children etc), and not count on the investigated entity to let the public know?
If you think that this is a reasonable expectation, does fulfilling it call for legislation changes?

As a son, brother, and uncle of teachers, and having studied Education myself without becoming a teacher, I am missing here any effort on how to prevent bullying in the first place?

Prevention is possible! There are institutions in the world who effectively have eradicated bullying. Even military academies (outside of the US) have succeeded [Web Link .

Hint: one element in all this cases was to make the whole group/team/class responsible for it.

I have only seen one high school football coach ever grounding the whole team, because they allowed bullying to take place [ Web Link ].