"Alas," the school boards sigh...
"It's for the children!" they cry...
Then pay the lawyers to lie.
The Beaverton School Board got pretty famous for a while, with Nike moving in and all. Some of those folks became local celebrities. Same with some of the BSD superintendents at that time, AND the fund-raising chief. Actually, the CEO of the BEF was even Grand Marshal of a Beaverton parade.
And they were all in the newspaper, a lot. Local and state-wide celebrities, for sure.
1. The Beaverton School Board once allowed Yvonne Katz, an ostentatious caricature of an administrator in the 90's and early 00's, to take kickbacks from her night job at Energy Inc, one of those consulting firms that retired administrators create to "double-dip" into public education money. When the extravagant Dr. Katz moved to TX in 2004 in search of a fatter paycheck, she encountered school board members in suburban Houston who actually practiced oversight and she soon lost her job. So did a couple of former Beaverton administrators, Voytilla and Maloney, whom she had taken with her, who may not have been honest about their qualifications or their work here in Beaverton. We will never know.
2. The Beaverton School Board (still?) allows school administrators to spend public money on lawyers and secret agreements without accounting for it publicly. This is a great way to avoid embarrassing truths and to make friends with expensive, well-connected lawyers. It is a poor way to run a public school system: "BEAVERTON SCHOOL DISTRICT SETTLES RACIAL BIAS SUIT" (The Oregonian Anitha Reddy January 10, 2005) "The Beaverton School District has agreed to pay $120,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit by an African American former custodian, after admitting in a court filing that a co-worker called the man a racial epithet...District administrators agreed in December to pay nearly $80,000, including $10,000 in gross back wages, to James Sanders and $40,000 in fees to his lawyer, Thomas Steenson...The settlement, drawn from the district's $1.55 million insurance reserve fund, did not require school board approval, said Linda Borquist, an assistant superintendent...Board member Ann Jacks said Tuesday evening that district lawyers had briefed the board on the case but had never discussed possible settlement amounts...'It's not an insignificant sum or an insignificant issue,' Jacks said. 'I'd like, in the future, to be a little more active in this.' 'Board approval is necessary only if the settlement amount exhausts the reserve fund, which is set aside during the budget process and requires a transfer from the general fund,' said Janice Essenberg, district administrator for budget services...Because the district's insurance policy covers liability claims greater than $500,000, board approval would be required only in rare cases involving hundreds of thousands of dollars. Large settlements can be entered into without board approval, unlike contracts, which require a board vote if they are worth more than $50,000...In neighboring Portland, the school board must approve all settlements greater than $25,000."
That is skillful surgical removal of the "public" from public school administration.
3. Jerome Colonna and the school board members paid Amy Gordon, former Southridge High principal, $120 000 to stay home for a year--he paid Len Case (now of Beaverton High) to come out of retirement to work for her. The current BSD HR director Sue Robertson and the current BSD board members felt the taxpayers didn't need to know why:
"BEAVERTON SCHOOLS WILL SEE CHANGES IN LEADERS, STAFF" July 23, 2010 by Melissa Navas, Oregonian: "One notable position change is at Southridge High School where Principal Amy Gordon has been permanently replaced by Todd Corsetti, a former assistant principal at Sunset High School. The district continues to pay Gordon, who has been on leave since November, her annual $120,000 salary....Gordon's leave will continue until early September, according to Sue Robertson, chief human resource officer. Robertson would not say what the nature of her leave is and did not specify whether she'd return...Robertson added that there was nothing unusual about Gordon's leave. 'It's not disciplinary, it's not any of that,' Robertson said. Gordon could not be reached for comment. Len Case, a retired Beaverton administrator, served as Southridge's interim principal for the remainder of last school year."
4. Mr. Colonna and the Beaverton School Board spent about $200K firing me after I had complained about some chicanery by administrators at Westview High School AND I HAD ASKED TO QUIT...Instead, Colonna and the the BSD board contacted the OEA rep and arranged for me to have an, uh..."amenable" lawyer (Tommy Doyle of B-H), then fired me by sneak attack for contrived sexual harassment charges used as a public smookescreen while the OEA lawyer had me in limbo (for years) defending my "free speech" rights, instead of my employment rights and my public reputation... (www.statesponsoredtheft.blogspot.com).
5. Soon after voiding my contract mid-year, the BSD board was obliged to give Westview's recently-hired principal, Malcolm Dennis, a secrecy agreement to include health insurance--and, within a couple of years, a new job out-of-state--in exchange for resigning quietly after being caught coming to work drunk..."Mac's" fingerprints are still on the knife in my back...
"Beaverton will replace Westview principal" Oregonian November 12, 2004 Anitha Reddy
"Beaverton School District administrators will begin a search in January to replace Westview High School Principal Malcolm Dennis, who unexpectedly resigned late last month. Gail VanGorder, a retired vice principal at the 2,300-student school, came out of retirement last week to serve as Dennis' temporary replacement. With Dennis' departure, the Beaverton School District has first-year principals leading six of its seven high schools. Carl Mead, Sunset High School principal, is in his second year at the school. Dennis, who cited health reasons when he left the school Oct. 27, could not be reached for comment. Maureen Wheeler, a district spokeswoman, offered no specifics concerning his departure...
VanGorder said Superintendent Jerry Colonna offered her the interim job on Oct. 27. VanGorder retired in July after nine years as vice principal at Westview, the state's second-largest high school.
VanGorder said she was surprised and excited by the opportunity...The 58-year-old educator began her career in the Beaverton district as a library aide at Meadow Park Middle School. She worked as a librarian at Beaverton schools for two decades before taking her first administrative position as a vice principal at Merlo High School in 1993, the year it opened. She moved to Westview as a vice principal in 1995."
6. Camellia Osterink, the "in-house" BSD attorney who replaced Nancy Hungerford in 2005, created a bogus settlement document to conceal BSD school board misconduct in the "million-dollar" freedom of speech lawsuit filed improperly by my union lawyer. I had already signed a settlement contract (after 3 years of abuse) and the school board's lawyers were holding my check to leverage my signature on a confession the TSPC director designed to exonerate Hungerford and the BSD employees who had lied about me at the FDAB hearing. I refused. Ms. Osterink had Hanna Vaandering (then BEA president; now OEA VP) bring me a new settlement document (even though the federal court had been falsely nformed that we had reached a settlement) to help Hungerford cover up her complicity in the TSPC's manipulation of a "million-dollar" federal suit--filed unethically prior to my first employment hearing ("FDAB") and designed to erode my resistance and manipulate my obeisance. I have copies of the second sttlement and of an email sent to me by Tom Doyle, telling me he had seen and approved of a document that Hanna Vaandering was bringiing me.
7. Recently, the Beaverton School Board used public education money to hire Hank Gmitro, a headhunter from Chicago, to lead a "superintendent search," after which the board members refused to release the names of the candidates he had selected for this PUBLIC school job, curiously revealing only their finalist, Jeff Rose from Canby. Two school board members refrained from voting at all on Mr. Rose's selection and one member, Lisa Shultz, is apparently following her conscience and resigning, much like former BSD school board member Ann Jacks did a few years ago, rather than to continue to deceive the people who have placed their trust in her.
This is all information that can be gathered from media reports. Imagine what would be available if law enforcement chose to investigate. Imagine the reform that might follow...
