2014 cartoon by Rob Tornoe, Education Opportunity Network
Disclaimer: I am neither a lawyer, nor a journalist, nor even someone with an administrative credential in education. I am a retired high school history teacher deeply concerned with the attack on the foundational institution of our democracy: free, universal, and secular public schools. Vested interests with deep pockets are funding this attack on public education at the national scale. What is happening in the PYLUSD is merely a local manifestation of our current national crisis.
My sources for the articles I have written on this topic are live recordings of school board meetings, diffused but frequently excellent commentary on social media sites, conversations with teachers, parents, and other friends, as well as the outstanding YouTube presentations of PYLUSD for Truth. (In fact, as the final revisions were being put on this piece, PYLUSD for Truth posted its most recent documentary on YouTube, also focused on what transpired at the January 14 board meeting. [Find it here. and at the bottom of the article.] Some things need to be seen to be believed!) In the absence of journalists working professionally on this story, volunteers like me must fill a big gap in its coverage and make whatever associations seem appropriate.
I have not run this article past people with more expertise on the legal dimensions of charter schools. This is, above all, an invitation to a conversation. I am very aware of the limitations of what follows and appreciate constructive input from anyone and everyone.
That having been said, the best introduction to the larger issue was the outstanding series published by Kathryn Joyce three years ago in Slate. If you have not read it, it remains a definitive piece documenting the interface between Orange County, Washington, D.C., and Hillsdale College in the extremists’ effort to destroy public education.
***CHARTER MADNESS and PYLUSD***
Our New Legal Counsel
On Tuesday, January 14, the PYLUSD Board of Trustees returned from the winter holidays and the star of the show was the new legal counsel, Sukhi Ahluwalia (right). The main decisions from this seven-hour meeting were that the OC School of Computer Science (OCSCS) will not be operating as an independent charter school any time soon. In addition, Renee Grey will continue as interim superintendent. On a 3-2 vote, Marilyn Anderson and Carrie Buck voted in opposition to her maintaining this post.
The 4-1 vote in opposition to establishing the OCSCS as a private charter school determined that the facility will remain under the control of the elected board and will likely stop receiving the preferential treatment it has had from the previous board majority of extremists (Leandra Blades, Shawn Youngblood, and Todd Frazier) and its superintendent, Dr. Alex Cherniss. The ultimate extremist, Leandra Blades, was the only vote in opposition to keeping the OCSCS as a “DEPENDENT charter school” under the jurisdiction of the elected school board. It will almost certainly remain a charter school in some configuration, and Beth Fisher might even remain its principal despite some very disturbing behaviors that will be noted in what follows.
Even Trustee Todd Frazier for now opposed the private charter option after new counsel made it clear that the charter proposal created an array of legal problems and liabilities. Frazier had previously voted for the charter revision at the December 10 meeting, but something has caused him to join Shawn Youngblood in opposition to it. (The Youngblood story had been covered in an earlier OJ Blog post.) Like Youngblood before him, Frazier likely came to realize that the revised charter would not only expose the district to new liabilities, but it might also expose those who supported it to personal liability.
At about the three hour mark on the district video of the session, the new counsel advised against voting for the charter proposal with this statement: “You don’t really know what the board is voting on because there are so many different documents and so many different representations.” Confusion. Contradiction. Massive waste of time and money. This charter proposal denoted the legacy of former Superintendent Alex Cherniss that will continue to damage our schools in the PYLUSD for many years to come.
The new district counsel defined the evening. Sukhi K. Ahluwalia is a partner at Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo (AALRR). She has worked for decades in educational law and specializes in charter school authorizations. Not only did her presentation illustrate her remarkable mastery of law as it pertains to charter schools, but it also shed disturbing light on the district’s previous legal representation by Orbach, Huff, and Henderson (OHH).
Despite hysterical protestations to the contrary, no one on the board opposes retaining OCSCS as a district charter school dedicated to developing skills and knowledge generally associated with computers. The new board majority will now do what Trustee Anderson suggested months ago: engage a study session involving ALL stakeholders to consider how best to proceed with the further operation of OCSCS. Had then-Board President Blades heeded the reasonable recommendation of current Board President Anderson last fall, the torrent of fear and misinformation that characterized this meeting could have been averted. The teachers, parents, and children of OCSCS could have been home preparing the next generation of technology innovators rather than embarrassing themselves by regurgitating the misinformation fed them by its principal, Beth Fisher.
Staged Hysteria
Instead, Principal Fisher (right) colluded with Trustee Blades to have an array of OCSCS students, parents, and teachers present redundant, inaccurate, and often insulting information to the Board. These public speakers comprised the vast majority of the 31 speakers who presented before the closed session at 3:30 and the 60ish who presented prior to the 6 p.m. general meeting. All agreed that the OCSCS represented a unique and innovative educational opportunity for which the district provided no comparable opportunity. All agreed that Principal Fisher provided inspirational leadership that motivated teachers and students to unprecedented heights of performance. They all agreed that the success of the OCSCS depended on its being a charter school. Charters, though, are not the only way of producing innovative programs in a public school district, especially one where there is already an exemplary model for educational innovation in the area of computer technology:
Valencia High as a Model Magnet School
Toward the end of the public comment, two recent graduates from Valencia High School (VHS) spoke. Both had completed the requirements for the International Baccalaureate diploma as well as the ValTech Academy certificate at VHS. Alyssa Wong is currently a Computer Science major at UCLA. Ryan Lin majors in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at UC Berkeley. They indicated their concern that by providing OCSCS an independent charter status, the district would be relinquishing an asset to which the entire district had contributed to a charter administrative board that would not be accountable to the taxpayers who funded the asset. They noted the loss of Average Daily Attendance (ADA) money to the district as a whole and how that and other funds would be diverted to the benefit of one school at the expense of the others. Much of what these two young scholars stated at the meeting anticipated what Attorney Ahluwalia would state a few minutes later. It was the unstated points of these two recent PYLUSD grads, though, that should be emphasized.
As the brief biographies of Ryan and Alyssa above show, the district has already successfully created a technology academy at VHS that encompasses a wide array of computer applications from mechatronics to cybersecurity, graphic design to video production, and much, much more. Both Alyssa and Ryan, by the way, are also graduates of Kraemer Middle School. Administrators created these highly successful programs at Valencia and Kraemer through full coordination and cooperation between the district and the two schools. To create this outstanding academy, there was no need for any kind of charter school requiring the creation of a separate bureaucratic structure either dependent upon or independent of the district. There has been no need for contracting with a host of paid consultants commonly associated with charter schools. All that it took was for a group of visionary administrators to rally a team of talented and dedicated educators to realize this highly successful program. The point is that many of the claims about the uniqueness and innovative character of the OCSCS in this district simply does not withstand scrutiny when considered in light of this and other outstanding programs operating in the PYLUSD.
A few additional words about the specific success of VHS are appropriate. It is by far the largest high school in the district, mainly because of the excellence of its programs. It is also, by many measures, the most academically successful school in the district. Graduates of the ValTech Academy have proceeded from high school into outstanding careers in the field of technology and have studied at the world’s most advanced universities and technology institutes. For years, students at Valencia have received the most IB diplomas of any high school in Orange County. It should be noted as well that it is not just the two definitive programs in the Valencia Academy (ValTech and IB) that define its success. It also boasts outstanding programs for students who traditionally have had difficulty accessing and succeeding in post-secondary education. Specifically, the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) program at VHS has been phenomenal.
The Academy has been part of the reason that VHS has over the years drawn students from over 100 different middle schools from throughout southern California and beyond. This ability to attract students from outside the district, from private schools within the district, and return hundreds of students to the district who had been matriculating outside of it, brings millions of dollars of ADA money into the district each year. Moreover, these VHS programs have never operated with a budget deficit. Compare that to the two “innovations” currently operating in the district. USI is costing the district around $1million above ADA for its 85 enrollees, and the OCSCS is operating at approximately a $1.5 million annual deficit. The Valencia Academy thus provided a model of both curricular innovation and fiscal responsibility.
When former Superintendent Cherniss, however, worked with the previous extremist board to create the OCSCS, he did not have much interest in coordinating it with the already established success of the Valencia Academy Program. The main architect of the Valencia Academy is retired principal, Jim Bell. Cherniss never reached out to Mr. Bell for advice on how to build a successful technology academy and integrate it into the district. Every superintendent who worked in the district after Bell retired in 2014 reached out to him for guidance except Cherniss. One would think that a superintendent would want insight on how to build a successful computer science academy from someone in the district who has already done it. It was not just Cherniss, however, who felt himself above guidance from someone who had worked in the district for nearly forty years. The board extremists (Blades, Youngblood, and Frazier) showed comparable disregard for the legacy programs in the district. Blades did not even know who Mr. Bell was a few months ago.
Bell was not the only major contributor to the creation of the successful academy programs at VHS. Other major builders of the successful Academy included Rick Lopez, Joey Davis, Nancy Watkins, Sue Sawyer and others whom former Superintendent Cherniss and board extremists did not see as “good fits” to continue their work as leaders in the district. Cherniss and the previous board majority instead invested everything into the charter concept and the purported leadership of Beth Fisher.
Riling Up the Mob
The campaign of fear, misinformation, and hatred began before the meeting. A widely distributed flier rallying supporters of OCSCS stated:
If your child loves to attend OCSCS please make your voice heard, or there may not be an OCSCS next year. Trustees Anderson and Buck are doing everything in ther (sic) power, (sic) to harm this school.
Attend and speak your mind at tomorrow’s school board meeting to show your support of the school and show Anderson and Buck their dirty, unethical tactics will not be tolerated.
It is not petty to point out the elementary grammar and spelling mistakes of someone writing in support of a school program, especially when something as elementary as a spellcheck and grammar software program is involved in relation to supporting a computer science academy.
Because this flier was widely distributed at OCSCS in the days leading up to the board meeting, Principal Fisher was either complicit in its dissemination or negligent in her duty to monitor the kinds of materials allowed on her campus. It is not unreasonable to demand that the superintendent investigate this matter and the source of this attack on two democratically elected members of the board. If Principal Fisher supported this attack on the two board members in any way, she deserves the strongest possible censure. If any staff member distributed or allowed the distribution of these fliers, they should be reprimanded by the district and have this noted on their permanent records.
***************
Elections Matter
The bottom line in this entire fiasco is that the OCSCS is a product of the entire district, and its supporters should not whine when other parents, teachers, and students demand that the district operate in a way that fairly, securely, and equitably distributes the district’s resources. As such, the issues involved here are issues related to that most fundamental and historic sources of our constitutional republic: the local school board.
The November election presented a referendum on the tenure of Superintendent Cherniss in the district, and it was one that he lost. Cherniss’ purge of district leadership, the Universal Sports Institute (USI) fiasco, and the openly preferential treatment accorded to his two pet projects are among the main factors that led voters to demand a change in direction for the district. In a behavior never before seen in the PYLUSD by a superintendent, Cherniss openly supported the campaigns of the opponents of Trustee Anderson, Trustee Quintero, and Misty Janssen, who was seeking to take the seat held by Blades. Elections have consequences, and it appears that the era of bullying, disrespect for the legacy of this district, and poorly conceived “innovations” is over. While it is possible that the former superintendent might return to his position, what little is known about existing litigation makes that seem unlikely. For this reason, statements made by a few OCSCS advocates who supported the immediate return of Cherniss to his position need a response.
Why were Seven Managers put on Leave?
While we know few of the details, we can be sure that there were good reasons why seven district managers, including the Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent, were put on paid administrative leave on 5-0 votes by the district board. Those who spoke at the January 14 meeting demanding the return of Cherniss on the assertion that he has the presumption of innocence, reveal an infantile understanding of the issues at hand. The district, and by extension its taxpayers, would be held liable for any corrupting of evidence or any instances or even hints of instances of witness tampering that might occur in relation to pending litigation involving the seven on leave.
Paid administrative leave in this instance is a precautionary measure a district is forced to take when sufficient evidence exists to place it and its employees in jeopardy. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the guilt or innocence of those put on leave. Even Trustee Blades understands this, and that is why she joined in the unanimous vote. She lacks the integrity, however, to admit this to her followers. The horrifying fact is that Superintendent Cherniss has driven the district into a morass of litigation that will likely cost it tens of millions of dollars in the years to come.
Fisher Flops!
OCSCS Principal Beth Fisher squandered the ten minutes provided for her to make her final bid in support of the charter revision to the board. She began her statement by sycophantically stating how greatly the new interim superintendent, Renee Grey, had supported OCSCS from the beginning. She also noted, however, that Alex Cherniss, the greatest expert on charter schools in her opinion, should have been there to guide the discussion on this complex matter. Fisher then proceeded to show how little she knew and how little she supposedly had learned from her master teacher about charter schools.
In what appears to have been a pre-arranged moment, Fisher turned her attention to the audience in a failed attempt to explain the charter revision that she was proposing. She argued that the charter revision would not render the OCSCS an independent charter but rather retain it as a dependent charter within the PYLUSD. In the time allotted to her, however, she made no effort to explain to the audience and the board what the difference might be between a dependent and an independent charter. Nor did she clarify how OCSCS would affiliate with the large USI investment the district had made at that site by installing so much of its equipment there.
Instead, she turned to the flock of people who had been coaxed to come in support of OCSCS and asked them to discuss for fifteen seconds whether they believed the charter school would be dependent or independent. With phenomenal perspicacity, the vast bulk of the audience discerned that it would be a dependent charter without ever been having told what one was. The discussion took only five seconds, even less than the fifteen seconds Fisher had allotted! The whole evening might lead one to believe that the proper acronym for the charter school should be the Orange County School of Cheap Stunts.
In her allotted ten minutes, Fisher also found time to take a broad swipe at the rest of the district. She indicated that her charter proposal had generated the enthusiastic support of leading experts in the field of education. She did not mention any experts by name but made a vague reference to her association with the University of California San Diego. She implied that her program stood out as a beacon in a district that otherwise had fallen into a pitiable state in the opinion of the educators she knows. As with Cherniss and Blades, there is no pedestal too high for Fisher to place herself upon. Her entire presentation insulted pretty much everyone in the district not directly affiliated with OCSCS. When her ten minutes mercifully came to an end, she had still not clarified any of the real issues involved in the charter revision to anyone who might have real questions about it.
For the record, Fisher had made a comparably awful hour-long presentation at a board meeting in December. Cherniss and the board extremists have given Fisher ample opportunity to make her case to the board and the public, She has failed on every occasion to be compelling.
Cherniss has Damaged PYLUSD’s Reputation
At the risk of drifting off topic as Fisher so frequently did, it is worth making a quick observation in response to the allegation that the district was falling into disarray before Cherniss arrived. One could go into detail about all the successful programs in the district that were established prior to Cherniss. The most telling point in response to Fisher’s allegations, though, is the fact that almost every manager driven out of the district by Cherniss has found immediate offers from excellent school districts outside of PYLUSD. In fact, Cherniss has written letters attempting to undermine the employment quests of former PYLUSD managers elsewhere. Those efforts have universally failed because Cherniss holds little respect anywhere in Southern California. Moreover, these efforts to undermine the employment quests of former district employees may well be the basis for some of the litigation that the district will have to bear in the future. The main point, though, is that for most of the districts in Southern California, PYLUSD is a good place to be from because the entire education community in Orange County sees Cherniss for the fraud he is.
Ahluwalia’s Crash Course in Charters
In stark contrast to Fisher, Counselor Ahluwalia showed the board and the public what could be accomplished in ten minutes when you know how to teach. She provided a brief yet powerful seminar to the board and the public on the topic of state law in relation to charter schools. She started by defining and explaining the key questions and the key legal concepts involved. Then she provided an analysis of the district’s options. She concluded by advising the board to reject the charter revision because it was a conceptual mess that opened the district to a host of liabilities.
Explaining the Independent Charter Proposal
In opposition to what had just been presented, Ahluwalia explained that Principal Fisher’s proposal was for an independent charter that would have to establish itself as a 501c3 corporation to operate legally. So, it must be said at the start that Fisher either did not understand what she was proposing, or she was lying about it. The attorney went on to explain in disturbing detail how the arrangements being proposed by the proponents of the OCSCS revision would put the district at risk for various liabilities while depriving the district of operational authority over the independent charter.
In the revised charter proposal, the OCSCS would be run by a board selected not by the district but by the founders of the 501c3 corporation and operate with autonomy from the district. The taxpayers of the district, as represented by the PYLUSD Board, would have no say over curriculum or staffing. The employees at the charter would no longer operate under the collective bargaining agreements for either classified or certificated staff. OCSCS would be, in effect, a private school constructed and subsidized in various ways by the entire district but whose benefits and authority accrue only to those affiliated with the OCSCS. Most importantly, the charter would have complete control over the Average Daily Attendance money for every student enrolled. In short, it is structured as a private school, but it is largely funded by the public.
The PYLUSD would remain responsible for the Special Education Local Plan Areas (SELPA) requirements, because these operate on a regional basis outside the purview of any specific institution. Again, all taxpayers would contribute to the SELPA mandates for OCSCS, but those taxpayers would not have control over how they would be used there. The district would also be required to provide several other “back office” services to the OCSCS involving costs to the district that may or may not impose an additional fiscal burden on the taxpayers of PYL. It gets worse:
The Insurance Muddle
District insurance liability represents one of the most disturbing of many disturbing aspects of the charter proposal. According to Ms. Ahluwalia, the charter proposal would require the district to cover the insurance for any physical or personal injury that might happen at OCSCS even though the district would not have control over any aspect of its operation. The district’s insurance provider would not have to pay because the charter school would not be part of its contract with the district. Instead, the district would have to pay for any claims against OCSCS from its general fund. This is one of the many astonishing examples provided by Ms. Ahluwalia revealing how poorly Fisher, Cherniss, and their legal counsel conceived this charter proposal. In their scheme, liability flows in the opposite direction of benefits.
The key question is whether Cherniss, Fisher and their legal team intentionally or inadvertently structured this charter in a way that consistently favored the interests of OCSCS over those of the district. The preponderance of the evidence that is emerging is that the charter revision is part of a conspiracy involving deception and fraud perpetrated by not just Cherniss and the former board majority, but by a host of vested interests aligned with the charter school racket and its sponsors on the Orange County Board of Education. Among those interests defrauding the taxpayers of the PYL are the proprietors of the USI (Universal Sports Institute.)
The Suspicious Relationship between OCSCS & USI
It is difficult to see the trajectory of the USI story as anything other than a grift sponsored by Cherniss, the three board extremists, and the proprietors of the Treigning Lab. This company, as the only one to make a bid, has been contracted to oversee the implementation of the USI. Attorney Ahluwalia made it abundantly clear that whatever assets from USI that have been relocated to the OCSCS would have to be removed from that site under the charter revision because location of those district properties at an independent charter school would violate provisions of the Ed Code that prohibit such transfers. It is impossible to believe that Superintendent Cherniss, a self-proclaimed expert in charter schools, was not aware that he was violating the law as he moved the vast bulk of USI assets to the OCSCS site. It is also extremely difficult to believe that the district’s previous legal counsel, Orbach, Huff, and Henderson (OHH), were also not complicit in this scheme. The entirety of the USI story over the past year has been a study in deception and dishonesty.
Ms. Ahluwalia has provided us with ample evidence to show that USI has been part of a corrupt scheme to use public funds to benefit private interests. Taxpayers in PYL need to ask themselves how it came to be that such a vast portion of the millions in material investment at USI came to be located at OCSCS. They need to demand answers as to why this happened. They also need to demand a full accounting of the other material investments the district has made in preferential treatment for the OCSCS and USI. We learned from Trustee Quintero that the operating budget for OCSCS exceeded its ADA money by around $1.5 million. In other words, apart from the material investments the taxpayers of PYL have made in OCSCS and USI, we continue to subsidize their daily operations at an appalling rate. There is, however, one more piece of evidence indicating a fraudulent scheme that emerged from Ahluwalia’s presentation on January 14. It may be the single most disturbing element of her presentation:
Letting the OCBE IMPOSE Charters in PYLUSD
The provisions of the proposed charter revision for the OCSCS would have opened the floodgates for the extremist OC Board of Education (OCBE) to IMPOSE other charter schools onto district sites at bargain basement rates. According to the tenets of the Proposition 39 (Education Code 47614) authorization for charter schools, county boards of education can impose charter schools even on school districts that have clearly indicated that such charter schools are not in the interest of the district. This is clearly happening in the PYLUSD and was an agenda item in the closed session of the January 14 meeting. At this closed session, the district was informed of the application of both the Magnolia and California Republic Leadership Academy (CRLA) for access to sites in PYL.
On a 5-0 vote in 2023, the district had expressed its rejection of the CRLA application. The CRLA program had been thoroughly panned in a July, 2023 Staff Report, in the same way as it had been lambasted in other districts and at the Orange County Department of Education. Even the three extremist board members – Blades, Youngblood, and Frazier – voted against the authorization of this charter school even though their positions on the board had been sponsored by the county’s biggest CRLA backers. They knew full well, however, that their vote was meaningless. Their vote was a ruse to give them political cover in a circumstance that they knew would have no bearing on the ability of the OCBE and the CRLA to later impose its will. Based on provisions in Proposition 39, the OCBE was going to impose charters in the district regardless of the interests and concerns of the local school board. The extremists’ transparent conspiracy became even clearer in the most damning element of Ms. Ahluwalia’s report to the public.
The revised charter proposal for the OCSCS contained an item reducing what that site would pay the district for use of this public asset that would also by provisions of Proposition 39 necessarily be extended to any other charter that came into the district. Specifically, the revision would have reduced the current lease of OCSCS property from the district from $10 per square foot to $2. That would reduce their annual rent from about $1 million to $200,000. Proposition 39 would have required the PYLUSD to offer the same incredibly low rates to Magnolia and the CRLA. This provision of the proposal would have cost the district millions in revenue annually had the revised charter been accepted. Add to that the further loss in ADA money to the district once the OCBE imposed its charters in our district against our expressed will and one can easily see the threat to the future fiscal viability of the district inherent in the proposed revision to the OCSCS charter.
At the January 14 meeting, Trustee Blades pretended not to be aware of this Proposition 39 loophole that would have further drained the district of its resources. It is impossible to believe that she, Frazier, Cherniss (who was still Superintendent when this revision was being drawn up), and OHH were unaware. The evidence that the PYLUSD board extremists and their superintendent are engaged in a networked conspiracy linked directly to the California Policy Center and the broader charter and homeschool rackets is becoming more compelling by the day.
The only question is whether there is enough evidence at this point for a group of taxpayers in PYL to organize a civil suit and prove to a jury with a preponderance of evidence that the board extremists, their superintendent, the OCBE, and their network of institutional supporters intentionally defrauded the PYLUSD for personal gain. It is also time to take a hard look at the previous law firm representing the district. OHH would appear to have either engaged in professional malpractice or, as increasingly appears to be the case, have been part of a criminal scheme to defraud the taxpayers of PYL.
Esperanza High School (EHS) is apparently being set up as a site that the OCBE might use to authorize another charter school and there is evidence that Cherniss and the board extremists are complicit in this. A few years ago, the PYLUSD brought Beth Fisher into the district from the Garden Grove Unified School District. She has subsequently asserted herself as a major spokesperson for charter schools in the PYLUSD. Last year, the district hired Loon Sriruksa, Fisher’s friend from Garden Grove, to become principal at EHS. As with the OCSCS, over the last year EHS has received a disproportionate amount of material and staff aligned with the USI. The OCBE and its benefactors surely view EHS as a particularly seductive property in the PYLUSD. By the provision of the proposed OCSCS charter revision, EHS could be leased for pennies on the dollar. Suspicious, no?
Ahluwalia Concludes, for Now
In one of the most incisive moments toward the end of Ms. Ahluwalia’s presentation, Trustee Blades demanded that the attorney answer publicly a question that Blades knew could not be answered in the public session. This is one of Blades’ most contemptible tactics: using public forums to show her minions that things are going on behind closed doors that are depriving them of their right to know. (The Deep State is everywhere!) When the attorney indicated to the trustee that it would not be appropriate for her to respond to the trustee’s question in this public forum, Blades indicated that she needed answers now. “We’re voting tonight,” she said. The attorney calmly responded: “But we really don’t know what we’re voting on.” With that, Ms. Ahluwalia concluded her revelations for the evening.
Accountability?
It is time for the PYLUSD to begin calculating the cost of the extremist takeover of the district over the last four years. That cost is growing rapidly by the day. A calculation of costs should include not just the amount of money spent and wasted on the boondoggle of USI and the diversion of nondiscretionary money toward the OCSCS, but also the massive amounts of money forfeited over the last four years to people on paid administrative leave as well the torrents of taxpayer money being diverted into the coffers of law firms representing both sides in adversarial litigation. The district should also provide an estimate of reputational damage to this once stable district that will now find it increasingly difficult to attract quality educators considering both the fiscal and political chaos generated by the extremists.
The current losses to the district resulting from the intentional mismanagement by Superintendent Cherniss are staggering. The district should demand a strict accounting for the total amount of money paid out in salaries and benefits to managers on paid administrative leave. There were many such instances of this prior to last month’s unanimous and necessary board decision to place Cherniss and six others on paid leave. PYL taxpayers are presently paying over $3000 EACH DAY for a superintendent because we are paying one to do the job and another to sit at home. Again, no one is questioning the necessity of placing Dr. Cherniss on paid leave for now, pending investigations of what are likely various instances of his malfeasance. PYL taxpayers are also paying in the vicinity of $2,000 EACH DAY for someone to manage Human Resources. (It appears that Yolanda Mendoza is being compensated at the same rate as an Assistant Superintendent rather than the higher pay rendered former Deputy Superintendent Dr. Isaaic Gates, who received his promotion and substantial raise without a performance review required in the district by-laws. Gates, presumably, is making much more than the $884.62 per day pay that Mendoza is getting for doing the same job as he did.) PYL taxpayers are also paying around $1800 EACH DAY in redundant compensation to have an Assistant Superintendent in charge of Administrative Services. Again, these are not the first instances over the last four years in which multiple managers have been put on paid administrative leave.
PYL taxpayers also have a right to know how much from the general fund has been paid in attorney fees and how this amount compares to any previous four-year period in the history of the district. The report should include a specific legal budget category for the amount paid out to OHH over the past four years. PYL taxpayers also have the right to know the number of anticipated lawsuits pending in the district and their estimated costs. All these costs should be presented in the public portion of the board meeting and not be buried in a written report posted on the district website or obscured in the manner that the previous Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent of Administrative Services used to do.
PYL taxpayers also have a right to an estimate of the qualitative and reputational damage to the district foisted upon it by the extremist takeover of the board. The extremists have not merely damaged the outstanding pipeline of California State University Fullerton teachers into the district, the reputation of our district has also declined in the education departments at other universities as well. It will be very difficult to find a superintendent willing to confront both the fiscal and political mess in the PYLUSD after witnessing the absurdity of meetings such as the one that occurred on January 14 or, for that matter, any of the previous ones that have taken place over the last four years.
The Road Ahead
The January 14 meeting was a giant step forward for the district. The road to recovery begins with accountability, and the presentation by Ms. Ahluwalia provided the parameters within which that accountability will transpire in the legal realm. More than anything, this meeting further testified to the courage and dedication of Trustees Anderson, Buck, and Quintero. They will continue to need our unwavering support in the weeks to come.
The challenges are formidable. The extremists on the OCBE and their attorneys just returned from a trip to Washington, DC, where they sought further funding to promote their ability to impose charter schools in local districts that do not want them. They have already authorized 28 charter schools in the county. In the process, the OCBE undermines that most foundational institution of constitutional republicanism: the local school board. Their coalition of support includes various grifters including those seeking higher political office and the enhanced power that comes from being pastor of a megachurch.
The fundamental problem is that these grifters view litigation as a means of further diverting general fund money in a district from the classroom where it belongs, because their goal is to destroy public education. Narcissistic nihilism is their core ideology, and demolition is their operational tactic.
It would seem long past time for our state legislature and our governor to reexamine the provisions of Proposition 39. In the meantime, is there enough evidence yet to document the conspiracy between the PYLUSD board extremists, the OCBE, and the CPC that might persuade a jury that they have engaged an attempt to defraud the taxpayers of PYL?
Good work, Mr. Myovich. Thanks for the shoutout.
Isn’t the reason Cal State Fullerton stopped funneling student teachers to PYLUSD because the district wouldn’t teach critical race theory? Underage children do not need to learn a flawed theory that pushes a hateful agenda disguised as inclusion.
That doesn’t make any sense. Nobody teaches Critical Race Theory before college. (Although like a lot of stupid-ass extremist boards, Leandra’s PYLUSD made a point of saying they wouldn’t teach it.)
While I would normally not respond to anonymous trolls, I have written a thorough critique of the CRT ban in the PYLUSD. The attorneys told the board that the ban was not viable. Still, they proceeded because they needed to promote their fear and hysteria. Here’s the article
https://myovlog.com/2024/07/09/the-crt-ban-in-the-pylusd-is-racist/
Does teaching about the Holocaust count as CRT?
If not, then why does teaching about the Middle Passage, Slavery, Japanese Internment, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Klan, the Trail of Tears (among much else), the Scramble for Africa, the Civil Rights movement, etc. count as CRT? Do some people just not have a legitimate place in history classes?
(Although now it seems like at least Musk, even if not Trump, might want a more “balanced” view of Nazi Germany.)
None of this requires condemnation of white people (and even semi-white people like Eric and me) as a whole. In fact, there’s a hell of a lot to be taught about whites who did and did not support these things, and why. That’s where history gets really interesting: I could make a positive case for any of those atrocities for students to contend with, thus learning about the present-day implications of those positions. But some people do not want educated students.
I won’t expect anything more in return than anonymous attacks from people who use anonymity as a way to facilitate character attacks.
I agree, it doesn’t make sense. Here is one of the articles that explains the CSUF and PYLUSD schism. Imagine this is why Leandra referenced. https://www.ocregister.com/2022/10/19/csuf-pulls-student-teachers-from-placentia-yorba-linda-after-critical-race-theory-ban/
First of all, in the article is says, Leandra says it’s being taught, which is the first mistake. Anything Leandra says should be discounted as a lie. Her sons were not taught CRT. What they’ve been taught is their mommy will bail them out when they get in trouble at school.
Second, you call CRT a hateful agenda disguised as inclusion, which shows you don’t know what it is either.
Third, it has never been taught in any elementary or secondary school, let alone any school in PYLUSD.
It was a culture war ploy. They banned something that wasn’t being taught. If we’re playing that game, we might as well start crafting bans on witchcraft or alchemy because those aren’t taught in school either.
Vern and the PYLUSD for Truth’s claims that CRT is not taught in high school is not correct. The PYLUSD’s ban exempted the AP and IB programs from it, proving that it IS taught in our classrooms. While it is true that prior to the release of Nikole Hannah-Jones’ landmark 1619 Project CRT was a topic confined to higher-level courses in universities, Hannah-Jones made CRT a matter of public discourse with which every decently educated person should be familiar. That would include high school students, and not just the ones aspiring to go to university. After all, many of our police officers need better training in cultural diversity, as we witness frequently in our PYLUSD board meetings.
The problem, as I attempted to argue in the piece linked above, is that people do not understand what the discipline of history entails.
The study of history involves an examination of the past through the filters of various sources, methodologies, and ideologies. The cumulation of these varied perspectives on the past are what is known as historiography. The idea that there is one thread of analysis that embodies absolute truth is absurd and undermines serious engagement with the complexities of the past. Had I not retired from the district, I would expect all my students – not just the IB and AP elite – to have the ability to summarize, analyze, and evaluate CRT as a way of understanding race relations in the past.
What the extremists who seek to ban ideas from the classroom are really attempting to accomplish is to impose a single version of history on our young people. Such has been the aspiration of every totalitarian regime in the era of mass politics. The extremist goal today is to impose the pseudo-classical and crypto-Christian variant of history on everyone in the form of the tedious and pitiful Hillsdale College curriculum for history.
Does it surprise anyone that the astute scholarship of a Black woman has become the specific target of the far right in this country? The extremist response to this charge will be to tell you to read Thomas Sowell. As if . . . .
Thanks for the clarification, Mr. Myovich. I stand corrected.
I stand glumly corrected. I’ve been saying for years that CRT isn’t taught in high school cuz that’s what I kept hearing, but now I know it can be taught in advanced courses – I assume, to kids who want to be taught it?
That makes Leandra’s ban extra lame – it’s banned everywhere in the district except for where it’s actually taught.
Hello,
OCSCS teacher here. While I appreciate the depth of your analysis, I can’t help but detect a bit of biased slant in there.
Based on some of your comments, I think you would agree with many of the educational philosophies held by Dr. Fisher and the staff she hand picked.
The direction we wanted to move as a school would never be approved under PYLUSD, regardless of the boards political leanings.
“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
I
Go on… You were saying?
Mr. Casperson, the idea that politics would not play into this vote sounds a bit naive. Dr. Fisher was either ignorant or lying about the proposed revisions. She is a darling of Cherniss, Blades, and Frazier. That’s why they tried to rush these revisions through after the school had been open only 3+ months. Revisions that would have violated ed code. In addition, her behavior during the board meeting was completely unprofessional.
The fact that she hand picked a staff is also a red flag. It makes the staff even easier to manipulate. Besides her unhinged behavior, the other takeaway from that meeting was not that kids at OCSCS deserve to be educated, it was the sense that they are somehow entitled to MORE than other kids, and no one has answered why that is. Maybe you would be willing to address that.
I understand your concerns but I believe the conclusions you have drawn are rooted in assumptions you have made.
I will not speak on behalf of Dr. Fisher, but I can assure you that 1) we all want more for all kids than what our current education system has to offer, and 2) Dr. Fisher has worked tirelessly to create a path for us to build it.
Mr. Casperson, it seems as if you want to assert your claims (without evidence) while questioning others, then retreating to the safety of your position as a teacher at the school. As for what you claim as my assumptions, they are not, in fact assumptions.
Dr. Fisher (or you for that matter) cannot use the fact the she works so hard as some sort of crutch. People work hard at a variety of tasks, that does not necessarily mean those tasks are inherently good. For all her hard work, Dr. Fisher was spectacularly wrong. For example, her pair-share demonstration was a paradigm of getting out over your skis. She was so confident that the charter was going to remain dependent, and the attorney showed her to be wrong. Anyone with a modicum of humility would have apologized just as publicly as she made a fool of herself.
The fact that USI was going to be included had nothing to do with what you are trying to achieve at OCSCS. We know this because it was never going to be at OCSCS and was never part of the original charter. USI has been a boondoggle from its inception. Add to it that it would have been illegal to transfer it over an independent charter shows that for all her hard work, Dr. Fisher was either ignorant or complicit. That’s not an assumption.
As an inclusion specialist working with Special Education students, you should be concerned that the independent charter was going to rely on PYLUSD to fund special education (yes, because it’s expensive) but that shows that OCSCS wanted it fake and to eat it too.
Dr. Fisher has made it very clear how close she is to Dr. Cherniss, a serial liar (we have published videos using evidence from PUBLIC board meetings that show he lied about having a relationship with the vendor for USI and needing DSA approval, which put board members in legal jeopardy). Whether most people realize it or not, the board is the boss of everyone in the district, from classified staff to the superintendent. The manner in which v he and Dr. Fisher speak to their bosses is completely unprofessional. You would not accept that behavior from your students. Yet, Dr. Fisher touts him as a charter expert. Somehow neither he nor she were aware of the dependent/independent status? The transfer of all the equipment, including equipment that you use, was illegal? I find this incredibly hard to believe from people who rarely hesitate to toot their own horns. Leaders don’t just do the work, they do the work to do their best. If this is their best, good luck.
I understand your idealism, but what OCSCS is doing is not magic. While I am sure there were plenty of parents who spoke at the meeting who genuinely believe in the school, several were sandbaggers and known liars (Jess Battaglia is a local politician and advisory board member, Andy Falco is a liar).
She also claimed that becoming independent (let’s face it, she was wrong) was the only way to obtain funds and even mentioned El Rancho in OUSD. That school is not independent and borrowed money from the district it had to pay back. Essentially what Dr. Fisher wants it to buy a Ferrari on a Toyota budget and have someone else foot the bill (namely taxpayers). And of course, let’s not forget the attorney pointed out there are other sources of funds. You just have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and work for it, just like Teddy Roosevelt would have suggested.
I can see how Dr. Fisher can almost be charismatic. I also know that the staff at OCSCS trends on the younger side. She has created a siege mentality and maybe you all as staff feel like it’s you against the world. It’s not. Plenty of teachers do their jobs every day with far less under worse conditions, and they will continue to do so without having to resort to public tantrums a la Beth Fisher.
Here’s the thing: even bad people can do good things. Dr. Fisher has narcissistic tendencies. She likes the limelight, but not the microscope. She is not a good leader. A good leader would not brag about how much work she has done only to be shown how ignorant she is on the matter on which she claims to know so much. She wants to do what she wants and not be beholden to anyone, especially the taxpayers of PYLUSD. People throughout history have hidden behind the issue of doing what’s best for kids to pull off all kinds of shady things. From Tipper Gore with song lyrics to today’s manufactured panic about transgender people. “If it’s done in the name of helping kids, it must be above board.” If you are smart enough to pull up the Roosevelt allusion to attempt an argument, you should be just as smart to see the glaring inconsistencies in Dr. Fisher’s claims. Dr. Fisher may be a leader, but she is no Teddy Roosevelt.
But… but… What about the kids?
Again, all valid concerns and if we were communicating face to face I would be happy to engage. Unfortunately, the internet and the anonymity it provides has made it It far too easy for messages to be misinterpreted. So I will leave you with one additional quote:
“All I know is that my life is better when I assume that people are doing their best. It keeps me out of judgment and lets me focus on what is, and not what should or could be.“ – Brene Brown
That is all I care to share in the critics comments section. You can find me in the arena.
Oh. Apart from being cryptic, it looked like you hit send too quick.
(Arena? Do you mean the Octagon?)
No. I meant arena.
https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Learn-About-TR/TR-Encyclopedia/Culture-and-Society/Man-in-the-Arena.aspx
The comment (albeit cryptic) was meant as an invitation, not a threat.
I would not do well in an octagon.
Right with you on that.
But I don’t want to detract from PYLUSD for Truth’s challenge to you below, which I second.
All valid concerns but none I am willing to address in the present context.
Mr. Casperson,
You write that the conclusions drawn in the article I wrote “are rooted in assumptions you have made.” You do not, however, identify any false assumptions. Nor do you engage any false conclusions based on those assumptions. Instead, you offer your own set of false assumptions that I will identify and refute here.
One of your assumptions is that our “current education system” is incapable of offering what our kids need. This is a broad, vague, and general assumption that has little relevance to the problems created in the PYLUSD by the former board majority and former superintendent. Prior to their destructive takeover of the district, the PYLUSD offered many and various outstanding programs throughout the schools in the district. By almost every measure, the PYLUSD has been one of the best performing districts in the state and, therefore, the nation. Your obscure comment reinforces points made by the three extremist board members (and, yes, their extremism is something assumed here but will be explained a bit in a moment) and the former superintendent.
Dr. Fisher’s awful presentations at board meetings echo the disparaging comments made by Superintendent Cherniss and the three board extremists over the past four years. At one of the first board meetings, the former superintendent asserted that the district was failing because teachers were not teaching critical thinking skills and analytical writing. The three board extremists have reiterated such claims in various ways over the past four years. These assertions are factually incorrect and deeply insulting to the many dedicated teachers in the district. It is one of the main reasons why the staff received the former superintendent and three board members so frostily at the teacher assemblies that kicked off this school year. While admittedly there are teachers in the district who supported the former superintendent, most teachers are angry and disgusted with him. As were the majority of voters in November’s election.
You also make the curious assertion that OCSCS needed a charter status (you strangely avoided the key questions related to the issue of dependent and independent charter status) that would allow the school to operate autonomously from the PYLUSD Board. You then add insult to injury by claiming that the direction OCSCS is taking “would never be approved under PYLUSD, regardless of the boards (sic) political leanings.” The fact is that the board has been exceedingly generous in its support of OCSCS, to the point where other schools have begun raising fundamental questions of fairness to other schools in the district. The OCSCS has received a disproportionate amount of non-discretionary funding in the district. And perhaps you are too young and lack the knowledge to appreciate the outrageous privilege Fisher has been given in being allowed to “hand pick” her own staff. No other principal in the district is given that privilege. The fact is that over the last two years, the monthly board meetings have been little other than promotional ads for the OCSCS and USI, sponsored by the former superintendent and board president.
Your arrogant assertion that the PYLUSD board is incapable of supporting a program as allegedly dynamic and innovative as OCSCS is also a standing insult to the elected board members. While Marilyn Anderson is not an educator, her family has lived in the district over four generations and her children and grandchildren have attended our schools. Moreover, she has been an active member of numerous PTAs in addition to all the other community services she has provided. Tricia Quintero is an educator with advanced degrees in that field. We are most fortunate, however, to have Carrie Buck on the board. There are few people in the county who can measure up to her education, knowledge, and experience in the field of education. To claim that this board is incapable of engaging innovative educational programs is to fuel the spiral of arrogance and ignorance that Principal Fisher has persistently generated. The current board majority contrasts distinctly with the former board majority.
The former board majority (Blades, Youngblood, Frazier) are neither educated nor educators. Prior to their running for the board, they did not serve on PTAs. In some cases, their children did not attend our schools. Why, then, would they even want to run for the school board? The simple and accurate answer is that their pastors colluded with powerful forces in the charter school movement and the Republican Party to argue that the public schools are disastrous hotbeds of “woke” ideology under the pernicious control of the teachers union. Talk about unfounded assumptions! The OCSCS is the local manifestation of the Project 2025 quest to destroy public education as it has emerged from the inception of the republic and as has been articulated from Horace Mann (1796-1859) through John Dewey (1859-1952) to the present.
Another false assumption that you implicitly posit is that the current crisis in education operates outside of the broader crisis in our political culture. Education has always been nothing more and nothing less than a reflection of the broader culture. It is neither the singular cause nor the singular solution to broader problems in society. And the broader crisis in our political culture should be obvious to any thinking person. There is no greater condemnation of our education system than the fact that voters in this country just elected a pathological liar and obvious grifter whose entire campaign centered on emotional appeal.
Here is a brief overview of the broader political crisis. The citizens of this country elected a man who tried to overturn the results of a free and fair election four years ago and was not held to account because our institutions have been fundamentally corrupted. The citizens of this country elected a man whose refusal to follow elementary science-based protocols during a pandemic resulted in around 400,000 needless deaths of the 1.2 million that occurred. The public elected a man who bizarrely argued during the campaign that tariffs are a panacea to our trade deficit and national debt. The public elected a man who made the racist and ignorant claim that Haitians in Ohio were stealing and eating people’s pets. There is so much more. Clearly, our schools have failed.
Without going into further details, the previous board majority and superintendent in the PYLUSD all supported the re-election of Donald J. Trump. It is important to note this because this is the context in which the imposition of OCSCS and USI transpired. Neither program was either well-conceived or explained to the broader public. Both programs intended to divert taxpayer money from publicly accountable institutions such as the elected board of the PYLUSD into the private interests of the governing bodies that were to control OCSCS and USI. Ms. Ahliwalia provided strong evidence showing that this was by design.
It is often the case that people engaging in deliberate dishonesty will cite evidence in support of their arguments that confuse scales of analysis. For example, one will repeatedly hear how California’s public schools rank 46th out of 50 states as a way to condemn liberalism in general and the California Teachers Association in particular. What these same people never mention is that states like Texas and Florida are right there at the bottom with us. What do these three states have in common? Large populations of recent immigrants for whom English is a second language. Many of these immigrants live in poor, rural areas whose counties are very Republican red. Many of the poorest performing schools are in the red counties of California. Finally, all three states have large cities with enormous, impoverished neighborhoods. As Diane Ravitch has argued repeatedly, levels of wealth are the best predictors of academic performance as measured by standardized testing.
In conclusion, OCSCS is now charged with making a much better case than it has so far for its innovative programs. It is operating at a significant deficit and has not attracted many interested families from outside the district. It is also competing in an environment where other districts have implemented much more dynamic and compelling programs for engaging our technological future. Here is an example from the Anaheim Union High School District what can happen when a program is clearly conceived over a long period of time involving an honest conversation with all stakeholders and an investment from the broader community:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLwFohSDjxM
Please feel free to contact me. I appreciate your perspective but I am not comfortable continuing the conversation in a comments section.
My comments and assertions were intentionally vague because of the broader political climate. I have never known socio-economic privilege and I have my own family to consider. I will not risk my ability to provide for them by engaging in digital discourse which inherently lacks all the critical components of productive interpersonal communication.
Aside from the veiled attacks on my character, I appreciate your thoughts and perspectives, as well as your ability (and willingness) to communicate them.
I am not arguing that you are incorrect in your analysis of the information available to you. I am simply suggesting that you may be missing some important puzzle pieces. Having a vested interest in all this “Charter Madness,” I am hoping for an opportunity to share them with you.
Well, thanks at least for including your e-mail this time.
But members of the public don’t get much out of the private conversations you want to have with your questioners and critics. THIS HERE IS THE “ARENA.”
I respectfully disagree. This is the critics platform. The Arena is the antiquated US education system. While the critics spend their time discussing what should or should not be done to fix it, the credit belongs to the men/women who sacrifice their time to enact evidence-based initiatives designed to bring about actual change.
Well said, Mr Casperson.
Mr. Casperson,
It is difficult to make sense out of what you have written in response to my summary and analysis of the many revelations of Ms. Ahliwalia at the January 14 board meeting. She provided many pieces of the puzzle to which you refer, yet you have failed to let us know what you learned from her revelations. Or perhaps, as you seem to infer, you did understand the revelations but are afraid to speak about them because you fear the repercussions of admitting that the revelations of January 14 made Principal Fisher look foolish and dishonest. Your motives are not of interest here. Your ability to honestly engage facts is.
What is most disturbing is your suggestion that you have privileged access to some of the puzzle pieces that other members of the public do not. There is an abundance of evidence suggesting that the three extremist board members have regularly funneled closed session information to select individuals supporting their agenda who then reveal this illegally obtained information selectively to the public to promote their agenda. Are these the pieces of the puzzle that you are willing to share with me privately but not publicly? Has Principal Fisher, your former Garden Grove colleague and current principal, conveyed closed session information to you illegally provided to her by Blades or Frazier of Cherniss or Gates? If so, it is your duty as a citizen to report these Brown Act violations to the proper authorities. There are people who follow this blog site who would be more than happy to help you make such a report. These same people could help you navigate the challenges of the Orange County District Attorney’s office, which seems consistently reluctant to investigate certain groups of people.
We all have a vested interest in a transparent engagement of facts as we know them. This blog is one of the few places where in depth analysis of the systemic effort to undermine public schools in Orange County occurs. People are either willing to have an open and honest public discussion of this issue or they are not.
I wish we lived in a world where we could have open and honest discourse on digital platforms without fear of repercussions.
If I have learned anything about communicating with others over the internet, it is that people rarely assume best intentions or seek a common understanding. Instead, they seek validation of preconceived ideas and reasons to discredit anyone who may challenge those ideas. You demonstrated both of these in your previous comment by insinuating we are a group of untrustworthy individuals conducting nefarious back-room meetings. You have also clearly spent some time looking into my background, but have yet to reach out to me directly, suggesting you are more interested in finding reasons to discredit me than having an open and honest conversation.
I don’t fault you for this as the human brain is wired to distrust anything it can’t categorize neatly. Which is why digital dialogue can never truly be open and honest. For that reason, and in conjunction with “the broader political climate,” I am not comfortable sharing any information that could potentially be used as political cannon fodder against me or the people I care about.
We have much more in common than you probably believe and I truly appreciate your perspectives. I simply wanted to reach out and offer you an opportunity to broaden those perspectives with the hope that I may mitigate the damage inflicted on my friend, and genuinely good human being, Dr. Beth Fisher.
If you are not interested in engaging in any sort of genuine human interaction, I understand, and will have to just wait for the right opportunity to write my own blog.
I will leave you with a quote my father shared with me and echoes in my head every day.
“What we know builds walls around what may be.”
All the best,
Check your inbox Craig.