Last Stop on Kiko's Electric Kool-Aid Tour: Team Unruly Visits the Merry Pranksters of the East Side Union High School District Board of Trustees

The journey goes on forever when Kiko’s at the wheel. Leaving our international alternative press empire for a tour of America’s education heartland has been the definition of a long strange trip. Once we noticed the beer was running out, Kiko decided to pull the bus to a halt at 830 North Capitol Avenue in beautiful East San Jose.

Standing near the entry gate, we wondered how the East Side board of trustees would measure up to the horrors witnessed on our cross-country trek. After all, we had seen the worst humanity could offer to those entrusted with educating America’s youth — rubber rooms, charter takeovers, board-sanctioned pro-life rallies, L. Ron Hubbard novels, Randy Ward’s moistened lips. Could the East Side board sink to those depths?

Yes, they were responsible for hiring a superintendent who made Randy Ward and Terry Ryan look like rank amateurs in the autocracy department . And faithful East Side teachers and Unruly Advocate readers know if someone ever builds a Hall of Fame for Scandalous Local Politicians, this guy’s framed picture will be right by the front door . However, with Zendejas gone East Side’s board appears more incompetent than maniacal. Their dysfunction is sadly emblematic of many school boards across the nation — abuses of power, inflated egos, micromanaged policy, personality clashes, litigation threats, rampant nepotism, gratuitous cronyism, fiscal improprieties, all done with one eye searching for the right moment to run for a higher public office. True, they hired the worst superintendent the district had ever seen, but at least they aren’t conspiring to build a Grossmont-style theocracy.

That doesn’t excuse their dysfunction, nor make them any less Kiko-worthy.

This year the ESUHSD trustees went out of their way to avoid scandal. With three board members facing reelection campaigns in the fall, it’s easy to see they want to put the past two years behind them — and out of the voting public’s memory. The Advocate reported on the opening year mea culpa all staff meeting back in September, where a worried J. Manuel Herrera apologized for the error of the Zendejas era . Two months later, they dodged a bullet when staff in-fighting and personal squabbles sank the Andrew Hill charter movement, the other politically damaging Zendejas debacle leftover. Though we documented some of their foolish antics in our January “Cirque du Stupide” issue, Manuel Herrera’s ill-conceived mayoral bid remained the only ridiculous newsworthy event in the early months of 2006.

As the first anniversary of the infamous pink-slip scandal approached, the Unruly Advocate editorial board wondered how many teachers would fall to the March 15th axe. Would the number of layoff notices reach the abysmal height of 965? Would we need to roll out a special edition of the Advocate? Nope. Only 12 people were let go from the ESUHSD this year thanks to a quiet edict informing school administrators to only dismiss temporary teachers nearing tenure. The edict begs the question, how do those who blame tenure for public education’s ills respond when school district officials tell principals to hold on to poor-performing teachers to save political face?

Alas, even that minor event failed to inspire our Swiftian quills. Where, dear reader, were the ghosted emails, the attempts to run over board colleagues, the abuse of credit card privileges that kept us churning out issues of our beloved Advocate faster than a factually accurate Mercury News editorial? Had the board eradicated their propensity for scandal and stupidity?

Not quite.

Like the old adage about a room full of monkeys typing up Shakespeare, when a group of fools run a school board sooner or later something foolish will happen. After spending months trying to avoid political embarrassment, East Side’s board of trustees decided retaining legal representation at district expense to sue each other would be a fitting end to the school year.

It started when the ESUHSD board realized they needed to set a graduation policy for students who failed to pass California’s high school exit exam. Its initial implementation stalled by a series of lawsuits, 2006 marked the first year the exam would be a statewide graduation requirement. The state legislature and CDE granted individual school boards the authority to set their own policies for failing students, most of whom were designated special education or English language learners. Though the exam faced some last minute court challenges, conventional wisdom held passing the CAHSEE to graduate was inevitable. Some school districts had the foresight to develop a firm policy before the 05-06 school year began. Others waited to see what would happen with the legal challenges before setting a policy. Others procrastinated.

In March the requirement was law. East Side’s board considered a variety of options. Hardliners like Craig Mann believed students who failed to meet the requirement should not be allowed to participate in graduation ceremonies, regardless of the student’s personal circumstances. Others, like Patricia Martinez-Roach, felt students who earned the necessary credits should be allowed to graduate whether they passed the CAHSEE or not. The board considered the concept of awarding a “Certificate of Completion” for students who earned the credits but failed the exam. On a 4 to 1 vote, the board denied graduation participation to anyone who failed the CAHSEE. Patricia Martinez-Roach, angered by the decision, abruptly left the meeting in tears.

By the middle of April, a judge issued an injunction against the CAHSEE requirement. The issue, it turns out, wasn’t over. The board decided to revisit the policy once the court challenges were resolved.

Behind the scenes, however, the debate was quickly turning personal. Board members exchanged heated emails criticizing respective positions on the CAHSEE issue. At the beginning of May, the case was settled and the state moved forward with allowing the exam to affect graduation eligibility. A few weeks prior to graduation, East Side’s trustees again voted on allowing those who failed the CAHSEE to participate in graduation ceremonies. This time the vote was 2 to 2; board president J. Manuel Herrera had a change of heart. However, since trustee George Shirakawa was absent, the lack of a majority forced the board to revert to the established policy. The students would not graduate. Martinez-Roach exchanged heated barbs with her colleagues during the public debate on the issue. Visibly disappointed with the outcome, she wagged her finger at Lan Nguyen to shame him for turning his back on English language learners. Nguyen, a graduate of East Side’s Andrew Hill High School, was enrolled in ESL courses during high school.

The decision angered affected parents across the district. With the next board meeting scheduled four days before the beginning of graduation week, the trustees decided to avoid an angry mob and the potential for political humiliation. They cancelled the meeting and rescheduled it for the week after graduation.

At the rescheduled meeting, trustee Nguyen announced that he wanted Martinez-Roach reprimanded because he felt that she publicly bullied him at the last meeting. Martinez-Roach countered that Nguyen, Shirakawa and Mann were violating the Brown Act in a coordinated effort to publicly embarrass her. She threatened to seek legal recourse, causing trustee Shirakawa to dust off his bravado as he challenged her to “bring it on.”

Craig Mann sat back and smiled.

President Herrera attempted to be the voice of reason. Unfortunately, reason was outnumbered 4 to 1. They tabled the finger-wagging discussion for a special meeting. When dates were suggested, Martinez-Roach said she could not attend on June 22.

The three-person majority scheduled the meeting for June 22.

At that special meeting, President Herrera read a letter from Martinez-Roach asking to postpone this discussion until she could be present. Once finished, Mann, Nguyen, and Shirakawa lobbied to hire a well-known and expensive law firm to conduct an investigation into Martinez-Roach’s finger-wagging — at district expense. Herrera pointed out that an investigation was unnecessary since the entire board, superintendent, district administrators and members of the public witnessed the incident in question. Furthermore, Martinez-Roach did not dispute their charge. She admits she wagged her finger. Her finger-wagging was caught on tape. What’s left to investigate?

Maybe the fact that Shirakawa, Mann, and Nguyen all came to the table with the name of the expensive law firm with a solid reputation for investigative expertise in gratuitous finger-wagging. If the anti-finger wagging brigade settled on a particular law firm and a rehearsed script for the special finger-wagging meeting in a series of private emails, they just might be guilty of violating the Brown Act. Martinez-Roach’s conspiracy theory had the appearance of credibility.

Herrera motioned to postpone the discussion until Roach could be present. His motion was shot down in favor of spending more district money on political grudges and personal vendettas.

The CAHSEE issue remains a controversial topic in California politics with both sides laying claim to valid arguments. However, no one can deny the ESUHSD board of trustees has allowed the issue to devolve into a hissy fit over Martinez-Roach’s apoplectic index finger. Martinez-Roach erred significantly in her public reaction to Nguyen. But hiring a private law firm at district expense to investigate the incident? That’s beyond ridiculous. If Nguyen, Shirakawa, and Mann have coordinated an effort to humiliate Martinez-Roach during an election year, they merely managed to embarrass themselves. Did East Side’s teachers really accept minus 2% of the yearly COLA so the board could hire lawyers to sue each other?

While quick to defend themselves from each other, this board has routinely failed to shield their constituents — including teachers and employees — from board member attack. Lan Nguyen, the candidate backed by the East Side Teachers Association, appears to be building an alliance with Craig Mann. If he continues to press for Martinez-Roach to be publicly reprimanded, The Unruly Advocate editorial board, if not the entire Unrulyrus community, demands that he equally push for Craig Mann to be censured for attacking teachers. Maybe Mr. Nguyen forgot about the time Craig tried to file an ethics complaint against him during the last board election? .

We haven’t.

The greatest evidence supporting Martinez-Roach’s conspiracy claim lies in the board’s failure to address Mann’s transgressions. They are willing to go all out over finger-wagging, but they’ll let one of their own verbally accost the teachers they purport to serve? Get over yourselves, Cirque du Stupide. Don’t waste our district’s money on political opportunism.

Though we’re running low on awards after such a tiring journey, when fools collide awards must be given. It’s a fitting end to present a round of Kikos to the yahoos responsible for introducing us to Kiko in the first place. As such, The Unruly Advocate Awards Committee sadly honors the following Kiko recipients. George “bring it on” Shirakawa, for using this silly incident to exact revenge on a long-standing political opponent (she might not be the brightest bulb in the box, but at least she reads up on her material George); Patricia “nepotism” Martinez-Roach, for consistently failing to work on building consensus with her board colleagues and excessive finger-wagging bullying; Lan Nguyen, for building an alliance with Craig Mann over an incident that falls into the water off a duck’s back category of offenses; and Craig “scandal” Mann, for wagging his hypocritical finger in some sort of attempt to lose what credibility he doesn’t have. Congratulations for reminding all of us that Zendejas was only part of East Side’s dysfunction.

Mr. Herrera, we almost gave you a Kiko for the silly mayoral bid. Your sensible approach to this issue knocked you out of award consideration — for now.