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| Since December 22, 2004 |
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THE UNRULY RESPONSE TO THE EAST SIDE UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT STATE OF THE DISTRICT ADDRESS |
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“This is a board of integrity.” — George Shirakawa, Jr. President, ESUHSD Board of Trustees“My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference.” — Harry S. Truman
Irony they have in spades.East Side’s Board of Trustees President George Shirakawa’s integrity pronouncement was the boldest irony of his first State of the District address, underscored by his introduction of fellow board colleagues like newly appointed trustee Eddie Garcia, whose close professional relationship to Shirakawa as a corporate lobbyist remains a glaring appearance of conflict. Or his calling trustee Frank Biehl a “parent advocate” when just last month he publicly scolded the newly elected Biehl for “political grandstanding” simply because Biehl thought it might be wiser for the sake of diversity to choose a woman for the board seat vacated by Craig Mann (to no one’s surprise, Shirakawa’s friend Eddie won the seat). He introduced Lan Nguyen who last May raised a complaint against former trustee Patricia Martinez-Roach that Shirakawa and Mann fabricated into a flimsy censure resolution conveniently timed as an October surprise to oust Roach. Nguyen voted in favor of censure despite publicly declaring he had accepted Roach’s apology. Word around the district is Nguyen is considering a city council run, which creates the appearance that keeping in favor with corporate connections is far more important than voting against a censure resolution he publicly appeared to oppose. Shirakawa thanked trustee J. Manuel Herrera, whose role in the Pat Roach scandal received noteworthy attention in a recent Metro article ( ) and who had no qualms showing his political stripes when the board chose Mann’s successor at the end of December. The Unruly Advocate’s feature on the appearance of conflict surrounding the candidates posted a week before the selection was made (see the December 2006 issue in our archives), and we must admit we made an egregious error. We speculated Herrera might throw his support behind young board aspirant Darcie Green because they had a mutual friend in State Assemblyman Joe Coto. Instead, Herrera grilled Green for being green both in education and political experience. Then he created a convoluted reason for not needing to endorse a woman, claiming voters gave the board a mandate to hire a guy because Roach lost the election, a canard so dubious you’d have thought Herrera was testifying for the defense at the Scooter Libby trial.
The irony might have been lost on the crowd given the stack of initiatives delivered in the address. The comment, on top of numerous references to strengthening relations with employee groups, hinted at an underlying concern troubling the trustees. It was a defensive declaration, pure and simple, sparked by a series of articles like the one cited above that have kept the integrity-challenged East Side trustees in the news. The political aspirants serving on the East Side board know they have critics and want to avoid having dirty laundry exposed that can come back to haunt them in future elections ( Perhaps this desire to avoid criticism served as the impetus for Shirakawa to promise a thousand dollar bonus to every employee. However, the solution is a bit more complex than throwing a few bucks at a problem to make it go away. Behave ethically and your critics will disappear. Lose the appearance of conflict and The Metro will stop finding reasons to investigate shady relationships between land developers and board members (). And for God’s sake stop using Esperanza Zendejas as the straw woman for the district’s ills. Zendejas did a world of damage that will take years to repair. The wounds she opened have just begun to heal, but she is a symptom of a much more pervasive disease. Employees throughout the district have longer memories than the board realizes. And the entire East Side community remembers quite well that two current board members voted to extend Zendejas’ contract before she became too much of a political liability.
Integrity means doing the right thing always. The $1000.00 bonus and the promise of full benefits are nice gestures, but a board with integrity would never have to promise its employees they will treat them well in the coming year. That gesture does more to highlight the egregious wrongs of the past than demonstrate a current willingness to do right. Full benefits should never be a political issue; teachers and staff working in some of the most challenging high schools in Santa Clara Valley deserve full benefits simply because it’s the right thing to do. Unfortunately, doing the right thing has never been an attribute associated with East Side’s trustees. Recent Metro articles show East Side’s elected officials do not worry much about the appearance of conflict, a critical judgment error given that appearance defines political reality. Take, for example, President Shirakawa’s proposal to create an academic foundation for East Side and to use one time monies to create a secondary reserve. Nice ideas to keep the district solvent in trying budget years, but only if the community trusts its elected fiduciary representatives. Problem is, every skeptic in the room raised an eyebrow at Shirakawa’s suggestion of creating two more pockets where money can be hidden, finagled, laundered and misappropriated by the unscrupulous few holding the purse strings. The fact that nobody trusts this noble intention (except the editorial lackey at the Mercury News whose depth of knowledge on education issues could fill one side of a matchbook cover, () indicates the depth of the board’s credibility problem.
There are steps the board can take to restore credibility with the East Side community. The first is a simple shift in semantics that could impact, even to a minor degree, the board’s governing philosophy. Throughout the State of the District address, Shirakawa referred to serving “customers,” an economic term used to describe students. He reminded the audience more than once with feel good simplicity that the board, district administrators, teachers and classified staff were here to serve their customers. The word “customers” implies that education is merely economic in character, a private sector enterprise that profits from the repeat business of satisfied customers and the entrepreneurial spirit of its employees. If “customers” receive an elevated status above all other stakeholders, the only groups who share that semantic relationship with the “management” on the board are students and vendors. Everyone else in the district merely provides service (and some would argue indentured service). Schools might be managed like a private sector business, but they are non-profit institutions. They do not serve the board’s customers. They serve the board’s “constituents.” The semantic denotation of “constituents” shifts the power back to all stakeholders—parents, community members, students, teachers and staff— and alters the perceived status of the school board from “upper management” to “public servant.” There’s a world of difference between a “manager” and a “servant.” There’s also a reason why school districts have a board of “trustees” instead of a board of “directors.” Ditching the economic metaphor might bring a little needed humility to East Side’s governance. Altering political thought is perhaps too tall an order devoutly to be wished. However, if East Side’s trustees truly desire to restore integrity, Team Unruly offers the following suggestions to shed light on the definition of integrity. 1. RESTORE TRUST: ELIMINATE THE APPEARANCE OF CONFLICT.Integrity is about earning other people’s trust. The board can restore the East Side community’s trust by proving that they want to serve this community and not profit from vendors and political connections. All it takes is a simple resolution: no trustee of the East Side Union High School District shall receive, during the course of his or her term, a campaign contribution from any vendor under contract with the ESUHSD. Any trustee who violates the resolution will be removed from office. 2. KEEP YOUR PROMISES: FIX WHAT’S BROKEN.East Side has a notorious reputation for not settling accounts with vendors throughout the county, state, and nation. A purchase order request submitted in September can take six months or longer to process. Too often the paperwork gets lost, the order never got placed, or the trail of needed signatures gluts the system to such a point that a chemistry teacher’s supplies ordered in the fall do not arrive until the school year ends in June. The system is so dysfunctional it makes an army requisition look like a model of efficiency. A new way to expedite orders and meet financial obligations is a dire district need. But this major annoyance has been district reality for well over a decade. The board knows it’s a problem and during many a campaign season has promised to fix it. Fulfilling promises is a key aspect of integrity. The solution is simple: institute a site-based management system that allows schools to prioritize spending and minimizes district-generated bureaucracy. The Edmonton model, though a bit too competitive in its purest form, offers a model of decentralization with proven results. Problem is, it takes a visionary school board willing to risk losing a bit of budgetary control to make the plan work. If East Side’s trustees can’t keep their promises, can we ever expect them to have the vision to implement such sweeping reforms? ( 3. ALWAYS SPEAK FOR THE DISENFRANCHISED.At a number of recent district events, including the State of the District Address, a powerpoint slide show highlighted all of the Measure G projects completed at sites around the district. Not highlighted are the problems Measure G failed to address. The oldest schools in the district continue to suffer because of gross construction fund mismanagement. While trustees and district officials scramble to address the needs of one-twelfth of the district (the Evergreen school community with the most vocal, wealthy, and politically connected parents), the communities with the least to offer politically begrudgingly accept that the needs of their particular school will be taken care of the next time a bond measure is passed. Skepticism remains high because this district reacts to problems instead of proactively addressing them. No school has suffered more in this particular arena lately than Andrew Hill. As of last May the promise of two new classroom buildings and the first real theater in the school’s history seemed to be on the horizon. Staff returned in September to discover only one of the promised buildings would be delivered and, students would continue to attend classes in a building with a sinkhole. Worse yet, the Mercury News overheard the district official in charge of facilities threatening to stall campus construction projects if the staff members raising concerns embarrassed him politically. Six months later, those projects were stalled. Talk about appearance of conflict! If you promise a community that you will rebuild their school, rebuild their school. And if you run out of money before the project is completed, do not cut corners. Move heaven and earth to ensure the job gets done, and gets done right. Remember, the families in East Side’s poorest communities count on their school board to advocate for their right to a free, appropriate and equitable public education. The dignity our schools can provide the many families in our district’s high poverty areas will say more about the character of the ESUHSD than constant catering to the vocal whims of an affluent few. To his credit, President Shirakawa argued that the board would not put the demand for a new south county high school above the needs of the existing eleven schools outside of the Evergreen boundary. It was a step in the right direction. If the board continues on that journey, they might discover the genuine meaning of integrity. And Shirakawa might convince his East Side constituents that a former vice-mayor of the 8th largest city in the United States genuinely believes that being the president of a high school district board of trustees is his “wildest dream.” |
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know East Side trustee J. Manuel Herrera is running for newly elected San Jose mayor Chuck Reed’s vacant city council seat? If you read last month’s issue of The Unruly Advocate you did. Did you know this vacant seat is located in the Piedmont Hills High School attendance boundary? Did you know that Piedmont Hill’s principal vacated his post two months after getting the job? Did you know that a group of angry parents, teachers, and community members met with district officials to vent frustrations about the lack of administrative stability plaguing Piedmont Hills? MARCH PREVIEWTeam Unruly remains rock solid in spite of some changes over the last few months. Two members of the Team retired last summer, a newbie from yet another East Side school jumped aboard, and two folks from Grossmont Unified in San Diego came to alert the masses to what life is like under theocratic school board rule. Offline discussions led to editorial decisions to return to a consistent monthly format with fewer stories. Look for the leaner edition of The Advocate this March, with a big feature, a Kiko award winner, and a couple of little surprises for your enjoyment. Can’t get enough of the Advocate? Jump into the daily fray by joining our community forum. Just click on the forum sidebar button, register and post away. |
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Integrity. A trait equally identifiable in those who have it and those who don’t. East Side is long on dubious distinctions, from expensive board campaigns to conflicts of interest to sweetheart deals to persistent board in-fighting. Integrity’s been in short supply for many years.
If Mr. Shirakawa believes this board has integrity, we must make one point very, very clear to East Side’s elected officials. The events listed above did not happen five or six years ago. They did not happen during the dark ages of Esperanza Zendejas’ two-year reign of terror. All of these events took place within the past six months. We didn’t even mention Shirakawa’s 60k war chest and questionable reelection commercial that ran on Comcast, the cable company that just so happens to employ new board member Eddie Garcia. That’s why the claim of integrity wasn’t mildly ironic Thursday night. It was Comcastically ironic.
Did you know that city council candidate Herrera decided that a meeting with angry parents and teachers would be a good time to pass out campaign literature? We thought you’d like to know!