Editor,
School Board President Jan Vickers boldly defended LBUSD defiance of a state court ruling, insisting attempted nullification of a judicial order was “driven by our commitment to our students and community.”
The first “commitment” of public school officials is to honor the oath to uphold our laws. Only then can public education properly meet its commitment to encourage disciplined self-discovery, good character and citizenship, along with learned skills for success in life.
The school board’s lack of measured governance once again became conspicuous when five young people in our town acted out negative race socialization. Well-managed, timely private as well as appropriate public truth and reconciliation would’ve made personal responsibility, just resolution, healing and closure possible.
Instead, a full year later school board political and legal jousting prevents the “resilient” response school officials promised. Vickers’ remarks confirm the school board misread community concern as demand for extraordinary punishment.
Officiously acting as judge and jury, the school board authorized conclusory findings of guilt in official student records, using code words for hate crimes and aggravated anti-social hostility.
Ironically, students might have been better off in the juvenile criminal justice system. Instead our school board imposed life sentences fearing disclosure of official government records, effectively criminalizing one night of really bad choices by minors.
All future academic or employment applications requiring school records may trigger disclosure of juvenile offenses tantamount to crimes, even though police declined to prosecute.
Predictably challenged in court, the judge rejected school board arguments that state laws on student gang or internet crimes give school officials discretion to punish virtually any off campus anti-social student behavior.
Instead of a motion to stay the court’s order pending appeal, the school district chose unlawfully to ignore the ruling, grandiosely announcing it would appeal the judge’s “failure to understand law.”
That meant denial of relief the court granted, namely removal of punitive entries in school records before the student submitted college applications. The school district lost in court but arrogantly acted as if it won, and could make the student suffer the same outcome despite prevailing in a court of law.
Only when the judge scheduled a hearing to determine if the school district should be held in contempt of court did our school board grudgingly comply with the court’s original order.
The board’s negative socialization in civic relations is now a matter of official court record.
Howard Hills, Laguna Beach
In its own report in this edition on this School Board court case fiasco, the Laguna Beach Independent states that an appeal stays execution of a court order “unless there is harm.” Standing alone that legal technicality confuses readers, when the nature and purpose of the order is to prevent a specific known harm. The School District is not a private party free to manipulate and evade the clear meaning of a legal ruling out of self-interest, just to see what it can get away with.
In this case, the School District is an arm of the state government acting under state law to punish an individual citizen. When the court rules that the School District does not have the power to impose a punishment, the opinion of school officials about whether the judge is right or wrong does not give the School District the right or the power to disobey the order. The appeal cannot be treated as a stay when the harm of punishment prohibited by the order is known to the government agency, especially when that harm may be irreversible if punishment it imposed during pendency of any appeal.
Whether any one agrees or disagrees with the punishment or the order prohibiting it is irrelevant. If the court is wrong that is for the appellate court to decide, certainly not the very government agency that imposed the punishment, or the lawyer who lost the case at the trial level. This is basic civic literacy that should not have to be explained to our School Board.
The behavior being modeled by our School Board to students and the public is that citizens do not need to obey the law or act in good faith if not in agreement with responsibilities and duties arising under rules upholding our social, civic and legal order. Our School Board has a long record of not consistently upholding its own rules willing to responsibilities, now it has publicly flaunted defiance of a clear and unambiguous order of a state court.
This is not a case of principled civil disobedience by the School Board to protect student rights in a general sense, as misleadingly claimed in the statement released by the School District. This defiance of the judicial process denied an individual student’s rights under a court order that applied specifically to that student rather than generally.
Again, whether anyone agrees with the punishment misses the point entirely. It was an act of bad faith to disobey the order when by its own terms the order identified the harm the court intended to prevent. That means that in good faith the School District did not have the option of treating the appeal as a stay.
If it was acting in good faith it would have filed a motion asking the court if it could leave the punishment standing during pendency of the appeal. But as so often is the case the School Board thought it could get away with violating the court’s order and have its way by punishing the student during the appeal in the very manner the court order prohibited. The court should have held the School District in contempt, but the student’s lawyer receded from that demand once school officials retreated from open defiance of the court order.
The School District has modeled bad faith and a form of cheating for students, who, by the way, are keenly aware of this case and watching closely. One thing not all but most students and parents know is that if Dr. Culverhouse had been here she would have understood how to transformed complex dynamics into a morally cathartic moment for the victim, the young people who acted outside the ranger of acceptable choices and values we uphold, and for the school community.
Instead this process has been managed negligently by adults who think it is about them. School Board members with no depth of experience in racial socialization or anti-discrimination issues ignored their own paid consultants and gave priority to positioning themselves on the right side but at a distance from the incident. Instead of the buck passing up the chain, the Board passed the buck to the Superintendent, who then passed it to the Principal, who on multiple occasion already had demonstrated a unique lack of academic and administrative leadership.
Instead ensuring that if the public schools were going to assert authority in this matter those involved would be drawn into a safe process of truth and reconciliation, the School Board and school officials were thrown off balance by press reports that “police are investigating the incident as possible hate crimes.” As a result, the School Board underreacted to the need for leadership and overreacted on the need for consequences establishing that they were not guilty even if the students were.
Accordingly, the students involved in this off-campus incident were given punishments more severe than students in involved in on campus incidents involving race, gender and wealth privilege speech and acts creating a hostile education environment in our schools. As a result, the School Board has created moral confusion rather than clarity about the incident and the capacity of the School District to manage these vital issues of character and justice competently.
The facts speak louder than words, a year later drama and lack of closure persists, focused not on the students but the adults responsible for learning from bad choices to make good ones.
Thank you for this. I hope that the reporter read your thorough explanation. Would you be able to find out how much of our tax dollars has been spent on legal fees? I have asked this paper to do so, but they are not willing to. For some reason, they seem to be siding with the school board and district on this issue, even though a judge has ruled differently. How much is being spent? Why isn’t it being spent on actual education for our children?
What type of smug, entitled, arrogance does LBUSD possess to send out a press release championing a losing yearlong court case where they spend thousands of tax payer dollars, then only comply to the Judge’s ruling once they are faced with being placed in Contempt of Court. When did Laguna Beach’s public employees start feeling they were above the law?
Why are they so keen to ruin this kids future? What could be lacking in the school board’s lives to make them to power hungry they think they are above the law all the rest of us have to follow?
It’s really sad that these parents have to sue a school district to protect their own child; perhaps the parents of the other kids involved don’t have thousands to tie up in court against a school system that shouldn’t be overstepping their bounds anyway and breaking the law blatantly.
Steve Butler and Concerned Citizen (Sorry for typos due to rushed replies between other tasks):
The School Board employs big time politically connected OC law firms to defend whatever the School District does. The goal is to never lose, to always win, and even when they lose they declare victory. The law firms that represent multiple government agencies indoctrinate local elected officials to believe they need to make an example of anyone who challenges them in court or there will be more and more legal cases.
The laws actually favor government and it is a real burden to sue the government agencies, so it is rare for citizens to take legal action or for agencies to lose. That has made the local agencies like the School Board unrestrained in using aggressive tactics. As I have told the Board on the record on numerous occasions, based on responses to my own inquiries on legal issues it became clear to me the standard applied is not “what is right?” but rather “What can we get away with?” The Board can violate its own ordinances (called Board Bylaws ad Board Policies) and even state education code without consequences because the burden shifts to the private individuals impacted to bring a court case, and the laws favor the government.
One problem is that the Board has been indoctrinated that the Superintendent and District staff is a virtual co-equal branch of government like the federal model, but in reality the Superintendent has no power independent of the Board, and under law the Board is legally responsible (and liable) for all acts of school officials. Yet, normally as a general practice the Board does not deal with the lawyers hired by the Superintendent directly in most cases, instead the Superintendent decides what questions to ask the lawyer and controls the manner in which legal advice is reported back to the Board. No one on the Board has the ability to pierce the veil of legal obfuscation this has engendered. Legal counsel do not attend meetings to the Board and public do not get the chance to evaluate the lawyer’s advice.
Another problem is that the School Board retains bug expensive law firms that are paid from local property tax dollars, but when a case becomes expensive the cost in paid by a state wide litigation consortium that essentially insures government agencies against court costs in cases where large liabilities are at stake. This makes litigation a consequence free activity, at least in the minds of inexperienced school officials promoted to positions that exceed their competence, which LBUSD has a tendency to do more often than not. Of course, there is no true free lunch and the School Board pays premiums for the litigation consortium that are significant, although so far I have been unable to find out what total legal costs are each year.
This recent case is not even close to the worst abuse of legal process and taxpayers in bad faith by LBUSD. Several years ago a teacher was accused of having alcohol on her breath and sent home against her will. There was never any proof or due process, but a letter was placed in her file documenting it as misconduct. She sued and the School District incurred legal costs in addition to hundreds of thousands of dollars, estimated at $800,000, paid by the state insurance consortium. In the end premiums go up and cases thought should have been negotiated and settled go to court because unprofessional senior school officials think proving they can win right or wrong is somehow making an example of anyone challenging school authority. In that case the court ruled in favor of the teacher that the School Board had acted properly and unfairly, but because it awarded her tens of thousands of dollars but not higher amounts sought the School Board declared that it won!
The School Board missed the chance to turn last years learning moment about bad choices by students into a character building opportunity. It then blew the punishment phase, and then the court process. It should quit now and as we were taught in the Senior Managers in Government Program at the Harvard JFK School of Government, when you find yourself in a hole and don’t know how you go there or how to et out, first thing is to put downtime shovel. This case should not be appealed, it only makes it worse for all.
Thank you again for your informative reply. Would you happen to know at what number legal fees leave the local level and move to to the consortium? Also, is there a cap on the consortium monies paid out? In October, the board approved a legal fund of $170,000 without any accountability to the public.
“Public education is a socialist monopoly, a real one.” – The Late Milton Friedman
“In 1950, we spent (in 1989 dollars) $1,333 per student. In 1989 we spent $4931. As John Silber, the President of Boston University, has written, ‘It is troubling that this nearly fourfold increase in real spending has brought no improvement. It is scandalous that it has not prevented substantial decline.’ ” – William J. Bennett, former Secretary of Education, in The De-Valuing of America
Today, impressionable kids from 1st grade through graduate school are brainwashed by Marxists in public education, the socialist monopoly. America is the poorer for it.