What Carol Guerrero Said to the BOARD April 27 & May 11

It is difficult to hear /see etc. behind the chain link fence at those board meetings on 5th Ave. Thankfully, Carol G. has sent her commentary to brickwall399@yahoo.com for all to read during the duty-free portion of their lives:

April 27, 2009
To the attention of the SUHSD school board members:

I am speaking tonight to follow up on a letter that I sent to the board a month ago asking that the Board reinstate Karen Janney as assistant superintendent. I thought I was rather persuasive but I have had no response.
Karen is one of the best administrators if not the best in the district and her removal sends the message that in this district politics is more important than competence. She has a know reputation including Principal of the Year for the State of California. Has this board lost its moral compass? Has this board lost its sense of responsibility to students and to improving their education? How can the other teachers and administrators have confidence in you or the superintendent when they see one of our best and brightest treated in this fashion?
I am trying to imagine some basis for Dr. Gandara’s decision. I don’t personally know Dr. Gandara but I do know Karen so permit me to speculate. Perhaps the superintendent finds it difficult to work with someone who is smarter than he is, since Karen is one of the brightest people I know. Perhaps he has difficulty working with someone who has more knowledge and vision then he does, since she is the one behind such efforts as the district publication “Putting the Pieces Together” which summarizes the research based strategies for school improvement. Perhaps he has difficulty working someone who has better human relations skills than he does or with someone who is able to build consensus among people of differing opinions. I worked with her on the common calendar committee. She asked me to be on the committee because she know that I strongly supported the year round calendar. She also invited other teachers with strong positions in favor of a traditional calendar. She invited parents, classified staff, and administrators of varying opinions to participate in a process. All voices were respectfully heard and we eventually came to consensus on a solution we all could accept. People who are consensus builders, like Karen, have credibility because we know that all opinions have been heard and the solution is one that moves all of us forward. She helped us work together for the good of the district, which is exactly the role of an excellent administrator. Perhaps Dr. Gandara has difficulty working with dynamic women, because of his unexamined gender biases. Strong leaders actually choose to surround themselves with competent men and women so his request to have Karen removed from her leadership position tells us something about Dr. Gandara. This would be emperor has no clothes. Why are you pretending he is dressed?
Rumor has it that the Superintendent asked that Karen be removed because he did not trust her. Part of Karen’s good reputation rests exactly on her insistence that we do the right thing. If Dr. Gandara can not trust her, his aims conflict with the mission, goals, or values of this district.
I ask you again to correct this mistake, to support Karen and her excellent work in both leadership and school reform, to return confidence to the community that decisions of this board are in the interests of education rather than someone’s personal or political agenda.

Carol P. Guerrero
Montgomery High School

Carol G. visited the board again on Monday night before closed session and followed up, again.:

May 11, 2009
TO THE ATTENTION OF THE SWEETWATER BOARD OF EDUCATION

This evening I am returning to follow up on the public input you received at the last board meeting about the injustice done by Dr. Gandara to Karen Janney in demoting her without cause. After listening to all the speakers and with time for reflection, I have returned for two reasons. One is to return posters of the SUHSD Statement of Mission, Goals, and Values as a symbolic protest against Dr. Gandara. Since it is not a guide for the superintendent, various colleagues and I are returning them. Dr. Gandara has violated both the letter and spirit of this document, and his disrespect for the consensus of the stakeholders in this community discredits him. Although there are numerous specific examples provided at the last board meeting of his failure to be guided by the district’s stated mission and values, I would like to bring up one not previously mentioned. Under “Parameters”, the document states “We will not tolerate ineffective performance by anyone”. Dr. Gandara left the most ineffectual principal that I have worked with in my thirty some years of teaching to dismantle the award winning improvement process in place at Montgomery High. This principal was allowed to continue in his position for almost three years even thought Dr. Gandara knew about his inadequate leadership. At the same time, the person who has been instrumental in supporting school improvement efforts that directly benefit students was demoted in a disrespectful and undignified manner. Is this effective performance? Does the board not see that Dr. Gandara’s decisions hurts students? Is the board tolerating ineffective performance as well?

Following the example of Ms. Janney, who always asked us to bring a solution if we came to complain about something, we are offering a solution to this injustice. This solution will help the board reestablish its image of integrity and dedication to students. Karen Janney should be hired as superintendent to replace Dr. Gandara. In fact, Ms. Janney has been the district’s educational leader since she was hired as assistant superintendent. Now, she should be given the recognition for her excellent work by promoting her to Superintendent. Having worked with her at Montgomery, my colleagues and I can assure you that she is a highly professional, knowledgeable, and effective leader. Her awards, including Principle of the Year of the State of California, are based on her dynamic and inspirational leadership. She successfully lead the district’s school improvement activities just as she lead the ones at Montgomery. She successfully brought the various factions together to agree on a common calendar. She builds positive relationships with teachers. Teachers would not be demonstrating outside every board meeting if she were superintendent. In addition, she is the one who knows the leaders in this district and has the long-standing commitment to this district. Ms. Janney, rather than Dr. Gandara, is the one who appropriately applies business principles to the educational setting by using the ideas of the best service industries. Schools are a service industry. She gave the book, Gung Ho by Ken Blanchard, to all the staff at Montgomery. In that book, Blanchard stresses the importance of customer relations and teamwork. The focus there, as it should be here, is on the customer (our students) and teamwork. These are concepts that dominate contemporary practice of successful businesses. This is a business model that is appropriate for schools, not the outdated top down management style espoused by Dr. Gandara. Dr. Gandara seems to believe the primary job of the superintendent is to handle the finances of a district and oversee its facilities. This demonstrates flawed judgment about what is important in a school district. These are support functions, not the main job. Without an appreciation of the core mission of the school district—to improve the education of students—a superintendent cannot effectively allocate limited funding resources. On the other hand, Ms. Janney would seek forward-looking solutions to the budget crisis while keeping the mission of the district her primary focus. Given the changing priorities at the national level, the district could benefit from school improvement funds soon to be available from the Obama administration. Ms. Janney is the hard working and visionary leader with the capacity to tap into these new funds, which are designated to support innovative programs to improve student learning. She is the one who helped develop the programs already in progress in the district and she would know how they could be supported and expanded to make them most effective.

It has occurred to us that perhaps one reason the board continues to back Dr. Gandara is because you want a Latino as superintendent of our diverse district. We all agree with your support of diversity at all levels. On a personal level, my husband is from Mexico and our children are all bilingual and bicultural. However, diversity should not be used as a reason to retain someone who is not providing positive, dynamic leadership. Now is the time for a different kind of diversity. It is time to break the glass ceiling we still have in the Sweetwater District. By hiring Ms. Janney not only would we promote diversity by having the first woman superintendent but we would get an exceptionally qualified leader. The current superintendent has had three years to initiate an educational change process and has not done so. Dr. Gandara’s actions have brought only conflict because of his divisive and authoritarian tactics in dealing with teachers and staff.

Ms. Janney operates on the belief that good will prevail and so do we. You have been accomplices to an unjust act. I ask you again to correct your mistake. Assist Dr. Gandara is his desire to return to Texas and replace him with a transformational leader who will truly focus on improving the education of our students. Hire a superintendent who believes in and bases her actions on the district’s stated Vision, Mission, and Values. Hire Karen Janney.

Carol P. Guerrero
Teacher
Montgomery High School