The Gilbert Public Schools Governing Board will be meeting tonight, February 23, 2016. The agenda is controversial. Needlessly so. Members of the board and the administration have been flooded with correspondence from parents, students, citizens, dogs and cats.

One letter gave the history of the policy that Superintendent Christina Kishimoto is asking the board to suspend. This is the policy that tells GPS administrators the process that they will use (not “should use,” because it’s an order, not a suggestion) to notify parents of students and residents of the households affected by boundary changes. Boundary changes are an integral element of the statutory process for closing a junior high school and giving the campus to Gilbert Classical Academy. Would it surprise you to learn that GPS admins haven’t been able to figure out how to do these things? We thought not.

The letter is clear and the facts are compelling. The writer’s voice is calm and authoritative. Superintendent Christina Kishimoto should view this as a role model for her own communications with the community.

Dear Governing Board Members,

I am writing to express my concerns about an item on tomorrow night’s agenda. Tomorrow night you will be asked to vote on agenda item 7.04 – suspension of policy JC-R. I am sure Dr. Kishimoto will give you a list of reasons why you should vote to suspend this policy. I would like to give you a list of reason why each and every one of you should vote no.

Revisions to policy JC-R were last approved on March 5, 2013. The reason why the policy was revised was because of the debacle GPS created the last time they tried to close Gilbert Junior High in 2012. There was a lot of debate as to who should be notified of a school closure and when, as I am sure each of you remember. The resulting fracas created a public relations nightmare from which GPS has yet to recover. It was a wise move by the governing board at the time to look at the policy and clearly state the considerations, conditions and guidelines to be used when changing attendance areas. It was also prudent for the district to spell out exactly how notification was to occur and the timeline that was to be followed. Unlike many other votes during that time period, the vote was unanimous. You voted for that policy change, Ms. Tram, Ms. Smith, Ms. Humpherys and Mr. Colvin. [Note: Santa Cruz was not a board member at the time.]

Your policy, the one three of you thought was good enough to vote for back in 2013, states:

Parents of students and residents of the households affected by attendance boundary changes will be notified a minimum of ten (10) days prior to the public meeting. Notice will be given by:

* Written notification addressed to all residents located in the attendance area(s) subject to change.
* Written notification to the parents of affected students.
* Posting of notice on the District website.

Here we are again, just a few years removed from the 2012 Gilbert Junior High closing debacle and the district administration hasn’t learned a thing. Despite shoring up the policy in 2013, despite the superintendent quoting the policy in the January 26, 2016 after the vote to close either GJHS or MJHS and the district still did not provide proper and timely notification to all people your own policy states must be notified. Might I remind you that the Superintendent is supposed to answer to you. Whether willingly or inadvertently, whether her intentions were honest or deceptive, she did not do her job. And now, she is trying to deflect all responsibility on to YOU and ask YOU to suspend the policy that she was not willing to follow.

Now, Dr. Kishimoto might claim that she is just trying to save the district money and that the notification requirements are just too expensive. I have seen correspondence where she claims that “Policy JC-R sets internal procedures that are not financially viable” and “the cost of written notice or paper notice will run us hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Will written notification cost money? It certainly will. Will it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars? No. But, even if it did, your own policy states that you must do it. You cannot just opt out of your own policy because you do not like how much it will cost. The school closure discussion has been going on (at least in public) for a good nine months now. Someone should have read that policy and factored into the discussion about costs the amount GPS would have to pay for notification.

GJHS is quite literally in my back yard. I no longer have children attending GPS, but I will be affected by the closure. I believe closing a general enrollment junior high school in my neighborhood will certainly affect my home’s value and its marketability. The deciding factor for my family when choosing our home was its proximity to the neighborhood schools. Closing GJHS and repurposing it for GCA will affect my safety and the safety of my neighbors. These neighborhood streets were not designed for all of the traffic that will come GCA. It will affect my community, one you promise in Policy JC-R to honor, by closing down a vital piece of this neighborhood and scattering its students to other schools far from their homes. I am affected. I should have been notified. And I wasn’t. Shame on anyone of you that would vote to suspend your policy that was put in place to protect the taxpayers, voters, and community members you are supposed to serve.

We have seen that Superintendent Christina Kishimoto is finally getting around to responding to emails she has received about this new GPS debacle. It’s simply a canned response, of course. But it wasn’t timely.

Good Afternoon
Thank you for your email. The Governing Board is engaged in the difficult decision of determining a permanent location for Gilbert Classical Academy (GCA), while also looking at related impacts to Mesquite Junior High School and Gilbert Junior High School.

Your thoughts and input are important to us. Your comments will be shared with the Governing Board and district leadership.

Thank you
Dr. Christina M. Kishimoto

Westie is running a contest for who waited the longest for a response from the GPS Superintendent. So far, the winner waited 17 days for a response. Someone who received a same day response claims that the GPS Superintendent likes him/her better, but that’s a school yard taunt for another day.  #SAVEGJHS   For your viewing pleasure:

Tonight’s the night. There is a meeting at Gilbert High School at 6:30 PM. The title of the meeting is “GCA permanent location hearing.” What people don’t know from that *title* is that the Governing Board of Gilbert Public Schools will listen to comments from the public, and then they will decide whether to close Gilbert Junior High School or Mesquite Junior High School.

That vote was scheduled for March 29, 2016, but the timeline MIGHT be changed. So come on out to the public meeting where Superintendent Christina Kishimoto will trot out Her Three Votes on the governing board …  they’ll pretend to listen. Then they’ll do what the superintendent told them to do.

There’s an off chance that the board will vote to create a *school within a school* at Mesquite Junior High School. That would put Gilbert Classical Academy students attending classes at the same campus as the unwashed masses   poor   brown   Hispanic kids who live in the neighborhood.  GCA doesn’t like this option. Their mantra is, “Why should *THOSE KIDS* have their own campus just because schools used to be built to serve students in their own neighborhoods in the Town of Gilbert? We want a new campus and we want it now!”

Last night, the GPS Governing Board refused Superintendent Christina Kishimoto’s demand  recommendation to suspend the policy and/or regulation that was unanimously put into place to prevent another debacle like the LAST TIME GPS TRIED TO CLOSE GILBERT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL. Board members Julie Smith and Daryl Colvin have been staunch advocates for Truth, Justice and The American Way in opposition to the Superintendent’s slippery slope of deviant ethical and moral equivocation. We’ll have the video clips for you later, along with details about how the board voted 3-2 to stick to their fiduciary duties to follow the law and their own policies and/or regulations. You’ll want lots of popcorn when watching all that!

Not even Christina Kishimoto could keep straight the distinctions between the law, district policies and implementing regulations. She had already failed to comply with Arizona statutes for closing a school, so she wanted the board to change the rules in the middle of the game. Did the superintendent really believe that trickery would save her pet project? Obviously, this saga will go down as another episode of Lies Christina Kishimoto Tells. Sheeeeesh.

Here’s a shout-out to advocates for Saving Mesquite Junior High School: dudes, we’re hearing that the principal *quietly* advised you to keep all this on the down-low. Do you really believe that Principal Dan-the-Yes-Man Johnson has your best interests at heart if he’s saying that? Come on, all this pretending to listen to the public will be over and done with by the time you realize that you may have been duped. You do know that Good Old Dave Allison told the GJHS community the same thing last time, don’t you? Dave’s advice: “Stay silent and don’t make the board mad at you or they’ll vote to close your school.”

Even Jill Humpherys bristled with pretend indignation when her fellow board member mater-of-factly asked if there had been some kind of illegal quorum he didn’t know about. Silly Jilly absolutely insists there wasn’t a secret pinky promise to use Mesquite Junior High School as a cover for the already made decision to close Gilbert Junior High School. Her unspoken words: those uppity GJHS people are just asking for it after they dared to oppose the old board the last time their school was on the chopping block. Jill has some scores to even on behalf of former board members who lost their seats in that debacle.

Gilbert Classical Academy is sick and tired of waiting, so let’s get this show on the road. See you tonight!

 #SAVEGJHS   For your viewing pleasure:

The public meeting that wasn’t the *official* public meeting about closing Gilbert Junior High School or Mesquite Junior High School and giving a campus to Gilbert Classical Academy was not exactly what Superintendent Christina Kishimoto expected. Yes, there were impassioned pleas about saving the neighborhood schools and there were impatient demands to hurry up and get this over with so Gilbert Classical Academy can move into their new campus. And it better not be a school within a school, where the kids in uniforms might brush up against those uncouth kids from the neighborhood, as GCA students, teachers and parents insinuated.

Christina Kishimoto and her *cabinet* sat at a table in front of the audience and took notes as speakers beseeched the board to spare their campus or clamored to hurry things along. Where was the board? Sitting IN the audience! Westie kids you not. Who runs this district? It looks more and more like the elected officials have quit trying to pretend they do anything other than what the superintendent demands. She might as well scream, “Sit down and STFU  shut up!”

A parent in attendance summarized the evening:

The administration sat front and center while the school board was scattered in the audience. (Who’s making the decision?) LOTS of misinformation out there. Division went deep and wide. Lots of hurt feelings. Lots of talk of roaches and spiders and ants and mice and mold, showcasing the failure of the school board and administration to do even the most basic of maintenance. Penny wise and pound foolish is a great way to describe this superintendent.

As often happens, the kids stole the show: Kids’ reports included mice sitting on the flag pole in the classroom during the Pledge of Allegiance. Roach infestations, along with ants and spiders. Big spiders. Mold issues that have not been addressed. Floors so decrepit, masking tape defines the places to NOT step because your foot will go through the floor. The portables are falling apart, and students can punch holes in walls that are barely held together. Their chairs break with such regularity, one GCA student said it’s a game to see whose chair will break next.

These are serious claims of inexcusable negligence. It would seem to be a safe prediction that someone (perhaps the eloquent gentleman who walked out in disgust at hearing students describe their physical learning environment) would make a report to state health officials. From an on-the-spot observer:

WHY have GCA parents allowed their kids to “live in squalor” the past seven years, instead of fixing up their home? They’ve acted as a bunch of renters, using and abusing until it’s time to move (or get kicked out), complaining about the mess, without taking time to do anything about it. Will they strip the fixtures when they go? Why didn’t GCA take as much pride in their campus as they do in their academic prowess? If there are mold issues, then fix them. If there are pest issues, take care of them. Equipment should be fixed or replaced as needed. If issues were this serious three years ago (as they said they were) why are they still complaining about the same issues, and why hasn’t the State shut them down for safety reasons?

A bit of history: back in 2013, Interim Superintendent Jack Keegan nixed moving GCA for a good reason: “Part of the reason you’re in this predicament is you created a school at a certain size and no one talked about where it should be going and now you’re faced with an issue that we don’t have a ready-made answer for,” Keegan told the board. People were reporting a feeling of deja vu during the meeting at Gilbert High School, and it turns out there was a good reason. Some of the same people, including Wayne Cottam,  were making the same claims they made years ago:

Wayne Cottam has had children at the school since it opened in 2007. Cottam said he’s tired of what he sees as an imbalance among GPS school facilities. “When will the governing board decide to approach parity in educational facilities? When will it decide a school that emphasizes music will actually have a music room and not a janitor closet?” Cottam said. “When is the district and governing board going to decide kids at GCA deserve something closer to that which every other junior high and high school in the district have?”

What sort of revisionist history is being trumpeted now? Former board member Helen Hollands remembered how GPS calculated the cost per student at GCA compared to GPS comprehensive high schools and junior highs … and the cost was LESS PER STUDENT AT GCA! The reason: GCA was never intended to have the athletics programs that GCA supporters are now demanding as “parity.” Watch the video clip below, cued to when Helen Hollands comments about GCA costs in the public hearing the LAST time GPS tried to take over Gilbert Junior High School and give the campus to GCA. The big difference is the lack of athletic and extracurricular programs that GCA did not have as part of the original school design:

Gilbert Public Schools … the screw-ups never cease to amaze. We’ll continue our coverage of this crazy situation in future posts. Until then, does anyone remember that Deja Vu is the title of a most excellent album by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young? Enjoy this song, which seems apropos to the current fracas: Teach Your Children. <Jerry Garcia on pedal steel guitar. Woo hoo!>

While the Arizona Legislature is in session, you hear a lot about charter schools and funding for education, generally in very negative terms. That’s especially true if you’re hanging around professional educators who don’t spend time in classrooms actually engaging in the profession of teaching children.

While the matter of wresting a new campus for Gilbert Classical Academy is taking all the oxygen out of the room in Gilbert Public Schools, you hear a lot about charter schools, generally in very negative terms. However, ordinary citizens are appalled by the racist, discriminatory subtext of pronouncements from GPS educrats who have decided to close a school to benefit GCA. This is abhorrent, and it is all the more disgusting because the leader of GPS educrats, Superintendent Christina Kishimoto, cannot receive a Superintendent license in this state because she never, ever taught in a K-12 classroom. But apparently she is an *expert* at closing schools! #SAVEGJHS 

First, let’s look at some of the common complaints about how charter schools are ruining education in Arizona, and how the legislature is behind the master plan to destroy public education once and for all. The Superintendent of Apache Junction School District draws a picture to explain why charter schools are different from public schools:

Legislators and the governor point to these for-profit businesses [charter schools] and claim their models should be replicated to improve the educational opportunities of all students.

Unfortunately, the models cannot be replicated on a statewide scale because the success of these charter and private schools are predicated on creating campuses and classrooms that do not reflect the demographics of Arizona students. When comparing the demographics of the highly touted charter and private schools to the Arizona average you get a strikingly different picture.

The charter and private schools the state holds on the pedestal of success have very few, if any, poor students, English Language Learners or special education students. They also have an above average percent of students who are white/non-Hispanic. When demographic adjustments are applied to the academic scores of private and charter schools, the performance gap disappears.

What does this have to do with Gilbert Classical Academy? It’s the same picture! The demographics of the GCA student body do not reflect the demographics of other GPS schools, particularly the two junior high schools that Superintendent Christina Kishimoto has placed on the chopping block. She has done this to placate some very loud, demanding parents who want all the benefits of a private school education without paying tuition bills.

How does GCA get to the point of being the number ten high school in the country and number three in Arizona? It’s all about numbers and statistics. As Mark Twain said, “Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.” First, US News and World Report gives the teacher to student ratio — 11:1. Another data point — the student body is 54 percent male and 46 percent female, and the total minority enrollment is 29 percent. At GCA, Asians make up 15%, Hispanic 8% and Blacks 5%. All students take Advance Placement classes, and they all take Advanced Placement tests. That is the key to the rank on US News and World Report: the AP test percentage. If a student doesn’t want to take all AP classes, they are booted out the door.

The real secret to GCA’s success is that if a student fails a class, the student is kicked out of GCA. Permanently! With those kids that are left at GCA, of course the numbers and statistics are amazing! The school was designed to be a *perk* for GPS employees, and somewhere around 75% of GCA students are in that group. Parents would prefer that you think their kids are just totally, flat-out amazing and that they all waited anxiously during the infamous lotteries held each year to select the new seventh grade class, but they didn’t.

“Academics are everything at Gilbert Classical Academy,” used to be a true statement. Not now. The attrition rate became so big, it got the attention of community residents who wondered aloud why GPS was pouring so much attention onto a select few students, the GCA students. It began with the original school design:

Automatic admission is granted to an incoming seventh-grader with a sibling in the school or with a parent permanently working for Gilbert Public Schools. That group makes up about 20 percent of the 85 students in every incoming seventh-grade class. For the November lottery, every applicant’s number is painted on a Ping-Pong ball, which is placed in a drum that tumbles the balls — not unlike the Arizona state lottery.

Students in most public high schools who find AP world history too rigorous can drop out of AP and go down to an honors history class. But not at Gilbert Classical Academy. … “Here at Gilbert Classical Academy, they need to take AP world history,” [former principal Jodie] Dean said. “If it’s too difficult or too much work load to have all courses AP, students will often make the decision to go to a comprehensive campus.”

That attitude sums it up: GCA looks down on other students in Gilbert Public Schools. By the way, those of you who remember Jodie Dean: she went to be principal at Kino Junior High School in Mesa Public Schools, but she didn’t last. Birdies chirp something about Jodie Dean taking *The Gilbert Way* along with her, and anyone who reads WestieConnect expects that would not be a good thing. It wasn’t, so Good Old Jodie Dean is now the principal of an online school in New Mexico.

Finishing up today’s Leap Day post, we return to the Superintendent of Apache Junction School District: 

I am anti the systematic approach of our elected officials to promote and fund a model of schooling that cannot be replicated to scale, across our state, and to use the inability to replicate the model as further proof that our public school districts are inadequate and failing.

Why would our elected officials make decisions that clearly favor a small group not representative of the state demographics and use these decisions to rob the schools that serve the majority of the students in our state?

Or maybe our elected officials would like to find avenues that allow “some kids” to not have to go to school with “those kids.” Unfortunately, I think it’s the latter of the two. I hope I am wrong, but it seems to me we are witnessing the dismantling of public education, by segregation, under the umbrella of school choice and vouchers.

Westie agrees: GCA parents were outspoken during the public meeting last week about how they do not want *their kids* to go to school with *those kids.*  And they’re proud of it! <shaking head sadly…>

The elephant in the room  for Gilbert Public Schools is Gilbert Classical Academy. Reasonable people who don’t notice the elephant ask, “Why did Superintendent Christina Kishimoto allow taking over a campus serving *lesser* students and repurposing it for GCA to become the controversy that now consumes all the oxygen in the district?”

The answer: “Because she can.” Her Three Votes on the GPS Governing Board grant Superintendent Christina Kishimoto anything she wants. Except for once in a while. We applaud Dr. Charles Santa Cruz for finding his unique voice on the board. At last. 

February 23, 2016: Agenda Item 7.04. It is recommended that the Governing Board suspend regulation JC-R School Attendance Areas.
Motion by Jill Humpherys, second by Lily N Tram.
Final Resolution: Motion Fails
Aye: Jill Humpherys, Lily N Tram
Nay: Charles Santa Cruz, Daryl Colvin, Julie E Smith

What this vote was about: Superintendent Christina Kishimoto had asked the Governing Board to suspend a district policy / regulation that requires the same thing state law requires in this situation.  The thorny issue was the process and procedures for notifying affected residents of the proposal. Never mind that Christina Kishimoto already had a lawyer explain all this to the Governing Board in a super-secret executive session. Suddenly, almost a year later, Christina Kishimoto claims it’s just too hard to do and it will cost MONEY! OMG!!

March 31, 2015: Agenda Item 9. Call for Executive Session pursuant to A.R.S. 38.431.03(A)(3 )for Governing Board to see legal advice and discussion regarding potential options to address increasing classroom space needs for the Gilbert Classical Academy (GCA). (Part 3, 01:15:00) Mrs. Smith moved that the Governing Board move to Executive Session pursuant to A.R.S. 38.431.03(A)(3 )for Governing Board to see legal advice and discussion regarding potential options to address increasing classroom space needs for the Gilbert Classical Academy (GCA). Seconded by Mrs. Humpherys.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Aye: Mrs. Jill Humpherys, Dr. Charles Santa Cruz, Mrs. Julie Smith
Nay: Mr. Daryl Colvin

This situation is so screwed up, there isn’t much of any way it can end well. Instead of working to mend fences and bring about consensus in Gilbert Public Schools, Superintendent Christina Kishimoto is running around all over the USA *presenting* about how downright awesome she is. This week, she is in Los Angeles at some fancy invitation-only event talking about how she invented 1:1 technology and brought GPS into the 21st century. Or so she says. Like how Al Gore invented the Internet. It’s embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as her good buddy John King, who is on a path to become the new Arne Duncan. We’ll talk about that in a later post.

We’re looking at more and more 3-2 votes for what gets done in Gilbert Public Schools. With all this unnecessary controversy over relocating Gilbert Classical Academy, people now wonder if Christina Kishimoto made any promises during her super-secret job interview with the board in executive session. She received her performance pay bonus based on a 3-2 vote on May 26, 2015 (Nay: Colvin and Smith), showing a serious division that only Christina Kishimoto could have bridged, but obviously, she chooses division over comity.

Some people ask why Westie calls her *Christina 3-2 Kishimoto.* An important aspect of school district leadership is bringing constituents together for the good of the students. Christina 3-2 Kishimoto chose her acolytes carefully, probably even before she arrived on the scene, and her choices were calculated to divide the community. You saw the results of her calculation last year in the run-up to the school board election, when Silly Jilly Humpherys won standing ovations for just showing up at events. Good Old Charlie Santa Cruz cruised in using his close ties to all the old Good Old Boys that bailed out of GPS when their shenanigans became public knowledge. The Gilbert Education Association put hundreds of boots on the ground and attracted tens of thousands of dollars for political action committees that had one purpose: elect Silly Jilly and Good Old Charlie. They succeeded. Now GPS students will pay the piper as the Rubber Stamp Governing Board writes Christina 3-2 Kishimoto a blank check.

The problem for Christina Kishimoto is shown by the 3-2 vote to NOT SUSPEND a district policy / regulation to make it easier to close a junior high school campus. What used to be Her TOTALLY RELIABLE Three Votes are now down to two votes for anything and everything she wants. Like the $100,000 delegated contracting authority that no other superintendent in the state of Arizona has. When she has to lie to get what she wants, well, what else is new?

Christina Kishimoto has her hundreds of millions of dollars that now include tax override and bond funds, so she can be more selective in her strategic alliances, it appears. After Charlie Santa Cruz screwed up and exposed the secret back-room deal to close Gilbert Junior High School back in April 2015, perhaps he saw the light. Or examined his conscience. Whatever it is, there are many people who appreciate his votes to consider a School Within a School design for GCA at Mesquite Junior High School and his refusal to participate in an unethical and immoral accommodation of the superintendent’s despicable recommendation on February 23, 2016.

We’ll close with a look back at Christina Kishimoto’s most reliable fool  board member, Silly Jilly Humpherys. That’s because we haven’t yet figured out what to do with all the delicious blog fodder that *JiLily Trumpheries* is going to provide over the next few months.

Jill Humpherys: “We don’t want some idiot being in our classified staff and doing the job; I mean, let them go to work for Walmart.” Watch Board Member Charlie Santa Cruz’s face as Jill Humpherys speaks – priceless!

#SAVEGJHS 

Maya Angelou once told Oprah, “When people show you who they are, believe them.” Employees of Gilbert Public Schools are now seeing Superintendent Christina Kishimoto for who she is. As Maya Angelou said, “Believe them. They know themselves much better than you do.” Oprah spoke up, “That means they cannot be trusted. So why would you trust them the next time?” Christina Kishimoto is showing the Gilbert community time and again that she cannot be trusted on things big or small. 

As an example, consider the $2,500.00 Hostage Clause that GPS unilaterally added to all contracts last year.  You won’t be surprised to discover that Superintendent Christina Kishimoto bragged to the Governing Board that the hostage clause worked. She’s going to throw her shoulder out of joint from patting herself on the back so hard.

Christina Kishimoto wrote, “The addition of this language to the contract has provided a much more effective process for exiting staff with a transition plan without having students, projects, or programs left unattended to.” We’re really glad this functionally illiterate superintendent isn’t actually teaching, especially if it were a subject as important as English, or Language Arts, or whatever we call it now. The simple grammatical fix to avoid ending this sentence with a preposition is to simply omit it: “… or programs left unattended.”

Christina Kishimoto’s “much more effective process for exiting staff with a transition plan” really bit her *alleged* boyfriend in the butt. Besides leaving several programs unattended, former Executive Director of Technology Charles Stevin Smith, aka Steve Smith aka the superintendent’s *alleged* boyfriend who resigned when their *improper relationship* went public, left his projects in a state of implosion and otherwise failing. Christina Kishimoto assured the Governing Board that the entire $2,500.00 was paid in the case of her *alleged* boyfriend, Steve Smith. But her use of passive voice in answering the question makes reasonable people wonder what is hiding.

Infinite Visions, the human resources and payroll software that former Executive Director of Technology Steve Smith spent about a year reporting as the next great innovation in GPS management, still isn’t implemented properly. That’s a sort-of technogeek way to say that GPS employees have not been made whole after the massive payroll failures in January. Telling GPS employees to wait in line, and then telling them to wait until next payday is wrong on so many levels. But that’s GPS.

A comical situation facing GPS now is that Top Dogs insist on sending email messages containing images of letters they have signed.  They call it something like “communicating with the masses,” and it’s suddenly important because Superintendent Christina Kishimoto has something in her super-secret evaluation by the board about communicating.  Emailing those letters is simply ridiculous. This also should be embarrassing to Superintendent Christina Kishimoto while she is out boasting to the world about her technological accomplishments in GPS. Sheeeesh.

Showing that Westie’s birdies are super-smart and well-placed, we posted about how the Talent  Office was gearing up to reach out to Millennials in the GPS workforce. Besides the fact that classifying employees based on age is something that will never work out well, the Talent Office outreach was never well-designed. Yeah, sure, invite targeted employees to come to yet ANOTHER meeting. As teachers, they’re exempt employees, so you don’t have to pay them overtime. You never pay them for all the work they actually do, but that’s a subject for another day.

Do you think the Powers That Be in the Talent Office ever stopped to think about whether or not these employees appreciate being tagged with the label *Millennial* rather than being addressed by their given names? Sheeesh, you guys are supposed to be the experts.  You could have sent out individual invitations, by name, to employees. Little things mean a lot, especially in a district where *technology* has become the be-all and end-all.

The notice of the *Millennial Meeting* that Westie foretold shows just how comical life can be when someone who has a little bit of power wants to come across as one of the cool kids. Chief Talent Officer Suzanne Zentner, aka Slime Bucket Suzanne, sent out an email messsage that sounds like something from a Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk addresses aliens. [Yes, we’re so old, Captain Kirk is the Star Trekker for us. Live long and prosper.] In fairness, we must point out that this was a genuine email message, not a letter sent as an image attached to an email. In GPS, that counts as progress.

Greetings,

Thanks to you and your generation of millennials, our world is amid a dynamic change!

Recognizing the value you bring to GPS and that you are among the largest demographic (ever) in our country, the Office of Talent Management is rolling out a new, strategic recruiting strategy to be a district that is attracting, engaging and retaining the highest caliber millennials.

Therefore, we hope you can join a district wide strategy session on Wednesday, March 9 from 4pm-5pm (Community Education Building,) to engage all millennials on your thoughts of how we can become the most highly sought after [education] employment destination in the State of Arizona.

Please RSVP by accepting this invitation.

Sincerely,

Suzanne Zentner
Chief Talent Officer

Dear Slime Bucket Suzanne Zentner, the world may be “amid a dynamic change,” but GPS is going down the drain. Did you ever consider that some of those Millennials might be wondering if they will have a job next year after GPS closes a junior high school to give GCA the new campus GCA demands? The Talent Office and Superintendent Christina Kishimoto have been markedly silent on that matter. The last time GPS screwed up this whole GCA situation so badly, at least Dave Allison promised that no employees would be out of a job as a result of his horribly botched decision and implementation process.

BTW, while Baby Boomers already should be accustomed to being called Grandpa and Grannie, using any of those terms won’t work out well in the workplace, either. Ageism is the new discrimination du jour. While we’re on this subject, Keyboard wants to know why the intervening generational labels are based on DNA: Gen X and Gen Y.  Westie is stumped for the answer.

#SAVEGJHS 

Christina Kishimoto has begun one of the most devastating, community-dividing ploys that good people of Gilbert, Arizona have ever seen. If you have seen Pollice Verso by Jean-Léon Gérôme at the Phoenix Art Museum, you know what is happening in Gilbert Public Schools: it’s a fight to the death for a GPS junior high school.

Christina Kishimoto made false promises about leading collaboratively when she was selected on a 3-2 vote to become Superintendent of Gilbert Public Schools. What she has done instead is fan the flames of the same controversy that led to the ouster of her predecessor and his compliant members of the Governing Board. Whereas Dave Allison tried to keep his plan to close Gilbert Junior High School under wraps until resistance was futile, Christina Kishimoto engineered a long, drawn-out scenario in which the winners will be so bruised and battered, they will wonder if the circus was ever worth it. Fighting to the death as gladiators for Christina Kishimoto’s amusement and *national reputation* will leave lasting scars, broken friendships and an expensive mess for GPS. 

We’ll be examining the spurious process by which the GPS Governing Board has been led to make the decision Christina Kishimoto told them to make after she set up a game for her own amusement: which GPS campus will be closed to give Gilbert Classical Academy a new home? At the moment, it appears this situation is nothing more than Christina Kishimoto following up on a promise she made in order to be selected as Superintendent. The looming question: to whom did she make that promise? Those secretive scenarios provide endless speculation and entertainment, unless it’s your children, your school and your property that are affected.

One GPS board member truly is disconcerted at the charades being played out as the board pretends to listen to the community. The puppet master is pulling the strings, and it seems nothing can stop this burgeoning disaster:

In the midst of all the emotions, I did find the information at the community forum both thought provoking and helpful. I really can’t say that I find any of the three proposals acceptable or supportable, when measured against the standard of “Do I hurt more students than I help?”
–GPS Governing Board Member Daryl Colvin

Mesquite Junior High School parents and pals, be very afraid because your pool has been refurbished. GCA lusts for your pool. GPS allowed the pool at Gilbert Junior High to fall into disrepair, and then demolished it. Of course, taking away a community gathering place apparently was part of the plan, which those GPS Top Dogs thought would discourage residents from mingling and [horrors!] ORGANIZING against the renewed proposal to give their campus to GCA.

This contest is not three schools against each other; it’s GCA trying to take over Mesquite Junior High while the schools on the chopping block fight for due process.  At the community forum, Gilbert Junior High speakers focused on the lack of reliable data for the decisions made to date and the despicable Sophie’s Choice dilemma foisted on the Governing Board.

Fortunately, it’s not too late for you, Mesquite Junior High School parents and pals.  Here’s an invitation from people you tried to throw under the bus [yes, they are genuinely generous and forgiving]. You can join them at #SAVEGJHS for the time being.

Neither school should be closed. Let’s fully vet other options as a community, not just a biased committee stacked with GCA parents. I think that Save Mesquite Junior High and SAVE Gilbert Junior High School should come together as a team. If we stand united, we have a great deal more power and a much stronger voice. Gilbert Junior High has the organization because they’ve lived through this before. We can learn from them, share with them. Let’s stand together in this fight, rather than every man (school) for themselves. The legal name of this district is Gilbert UNIFIED School District #41. Let’s make that statement a fact! #GilbertUnified

Lest anyone forget, in her zeal to get this done, Superintendent Christina Kishimoto recommended that the GPS Governing Board suspend the policy/regulation about notifications required when closing a school or changing attendance boundaries. Christina Kishimoto much preferred for the Governing Board to take the heat for her failures. She flat-out LIED to the board about her motives behind her recommendation, saying that if she followed the policy/regulation, it would cost HUNDRED THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to notify residents:

Christina Kishimoto’s lies were so repugnant, even her Chief of Staff, Alexander Nardone, would not stand behind those lies. Nardone explained that the costs to mail notifications to all affected residents, as Arizona statutes and GPS Policy requires, would be much less than what Christina Kishimoto had claimed. Nardone also pointed out that the timing issue was important. Actually, GPS had already failed to meet statutory and policy requirements to notify all affected residents TEN DAYS before the public meeting. That was the REAL reason Christina Kishimoto needed to have the board suspend the policy/regulation. Maybe she figured that with the board’s backing, affected residents would be forced to file a lawsuit to stop the oncoming train of destruction for one of the GPS junior high schools.

We already know the end of this story: Christina Kishimioto’s unethical gambit failed. Board member Daryl Colvin chastised Superintendent Christina Kishimoto: did she believe she had the three votes she needed because there had been an illegal meeting to coalesce into majority support for her recommendation? Or did she just believe she had a rubber stamp board that would do whatever Christina Kishimoto wanted them to do?

It’s just so gosh-darned HARD to be the Superintendent of Gilbert Public Schools when the public and members of the Governing Board hold you accountable for your failings and screw ups. If you’re Christina Kishimoto, she of the famously habitual 3-2 votes and a record of mediocrity in public service, you get emotional and lash out. Uh oh, Daryl Colvin, the next thing we hear probably will be about how you made Christina Kishimoto cry … again.

#SAVEGJHS 

Does anyone remember when Christina Kishimoto was hired to be Superintendent of Gilbert Public Schools, it was on a 3-2 vote? Back in the day, the new superintendent promised to “lead collaboratively.” As it turned out, those were just sweet-sounding assurances from someone who barely squeaked into a new job after being unanimously fired a few months earlier. Now we learn that Christina Kishimoto had her fingers crossed behind her back when she made those sweet promises to the people of Gilbert, Arizona. 

“The GPS board, while the vote was split, I thought I heard from them each they were fully committed to me…and we’re going to lead together,” DeJesus-Kishimoto said. “I’m very comfortable coming to the district.” Although she said she didn’t think it was “fair” to comment at this point as to how she might try to bring the divided board together, DeJesus-Kishimoto said it was very important to her to “lead collaboratively.”

In Christina Kishimoto’s bizarro-world, the board was “fully committed” to her. Most people would think that a 3-2 divided vote was a signal to tread carefully and try to assemble some sort of common ground for agreement on how to manage a large school district with 40 schools and a budget of a THIRD OF A BILLION DOLLARS per year. That would very smart. Christina Kishimoto, it would appear, is not very smart.

Christina Kishimoto set about doing the very same things that got her butt fired in Connecticut … closing schools without telling the affected communities of her plans until it was too late.  News articles and a blog post by nationally known education advocate Diane Ravitch described the situation for parents at one elementary school she targeted without giving advance notice as “extortion.” First, Christina Kishimoto allowed the school campus to deteriorate and allowed resources to dwindle. Do you believe it is just a coincidence that so many students at the targeted school had disabilities and were English Language Learners? Apparently, Christina Kishimoto became concerned that those needier students would affect her future national reputation.

Almost 18 percent of Clark [Elementary School] students have disabilities, and 15.2 percent are English Language Learners. Clark’s school governance council has begged the district, in vain, for additional resources, including teachers, a psychologist, a guidance counselor and basic school repairs such as a functional heating and cooling system.

The local media picked up on the *extortion* aspect of what Christina Kishimoto was doing, with the help of a board that met in private to back up what she had already decided they were going to do. Notice that Christina Kishimoto had already been fired by that same board (bizarro world again?). Notice that much of what is playing out in Gilbert, Arizona is following the same game plan, replete with *private* meetings:

In recent weeks, parents from two community schools protested proposals by Christina Kishimoto, Hartford’s outgoing “reform” superintendent, and Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor, to hand their schools over to private companies. Neither school community was consulted before the plans were developed.

The board subsequently met in private and emerged with another “turnaround plan,” which offers additional funds to a community school only if it is “redesigned” and offers “choice.” The only way parents will get more resources is to acquiesce to a redesign that will disrupt their school community. That is not school choice — that’s extortion.

Local media coverage of Christina Kishimoto’s unnecessary divisiveness illustrates that history is being repeated:

One of two Gilbert neighborhoods is poised to become collateral damage in the district’s enhancement of school choice. If a “school redesign” takes place, hundreds of students scheduled to be enrolled in one of the two junior high schools would instead be bussed to another school in the fall.

The proposal also comes after taxpayers passed override and bond elections in the fall. Some parents said they believed the passage would spare schools from being repurposed. “It’s hard as a voter and taxpayer to hear, ‘Thanks for passing that, (but) we’re still going to close your school’,” Nicita said. Kishimoto said the revenue projected from the bond and override was not intended to resolve all of the district’s needs.

Gilbert Classical Academy Principal Dan Hood said he worries the proposal will divide the community. “This whole situation should not be us versus them,” Hood said.
[Let’s all cry crocodile tears for Dan Hood, whose despicable war plans are intended for GCA to win at any cost.]

Christina Kishimoto attempted to get the GPS Governing Board to take the blame for her failure to notify residents that a junior high school would be closed to give GCA a new campus. Who needs those stinkin’ laws, policies and regulations if you have a rubber stamp board? It appears that integrity may not exist in Christina Kishimoto’s bizarro world.

Below is the March 5, 2013 meeting where the second reading of Policy JC was unanimously approved by the board. Note that Superintendent Dave Allison’s introduction to this agenda item specifically address changes to the supporting regulation, JC-R. In recounting GPS history, Daryl Colvin told the truth. Christina Kishimoto did not.

Similar to the way the Hartford elementary was resented because so many students needed special services, and was starved of resources, Gilbert Junior High School has a large percentage of students who require special resources. There is a program called STEPS (Students Transitioning to Educational and Personal Success). It’s also called GPS Private Day Academy (GPS PDA).

Our goal is to support each student’s acquisition of the social-emotional, behavioral and academic skills necessary for success on a traditional campus. Facilitated by a Nationally-Certified School Psychologist, GPS PDA staff are highly trained in Crisis Intervention methods that ensure care, welfare, safety and security for all students.

GPS Top Dogs are communicating as much about what will happen to that special program located on the campus of Gilbert Junior High School as they are about what will happen to jobs of teachers and staff who are displaced when GCA takes over a campus for their own: zip, zilch, nada. Their unspoken message: STFU. Communication from GPS, it turn out, has been all about catering to the loud-mouth crowd at Gilbert Classical Academy that is demanding a new campus, and screw anyone who gets in their way.

#SAVEGJHS 

The next community forum:
Tuesday, March 22, 2016 at 6:30 PM
Mesquite High School Auditorium

The entire process of closing a Gilbert Public Schools junior high school to repurpose it for the elite 1% of GPS students attending Gilbert Classical Academy was rigged from the beginning. GPS Superintendent Christina Kishimoto’s *alleged* boyfriend, who publicly outed himself as a GCA parent at the recent public forum, has been pushing the elite committee that his *alleged* girlfriend established to make recommendations to the GPS Governing Board.

That elite committee did not have any representation from the parents and residents of the schools that were targeted for closure, but it had lots and lots of GCA participation! Reasonable people would look at this information and conclude that “Conflicts of Interest” were so rampant, any recommendations from that committee were irredeemably tainted.

Any decisions the GPS Governing Board makes based on those recommendations will be staggeringly unethical. And that’s BEFORE we discuss that the so-called data the Governing Board reviewed ignores the expensive study that GPS consultants did just a short while ago. What an incredible mess.

Former GPS Executive Director of Technology Charles Stevin Smith turned tail and ran from his post when his *alleged* inappropriate relationship with his boss, Superintendent Christina Kishimoto, became public knowledge. We figured the dots connected to not only his *alleged* girlfriend, but also to the many GPS technology projects that either failed miserably or didn’t produce any measurable results. One thing former Executive Director of Technology Steve Smith has been pretty good at doing, however, is getting parents p*ssed off about the pornography that he and his team allowed to seep through GPS’s flimsy firewalls. But we digress.

It seems that former Executive Director of Technology Steve Smith has been *the man behind the curtain* with regard to the committee his *alleged* girlfriend put in charge of finding a new home for GCA. Showing no sense of shame, some truly bad judgment and an enormous sense of entitlement, Steve Smith showed up to speak at the *community forum* where the GPS Governing Board was pretending to listen to the community before they go through with what’s already been decided as to which junior high school campus to give to GCA. Get this: Steve Smith identified himself only as a GCA parent. He failed to say he was the architect of the whole GCA campus takeover caper. Nope, this dude just appeared and spoke in public, thinking he could brazen his way through his chosen course by reminding the board that the decision was a pillow talk done deal. In closing, there was nothing they could do to change his *alleged* girlfriend’s mind. Watch:

So how did the board get any data for this momentous decision? From this committee that was stacked to do anything GCA wants:

Alex Nardone, Chief of Staff, Chair of Committee
Dan Hood, Principal at GCA
Steve Smith, Executive Director of Technology, GCA Parent, Superintendent’s *alleged* boyfriend
Ann Anderlohr, Parent at GCA
Jason Delfing, Teacher at GCA
Teddy Dumlao, Director of Finance
Brian Jaeger, Executive Director of Secondary Schools
Stan Peterson, Director of Facilities
Charles Santa-Cruz, Governing Board
Missy Udall, Director of Talent Management
Tom Wohlleber, Chief Financial Officer
Paul Holland, Architect (is this dude is setting up himself and/or his pals for the inevitable GCA contract?)

Then there were some *private forums* for GCA to get together with the GPS administration and create a united front before the public knew what was really happening in those *secret* meetings. Certainly, they wanted all his nailed down before they decided which campus was in GCA’s cross hairs for takeover. This was what Superintendent Christina Kishimoto told the board in October 2015:

Gilbert Classical Academy Community Forum
On November 19th, we will be holding a community forum at GCA to present facility options that are being explored, with the intent of generating questions from the community that can further guide our research. The GCA Facilities Committee has done an outstanding job vetting a list of options to put forth before the board in December. This community forum will help further push our thinking. An additional forum will be held in the spring once the board has determined the direction in which we are going with the permanent location for GCA.

Here’s what Superintendent Christina Kishimoto reported to the board in November 2015:

Gilbert Classical Academy Public Forum
We held a successful community forum this week to discuss the options that are being vetted for a permanent location for GCA. Committee members were present, including Dr. Charles Santa Cruz who was appointed to the Committee by the Board. Also, in the audience was Board Member Julie Smith. We had over 100 attendees. I sent to you in advance the copy of the Slides presentation used. I served as the emcee for the forum, and was joined by Principal Dan Hood, Dr. Alex Nardone, and Mr. Paul Holland as co-presenters. Following a 30 minute presentation, participants had the opportunity to provide comments. Twenty community members provided comments. Additionally, a dedicated email address was shared and community members were encouraged to provide additional feedback in writing.

The only *public* in the *public forum* was a group of GCA advocates. No one advocated for the victims of the Great GCA Takeover Caper. No one talked about anything other than what GCA decided would fit their needs. Click here to view the slide presentation that shows what GCA wants conveniently happens to be the only viable solution presented.

Frankly, the list of *GCA needs* is something along the lines of a cruise ship with 91,000 square feet set aside for GCA needs. The athletic facilities they demand are the cruise ship’s Lido Deck. It sounds like GCA advocates believe the *lesser students* who are displaced by this GCA takeover should be their pool attendants and wait staff.

BTW, GPS has been giving out *special* email addresses for comments about the GCA matters and the multiple *public* forums that are supposed to make you feel like you had a say. Many people say that is just a dodge: the media has standing requests to review public record emails sent to and from GPS Governing Board members, and using these *special* email addresses is intended to make those standing requests incomplete. By the time the media finally reviews emails in those *special* addresses, the decision will have been made. Or so the GPS Top Dogs hope.

Superintendent Christina Kishimoto is amassing a long list of conflicts of interest as a result of her *alleged* inappropriate relationship with former Executive Director of Technology Steve Smith. The massive fraud that is this current Great GCA Takeover Caper is one big conflict of interest for the two of them and any GPS Governing Board members who meekly acquiesce to their demands to give GCA whatever the loud mouths demand. You folks at Mesquite and Gilbert Junior High Schools never had a chance, not if GCA parent and *alleged* boyfriend of the superintendent had those cozy pillow talk conversations.

The coup de grace: in January 2016, Superintendent Christina Kishimoto told the board, “If a junior high school is repurposed, we want to provide the junior high school that is not selected, i.e. Gilbert Junior or Mesquite Junior, with a planning grant to beginning [sic] designing an academy model.”

In other words:

Dear Junior High Schools,
Even if your campus is spared from the GCA takeover, your junior high school will become an academy. Either way, you’re screwed.
Sincerely,
Dr. Christina M. Kishimoto
Superintendent

The next community forum:
Tuesday, March 22, 2016 at 6:30 PM
Mesquite High School Auditorium

Get ready, Gilbert, Arizona! The Governing Board of Gilbert Public Schools will hold another public meeting where they pretend to listen to what the members of the community want, and then they will make the decision that Superintendent Christina Kishimoto has already made. Based on her *alleged* boyfriend’s advice, of course. That must have been some kind of a *wish list* he presented to the superintendent in their *private* moments!  

Things are about to get much worse: Board member Jill Humpherys wrote on her Facebook perpetual campaign page that she’ll meet with people who want to talk to her AFTER the forum. So quit bugging her with questions she doesn’t want to answer! All you folks who believed the GPS letter saying the vote would be in April are going to get fooled again!  Here’s Jill Humpherys, in her own words:

The forum on Tuesday is the second opportunity for the community to give feedback to the school board on the proposal. The board will not take a vote that evening. Anyone who would like to speak to me personally on this issue is welcome to do so after the meeting. My understanding is that the vote will be taken on March 29 at the regular business meeting of the school board.

Now we’re back to watching Gilbert Public schools violate not only their own policy, but also state law. Again. Sheeeeesh! What does it take to get some competent people driving this Clown Car? But we digress…

What we’ve seen from Gilbert Classical Academy is a list of demands on steroids compared to the last time GCA wanted to take over a school. GCA wants you to know they deserve it all. Of course, if other GPS schools could kick out students who fail a course, other schools could post the academic prowess numbers that GCA thinks are so magnificent. Just think, if the top 50 graduates of each GPS comprehensive high school were to have their statistics analyzed, ALL of the GPS high schools could post numbers like the 50 graduates from GCA in recent years. But that wouldn’t fit Christina Kishimoto’s narrative, would it?

First, a word from the community about what Gilbert Public Schools has in mind, never mind the pretense of listening to actual people who live here, and work here, and vote here:

We’ll let a member of the community take over from Keyboard today. She’s asking what *prowess* means, and we don’t want her to connect the dots to the superintendent’s *alleged* boyfriend and the magnificent results he got for himself and GCA… so here goes!

Dear Gilbert Public Schools,

I can’t seem to figure you out.

I can’t seem to figure out how a school district can so negligently disregard its own statistics, its own projections, its own regulations, the advice from consulting districts, the best interest of individual communities and the opinions of all of its stakeholders as it barrels down a path to potentially close a neighborhood junior high school to cater to a specialty school.

I mean, that’s a tremendous amount of calculated ignorance. And, it seems to be coming from the top.

Your superintendent has demonstrated her intentional ignorance in the most arrogant of ways in recent weeks. And it needs to be put in check.

I’m not stupid. And, neither are the folks in my community. We get it. The facts don’t fit your narrative, so you have taken artistic license with them. Since this is real life, and not a Hollywood blockbuster, that won’t fly. We won’t let this behavior go unchallenged.

I will admit, it is hard to keep up with your ever-changing story. Especially since the community wasn’t allowed to hear that story until five months after you first discussed it with staff and parents at Gilbert Classical Academy, the rigorous school designed for your brightest students that you have worked tirelessly, some might say deceptively, to find a permanent location for on a full-service campus, ejecting the students who are there now.

First, Mesquite Junior and Gilbert Junior were put on the chopping block because they were at about “45 percent capacity,” according to your superintendent. Only problem is, they aren’t.

Mesquite is at 655 kids in a school that you determined can hold 950. That’s 69 percent. Gilbert Junior is at 505 kids in a school that you determined can hold 725. That’s 70 percent.

Taking that one step further, Gilbert Junior houses a “school within a school” for students who need additional support, and that program is at about 40 kids. The program utilizes six classrooms on the GJHS campus.

Some have argued that those students don’t “count” towards the overall student capacity at GJHS. While we think they do, we’ll play ball and stick with 70 percent.

Both Mesquite and Gilbert Junior are at a higher capacity ratio than Greenfield Junior, a school that sits at about 66 percent capacity and occupies space on a corner adjacent to GCA. I can’t seem to figure out why that school isn’t being considered, if we’re talking student capacity.

Your superintendent is choosing to ignore the district capacity figures, and instead employ School Facilities Board (SFB) capacity figures to make her argument, when the School Facilities Board figures are rarely, if ever, used to measure a school’s student capacity. Schools would be totally overcrowded. Evidence to that? GPS has its own capacity figures for each school.

If SFB capacity truly measured maximum capacity, why then are numerous portables being used at several high school campuses that haven’t even reached their district capacity figure, a number that is up to 300 students less than the SFB number? And, if SFB capacity is gospel, GPS is in a world of hurt regarding enrollment.

It’s a sham designed to sway public opinion. You know it. We’re on to it. And, it shouldn’t continue.

Your superintendent also asked that you suspend a regulation that mandates how you notify stakeholders of a potential school closure, because it would be “cost prohibitive” to the tune of “hundreds of thousands” of dollars.

That little nugget was denied by a district official, who said publicly that no one ever received an estimate on what it would cost to notify all stakeholders of this monumental decision. That same district employee reminded your superintendent, who offered empty reassurance to the board that she consulted with Mesa Public Schools regarding their process for notification, that Mesa Public Schools decided to go above and beyond state statute and notify all stakeholders when they were in a somewhat similar situation. So, I can’t figure out why your superintendent would ignore the advice she trumpeted seeking, then blatantly disregard district regulations and ask that the regulation be suspended. Who does that?

Here’s who does that: the same person who is also ignoring a 2015 demographic study that projects growth across most junior high campuses over the next few years. That study projects a 41 percent jump at Gilbert Junior, a school that you’ve long neglected and has lived with a nagging cloud of uncertainty overhead since your first attempt to close it a few years ago. If you toss projections that you deem “outdated,” but really just don’t fit into your strategically-constructed yet increasingly stream-of-consciousness narrative, you’ll be making a blind decision. Blind. You’ll be making a decision to close a school with no relevant data.

None.

I mean, who does THAT? Someone who isn’t questioned. That’s who.

You need to be questioned. And by questioned, I mean someone with governing authority needs to be concerned enough to ask questions about the future of our school district, ask questions about the lies that are being peddled and ask questions about overall public trust, rather than ask questions about how all the envelopes being used for public notification will be sealed.

That was a true concern, from a board member, one who has one-fifth influence on a decision that holds heavy, long-term ramifications for our district. How will all the envelopes get sealed?

So many of the elements of this process set precedent for the future of our district under this superintendent. It sets precedent regarding stakeholder notification, which will come into play with future boundary decisions and decisions regarding the future of other schools. Closing a campus, eliminating a school, will set a precedent that is irreversible, and irresponsible in a time of projected growth. A school closure will create campus crowding in the near future, which will then necessitate the need to expand.

It’s also become crystal clear that our superintendent chooses to skirt regulations, ignore outside advice, and remain blissfully ignorant of the concerns of the community.

I can’t figure out how you’d even consider closing a school, knowing what we know. To stay competitive, you’ll say. Competitive? You’ve injected the community with an unhealthy level of competition in recent weeks as two schools fight to stay open and one gets to pick apart the features of the campuses up for bid. And, you’re on the sidelines, watching. Critiquing. And accusing those in the fight of dividing the community.

You want to stay competitive? Restore community engagement. True engagement. Support the schools you have, all of them. Celebrate success, at every level, not only for the select few. Reach out to parents, all of them, new ones, not just the same parents you’ve spoken to for years. Practice inclusion. Give parents and students and teachers undeniable reasons to fully support you. Give them value. Don’t say it — do it.

I just can’t figure out why, when you want to be a “district of choice,” you are on a mission to eliminate one of those choices.

Something is really wrong with that.

#SAVEGJHS  

The next community forum:
Tuesday, March 22, 2016 at 6:30 PM
Mesquite High School Auditorium

The people of Gilbert, Arizona are speaking out loud and clear: #NOWAYGCA.  Ooops, what they’re saying is the same thing GPS board member Dr. Charles Santa Cruz articulated: “I’m not sure we can strike a win-win with the proposals that are before us.”

We all know that there was a sham of a public meeting that pretended to be a forum in which the GPS board members pretended to listen to the community about the board’s full-court press to close a school and give Gilbert Classical Academy a new home. Showing what a pretense it was, GCA principal Dan Hood congratulated the GCA students and parents about how they *sounded so much more intelligent* than the others who spoke to the GPS administration while board members hid out in the audience. Then he put out the word that what the kids said about rats and cockroaches wasn’t true, but hey, weren’t those kids cute?

Isn’t it just the cutest thing that the GPS Technology Services folks obligingly *lost* the first hour or so of the public comments of that forum? Way to put your thumbs on the scale, guys! And you thought we didn’t notice…

Local media noticed how things are already screwed up beyond redemption, pointing out the obvious: Gilbert citizens thought you should have learned from your mistakes. Instead, an administration of overpaid Carpetbaggers and Scalawags with no sense of GPS history is making blunders that have the old GPS regimes ROFLAO. This time, the community and the media agree with the old regime:

The process is just as controversial and emotional as it was in 2012, when the Gilbert Public Schools board first voted to shutter Gilbert Junior High to make way for the burgeoning academy. That decision was rescinded within months amid charges the district failed to follow state law regarding Arizona School Facilities Board approval, proper notification of parents and school-boundary policies.

District officials say the three options, whittled down from 16 after months of discussion, would be the quickest and most cost effective. But parents of students in all three schools feel slighted, with many charging they were again left out of the loop until late in the process.

“I have a sense of deja vu,” parent Rob Guderian told officials at a Feb. 24 hearing. “Similar to last time, I feel the motions that you are considering as a governing board don’t serve the best interests of the majority of the students in the district.” Despite the district’s years-old promise to move Gilbert Classical once it established itself, parent Steve Smith said the school “continues to exist in a facility that is woefully inadequate.” Lisa Nicita, who has three elementary-age children on track to attend Gilbert Junior, told The Republic the district is “selling false information because their demographic report doesn’t say what they want it to.”

It really is cute that GPS Technology Services *lost* the full video of the comments that Rob Guderian and  Lisa Nicita made. But they made sure to preserve the comments that “parent Steve Smith” made! It’s a cheap, but probably effective way to get rid of public records, along the lines of how former Superintendent Dave Allison wiped a server because he didn’t want public information falling into the wrong hands. Sheeeesh.

Even residents who normally support anything Christina Kishimoto wants were offended by GCA comments at the pretend-forum. You reap what you sow:

I was impressed by the calmness of the speakers but unnerved by the sense of entitlement expressed by many GCA parents, as if the district “owes” them. Granted, their children are in a sub-par facility, and that should be addressed, but their children have had much smaller class sizes, historically. They have had 1:1 technology for many years, while other students are just now starting to get it. They have a small school atmosphere, which comes at a high administrative expense. They are not the red-headed stepchild of GPS. On the contrary, the district has invested more money in GCA students every year than in other secondary students.

Here’s a quick history for the GPS carpetbaggers and scalawags and horse thieves:

The pushback isn’t because GCA is wanting a new location. It’s HOW the district has been handling it.

*First, GCA only graduates 50% of the 7th graders that start there in Junior High School. That was 50 kids who graduated last year. So it’s a small program.

*Second, GCA would be displacing every single student at the junior high school that they take over.

*Third, not all options were looked at seriously, as the administration and at least 4 board members have had a forgone conclusion. For my own opinion, taking over Greenfield Junior High School, if indeed a school needed to be “re-purposed” would have been a better choice. It’s centrally located, has the amenities that GCA wants, and the students in its enrollment area could be easily “redistributed” to the surrounding 5 junior high schools.

*Fourth, there have been no traffic studies done to let the neighborhoods know just how the increase in both bus and car traffic (including students driving) would affect their streets.

*Fifth, there is supposed to be 41% growth at Gilbert Jr High in the next 5 years. Closing that school, and expecting Mesquite Junior High School to absorb the students, AND Gilbert Junior High School growth PLUS their own is incredibly shortsighted.

*Sixth, a “school within a school” model has worked at Tucson’s University High. It’s also worked at Gilbert Jr. High with the STEPS program. (Which would need to be….what? No communication has been given regarding this special education program) Why NOT allow GCA to grow naturally on a campus that supports both general education and GCA students. Or, expand GCA to ALL campuses as a program.

*Seventh, I have heard some talk about the GCA “school culture” as why the school within model wouldn’t work. They leave out the very idea that Gilbert Junior High School has its OWN culture and community. It’s very important to those that have moved (and are still moving) to that neighborhood for the express purpose of their children being able to walk to school.

GCA, in my opinion, was started in the laziest fashion possible. It seems as if Dr. Allison, tired of being asked, just said, “Sure. Whatever. Here you go,” and pushed off dealing with it. The campus GCA is on should never have been considered for it. GCA should never have been put there in the first place. If there was enough faith in the idea of GCA then, they should have just built the campus then. Now, I believe it’s 7 years later, and the community has become divided by GCA more and more.

Here’s the sentiment of the Gilbert Junior High School community about judging kids by test scores:

I like hearing about GCA student’s accomplishments, too. In fact, it actually makes me feel good to hear about all students succeeding. Student success is never a bad thing and it is what I expect from GPS schools. That being said, high test scores and national rankings are not the only way to define student success. Ask a special education teacher what would they would define as a success. Or an ESL teacher. Or a resource teacher. Boiling down a school or a student’s worth to test scores does everyone a disservice, especially those dedicated GPS employees we advocate for.

Of course, the GPS administration now in place has no clue about how beloved is Kevin Rainey, the principal of Gilbert Junior High School. The following comments written in response to disparaging comments of a parent who lives in the Gilbert Junior High School boundaries, but opts to send some of her kids to other schools:

While you are not convinced of the administration of GJHS, many others are. Let me tell you about Kevin Rainey, GJHS principal. He started at GJHS as a maintenance worker while he was putting himself through school. He graduated and became a classroom teacher and then went on to become a principal. He has spent his life in service to the GJHS community.

He has led GJHS through some truly dark times and faced each of these situations with an unbelievable amount of grace and dignity. None of these situations were even remotely caused by his actions or inaction. Since the last closure attempt he has stayed at the helm of GJHS, even though a lesser man would have seen the writing on the wall and choose to leave. We lost a student and a beloved staff member passed away on campus while at work, all since being sucker punched by the district in 2012, yet Kevin Rainey has persevered and continued to lead GJHS with dignity – even to this day with yet another closure battle looming. When I look at role models for my kids, he is certainly one I would hold up, and I know many other people in the GJHS community feel the same way.

We’ll close with a comment that ties up loose ends of the entire controversy:

The amount of effort, money, attention, distraction, bodies, and division that this one single issue has caused in the last five years is STAGGERING. All for 50 kids a year out the back door…

#SAVEGJHS 

The next community forum:
Tuesday, March 22, 2016 at 6:30 PM
Mesquite High School Auditorium

If you wait for it, what comes out of someone’s mouth will show you exactly what they really think.  Gilbert Public Schools Governing Board Clerk Jill Humpherys has had it — she wants to get on with this chaos and just vote. Now!

Besides, it’s just too bad things didn’t work out for her pal, Superintendent Christina Kishimoto, and their plans to close Gilbert Junior High School to give Gilbert Classical Academy a new home. Now you’ve forced Silly Jilly to put up a fig leaf of pretending to consider closing Mesquite Junior High School instead. Too bad that bad decision opened the door to even more criticism from the community of Gilbert, Arizona. Now if you will all shut up and go home, Jill will just get all that dumb voting done so she can go home, too.

You think we’re kidding. Nope. Here it is from the horse’s … mouth. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear that Silly Jilly is mad at Christina Kishimoto for not being able to get all those hard working folks on her staff to just get the job done. Now their incompetence is forcing Jill to vote on something she thought was a done deal already! Hey Jill, if GPS has to send out letters, who will lick the stamps? [No, we won’t link to it, but you can Google it.]

Governing Board Clerk Jill Humpherys comments about GPS Superintendent Christina Kishimoto’s request to rescind a district regulation Kishimoto has already violated. The regulation requires that the school district notify affected residents of a potential school closure. Jill talks about “doing complicated things” and how “our staff is working really, really hard.” Jill says life doesn’t ever go smoothly and that you’re always scrambling to do something, some little thing that you did not remember.

Regarding written notification, Jill even talks about “the cost of postage and printing, and getting somebody to seal all those envelopes…I don’t know, do they have a machine for that?” Jill says the world isn’t perfect, and that “we just have to understand there are going to be a few hiccups here and there.” She goes on to say “this is a very hard decision…it’s a point where we work to support each other…we have to find a way to be positive and have a positive outlook because our attitudes will influence our kids.” Jill concludes her comments by saying “Life isn’t perfect; I’m ready to move forward and just make decisions.”

The board rejected the superintendent’s unethical proposal on a 3-2 vote. Whew! That means Jill has to pretend to listen to two different community forums about closing a junior high school. That’s just mean of all you folks in the community who won’t applaud any more when Jill Humpherys walks into a room. Now we’re seeing the consequences elections have.

Hey, GEA, how’s your gal working out for you? Every time she opens her mouth, she makes you teachers look stupid for supporting this ignoramus. Look at how she had your back and got the board to give you teachers an immediate raise as the quid pro quo for supporting her. Or not. Suddenly there were a whole bunch of competing priorities, weren’t there? Maybe when GPS finally gets around to sending out teacher contracts, you’ll know how much love Silly Jilly had for you in the salary negotiations. Or not. But you have another chance to support a mouthpiece, since GPS Board President Lily Tram has filed to run for her seat on the board again. Have you noticed, GEA, that your gals haven’t said Word One about what will happen to jobs when GPS closes a campus?

It really burns Jill Humpherys and Lily Tram to have to listen to people talk. Don’t all you people in the Gilbert community know their minds are made up? Christina Kishimoto has already told the GPS board to do what her *alleged* boyfriend wants. Former Executive Director of Technology Steve Smith has already told you board members to cut the crap and get this done … give GCA what he wants!

Oh the indignities of being a GPS board member! You have to hide out in the audience and pretend to listen to people tell you what to do (because you can’t manage your way out of a paper bag):

“I run a $30 Million hotel and if I waited this long to make a decision, I wouldn’t have a job.” Spoken by a Mesquite Junior High School parent. Oooh, feel the burn! More of his comments: “I feel the options are really harmful to all of the students involved. Parents think that everyone’s working against one another, and frankly I feel it’s due to the board.”

That’s right, GPS board. You’ve set up a lose-lose proposition for Gilbert Public Schools. You’ve already screwed things up so badly, you should go home with your tails tucked between your legs.

[Sorry about that mental image of the *alleged* girlfriend and her *alleged* boyfriend. Have some brain bleach.]

Other school districts have tried to give families *choices* about their schools. Christina Kishimoto was famous in Hartford, Connecticut for not listening to families…which got her fired. Maybe the GPS board could try listening to other school districts if they don’t want to hear about inequality from their own Gilbert citizens. The folks in San Diego described *choice* very differently from what GPS and GCA are touting:

Basically, a fair choice plan has a certain number of elements, and it expands opportunity and integration. And those include free transportation. They include good choices. They include fair parent information and a fair method of selecting the kids, and active recruitment of the kids from all parts of the community. Free transportation is essential. Otherwise you’re just giving choice on the basis of social class.

When you have neighborhood schools in a city that has unequal and segregated neighborhoods, Latino and black kids end up in schools that are segregated by race and poverty and sometimes by language, and tend to perform much worse.

And white and Asian kids tend to end up in middle-class schools with a majority of middle-class kids, and more experienced teachers and stronger curriculum, higher level of competition. So it just perpetuates the inequality.

BTW: Welcome home, GCA kids and their parents and chaperons who had a magnificent Spring Break in Italy and Greece! Talk about entitlement…

Here’s the field trip that the GPS board approved back in August 2015:

10. Gilbert Classical Academy – 10th & 11th Grade
Who: Faculty: 5
Chaperones: 17
Students: 42
Ratio: 5:1
Where: Italy and Greece
When: March 11 -20, 2016 (Friday – Sunday)
Purpose: The purpose of the trip is for students to enrich their lives by traveling to Europe and immersing themselves in world cultures. Students will see the scope of ancient Italy, from the Forum in Rome to the foundations of Pompeii, then cross the Ionian Sea to step further back in time by visiting Athens, the center of the Athenian empire. They will walk between the fallen columns of the Acropolis and see the proud pillars of the Parthenon. Students will follow the path of Plato and see where Socrates stood, both of whom GCA students have studied for years. Most of all, students will experience the birthplace of democracy.
# Missed School Days: 0

Cost: $144,522 or $3,441/student
Cost to District: $ -0-

Cost Includes: Registration fee, transportation, lodging and meals
Paid by: Student & Tax Credit
Transportation: Commercial Airlines, Charter Bus and Commercial Ship

#SAVEGJHS 

We wonder if the GPS administration is feeling the wrath of a community that feels deceived: here taxpayers just approved Millions and Millions of Dollars for Gilbert Public Schools, in part because Christina Kishimoto and Her Rubber Stamps said they would have to close schools without more money. Now, they’re going to close a school anyway. For a flimsy reason the community thought was behind them. Nope, it’s back, biting them all in the butts, while board members say, “It’s so hard to make these tough decisions.” Cue the violins!

The community isn’t buying that a decision needs to be made at all:

I find fascinating that the overwhelming majority of community members discussing this situation all say the same thing. “It’s a tough decision” “I wouldn’t want to make that decision” “It’s an unfortunate situation” These comments are clearly screaming that we don’t have the right solutions on the table right now. With that being recognized by nearly the entire community, why on earth would we move forward with bad options when we know there can be better solutions?

The fact is, neither of the two junior high schools, Gilbert Junior High School and Mesquite Junior High School — on the chopping block for the benefit of Gilbert Classical Academy — has the capacity to absorb the projected enrollment of an expanded GCA plus their own projected enrollment. More significantly, GCA has fought against the *school within a school* option since the first attempt to close Gilbert Junior High School in 2012. The Governing Board’s sudden inclusion of the *school within a school* option is disingenuous at best.

We take issue with the way the district has manipulated student capacity numbers to fit their case — and frankly feel that the administration is acting fraudulently to further its agenda. Since boundaries have not been updated in years in this district, and eastern growth has radically changed neighborhood densities – we feel like an honest, fair look at boundaries is long overdue. We think your question about why not Greenfield Junior High School can be applied to Gilbert Junior High School or Mesquite Junior High School just the same. Combining those two campuses would put either school at over capacity, immediately. And, GCA would have surplus space — about 50 percent capacity — on its new campus.

How is it equitable to cater to a select few while displacing hundreds and disrupting thousands across 10 schools? It’s just not. To be honest, we’re not sure what other options are out there, but the ones that are on the table won’t work — if we’re talking honestly about numbers. A school within a school works great in Tucson for an award-winning, nationally-ranked school so that option might be worth exploring further. But with growth on the horizon, closing a school should not even be an option.

From a family that believes this situation has become ridiculous:

Dear Board Members,

Our family is unable to attend the meeting next Tuesday night, but appreciate the March 4 invitation to participate.

PLEASE REMEMBER that GCA was thrilled once upon a time to take over the Technical and Leadership Academy structures and revamp the accelerated curriculum. There was no talk at that time of ever needing bigger, better facilities, swimming pool, athletic fields, etc.

Our family is of the opinion that if GCA is not now able to continue in its current location, then GCA should be dissolved and the students assimilated into accelerated classes at their nearest high school.

What you have here is the camel inserting its nose into the tent and expecting by degrees to be allowed to enter. This GCA flap has divided our community once again and reveals a very misguided, if not underhanded, Administration.

DISSOLVE GCA if they are unhappy with their current housing, and end this nonsense. [emphasis in the original]

From a GCA parent who clearly isn’t believing principal Dan Hood’s messages about GCA solidarity:

Based on what I heard last night, it’s obvious GCA would love Mesquite’s campus. I understand why, it’s like rainbows and unicorns compared to what we have now. But I don’t support this option as a GCA parent. I really don’t love any options we were given. I think the whole district needs an overhaul. Why aren’t we holding the board’s feet to the fire over everything not just this issue? GCA needs a new campus, but Islands Elementary School needs paper!! My 1st grader doesn’t get homework because of a *paper shortage.* What’s going on???

Some GCA supporters say it’s not at all about race or socio-economic levels, as they wipe a crocodile tear from their eye. Residents in the Mesquite Junior High School boundaries and Gilbert Junior High School boundaries know better, even if Christina Kishimoto and her staff want to deny the truth:

GCA advocates say we shouldn’t, as a district, have to be responsible for those kids from the wrong side of Baseline Road. Those are Mesa kids in *our* boundaries! Here are some stats for you:
Gilbert’s median household income – $80,000.00
Arizona’s median household income – $48,000.00
Zip code 85204 which includes all those Mesa kids in GPS boundaries – $43,000.00

Harris Elementary has the largest percentage, by far, of kids that participate in the free and reduced lunch program at 76%. It really doesn’t even matter what race of kids are. They are of a lower socioeconomic status than the vast majority of Gilbert residents. I don’t care if you don’t understand why they are in GPS boundaries, they are. And we have a duty to educate them and give them opportunities to improve their lot in life. I would argue we have an even greater responsibility to those kids than the high achieving kids. GCA kids have proven they succeed no matter the environment. Unfortunately, for many poor kids, the school environment is the only positive environment they are exposed to.

Mesa High is right up the street from Harris. I bet a lot of those kids choose to go there instead of GPS schools. Instead wringing our hands about how we can get those kids back into GPS, we let them go. We threaten to take away their school and overcrowd them on a different campus. Will GPS admins shed any tears about losing those kids to another district? Nope, they are probably glad to see them go. Instead of reaching out to those neighborhoods, GPS would rather poke a stick in their eyes, and think of ways we can drive them out.

It’s so wrong though that a school has to continually fight for its home. The consensus among many teachers is they are livid about this GCA focus  to the seeming exclusion of the amazing things happening on their respective schools. They do not want to see GCA expand because they fear that it will pull more top performing kids from GPS schools, which will ultimately lower school grades and rankings and hurt the overall district grade.

We’ll close with one last email from parents to the GPS board, calling for a do-over:

My opinion is that none of these three options are the best for the community overall, only for the GCA population.

My suggestion is that a committee of people who have the interests in each of the schools be involved in formulating some solutions, or possibly a company could be hired that specializes in this kind of thing. If you have a small group focused on the interests of just the one school, GCA, come up with the “solutions,” it is going to be very unpopular with the majority of the community, which this is.

SPENDING OUR MONEY: The past three years we have not had enough copy paper, for goodness sakes, and now we have MILLIONS to spend on making this change. I have been at GPS for 14 years, and on the PTA for just about as many years. We have paper drives to get parents to buy the doggone paper for the school, and to those of us who work so hard to help and volunteer our time, this is outrageous!

I have spent countless hours raising money for my child to have paper, the AR reading program and other things that she should just HAVE included in her education. I also supported the override, thinking we would get some of the programs back!

Also, we should get the AR Reading Program paid for by the District. It is hard to encourage kids to read at the right level when it is hard to determine the level without the Star Testing and AR Program. Many kids succeed with AR because they have goals, and it is a very visual program for how they improve, moving up as they succeed on each test.

Board Members – you are supposed to keep in mind the good of the majority of your constituents, not just a few. Please consider going back to the drawing board, and coming up with an idea that is better for everyone. Please do not decide to combine the populations of MJHS and GJHS.

Some people are sick and tired of hearing how *disadvantaged* GCA kids are: 

Those students that attend GCA did so KNOWING that there were few sports amenities, and stricter academics. They knew about the campus (Does anyone actually know the capacity figures and what percent of capacity GCA ACTUALLY is?) and that it wasn’t ideal, but they CHOSE to go there anyway. WHY is the community now supposed to fall all over themselves to compensate 1% of the students for the choice they and their parents made?

#SAVEGJHS 

Sometimes you can’t improve on what a person writes from their heart. This is one of those times. Before Westie yields the blog, let’s put the bottom line up front: the stakes are high for the future of Gilbert Public Schools. No school should close. We need a hero.  

GPS has one assumption correct: the educational landscape is fiercely competitive right now. Parents won’t tolerate—wait, don’t need to tolerate—a district that doesn’t value them. They don’t need to tolerate a superintendent that stonewalls and disrespects them. They don’t need to tolerate a governing board that doesn’t govern, and instead sits by, essentially acting complicit with the fraudulent propaganda its superintendent is spewing. 

***********

Dear GPS,

I’m pretty sure I couldn’t be more disenchanted with, disappointed in or fooled by a school district than I am right now. With you.

Would you like to know why? Because, as a parent, I’ve been set up. And, so has everyone else.

As disenchanted, disappointed and fooled as I am – I still have hope. Would you like to know why? Because no one has voted, yet. No one has voted to unjustly close a school. Yet.

There is still a chance for the GPS governing board to actually govern. And, boy could that board have a field day, if it wanted to.

Here’s why I’m disenchanted: I’m not seeing any leadership.

I know there are leaders on that board. There are people on that board who can lead our district out of the shame spiral it has found itself in, if they choose to. This could be their moment.

A leader would confront our superintendent on the fraudulent campus capacity figures she continues to feed the public. A leader would tell her she is deliberately being deceptive as a means of molding public opinion. She knows that neither Mesquite Junior nor Gilbert Junior is at 45 percent capacity. She knows that both schools are at 69 and 70 percent capacity, respectively. She knows she is manipulating numbers, bypassing district capacity figures in favor of the overly-inflated state capacity figures that are never used, to somehow justify the preferential treatment she is showing Gilbert Classical Academy, a specialty school that wants to hijack one of those campuses without surrendering a thing.

And in all of this, no board member has admonished her for it. No one has called her on her lies, on her arrogant disregard for public trust, mere months after the community entrusted you with $200 million in bond and override approvals following three failed attempts. All of our board members understand the significance of the differing capacity figures. There is no excuse.

District documents state Gilbert Junior High capacity is 725, a number the superintendent conveniently ignores.

In fact, a current board member questioned Dave Allison, a previous GPS superintendent, regarding the difference between district capacity figures and state capacity figures a few years ago when the district tried to close Gilbert Junior the first time. Here is part of their exchange:

Board member: Can you please explain the difference between the SFB capacity numbers for the Jr. Highs versus the district stated capacity? According to the district capacity numbers, there is no justification to close a Jr. High. The district numbers do reflect that a closing of a GPS Jr. High will result in overcrowding.

Allison: The SFB uses a formula (I am not exactly sure what figures are used but it does use square footage and ADM enrollment) to determine the capacity of a school. It has been my experience over years of dealing with the formula that it is not realistic for most GPS schools.

That board member is still currently serving, and holds one-fifth vote on this issue. That board member knows, based on this conversation, that School Facilities Board figures are “not realistic,” yet this board member has not stopped the superintendent from making fraudulent claims regarding campus capacities.

Not much has changed since 2013. District capacity figures still show that massive overcrowding will result from combining two campuses. The district’s own figures state capacity at Gilbert Junior at 725 and Mesquite Junior at 950. Add the 505 students at GJHS to the 655 students at Mesquite Junior and you need portables. On either campus. From day one. And that doesn’t even factor in projected feeder and infill boundary growth.

A second board member was seated on a surplus space committee, one that met and routinely discussed the differences between district capacity figures and state capacity figures. That board member knows better, too, and yet continues to do nothing to correct the superintendent. But, I expect nothing more of that board member, since that board member would never dare to break from a consistent majority voting block. Autonomy is absolutely foreign to that board member.

Here’s why I’m disappointed: I know the educational environment will be impacted.

Capacity figures, at any venue, are calculated for a reason. Too many people dancing in a club is a fire hazard. Oversell a movie theater and there aren’t enough seats. Selling too many tickets for a flight means someone gets bumped.

Too many kids in a school affects the learning experience, negatively. Without a doubt. It’s been studied and quoted and repeated by experts. The impact of class size on academic achievement was even a highly-touted topic of discussion during campaign season for at least one candidate with ties to the Gilbert Junior community. That candidate earned a seat on the board. Do class sizes still matter to that board member? Here’s a chance for that board member to back up that campaign promise.

What happens when you squeeze 1,200 students into a school designed to hold 950? Or worse, what happens when you cram 1,200 students into a school designed to hold 725? What do class sizes look like, exactly? What do sports teams look like, exactly, with a talent pool that is suddenly twice the size it was the year before? What do staff meetings look like, when teachers who once had a classroom may now be in a portable – or an administrator who used to be a principal at one campus is forced to take a demotion?

Portables: A reality for GJHS and MJHS students if GCA gets a new campus.

Gilbert Public Schools is an A-rated district. Has been for years. So, why reform? Just last year, our state’s students performed horribly on new standardized tests. It was an eye-opener. Yet, this district is seriously considering an option that would close a junior high in a time of growth, thus increasing class sizes, squeezing students into crowded classrooms and campuses, and diminishing the overall quality of the educational environment, just to cater to a specialty school that has graduated 300 or so kids since it opened 8 years ago.

You’re setting our kids up to fail. You should be doing the exact opposite. When our kids fail, you fail. Letter grades at schools drop. District ratings, perhaps, could drop. It’s not worth it.

Here’s why I feel fooled: I trusted you.

Yep. I know, how stupid of me, right? I trusted my school district.

Even after you tried to illegally close Gilbert Junior a few years back, I trusted you to find, vet and hire a superintendent who would serve all of the students and families in our entire district, who would practice transparency and honesty, and who would steer clear of the inner politics that have plagued this district in recent years.

Man, was I dumb.

Google our superintendent. It’ll only take a second. I mean, it should have been done before you hired her. Guess what I learned? Our superintendent was run out of her former district in Hartford, Connecticut after working to close neighborhood schools, amid claims that she stonewalled parents and manipulated numbers to her benefit.

I know. It sounds familiar, right? It’s literally déjà vu – except it’s happening here. So, not literally. But darn close enough for me.

Especially when I read how parents felt at her previous school district.

“There must be a voice. There must be reciprocity,” the parent said. “This system has not included parents. We have been left out.”

Gulp.

What Hartford thought of our superintendent in 2012.

This superintendent has already demonstrated a blatant disregard for district policy, for parental input, for facts, for honesty, for prudent planning…I mean, I could go on for days. She’s tipped her hand, folks. This superintendent, if empowered to do so, is taking our district down a calamitous path toward ill-informed, monumental decisions that will impact the future of our district for years to come. Who even knows if she’ll be around to witness the damage.

Here’s the scary part, though. Parents might not be, either.

GPS has one assumption correct: the educational landscape is fiercely competitive right now. Parents won’t tolerate – wait, don’t need to tolerate – a district that doesn’t value them. They don’t need to tolerate a superintendent that stonewalls and disrespects them. They don’t need to tolerate a governing board that doesn’t govern, and instead sits by, essentially acting complicit with the fraudulent propaganda its superintendent is spewing.

But, I still have hope. Because the vote isn’t in, yet. And no school HAS to close. None of this HAS to happen.

But one thing does: A leader HAS to lead GPS out of this.

#SAVEGJHS 

The list of Lies Christina Kishimoto Tells is growing (as is her Pinocchio nose). Let’s examine some of the most egregious examples of fraudulent facts peddled by the Gilbert Public Schools Superintendent in her zeal to close a school for the benefit of 1% of GPS students and give Gilbert Classical Academy a new campus.

Did you watch the Channel 12 news report quoting Christina Kishimoto? The reporter narrated that “95% of [GCA’s] graduating class earned full-ride academic scholarships” while displaying a graphic that stated “95% of graduates earned 4 year college scholarships.” Who told him that?

Let’s start with the four year college scholarship claim. FACT: Not all GCA graduates go on to a four year college. Plenty of GCA graduates attend one of the many branches of Maricopa Community Colleges after graduating from GCA. Lots of GCA graduates go to Grand Canyon University, a local, private, Christian institution that’s not exactly known as an intellectual powerhouse. Once in a while, a GCA graduate wanders afar and attends a well-known university Back East. So do plenty of graduates from GPS comprehensive high schools.

Where a student goes to college often has more to do with their own needs and the resources of their families. Plenty of GCA graduates resist the siren song of student loans. They’re going to start their adult lives with a great deal of freedom as a result of their choice to pay as they go. They’ll also be resilient and savvy when they begin their careers. GCA acolytes should quit judging whether their successes are *enough.* Our hats are off to all high school graduates who choose the best course for themselves and their families, although deep inside, we all would like to be trust fund babies who never have a financial care in the world.

FACT: GCA graduates are offered a lot of scholarships, but that doesn’t mean each graduate gets a full scholarship to a four year university. How stupid does Christina Kishimoto think we are? We’ll let a GPS parent explain:

I was surprised to learn that if your student applied to a lot of colleges, GPS adds up all the scholarships they were offered and says that student received X amount in scholarships. I thought that was ridiculous. A student can take only one of those offers. When GCA claims a huge scholarship number, I have to wonder if the counselors (who have time to actually meet with those students, as opposed to not even knowing who they’re responsible for at GPS comprehensive high schools) encouraged the GCA snowflakes to apply to many schools in an effort to raise the school’s scholarship numbers. There is a word for this: BS.

Thus, GCA brags that the Class of 2015 earned a total of $8,140,172 in scholarships. Congratulations, GCA. But quit looking down your nose at the other GPS high schools. Did you know that Desert Ridge High School did better than GCA using GCA’s own metrics? Lookie here:

Let’s look at another way to judge the achievements of the 2015 graduates from GPS high schools: National Merit Scholarships. That’s a truly elite group, one that schools cannot game (like GCA can game the US News and World Report rankings). This time, GCA absolute-top-of-the-class students didn’t score anything spectacular:

Gilbert High School: TWO National Merit Scholars in 2015
Campo Verde High School: TWO National Merit Scholars in 2015
Highland High School: ONE National Merit Scholar in 2015
Gilbert Classical Academy: ONE National Merit Scholar in 2015

GCA’s own handbook states “students who fail any course will be dismissed from GCA and students who have below a 2.0 grade point average at the end of any semester may be removed from GCA.” Imagine if our comprehensive high schools had that same policy. They would all rank nationally, too. Here’s another way GCA games the ratings: Advanced Placement courses and counselling students who don’t make the grade in GCA terms that they “should find a school that is a better fit for them.” More from a parent:

GCA students are ALL in AP courses. There are fewer taking these tests, less margin for error. GPS comprehensive high schools schools test everyone: ELL, special Ed, Resource, Regular Ed, Honors and AP students…..GCA Senior class this year is 37 kids. That says it all. Senior class last year for Highland High School, 749!!!!

Actually, GPS comprehensive high schools DO rank nationally! And that’s by the same rankings that GCA touts as the reason they *deserve* a new campus with all the bells and whistles Christina Kishimoto has agreed GCA should have. Another parent:

Sure, GCA scores a gold medal and national ranking, but two other GPS high schools, Campo Verde and Highland, score silver medals and Gilbert High scored a bronze medal. Very impressive showing by our comprehensive high schools considering their large enrollment, higher student to teacher ratios, and diversity of their student bodies. And don’t forget, those other schools can’t just eject students who don’t perform at a specified level, but GCA boots out any low performers.

FACT: Citizens are telling the GPS Governing Board that selecting one of the three choices Christina Kishimoto gave them will result in a BAD DECISION. The so-called facts are fraudulent. Kishimoto has already decided how the board should vote.  She doesn’t want the board to realize there are many other options that could succeed in GPS and benefit ALL students. A parent suggests GPS do what succeeds in other school districts:

To make a long term decision for a school based on 300 graduates over the life of the school, again, I think is wrong. I think the GCA model has potential to be even better than it is now. Why not offer GCA prep programs at Junior High campuses and have all of those kids who make it through filter into GCA High? It’s what other school districts do, and it avoids any poor “retention” perceptions.

No Decision is Better than a Bad Decision on Gilbert Classical Academy.

*************
* Big Fat Asterisk: Westie would absolutely love to post similar achievements by all GPS high schools. Shoot us an email! You know GPS isn’t sharing that information any time soon. It hurts Christina Kishimoto’s campaign for the One Percenters. Sigh.

#SAVEGJHS 

Today’s April Fools are those in the GPS Clown Car.  Recent revelations from the White Castle (the district offices, also known as the Temple of Doom) of Gilbert Public Schools are causing consternation at many levels. Westie is consternated, too, because we didn’t know *consternated* was a real word until now. The New Gang of GOBs (Good Old Boys) seems to be like lunatics that have taken over the asylum. We keep running into evidence that everything old is new again, so Westie is working overtime to track down what in the world is happening at the top levels of GPS under the *leadership* of Superintendent Christina Kishimoto. 

Where to begin? “Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” Given the scandalous situation of Superintendent Christina Kishimoto’s *alleged* inappropriate relationship with her former Executive Director of Technology Charles Stevin Smith, we thought we would look at past GPS scandals.

But first, let’s pass along a lesson in public relations from none other than the fabulous Alicia Florrick! On The Good Wife, Alicia endures a lot of public humiliation because of her husband, who is the Governor of Illinois. Here is her advice to that philanderer, which perhaps Christina Kishimoto could use:

“Zip your pants, shut your mouth and stop banging the help.“

We looked at the beginning of the Allison Ascendancy (which is not a Big Bang Theory TV episode).  Showing they can’t learn the lessons of a history they know nothing about, the New Gang of GOBs is repeating a scenario similar to something GPS endured a few years back. A board member suddenly resigned just as interviews were about to begin for a new GPS Superintendent after Brad Barrett got fed up with diva drama  suddenly announced his resignation in November 2007.

The decision comes a week after board member Traci Klein abruptly resigned without explanation. … Candidates for the job were Dave Allison, Gayle Blanchard, Barb VeNard and Ken James. Each had worked for the district for at least 15 years.

The GPS board, under the presidency of Helen Hollands, had decided to keep things in-house and not go outside of GPS for candidates for the office of superintendent. The governing board sleazed through a suspiciously speedy selection process and selected Dave Allison as superintendent in February 2008. The back-room board maneuvering caught public attention, not in a good way.

Only district employees were invited to apply for the position … The governing board finished its final interview Feb. 5 in a closed session. That is the same day Traci Klein abruptly resigned from the board, which is now down to four members. None of the interviews were done in public, and none of the candidates have talked about their plans if they become the next superintendent.

How many people in Westie’s audience remember what happened that caused Traci Klein to resign so suddenly? Three words keep coming up in conversation: FOIA text messages. Someone did that, and a cascade of consequences resulted. Back in the day, a lot of people really, really believed that electronic communications were not public records. We still see GPS trying to make that case: they just ain’t gonna part with them electronic files. Don’t get Westie started on their stupid reasons for refusing to comprehend the term “metadata.” That for sure must be something evil and uncontrollable. But we digress.

GPS lost some good administrators and/or members of the Original Loose Zipper Brigade in the aftermath of selecting Dave Allison as superintendent. It was fun and games, smoke and mirrors and shady shenanigans all rolled into one big hot mess. Keep this in mind as events unfold in the latest GPS scandals; Westie predicts that decisions made to hire certain persons and to promote them will be highlighted in developments that are coming to light. The light will keep shining!

One point of history that the New Gang of GOBs probably doesn’t know is that Lily Tram was named to fill the vacant position on the GPS governing board. Check out all the familiar names of people who threw their hats into the ring to replace Governing Board member Traci Klein:

Thirteen Gilbert residents have applied to fill the vacancy on the Gilbert Unified School District governing board after board member Traci Klein abruptly resigned earlier this month.

When Tram was selected to fill Traci Klein’s term, she was not hailed by the Gilbert community.  The Maricopa County Superintendent’s Office had sole discretion over filling the vacancy.  The office sorted through more than a dozen applications, interviewed a few people and then named Tram to finish out a four-year term. Plenty of folks, especially people that Christina Kishimoto calls *community leaders,* were still angry two years later when another governing board vacancy occurred. They instituted regime change:

Two years ago, school district and governing board officials, including philanthropist and then-Gilbert governing board member Elaine Morrison, complained that they were left out of the county superintendent’s decision to appoint Tram. They complained they didn’t know her – and many of the other candidates who had applied – and wanted to be involved in the selection process.

Tram has been board president a couple of times, and she’s famous in Gilbert political circles for Tram’s Rule, where she refused to put anything on the agenda for a board meeting until the board members first voted on putting that topic on an agenda. Arizona’s Open Meeting Law doesn’t allow board members to discuss something that’s not on a properly posted agenda, so GPS board members had to vote on whether or not to consider agenda items without knowing what the proposed discussion would be about. Convoluted? You betcha! Tram also was famous for complaining about the cost and inconvenience of complying with public records laws. Westie predicts the public will be hearing plenty more about Tram’s muscle-bound belligerent presidency of the GPS Governing Board in the near future.

Tram’s disdain for complying with Arizona’s Open Meeting Laws was on full display in November 2015 when she tried to brush off OML violations substantiated by the Attorney General’s Open Meeting Law Enforcement Team. Tram knows full well that when the Attorney General dismisses a complaint without findings that OML was violated, there is no question that there was no violation. Click the link to see a letter about 2014 OML complaints that were not substantiated. Compare that to the letter putting the GPS board and superintendency under six months of OML monitoring. One more comparison: the letter telling GPS to talk about their OML violations during a public meeting because they continued to violate OML.

If you wondered about the fate of the infamous “List” that was the subject of an OML complaint in 2014, here it is. The most important thing to note is that these complaints were filed in 2014 under then-president Staci Burk. It must have chafed some cheeks of folks like Suzy Horvath, Kristen Anderson and Matthew Moix to receive this message from the AG: “Nothing suggests that a quorum of the Board members communicated with each other about the staff members outside of a public meeting in violation of the law. This matter is now closed.”

People who complain loudly about how unfair it was to force Tram and *her* board to attend OML training are missing many points. One is that Tram filed her own OML complaints when she was not president of the governing board. One of Tram’s OML complaints was against Julie Smith. The AG’s office wasn’t amused that Tram tried to file a complaint without signing it, which would be the kind of thing that Tram would excoriate others for doing. So SAVE your vapid excuses about Tram’s behavior, folks.

#SAVEGJHS

The world can learn a lot from Oprah Winfrey. There’s a GPS Governing Board member who really, really should learn how to be like Oprah: generous and grateful every day. Westie has written before about how, as Maya Angelou once told Oprah, “When people show you who they are, believe them.  They know themselves much better than you do.” Citizens of Gilbert and parents of children in Gilbert Public Schools can now see Jill Humpherys  for who she is: an opportunist who just exploited a GPS student for her own political gain.

Below is a letter that Jill Humpherys posted on her perpetual campaign pages. The back story: Jill doesn’t like SB1279, which qualifies all school age children to participate in Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program over a three year, phased-in process. The ESA program currently provides children with disabilities, children from failing schools, and other underserved populations the funding necessary to allow those children to pursue the education that will help them achieve their full potential. Westie’s not advocating, but simply describing the bill that brought out Jill Humpherys’ opportunism in a most disgusting way.

UPDATE: A former GPS teacher, whose earlier post was deleted on Jill Humpherys’ perpetual campaign page, asked again:
So, my questions were as follows:
1) How did you learn about this student?
2) Who gave you permission to share this student’s information?
3) When did you become a teacher to know how this child should have been educated over the past 7 years and/or how do you know how he was educated?
4) How do you know GPS wouldn’t have had the exact same outcome?
Wouldn’t you know — Jill Humpherys is ignoring this citizen.

In a just world, GPS would hold Jill Humpherys personally responsible for publicly defaming and attempting to shame a family because Jill Humpherys does not agree with choices those parents have made.  Don’t hold your breath. Jill Humpherys most likely is parroting the party line from GPS administrators.  One thing we’re seeing is that GPS Superintendent Christina Kishimoto has no qualms about closing a neighborhood junior high school, even though doing so will doom a Special Education program and discriminate against students based on race and economic status. As one parent wrote about Jill Humpherys’ disparagement of a special needs child and his mother:

To say that a special needs child would have learned more if he stayed in their school is ridiculous, insulting, ignorant among other things. Jill Humpherys should resign her seat immediately. GPS used to be one of the best school districts anywhere. Boy, has it lost ground due to their demeaning attitudes about parents.

Without further ado, the text of the defamatory and disgusting letter. Notice that as soon as she writes “the views represented herein are solely my own,” Jill Humpherys follows up with “As a board member…”  [Oops, a little *ado* crept into this post. Sorry.]

Dear Representative,

Although I am a Gilbert Public Schools Governing Board Member, the views represented herein are solely my own.

As a board member, I work very hard to ensure that every student in my district receives a well-rounded education that will help him or her become a successful citizen. Recently, I learned that a student who should be in tenth grade showed up at one of our high schools. He was taken out of GPS after third grade and had a mild learning disability. His mother received Empowerment Scholarship Account funds, but, unfortunately, did nothing to continue her child’s education in a way that was beneficial to him. He still reads at a third grade level. Now our district will work with this student the best we can, but will only be able to bring the student up to a 7th or 8th grade reading level rather than at the higher level he would have achieved had he stayed in GPS. This without the funds that would help us to pay for the supports this student will receive.

I am also accountable for how tax payer dollars are spent. Currently, our board faces the difficult decision of whether we should combine two junior high schools, partly to be more efficient in our use of tax payer resources. Our community is very unhappy about the prospect of closing one of our neighborhood schools.

So I am being help [sic] accountable for decisions made that impact students and taxpayers, but the legislature is willing to hand out general state funds to parents and private schools without any meaningful oversight.

This legislation is bad for students and bad for taxpayers. Please VOTE NO on SB1279.

People responded to Jill Humpherys on her Facebook page, but you won’t see those comments. They’re gone. Jill Humpherys doesn’t like it when people don’t tell her how wonderful she is, let alone, that they <gasp> disagree with her. Jill Humpherys tells people she will *ban* them for such apostasy. But we digress.

Some of the comments from a parent of a special needs child:

Ms. Humpherys, I believe you should resign after that letter you wrote to the state regarding confidential information on a child with whom you do not know the parents nor what goes on inside their home… Schools do not and cannot understand how the parents are helping their child ESPECIALLY a special needs child. For them to make a judgement call like that is about the worst thing I have read in a long time!

Eddie Farnsworth, Andy Biggs and Warren Petersen: Thank you for giving parents the ability to teach their special needs children at home if the parents feel that is the best option. The voucher program is doing so much good for children that would get passed over in a regular school setting.

What kind of accountability does a school district have with students like my son? I had to make a choice. And that choice absolutely should belong with me, the mom, and not you, the administrator, which fortunately our Republican lawmakers understand. What about families that need financial assistance in order to educate their child at home? You would discriminate against special needs children with low income parents. The state does not give parents as much money as they gave districts to educate children. So your statement that the state spends more for the voucher program is incorrect.

Remember, education is about supporting the child not supporting a bureaucracy, which is what districts are. Education is sacred, children are sacred, districts are a bureaucracy. Parents and their ability to guide their children’s education in the way they see fits best is the key component that puts it all together.

The buck stops at the parents because they are the ones who pay the price in long term with regards to their children. The teacher isn’t going to suffer for 20 years or even one year after child leaves the classroom. The parents will reap the consequences for the rest of their lives.

For you to set a parent up like you did and shame them publicly with you never even stepping foot in their house and knowing them was about the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.

Members of the public condemned Jill Humpherys for abusing private information she gained through her role as a school board member to advance her political preferences: 

To shame the parents, and then to dismiss the son’s ability to learn, in public, is a violation of trust. How can a community member hope to have resolution against the school administration, if they can’t trust the board members who are tasked with keeping the administration in line? No wonder the students are leaving GPS for charters. And, if the ESA expansion passes the legislature, I see more students from GPS taking advantage of those.

Someone realized that Jill Humpherys was not telling the truth about Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program:

Maybe someone needs to remind/educate Mrs. Humpherys that the ESA program was voted on for the first time in 2011 and did not go into effect until the following school year. She needs to stop making up desperate stories. The longest any ESA student could have been on an ESA and returned to a GPS school for the 2015-2016 year, would have been FOUR years, making her assertion wholly false. A nice desperate try… But false.

Here are the inconvenient facts, the data that shows Jill Humpherys is not telling the truth: 

A. The ESA program (even for disabled kids) has not been in effect for that long so this “scenario” is clearly made up and false.
B. Parents sign a legal contract to educate their child while under an ESA and it’s made clear that it’s a requirement and it is a legally enforceable breach of contract for a parent to fail to do so.
C. A child on an ESA account for a “mild learning disability” would have been funded at approximately $3300 a year until last year and $5500 starting last year.
D. There is current policy in effect that if a child returns to public school after having been funded under an ESA, all funding in the account is forfeited.

Jill Humpherys: an elected official whose political beliefs are far more important than the public trust inherent in her job as a school board member.  Now we see Jill Humpherys for who she really is.

The Great GCA Takeover of a junior high school to get themselves a new campus has become such a distraction in Gilbert Public Schools. The question on so many minds is, “Why in the world is GPS squandering community goodwill and a boatload of money on this?” The answer appears to be, “Because they can.” Superintendent Christina Kishimoto is going full speed ahead in her quest to destroy a neighborhood junior high school in order to reward Gilbert Classical Academy, a school that’s “not for everyone.”

Those 1% of GPS students are fighting mightily for their preferred campus, Mesquite Junior High School. It’s a choreographed effort, masterminded by GCA principal Dan Hood, as the text message at right reveals. “We’re a high school,” GCA advocates loudly proclaim.  “There’s only one option for us!”

The text message from GCA Principal Dan Hood, a dude who doesn’t understand how to use punctuation:
Please be respectful and courteous to our board because they have a tough decision to make and they are going to make people unhappy. The more informed we can make them the better.
We do not need to address that we need to move anymore. I think that message has been conveyed. We need to address the options:
1. Mesquite Jr. was built for high school students and has all the facilities to house them now.
2. Gilbert Jr. was built for Jr. High students and does not have many of the facilities needed to operate a high school.

The GCA acolytes dutifully repeated that mantra at the GPS Public Hearing on March 22, 2016. Ad nauseum. [Hey GCA, you don’t need a Socratic education to understand that Latin term.]  The GPS Governing Board once again retreated into hiding among the audience in the auditorium while citizens tried to address their comments to the board members.

Daryl Colvin, describing the first GPS public hearing:

I found it wholly inappropriate for all of our speakers to find themselves addressing a veritable wall of administrators as opposed the actual board members who are the ones making this decision, and those to whom the comments were rightly directed.

We instead, were seated more or less randomly in the audience. This was very poor protocol, and we owe our speakers an apology for this disrespect.

At the second GPS public hearing, only one board member, Daryl Colvin, remained in front of the audience, where he listened attentively to every voice. The other people seated in front of the audience were GPS Top Dogs; they like to call themselves “The Superintendency.” Citizens were confused – they thought they were addressing the decision makers, but they were only talking to the note takers. Except for Governing Board member Daryl Colvin, who listened to each and every person who wanted to address the Governing Board before this momentous decision is made.

Showing complete disdain for those uppity people who mistakenly believed they could change the course of events in GPS by telling decision makers that they have been set up by a superintendent who won’t tell the truth about why this decision needs to be made, members of the superintendency snoozed and nodded off. They know this is an exercise in futility: Christina Kishimoto has already told the board how this vote will proceed.

This discussion about a “New Home for GCA” did not begin because of underutilized resources or space. Let’s not give credit to the district for attempting to do this for any reason other than “because I can.” As one longtime GPS parent explained:

It began several years ago when GCA told everyone who would listen that they “deserve” a new school and wanted to displace others for their own benefit. And the administration and school board at that time attempted to follow through. Illegally. Fast forward three and a half years. The district has had since 2012 to do something, anything, to get GCA an appropriate place for their program. They have done nothing to do so. And although the administration changed, and some board members have changed, the “leaders” in GPS lack research skills, forethought, and leadership skills. And GCA is still calling for their own space, with a pool and an auditorium because they “deserve” it.

Superintendent Christina Kishimoto’s Top Ten Reasons for closing a GPS neighborhood junior high school:

10. Because GCA had a cockroach.
9. Because this should increase GCA’s retention rate from 50% to 51%.
8. Because charter schools.
7. Tradition is overrated.
6. Because the numbers … eh … who cares about the numbers.
5. It was my boyfriend’s idea.
4. Because minorities can suck it. That’s why they’re minor.
3. 64 kids in a classroom is a cozy learning environment. Brings them closer together.
2. Because these hicks need to be taught a lesson. By their betters.
1. Who really cares about public education? I mean, this worked so well in Hartford…

Showing that the decision has already been made, Jill Humpherys posted on her perpetual campaign page in response to constituent comments that the data given to the Governing Board is fraudulent : 

We have to look at the facts. We have two junior highs that are smaller than their capacity, and we have an academy that requires better facilities and more capacity. I don’t know what the board’s decision will be. I do know that, under the plan put forth, students currently attending a junior high will stay at their school. They will be allowed to complete their junior high education with some wonderful opportunities. The superintendent will work hard to place staff members in other positions within the district.

In other words: “My mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with facts.” 

#SAVEGJHS

The athletic facilities at Mesquite Junior High School are so nice, Gilbert Classical Academy is determined to take them away … for the 1% of Gilbert Public Schools students whose parents have taught them to be snowflakes, unique and ephemeral. Those minority kids whose economic status makes them *lesser* deserve to give up their school to indulge the 1% of GPS students who are snowflakes. So, poor brown kids, you better just get over it. For the rest of you students, you should have associated yourself with the 1%. This is how a school district under the *leadership* of Superintendent Christina Kishimoto operates. 

In our last post, we showed that GCA principal Dan Hood has been choreographing the GCA demands for Mesquite Junior High School, which has a nice swimming pool in addition to those lovely athletic fields. GCA students lust for those amenities. The GCA snowflakes don’t do so well in sports, except maybe in golf. Mark Westie’s words … GCA will demand their own golf course within a year of destroying a neighborhood school. Because they can, as long as Christina Kishimoto is superintendent.

How many GPS parents know that the hefty fees they pay for their own children to participate in extracurricular sports are siphoned off by GPS to pay for GCA students to participate in GCA sports? Those parents who are reeling from the huge increases in athletic fees are not supposed to know that GCA has a special deal … as long as Christina Kishimoto is superintendent. The snowflakes are allowed to take more than their share, no matter what resources are involved, because they are unique and ephemeral and, as they have told you, they deserve it. They’re the 1%.

The news that GPS parents who pay athletic user fees are supporting the athletic program at GCA comes from an infamous report: Gilbert Classical Academy Permanent Facility Options. On page 6, it’s written in black and white: “Other high schools fund their athletic programs through facility rental fees and athletic user fees. A portion of those fees is used to fund the athletic program at GCA.”

So, when GCA takes over Mesquite Junior High School and gets all those beautiful athletic fields and a swimming pool of their very own, who will pay for their upkeep? If GCA can’t pay for their own athletic program now, how will they pay for the facilities they will take over? The snowflakes can’t field full teams as it is; their opponents sometimes have to *lend* players to GCA so a game can be played. Sheeeesh. Snowflakes … as long as Christina Kishimoto is superintendent.

Remember how the GCA committee and the GPS surplus space committee were appointed by the board back when Dave Allison’s sleazy attempt to close Gilbert Junior High School failed? This time, Christina Kishimoto created a *superintendent’s committee* so the meetings would not have to meet requirements of Arizona’s Open Meeting Laws. This *snowflake committee* met TEN TIMES and held a *community information forum* back in November 2015. Predictably, only GCA acolytes knew about these meetings and the so-called forum.

Here’s the *wish list* GCA principal Dan Hood gave the committee that was convened to select a new campus for GCA:

As you can well imagine, parents of students at Mesquite Junior High School and Gilbert Junior High School (the other GCA takeover target, but it’s the *lesser* campus that GCA doesn’t really want) are hopping mad. Here’s some of what they have to say that’s safe to print in this *scholarly* blog:

Athletic fees went up so much a couple years ago and GPS justified the costs by saying it was a “choice” to participate.
*****************

So, yet again GCA gets special treatment. No one gets cut from any team, all students participate in the sport. In the meantime, if Mesquite and Gilbert Junior Highs have to merge, the kids trying out for team sports will have an even harder time of making the team, because the amount of kids trying out is larger, and there will be fewer openings on the roster.
*****************

How many Gilbert Junior High School kids don’t play sports because they cannot afford the fees? Or because they were not exposed to sports in the younger grades because they could not play National Youth Sports or Little League? That is why you see good teams at Greenfield Junior High and Highland Junior High. Those kids have been playing seriously since they were young. Most probably play club sports, too, which are very, very expensive.
*****************

I pay for my kid to play a sport at comprehensive high school, then GPS takes a portion of that to help GCA. That just seems so wrong.
*****************

One thing that was completely absent from the forum was about the effect on the sports of the high schools that would be affected if you combine the students from Gilbert Jr High and Mesquite Jr High into one school. GCA might have great academics, and those students may have a bright future with scholarships and furthering their education in that way. Lots of other students excel in sports. If you combine the two junior highs and have 1200 students in the new combined school, it will be very difficult to make the team in junior high, and only half as many kids will make it (as would if there were still TWO schools). Then they will have to split again into two high schools and play on rival teams. Half the kids will have lost out on training in their sport for the two years of junior high – critical years for development in sports, and very cost efficient for kids to learn in a public school. In other words, the less-privileged athletes who cannot afford to play on club teams during these junior high years, may never get a chance to train properly during junior high. The athletes need a fair chance too!
*****************

I don’t subscribe to any argument that GCA loses kids to comprehensive high schools due to sports offerings. GCA doesn’t get enough kids to even field teams in junior high. Kids don’t decide in high school to play sports if they haven’t been playing already. I don’t subscribe that they lose kids for lack of an auditorium either. Nothing is being added to their program … except that their target size will be 750. GCA has already said they don’t want to grow to 750. So they’ll take over a school, then say “never mind” about growing, because they never intended to grow in the first place.
*****************

Let’s finish this post with words from a GPS teacher: 

My eyes are open to many realities. However, what has had me questioning EVERYTHING is the absolute lack of support and consideration from the school board. I walked out of the last GPS community forum thinking that I’ve made a terrible mistake. I can spend the rest of my working years dedicating myself to my students and my community, but all of that will be completely inconsequential if I happen to be working for a school that is suddenly considered expendable. Myself and my coworkers could become collateral damage if we don’t fit in with pet projects or special interests. I’ve thought long and hard about being a teacher. There’s nothing else I could imagine being, but I’m realizing that I may be an absolute fool to not change directions immediately. It’s heartbreaking.

It’s not right to disrupt thousands of other students for 1% of the district’s enrollment. Listen to the kids of GPS, who are not the 1% snowflakes, try to explain the situation to the GPS board  superintendency:

#SAVEGJHS

Westie is getting credit for all kinds of great accomplishments in service to the citizens of the Town of Gilbert, AZ — accomplishments having to do with the continual chaos in the school district known as Gilbert Public Schools. We can’t thank everyone personally, so we’ll just post some of the accolades we have recently received. 

Westie owes particular thanks to a gal named Diann Christensen, who is probably the biggest apologist for anything and everything the GPS superintendency does. Wherever there’s a discussion about GPS on social media, you’ll find Diann Christensen doing a drive-by comment that is meant to sound like she knows what she is talking about. Of course, what also happens is that she reveals her unsavory ties to and unquestioning approval of whatever the latest GPS scandal is, but people don’t tell her that. Sometimes they just close up their social media group and move away to a more secret place where Diann Christensen can’t find them. Buzz kill, for sure.

Westie has been consternated about how she thinks she knows so much, and then, eureka! We figured it out! Diann Christensen fancies herself as an educator, since she apparently was an adjunct instructor at Arizona State University at some point in history, and it looks like she is using these drive-by comments to burnish her reputation among the Illuminati  GPS superintendency in case there’s an opening for one of those six-figure jobs at the top.

All you folks who think submitting resumes and going to interviews will help you land a top job with GPS, take heed: this must be how it’s done. Or, you can do whatever it was that Christina Kishimoto’s *alleged* boyfriend did to get [and keep] his job as Executive Director of Technology. GPS is still looking for a replacement for the dude who ran away when (1) his *alleged* inappropriate relationship* with his boss became public or (2) the great software roll-out that he masterminded was the biggest bust anyone could have imagined. But we digress. It’s unlikely that a person of the female persuasion can fill Charles Stevin Smith’s … shoes. BTW, many of those interviews are a colossal waste of time because GPS is just papering over that they don’t want to hire YOU or anyone else who might apply for a job; they’ve already decided who they are going to hire.

Diann Christensen recently did a drive-by just to acknowledge Westie’s accomplishments in bringing change to GPS. In her eyes, Westie did it all by his/her lonesome self. We all know that’s not true: Westie’s birdies deserve the credit for keeping us on track with information that’s *authentic and informative.* That was the trademark of WesternConnections, the original GPS watchdog journal.

Funny thing, Diann Christensen just doesn’t like people who FOIA. Before you imagine a kinky position or something, FOIA is an acronym for Freedom of Information Act, which allows citizens to request public records that show what the government is doing. Arizona does not have FOIA; our state uses the term “Public Records.” GPS really, really hates it when people make requests for those public records, and GPS has a history of making it difficult, if not impossible, to see the records of what GPS actually does in terms of administering and managing a very large school district.

Someone told Diann Christensen plenty about how GPS stiffs members of the public when they try to get information about anything: 

I am filling out FOIA requests because the district has not provided access to information. Are you saying that I am trying to inflame a town and wasting GPS dollars? There was a traffic committee, can we look at that report? No I have to FOIA request it. Why? Why can’t they just share it with us so no one’s, including my own, time is wasted. I called to ask the distance of the right field fence at Gilbert Junior High School so I could come up with a factual rebuttal to GCA saying the field was too small, they literally told me they couldn’t tell me but to fill out an FOIA request – funny note on that – the distance is actually posted on the wall. Go read the municipal code – I don’t think Gilbert Junior High School will have enough toilets to be up to code for that many kids based on the code – can you call and just have someone tell you how many toilets there are? ‘We can’t tell you that information, you will need to request it.’ Because we know that the district didn’t check to make sure those details were addressed before getting to this point. FOIA requests are there for a reason. They play an important role.

Even funnier, Diann Christensen admits SHE FOIAs GPS. Ewwww…. BTW, someone should tell Diann that the bill to limit FOIA requests died and was not passed by the Arizona Legislature. Sheeeeeesh! But that’s Diann Christensen, she knows everything because she’s one of the cool kids who can get information out of GPS! Obviously, Diann Christensen and people with whom she agrees have *legitimate reasons* to know what GPS is doing with a Third of a BILLION Dollars a Year, but other people should STFU:

Diann Christensen: I realize that FOIA requests play an important role. I have made them and am not suggesting that they be eliminated, but they they do require a lot of man hours and they can be abused. Even our right-wing legislature passed a bill this session to limit FOIA requests that are unreasonably burdensome.  …people like you shouldn’t have to worry about making reasonable requests for legitimate reasons

It’s true that Christina Kishimoto has taken secrecy to levels never before known in GPS, which is saying a lot. From what’s online about her time in Hartford, Christina Kishimoto had a lot of practice in trying to evade the public spotlight on her public actions and her public records. What’s unreasonably burdensome in Christina Kishimoto’s eyes, and Diann Christensen’s eyes, probably is the information that shows GPS admins have been fleecing the public, but that’s a story for another day.

Without further ado, we present the words of Diann Christensen.  They are excerpted but not edited.  Westie’s responses are italicized in brackets.

You may have good intentions, but throwing a district into chaos is not a solution. Everyone involved administratively has been driven out. It’s water under the bridge. You might not like the new people in charge, but you are a good part of the reason we have them. {Actually, we’re the best part! You could have had Westie for Superintendent!}

Was the previous attempt to close GJHS handled poorly? Probably. Did it anger the GJHS community? You bet. We are still paying the price. Kids are still paying the price… When the entire superintendency had to be replaced within about a year’s time (that is absolutely unheard of, by the way), we were in no position to attract applicants. The new superintendency came at a very high price, as a result. {They should have Googled Christina Kishimoto before they hired her. She’s merely repeating her own history in a new location.}

I am very concerned about this issue [opposing the closing of a junior high school for the benefit of GCA] not just because of the immediate impact on students but because of the long-term impact it could have through upcoming elections. {No kidding. The last attempt had a HUGE impact on elections! Not that the current carpetbaggers and scalawags have any institutional memory of those past events.}

Of course, Diann Christensen will fit in just great with those GPS Top Dog admins that have their every meeting catered these days, according to her former students:

Diann is the most annoying teacher I have had attending ASU. She likes to eat, so she makes her students bring in snacks for her pleasure. And if that isn’t bad enough for Holidays she makes us have potlucks and we are required to bring something. Also Diann assigns WAY TO MUCH HW. She seems clueless that we are taking other classes. BE PREPARED.

For you GPS teachers and any students who still think becoming a teacher is a good thing, here’s the syllabus from one of Diann Christensen’s classes. Trust Westie, she’s one of those *experts* to whom you must defer. Even though she’s *only* M.Ed., like so many GPS teachers who are less worthy, at least in Christina Kishimoto’s eyes and the eyes of her Top Dog admin staff. They sure don’t want to pay very much to teachers who have *only* a Masters Degree. Sheeeesh.

Watch how quickly all this changes when Mesquite High School is targeted because its student population is way below its capacity. Maybe at that point, Gilbert Education Association will get involved and advocate for GPS teachers, you know, the folks who pay dues to that organization. We figure Diane Drazinski, current president of GEA, is just waiting in line for her new admin job, like Diann Christensen seems to be doing. Sigh.

You could have had Westie for Superintendent.