It’s really this simple … with three open seats on the Gilbert Public Schools Governing Board, voters have two choices with regard to the GPS Rubber Stamp Governing Board:

** Fire Lily Tram — elect three new board members and hope good things will happen, or
** Re-elect Lily Tram — let Kishimoto’s Three Votes destroy neighborhood schools in the name of *reform.*  

Campaigns against incumbent GPS board president Tram and her BFF, GPS Superintendent Christina Kishimoto, are highly visible. As signs posted around the district show, Tram betrayed the constituents who voted for her four years ago:

WE NEED A NEW SCHOOL BOARD
LILY TRAM VOTED DOWN TEACHER PAY AGAIN!

WE NEED A NEW SCHOOL BOARD
PAY OUR TEACHERS – FIRE LILY TRAM

The only reason we haven’t posted videos of GPS Board President Tram caustically saying, “Teachers are paid enough,” is because GPS helpfully destroyed the LiveStream video of the board meeting where she said that. Unfortunately for Tram, many GPS voters were watching the LiveStream video before it was destroyed, and they have not been shy about reporting Tram’s perfidy.

For anyone who is undecided (if that’s even possible at this stage of the election), there’s another GPS Governing Board Candidate Forum scheduled for November 1, 2016. The PTSO folks at Gilbert Classical Academy are hosting this event in the GCA Multi-Purpose Room from 6:00 til 8:00 PM. They say that the public is invited, so here’s your chance to see if the GCA campus is as gross and rundown and inadequate as GCA students claimed when they were campaigning for a new campus back in February of 2016.

The GCA PTSO has a few problems associated with hosting this event … even if *invited,* the public is doubtful. With Tram pushing publicity for the forum, as she has done on her Facebook campaign page, the public is right to be suspicious.

Advocates for Mesquite Junior High School, whose campus is being ravaged for the benefit of the special snowflakes who attend GCA, have stated loudly that they are not co-hosting the event, as the GCA PTSO claims. MJHS folks might attend, but they are right to withhold their endorsement of this goat-rope of an event. In case you’re wondering, we’re not even going to speculate about how legal and lawful this assembly will be, considering how A.R.S. 15-511 regulates election activities at public schools. Tram and her pals defy Arizona laws regularly, just because they can. Why expect anything better from GCA?

Citizens have pointed out that this so-called forum reeks of more GPS Thumbs on the Scale … aggressively weighing in to try to change the reality that GPS top level administrators have screwed up the entire project of reforming MJHS and the campus to placate GCA students, parents and staff, who demand more, more and more of taxpayer-funded resources. Kishimoto and her Carpetbagger Administration can’t make up their minds about what they’re going to do. But, by golly, they’re going to do it come hell or high water!

Some folks are hoping to put Tram on the spot for some of the stupid stuff she has presided over as board president. As if such an experienced politician as Tram would ever deign to answer a question she didn’t like! Nope, she’ll rattle on and on about anything else.

Don’t expect to hear Tram talk about *magnet schools,* even though she already published talking points saying that’s exactly what GPS has done and will continue to do so long as she can cling to her seat on the governing board. After all, Kishimoto really, really needs to keep Tram in the role of board president in order to continue the destruction of neighborhood schools in GPS.

Expect to hear claims that even Tram can’t possibly believe are true. For example, according to her LinkedIn profile, Tram’s job is “Work at ASU Financial Services and handle the accounting for the university. Areas of responsibilities: Accounts Payable, Travel, Financial Controls, and FS/PD Business Operations Center.” Clear as mud, right? It doesn’t help matters that Tram posts that she earned a “Post Baccalerette, Accounting” from ASU West, exposing her illiteracy to the professional world.

The most laughable claim Tram has made is that she has used her accounting and finance skills and knowledge gained as ASU Director to benefit GPS. Circle back to the areas at ASU that Tram *stupidvises* regularly: Accounts Payable, Travel, Financial Controls. When was the last time GPS even attempted to claim those processes were alive and well? Yeah, even the highly paid auditors keep pointing out to GPS that financial management is a joke. Remember, those are your tax dollars that are being wasted, folks. You can expect an accounting in one hand and _(fill in the blank)_ in the other and see which fills up first.

In case you forgot, Tram has a temper … which comes to the forefront when she is challenged. Notice how *nice* Tram has been since her BFF Kishimoto has been stroking Tram’s ego. That says a lot, doesn’t it?

Just remember, folks, that Westie already explained Tram is pretty much removed from reality. Tram’s downright illiterate, as well. That makes her a perfect fit for the position of BFF to Christina Kishimoto, doesn’t it? Birds of a feather flock together. 

******************
*Big Fat Asterisk: Folks asked if Westie made up those 13 Reasons Voters Are Rejecting GPS Incumbent Lily Tram. No, a concerned citizen wrote that list. It was posted on GPS board member Jill Humpherys’ perpetual campaign Facebook page. Being Silly Jilly, the guest post was removed post haste, but Westie had already scraped the comments for another installment of *a post that writes itself* at Your Favorite GPS Watchdog Blog.

Buzz words floating around Gilbert Public Schools among the *superintendency* and the infamous Rubber Stamp Governing Board relate to school design and education reform. GPS is repeating history: “We have to destroy the district in order to save it.” Saving the district amounts to destroying schools with larger populations of economically-disadvantaged students in order to bring *choice.* 

The word *choice* means *magnet schools.* Incumbent board president Lily Tram spilled the beans about the high-faluting eduspeak spewed forth by GPS Superintendent Christina Kishimoto, her Carpetbagger administration and Her Three Votes on the Rubber Stamp Governing Board:

Tram spilled the beans about Kishimoto’s grand scheme of *school design.* Who knew that *school design* is just *magnet schools* warmed over? Now that Tram is basing her campaign for reelection to the board on letting Kishimoto turn what used to be *neighborhood schools* into *magnet schools,* we finally learn what those words mean! Thanks, Tram!

Who would have thought that the Puerto Rican chica from the Bronx would double down on policies and actions that penalize brown kids from Arizona in the name of education reform? That’s exactly what has happened in GPS! First, Kishimoto’s chief minion, Alex Nardone, conspired with newly-elected board member Charles Santa Cruz to shut down the campus of Gilbert Junior High School and *repurpose* it for the special snowflakes that attend Gilbert Classical Academy. Fortunately for the public, a hot-mic accident laid bare their disgusting maneuvers to accomplish Christina Kishimoto’s not-so-secret goal.

Caught red-handed, Kishimoto upped the ante:

Christina Kishimoto is going balls-to-the-wall and Her Three Votes on the Governing Board will do whatever she already told them to do. You would think that these clowns would have some fancy data and technology as window-dressing  for what will be one of the stupidest unnecessary decisions in the history of Gilbert Public Schools, negatively affecting 14,259 students and their families. Again, you would be wrong.

What we are witnessing is GPS pitting neighborhood against neighborhood, parents against parents in a lose-lose situation that will negatively affect every junior high school in the district. Closing  a junior high school in GPS is a knee-jerk reaction to an imaginary problem. Why? Because the numbers show the situation is the exact opposite of what the superintendent and the governing board have been saying in public. A demographic study commissioned by Christina Kishimoto and paid for with your taxpayer dollars shows, “Enrollment at the elementary level is expected to continue to decline, while gains are likely at the middle school and high school levels.”

There’s a dark cloud of institutionalized discrimination within the sunny Town of Gilbert, at least where public schools are concerned, especially now that Christina Kishimoto is superintendent. Kishimoto’s first fusillade was aimed at two junior high schools with the greatest population of Hispanic students, meaning *economically disadvantaged* and defined by the number of free and reduced price lunches served to these students.

Availability of transportation is a major factor for lower socio-economic students. The reality for families in the Gilbert Junior High School community is that allowing students to walk to school greatly affects the education opportunities they receive. Income limitations seem to be something GCA families don’t face. How lucky for the 1% <sarcasm>.

Magnet schools are a failed attempt at social engineering with money that taxpayers intended to be used for public schools for all students.  The Town of Gilbert often claims their highly successful neighborhood schools are a major reason people move to this town. Gilbert attracted affluent residents by the hundreds of thousands with that claim, which used to be true.

In terms of electioneering, we’ll see if Kishimoto continues to bat a thousand … so far, her preferred candidates that she so publicly pushed have been defeated at the polls. Karma!

What happened at the GPS Convocation before school started for 2016-2017, when Queen Christina Kishimoto addressed her loyal subjects and gave them her *charge* to propel their forward motion, would have been funny if it were not just another example of Kishimoto’s arrogant flouting of Arizona laws. Let’s take a look at how she’s so practiced, she can amass countless violations without even breaking a sweat. In other words, it’s business as usual in Gilbert Public Schools, especially since the arrival of Superintendent Christina Kishimoto.

Christina Kishimoto’s preferred candidates sat in the audience during an event she herself convened: “this is not a meeting open to the public.” The audience was not the general public or taxpayers or ordinary citizens of Gilbert. The meeting Christina Kishimoto convened was a private affair in front of some 5,000 employees of Gilbert Public Schools, who now know the selected candidates favored by their Dear Leader. To be sure the message was clear, Christina Kishimoto posted her *endorsement* of Christine Jones for Congress on her own SuperDork Twitter feed. You really can’t make this stuff up!

The utter stupidity of Superintendent Christina Kishimoto’s attempts to affect the outcome of the election are surpassed only by the sheer brazenness of GPS Board President Lily Tram’s claims to have lifted GPS out of the gutter during her years on the GPS Governing Board.

Don’t forget about the GCA forum for candidates to the GPS governing board: November 1, 2016, 6:00-8:00 pm, in the GCA Multi-purpose Room. Ask Lily Tram which GPS school is next on the chopping block for *reform.* See if you get an answer!

Many have asked, “Why did GPS board president Lily Tram bully other board members into giving Superintendent Christina Kishimoto a new contract?” Concerned citizens cite such anomalies as the fact that Kishimoto’s contract already ran to 2017, more than a year into the future, when Tram pushed the despicable vote during the normally uncontroversial summer vacation season of 2016. Taxpayers decry Tram’s successful coup: Tram tied the hands of a future board and slipped the noose of Kishimoto’s new contract over their necks.

UPDATE: A few sycophants are claiming that the vote to approve Kishimoto’s new contract was 5-0. Not true, the vote was 3-2, according to the Livestream video and the minutes of the June 28, 2016 board meeting. Note that the new three-year contract was signed by only two sitting board members: Tram and Humpherys. 

During the quiet summer months, Tram rammed through a new contract for Kishimoto, even though Kishimoto’s original contract had more than a year left to run. Now it’s obvious that Tram and Kishimoto have seen the writing on the wall: Tram’s seat on the board is at risk because she double-crossed GPS employees about increasing salaries of teachers and support staff, commonly known as putting dollars into the classroom. Nope, Tram had other priorities! Now, her priority for GPS is MAGNET SCHOOLS!!!

To attain this abhorrent goal, Tram had to ensure Kishimoto wasn’t fired when her contract ended. Apparently, that writing was on the wall, as well. So Kishimoto has a new contract and Alex Nardone, Chief of Staff, (whose position in GPS was justified for just one year when Kishimoto arrived in 2014), is still here and they’re both continuing to make *great progress* in ruining a once stellar school district.

Tram wanted to ensure that Kishimoto’s disgusting school reforms would continue whether or not Tram was successful in her bid for another term on the GPS governing board. Tram and Kishimoto read the tea leaves even before Kishimoto’s disastrous attempts to sway local elections.  The proof is in the text of Kishimoto’s new contract. In addition to usual terms, which of course include both specified and secretive raises for Kishimoto, Tram wanted to be sure Kishimoto could not be fired:

6. TERMINATION OF CONTRACT.
B. Discharge for Cause. The SUPERINTENDENT may be discharged for just cause. Cause shall include, but not be limited to, conduct that is seriously prejudicial to the District, including a serious violation of the Job Description or BOARD policies, procedures and regulations, insubordination, gross negligence in the performance of material duties, SUPERINTENDENT’S willful dishonesty, fraud or misconduct, material breach of this Contract by SUPERINTENDENT, issues involving moral turpitude, issues which constitute a crime or any other behavior that would jeopardize the reputation of the District. Discharge for cause does not include mere mistakes of judgment which do not seriously impact SUPERINTENDENT’S ability to conduct the affairs of the District.

In other words, no matter what Christina Kishimoto does as Superintendent of Gilbert Public Schools, she cannot be fired as long as she claims she made *a mistake in judgment.*  Just imagine what could happen:

Memo to the board: Sorry I had an *alleged* inappropriate relationship with one of my subordinates. Ooops, I gave him a raise; you’ll need to backdate some approval for the $10,000.00 that became public knowledge. I can’t remember what other *special* good deals I gave him. He just wasn’t all that memorable.  Now that I have repented of my little mistake in judgment, it’s all good.
BTW – so what if he answers the door at my house? It’s not like there’s a *moral turpitude* clause in my contract, is there? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
Love, Christina

**************

Memo to the board: Hey, guys, I need some cover on this. The auditors just wrote me up for all kinds of *minor* issues with our financial controls, so you need to tell the Arizona Auditor General that you made changes so these things won’t happen again. That’ll get the bastards off my back while I figure out new ways to do what I want to do. BTW, I have lined up a five star chef to cater your next board retreat and arranged for some *entertainment.* They don’t call our next facilitator Magic Mike for nothing! We’ll go to Peoria this time and make it even more difficult for the public to attend. I’ll forget to post the public notice until someone complains to the Attorney General, then I’ll backdate it. Nothing to see here! <snort>
Love, Christina

Let’s change focus and discuss the damage done by magnet schools, which is becoming all the more evident as GPS showers Gilbert Classical Academy with attention and millions of dollars while watching enrollment plummet at Gilbert Junior High School and Mesquite Junior High School:

The magnet system is further segregating the school systems by worsening the regular public schools in neighboring areas. What must not be forgotten are the existing schools that the less successful and less motivated students are left to attend, and the damaging effects that they face as a result of the magnet school system. Even when a magnet school has no such highly selective admissions criteria such as test scores, most of the students are select: with very few exceptions, students with failing grades, or records of bad behavior or truancy, do not get selected in magnets.

It is the parents’ responsibility to locate the school, assess its offerings, and, from there, make sure that the student fits the criteria to win admission. Interestingly, “another study…found that parents of low socioeconomic status could not participate as often as middle-class parents, due to commuting problems and inflexible work schedules.” Parental involvement as the means for children to enter the magnet school is not a reliable tool. Resting solely on the initiative of the parents, admission has meant only the best and brightest are chosen and the rest are left behind, in isolation.

Getting to what really  matters about Christina Kishimoto’s *school design* mantra and its inevitable failure: 

Designed as a thematic approach, the curriculum of a magnet school generally focuses on the areas of math-science or performing arts programs. Magnet schools that draw upon the most successful and highly motivated schools are also thriving on their creed to provide better and specialized education that cannot be attained in an ordinary public school. Given the hopes that these highly motivated children will produce test scores that will attract more dedicated students, it is important to note that the magnet schools have failed to do this.

Unfortunately, magnet schools have directed their focus toward one subject, grouping similar students, but because they focus on the this one major topic, students are failing to gain an education that is equivalent to that of a regular high school regardless of race. Despite the attempt to create an environment that focuses on its academic prowess and providing students with an education that is specialized and unique regardless of race, magnet schools fail to meet their expectations in the main areas of philosophy and purpose, admission and entrance to the schools, and curriculum.

No wonder the public wants Christina Kishimoto fired! Birdies chirp that Kishimoto was a *founding member* of Tram’s re-election committee. Does anyone think that might be another abuse of power by the gal with a master’s degree in Public Policy, obviously intended to keep Tram on the GPS governing board?

Keyboard: That reminds me of the saying, “Tit for tat.”
Westie: Don’t even go there…

Lily Tram wants to be re-elected to the Governing Board for Gilbert Public Schools. Lily Tram hopes that citizens don’t have very good memories of her time on the board.  Please forget that Tram was placed on the board in sleazy political processes that could have taken place only in a smoke-filled back room. Most of all, please forget that Lily Tram made promises to raise GPS employees’ salaries … which she gleefully abandoned at the behest of her new BFF, Superintendent Christina Kishimoto.

First and foremost, please forget that Lily Tram pulled a bait and switch maneuver with money from Proposition 123:

Here’s what the community is saying about the long, long wait for putting Prop 123 funds in teachers’ hands and into classrooms (at least, the part of the funds that are going to classrooms, but that’s another story: 

I fully understand the skepticism of the public regarding 123 funding when too much of it is going outside the classroom. Prop 123 was sold as the way to improve teacher pay, and hopefully in the next school board election, voters will support candidates who will give much more to teachers and staff.
*****

This is why we have lost community support ~ every time you tell the public that this proposition or that bond will help teachers in the classroom and they vote for it, then the teacher doesn’t actually benefit, voters get mad…I don’t blame them. Misrepresentation has degraded community trust.
*****
Spending way too much on technology. Any successful business person will tell you the most important piece to a company is people. Business drives technology. Technology should never drive business. [Also true in public schools!]
*****
Kishimoto had her contract renewed a year early and included for herself a substantial raise. This seems woefully backwards; our teachers still make less than the surrounding districts and there is a huge turnover rate with both teachers and within the business department.

Voters were sold a bill of goods, empty promises that the new funds from Prop 123 would be used for teacher pay and in the classroom. So what did Superintendent Christina Kishimoto and Her Three Votes on the GPS governing board do? Board president Lily Tram made sure the board took those new Million$ and parked them in slush funds! See Board President Tram Falsely Claims GPS Budget has $4.5 Million Deficit.

Lily Tram also wants you to forget that she helped GPS incur huge legal fees that have been paid to her BFF attorneys.  Tram was famous for complaining about the cost and inconvenience of complying with public records laws, but please forget that little detail.

More Monkey Business with Public Records in Gilbert Public Schools:  As for all the redacting, plenty of it was to hide the fact that board member Lily Tram had filed an Open Meeting Law complaint  against a fellow board member. Good Old Lily Tram thought she was being anonymous (or at least, the complaint was not signed) and she got pretty p*ssed when the whole board found out about it.  

Good Old Boys Are Proud of Destroying Public Records:  We wondered why Jill Humpherys and Lily Tram are keeping the public in the dark and objecting to a police investigation about what happened to a GPS server that housed Electronically Stored Information (ESI) that was part of the public record that the GPS board is charged with preserving.

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.

Please forget *Tram’s Rule* that turned parliamentary procedure into a Rubik’s Cube of maneuvering to prevent board members from putting stuff that Tram didn’t like on board meeting agendas. Tram has been board president a few 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!

Lily Tram wants you to forget that she didn’t show up for some important votes during her years on the GPS Governing Board. One of her most infamous absences was the original vote to close Gilbert Junior High School and *repurpose* the campus for Gilbert Classical Academy.  That vote infuriated voters, who promptly removed two board members who were running for re-election. Lily Tram also managed to alienate a broad swatch of the citizenry with her attitude toward a major controversy, the same controversy that swept EJ Anderson from her seat on the GPS governing board. Westie shared a series of communications between Lily Tram, journalist Hayley Ringle of the Arizona Republic, and a parent of a student at Gilbert Junior High School about Lily Tram making accusations against Gilbert Junior High School parents:

How can you have an opinion that GJH parents are trying to stall when you weren’t at the board meeting when this was decided AND you never bothered to attend any transition committee meetings to see where everyone was coming from? Your presence would have made YOU better informed and then you wouldn’t have accused the GJH parents of trying to “sabotage the focus of student education and in this case students at Gilbert Junior.”

Lily Tram wants you to forget the years she has been on the GPS Governing Board. No wonder citizens are rallying against her!  #DumpTram #SAVEourNeighborhoodSchools

Citizens decry that their public school superintendent is lying to the board and to the public about one of her pet projects (again). Explosive discoveries in recent days show GPS superintendent Christina Kishimoto operating behind the backs of duly elected members of the governing board, while at the same time bamboozling the community in her zeal to destroy neighborhood schools as part of her *reforms.* We’ll share texts of public records that show exactly what citizens have reported as Kishimoto’s dishonest and unethical behavior.  As a citizen wrote, “This election is more important than most realize.”

This post will be long, but you can copy and paste the text of emails posted below and share with anyone! Also, there’s a nifty timeline with emails you can print.

Guide to emails shown below:

** Email from principal of Gilbert Elementary School: decision has been made to transition to a total dual language program.
** Email from board clerk Jill Humpherys confirming that decision has been made; the school will close otherwise.
** Email from community member stating parents and staff were not consulted before this decision was made.
** Email from board clerk Jill Humpherys reconfirming decision and stating that students who opt out will be bussed to Burk Elementary.
** Report of email from board member Julie Smith: decision was made outside of board discussion or approval.
** Email from board member Julie Smith to Kishimoto challenging her unilateral decision and asking questions about due diligence matters
** Email from Kishimoto saying she did not make the decision that the Gilbert Elementary School principal and Jill Humpherys already disseminated to the public.
** Email to board from a citizen who FOIAed public records and chastised board members for allowing Kishimoto to usurp their powers.
** Kishimoto’s email with educrat verbiage explaining that the community is too stupid to be trusted with making decisions, so she *empowered* the principal through a *board process* … so sit down and shut up, you fool!
** Citizen’s gutsy reply to board: you should answer my questions.
************************

Back to Guide of Emails

The story begins with an email principal Justin Sremba sent to parents of students at Gilbert Elementary School just before Fall Break, October 10-17, 2016.

Dear Gilbert Elementary families,

I want to thank you for your continued support of Gilbert Elementary. This is an absolutely wonderful school with a lot of meaningful traditions. One of the many traditions we have at Gilbert Elementary includes the dual language program, which has been in existence for nearly 20 years. Over the years, the program has had a huge impact on students and families at Gilbert Elementary.

Over the summer, Gilbert Elementary received a $15,000 school design grant from GPS to help propel our school with the transition to become a dual language school, beginning in the 2017-2018 school year. The money from this grant will be used to help market and promote dual language at Gilbert Elementary, send teachers and staff to receive professional development, meet with other dual language schools to learn best practices for implementation, and purchase a Spanish curriculum. The Spanish curriculum will make language learning a cultural adventure, explore language and culture through explicit presentation, supports all students from beginners to heritage speakers, from struggling to gifted, allows for differentiated instruction, embeds the culture within the world language, aligns with Arizona College and Career Readiness Standards, incorporate the Arizona World Language Standards, and contains assessments.

Currently the model that is being used at Gilbert Elementary is called a one-way model, where one teacher is teaching both languages. This model is not as effective as the two-model, where English learners and native English speakers together, provide high-quality language arts instruction in both languages, while integrating thematic units.

For the 2017-2018 school year, kindergarten and first grade (current kindergarten students) will transition to the two-way dual language model. For example, there will be four teachers in both kindergarten and first grade. Two teachers will be the Spanish teachers and other two teachers will be the English teachers. Students will receive English instruction for 50% of their day and Spanish instruction for 50% of their day. The students will spend the morning with the English teacher and the afternoon with the Spanish teacher (or vice versa). English instruction will include English language arts, writing, social studies, and reinforcement in science and math. Spanish instruction will include the majority of math, Spanish language development, and science. For each year after the 2017-2018 school year, we will add a grade level until we fully transition to a full PreK through 6th grade dual language school in the approximate year of 2022-2023.

There is a very exciting time at Gilbert Elementary where our students will have have an opportunity to be global leaders and compete for future jobs with others from around the world who are also Spanish-speaking. Along with the excitement, there will also be some questions. Throughout this process, we will hold informational meetings where you can ask questions and learn more about this exciting transition. We will also keep you informed on the transition through email, letters in backpacks, and through our our school’s webpage. Please feel free to call or email with any questions you may have. Also, see the back of this letter for more information about dual language.

Yours in education,
Justin Sremba
Gilbert Elementary Principal

Back to Guide of Emails

Members of the public contacted board members and the school administrative office and got different stories about this letter from the principal of Gilbert Elementary School. Following is an email from Silly Jilly Humpherys, who obviously was operating without a prepared script.

I had a terrific discussion with [principal] Justin [Sremba] when I was at Gilbert El in September, and we did talk about changes to the Spanish Immersion program. The questions you are asking can be best answered by the principal.

The fact is that we have declining enrollment in our district and we have to take action to turn that around. We must find ways to bring students to our district. That means trying some things that we haven’t in the past.

Spanish Immersion at Gilbert El is one of the oldest emersion [sic] programs in the East Valley; until now the district has not put much effort into helping this program grow. Why would anyone have a problem with working to make a program with a track record for success more well known so that people are aware that they have that option for their children?

I am a big fan of neighborhood community schools! I want to keep schools open and available for our students. I would rather work hard and take some risks than watch schools continue to decline and then close.

If you private message me your phone number, I would be happy to talk with you about any concerns or suggestions you may have. Signed, Jill Humpherys.

Silly Jilly Humpherys wants people to call her on the telephone because otherwise, people might share her ridiculous written attempts at  justifying anything and everything Christina Kishimoto is doing to destroy neighborhood schools in GPS. We’ll save you the trouble of googling.

Jill Humpherys phone number: 480-633-0792

Back to Guide of Emails

A parent continued trying to get information about the program at Gilbert Elementary School after learning that students who did not want to be immersed in the dual language set-up would be sent to Burk Elementary School.  The email to Silly Jilly Humpherys on October 28, 2016:

So were you not aware of this transition? This is kinda a big transition I mean you’re talking about possibly moving some population to Burk. According to your other emails you said the board would discuss and vote on larger transitions. I’m seriously concerned that you had to call a principal to find out about this program change. I am hearing parents and staff were not brought into the decision making process. I am literally begging you to go to the campus and ask for the minutes from these meetings (as they are required by law). There will be an exodus of staff if this goes through let alone students. Please follow up on it. Don’t take someone’s word for it. Talk to parents at Gilbert Elementary.

Here’s a gem from the email above: citizens have been searching for minutes of the meeting where this decision was made. The people at the White Castle (GPS district offices) said they don’t have it, go ask at the campus. The folks at the campus claimed none existed. That’s why the parent asked Silly Jilly Humpherys to try and get those minutes herself … the minutes are public records, of course, and the parents stated keeping them is “required by law.” Later in this saga, you will see Kishimoto’s own words justifying a decision her minions made to keep those public records secret until after the election to a citizen who filed a formal request for those public records.

Citizen: This makes me think it would be bad for Lily’s campaign if those were made public before the election. What is in those minutes? [full email appears below]

Back to Guide of Emails

Again operating without a script, Silly Jilly Humpherys replied, making a bigger mess than before. Notice the cognitive dissonance: “Enrollment at Gilbert El has continued to decline” contrasted with “Many families already seek out Gilbert El for this opportunity.” Then there’s the threat, again, that Gilbert Elementary School will be closed if Christina Kishimoto does not get her way.

I called and talked with Principal Justin Sremba. Gilbert El will be moving to a model of Spanish Language Emersion [sic]where the Kindergarten and First Grade students will have a Spanish-speaking teacher for half the day and an English-speaking teacher for half the day. Mr. Sremba said that he took some of his faculty to visit this type of a program, and they are every excitied [sic] about it. The program will expand by one grade level each year. It is true that those who do not want Spanish emersion [sic] in Kindergarten or First Grade will be bussed to Burk Elementary, and those at Burk who want Spanish emersion [sic] will be bussed to Gilbert El. Students currently at Gilbert El can finish their elementary experience there, regardless of whether they are involved in Spanish emersion [sic] or not. He said that his school site coucil [sic] and community have weighed in on this and are excited about the opportunities. They will also keep the Leader in Me program, as all materials are available in English and Spanish. Enrollment at Gilbert El has continued to decline, so he feels this is a good opportunity to boost enrollment.

I am not a person who likes change, but I also want to win students back to our district. Many families already seek out Gilbert El for this opportunity, so I think this is a logical step to building up a school that we may otherwise end up closing. If you are concerned, I would be happy to arrange an appointment for us to go visit with Mr. Sremba. Signed, Jill Humpherys.

Back to Guide of Emails

A parent emailed GPS governing board member Julie Smith and received quite a different story: 

Hold on to your hats, this is part of the response I got from Ms. Smith. …“This decision has been made outside of board discussion or approval therefore I am unable to answer any of your specific questions. I will be contacting the superintendent about this decision which skipped board approval. From the standpoint of school capacity, Burk has more availability than the other schools you listed which may be the reason for administration’s decision. I apologize that I do not have answers to your questions. Please keep me informed if you are not satisfied with administrative responses.”

Back to Guide of Emails

So Julie Smith emailed GPS superintendent Christina Kishimoto with some direct questions. Thank you, Birdies, for sharing these emails where we could find them!

I have been receiving phone calls, e-mails and individuals approaching me in public about the decision you made to apparently change Gilbert Elementary to a school-wide dual language immersion program.

Governing board members should not be finding out about school-wide changes from members of the community. I am requesting a report to the board completed by Friday, November 4th containing the following information:

** What changes are being made to Gilbert Elementary school as a whole and what is the target initiation date?
** How will this affect current staff at the school and their job status?
** Where are families who do not wish to participate in this program being told to enroll?
** Why were the steps of an application to administration and then the governing board skipped?
** What is the cost of initiating this program?

Provide any supporting documentation showing school committee meetings building to a consensus of this school program design decision.

Respectfully, Julie Smith

Showing that GPS administrators working for Christina Kishimoto have adopted her scofflaw attitude about providing public records on request, Westie has been informed that the minutes of the school committee meetings where these decisions supposedly were made will not be released until after the election. Recall that Christina Kishimoto’s secretary tells parents that the superintendent will not speak to them. Apparently, no one in GPS wants to get caught answering questions from members of the public. Once in a while, though, someone gets some answers. Thank goodness they share!

Back to Guide of Emails

It’s obvious that when she sent this email to board members, Kishimoto was not aware that Silly Jilly Humpherys had gone directly to the Gilbert Elementary School principal for answers to questions. This is how arrogant public officers (that would be none other than Christina Kishimoto, in case you were wondering) are caught lying to elected officials charged with oversight of Gilbert Public Schools.

On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 1:53 PM, Christina Kishimoto <christina.kishimoto@gilbertschools.net> wrote:

Board Members,

In response to Julie’s request for clarification, I am sending a response to the entire Board so that we are all on the same page.

During the summer retreat I shared with the Board the process by which schools will submit requests for partial or full school design implementation models. School Principals and their Councils were highly encouraged to explore this process and to use the School Design application to document and investigate their ideas. We had a discussion at the retreat that anywhere from 5 to 7 schools would explore this process and there likely would be three to four submitted applications. Most of the questions posed by Julie in her email are part of the application that will come to the Board. The question regarding “skipping the Governing Board” approval is not accurate – since draft applications to me are due in December and then they go to the Board if they reflect substantive programmatic/design changes.

Gilbert Elementary School is exploring taking their model of dual language to a full school design rather than continuing with an on-again, off-again partial model with incomplete curriculum. While the school is completing their exploratory work, I have received one question about neighborhood district lines, but all of the other comments that I have received have been excitement for a renewed emphasis on language learning.

By allowing Principals the time to share and explore ideas, and engage in research, we can push our thinking around designing schools around students and effective models. I have not approved anything, but I have supported Gilbert El in exploring and documenting this design. In addition, several of our schools presented ideas to one another at the October Principal’s Conference so that they could get peer feedback. Out of this discussion and collaborative, Gilbert El and several other area schools have shared ideas about shared communities.

The board will receive a school design presentation in December or January when the school-based teams have completed their research work. Please let me know if you have any further process questions.

Christina Kishimoto believed she could tell board members this was just another *school design* as if it were just an exploration rather than a done deal. Notice that Kishimoto ignored Julie Smith’s questions.

It’s clear that Kishimoto did not know about the letter to parents sent by the principal — the *done deal* was already set in stone at that point. Silly Jilly Humpherys confirmed not only the *done deal,* but also the fact that students would be pushed out of Gilbert Elementary School if they chose not to be immersed in the dual language program and they would be bussed to Burk Elementary School.

The GPS community is really, really dissatisfied with this situation; it exposed Kishimoto as operating solo, making decisions and usurping the powers that Arizona law reserves to elected officials, the members of the GPS governing board. The effects on GPS students, parents and taxpayers will be long lasting and expensive … probably long after Kishimoto and her carpetbagger administration high-tail it out of Gilbert, Arizona.

Back to Guide of Emails

Here’s an email sent from a constituent to the GPS governing board:

I have been investigating the Gilbert Elementary decision and have come across some disturbing facts that I want to make you aware of.

As you know, the Principal of Gilbert El already announced to families and staff that the school will begin transitioning to a full dual language school next year. This decision is final and they already have the $15,000 from the grant in the bank.

You are supposed to be voting to decide who receives these grants in December. The principal is scheduled to present to you for approval then even though he already has the money in the bank. Why does he already have the money if there hasn’t been a vote yet? Why have families and staff been notified if there hasn’t been a vote yet?

I sent a FOIA request for the site council minutes. I was told by Gilbert El that they are sitting on the Principal’s desk but that they are not turning them in until Election Day. Why would it take until Tuesday for them to go next door? Couldn’t they also be emailed? This makes me think it would be bad for Lily’s campaign if those were made public before the election. What is in those minutes?

I spoke to someone at the school who serves on the site council. She said they have been discussing it for some time and they did vote to go ahead with it. She also confirmed that nobody outside of that site council of six people had any input; not staff, not parents, and not the board.

Dr. Kishimoto works for you, not the other way around. She cannot make these decisions without your approval.

There are only two explanations that make sense:
1. She is colluding with some board members and not all board members to get this pushed through in December.
2. She is lying to all of you and going behind your backs.

Either of those is unacceptable and extremely unethical.

I have called Dr. Kishimoto’s office to try and get the facts straight from her but Michelle [Cohen, Kishimoto’s secretary] told me that she [Kishimoto] wouldn’t talk to me.

I would like a response from each of you explaining your understanding of this matter.

Back to Guide of Emails

Kishimoto talks only to GPS board president Lily Tram, or so we’ve been told, and as the email above implies. Hold on to your hats — this situation has become such a mess that Christina Kishimoto actually answered that email from a member of the public! Gasp!

On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 12:33 PM, Christina Kishimoto <christina.kishimoto@gilbertschools.net> wrote:
Please note that your FOIA request was received by district office. FOIA is a district matter, not a school matter. As is our best practice, we will be responding as quickly as possible within our legally required time frame.
[Keyboard: We all know how GPS responds *as quickly as possible* to public records requests. Sheeeeesh.]

The Gilbert Public Schools Governing Board adopted a new Theory of Action codified in GPS Policy Manual BA in 2014 that places greater autonomy on schools, which states in part, “Empowerment and autonomy place decision-making authority at the school level which is closest to the students for effectiveness and efficiency.” When the Board went into retreat to discuss, and at a later Board meeting approve, this policy, there was consensus Board support for this new empowerment approach. In fact, the Board members discussed the GCA and Neely Tradition models as examples of this empowerment approach.

Gilbert El is going through a school design conversation that will be documented and brought to the board for discussion and consideration when they have completed their work. The Board does not pre-approve whether a school community is allowed to have a discussion and complete their research on an instructional model. The time frame for the school design process was discussed in detail with the entire Board at their August 2016 retreat, including the notice that Gilbert El was exploring a whole school Dual Language design. The school will be supported in completing their due diligence in this process and will be allowed to get their work done.

The school did receive a $15,000 planning grant to support their existing Dual Language Program and to explore an expansion into a full school design. Planning grants were also provided to other schools to prepare their research and materials for future Board presentations: Mesquite Jr, Gilbert Jr., Patterson Elementary. The Dual Language School design suggestion came from parents, teachers and community members in the Gilbert El community who cited existing full school design models in neighborhood districts where fidelity to the Dual Language program is stronger and more consistent. I applaud the Gilbert El teachers for wanting the quality and consistency in program that is best for students.

Back to Guide of Emails

Refusing to be buffaloed by a superintendent who is not even licensed in Arizona, the citizen responded to Kishimoto:

To: Christina Kishimoto <christina.kishimoto@gilbertschools.net>

Why then is Gilbert El saying it’s a done deal and that it is happening next year for sure? The principal already sent out an email to families. You are saying one thing they are “having a conversation” and they are saying the decision has been made. Which is it?

Also, I addressed this to the governing board and would like to hear from them.

[Keyboard’s response to courageous citizen: Don’t hold your breath waiting to hear from Kishimoto’s BFF, Lily Tram, or Dr. Charles Santa Cruz who suddenly became missing in action when the heat got too hot.]

Soon all this election excitement will be over. Westie is voting for Frank Underwood this year. FU 2016.   #SAVEourNeighborhoodSchools 

Continuing our report on GPS superintendent Christina Kishimoto’s in-your-face rogue administration, we’ll show you exactly how she used her puppet Justin Sremba, principal of Gilbert Elementary School, to ram through a so-called reform without the knowledge of the GPS governing board.

Smoke and mirrors are an important part of Christina Kishimoto’s hell-bent mission to *reform* Gilbert Public Schools, disrupting student learning and destroying neighborhood schools in the process. When you see the documents liberated through public records requests, you understand why ousted board president Lily Tram resisted any semblance of transparency to GPS management.

The decision to reform Gilbert Elementary School into a Dual Language School for all students has been documented back to January 2016. You can bet the ground was plowed well before then; Christina Kishimoto probably salted the earth as well so that the newly elected board that will be seated in January 2017 would be intimidated if they tried to change things.

In response to a barrage of citizen complaints, GPS board member Julie Smith contacted the superintendent and asked for a report that addressed specific questions:

Governing board members should not be finding out about school-wide changes from members of the community. I am requesting a report to the board completed by Friday, November 4th containing the following information:

** What changes are being made to Gilbert Elementary school as a whole and what is the target initiation date?
** How will this affect current staff at the school and their job status?
** Where are families who do not wish to participate in this program being told to enroll?
** Why were the steps of an application to administration and then the governing board skipped?
** What is the cost of initiating this program?

Christina Kishimoto took false umbrage at the suggestion that this entire fiasco skipped the step of going to the governing board for approval. In her argument, Christina Kishimioto admitted the proposal was not submitted to the board, but might be submitted, if she decided she liked it. Note that this whole shebang is just a *pwocess* and not a done deal, or so Christina Kishimoto tries to imply:

Most of the questions posed by Julie in her email are part of the application that will come to the Board. The question regarding “skipping the Governing Board” approval is not accurate – since draft applications to me are due in December and then they go to the Board if they reflect substantive programmatic/design changes … The board will receive a school design presentation in December or January when the school-based teams have completed their research work. Please let me know if you have any further process questions.

The problem for Christina Kishimoto was that she indisputably was caught in lies and deceptions. She tried telling part of the truth in order to sleaze out of the mess she had made.

“A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.”

First, superintendent Christina Kishimoto apparently didn’t know that the principal of Gilbert Elementary School had informed parents that the Dual Language School was already set in stone. Second, she didn’t seem to know that board member Silly Jilly Humpherys had already informed the public that if students at Gilbert Elementary didn’t enroll in the the dual language program, they would be bused off to Burk Elementary School. Third, It’s a sure bet that Christina Kishimoto never expected some “Gilbert Elementary School Council Meeting Minutes” to be produced in response to a public records request.

We have our doubts about the authenticity of the Gilbert El site council minutes. The propensity of GPS administrators to forge signatures and *create documentation* when confronted with their own truthiness has been a subject of much discussion in recent years. Let’s just say that even if these minutes are indeed authentic, they still destroy Kishimoto’s proclaimed consensus for the Dual Language School at Gilbert El. Those minutes show that just a few people (the principal, two teachers, two parents, one classified staff member and one community member) decided to make this major change for an entire campus because it “fits within” Kishimoto’s philosophy.

The site council minutes show the principal presented the entire thing as a done deal from the beginning, and discussions were merely brief pro forma sessions designed to deceive the GPS governing board:

January 27, 2016: Mr. Sremba continued by giving an overview of school enrollment explaining that Gilbert Elementary did have a declining enrollment. He said that the Dual-Language program is very important to the school as it attracts many out of boundary families to the school … In further discussion of the dual-language program Mr. Sremeba said that it fits within Superintendent Dr. Kishimoto’s philosophy on schools and giving choices to families.

February 24, 2016: Mr. Sremba presented the council with the preliminary school design proposal. It is a detailed document with many questions designed to assist schools in moving forward with their design.

March 30, 2016: No discussion about the new school design for a Dual Language School.

April 27, 2016: Mr. Sremba continued by outlining the format for the Dual-Language program for 2016-2017. The fifth grade portion of the program will be cut for next school year due to the number of students.

September 21, 2016: Mr. Sremba continued the meeting with a school design update for the council. He discussed the grant awarded by GPS and how it would be spent on staff development, conferences, site visits and curriculum.

October 19, 2016: Mr. Sremba gave the council an update on the school design time line. He indicated that he would be at a dual language conference on October 20 and 21 so he was waiting to send home letters to families until he returned so he would be available for questions … He went on to tell the group about several school visits he had lined up with staff members to observe dual language programs. He also indicated that he and Mrs. Parra had recently given a presentation at a GPS Principal’s meeting.

Principal Justin Sremba indeed sent letters to families in October. An uproar resulted, which is how the community came to know about this massive change to a school that Kishimoto had orchestrated, using her pet principal as a puppet.*

Email to parents: Over the summer, Gilbert Elementary received a $15,000 school design grant from GPS to help propel our school with the transition to become a dual language school, beginning in the 2017-2018 school year.

For the 2017-2018 school year, kindergarten and first grade (current kindergarten students) will transition to the two-way dual language model … Throughout this process, we will hold informational meetings where you can ask questions and learn more about this exciting transition. We will also keep you informed on the transition through email, letters in backpacks, and through our our school’s webpage.

NOTE: The Gilbert El Principal’s Corner, a major source of communication to parents, welcomes families to the 2015-2016 school year. Sheeeeesh. We’re sure Justin Sremba’s other promised communications will be just as useful. And as easy to find on the school’s webpage. Another GPS marketing failure within a ridiculous but expensive new website. Double sheeeesh.

It doesn’t sound like there are any decisions yet to be made, does it? As we’ve already seen, it’s decided and done. Obviously, Christina Kishimoto never expected to have to turn over documents proving she lied through her teeth about how the Dual Language School originated:

The Dual Language School design suggestion came from parents, teachers and community members in the Gilbert El community who cited existing full school design models in neighborhood districts where fidelity to the Dual Language program is stronger and more consistent.

Justin Sremba apparently sent out a survey to Gillbert El parents AFTER the controversy erupted. There’s no date on the form, but it’s the last document in the public records produced, so we figure it was done as window dressing.

If you live in the school’s boundaries  but don’t want your kids immersed in this Dual Language School, Christina Kishimoto has a few words for you:

Families who do not want this particular model will continue to have the option to apply for open seats in other schools.

A member of the community who also is a GPS parent translated: 

So you have a comprehensive, neighborhood school that also has a special program that draws in more kids. Then you make a change that the staff and community don’t want and essentially ask students to leave if they don’t like it, just hoping that they end up at another GPS school instead of a charter, private, or home school. And you say that you’re doing it to address declining enrollment? Since when do you address declining enrollment by telling students to leave? I guess no one in this admin has a marketing degree … or a brain.

Here’s the coup de grace: the student enrollment data for Gilbert Elementary’s Dual Language program doesn’t show the program is popular enough to transform an entire campus into a crucible of Spanish instruction. There aren’t enough enrolled students to show anything at all, actually. If this sounds like the smoke and mirrors, errrr, *dater* behind Christina Kishimoto’s push for a new home for Gilbert Classical Academy, a project that’s now estimated to cost more than $5 Million this year to turn out some 50 graduates a year in the future.

Gilbert El had 548 total students enrolled on the 40th day in 2015; 537 were enrolled this year at the same point. The 40th Day enrollment figures are a very important aspect of state funding for GPS.

Gilbert El Dual Language Program Enrollment:
2012 / 2013 – 94 students (K-5)
2013 / 2014 – 86 students (K-5)
2014 / 2015 – 100 students (K-5)
2015 / 2016 – 102 students (K-5)
2016 / 2017 – 94 students (K-4)

Question: How much money is enough for GPS? Answer: There never will be enough money to fund Christina Kishimoto’s quest for a national reputation.

Question: How do you *reform* a school? Answer: First, you fire all the adults. From her own mouth:

Be scared, Gilbert El teachers and staff.  #SaveOurNeighborhoodSchools

******************
*Big Fat Asterisk: Start your day smiling with a mental picture of Christina Kishimoto with her puppet principal, Justin Sremba. With her arm up his @$$ like comedian Jeff Dunham and Peanut. Or Bubba J. — we all know Kishi’s not smart enough to handle Walter.

Christina Kishimoto wants the Governing Board of Gilbert Public Schools to believe that her flunkie, Chief Financial Officer Tom Wohlleber, actually did not say what he said at the October 2016 GPS board meeting. Christina Kishimoto is trying to deny that there is ANOTHER investigation into GPS shenanigans at the White Castle. The reality seems to be that federal funds are involved, so the district’s go-to lawyers might not be able to use their friendships with the Arizona Attorney General staff to sweep things under the carpet. Wooo hooo! Let the finger-pointing begin! 

RESPONSE TO BOARD QUESTION [from Christina Kishimoto]
E-Rate, WAN and RFP Process

On Tuesday October 25, at your monthly Board business meeting, when we were presenting on the quarterly financial report, Mrs. Smith asked Mr. Wohlleber about a complaint against the district and the subsequent investigation indicating that she understood that there was an issue with the bidding process of our recent new telecommunications contract {Cox Communications} and that the district most likely would lose e-Rate funds. Mrs. Smith wanted to know if this was true. She additionally asked when I as Superintendent was intending to notify the Board of this complaint. Neither I, nor Tom Wohlleber, nor Jon Castelhano, could answer this question since we were not aware of any filings or claims.

On Wednesday and Thursday I met with my team and reviewed our records, and I have verified that there is no such claim filed against the district challenging our award to Cox Communications nor a challenge to our E-Rate funds.

The only request that we have received is a request for information from Century Link – who did not receive the award. Such requests after a bidding process are standard practice.

Century Link has requested procurement records related to the WAN RFP for the purpose of, and I quote from Century Link, “In no way will this information be used to protest the award; CenturyLink is only interested in understanding how it can become more competitive in the future.”

Now watch the video of CFO Tom Wohlleber answering Julie Smith’s question by saying, “It’s just an inquiry at this point.” We call that hairsplitting, quibbling and evasion to avoid saying the word “investigation,” but nevertheless, it is an admission that someone or some agency has been *inquiring* about GPS E-Rate matters. Unsurprisingly, Wohlleber’s admission was followed by superintendent Christina Kishimoto scolding a GPS board member for having this conversation in public.  Egads, the public might find out GPS is in trouble again! <sarcasm>

Brief transcript:

Julie Smith: I have a question about the cash control fund, E-Rate. … Given the complaint against the district and the subsequent investigation, finding that there is an issue with the bidding process of our recent telecommunications person that we’re switching over to, that the district will most likely lose this fund for possibly up to the next five years. Is that true?
00:30  Tom Wohlleber: I’m not aware that, that, that the bidding process. It may have some impact at some point if it’s decided that the procurement process needs to be redone as part of that. As far as I’m aware it’s an inquiry at this point, an inquiry as to the bidding process and we will provide them that information through this process…
2:55  Julie Smith (turns to Christina Kishimoto) Please try to keep the board abreast instead of a member of the community, through a public records, you know, alerting, I would appreciate, because I was very concerned and had questions about this presentation and how it may impact the budget.
3:18  Christina Kishimoto: I do provide everything the Friday before or the Thursday before to the board, so we can actually have this conversation before it is published to the public.

How in the world could Christina Kishimoto VERIFY that there is no claim filed? Answer: she can’t. If you read carefully, she merely said “no such claim filed against the district challenging our award to Cox Communications nor a challenge to our E-Rate funds.” Maybe Kishimoto means that there hasn’t been a Notice of Claim filed against GPS. That’s not saying much, but board president Lily Tram has stated in the past that the board won’t take any action on a complaint unless the complainant files a Notice of Claim. Both Kishimoto and Tram seem to be very fond of the expression, “So sue me.” Maybe they just don’t understand that citizens have resources other than filing a civil lawsuit when their frustrations boil over because GPS refuses to follow the law.

Fortunately for the public, and for taxpayers in Gilbert, Arizona, there are people in the community who know a lot about the ways in which the GPS administration flouts laws and commits such things as mismanagement of funds, conflict of interest, self-dealing and abuse of public office. Persons who know about the federal E-Rate program have dropped hints that there may be different complaint(s) than the bid rigging complaint that GPS CFO Tom Wohlleber mentioned. How all five board members could “have this conversation” with the superintendent without violating AZ Open Meeting Laws is another concern. But this is GPS, and Christina Kishimoto could give a flying flip about such things as following OML when she wants to talk about laws that GPS may or may not have broken. Sheeeeeeeesh.

Does it appear to you, a reasonable person, that nothing is going on with respect to GPS and E-Rate and inquiries or investigations? There’s an inconvenient procedural history of federal investigations under the False Claims Act: according to federal officials, “The complaint is sealed during the investigation so the government can build its case and consider civil penalties or criminal charges.” If investigators have been making *inquiries* that GPS top level administrators like Tom Wohlleber admit, what are the chances those investigators might be talking to people who know what actually goes on in the White Castle? Any bets as to whether investigators may have discovered *interesting* documents regarding the former GPS employee with whom Christina Kishimoto was engaged in an *alleged* inappropriate relationship? Kishimoto’s rationalization just begs so many questions!

That other E-Rate complaint, apparently, might be something more along the lines of what went down in the Tucson Unified School District a few years ago. 

In March 2004, two TUSD Technology and Telecommunication Services (TTS) employees independently called the federal whistle-blower hotline, concerned with how district officials planned to use the federal funds they were seeking … a federal statute called the False Claims Act lets anyone who discovers fraud involving federal funds file a civil complaint. The complaint is sealed during the investigation so the government can build its case and consider civil penalties or criminal charges.

A 2005 audit of TUSD, by Heinfeld, Meech & Co., TUSD’s auditors, found that the 2004 E-Rate application was handled by TTS, not TUSD’s purchasing department, and, therefore, wasn’t subject to proper oversight. The report also stated that TTS had few records of its 2004 E-Rate application. The audit said the problems didn’t merit notifying federal officials, but it recommended a significant policy change. It could be months, if not years, before the federal and state investigations conclude.

It is essential that board members, elected officials charged with actually EDUCATING STUDENTS, actually KNOW what top level administrators are doing. Apparently, board member Julie Smith asked the question in public because the superintendent wouldn’t answer it in private. Newly elected GPS board members could be in for nasty surprises after drinking a superintendent’s Kool-Aid, just as the TUSD board member was surprised about the E-Rate investigation:

Until contacted for this story, TUSD Governing Board member Judy Burns said she’d only heard rumors of a federal investigation. “The district is going to suffer and the students in class will suffer for not doing this in a legitimate, businesslike way,” she said.

That TUSD E-Rate investigation did indeed drag on for years. In 2006, TUSD officials requested that the Attorney General investigate the district’s procurement of technology and E-Rate consulting services.  In 2008, that investigation expanded to include an examination of TUSD’s procurement of interactive white boards. Old timers (like Westie, but not the current top level inhabitants of the White Castle) remember that GPS was involved with the same white board vendor, and allegedly participated in the same conduct that the AZ Attorney General cited in a lawsuit against TUSD. Finally, on January 29, 2009, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard announced a settlement with TUSD. “The public deserves to have confidence that our public officials and employees are careful stewards of the public funds entrusted to them,” Goddard said.  “School districts and vendors who circumvent procurement requirements harm competition and violate the trust of our citizens.”  Note this was a CIVIL suit, not criminal charges, which might have been pursued separately. Also, the agency administering E-Rate contacted at least 190 applicants in at least 27 states who applied for funding on services provided by the vendors involved in the TUSD investigation.

As posted on social media, citizens of Gilbert have very definite opinions about the ridiculous antics within the GPS top levels of administration and they most definitely believe the public trust has been violated. The following post was prompted by ousted board president Tram’s claims that she balanced the GPS budget:

The current board balanced the budget by breaking the law. They will soon be served yet another subpoena for Mismanagement of Federal Funds. That was the one they were expecting at the last meeting. They were instead served a subpoena for a Civil Rights Violation. There is also the bid rigging charge in a case with Century Link & Cox. She shouldn’t be proud of balancing the budget by breaking multiple laws.

Actually, GPS was served with yet another civil rights LAWSUIT at the October board meeting. Just before that board meeting, Christina Kishimoto informed the board of two active complaints with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, both related to Special Education services. Apparently, Christina Kishimoto negotiated a settlement with OCR in one of the cases for “an approved plan for targeted teacher training around particular special education support mandates.” Kishimoto further informed the board, “OCR is also going to review our GPS policies and make recommendations for language clarification; this is a process that we have worked on with them in the past. In summary, this is a good outcome for our high school complaint. The complaint at the Junior High level is still at the investigation level and we will work hand in hand with OCR.”

You can’t help but wonder, how long was all this going on before Christina Kishimoto decided to inform the board? Recall that former superintendent Dave Allison once signed a consent agreement with OCR without the board’s knowledge … that dastardly deed came to light via public records, of course. Sheeeeesh.

Don’t you think these shenanigans put a new perspective on Julie Smith’s suggestion that Christina Kishimoto inform the board of investigations before constituents start delving into public records? Apparently, there were investigations other than the E-Rate *inquiry* that the board didn’t know about as they occurred. New board members should get used to hearing educrat double-speak rather than responsive answers to their questions. In other words, superintendent Christina Kishimoto is desperate: “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” Westie explains this for Silly Jilly Humpherys’ benefit:

** You could use that phrase to mean the jig is up. You figured out that the magic is just smoke and mirrors? Well, maybe I’ll tell you to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, even though I know I can’t really hide the truth from you any longer.
** People use others as puppets, manipulating and such. And others try to make themselves look bigger and better than they really are.
** Frank Baum understood that people are often motivated by fear and the perceived authority of others. Through simple manipulation of minds, and the twisting of moral right and wrong, the wizard convinced three weary travelers to commit murder, and the subsequent theft of the property of the “Wicked Witch” to win favor.

It’s too bad that that GPS destroyed the Livestream video of the September board meeting in a thinly veiled attempt to provide Lily Tram some deniability for her comments that GPS teachers already make enough money. It would now be a whole lot better for Christina Kishimoto if GPS could now destroy the videos of the October board meeting … except that The Westies just happened to record the October board meeting in case more video archives went missing.*

So superintendent Christina Kishimoto is stuck, and newly elected board members must decide who they are going to believe: Christina Kishimoto or their own lying eyes and ears and video archive of the October board meeting? Newly elected board members should also get used to the time-honored GPS Mushroom Treatment, as cogently explained by a former GPS board member:

What the heck is the “Mushroom Effect?”  First introduced to the term by a teacher who himself had heard the term from another teacher as far back as the 1980’s (so it’s been going on for some time now).  It goes like this … speaking of how district administration handles school board members … “They are ‘kept in the dark and fed a bunch of crap.’”  And so it is!

I can tell you with undeniable certainty that at certain times, top district officials “circle the wagons to get their story straight” and deliberately seek to mislead board members either by leaving out important facts, or burying them in mountains of info on other matters.  Everything runs so much smoother if you don’t give board members enough information to begin asking questions.  Cultivate board members who are willing to smile for the camera and represent the district in the best light… even support board members who currently work in education, whose resume benefits from being a board member in one of the most prestigious districts in the state … give those members The Mushroom Treatment and the effect pays off.

GPS is in a bigger mess than Christina Kishimoto will admit. That’s probably because she is acutely aware that her *national reputation* is at stake. We’d prefer a superintendent who does the job of actually managing the school district, but what do we know?

We can hardly wait to hear more at the November board meeting!  #SaveOurNeighborhoodSchools

*****************
Big Fat Asterisk: October 2016 was the first board meeting the Westies have attended since June 2012. Nevertheless, Christina Kishimoto perjured herself in court by insinuating, in January 2015, that the Westies were responsible for unruly board meeting behaviors since she became superintendent. Kishimoto made a lot of other allegations that easily were provable as false, which are preserved on the audio recording of her court hearing. Luckily, the judge denied the request for a temporary restraining order. Otherwise, the Westies would have had a full-fledged court hearing to prove Christina Kishimoto’s lies … in public.  In retrospect, that would have been a much better outcome for the taxpayers of Gilbert, Arizona who are now paying the price for Kishimoto’s profligate spending and continuing lawlessness. Pay attention, newly elected board members!

Superintendent Christina Kishimoto’s death-grip on school design has caused collateral damage in what once was famous as an A-rated district. Who would have thought that Gilbert Public Schools would set out to engineer race and national origin discrimination against Hispanic students on the west side of the district? She has done it before and she’s doing it again. The public sees clearly how Christina Kishimoto’s school design philosophy works: starve the targeted schools you want to reform, then claim victory when you reform that school. 

Citizens have discovered that Christina Kishimoto made a decision that was not hers to make, and now she’s trying to stuff that toothpaste back into the tube. A comment on social media explains the community’s perspective:

The program is already in place, no need to go school wide when there’s been no driving force behind magnetizing schools other than Kishimoto. The program isn’t the problem. The blatant disregard for anyone but herself is the problem. The lying is the problem. The deception is the problem.

From her defensive crouch, Christina Kishimoto tried to build support for her failing initiative. She sent a Staff Brief to all GPS employees on November 16, 2016. Click here or on the image below to open an enlarged copy of Kishimoto’s letter to employees (you may be able to click the enlarged image in the new window to enlarge it further). We’ll continue our comments below the image, giving you time to read the letter.

From Kishimoto’s letter: “First, approximately $500,000 of Site Improvement Funds were transitioned from District Office oversight, to school-based oversight. This empowered Principals to make their own decisions about the professional development offerings that they want to provide to their staff.”

The response of Westie’s birdies: “That’s a LOT of catered meals that principals now can give out!” Right on, birdies! Those principals will follow the example of their boss, the superintendent, who gives out catered meals at taxpayer expense at every opportunity. Kishimoto must have made a promise to herself to not buy a single meal when she can pay with GPS funds, not only for herself, but also for her *friends* on the governing board and in her cabinet. Sheeeeeesh.

Finally, Kishimoto’s closing statement is really out of whack: “We will be the district of first choice for parents and students and be the premier public education system of the State of Arizona!” Sure. <eye roll> Girlfriend, GPS USED TO BE the district everyone wanted their kids to enroll in AND the district everyone wanted to work in. That was before you got here. You took a district with moderately declining enrollment and made the decline an across-the-board reality in your first two years, losing thousands more students and hundreds of staff. But we’re intrigued by your hint that your aspirations are now circumscribed to the state of Arizona, not the entire nation, as in the past. Maybe that was just a slip of the tongue caused by *unexpected* election results. IOW, your candidates lost across the board and now your future isn’t quite as bright as you thought it would be.

The rest of this post wrote itself. Once again, Westie shares social media comments made by this newly engaged citizenry reacting to the dual language school design that Christina Kishimoto imposed on Gilbert Elementary School, one of the aforementioned schools with a large Hispanic enrollment. Let’s start with boundary review, a subject that has become critical because it is the basis for the lopsided student enrollment pattern that is now a crisis for GPS:

Here’s part of the reply I got from Christina Kishimoto: “We don’t have “magnet” schools in GPS, but this will be a theme-based school that will continue to serve neighborhood students and continue to allow the current practice already in place to allow any open seats to go to students beyond the neighborhood or even beyond district boundaries. Families who do not want this particular model will continue to have the option to apply for open seats in other schools. There is a current discussion in progress to think about a broader boundary to include multiple schools rather than defining a boundary around a single school. That work is in conversation at the school level and has not yet been proposed to the board.”
******************

Parents spoke at both public forums asking for boundaries to be reviewed and changed. Were told by Charlie Santa Cruz and Lily Tram that boundaries would be done this year. Even Charlie Santa Cruz said after the vote in April, that boundaries would be done. Nope. Every report regarding MJHS/GCA says boundaries need to be addressed to protect MHS and the schools on the west side of the district. Boundaries have been on the strategic plan since 2013. This is not a new concern. The fact that GPS now claims to just now be hearing about boundaries is so frustrating!
*******************

Dr. K’s new excuse is that she wants to implement these school designs first. That will push kids who don’t want these programs into other schools. Then she wants to wait for enrollment to “stabilize” before boundaries are addressed.
*******************

The community is rightly enraged that GPS, under the *leadership* of Christina Kishimoto, is usurping the duties that Arizona law reserves to the GPS governing board. Westie snarkily warned about this back in January 2016 as Kishimoto unveiled her plan to destroy a junior high school on the western edge of the district and give the campus to Gilbert Classical Academy:

Isn’t it a good thing that GPS has spent thousands of dollars buying new software to help the superintendency decide where the new boundaries will go? Once you start changing the junior high school boundaries to give the entitled personages at Gilbert Classical Academy a new campus, who knows where it will end?

The fondest hope of a newly engaged GPS citizenry is that Christina Kishimoto claims victory and rides off into the sunset sooner rather than later.

This isn’t the first time that something has been implemented without (before) board approval. There’s a long list! Like ALP and SpEd teachers who were told that they didn’t have a job any more BEFORE the board voted on the budget that cut those programs. Like a board member telling me that Chomebooks were a “done deal” a full month before the first board vote to approve their purchase. Like School Councils being formed and members of those committees being asked to sign district-provided bylaws months before the board approved the purpose of those committees (BTW, the bylaws I signed don’t align with what the board ended up approving). Many more examples. This is just how Kishimoto works. Cram something through and ask for board approval later. She needs to be stopped. She’s destroying our schools and we’re losing students and GREAT staff because of her.
**********************

The issue here is that the administration hasn’t brought on board the parents whose children aren’t currently in the program. Gilbert El is a community school, and they deserve to have a voice. We have seen backlash kill the best laid plans in this district. I say properly market the existing program. Allow it to grow naturally. But don’t send students and staff to other schools if they are not on board for the program. This been in place for nearly 20 years. Clearly there is a following interested in it.

A person inside Gilbert Elementary School, one whose voice has been silenced by the Top Dogs of the district, sounded an alarm. What’s new is the revelation that the curriculum already has been bought. GPS now has the problem of attracting teachers for this cart-before-the-horse reform:

What is being presented now is not a true dual language program. It is a watering down of the program. Children need to learn to read in their native language. At Gilbert El, we had native Spanish speakers and native English speakers. It can only be called dual language if you have that. Otherwise, it is a Spanish immersion program.

We had some students who could not function in this program for various reasons. So we would move them out into “traditional” classrooms. It was not a program for children who have IEP’s etc. In the early 2000’s, the state of Arizona passed an anti bilingual bill which made it difficult for us to have Spanish speakers in this program.

The biggest difficulty was that once a child left the program, we couldn’t replace them in later grades because they couldn’t all of a sudden be able to learn in Spanish, leaving our 4th- 6th grades groups undersized.

I always appreciated that the District supported this program. But it is not for every child. I believe in it so much but it needs to be a choice and the District needs to support it in that way.

Curriculum has to be purchased in both languages and it is costly. And teachers are hard to find. I absolutely support this as a choice, but not as a mandate. I think it could be marketed and grown by the District, but it should never be the only option.”

Some citizens offer advice to Kishimoto and to the board:

We should be concerned because if you do the research on these “portfolio districts,” they are not overwhelmingly successful. We as a district should not be offering more of the same. We are NOT charters and we should be proud of that. GPS has been so special and so successful because we are neighborhood schools in a town founded on welcoming, safe, connected neighborhoods. We are why most families chose Gilbert. That’s what we need to capitalize on.

You want innovation? Have our graphic design students and social media expert students running our website, managing our social media. Have our kids who want a future in sustainable agriculture or animal medicine partnering with our local farmers and ranchers. Develop 7-day-a-week community school centers; research those. Build exciting programs. Don’t fix something that isn’t broken with already-failed reform strategies.

A former board member offers valuable insight to newly elected board members:

No one on this social media thread is questioning the value of the Gilbert Elementary program. In fact, since its began around 20 years ago, those of us on the GPS school board at that time welcomed it with open arms when it was established by the amazing principal Sheila Shannon Rogers as a fantastic option for kids on the Gilbert El campus and throughout the district. We all celebrated the diverse cultures and opportunities it affords students on that campus, as has every board since that time.

The issues are that the community has had little to no opportunity to give input about expanding the dual language program school wide, and the administration is trying to push it through although there is no data to support the expansion. Matter of fact, although everyone still wants to keep the optional program there, in reality the data from the numbers demonstrate that enrollment in the program has been declining.

It is to be hoped that the current governing board will slow down the process, question whether correct procedures have been followed in this process and take a good look at the facts before blindly following administration recommendations to try to rush it through before the new board is seated.

Coincidentally or not, the same Sheila Shannon Rogers mentioned above was just elected to a seat on the governing board and Lily Tram was dumped.  #SaveOurNeighborhoodSchools

******************
*Big Fat Asterisk: It’s too late, baby, now it’s too late. All hail the fabulous Carole King!

As 2016 winds down, and the current president of the Gilbert Public Schools governing board prepares to decamp after her bid for reelection was decisively defeated by voters, GPS Top Dogs have descended to new depths of depravity. The *Superintendent Evaluation Instrument and Performance Pay Measures and Weights* were approved at the November 22, 2016 board meeting, but the public is not allowed to see this document. Secrecy and the rush to get this done before the new board is seated combined to raise distrust and rancor to new heights, especially considering that Christina Kishimoto’s contract had been suspiciously renewed just months before.

Anything having to do with Christina Kishimoto’s on-the-job performance now is locked away, out of public view. The rubber stamp GPS governing board doesn’t want you to know how much their rogue superintendent collects in annual performance pay, let alone allow the public to glimpse how they decide to give all that money to her. Never mind that there’s a really big chunk of taxpayer money tied to the superintendent’s annual evaluation. The sum is most likely five figures, but taxpayers who provide those funds are kept in the dark. If you have a question, like, “Is this five-figure bonus ON TOP OF Christina Kishimoto’s outrageous annual salary and benefits package?” the answer is, “You can’t handle the truth.” Or something like that.

The new board that will be seated in January 2017 could decide that since there is a GPS policy and exhibit that covers the superintendent’s evaluation in great detail, the top-secret *executive content* evaluation instrument should be declassified for public perusal … because the exhibit to the GPS policy is a public document. That would make a lot of sense, because *executive content* is NOT a category of public records that is protected from disclosure by Arizona public records laws. GPS has cited *executive content* in refusing to provide public records to the public, but it wasn’t lawful then and it isn’t lawful now.

New board members: Heads up, you’re going to have a lot of questions to answer about public records that GPS has been withholding to keep some Top Dog *dastardly deeds* and factual misstatements under wraps. You, too, will be considered intellectually incapable of handling the truth.

GPS Policy CBI allows a lot of secrecy in evaluating the superintendent. It’s really unfair that members of the public have demanded complete personnel files of many GPS employees, including their evaluations, and the district produced them all as public records. The superintendent is treated differently. Her evaluations are secret … probably because her poor evaluations led to being fired from her last job. That Hartford board was full of meanies! Maybe Christina Kishimoto will start crying … again … if she thinks new GPS board members are being big ole meanies when they perform their duties of oversight. Heaven knows, Christina Kishimoto’s rubber stamp board members contorted themselves into pretzels to avoid seeing what was right in front of them, ethically speaking.

Westie to GPS Top Dogs: We dare you to claim that GPS has not provided those personnel files and evaluations as public records to various requestors on numerous occasions. Bring it!

Westie to New GPS Board Members: Of course we’ll share the public records that prove this claim!

Superintendent Christina Kishimoto has unclean hands in this travesty … she was not only fully complicit in the back-room maneuvering, she used her power as the top administrative officer in the school district to enrich herself. Self-dealing is forbidden for persons who control public funds. Christina Kishimoto’s role in extending her contract can be explained by hubris:

Hubris denotes overconfident pride and arrogance. Hubris is often associated with a lack of humility. Sometimes a person’s hubris is also associated with a lack of knowledge.The accusation of hubris often implies that suffering or punishment will follow, similar to the occasional pairing of hubris and nemesis in Greek mythology.
… in his two-volume biography of Adolf Hitler, historian Ian Kershaw uses both ‘hubris’ and ‘nemesis’ as titles. The first volume, Hubris, describes Hitler’s early life and rise to political power.

When have we seen hubris and this exact GPS power play in the past? Just like what happened in June 2016, former GPS superintendent Dave Allison had his contract renewed in a similar smoke-filled-back-room, take-it-or-leave-it demand on October 26, 2010, just before the election in November 2010 that put Staci Burk and Shane Stapley on the GPS Governing Board. It’s no accident that GPS Policy CBI was last revised on November 23, 2010, after Burk and Stapley were elected, but before they took their seats on the board. It’s also worth telling the GPS scalawags that Dave Allison was denied his performance bonus just three days before the board accepted his resignation. Here’s a key fact: student achievement did not factor into the superintendent’s bonus back then. What do you bet that a big factor in all the secrecy about Christina Kishimoto’s standards of evaluation is that she is not held accountable for student achievement? Just pay her and be done with it, right?

That sleazy 2010 contract renewal maneuver for Dave Allison was widely condemned by the public, and most likely influenced the 2010 election. Tram and her 2016 political stunt were equally reviled by taxpayers; it’s apparent that consequences have begun and can be expected to multiply and metastasize. We all know that the contract extension period was incredibly painful for Dave Allison, because his abuses of his public office were disclosed to the public. It was not pretty. From the Arizona Republic:

The Gilbert Public Schools governing board on Thursday unanimously accepted Superintendent Dave Allison’s decision to retire June 30 after a tenure that was rocky at times, marred by criticism of some parents and community activists who claimed poor management and lack of financial transparency.

Contemporaneous commentary from Westie:

Contrary to the wishes of many ill-wishers in the district, the board once again acted correctly, in this case following district policy by reviewing the status of Superintendent Allison’s employment before January 31, 2013:  “The current board met Tuesday night [January 29th] in a 90-minute executive session to discuss Allison’s contract. District policy dictated that they needed to decide whether to renew his contract by the end of January. Tuesday night they postponed the vote until Thursday night [January 31st].”

Let’s look at GPS Policy CBI, which was lauded in 2013 and was intrinsically intertwined with hiring Christina Kishimoto in March 2014: On or before the end of January, the board shall offer a contract for the next school year to the superintendent if the administrative contract is in its last year, unless the board gives notice to the superintendent of the board’s intention not to offer a new administrative contract.

GPS Policy CBI is very helpfully accompanied by an exhibit, CBI-E, which consists of … wait for it … the superintendent’s evaluation form! The title of the evaluation form that is presently online, CBI-E 2015, is unequivocal evidence that Christina Kishimoto and her Rubber Stamp Board must have reviewed this policy within her first year of employment. But there’s more!

In the metadata of the document, the date last modified is June 18, 2016 at 16:12:06 GMT… just before the June 28, 2016 GPS board meeting where Christina Kishimoto’s new three year contract was prematurely approved. We all know that GPS often *disappears* evidence that might get Top Dogs into trouble, so we very helpfully saved an image of the online exhibit with its metadata.

If there is a written evaluation for the superintendent, it is a public record, just like it is for other GPS employees. What do you want to bet that the Rubber Stamp Board NEVER put it in writing to preclude public scrutiny?

What we have right now in GPS is a lame-duck governing board that made critical decisions for those board members who will work with this rogue superintendent for the next three years. What if those decisions were not made lawfully?

The fact that Kishimoto and Tram colluded to renew the superintendent’s contract outside of the explicit provisions of GPS policy gives the new board more than enough reason to call for a do-over. They can do this within the time limit contained within the policy: on or before the end of January. To do that, the new board will have to be proactive about electing a new board president, setting the date of a public meeting and executive session and holding said meeting on or before the end of January. There’s no time to waste.

New board members, you have evidence at your fingertips that the board did not have independent legal advice before voting to give Christina Kishimoto a new contract. The board did not have their own lawyer … actually, the board had no input into the contract itself, because Christina Kishimoto negotiated with herself and told the board to sign what she had come up with! Self-dealing with public money is a subject we’ll be visiting many times in 2017. Pinky promise.

Kishimoto told the board on Monday that she wanted this contract approved on Tuesday night. Christina Kishimoto dictated the terms. Julie Smith tried to table the agenda item so the board could discuss certain terms of the dictated contract, but alas, that failed on a typical 3-2 vote.

Here’s the crux of the collusion between Kishimoto and Tram: the premature three year employment contract guarantees that Christina Kishimoto will be able to cash in on her GPS employment with big bucks from ASRS: “Members can retire with a lifetime benefit as early as age 50 once they have acquired 5 years of service credits.” Note that this illegitimate employment contract puts Christina Kishimoto at exactly the right spot to cash in. This big fat slurpy kiss from outgoing GPS board president Lily Tram will cushion Christina Kishimoto’s retirement for the rest of her life. Without that contract, Christina Kishimoto might have been required to actually do her job to acceptable standards.

It’s really inconvenient for the lame-duck GPS governing board that a board member enshrined this travesty in the public record, documenting that the lawyer that Kishimoto provided to *answer legal questions* was there to tell the board that the contract was a legal contract. The lame-duck board, with Christina Kishimoto’s three rubber stamp votes, was not allowed to discuss the terms of the contract the superintendent and the lawyer put in front of them. They were not allowed to even consider negotiating or even discussing the provisions of the employment contract.

Fortunately, there is a video archive of this entire board meeting, which Westie helpfully archived on a non-GPS server, just in case the Top Dogs once again destroy a video because it proves what actually happened. Watch Julie Smith explain how the board was treated during the executive session before the vote to renew Christina Kishimoto’s contract and the usual 3-2 vote that followed.

Here’s hoping that the newly elected board that will be seated in January 2017 will be more than just a rubber stamp for superintendent Christina Kishimoto’s ridiculous and irresponsible management of a once-stellar, A-rated public school district. New board members will have an opportunity to respond to the community … who threw Lily Tram off the GPS governing board for stunts such as this.

As the community observes the train wreck engineered by Gilbert Public Schools superintendent Christina Kishimoto and her band of carpetbaggers and scalawags filling the top level administrative jobs of the school district, people are shaking their heads at how much stupidity has been displayed just in the past couple of weeks. You would think those overpaid administrators would ensure the staff work they pass along to the governing board for approval and public viewing would be top-notch and error free. You would be wrong, at least in Gilbert Public Schools.

Westie can right only so many wrongs at once, so we’ll key in on a few illustrations of totally incompetent staff work by the GPS superintendent and her minions. The new governing board could do a lot to *reform* GPS by simply insisting on such elementary tasks as proofreading the documents these idiots  top level school district administrators ask the board to approve. Getting those Top Dogs to account for various cash funds might be more difficult. But it really, really, really needs to be done.

Let’s examine examples from the November 22, 2016 board meeting, when Christina Kishimoto already knew that her BFF Lily Tram had been thrown off the board by the electorate. First, Christina Kishimoto had to withdraw the draft of Policy DBI that her staff had prepared for approval at this meeting. Kishimoto said there was “a line missing” in the text of the new policy she recommended. In the real world, a superintendent or CEO would not have allowed such sloppy staff work to reach the level for board approval and public exposure. That humiliating public withdrawal of a defective recommendation wouldn’t be such a big deal if it were not repeating history. Way back in GPS history (that would be June 2016), Christina Kishimoto had done the same thing on a larger scale by recommending 19 existing district policies be revised and 12 new policies be approved in spite of a glaring lack of even a cursory proofreading of those documents.

A member of the public actually READ those policies and discovered a campaign of deceit orchestrated to beguile the board into glossing over a bunch of sloppy bullsh*t at the June 21, 2016 policy committee meeting. Then, at the June 28, 2016, the GPS governing board approved those I-series policies. Sheeeeesh. They expected no one would ever notice and no one would ever care. Extra credit to eagle-eyed readers who spot the *amazing coincidence* that Kishimoto’s Three Rubber Stamp voters also approved a new three year contract for this incompetent superintendent that same night!

Circling back to the November 22, 2016 GPS board meeting, Christina Kishimoto buried seriously defective documents within the consent agenda, apparently believing that board members would never even look at them. Her bet paid off, and the board approved those 22 PTSO applications. Some of the deficiencies, errors and stupid mistakes in those documents include:

• Three PTSOs show Clyde Dangerfield as the registered agent for the nonprofit organizations. Clyde Dangerfield retired from the district in 2014. “GCA PARENT TEACHER ORGANIZATION” is one of the registered corporations with Clyde Dangerfield as registered agent.
• Although the GPS governing board approved “Greenfield Dads,” that organization does not appear in the Arizona Corporation Commission records. “Neely Traditional PTO” does not appear in those Commission records. “NEELY ELEMENTARY PARENT TEACHER ORGANIZATION” is not registered due to a potential name conflict; however that same name is registered as a tradename with the AZ Secretary of State. “Val Vista Lakes Elementary PTSO” doesn’t appear in the records of either of the state agencies, nor does “Islands Elementary PTA.”
• None of the listed CVHS organizations appear in the AZ Corporation Commission records, although there is a listing for “CVHS Band Booster Organization,” which wasn’t on the list that he governing board approved. “CVHS Boys Basketball” was approved; “CAMPO VERDE BASEBALL BOOSTER CLUB, INC.” happens to be a registered corporation with an agent named. However, “CAMPO VERDE BOYS BASKETBALL BOOSTER CLUB, INC.” is shown as a pending corporation even though a group with the same name is shown as registered … each of these corporations has different agents and boards of directors. What a mess!

In case you think this might be hyper technical and not worth addressing, the fact of the matter is that these organizations can be sued and some GPS parent support organizations have been sued along with the district. Shoddy staff work and illegitimate registrations easily can become a nightmare for well-intentioned parents; board members who don’t reign in the staff could be in for a rough ride even if The Trust defends them.

Then there’s the matter of six figure dollar amounts that pass through the GPS parent support organizations. How much easier it would be to *pilfer* a bit here and there when no one actually oversees the organization and its finances! But a big risk lurks: nonprofit or charitable organizations that don’t operate within the law can lose their charitable tax status. In that case, the officers can be held responsible for taxes that should have been paid, among other penalties that can be levied by government agencies.

Sloppy staff work by incompetent administrators puts a lot of volunteers at legal and financial risk. A good case could be made that the sloppy staff work is a feature, not a bug, hiding nefarious or even criminal conduct. PTSOs and booster clubs: take a look at your financials. Betcha there are large sums that cannot be found! 

The situation actually is a lot worse than it seems: even greater sums of money pass through student activity accounts: MANY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS! Parents pay an incredible amount of money for district fees for classes and extracurricular activities. That money is not very well controlled, either. For example, if you pay by credit card (high school parents can do this) the district apparently sends that money into the general fund rather than crediting it properly to the appropriate fund. What’s a hundred dollars here, two hundred dollars there to someone like Silly Jilly Humpherys who thinks $100,000 is not much money?

Westie has been hearing for several years about the huge sums of cash that float around campuses in Gilbert Public Schools. Maybe the new board will take their responsibilities seriously … for heaven’s sake, don’t elect Jill Humpherys clerk! Her two year tenure as clerk of the board has been marked by little to no oversight of GPS spending.

Reading some of the audit reports of school districts in Arizona, we’re struck by how people ultimately were held accountable (indicted) for wrongdoing. Some of the things we found sound a lot like what has been going on in Gilbert Public Schools. Some are similar to things we reported as whistleblowers; others are similar to things still going on in GPS at the district level and on campuses. In Red Mesa School District, the top two in the superintendency enriched themselves from public funds (six figure enrichment for each) and then the board joined in to obstruct the investigation!

New board members, you simply must hold Christina Kishimoto accountable for inexcusable and egregious errors. As far as Westie can remember, the GPS board had never been asked to *suspend* an existing policy in order to violate state law, but Christina Kishimoto recommended the board suspend policy so she could get on with closing Gilbert Junior High School. That fiasco should serve as a canary in a coal mine for you new folks: there’s danger ahead! Parent support organizations and student activity funds need serious attention … immediately!

Here it is, December 2016, and we can pretty much repeat a post from the year before: GPS Superintendent Christina Kishimoto gets mad, starts crying and loses control of herself at a public event. Seriously, all it takes is someone criticizing the lack of information Christina Kishimoto made available to the public and to the Gilbert Public Schools governing board before a big, expensive project is launched and BAM! her tears flow, her nose gets blown and somehow, we’re supposed to accept this as professional, adult behavior … in public. Sheeeeeesh. 

Can you imagine a CEO level employee throwing a hissy fit when the board of directors says they need more information before signing off on the CEO’s latest pet project? That’s what happened at the GPS work study session on December 6, 2016, as shown in the video clip below.  (If you don’t see the video, use this link: https://youtu.be/iM8JMu3lwQM)

“Hissy fit” used to describe an adult tantrum but now has become an equal opportunity description, young or old, male or female. What they all have in common is no matter how severe the (alleged) offense, there is always some wounded pride involved, and usually an audience of bystanders along with the culprit who allegedly triggered the hissy fit. In this instance, a board member’s questions triggered Kishimoto’s hissy fit, and the Internet preserved it for the world (or at least for Westie’s audience; thank you for your time and attention!).

At issue: Christina Kishimoto wants the GPS governing board to approve a massive financial outlay for a dual language school design at Gilbert Elementary School … an initiative she strong-armed to destroy the neighborhood school in order to institute a *reform* the community does not want. Christina Kishimoto’s first response is a lot of double-speak and edu-speak about *processes* in an effort to confuse the board and the audience. When that doesn’t work, she falls back on tears … *You made me cry! You’re so mean!*

Also present in her tantrum are Christina Kishimoto’s insults to the community: “The people who talked to the governing board and to me aren’t in the Gilbert Elementary School community!” Never mind that what happens in one GPS school affects every school in the district; everyone knows that. Community members are particularly upset that Christina Kishimoto’s pet school design will force students to schools outside their neighborhoods if they do not enroll in those dual language classes. People who bought houses specifically so their children could walk to the neighborhood elementary school are livid and tearful. The situation is dire for families whose children will be forced to attend different schools.

Christina Kishimoto’s public tirade was outrageous by any standard of professionalism; we’re guessing she believes GPS doesn’t have any standards that apply to her. Au contraire! Let’s start with GPS Policy CBA, Performance Responsibilities. This policy provides in detail that the superintendent’s role requires that she “Earns respect and standing among professional colleagues … Maintains poise and emotional stability in the full range of professional activities … Gains respect and support of the community on the conduct of the operation.” Do you see any of those qualities present in superintendent Christina Kishimoto’s sniveling, sniffling and crying in the video above?

This wasn’t Christina Kishimoto’s only hissy fit in recent weeks. On November 2, 2016, she represented Gilbert Public Schools at an event with a focus on teachers and what self-selected *leading executives* can do to attract and retain the best in the field. At that meeting, the audience reported they were treated to more of Kishimoto’s “It’s all about me!” histrionics as she segued into talking about how hard it is for superintendent-level folks in today’s educational environment. Once again, Christina Kishimoto seemed to be unable to use the right words, greatly diminishing her professional standing in the community.

Some of Christina Kishimoto’s reported comments at that event included her condemnation of *back slapping* that she believes is prevalent in school district castles offices. Ah, Chica, we think that word does not mean what you think it means. It’s elementary:

Back slapping is something people do in a friendly manner. Back biting might have been the word you meant to use: attacking the character or reputation, generally when the person who is being discussed is not present. Yes, that’s pretty much par for the course in Gilbert Public Schools, and much of it is aimed at you as a *leader* who is not worthy of the title, the so-called prestige and (of course) the big, fat unearned salary that you get. Maybe the word you sought was back stabbing, which would implicate the inhabitants of the GPS White Castle, who discredit you in countless ways. They know you’re a carpetbagger and a grifter, and they’re not about to tell you about relevant district history; it’s much more fun to watch as you get yourself into pickles that they, as informed persons, know to avoid.

For instance, plenty of people could have told Christina Kishimoto about the troubled history in the past few years of the dual language program at Gilbert Elementary School. Perhaps they could have shared that former Gilbert Public Schools interim superintendent Jack Keegan took corrective action after the school year started in August 2013 due to the low enrollment in the program compared to the neighborhood school classes.

After Christina Kishimoto threw her hissy fit and made assertions that were never true, members of the community circulated Superintendent Keegan’s board brief obtained through public records requests on that very issue. We helpfully uploaded the entire memo at the link above, but we offer the Cliff’s Notes version for convenience:

Jack Keegan closed down the dual language kindergarten class in August 2013 because it had only 15 students. First grade had 18 students, second and fifth grades had 15 students each. The third and fourth grade classes had only 11 students each. At the same time, the two regular first grade classes had 28 and 30 students, respectively.* “There is no rationale for that kind of disparity in our class sizes.” If the dual language program did not grow with district advertising assistance, Keegan said, “We are going to reexamine the viability of the program.”

This wasn’t the first time Christina Kishimoto reported facts to the board as she wished them to be, rather than the reality of the situation:

The Christina Corollary: *Suck it, citizens and taxpayers!*  … Christina Kishimoto gets away with making things up as she goes along.^BS  The Terrible Trio laughs in the faces of the public and the two board members who don’t sit up and beg when they’re told to do so. Run along, nothing to see here… except there’s plenty more for Westie to share.

*****************
Big Fat Asterisk: We’re not certain that the GPS superintendent chica knows the difference between the words *respectively* and *respectfully.* Sigh.

As the calendar pages of 2016 fall away, many people look back with fondness and conjure up excitement and resolutions for the new year. The superintendent of Gilbert Public Schools can’t seem to do that, because events of 2016 crashed some of her greatest dreams … dreams of her *national reputation* as a reformy public school administrator destined for *greatness* on a national stage, like the US Department of Education where John B. King, Jr., a fellow education reformer from the Bronx, managed to Peter Principle his way to the top for a short time.

Christina Kishimoto was downright melancholy when she we penned her secret elegy to Her Three Votes on the GPS governing board, likely because she is losing her BFF, former board president Lily Tram, who was kicked off the board by the unwashed masses electorate that Kishimoto so despises. 

Click here for your personal copy of Christina Kishimoto’s secret memo, which isn’t *really* from Kishimoto. It’s a parody, made up by Westie’s clever brains.
[Keyboard: Couldn’t you tell from the GPS Logo? S.H.I.T. Happens Here!]

Secret Memo to GPS Governing Board Members Lily Tram, Jill Humpherys, Charles Santa Cruz
BCC: Alex Nardone, GPS Chief of Staff
Subject: The Superintendent’s Fond Farewell to Board President Tram

Board members,

It is with exquisite sadness that we bid ado adieu to Lily Tram. Lily faithfully served my interests as your superintendent since July 2014. We’ve been through alot some interesting times together, and Lily always had my back.

Just think of all the things we could have done if it were not for those nasty women citizens making those requests for public records every time we almost pushed my agenda through! Fortunately, Lily’s well-known hatred of FOIA requests enabled me, as superintendent, to slow-walk them all and simply refuse to cough up documents that could have landed me us in trouble. And the Open Meeting Law complaints, Ay caramba!!!

I really appreciate how Lily and Jill voted to suspend the district regulation so we could get on with closing Gilbert Junior High School and give the campus to Gilbert Classical Academy. Charlie, you could have done better … your idea for a shared campus is one of the most ridiculous things anyone could have proposed, and now we’re stuck with it AND with the loudmouth GCA parents who still want more and more for their precious snowflakes.

Jill, don’t worry, I have set plans in motion for the Gifted Academy at Highland Junior High; Highland High School’s gifted academy will be next. I’m sorry it has taken so long, but I couldn’t move any faster because of the GCA mess. We’ll get some good laughs when the gifted academies poach students from GCA. ha ha

I really appreciate that Lily and Jill voted for me to become Superintendent. We all know that the whole GCA mess is due to my pinky promise to Julie about a new GCA campus, but remember, we really, really needed that third vote to hire me! I never figured out what motivated Daryl during his time on the board, and that’s probably why he was such a thorn in my side. Goodbye and good riddance to them both.

Our plan for the new $1.3 Million contract for new finance and human resources software that you approved for me in November 2014 has been wildly successful. First, I realize that I sprung that on you without warning, but I had such a wonderful idea! Second, I have managed to stretch the rollout of the payroll software through the end of 2016. That was not easy! It took a lot of doing to get rid of the support staffers who might have blown the whistle on our finance and human resources game plan, especially after my boyfriend Executive Director of Technology had to leave the district so suddenly. Whew!

We survived Steve’s sudden departure and elements now are in place for the magnificent schemes we devised. I have to laugh at how citizens tried to expose that a GPS server was wiped before former GPS superintendent Dave Allison left [so I could be hired, thanks!]. That was such child’s play in comparison to OUR magnificent scheme, but thankfully, Lily and Jill managed to keep a lid on it back then, thanks to the district’s long-time relationship with the Gilbert Police Department.

I feel I must acknowledge Lily Tram’s pivotal role in devising the Great Payday Melee — she figured out that if everyone took a two week vacation the week before we tried to run payroll on the new technology system, it would guarantee one payroll fiasco after another in 2016. This also was a great distraction from the announcement in October 2014 that the district had overspent by $15.3 Million and kept it a secret.

Lily’s experience as the ASU Director of Financial Services has been invaluable! Without her in-depth knowledge acquired as a Certified Government Financial Manager, it would have been much harder to *cook the books,* as the saying goes, especially after I didn’t get to hire my first choice as Chief Finance Officer. I know Tom Wohlleber puts you to sleep with his presentations, but that’s part of the grand scheme, because it lulls citizens into slumberland, too. Now, all we have to do is fire a few more people who work in Business Services and keep the IRS happy with the window-dressing tax report submissions Lily brainstormed for us. Thanks again, Lily!

Lily helped me come up with a plan to stem the student losses that are starting to make me look bad: Swag Bags! I will tell principals to take up collections of money from their subordinates for GPS logo items to give away in swag bags. We all know GPS teachers will go along with this plan because if they don’t contribute, their principal will rate them lower, and they’ll lose some of that taxpayer money that’s been set aside for teacher performance pay.

It still saddens my heart to think of all the projects that I could have spent those Prop 123 dollars on … I could have won a lot of new friends in the construction trades if I had more money to spend on repurposing Mesquite Junior High School. Five million dollars doesn’t go as far as it used to! At least we bought buses and some vans from our pals at Santan Ford, who are so generous to the Gilbert Education Foundation.

Best wishes in the future, Lily. I’m sure your old friends at CORE Construction will miss your smiling face on the GPS dais. Maybe you can come up with some more great scams ideas to make some of those ASU employees love you … like you did for GPS!!

Love,
Christina

BCC: Alex, you know you deserve the award for Most Valuable Player. I worried a bit when your nice, persuasive talk with Charlie was picked up on a live mic and plastered all over the Internet. I’m counting on you to continue blocking the demands for new boundaries for district schools. I wouldn’t have put that item on the board’s goals for this year if I had known Lily wouldn’t carry the ball into the end zone.

PS: Work harder to scare the new board members about how they won’t be protected from lawsuits if they don’t do what the lawyers tell them to do (I’ll tell the lawyers what to say). These newbies seem to think THEY will be making decisions for the district!

Another New Year, another disaster in Gilbert Public Schools — this time, for failing to pay employees all they are owed for the work they have done. A new board is now responsible for superintendent Christina Kishimoto’s management failures, which include unconstrained wage theft. Citizens anxiously await the election of a new board president on Wednesday, January 11, 2017 for the signal that the GPS Governing Board will do their jobs and hold public employees accountable for their failures … or not. 

We all know that Silly Jilly Humherys is salivating at the prospects of being elected board president. She believes that all her Arizona School Board Association schmoozing entitles her to be board president — “Hey, guys, I got another certificate for attending an ASBA event (at GPS expense)! They like me, they really like me!!!” Silly Jilly Humpherys, whose nose is dark brown and stinky from puppy-dogging Kishimoto around to events at every opportunity, never got elevated to BFF status, in spite of her proclivity for sanctimoniously pontificating in favor of anything Kishimoto wanted during a board meeting. Karma.

The important thing about Silly Jilly Humpherys’ history is that it appears she never questioned anything that her position as GPS governing board clerk required her to oversee. As a result, GPS administrators have run wild, knowing they never will be held accountable for anything they do. Example: in 2016, Christina Kishimoto not only received her five-figure *performance pay* bonus, she had her contract renewed a year early and was awarded a blank check for spending millions of dollars on the GCA/MJHS campus boondoggle and other unnamed extravaganzas. That’s what has been passing as *accountability* in GPS.

Benito Mussolini’s fascist governance famously was defended because “he made the trains run on time.” Kishimoto hasn’t performed the basic functions of managing an entity of 5,000 employees … like paying those employees properly. Two years ago, Kishimoto demanded $1.3 Million for new software to do human resources and payroll functions. A year ago, Kishimoto’s incompetent minions rammed full-steam ahead to implementing that new payroll system, which has never functioned properly.

The Great Payday Melee continues unabated today, and has morphed into undeniable wage theft. Employees are shorted dollars in their paychecks for many reasons, but Kishimoto couldn’t be bothered to “make the payroll on time” … and Her Three Votes on the GPS board didn’t care. “BFD,” they shrugged.

The latest GPS payroll *system failure* screwed up income taxes on top of the other many failures to pay employees properly. An email from a gal who holds three positions (GPS School Nutrition Services, Payroll Tech, NSLP Secretary) in the White Castle explained to GPS employees:

There was a system error on paychecks whose Federal Exemptions were anything but “0” (zero). For example if your Federal tax withholding is Single or Married with ‘0’ Exemptions then your paycheck contains no tax errors. If your Federal tax withholding is Single or Married with 1 or more Exemptions then an error was made, too much taxes was withheld. [No editing: Westie couldn’t make up this stuff.]

One of the new board members works with compliance issues in his day job; another has been a school district superintendent, presumably responsible for making the payroll. Perhaps these two can figure out the issues associated with failing to pay employees properly for a year … blaming it on the *software* or the *system* doesn’t count. Neither does *reorganizing business services.* Nope, can’t blame it on not having enough employees to do the job, either … the White Castle is bursting at the seams with administrative employees. Bonus points for anyone who can figure out exactly how many people are employed in the White Castle!

How long will the new board allow this to continue? Has the co-opting already begun? Here’s an alarming hint of what’s to come: in the long, long tradition of giving out awards when GPS admins feel their job security is threatened, Kishimoto has thrown a bone to the new board. From her December 16, 2016 board brief:

ASBA Conference
We had a great opportunity last week on Thursday and Friday to connect at the ASBA conference and to enjoy several sessions together. It was also great to have Jill, Charlie, Lori and Sheila attend the session on governance that I co-presented with my colleague from Buckeye Elementary School.* As we go into the new calendar year, let’s talk about the requirements from ASBA to have our governance team recognized as a Golden Award winner.

The question is, will the new board make sure GPS employees are paid on time? Paying employees all that they are owed for the work they have performed for the district is a basic administrative function. Kishimoto has failed. Worse, she created a *ticket system* to make it appear she has things under control, bragging that her new *ticket system* brought the numbers down from over 900 in August 2016. This artifice succeeds only if you believe that having 97 new tickets opened the week before December 16, 2016 is acceptable.

“There ought to be a law,” abused employees cry; fact is, there are laws about wage theft and other nefarious schemes employers use to take advantage of their employees. The public isn’t buying that GPS payroll and associated tax reporting, withholding and remittances have been a mess for the past year, but it’s no one’s fault. The public sees clearly that these aren’t *tickets* to be cavalierly dismissed … these are employees who have not been paid properly for the past year. Pay them! Asking banks to forgive GPS employee overdrafts is not sufficient.

Oh yeah, don’t forget about overtime, which has been in a mess for years, but really, since only the lowest level of support staffers are paid hourly, no one seems to have cared. Silly Jilly Humpherys already posted on Facebook that those employees have to *be patient* as they await their new minimum wage salary payments. Apparently, Silly Jilly expects them to wait for years while she tries to do the math:

Happy New Year! Best wishes for peace and prosperity in 2017! … Congrats to a number of our staff who will receive a raise due to the increase in the minimum wage. You work really hard! Please be patient and understanding as we make challenging decisions the next few years to fund those increases.

That’s marginally better than when Silly Jilly Humpherys compared GPS staff to idiots who should work at Walmart:

We’ll be looking at you, board members elected in November 2016, because that’s what Westie does.

*************
Big Fat Asterisk: Westie made a public records request for the documents Kishimoto used in that presentation at the ASBA conference on “Effective Governance Models.” Is it any surprise that GPS hasn’t produced those notes and slides? Business as usual under the new board? Stay tuned!

Christina Kishimoto has made it a point to go her own way during her two plus years in Gilbert. GPS Governing Board members can barely figure out what she’s doing, let alone what vision the superintendent is pursuing … other than her overarching quest for her *national reputation.* It was clear that Kishimoto was counting on stepping onto a larger stage, but then the 2016 elections intervened.

Now that she’s picking up the pieces of her shattered crystal ball and grandiose plans, Christina Kishimoto has become Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. That’s a person who is vastly different in moral character from one situation to the next. Christina Kishimoto does not understand that citizens of the Town of Gilbert are seeing her true character as she chases that *national reputation* unicorn.

“Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.”  Abraham Lincoln

Christina Kishimoto recently cast her *national reputation* net into new waters. Which brings up the question, “Does the board know what Christina Kishimoto is doing in the name of Gilbert Public Schools?” We think not: a few months ago, Kishimoto joined a new national group called Chiefs for Change, which is basically an organization for urban schools. So what is Christina Kishimoto doing there? She’s helping her pals celebrate that Denver Public Schools has an *improved* graduation rate of 67.2%.

As soon as she joined, Chiefs for Change promptly put Christina Kishimoto’s photo on their website with this quote: “I’m an educator, but I’m not a traditionalist.” That choking sound you just heard is GPS teachers spitting out their beverages as they read those words. [We’ll wait while they clean up their screens.] Everyone knows Kishimoto has never taught in any school, has never been an administrator in any school and cannot get a superintendent certificate in Arizona. Chiefs for Change, or C4C, gave some love back to their new member by giving her some *national* exposure:

Christina Kishimoto / Gilbert, Arizona
“Chiefs for Change is an organization of thought leaders who are willing to think critically about effective school design, policy structures, and governance. Their collective goal is to ensure strong leadership focused on education access, equity, and engagement for all students. It is a point of pride and commitment to join this group of national leaders of excellence.”

That’s it! Kishimoto figured out that C4C is a *group of national leaders* and she wanted in! Whatever this group is doing, it doesn’t bode well for Gilbert, Arizona, which is not an urban district that celebrates 60% graduation rates.  What C4C is, in the words of a REAL educator:

Pity the Chiefs for Change. They were destined to be part of the superstructure of educational reforminess that would help sweep Jeb! Bush into power, then be poised to cash in on uplift US education once he got into the White House. But now the Jebster’s Presidential hopes have gone the way of Betamax tapes and the Zune, and Chiefs for Change is on the last leg of a long, downhill slide.

So that means the Chiefs are now a group of seven school district superintendents allied with some former state chiefs and a handful of barely-in-power education leaders. Chiefs for Change were going to be Educational Masters of the Universe. Now they’re more like one of those padded ghost band versions of some sixties rock group playing county fairs and mall openings.

Chiefs for Change is an offshoot of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, a reform group founded by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. This time, it appears that Kishimoto is thinking big: the group’s membership had dipped from a high of nine members in 2012 to four in May 2016. Kishimoto joined in September 2016. <snark>

Since its creation, Chiefs for Change has represented a small group of state education officials who have loudly promoted an agenda shared by Bush: Common Core State Standards, using test scores to evaluate teachers, A-to-F report cards for schools, expanding charter schools and online learning, among other things.

For example, the foundation and Chiefs for Change have pushed states to embrace digital learning in public schools, a costly transition that often requires new software and hardware. Many of those digital products are made by donors to the foundation — and funders of Chiefs for Change — such as Microsoft, Intel, News Corp., Pearson PLC and K12 Inc.

The more you read about Chiefs for Change, the more you understand that Christina Kishimoto doesn’t think for herself: pretty much everything she advocates these days comes right from the website of this C4C group. Chromebooks? Check. New software? Check. We haven’t seen reports that Renaissance/Accelerated Reader corporation is a donor to C4C, so that might be why Christina Kishimoto cut off GPS funding for their products. Sheeeesh.

Having read this far, you new board members must be shaking your heads. This is Arizona, the frontier of school choice, you say. Right you are! But Christina Kishimoto is a PUBLIC school superintendent, and she’s b*tching a blue streak complaining mightily that local charter schools are *stealing students* from GPS. It’s all their fault, she proclaims, that GPS lost thousands of students in just the past few years (including every year under her *leadership*). Sure, those thousands of student losses and hundreds of teacher losses have nothing to do with the way Kishimoto and her Top Dogs are running the formerly A rated district into the ground, right?

More Jekyll and Hyde: ASBA is fighting against Betsy DeVos’s nomination but C4C thinks she’s perfect for the job. It would be a good thing to share this information with the Arizona Education Association [Joe Thomas, President of AEA when he gets back from the women’s march in D.C.; maybe the Phoenix march wasn’t a big enough stage] and the Arizona Schools Board Association [Timothy Ogle, ASBA].

Things always get worse when it comes to GPS top level administrators knifing teachers in the back. Now we get to the real crux of why Christina Kishimoto joined C4C: it could be her ticket to a national job! We’re sure she’s relieved, since all that money she spent on the Association for Latino Administrators and Superintendents seems to have been wasted. Her pal John King was just dumped from his job as Secretary of Education, dashing Kishimoto’s hopes for a job with her buddy in the Hillary Clinton administration. Karma.

In this case, Jeb! and Christina Kishimoto may have the last laugh, in the form of the newly nominated Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.

Bush allies are reportedly in the mix to be DeVos deputies, including Hanna Skandera, New Mexico’s public education secretary who is one of the “Chiefs for Change” that are part of Bush’s foundation.

Betsy DeVos’s family organization has contributed at least $150,000 since 2012 to Jeb!’s foundation and Chiefs for Change:

Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education discloses its donors by contribution level; among the higher levels of giving in recent years are the News Corp., the DeVos Family Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, K12 Inc., and Pearson PLC. The foundation also lists a number of other education technology and textbook companies and major corporations as donors, primarily in support of their annual national summit, including GE, McGraw-Hill Education, Amplify and Joel Klein, Scholastic, ACT Aspire LLC., Intel, ETS, ExxonMobil, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.* Tax filings reveal that the foundation has received nearly at least $150,000 from the DeVos Family Foundation since 2012.

One thing about Christina Kishimoto and her two-sided moral compass, i.e. Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde: no one can accuse her of being classy!  Check out this tweet: who in the world thinks *incomes* is a good descriptor of U.S. military veterans? Does she think we’re all one step away from being homeless? Sheeeeeesh.

#SaveOurNeighborhoodSchools

*****************
Big Fat Asterisk: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is where Christina Kishimoto’s paramour former Executive Director of Technology landed after their *alleged* inappropriate relationship became public knowledge. Sure, Steve Smith got that job based on his *talents and experience,* right?

Gilbert Public Schools can’t seem to keep their superintendent on her leash. Christina Kishimoto goes about doing whatever she pleases, throwing around her title as she attempts to impress listeners and spouts off about her obsession with those mean old charter schools she believes are stealing GPS students. With losses amounting to 10% of student enrollment, GPS has a problem, and it isn’t charter schools; it’s the incompetency of the GPS superintendent and her minions. It hasn’t helped that board members past and present can’t or won’t extricate themselves from Kishimoto’s puppet strings. 

If it weren’t enough to hitch the reputation of Gilbert Public Schools to a declining and discredited reform group, Christina Kishimoto went out, again on her own, and gave the Gilbert Town Council a piece of her mind about charter schools that are stealing students from GPS. She demanded the Town Council do something to stop those dastardly charter schools in their tracks before GPS begins a death spiral.

The setting: “an application for the proposed annexation of approximately 41.6 acres located at American Leadership Academy at the northwest corner of Higley Road and the Santan 202 Freeway.” It was very clear that the Gilbert Town Council was NOT voting to approve a new charter school … the town does not have that authority. It was very clear that the ALA landowners were going to put a charter school at the specified location, the question was whether the land would be annexed, giving the Town of Gilbert a say in the development, or whether the land would remain in Maricopa County, which meant the town would have no official say in development of the charter school site.

Christina Kishimoto delivered a frizzled, frazzled and frenzied diatribe that made her, and Gilbert Public Schools, look like total idiot losers who can’t compete for students fair and square. She worked herself up into a lather and told the Town Council it was costing GPS millions of dollars in lost revenue to lose thousands of students to those nefarious charter schools. Kishimoto looked all the more stupid because the land in question isn’t within GPS boundaries. As you enjoy the video below, note that the Town of Gilbert manages to make high quality video records during meetings, and those videos, along with comprehensive written minutes, are available to the public as OML requires. Ain’t it amazing that the Town of Gilbert can do things that GPS can’t manage? [Here’s the link if you don’t see it: https://youtu.be/R_GG20Siy4g]

Christina Kishimoto did not have authorization from the GPS Governing Board for taking this public stance. The only way the board could have approved her crazy public performance would have been by proclamation in a public meeting. That never happened. It was just Kishimoto and her pals subordinates off on a rogue mission, attempting to work the ref: screaming about bias and unfair treatment, no matter how favorable the treatment actually is.

The ref didn’t have any power to do what Kishimoto was demanding. Kishimoto started her speech with an insult: “I don’t like your time limit of two minutes, so I’m going to take three minutes.” She then proceeded to talk for five minutes. Had anyone done that at a GPS board meeting, Christina Kishimoto would have cut the mike and called security to remove the person for disruption of an educational institution.

But this was not a GPS meeting; Mayor Jenn Daniels smiled politely as Kishimoto’s childish display of raw emotion built into a crescendo of unrestrained bitterness, blaming anyone other than herself. Town Council minutes were as clear as the video: Kishimoto made a fool of herself and embarrassed the GPS governing board and the people of the Town of Gilbert. Here is some of the *dater* Kishimoto gave the Gilbert Town Council:

The last two years of demographic data show that we have an increasing school age population in our community, but a decreasing enrollment in GPS because we are dividing the student enrollment pie over and over again.

* The last ten years of state financial data shows that GPS has a cumulative loss of over $70M in the state’s capital funding formula

Over the past six years, we will have experienced an ADM loss of over 3,000 or 8 ½%, while I am asked, why we don’t give more money to teacher pay!

Since Kishimoto made that speech, the 2016-2017 GPS hundred day student enrollment declined again … more than 700 student losses this year alone. Of course it’s not HER fault <snark>; Kishimoto is hell bent on destroying the pride of GPS, the neighborhood schools that attracted tens of thousands of students in past years. It’s not Kishimoto’s fault that her ill considered foray into *school design* in the form of having Gilbert Classical Academy take over a neighborhood junior high school has already caused significant student losses, with more losses to come, as parents have promised.

Here’s another statement from Kishimoto that strains credulity, given just two of the Special Education student atrocities Westie observed, the cases of Ryken and Colter: 

* GPS and HPS proudly educate the majority of English Language Learners and Special Education students in our community – that happens by a student cost share because the state does not provide us sufficient funds for each child’s special needs – We embrace every child.

The question is: will the new governing board allow this embarrassment to continue? At the January 24, 2017 board meeting, Silly Jilly Humpherys added an item to the agenda. She wanted the board to approve the following statement and send it to the Town of Gilbert:

Local constituents in Gilbert and Higley have already stepped up to pass bonds to fund buildings, maintenance, and infrastructure for district students.  Duplication of these capital items presents an additional burden to local taxpayers and is not a cost efficient use of taxpayer dollars.  The Gilbert Public Schools Governing Board respectfully supports Higley Unified School District in their request that the Town of Gilbert not rezone or annex approximately 42.7 acres of property generally located at the northwest corner of Higley Road and Santan 202 Freeway from Maricopa County Rural 43 (RU-43) zoning district to Town of Gilbert Business Park (BP) zoning district for the construction of the new American Leadership Academy charter school.

At a time when Gilbert Public Schools is beginning its Enrollment Management Planning, the construction of yet another charter school further contributes to the challenges of accurately projecting our student enrollment and thus our annual operating budget.  Prepared by Jill Humpherys

The board liaison to the Town of Gilbert, Reed Carr, explained that signing a statement just to make a political point was pretty stupid would not change the impact or the facts (starts at 3:52:20 in the video below). “…Focus on OUR district and making sure that we’re competitive.” He also contrasted Silly Jilly’s statement with how the board president and superintendent of the Chandler school district said, “We know parents shop for education much like they shop for a home or a car. We must find a way to meet the market and invite them into our public schools.” Once again, GPS and Kishimoto were outsmarted and outclassed by a competitor school district.*

The board approved Silly Jilly’s statement, even though the town doesn’t have the authority to do what Silly Jilly and her controller Christina Kishimoto want: the charter school WILL be built. Update:  You won’t find the January board meeting in the GPS Livestream archives [The video is now in the usual place, but it still sucks] but the GPS techie geniuses posted an ersatz video to make up for the *lost Internet* complication during the meeting. Said video is so bad, you can barely hear what is going on; the video portion is so blurred, you get a headache from trying to watch.

Here’s a link to an improved video (but it’s still blurred, Westie’s magic couldn’t compensate for that).  Here’s the link if you don’t see it below: https://youtu.be/JRpQIepRcjY

*****************
Big Fat Asterisk: The Higley Unified School District superintendent also spoke at the December 1, 2016 Town Council meeting. Dr. Mike Thomason didn’t exactly cover himself in glory. [Dude, act like you know you’re a superintendent. Grab some gravitas.] One thing the new GPS board members should know: HUSD immediately produced public records that Westie requested about Mikey’s participation in this meeting, along with signed affidavits when there were no records within the scope of part of the FOIA request. Classy! HUSD also posts for public viewing the entire file of documents sent to the board before a board meeting.

Pay attention, new board members, GPS has been violating the norms of OML and *boardmanship* for years, and it’s only become worse under Kishimoto. It’s now YOUR watch!

The superintendent of Gilbert Public Schools is a witch smeller! Christina Kishimoto is going to sniff out that hapless low-level employee who single-handedly screwed up the GPS payroll system and kept it screwed up for more than a year! <sarcasm> This so-called superintendent apparently never heard the expression, “The buck stops here.” It’s always the fault of someone else when things go wrong in GPS. 

In a shocking example of buck passing, Christina Kishimoto told the GPS governing board that she would need six to eight more weeks to sniff around for that witch. Never mind the fact that this Great Payday Melee has been a staggering failure since her *alleged* boyfriend the former ‘Executive’ Director of Technology Services got caught with his did not run the old and new systems in parallel until the bugs could be worked out and employees could be paid properly. That seems to have been what happened when the *alleged* boyfriend bugged out after the superintendent’s *alleged* inappropriate relationship with him became public knowledge. It sure looks like the ill-fated payroll software project and the *alleged* superintendent misconduct were the proximate causes of the GPS wage theft caper.

Watch the GPS *Fearless Leader* confound the board with such statements as, “Our proactive communication was inefficient and insufficient.” Do you think she even knows what “system crossover and fidelity implementation” means? (If you don’t see the video, use this link: https://youtu.be/f66hM3Lwdno

We all know what’s going to happen with Christina Kishimoto’s promise that all supplemental payroll runs will need her personal approval. Suddenly, employees who have not been paid properly will be threatened with retaliation if they tell GPS, “I need my full pay and I need it now!” What’s so important about a rent payment or a car payment if the GPS Payroll Department has to tell the superintendent they screwed up again? You know the pattern and practice in GPS: threats, retaliation and anything else the Top Dogs can do to humiliate their underlings.

The reality is that payroll is not a priority for Kishimoto. Thus, her top level administrators haven’t managed to solve GPS payroll problems for more than a year after the new software came on line. Employees are not paid properly and tax reporting has not been accurate. GPS has blamed the software vendor, difficulty in locating paperwork <snort>, short staffing and lack of training as causes of problems. Anyone familiar with payroll in a business setting knows there are laws about paying employees for all time worked and accurately reporting, withholding and remitting taxes. But GPS seems to be either ignorant or willfully blind. How do you think this is going to play out? “So sorry, it was that witch’s fault…”

The problem isn’t a few little minor blips … each month, hundreds of payroll errors proliferate throughout GPS. Each error means that an employee was not paid properly. The circular issues result in supplemental payroll runs to get checks to some employees, while other employees are told to wait to receive their full pay, and inaccuracies multiply. So what did Business Services under the *watchful* eye of Chief Financial Officer Tom Wohlleber do? They started a ticket system like the one used by Tech Services. Sure, that solved the problems. <eye roll> Look at the number of errors each month and weep for how long GPS employees subsist without their full pay:

The arrogance of Christina Kishimoto is astonishing, and it translates into similar hardheartedness and cruelty among her staffers, as one of the reports to the irascible boss shows. That report appears at the bottom of this post. Why should staffers in the White Castle care if GPS employees aren’t paid properly? Their top boss, the superintendent, has been accepting their sloppy staff work for two and a half years! What would you bet that Christina Kishimoto and her acolytes have ALWAYS been paid correctly and on time? Most likely, their records are flagged so any potential error is fixed before payday.

It’s perplexing that sloppy staff work in the financial realm seems to be not just tolerated, but celebrated in GPS. A reasonable person would expect that financial matters involving public funds would be closely watched at every level. Nope. One example that began while Silly Jilly Humpherys was the board clerk, the person tasked with reviewing GPS vouchers before the board ratified expenditures:

In the GPS culture as it exists today, administrators and staffers in Gilbert Public Schools do whatever they want, and they don’t give a flying flip about who gets hurt. Green Bar reports, also known as vouchers, are published into the public sphere, and the GPS governing board approves those vouchers, most often without comment. In recent months, GPS has been releasing the public records in those green bar reports in ways that violently trample personal privacy.

Silly Jilly Humpherys did not do her job of reviewing those vouchers because *numbers are hard.* So, for two years, Christina Kishimoto and her minions had free rein to spend without any real accountability and indulge in sloppy staff work. No one was watching … except Westie, it seems. Even though Westie watches and sometimes works behind the scenes to head off public humiliation for GPS staffers [they know who they are and what we did to help], it doesn’t do much good to try to fix GPS problems.

Nonetheless, we’ll try again and we’ll submit a most specific complaint to the board about how GPS, under Christina Kishimoto’s so-called leadership, continues to violate privacy of students … and this time, a top-level administrator. Surely Christopher R. Stroud, principal of Gilbert High School doesn’t care that his name, date of birth and cell phone number have been online for weeks.* His drivers license number, too … sweet! Maybe it’s more scary that Westie knows his flight numbers for his fancy trip to a resort location on the taxpayers’ dime.

How long do you think it will take some enterprising GHS students to find the same information Westie has? That personal data is really, really valuable to hackers and identity thieves. What could go wrong?

*****************
Big Fat Asterisk: Don’t bother getting indignant … Westie notified the GPS governing board about the problem before this post was made public. There was time to remove ALL the personal information of student victims and Good Ole Chris Stroud on the latest Voucher Report for ratification on February 28, 2017. With any luck, someone will have the presence of mind to go back and clean up the past six months or more of student privacy violations in the vouchers. But this is GPS, so who knows what will happen?

Here’s the Payroll Status Report that shows *business as usual* in GPS. Sheeeeeeesh.

Gilbert Public Schools has been losing students right and left as their reviled superintendent Christina Kishimoto destroys neighborhood schools in the name of reforms that no one wants. She appears to be driven by her quest for a national reputation, which is costing the district dearly in terms of squandered taxpayer dollars and the district’s own blackened reputation.

Fortunately, the former Rubber Stamp Board was broken up by voters in November 2016. Unfortunately, they had already extended Christina Kishimoto’s employment contract through 2019. If not for that treachery, GPS would have been able to send Christina Kishimoto packing on June 30, 2016 when her contract ended.

The Rubber Stamp Board also saddled the New Guys with the budgetary fallout. Now it’s February 2017 and the New Guys must come up with more, more and more budget cuts because the declining number of students has an immediate negative impact on the GPS budget. Never mind that GPS has a tax override and bond that local residents fund out of their own pockets; that’s in addition to state and federal funds and lots of unaccountable cash that floats around the district. The big problem is how Christina Kishimoto spends that money before the governing board knows what has happened. A hundred here, a thousand there …. don’t forget Kishimoto has $100,000.00 contracting authority for anything she wants.

When questioned about why the budget is such a mess again, Christina Kishimoto and her Top Dogs will defend themselves by saying there was no way they could have anticipated such staggering student losses. It’s the fault of those mean old charter schools! They’ll talk a bunch of mumbo-jumbo; Tom Wohlleber will drone on and put the audience to sleep. In the end, students will pay the price for Christina Kishimoto’s incompetence and arrogance … again. The chart below shows that the biggest student losses have come during Kishimoto’s reign of terror tenure at GPS. Check out FY 15, 16 and 17:

The chart above comes from Kishimoto’s presentation to the governing board. As citizens can tell you, Christina Kishimoto’s superintendency has been devastating to a community that values public education, neighborhood schools and transparency in governance. Instead of respecting those values, Kishimoto has put neighborhood schools on the chopping block for *school designs* that appeal to minuscule groups of parents and students. Teachers have been fleeing a district that relies on retaliation as a management strategy.

It strains credulity that as superintendent, Christina Kishimoto will recommend what the board should cut. It sure won’t be the big bucks she rakes in! It won’t be the salaries she sets for her subordinates, or the sweet little extras that Christina Kishimoto lavishes on her pets. Nope. Budget cuts that Christina Kishimoto recommends will slash popular programs so the community will feel intense pain. That’s the way things were done by previous GPS superintendents, so why change? Oh yeah, that former bumbling superintendent got canned retired. The community breathed a sigh of relief for a few moments, then Kishimoto was hired.

Let’s take a look at some of the questionable spending that is happening in Gilbert Public Schools. We’ll look at just one month’s worth of vouchers since the GPS governing board hasn’t had much of an opportunity for financial oversight. We’re really hoping the New Guys can grab Christina Kishimoto by the asterisk and throttle her excessive spending on things that do nothing to educate students. The lists below are not ALL of the expenses that should be questioned as to propriety and legality; they’re just a few things reasonable taxpayers abhor.

For example, take the vaunted EXPO at St. Xavier in January 2017; we don’t yet know if GPS paid the town to rent the place. We do know that not only did GPS give away ugly orange tee shirts to employees, board members, parents, students and passers-by, the district bought breakfast and pastries. Gee, if only we knew if GPS employees *volunteered* to participate at this event so their jobs would not be jeopardized to get a free tee shirt and some breakfast.

Westie: There ought to be a law about forcing employees to *volunteer* under those circumstances!
Keyboard: You idiot, there already are laws like that!
Westie: Do you think GPS knows?

And how about the Employee Benefits Fair? GPS designed and paid for bags to be given to employees. That’s on top of constant b*tching about how much the GPS share for insurance goes up each year. Wonder how many GPS employees actually showed up to get their *goodie bags*?

The superintendent has the district pay for her soirees with her pals at the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, calling it “professional development.” Other times, she has the district “buy a table” for $500.00. We hear that Christina Kishimoto is now telling all the schools in GPS that they need to “buy a table” for $500.00 so that their Teacher of the Year will be represented at the big GPS banquet. This time, the $500.00 is supposed to come from teachers, parents and staff … great way to celebrate the school’s teacher of the year, right? Why not hand over a check for $500.00 to the teacher? Or better yet, quit hitting up the lowest paid echelons of GPS employees for money to pay for the superintendent’s new publicity stunt. Sheeeesh.

Lookie here, the superintendent asks and receives money for future expenses. Do you think any GPS staffer would refuse to hand over a check?

The following list shows one month’s worth of catering expenses in the January financial vouchers. The Governing Board chows down on food bought by taxpayers while they discuss how they will cut classroom funds! The GPS superintendent eats a lot of breakfasts at taxpayer expense! And on freshly dry cleaned tablecloths! With decorations! Actually, if GPS ever has a *real* audit, we’re sure a lot of these expenses will show up as double and tripled billed … or more, based on what we see month after month. Every monthly GPS voucher has seemingly endless catering expenses, from a few measly bucks to thousands, just like what’s shown below.

This was so much fun, we’ll have to do it again. We’ll help community activists learn to identify extravagant spending as we document some truly egregious ways that Christina Kishimoto has abused the public trust and enriched herself and her pals with public funds. After all, she can’t be fired for *mere mistakes in judgment,* so we’ll have to dig in to some actual lawbreaking. You know we’re on to something here.

Since the new Gilbert Public Schools governing board was seated in January 2017, there’s been a lot of activity wherein superintendent Christina Kishimoto finds herself being questioned. She does not like being questioned. She likes it best when people, including the GPS governing board, do what she tells them to do. Christina Kishimoto has not been questioned about her activities for the past two years, so how dare anyone change the status quo? 

Having the governing board question things, like the issues being brought to them for a decision, is a good thing. It would have been so much better if the public were able to see and hear the superintendent’s answers to those questions. A lot of the frenetic activity that has taken place in GPS over the past five to six weeks has taken place out of the public eye, though. Excuses proliferate, but it comes down to the fact that Christina Kishimoto’s contempt for the public is at the root of GPS administrative intransigence when it comes to transparency: you’ll get whatever information the superintendent decides to give you, and you’ll like it, by golly!

At the January 2017 board meeting, board members expressed concerns about making decisions when they didn’t have the information they thought they would need to make a carefully considered decision about the mission of the district: educating students. Sheila Rogers, the newly elected board president gave Christina Kishimoto some new marching orders about having a board retreat to discuss specific matters.

It’s obvious that Christina Kishimoto did not like being told what to do, so she set up a *Board Retreat* to brainwash the three new board members about her reformy ideas. This 2017 meeting featured the same guy who taught the same stuff to the board in 2015 for a total cost of about $18,000.00. Don’t worry, taxpayers, apparently the guy charged only $6,000.00 this year to spend a couple of hours going over reformy stuff; we figure his travel costs will be extra and will appear on the vouchers much later. That way, fewer people will connect the dots, you know.

Board President Sheila Rogers apparently won one point: the board retreat was held at Campo Verde High School instead of a hotel. That saved about $2,000 according to the 2015 expenses, but Christina Kishimoto took her revenge by not setting up a Livestream archive of the event that featured not just a quorum, but the entire governing board. Even though the public was not prohibited from attending, the short notice and inconvenient time slot eliminated much potential public oversight of what the board and the superintendent discussed.

Christina Kishimoto did not intend to publish minutes of that meeting, either. The Westies helpfully appeared at the GPS reception desk four days after the board retreat to review the minutes that were required by law to be available three days after the meeting. You know what happened: no minutes. Heh. Slimebucket Suzanne Zenter first said there were no minutes, then she left us standing there (tap, tap, tap the foot) and then she said the minutes would be posted online by close of business that very same day. That was too little, too late.

You would think GPS had learned something about Arizona’s Open Meeting Law after the Attorney General imposed six months of monitoring just last year, but you would be wrong. The entire GPS administration resists complying with the most simple elements of OML, but that’s *business as usual* in GPS. It’s not going to stop until the governing board forces compliance. Looking at how much meeting time the new board has spent in smoke-filled rooms in ways that evade public scrutiny, it’s more of the same.

Go ahead and read the minutes of the February 6, 2017 board retreat; do you think the governing board got their money’s worth ($6,000.00++) of training from this dude Julian Trevino? You can bet they all heartily chowed down on the catered dinner that was served during the board retreat (at taxpayer expense).

We’re stunned, though, that the last item on the agenda wasn’t discussed at all. It would seem to be the most important discussion of the board retreat.  BTW, it looks like someone doesn’t know what “time lapse” means:

Constituent Services and Proactive Community Engagement: How do we serve constituent concerns/issues/problems efficiently and effectively? Due to time lapse item was not discussed

In more of the *you can’t make this stuff up* management practices that the GPS administration seems to have perfected, the governing board had Open Meeting Law training two days later. That was one day before the minutes of the previous board retreat were required by law to be available to the public. Glory be, the governing board had a video camera to record the OML training on February 8, 2017! They actually discussed the board’s responsibilities to comply with OML!

The video does not show the entire meeting … it looks like the camera dude just up and quit recording at exactly 5:00 PM. Never mind that the meeting continued. Even if there were only ten more minutes in the training, cutting off the video is the kind of thing Christina Kishimoto’s staff does to show those governing board members that they can’t be bossed around. Yes, things are that juvenile in the White Castle, the GPS district offices. You can lead a horse to water …

The governing board then held a second board retreat on  February 13, 2017. There’s nothing on the web page for governing board retreats about this meeting. There is an agenda on the BoardDocs page where regular board meeting agendas and minutes are posted. Obviously, Christina Kishimoto and her staff are playing “hide and seek” with the public again. Although there is an agenda in not-the-usual-place, and although there are two agenda items shown, all the public knows (if they found this agenda) is that the board was going to discuss the GPS strategic plan and school design process review. That’s all anyone can know, unless you were checking the GPS daily to see what was added; these folks are very surreptitious. If you happened to look in the usual wrong place, well, too bad, you missed the meeting. It was not archived on video. We haven’t a clue what the GPS Strategic Plan is … the only thing we found online was the old 2014-2017 plan that shows how clueless Kishimoto is when it comes to actually managing this district.

But by golly, now there’s going to be a community forum to discuss the GPS Strategic Plan! Christina Kishimoto’s staff sent out flyers [click the link to see it]. More *you can’t make this up* mismanagement: the date shown on the flyer was “Tuesday, February 22, 2017” with an image of a February calendar with Wednesday, February 22, 2017 prominently circled. More sloppy staff work, the kind that has become the hallmark of GPS administrators. Sheeeeesh.

One final example of Christina Kishimoto’s in-your-face relationship with the governing board: the school design process that was discussed at the board retreat [click the link to see the diagram]. Notice that the governing board isn’t told much of anything about the various school designs that are being devised, again behind closed doors and evading public scrutiny, until Year Two. Otherwise, a school design goes to the board for approval only when it’s going to cost a lot of money. As if there is a school design that IS NOT going to cost a lot of money, sheeeeesh. She’s just gonna ram another atrocity down the governing board’s throat.

Christina Kishimoto’s biggest rant about parents who live in neighborhoods where schools are being *designed* in ways that destroy the neighborhood school is this: “They aren’t part of the school community.” This was her response to parents who bought houses in the boundaries of Gilbert Elementary School, some of whom are not thrilled with the dual-language academy that Kishimoto and her acolytes are trying to ram through for board approval. They don’t want their children to be bused to a far-away school. Those children are now toddlers, but they will be in school in the next few years. Kishimoto thinks their voices don’t matter. Only her voice matters.

GPS was required to make available to the public minutes of the February 13, 2017 board retreat no later than Friday morning, February 17, 2017. Take a wild guess as to whether or not that happened. By the way, the notice on the governing board calendar mentions only the strategic plan. Citizens who checked the calendar would not have known that the board would discuss the school design process.

The entire GPS governing board will meet tomorrow, February 21, 2017, as a *committee of the whole* to review GPS policies; that’s another meeting that’s held in the secrecy of a smoke-filled room, so to speak. Attendees will eat another meal at taxpayer expense, but there will be no video archive and no minutes, if it’s more *business as usual.* What’s alarming is that Christina Kishimoto recently told the board that *their* lawyer said they could approve the first read of policies and changes in those committee meetings. Sure, no business is conducted there … which is the excuse Kishimoto has given for refusing to post minutes or video archives.

See how creative Christina Kishmoto and her minions can be when they set out to defeat the public’s right to know what the school district is doing with all that taxpayer money? Kishimoto and the Evaders would be a good name for a rock band… we’ll tell Dave Barry.

Keyboard: See you on Tuesday, February 22, 2017!
Westie: Unless it’s really Wednesday, February 22, 2017.
Keyboard: It could be Wednesday, March 22, 2017…

Here’s a wild prediction: the GPS governing board is going to be asked to approve Christina Kishimoto’s selected acolyte to be principal of Highland Junior High School. That’s not too much of a stretch: the position was open for applications for quite a long time, there’s an unusual situation with an interim principal and the job announcement disappeared from GPS job listings online. Westie’s going to take bets, though, on whether or not the GPS governing board has been told that the district is in the middle of yet another discrimination lawsuit, this time about hiring practices that center on Highland Junior High School. What a coincidence!

Today’s post is about GPS being a defendant in federal court AGAIN; you can read the Complaint here. It’s another nasty story about GPS Top Dogs behaving like they’re Masters of the Universe. There is lore about the famous GPS Loose Zipper Brigade. Those administrators are just Legends in their Own Minds, including Christina Kishimoto, and they’re going to be mad as hell with Westie for spilling the beans. Mind you, they’re not necessarily mad at themselves for the morals and ethics they display in their employment with the district, they only care when they get caught with their zippers down engaging in behavior that violates district policies. We all know those administrators don’t give a flying flip about laws.

HEY NEW BOARD MEMBERS: it’s not difficult to know about all the lawsuits in which GPS is a defendant. All it takes is a PACER account for federal court cases and a survey of lawsuits listed in the Maricopa Superior Court for state law litigation. You probably thought the GPS superintendent would tell you about important matters like GPS being sued or being investigated by federal agencies. As usual, you might have been wrong in expecting professionalism from GPS Top Dogs.

Historically, GPS superintendents have not liked it when board members know about litigation, or inquiries from the Federal Government, such as Department of Justice or the Office for Civil Rights or the Internal Revenue Service. But litigation against GPS is happening again. This time you new board members might have a chance to head off a major complication for GPS defense, especially if it’s the same illegal behavior that brought the EEOC into the picture several years ago. What are the chances that GPS current hiring practices are clean as a whistle? When was the last time the superintendent’s hands were clean?

Christina Kishimoto appears to be doing the same stupid stuff that got the district in trouble with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and led to this lawsuit. The EEOC told the district they were violating civil rights laws. The EEOC investigated charges of age and sex discrimination and found probable cause to believe that GPS violated federal laws. Worse, the EEOC investigated and determined that the GPS administration engaged in retaliation after the charges were filed with the EEOC. Some of this happened during Christina Kishimoto’s reign as superintendent; board members need to know if the same behavior continues today. They won’t find out by just asking the superintendent.

You would think that GPS superintendent Christina Kishimoto would be following GPS policies and federal civil rights laws TO THE LETTER as she hires new employees, knowing that the district is defending this civil rights lawsuit about illegal hiring practices. You could be wrong. But don’t take it from Westie, new board members. Don’t accept Christina Kishimoto’s usual double-speak and rationalizations about what is happening in GPS right now. You’ve already been burned by the superintendent’s pattern and practice of untruthfulness, even when you asked her a direct question. The community has eyes and ears, so we all know.

Salient facts in the complaint that started this lawsuit sound nasty, but all too familiar:

84. On or about September 11, 2015, the EEOC, after considering all the evidence obtained during its investigation, found that there is reasonable cause to believe that Gilbert Public Schools violated Title VII when it did not select McCoy and other applicants because of their age and/or sex.

85. On or about July 27, 2015 McCoy was contacted by the EEOC and asked to file an amended charge with the EEOC including Title VII sex discrimination and retaliation, Charge No. 540-2013-00755, alleging that GPS, among other things, violated Title VII when it retaliated against her for filing EEOC charges.

86. In EEOC Charge No. 540-2013-00755, McCoy alleged the retaliation consisted of: not allowing her to participate in recruitment and selection of employees; shunning her from sitting on various committees; denying her the opportunity to compete and be interviewed for available Principal positions; and issuing her a poor performance evaluation.

87. On or about September 11, 2015, the EEOC, after considering all the evidence obtained during its investigation, found that there is reasonable cause to believe that Gilbert Public Schools violated Title VII when it retaliated against McCoy for engaging in protected activity by denying her the opportunity to compete and be considered for available Principal positions and by issuing her lower rating on her performance.

HEY NEW BOARD MEMBERS: you most likely need your own attorney … soon. If Christina Kishimoto hires a lawyer and tells you that person is *the board’s lawyer,* tread very carefully. Same trepidation if Kishmoto calls in The Trust attorneys who are defending the lawsuit; they represent The Trust, not the governing board. You need an attorney who isn’t conflicted with other loyalties to the education power structure in Arizona. Remember, Westie is not a lawyer, but we know some good lawyers!

This post should make you realize that your interests as board members most likely are not the same as the superintendent’s interests. That’s especially true if the superintendent has violated district policy in even the smallest way with hiring a new principal for Highland Junior High School. Or with who wasn’t hired. Or with who was or wasn’t interviewed for the position. Or whether those interviewers were captives of the superintendent. Or whether genuine records were kept of the interviews. Questions abound!

The hinkiness goes back a year, when Christina Kishimoto promoted the HJHS principal to district staff, knowing there would be a vacancy to fill at HJHS.  Don’t you wonder why Kishimoto installed an *interim* principal for the 2016-2017 school year? That wasn’t standard procedure then. What’s happened since hasn’t looked any better. Who knows … maybe all those back-room policy committee meetings surreptitiously changed relevant GPS policies so Christina Kishimoto could slide this bit of sleaziness under the rug. That GPS rug sure is lumpy, but now it’s yours, new board members!

GPS has been in turmoil in recent weeks, and the superintendent’s moral character is again a major topic of discussion in the community about her ability to lead the district. If the governing board hires a new principal for Highland Junior High School without ascertaining there is not a scintilla of retaliation or impropriety in the entire hiring process, another school might be compromised. We all know how Christina Kishimoto loves to talk about processes, especially when she’s on the defensive. Let her explain her hiring processes to someone who won’t be distracted by mumbo-jumbo, someone who truly has the district’s best interests at the forefront. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?

It’s not just Kishimoto, it’s the governing board and the school district who are actual DEFENDANTS in court again. You can choose to go ahead and let Christina Kishimoto do what she wants to do, regardless of GPS policy, regardless of law. Go ahead at your own peril. She was counting on you to be in the dark about all of this. Most likely, she planned to present you with a done deal and get your blessing on her perfidy before you had a chance to ask about any of the details. Sure, you can trust her.

Hey Birdies: Brian Yee plays a starring role in this lawsuit! New board members: why do you think GPS (then under superintendent Dave Allison) stashed Brian Yee at Greenfield Junior High School? He must have known his publicly humiliating escapades could be the source of litigation against the district for years. It looks like Good Old Dave was right.

The lawsuit shows Shane McCord’s *Gut Check* hiring decisions are still haunting GPS, as well. The old dirty laundry will be aired again. It’s not like GPS leadership has been a model of moral behavior recently, either, so pass the popcorn!

Circling back to the recent turmoil in GPS: Christina Kishimoto is no stranger to being sued for bad personnel decisions. One of the cases still causing problems for Hartford Schools is about a person Christina Kishimoto had promoted after major controversy and disciplinary action over sexual misconduct:

The mother of a 13-year-old girl who police say received sexual text messages from a longtime Hartford school administrator is suing the school system, top school officials and the city of Hartford over alleged negligence in the case.  A major allegation in the complaint is that the city and the school system allowed Genao, a career educator who worked for the district since 2005, to prey on the girl despite years-old claims that he sent inappropriate electronic messages to a female student and an employee when he was principal of Sport and Medical Sciences Academy. “The city knew or should have known that they had a very dangerous person in their mix,” Spinella said Thursday. “They didn’t red flag him, they promoted him.”

Citizens of Gilbert, Arizona wonder why GPS keeps dangerous persons in the district. In the case of the current civil rights lawsuit, the person who is the biggest danger to GPS might be the superintendent who can’t or won’t follow the law. Citizens are wondering if the superintendent’s immoral behavior in her *alleged* inappropriate relationship with her subordinate Executive Director of Technology gave a subliminal (or actual) green light to other GPS employees to indulge in immoral and/or illegal behavior. Westie thinks the dots are quite connectable, and this question will arise whenever ethics are violated by any GPS employee, as long as Christina Kishimoto is superintendent.

You know Westie will closely watching this lawsuit through court records. As ever, Westie loves to share, and will post observations gleaned from long experience with GPS defending lawsuits and the same old attorneys that The Trust hires. This time, birdies, there will be LOTS of chocolate and back stories. Chirp, chirp!

Dilbert Gilbert Public Schools is at a crossroads right now: decisions made by the newly elected school board will affect GPS in significant and irrevocable ways. An imminent vote giving the final go-ahead for constructing a *new home* for Gilbert Classical Academy is a line in the sand: there will be no second chance once this project goes forward. Taxpayers appealed to the board for responsible stewardship of the public purse: approving this ill-considered *designed on the fly* project without knowing basic details can be expected to result in the multi-million dollar project spiraling out of control. Bottom line: this entire mismanaged mess can be stopped on February 28, 2017. Or not. The choice is yours, new board members.

Dilbert.com

That’s especially true in the hands of Kishimoto and her acolytes who can’t manage to pay employees, let alone manage a project of this magnitude. None of these concerns seemed to matter in the haste to tie the new board’s hands to decisions made by Kishimoto’s Rubber Stamp Board, especially the acrimonious $100,000 contracting authority that allowed Kishimoto to hire her chosen architects who attended Business Leader Breakfasts hosted by the Gilbert Education Foundation … and who donate money every time Kishimoto wants to party with the folks who obviously adore her. <snort>

Countless residents of the MJHS neighborhood have tried to warn the board that the whole project was based on nothing more than Kishimoto’s buzzwords and made-up metrics. Just before the first decision by the newly installed board was to be made, GPS admins admitted that the data they were using had no basis in reality. Instead of a new campus for 1,500 students, total enrollment will be capped at 1,100, leaving no room for growth for either school. Parents and teachers throughout the district were enraged that Kishimoto thought a cafeteria with a capacity of 300 was plenty for the entire school, whether it was 1,100 or 1,500 … “Let them eat lunch in their classrooms!” she decreed.

Not only was the student enrollment estimate wildly off base, citizens discovered that the entire process of reconfiguring a public school had been mismanaged from the inception. Before superintendent Christina Kishimoto made recommendations to the governing board, she should have (1) read state law about changing a public school configuration and (2) ascertained that the various options were actually feasible. But Kishimoto had a Rubber Stamp Board, so she didn’t do this. As events unfold, it has become clear that this project was doomed from day one due to Kishimoto’s pathetic incompetence.

When questioned about the role of the Arizona School Facilities Board at the February 2017 work study session, various personages assured the GPS governing board that the SFB was a paper tiger, whose role was to bless the project when it was finished. Never mind what state law requires, they assured timid board members, “We know how the system works, you don’t, so sit down and shut up.” Christina Kishimoto has speaking engagements to film as she polishes her national reputation, and apparently she does not intend to be drawn into discussions over trivial things such as details. Someone might hold her feet to the fire with her original cost estimates for the Great GCA Takeover, you know.

We’ve been down this road in Gilbert, Arizona with this GPS superintendent before, and you would think governing board members would demand accountability. You might think wrong, since the agenda for the ominous February 28,2017 board meeting has been *embargoed* or just ignored. We’re sure the GPS administration will somehow manage to comply with the minimum 24 hour public notice requirement in open meeting law. <sarcasm>

The question is, why would new board members buy into this attempt to tamp down public opposition to the three or four blockbuster controversies expected to be on the board meeting agenda? Have they bought into superintendent Christina Kishimoto’s modus operandi of keeping the public in the dark until it’s too late? Maybe someone should tell the GPS governing board that they’re already so late with their paperwork to get on the SFB agenda, this ridiculous project can’t even be considered by the SFB until April 2017. Maybe that’s an indication that the SFB doesn’t consider itself to be irrelevant after all.

Due diligence should have been the very first step for the board’s 2015 priority of “Identify a permanent location for Gilbert Classical Academy and finalize a comprehensive plan to support full implementation of the school design.” Instead, the Rubber Stamp Board panicked and threw a monkey wrench into the works. Thus, the *school within a school concept* that had been hastily proposed as a false flag instead became the new home for GCA. This was supposed to be a fast, cheap and easy solution to a a self-inflicted injury that was turning the community against the school district.

Kishimoto’s staggering incompetence took center stage as the project to merge GCA with Mesquite Junior High School moved forward while she drove the entire project over a cliff. GPS did a survey; parents said they were going to vote with their feet and leave MJHS. Who could blame parents who bailed out of GPS in favor of a more stable educational environment?

Christina Kishimoto made the same errors that halted the closing of GJHS in 2013: she failed to follow the law. The key to stopping former GPS superintendent Dave Allison’s sleazy maneuver in 2012 was parental involvement and a “Never Give Up!” attitude. BTW, Dave Allison announced his retirement after he screwed up so badly a new GPS governing board had to clean up his GCA mess  when it became clear his services would no longer be needed. From a contemporaneous news report about how bad GPS admins screwed up closing Gilbert Junior High School:

Parents discovered that the district did not follow several state laws, including notifying and receiving approval from the state School Facilities Board before deciding to close Gilbert Junior High; properly notifying parents of the time and place of the October meeting when the board first voted on the closure recommendation; and notifying all parents affected by the possible closure.

Members of the community who had opposed and ultimately halted the previous GPS superintendent’s attempt to close Gilbert Junior High School offered a hand to resistance fighters at MJHS. Since the current GPS administration was totally unable to manage their way out of a paper bag, parents made inquiries that should have been made before any school was put on the chopping block for GCA.

MJHS resistance fighters did the due diligence that was never performed by the GPS administration and was never considered or questioned by the Rubber Stamp governing board. When asked if the architectural plans Kishimoto sent out for bidding were compliant with Arizona law, the Arizona School Facilities Board responded:

If Mesquite Junior High were reconfigured from 7-8 to 7-12, its square footage would be pro-rated, and its new capacities would be 385 for 7-8 and 704 for 9-12. The process begins with the District submitting a Governing Board resolution requesting the reconfiguration, per A.R.S. 15-341 G. Then staff analyzes the request and we make a recommendation to our Board. We have not received a District resolution regarding a reconfiguration of Mesquite Junior High. Thank you.

NEW BOARD MEMBERS: you know Christina Kishimoto’s appeal to you will be that you can’t waste all the money she’s already spent on this MJHS/GCA merger.  Kishimoto will demand that you approve the construction bid NOW or the project cannot meet the timeline she gave the bidders.  Besides, she already has asbestos cleanup set to go … as a project *independent* of the construction bid that has not been approved.  Such chutzpah!  There will be no time for you to carefully consider if this project is the best use of public funds.  There will be no opportunity for you to get answers to why the original construction estimates for the GCA location options were so low compared to the bids we expect you will see on February 28, 2017.  

Kishimoto may be railroading you, but you don’t have to comply with her demands. Who’s the boss, anyway? The tarot card you were dealt when you raised your hand and took your oath was NOT auspicious with regard to this GCA project:

Wheel of Fortune Reversed: Bad luck, negative external forces, out of control. Accept responsibility for your current and future situation, and look for ways that you can create more positive outcomes. 

This is also not a time to be taking risks as you may not come out a winner. You may need to be more cautious than before, taking more time to assess your options and to select the safest bet.

You have been dealt a bad card, but all is not lost: Stiffen your spines! 

#SaveOurNeighborhoodSchools