Dismissal Bill Falters in Assembly

A bill that would make it easier to fire teachers and administrators failed to pass the Assembly Education Committee on Wednesday. Sen. Alex Padilla’s controversial SB 1530 will be dead for the session unless he can persuade one more Democrat to reverse positions.
 
The bill had bipartisan support in the Senate, where it passed 33-4, but, in a test of strength by the California Teachers Association, only one Democrat, Education Committee Chairwoman Julia Brownley, and all four Republicans backed it in the crucial committee vote. The other six Democrats either voted against it (Tom Ammiano, San Francisco; Joan Buchanan, San Ramon) or didn’t vote (Betsy Butler, El Segundo; Wilmer Carter, Rialto; Mike Eng, Alhambra; and Das Williams, Santa Barbara).

The bill follows 2 incidents of sexual abuse in Los Angeles Unified and elsewhere, the worst of which involved Mark Berndt, 61, who’s been accused of 23 lewd acts against children at Miramonte Elementary in LAUSD. Padilla, a Democrat from Van Nuys, said SB 1530 responded to complaints from superintendents and school board members that it takes too long and is too expensive to fire teachers facing even the worst of charges. Rather than go through hearings and potential appeals, LAUSD paid off Berndt with $40,000, including legal fees, to drop the appeal of his firing. PUBLIC RELATIONS BABY!

Under current law, dismissal cases against teachers and administrators go before a three-person Commission on Professional Competence, which includes two teachers and an administrative law judge. Its decision can be appealed in Superior Court. (Lets not be having any radical notions of educators being innocent until proven guilty by a jury of your peers. OAH IS A TRIBUNAL OF STATE PAID INCOMPETENCE WITH THEIR OWN SET OF DUBIOUS RULES.)


SB 1530 would have carved out a narrow band of exceptions applying to “egregious or serious” offenses by teachers and administrators involving drugs, sex, and violence against children. In those cases, the competence commission would be replaced by a hearing before an administrative law judge whose (SUPPOSED) advisory (AND BULLSHIT SELF-AGGRANDIZEMENT ) recommendation WHICH WILL BE TREATED THE SAME AS A CONVICTION IN CRIMINAL COURT WHERE THEY HAVE RULES BASED ON THE CONSTITUTION,) would go to the local school board for a laughable final decision. That decision was made when the teacher was first suspended, with or without merit. That OAH circus decision is sometimes appealable in court.

The bill also would have made admissible evidence of misconduct older than four years. Berndt had prior reports of abuse that had been removed from his file,  because a statute of limitations in the teachers contract in LAUSD prohibited their use. (Couldn't these self-serving fools find another example?)

School boards already have final say over dismissal of school employees other than teachers and administrators, so the bill would extend that to efforts to remove “a very creepy teacher” from the classroom,” as Oakley Union Elementary School District Superintendent Richard Rogers put it. “What is more fundamental than locally elected officials responsible for hiring and dismissal?” he asked.

The bill had the support of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and the LAUSD president, Monica Garcia, who described her fellow board members as “seven union-friendly Democrats” who want to “get rid of people who will hurt our children.” Monica must receive campaign support from the bills backers.

But Warren Fletcher, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, countered that “SB 1530 solves nothing, places teachers at unfair risk, and diverts attention from the real accountability issues at LAUSD.” Turning the tables, Fletcher, CTA President Dean Vogel, and others have filed statements with the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing to investigate Superintendent John Deasy’s handling of misconduct allegations in the district.

The argument that current law works resonated with Buchanan, who served two decades on the San Ramon Valley School Board. Calling the bill “intellectually dishonest” because nothing can prevent another Miramonte from happening, she said, “We never had problems dismissing employees.” She acknowledged that the “long, expensive dismissal process” needs to be streamlined, but the bill doesn’t get it right. A teacher at a school in her legislative district was accused of sexual misconduct by a student who got a bad grade. That teacher “deserves due process.”

The two teachers on the Commission on Professional Competence provide professional judgment that’s needed to protect the rights of employees, said Patricia Rucker, a CTA lobbyist who’s also a State Board of Education member. “We do value the right to participate and adjudicate standards for holding teachers accountable,” she said.

Fletcher said that school boards would be subject to parental pressure in emotionally charged cases, and, as a policy body, should not be given judicial power. Assemblyman Ammiano, a former teacher, agreed. “A school board is not the one to make the decision,” he said.

Wrong! They make the decision in closed session. The OAH is just a formality. So as to look good on paper.

Full-scale assault on the educator dismissal laws - David Welch wants to make it even easier to be FIRED FOR PERSONALITY AND NON-EDUCATION BASED REASONING

Full-scale assault on dismissal laws

Nonprofit with big name attorneys files suit

Posted on 5/17/12 • Categorized as

By  John Fensterwald

EDUCATED GUESS
 

 A nonprofit founded by a Silicon Valley entrepreneur has filed a sweeping, high-stakes lawsuit challenging state teacher protection laws. A victory would overturn a tenure, dismissal, and layoff system that critics blame for the hiring and retention of ineffective teachers. A loss in court could produce bad case law, impeding more targeted efforts to achieve some of the same goals.
Students Matter is the creation of David Welch, co-founder of Infinera, a manufacturer of optical telecommunications systems in Sunnyvale. The new nonprofit filed its lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday on behalf of eight students who attend four school districts. A spokesperson for the organization told the Los Angeles Times that Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad and a few other individuals are underwriting the lawsuit. They have hired two top-gun attorneys to lead the case: Ted Boutrous, a partner in the Los Angeles law firm of  Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and Ted Olsen, former solicitor general for President George W. Bush.
The lawsuit asserts that five “outdated statutes” prevent administrators from making employment decisions in students’ interest. The tenure statute forces districts to decide after teachers are on the job only 18 months whether to grant them permanent job status. Once granted tenure, they gain due-process rights that make it expensive and difficult to fire them even if they’re “grossly ineffective.” And then, when an economic downturn comes – witness the last four years – a Last In/First Out (LIFO) requirement leads to layoffs based strictly on seniority, not competency.
The protection of ineffective teachers “creates arbitrary and unjustifiable inequality among students,” especially low-income children in low-performing schools, where less experienced teachers are hired and inept veteran teachers are shunted off, under a familiar “dance of the lemons” since they cant be fired. Because education is a “fundamental interest” under the state Constitution, the five statutes that “dictate this unequal, arbitrary result violate the equal protection provisions of the California Constitution” and should be overturned.  The lawsuit doesn’t prescribe a solution.

Incremental versus global approach

Students Matter’s wholesale assault on the laws contrasts with fact-specific, narrowly tailored lawsuits brought by attorneys for the ACLU of Southern California and Public Counsel Law Center. Two years ago, they won a landmark victory in Reed v. the State of California when Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Highberger found that the heavy churn of teachers due to LIFO at three Los Angeles Unified middle schools violated students’ right to an equal educational opportunity. That decision led to a settlement between the district, the mayor’s office, and the attorneys that has protected the staffs of 45 low-performing schools from layoffs for the past three years. The strength of that case lay in its ability to tie specific harm to students to the layoff law, which explicitly permits exceptions to seniority layoffs to protect students’ fundamental constitutional rights. LAUSD had not exercised that exception. (United Teachers Los Angeles has appealed; arguments will be heard June 28.)
Earlier this year, the Sacramento-based nonprofit EdVoice brought suit against Los Angeles Unified over the pro forma way it conducts teacher evaluations. But here, the suit isn’t seeking to overturn the Stull Act, which defines how evaluations are done; it says that the district (along with nearly every other one) has chosen to ignore the law’s requirement that student performance be included in teacher evaluations.
 


There’s no shortage of critics of the tenure, dismissal, and layoff laws, which teachers unions have lobbied hard to preserve. California is one of few states that have not lengthened the probationary period for teachers. More than two dozen states have strengthened their evaluation systems in the past several years. California’s dismissal law, with its 10-step process laden with due process, can cost districts hundreds of thousands of dollars to fire a teacher on the grounds of unsatisfactory performance, which is why districts often work around it by paying teachers to retire or pushing them from one school to another.

Persuading a judge that the practical problems and the effects of the laws rise to the level of a constitutional violation is another matter. (In an analogous case, California is among the nation’s bottom spenders on K-12 education; it has tough standards and a challenging student population. But attorneys last year failed to convince a Superior Court judge in Robles-Wong v. California and Campaign for Quality Education v. California that adequate education funding is a constitutional right.)

Tough burden of proof

The tenure law may be particularly challenging. As the suit points out, something like 98 percent of probationary teachers have gotten tenure. The two-year probationary period (actually 18 months, since teachers must be notified by March of their second year) is not long enough. Too often evaluations have been slapdash. But the law itself doesn’t require a district even to cite a cause in denying tenure; the power of dismissal lies with the employer.

Students named in the lawsuit are from Los Angles Unified, Pasadena Unified, Sequoia Union High School District, and Alum Rock Union Elementary District, although only Los Angeles Unified and Alum Rock, which serves 11,000 students in San Jose, are specifically cited as defendants, along with  Gov. Brown, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, the State Board of Education, the state, and the State Department of Education.

The only specific reference to Alum Rock was in the identification of plaintiff Daniella Martinez, 10, whom the lawsuit says chose to transfer to a public charter school because “of the substantial risk that she would be assigned to a grossly ineffective teacher who impedes her equal access to the opportunity to receive a meaningful education.” The initial filing doesn’t cite evidence of  specific teachers who negatively affected Daniella or the other seven defendants. It refers to studies by such groups as the National Council On Teacher Quality, which issued a blunt assessment of the tenure and dismissal practices of Los Angeles Unified, and on research by Hoover Institution author Eric Hanushek, who concludes that just by dismissing 6 to 10 percent of weakest teachers, students’ academic achievement and long-term earnings as adults would increase significantly.
Los Angeles, as the state’s largest district, may have been named as a defendant because its superintendent, John Deasy, has been outspoken about the need to change labor laws. United Teachers Los Angeles has also  sued over a comprehensive teacher evaluation system that Deasy has put in place.

Deasy would appear to be a friendly witness for the plaintiffs. In a statement, he said he supports lengthening the probationary period, quickening the dismissal process, and reforming the state’s layoff law. “To my dismay, we have lost thousands of our best and hardest-working classroom instructors through the last hired, first fired rule. When forced to reduce our teaching staff through budget cuts, we are compelled through state law and union rules to base these difficult decisions primarily on seniority,” Deasy said.

But when questioned, Deasy will be pressed to acknowledge that it may not be the laws but the implementation that counts. Since joining the district, first as deputy superintendent, then superintendent, Deasy has pushed administrators to apply more scrutiny in granting tenure and more perseverance in dismissing bad teachers. Last year the district terminated 853 teachers. Furthermore, the number of probationary teachers denied tenure rose significantly last year: from 89 in 2009-10 (10 percent of those eligible) to 120 teachers in their first year and 30 in their second year. Other superintendents would agree that well-trained, persistent principals can document the case for teacher dismissa ls, notwithstanding cumbersome, excessively burdensome requirements.

Local news media documents LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy in a lie then does nothing to confront Deasy about it

Thanks to Lenny Isenberg

PERDAILY.COM
 

The following is a crystal clear example of how a mainstream local news media is able to document LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy in an outright lie then do nothing to confront Deasy or anybody else at LAUSD with the lie(s). The first video below is of an interview that KNBC Conan Nolan did with Superintendent John Deasy on February 13, 2012, where Deasy justifies giving alleged teacher child molester Mark Berndt $56,000, because according to Deasy, Reporter Nolan, and a supposed 2009 L.A. Times survey, 50% of teachers get their jobs back at the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH). Deasy didn't want to take the chance that Berndt would get his job back. 

The second video completely contradicts this and was done by Nolan's reporter colleague at KNBC Patrick Healy on March 13, 2012, which says that in 2011, LAUSD got rid of 853 teachers and not one got their job back and only two went to the OAH and both lost. Both statements cannot be true and yet neither Nolan or Healy or any other news media dares to report the truth about Deasy and LAUSD, even though, given their daily access to LAUSD, they undoubtedly know the truth.

It is clear that Deasy is lying on this and other assertions. Last week, he claimed that only the worst teachers were being incarcerated in teacher jails by LAUSD and that if teachers are cleared by the police, they get their jobs back immediately. I have many many teachers in my database who have sat in teacher jail for over 3 years many without any charges and long after they were cleared by LAPD. And yet no mainstream or public media reports this.

Listen carefully to Superintendent Deasy closely when he says, "We don't know the facts in the case," but then says "We are within our rights to make a judgment call of inappropriate behavior and initiate termination proceeding." Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty or due process of law? The hysterical witch hunt atmosphere that now prevails at LAUSD, which Deasy continues to exploit after Miramonte, has now destroyed the lives of hundreds of teachers without a shred of verified evidence given under penalty of perjury. There is not one case in my database that LAUSD has respected teachers civil rights and given them timely due process of law in a neutral forum as clearly required by law.

click on photo

Another School District in State Receivership

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Release: #12-109
December 7, 2012

Contact: Paul Hefner
E-mail: communications@cde.ca.gov
Phone: 916-319-0818

New Interim Administrator Appointed for Inglewood Unified School District

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today appointed La Tanya Kirk-Carter to serve as interim Administrator of the Inglewood Unified School District after accepting the resignation of Administrator Kent Taylor.
"This change is in the best interests of taxpayers, students, and employees of the Inglewood Unified School District," Torlakson said. "I'm confident that our work to address the district's troubled finances will proceed without interruption."
Taylor stepped down after the California Department of Education (CDE) learned of financial commitments he had made without the required CDE approval and prior to the completion of a financial review and plan to restore the district to fiscal health.
Kirk-Carter previously served as Assistant Superintendent of Business Services at the district. She will serve in an interim capacity until a new permanent administrator is named.
The state took over the district in September under legislation passed at the request of the district that provided up to $55 million in emergency state loans to help the district meet its financial obligations. The legislation required the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to assume all the legal rights, duties, and powers of the governing board of the district.
Inglewood Unified School District is the ninth school district in California to request an emergency loan, thus triggering the state takeover, since 1990. Since then, local governance has been returned to four of these districts.

Related Content

• State Emergency Loans - Information on emergency loans made to school districts.
• State Takeover of Inglewood Unified - State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Comments on State Takeover of Financially Troubled Inglewood Unified School District.
• Inglewood Administrator Appointed - State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Appoints Inglewood High Alumnus as State Administrator for Inglewood Unified School District.

# # # #

Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

California Department of Education
1430 N Street
Sacramento, CA 95814

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Last Reviewed: Friday, December 07, 2012

THE 11 BASIC POSITIONS FROM WHICH ADMIN CAN WRONGFULLY DESTROY AN EDUCATOR:

THE 11 BASIC POSITIONS FROM WHICH ADMIN WILL RAPE AN EDUCATOR: LAWLESSNESS AND THE PRICKS THAT GET PAID TO PERPETRATE IT ON YOU! 

Thanks again to the hard work of Lenny Isenberg

at Perdaily.com

 Not if, but when HR or Your site Administor turns on you (for personal or financial reasons) and forces you to grab your ankles; in California you can expect:

1. A complete denial of basic due process of law

2. NO verified criminal charges under penalty of perjury and in front of a jury of your peers as required by law, the constitution and specific Supreme Court Ruling. But you will be suspended pending dismissal none the less.

3. You will be presumed guilty from the onset! Instead of being presumed innocent, a basic right in criminal and civil courts, so too the burden of proof is thrust on the educator without regard to your constitutional rights, US supreme court rulings and hundreds of State Education, labor, and government codes. This is the nature and rule of CA Administrative Law and the OAH.

4. CTA attorneys are supposedly paid to "defend its members." These same firms also take a large piece of other school district's budgets for prosecuting union employees. For instance, the CTA attorneys WILL go along with months to years  of stalling by agreeing to continuance after continuance inspite of stature to the detriment of their clients with the only goal of stringing out their billable hours only to settling the case at the employees expense and often termination. ...CTA then pays them an extra bonus, 40% of the paltry punitive settlement. Too often  the desperate and scared educator IS COERCED by these attorneys INTO SIGNING bullshit entrapment laden agreements.

5. Teachers are now automatically hit with the vague ambiguous "morals charges" under California Ed. Code 44939 to strip them of their right to grievance and arbitration under collective bargaining. Expect the local union to look the other way. Or try to tell you the union legal doesn't protect members from this kind of allegation. An almost certain lie. Even the infamous 'hatchet' ALJ H. James Alher admitted in a hearing, that he could not define the term "Moral Turpitude" yet he allows it as a charge and convicts many educators on its foundation. If in southern California, you are assigned Ahler as the ALJ over your OAH hearing tell your attorney to file an immediate request to have him replaced. This guy works almost directly out of the district's law firm's pockets. He is immune to discipline per Federal rule over ALJ's. Ahler, while driving intoxicated (twice the CA legal limit)  hit and killed a pedestrian in Vista CA.

6. No legal Skelly hearing  will  be provided. A  pre-disciplinary requirement on the district who must required by the 1975 case that states charges and evidence needs to be provided pre-discipline to charged teacher. This is never done. Half the time HR is still trying to figure the best charges to file against the educator. Some times they wont even tell you that the meeting is a skelly hearing, whose subsequent report to the school board for approval will become permanent record.

7. There is no bond provision or other ability to stop teacher from being put on unpaid administrative leave without benefits. How many people can survive under these circumstance and at the same time hire their own attorney in addition? This would cost them $5000 for openers with some teachers already having been fleeced of over $100,000. In Moreno Valley, CA the local is very reluctant to let go of any money for  the defense of  their members. Nor will you be able to look at that attorney's billable hours and retainer fee. Rumor is that each educator has over $20,000 dollars supposedly set aside by CTA. But CTA will never admit the existence of this.

8. Your CTA local provides no legal assistance and will only refer to their local attorneys such as the infamously incompetent Ron Skipper, Matt Singer (and others in Southern California. Happy to sell you out or ignore pertinent laws to ease their work load while collecting their easy money CTA checks.)

9. Example: Article V of the LAUSD/UTLA Collective Bargaining Agreement allows UTLA to bring a consolidated action on behalf of all their teacher members so charged in violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, LAUSD's own Bulletin Policies dealing with housing teachers, duration of housing, and who should be housed, and violation of state codes and federal law. UTLA NEVER has done this and makes every effort to keep teachers divided and unaware of each other. Strength in numbers? Check the wording of your contract. Other locals have similar.

10. In no other profession, e.g. lawyer, doctor, accountant, police officer, where the professional is licensed from the state;  will the public employee - educator - be deprived of the constitutional property right to make a living in their trained field without a criminal court conviction of that case and the same charges.

11. My personal favorite is when CTA, that you have paid dues to for years, deprives you of the right to vote in any union election or take part in any union activity. By this bizarre logic, all your district would have to do is put all teachers on unpaid administrative leave and no member would be able to vote to stop them. Huh? Yep! It looks like some districts are trying to do just that.

Los Angeles school officials are going back 40 years in their internal review of teacher discipline cases - perfect lie to cover firing older higher paid teachers

THIS IS IMMEDIATE FUTURE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION...

Los Angeles (CNN) -- In an expanding investigation into teacher misconduct, Los Angeles school officials are going back 40 years in their internal review of teacher discipline cases in an effort to determine whether any of the instructors should also be referred for possible license revocation, a school spokesman said Friday.

Los Angeles School Superintendent John Deasy has asked the principals at more than 1,000 schools to search the files of the past 40 years for "any cases of possible employee misconduct," spokesman Tom Waldman told CNN.

The 40-year period is a significant expansion from the past four years of misconduct cases that the system has already reviewed.

So far, Los Angeles school officials have referred the discipline cases of 604 teachers from the past four years to state authorities who have powers to revoke a teacher's credentials, officials said.

Of those 604 cases (THIS NUMBER IS FROM HR AT LAUSD, THE ACTUAL NUMBER OF TEACHERS IN LAUSD "Rubber Rooms" MAY BE TWICE THAT FIGURE. )  in which teachers were fired or facing discipline, 60 teachers were accused of sexual misconduct with pupils on or off campus or with minors who weren't students, school officials said.

The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing will investigate 366 of the 604 teacher cases to determine if licenses should be revoked, which is a six-month process, spokeswoman Anne Padilla said. Most of the cases focused on allegations of teacher misconduct that involved student safety.

Padilla said Friday that 122 of the 604 cases were referred back to the school district for further information because the state agency didn't have the authority to investigate.

She also told CNN that 103 of the 604 cases were duplicates and were already being investigated by the agency's committee on credentials. "For the vast majority, no final action has been taken. They are still in process," Padilla said about the 103 cases.

The referral of the cases to state licensing investigators comes as the nation's second largest school system deals with a crisis of teacher misconduct. The district has been reeling from a scandal at Miramonte Elementary School, where two teachers have been charged with lewd acts on pupils, including one teacher accused of putting children in adult-like bondage situations and placing semen-filled spoons at their mouths.

The state license of that teacher, Mark Berndt -- who has pleaded not guilty to 23 counts of lewd acts on pupils -- has been suspended as the state agency monitors his criminal case, and a license revocation occurs upon a conviction, Padilla said. If an appeal to a conviction is made, the suspension of teaching credentials continues, Padilla said.

This week, the California Senate approved a bill that would empower school boards to fire teachers for misconduct and expedite the firing process of instructors accused of offenses involving sex, violence or drugs, said Democratic state Sen. Alex Padilla, who authored the legislation.

The bill now goes to the State Assembly for a vote.

"Because a school board is ultimately responsible for ensuring a safe learning environment, the school board should be empowered to dismiss employees they determine to be a serious threat to the health and safety of students," Sen. Padilla said in a statement.

The lurid allegations at Miramonte prompted the Los Angeles system to do an internal review of its handling of past teacher misconduct cases, and the district determined that 604 cases needed to be referred to state licensing authorities for review, though "a substantial number" of other misconduct cases had already been reported to the state, school officials said.

One parent, Alvaro Salgero, told CNN that he was concerned about child abuse in the school system.

"It tended to be a safe place, but from what I hear, it seems that's not happening in some places," Salgero said. "There isn't sufficient security for children.

"We're able to realize that there wasn't much of an investigation with teachers and they didn't investigate them before giving them a job, and those who suffer are the children, the pupils," Salgero said.

The 604 cases include teachers who were disciplined or were about to face discipline since July 2008, according to Ira Berman, Los Angeles Unified School District director of employee relations, and Vivian Ekchian, the district's chief human resources officer.

The cases also include teachers who were fired by the school board or who left the district after termination proceedings were initiated or while an allegation of misconduct was pending, Berman and Ekchian said.

The system doesn't know whether any of the teachers who were fired or who left the district are still in the classroom in other school districts.

The 604 figure also includes teachers who were suspended for 11 days or more for a variety of reasons not involving sexual misconduct with students, the two officials said.

"The safety of our students is our No. 1 priority," Ekchian said in explaining why the system referred the 604 cases to the state.

The system's internal investigation arose after parental outrage after charges were filed against former Miramonte teacher Berndt, who resigned from the system last year but was not referred to the state for possible license revocation, district spokesman Waldman said.

Berndt, 61, pleaded not guilty in February to allegations he bound young students, then photographed them with semen-filled spoons held at their mouths and three-inch cockroaches crawling across their faces, among other graphic depictions.

"We had not informed Sacramento to revoke Mr. Berndt's credentials," Waldman said.

Berndt is being held on $23 million bond and faces 23 counts of lewd acts on a child. The 23 victims were between 7 and 10 years old, and all but two of them were girls, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said.

Authorities have said they have discovered roughly 600 images allegedly taken by Berndt in his classroom. Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Deasy has said Berndt was removed from his teaching job in January 2011 after school officials learned of the police investigation. A teacher for 30 years, Berndt initially challenged the school district's decision to dismiss him. But he eventually dropped his appeal and resigned last spring.

His arrest in January led to broader fallout over the adequacy of safeguards for the school's students and the prospect of more victims.

Days after Berndt was taken into custody, another Miramonte Elementary teacher -- Martin Springer, 49 -- was arrested and charged with three felony counts of lewd acts with a girl younger than 14. He has pleaded not guilty.

The LAUSD board subsequently shut Miramonte for two days, during which the board reconstituted the entire staff in the 1,400-student school. Miramonte is in unincorporated Los Angeles County within the Florence-Firestone area, about six miles south of downtown Los Angeles.

"Because a school board is ultimately responsible for ensuring a safe learning environment, the school board should be empowered to dismiss employees they determine to be a serious threat to the health and safety of students," Sen. Padilla said in a statement.

READ THIS: For every seven teachers brought up on charges by the average school district, one has anything directly to do with students. However, of the former seven teachers, 90% are at or near the top of their pay scale. Of that seven less than 15% are prosectuted by police. STILL, 100% WILL BE EFFECTIVELY FIRED OR DRIVEN OFF.

While time is showing it is actually easy to fire a teacher w/o a cause that would stand up in crimminal or civil court, the same district can't keep one single high school student safe from the violence, gang activities or the drug use on its own campuses. Not a single student can be kept safe until they graduate. IS THIS ABOUT PAYROLL SAVINGS OR REAL STUDENT SAFETY?

The lurid allegations at Miramonte prompted the Los Angeles system to do an internal review of its handling of past teacher misconduct cases, and the district determined that 604 cases needed to be referred to state licensing authorities for review, though "a substantial number" of other misconduct cases had already been reported to the state, school officials said.

One parent, Alvaro Salgero, told CNN that he was concerned about child abuse in the school system.  "It tended to be a safe place, but from what I hear, it seems that's not happening in some places," Salgero said. "There isn't sufficient security for children 

"We're able to realize that there wasn't much of an investigation with teachers and they didn't investigate them before giving them a job, and those who suffer are the children, the pupils," Salgero said.

The 604 cases include teachers who were disciplined or were about to face discipline since July 2008, according to Ira Berman, Los Angeles Unified School District director of employee relations, and Vivian Ekchian, the district's chief human resources officer 

The cases also include teachers who were fired by the school board or who left the district after termination proceedings were initiated or while an allegation of misconduct was pending, Berman and Ekchian said.

The system doesn't know whether any of the teachers who were fired or who left the district are still in the classroom in other school districts.

The 604 figure also includes teachers who were suspended for 11 days or more for a variety of reasons not involving sexual misconduct with students, the two officials said.

"The safety of our students is our No. 1 priority," Ekchian said in explaining why the system referred the 604 cases to the state.

The system's internal investigation arose after parental outrage after charges were filed against former Miramonte teacher Berndt, who resigned from the system last year but was not referred to the state for possible license revocation, district spokesman Waldman said.

Berndt, 61, pleaded not guilty in February to allegations he bound young students, then photographed them with semen-filled spoons held at their mouths and three-inch cockroaches crawling across their faces, among other graphic depictions.

"We had not informed Sacramento to revoke Mr. Berndt's credentials," Waldman said.

Berndt is being held on $23 million bond and faces 23 counts of lewd acts on a child. The 23 victims were between 7 and 10 years old, and all but two of them were girls, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said.

Authorities have said they have discovered roughly 600 images allegedly taken by Berndt in his classroom.

Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Deasy has said Berndt was removed from his teaching job in January 2011 after school officials learned of the police investigation.

A teacher for 30 years, Berndt initially challenged the school district's decision to dismiss him. But he eventually dropped his appeal and resigned last spring.

His arrest in January led to broader fallout over the adequacy of safeguards for the school's students and the prospect of more victims.

Days after Berndt was taken into custody, another Miramonte Elementary teacher -- Martin Springer, 49 -- was arrested and charged with three felony counts of lewd acts with a girl younger than 14. He has pleaded not guilty.

The LAUSD board subsequently shut Miramonte for two days, during which the board reconstituted the entire staff in the 1,400-student school. Miramonte is in unincorporated Los Angeles County within the Florence-Firestone area, about six miles south of downtown Los Angeles.

Riverside County Registrar of Voters - "FINAL TOTALS"

updated Final 11/13/2012 Gov Bd Mbr, Moreno Valley USD

71/71 100.00%

	Vote Count	Percent
ROBERT PATRICK ALEXANDER	6,765	13.40%
RICK SAYRE	11,742	23.25%
DENISE FLEMING	13,319	26.38%
TRACEY B. VACKAR	18,667	36.97%

FINAL RESULTS

City Council Mbr, City of Moreno Valley, Dist 1 11/11 100.00% Vote Count Percent DARYL TERRELL 1,549 23.63% DANIEL GALARZA 1,400 21.36% JESSE L. MOLINA 3,605 55.00% Total 6,554 100.00% City Council Mbr, City of Moreno Valley, Dist 3 14/14 100.00% Vote Count Percent TOM OWINGS 3,732 39.77% ROBIN N. HASTINGS 3,144 33.50% CARLOS THOMAS KETCHAM 733 7.81% JOE ''JOSE'' GARCIA 1,775 18.92% Total 9,384 100.00% City Council Mbr, City of Moreno Valley, Dist 5 11/11 100.00% Vote Count Percent GARY CAPOLINO 1,443 24.33% ALONZO ''LONNIE'' COOKS 241 4.06% D. LADONNA JEMPSON 567 9.56% VINCE LAURO 96 1.62% DWAYNE LEWIS 534 9.00% VICTORIA BACA 1,775 29.93% SHERRI BATEY 884 14.90% JOHN T. PALMER 391 6.59% Total 5,931 100.00%