In This Issue:
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The FBI at the door: WHAT’S IT ALL MEAN? |
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FOUR REASONS TO BE GLAD A FEDERAL GRAND JURY IS INVESTIGATING L.A. UNIFIED'S iPADS + smf’s 2¢ |
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AB 29: STATE BILL WOULD CLARIFY THAT YOUTH UNDER 18 CANNOT LEGALLY CONSENT TO SEX WITH ADULTS |
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LAUSD, COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD MARCH 3rd ELECTION LINEUP SHAPING UP |
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HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but
not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources |
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EVENTS: Coming up next week... |
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What can YOU do? |
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Featured Links:
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To not note that this date, Sunday, December 7th, is
the anniversary of that Date That Will Live in Infamy would be to
forget.
Before that Sunday in 1941 the events of history were not so immediate.
Sure, the generations previous probably remembered where they were and
what they were doing when they heard the Titanic was lost or the
archduke shot; when Lindy landed at Le Bourget. But national
consciousness had never been awakened so collectively, so immediately –
in an instant everyone knew the world had changed. An entire generation
of Americans was baptized in the moment in the fire of Pearl Harbor.
There have been similar moments, similar days of infamy since: Nov.
22nd, 1963. Sept 11, 2001. Oddly, I remember the dates and
where-I-was+what-I-was-doing, but the days of the week are not so
indelible. (Nov 22, 1963 was a Friday; it was Tuesday, September
eleventh.)
My mother never forgot where she was and what she was doing on Dec. 7, 1941; my father remembers that Sunday still.
The winter sailing weekend in Newport, the slatting of the halyards
against the wooden masts. Someone’s tinny radio crackles on the dock: "We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin..."
“Oh my God! …have you heard?”
Their memories become our memory; in remembering them we remember then. The circle is unbroken.
MONDAY THE FBI CAME TO CALL AT LAUSD BEAUDRY. To hear the story told it
was a surprise, G-men on a raid, search warrants and badges flashed – a
strike force of special agents seizing and boxing-up and carting-off
evidence.
►KPCC: “The investigation came as a surprise to district officials and
will delay the rollout of iPads to more students in the district.
“Superintendent Ramon Cortines said he first learned about the
investigation when 20 boxes of documents were seized by FBI agents
Monday afternoon.”
►LA Times: “The FBI visit surprised school officials, according to L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines.
“‘They stopped by late yesterday afternoon,’ Cortines said Tuesday. ‘I
found out at 4:30 in the afternoon on Monday.’ Cortines said he then
alerted the district's general counsel to notify the Board of
Education.”
All very dramatic. In actuality it was all much more mundane.
I have written my share of screenplays; the creating of drama is
stock-in-trade. Leave drama to the professionals: LAUSD is never in
need of a prompt to take logos, pathos and ethos all the way to bathos.
This was not an FBI “fishing expedition”.
The subpoena for the material was issued to the LAUSD General Counsel
nine days before on Friday, November 21st and was served no later than
Monday November 24th. The subpoena [http://bit.ly/1zqTdj1] didn’t just request the files, it actually described them:
“All originals and copies of all and any records and documents related
to Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Request for Proposal 1118
(RFP 1118), The Common Core Technology Project (CCTP), Apple, Pearson
Incorporated …”
and specified where they were:
“…that are located in Room 22-125 at 333 S. Beaudry Ave, Los Angeles CA 90017 in the LAUSD Office of Inspector General. “
“As a convenience to you, you can produce the demanded documents by mail
or in person to Special Agent Liana M. Jensen ……” And if there were
any questions, the office and cell phone numbers of the FBI Special
Agent in Charge were provided.
There was a request that the existence of the subpoena not be disclosed
outside parties – but that provision would not and could not have
applied to the superintendent and/or board of education.
This wasn’t a federal raid; it was the transfer of files in the custody of the Inspector General to the U.S. Attorney.
In all likelihood the Federal Grand Jury didn’t delve into the files on
Friday morning at 9:30 AM in Room 1346 on the 13th floor of the U.S.
Courthouse. There’s a lot of cataloging and photocopying and the
adminsitrivia of the mundane legal process remaining; there is homework
to be done. Leads to be followed. Don’t expect indictments, perp walks
and the issuance of orange jumpsuits any time soon. There was far too
much urgency in the iPads for All initiative; I don’t expect the same
from the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California.
If this was a 60 Minutes story, it would be about iPads and MiSiS. It
might even be about education and kids. Because it’s an FBI story it’s
only about the iPads and the content.
QUOTE O’ TH’ WEEK (from LA School Report): “Andy Bowman, a spokesman for
Apple, said the company declines to comment on anything that relates to
LA Unified”.
Watch this space.
ON FRIDAY MORNING I attended a breakfast hosted by the Tri-Cities Consortium, an AB86 [http://bit.ly/1wcQaO3]
collaboration of the Adult Ed divisions of Compton, Lynwood and
Paramount School Districts with the Compton Community College District
to work together to provide adult education, Career Tech Ed and higher
education in those communities.
(Coincidentally, a Paramount USD teacher-turned-legislator was named
chair of Assembly Ed this week: 20 YEAR TEACHER/FRESHMAN LEGISLATOR
NAMED CHAIR OF ASSEMBLY ED COMMITTEE | http://bit.ly/1CTHgrT)
What we are seeing there – and in the other 70 AB 86 consortia, is a
genuine paradigm shift, driven by the recession and changes in state
education funding but motivated by true mutual interest, collaboration
and a common interest in the common good. City officials, adult
educators, college faculty and community groups – organized labor,
chambers of commerce, veterans' advocates - local, county, state and
federal governments: In the room, at the table and on the same page.
In the Tri-Cities this is an effort focused on “College Ready and Career
Prepared” - neither as either/or nor ‘the first is preferable to the
latter’…but rather in the clear realization that the first is one of
multiple pathways to the latter. And that what was once K-12 Public
Education now goes from preschool to post-doctoral study.
I heard the same joke repeated twice in the morning: “I went to college
so I could afford to pay my plumber.” The second time it was “…my air
conditioner repair person”- but it was an AC tech student telling the
joke.
We heard from a community member who successfully benefitted from local
adult ed and community college collaboration; from a young student who
is currently attending a career tech program, and from Assembly Member
Anthony Rendon who went from high school drop-out to GED to Community
College and into the California State University and UC system –
eventually getting his Ph.D. Without ever amassing more than $2500 in
debt! The Hon. Mr. Rendon may just be the poster child for the
California Master Plan for Education.
Former LAUSD Boardmember, Community College trustee and Assemblyman
Warren Furitani put it all in perspective – and into the moment: The
cases we are seeing all around us of Black men falling victim to police
deadly force on the street are instances first+foremost of ignorance.
Racism is ignorance. Fear-of-the-Other is ignorance, Violence is
ignorance. Poverty in the end is a symptom-of, cause-of and
perpetuator-of ignorance.
The remedy for ignorance is education. The possibility, opportunity,
availability and accessibility of low-cost/high-quality education take
the Travon Martins and Michael Browns and Eric Garners off the street.
Education arms the George Zimmermans, Darren Wilsons and Daniel
Pantaleos with better weapons than guns+chokeholds.
Black Lives Matter. Latino Lives Matter. Asian Lives Matter. White
Lives Matter. Policemen’s Lives Matter …not because they are Black or
Latino, or Asian or White or policemen …but because they are lives and
Every Life Matters.
We the People. We Hold These Truths to be Self Evident ….and Among These are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Together. We. Can. Will. Must.
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
The FBI at the door: WHAT’S IT ALL MEAN?
►FBI AT THE DOOR IS JUST THE LATEST BAD NEWS FOR L.A. SCHOOL DISTRICT
By Steve Lopez | Los Angeles Times | http://t.co/KxNgWy0p1r
Dec 7, 2014 :: With three weeks left in December, I'm hesitant to jump
the gun and suggest that we've seen the last of this year's troubles
for the Los Angeles Unified School District.
As you might have heard, there was a knock at the door of district headquarters last Monday.
It was the FBI.
I'd like to tell you the federal agents were there for a mentoring
program or some other educational purpose, but that wasn't the case.
Agents marched in and seized 20 boxes of documents relating to the
district's $1.3-billion iPad fiasco, making clear that a criminal
investigation is underway. A federal grand jury would have plenty to
look at, given a bidding process that smelled like a red mullet fish
kill, with cozy relationships between top district officials, Apple and
curriculum provider Pearson.
I'm wondering why the feds didn't kill two birds with one stone, so to
speak. While they were rummaging around at district headquarters, they
could have grabbed another 20 boxes of documents related to the
disastrous multimillion-dollar electronic student tracking system that
created chaos in August and still hasn't been fixed.
And speaking of the FBI, district officials were oddly complacent about
the storm troopers, if you ask me. You'd think someone would have enough
self-respect, even if it was just for show, to put up a fuss or demand
an explanation for the raid. But I watched a district lawyer tell a TV
reporter, with a smile, "I have no idea what it's about."
I'll tell you what it's about.
It's about a disastrous year for the nation's second-largest school
district, which has managed — thanks to bungling, sloth and political
squabbling — to let down more than 600,000 students.
And the iPad and MISIS (My Integrated Student Information System)
failures were not the only things that went wrong. The district paid out
a staggering $139 million last month to settle claims against a teacher
who fed his own semen to elementary school students, among other
monstrous behavior, some three decades after the district received its
first complaint about him.
It's still not clear how he was able to pull off his crimes after
protections were put into place because of a previous sex abuse scandal,
nor is it evident that adequate steps have been taken to diminish the
chance of such a thing happening again. District officials have had
maddeningly little to say about any of it.
And while I'm on the subject of abuse, KPCC was the first to report last
month that in 2013, a district-contracted lawyer argued in court that a
girl who sued the district was mature enough at 14 to have consented to
the sexual affair she had with her 28-year-old middle school math
teacher.
If stupidity and rotten leadership were federal crimes, the FBI would still be lugging boxes out of Beaudry.
The records removal, of course, harks back to Supt. John Deasy. He was
supposed to lead the district to new heights when he took over three
years ago, but he left under a cloud, in part due to his monumentally
botched iPad plan.
After that, the Board of Education lured former Supt. Ray Cortines out
of retirement to play quarterback, and he's a capable and energetic guy
at 82. But the board has given no indication as to how long he'll be at
the helm or whether anyone has begun serious conversations about
recruiting a long-term replacement, should anyone be brave enough to
take the job.
Meanwhile, teachers aren't happy about going years without raises, and
their union is locked in bitter negotiations with the district. And
unresolvable political divisions remain as to who should be running the
district: the school board or the superintendent.
Is there anything good to say about LAUSD?
Yes, as a matter of fact. For all the distractions, most teachers and
principals care about their jobs and do them well, and students have
continued to show gains in recent years. And as for graduation rates and
go-to-college rates, UCLA education professor John Rogers says the
numbers "seem to have improved significantly."
But clearly, there's a long, long way to go.
"What we have right now is complete dysfunction," said Antonia
Hernandez, director of the California Community Foundation. She and
other community leaders have tried to agitate for better leadership, and
she thought Deasy, despite his missteps, was rattling many of the right
cages.
So what next?
"We don't know what to do anymore," she said.
But doing nothing, as she knows, is unacceptable.
A Friday headline in this newspaper reiterated an obvious reality: The
Southern California economy is stuck in low-wage mode, in part because
of an under-educated workforce. There's no way out of that rut without
doing a better job of preparing 600,000-plus youngsters to become fully
invested contributors. Every one of us stands to benefit, including
employees, employers and taxpayers.
Despite continued school funding issues, money from Proposition 30 and
Gov. Brown's plan to redistribute the wealth to needier districts makes
for an opportunity that can't be wasted. So the first order of business
is to find the right superintendent.
And if the LAUSD board thinks it can take the holiday season off, or
wait until after the March elections to get serious about that
conversation, someone else should do the job for them.
Who should that be?
As Rogers pointed out, the challenges in school districts like LAUSD are
largely about socioeconomic issues, and that's the purview of county
officials. So why is it that L.A. County supervisors, whose constituents
fill L.A. schools, act as if LAUSD is somebody else's problem rather
than everybody's responsibility?
We don't need a politician to hijack the district, as former L.A. Mayor
Antonio Villaraigosa tried to do, or to stock the board with lackeys.
But there's middle ground between Villaraigosa's hostile takeover bid
and Mayor Eric Garcetti's unapologetic invisibility.
Where's the leadership and collaboration in one of the richest cities in
the world, home to some of the greatest universities on the planet, as
well as some of the largest nonprofits devoted to lifting up
communities?
I'm not a fan of blue-ribbon panels that have no authority and produce
voluminous reports nobody reads. But I'd be willing to temporarily waive
my bias if a team of good people got together to help the district find
a new superintendent and map out a plan to turn things around in 2015,
especially if no one on the school board is going to lead or get out of
the way.
There's too much at stake to plod along, business as usual, as a horrible year ends with the FBI at the door.
___________________
►IS LA UNIFIED THE TARGET OF FBI PROBE, OR COULD IT BE A CONTRACTOR?
by Michael Janofsky, LA School Report | http://bit.ly/1yC6uHe
Posted on December 3, 2014 1:04 pm :: Twenty boxes of documents now
in hand, the FBI is examining records from LA Unified that bear on its
digital technology program.
By terms of a subpoena, the documents will go before a federal grand
jury Friday morning, and evidence of criminal wrong-doing could lead to
indictments.
But what exactly are investigators looking for, and is it even possible
that LA Unified might not be the central focus of the probe, that it
could, instead, be its partners in the iPad program, Apple and Pearson?
The subpoena, dated Nov. 21, requested “all originals and copies of all
and any records” related to the district’s request for proposals for the
digital device program, the Common Core Technology Project and the two
companies.
Among other records requested were those relating to other companies
involved in the bidding process and to district personnel involved with
the bidding and review processes.
Further, the authorities wanted records related to Apple and Pearson
before the bidding process, a clear indication they have interest in the
emails between Apple and Pearson and former superintendent John Deasy
and his deputy at the time, Jaime Aquino.
Marc S. Harris, a former deputy chief of the Public Corruption and
Government Fraud section for the Central District of California, told LA
School Report that one of the companies, rather that the school
district, could be a focus.
“It’s conceivable,” he said.
Pearson, the world’s largest educational publisher and developer of
products for the Common Core curriculum, has run afoul of the government
before.
A year ago, the Pearson Charitable Foundation, the company’s nonprofit,
agreed to pay almost $8 million to New York state for using “charitable
assets to benefit their affiliated for-profit corporations,” the state
Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said at the time.
Brandon Pinette, a Pearson spokesman, said today in an email that in
regard to LA Unified the company was “not aware of the FBI action before
it happened and we have not been contacted by the FBI or anyone else in
law enforcement.”
Deasy, too, said he has not be contacted by the FBI.
Andy Bowman, a spokesman for Apple, said the company declines to comment on anything that relates to LA Unified.
If the focus of the investigation is, indeed, LA Unified, Harris said
evidence of wrong-doing could lead to an indictment under statutes known
as “honest services fraud,” a relatively new category (since 1988) that
reflects “a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible
right of honest services.”
The reference is to employees found with such violations as bribery, kickbacks or gratuities at the expense of a public agency.
But here’s why one of the companies cannot be ruled out as a focus of
investigation: In 2013, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.
ruled that the mere offer of a quid pro quo can lead to a conviction.
That could turn the focus away from LA Unified, to one of its
contractors.
Hard to know at this point. Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S.
Attorney’s Office involved in the case, said in an email: “Federal grand
jury proceedings are secret, therefore I cannot comment any aspect of
grand jury proceedings, including whether a particular matter is being
investigated by a grand jury.”
Laura Eimiller, a spokeswoman for the FBI, also declined to comment.
_________________
►LAUSD STUDENTS HOPE FOR IPADS, PREPARE FOR DISAPPOINTMENT
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, KPCC | http://bit.ly/1G0HMAD
Audio from this story 0:39 Listen | http://bit.ly/1G0I36v
December 04 2014 :: It's been a roller coaster ride for Los Angeles
Unified School District students who were promised iPads that would
usher in a new chapter in how they'll learn and take tests in the
digital age.
The latest dip in that ride came Tuesday with news that LAUSD is canceling the latest purchase of iPads.
The announcement came after the FBI seized boxes of district documents,
revealing a criminal investigation into LAUSD’s $1.3 billion iPad
program.
King Drew Medical Magnet High School was scheduled to receive iPads
along with 26 other schools that were part of the next phase of the
program designed to place a tablet in the hands of each district
student.
Eleventh-grader Maria Delgado says her teachers told her the iPad would replace most everything in her heavy backpack.
"Classwork and assignments were due and given on the iPads so that we
wouldn’t carry our binders and none of that — only the iPad, and the
iPad was going to carry all the supplies and materials we needed," she
said.
Jritza Marquez, a fellow 11th grader, had also looked forward to the day when everyone had a tablet.
Popular now on Pass / Fail
Five years ago, popular El Monte educator Bobby Salcedo was shot and
killed while vacationing in Mexico. School officials say travel to
Mexico by students with family ties to the country is now almost
non-existent.
Immigrant families skip Mexico travel over fears of violence
"Because there’s some students that can’t afford the technology and
teachers are really strict on the essays and stuff like that," he said.
Finishing assignments would be easier with an iPad.
Word that students will have to wait for their iPads didn't please 11th
grader Rebecca Borden. “I think that it sucks. We should have gotten
them,” she said.
At least one student, however, thought the school-issued iPads would be a distraction.
"It would be an advantage, but then again it would just make us more
dependent on technology and there’s other sources that could help us
much more," said 11th grader Michelle Rosales.
For 10th-grader Jazmond Summers, the latest development with the iPads
program is yet another unfulfilled promise from school officials.
"We’re so used to, like, rejection. Like it doesn’t always happen, we’re
so used to that. It’s just like, oh, they might be coming. But we
weren’t surprised that they didn’t," she said.
LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines said Tuesday the iPads purchase
program would be restarted with a new contract to buy iPads and another
agreement to acquire Chromebooks. But students will need to wait until
the 2015-2016 school year before they get the tablets.
FOUR REASONS TO BE GLAD A FEDERAL GRAND JURY IS
INVESTIGATING L.A. UNIFIED'S iPADS + smf’s 2¢
• CONFIDENCE IS WANING OVER WHETHER L.A. UNIFIED CAN INVESTIGATE ITSELF
• AN INDEPENDENT EXAMINATION OF THE L.A. UNIFIED iPAD PURCHASE IS WELCOME
By Karin Klein, LA Times Editorialist in Opinion LA | http://lat.ms/1yC8LCb
Dec 3, 2014 | 12:13PM :: There was a lot to dislike about the proposal
to buy $500 million worth of iPads for Los Angeles Unified School
District students (plus $800 million for the necessary broadband at
schools): The price, the incomplete curriculum, the paucity of serious
questions about whether all of these devices were necessary, the failure
to plan for obvious things that could go wrong.
But the news this week that it’s now the subject of a federal grand jury
investigation, with 20 cartons of materials seized by the FBI, was a
big surprise.
But possibly a good surprise, in its way.
Though L.A. Unified’s own inspector general is also conducting his
second inquiry into the iPad purchase—this time into the emails among
former Supt. John Deasy, his deputy Jaime Aquino and representatives of
Apple and Pearson, which at first appeared to be the early and only
winners of the technology contract—there’s reason for the public to lack
confidence in the district’s ability to investigate its technological
missteps.
1. --A first investigation into the iPad contract, by L.A. Unified’s
Inspector General Ken Bramlett, covered only the bidding process and
never even found the controversial emails that appear to indicate a
close working relationship between the two district leaders and the two
future contract bidders, a good year before the contract went out to
bid.
2. --The school board refused to make that first investigative report
public, though it had the authority to do so. Meanwhile, after public
records requests revealed the emails, the inspector general began a
second investigation into those and whatever earlier relationship might
have existed between Deasy and the winning contractors.
3. --Another, separate audit by the inspector general’s office, into the
catastrophically troubled student tracking system, never questioned
Deasy about a series of bungles up and down the line, despite numerous
earlier complaints that he had been warned repeatedly that the software
was not ready to be implemented and went ahead anyway. That left a
glaring gap in the probe. It’s unclear why Deasy wasn’t interviewed, but
he’s still in the district’s employ until the end of 2014; it would
seem that part of his job would be to help with any audits.
4. --When the school board reached a severance agreement with Deasy in
October, it issued a statement that board members do “not believe that
the superintendent engaged in any ethical violations or unlawful acts”
in regard to the emails. That statement was completely inappropriate
considering that Bramlett’s investigation into the emails was still
underway—as it is now. The board has no authority to direct the
inspector general’s investigations—but it can hire and fire the person
heading the staff office, and controls his office’s budget. (In fact,
just a week or so before the board made its statement, Bramlett’s office
pleaded for more funding, according to a KPCC report.) The statement
could be seen as pressuring the inspector general not to find
wrongdoing; in any case, board members are in no position to prejudge
the matter.
For that matter, none of us are in that position. The emails could be
perfectly legal and appropriate—or not. It’s unknown whether even a
federal grand jury will be able to ferret out the full picture, since
many earlier emails were apparently deleted and aren’t available. And if
it uncovers ethical rather than legal problems, the public might never
know; the grand jury is looking for evidence of crime. Federal crime at
that. This might not be the best mechanism for examining the iPad
purchase. But the investigation at least ensures that an independent
authority is examining the matter, unimpeded by internal politics or
pressures.
●● smf’s 2¢: Let me add a Fifth Reason to be Glad:
5. The Inspector General, the Board of Education and the Bond Oversight
Committee do not/cannot/should not investigate or prosecute alleged
criminal or civil wrongdoing by individuals and/companies - especially
multinational corporations worth hundreds of billions of dollars. These
are not alleged ‘bad teachers”; they very well may be ‘bad actors.’
The line in the article: “The board has no authority to direct the
inspector general’s investigations…” is open to question and
interpretation. The IG is a direct report to the Board of Ed - they,
not the superintendent, are his bosses. Obviously they interfere in the
IG’s work at their political peril – but previous boards have done so in
the past with other Inspectors General.
In this case the IG is investigating the expenditure of bond funds – and
he is expending bond funds in making that investigation. The Bond
Oversight Committee expects him to report to the Bond Oversight
Committee in our oversight capacity (please excuse the first person) and
generally we have a very cooperative+ symbiotic working relationship.
But, to paraphrase Ms. Klein: “The oversight committee has no authority
to direct the inspector general’s investigations…”
And, to be quite frank, we also have no authority to demand the IG’s
investigative work product such as the report referred to in bullet #2
above – which we have politely requested – but have been denied by the
board, not the IG.
AB 29: STATE BILL WOULD CLARIFY THAT YOUTH UNDER 18
CANNOT LEGALLY CONSENT TO SEX WITH ADULTS
MEASURE TARGETS LEGAL DEFENSE USED BY L.A. UNIFIED THAT A 14-YEAR-OLD GIRL COULD CONSENT TO SEX WITH TEACHER
By Teresa Watanabe , LA Times | http://lat.ms/1G0AOvw
1 Dec 2014 :: Aiming to close a legal loophole that allowed L.A.
Unified attorneys to argue that a 14-year-old girl could consent to sex
with her teacher, a state assemblywoman introduced a bill Monday that
would bar that defense in civil cases.
Assemblywoman Nora Campos (D-San Jose) said she was outraged when she
learned that the district successfully used the argument to combat
claims for financial compensation filed last year by the girl.
The student said she suffered emotional trauma after her then-teacher at
Edison Middle School in Los Angeles lured her into sex for several
months four years ago.
Campos' measure, AB 29, would make the age of consent 18 in civil cases
involving sexual intercourse between two parties. That would clarify
state law, which some California courts have interpreted as allowing
those as young as 14 to consent to sex with adults. Criminal law
generally holds that sexual activity between adults and those under 18
is illegal.
"It’s ridiculous to argue that a child can consent to sex," Campos said
in an interview. "No victim of sexual abuse, especially a child, should
ever be blamed."
A jury last fall found L.A. Unified was not liable for damages in the
case. District officials argued that school staff did not know of the
abuse and that the eighth-grade teacher and student took pains to
conceal their relationship until it was reported to a science teacher by
the victim's friend.
When notified, the district removed the teacher, Elkis Hermida, from the
classroom; he was subsequently convicted on criminal charges of lewd
acts against a child and sentenced to three years in prison in 2011.
But L.A. Unified officials came under fire after their legal defense was
reported in a radio broadcast this month by KPCC. The district
subsequently severed ties with W. Keith Wyatt, the outside attorney who
had represented L.A. Unified on this and other cases for 27 years.
Jennifer A. Drobac, an Indiana University law professor and expert on
consent laws, said the Campos measure did not go far enough. She said,
for instance, that the abuse of boys by men might not be covered because
the measure does not apply specifically to sodomy but only "sexual
intercourse," which courts have generally interpreted as heterosexual
acts.
Campos said she is open to refining her measure.
The loophole over underage consent to sex was opened by a 2001
California Supreme Court decision, in which the justices noted that the
Legislature had removed non-forcible sex with minors from the state’s
rape laws in 1970, Drobac said.
In doing so, the court said, legislators "implicitly acknowledged that,
in some cases at least, a minor may be capable of giving legal consent
to sexual relations." That language has been picked up by other courts
in other cases, Drobac said.
"It’s a duplication of errors that is creating this horrific situation in California and other states," Drobac said.
But Campos said her measure will clear up any ambiguity over legislative
intentions on the issue. "It’s not a gray area," she said. "It’s black
and white."
LAUSD, COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD MARCH 3rd ELECTION LINEUP SHAPING UP
By Rick Orlov, Los Angeles Daily News | http://bit.ly/1G0EFIX
[Edited from a longer article]
Posted: 12/04/14, 3:49 PM PST :: The coming city elections could be
marked by rematches and returns based on the final list of candidates
who filed nominating petitions Wednesday to appear on the ballot in the
Mar. 3 primary
LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION
On the L.A. Unified board, George McKenna is unopposed in District 1.
Third District incumbent Tamar Galatzan, who represents the San Fernando
Valley, qualified for re-election, and she was to face
teacher-scientist Ankur Patel. Children’s advocate Elizabeth Badger
Bartels, businessman Carl J. Petersen, businessman-professor Filiberto
Gonzalez and retired teacher and school administrator Scott Mark
Schmerleson filed petitions on Wednesday.
Incumbent Bennett Kayser filed petitions to keep his 5th District school
board seat. He is being challenged by educator-parent Andrew Thomas and
educator Ref Rodriguez.
In the 7th District, incumbent Richard Vladovic is seeking re-election.
Public school teacher Lydia Gutierrez qualified for the ballot, and
principal-adjunct professor Euna Anderson filed petitions to run.
LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
And over on the Community College board, Seat 1 incumbent Mona Field was
running for a new term against professor Maria “Sokie” Quintero and
community college professor Andra Hoffman. Teacher and radio host Mark
Isler filed his petitions to run as well.
For Seat 3, which was vacated by Veres in his bid for the City Council,
candidates include Jozef “Joe” Thomas Essavi and Sydney Kamlager, both
no profession listed. Others who filed petitions: community college
professor Yolanda Toure and neighborhood council board member Glenn
Bailey.
For Seat 5, incumbent Scott Svonkin is seeking re-election, and
environmental-science instructor Steve Schulte filed petitions to run.
Candidates for Seat 7 were to be educational job trainer Mike Fong,
community college faculty member John Burke and Joyce Burrell Garcia, no
occupation listed. College student board member John Noyola and
community organizer Rodney D. Robinson filed petitions.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
20 YEAR LOCAL TEACHER/FRESHMAN LEGISLATOR NAMED CHAIR OF ASSEMBLY ED COMMITTEE | http://bit.ly/1CTHgrT
GOOGLE MAY BE THE BIG WINNER IN THE L.A. iPAD SCANDAL | http://bit.ly/1Iihxts
Field Poll: CALIFORNIANS STRONGLY IN FAVOR OF PRESCHOOL …but at what cost? | http://bit.ly/1zugPTN
Tweet: Dec 4 - THIS AM @ 9:30AM on the 13th floor of the Federal
Courthouse a grand jury convenes to look into LAUSD iPad fiasco &
the Apple/Pearson contract
ALL THE SUPERINTENDENT’S MEN: Everybody had long since gone home | http://bit.ly/1rVRmEa
FBiPADS: FBI “RAID” ON LAUSD WAS HARDLY A SURPRISE | http://bit.ly/1zqTdj1
5 stories this AM: LAUSD, iPADS, THE FBI, THE U.S. ATTORNEY + A FEDERAL GRAND JURY || http://bit.ly/1tEsN9z
Cortines: iPAD CONTRACT CANCELLATION NOT BASED ON FBI RAID. Decision made after reading material over Thanksgiving http://bit.ly/11Qm3yf
Tweet:Dec 2 - FBiPADS: 11:41 a.m.: FBI probing LAUSD? 10:58 a.m.: Feds
take iPad-related documents from LAUSD 1:01 p.m.: Cortines cancels iPad
contract
LAUSD+FBiPADS: CORTINES CANCELS APPLE/PEARSON CONTRACT AFTER FBI SEIZES DOCUMENTS IN RAID | http://bit.ly/1pP6lOQ
FBI SEIZES LAUSD iPAD DOCUMENTS; 20 boxes carted away in surprise visit | http://bit.ly/1vHeky7
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
• REGULAR BOARD MEETING – Tues. December 9, 2014 - 10:00 a.m. (Rescheduled from 12-2-14)
• CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION AND ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE – Tues, December 9, 2014 | 4:00 pm
• BUDGET, FACILITIES, AND AUDIT COMMITTEE – Thurs. December 11, 2014 | 9 a.m
• EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION COMMITTEE – Thurs. December 11, 2014 - CANCELLED
*Dates and times subject to change. ________________________________________
• SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE:
http://www.laschools.org/bond/
Phone: 213-241-5183
____________________________________________________
• LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR:
http://www.laschools.org/happenings/
Phone: 213-241.8700
What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Bennett.Kayser@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
George.McKenna@lausd.net • 213-241-6382
Monica.Ratliff@lausd.net • 213-241-6388
Richard.Vladovic@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
Steve.Zimmer@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
...or your city councilperson, mayor, the governor, member of congress,
senator - or the president. Tell them what you really think! • Find
your state legislator based on your home address. Just go to: http://bit.ly/dqFdq2 • There are 26 mayors and five county supervisors representing jurisdictions within LAUSD, the mayor of LA can be reached at mayor@lacity.org • 213.978.0600
• Call or e-mail Governor Brown: 213-897-0322 e-mail: http://www.govmail.ca.gov/
• Open the dialogue. Write a letter to the editor. Circulate these
thoughts. Talk to the principal and teachers at your local school.
• Speak with your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Stay on top of education issues. Don't take my word for it!
• Get involved at your neighborhood school. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child.
• If you are eligible to become a citizen, BECOME ONE.
• If you a a citizen, REGISTER TO VOTE.
• If you are registered, VOTE LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT. THEY DO!.
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