An Open Letter to the Board of Education, Cupertino Union School District

August 14, 2015

I insist that my children be honest.  It is with great dismay that I must request their school district to be honest.  I am writing you to express concern that the Board of Education, Cupertino Union School District, has not fulfilled its role to represent and communicate to the community with honesty.  As our elected representatives, you have been entrusted to represent the community interests, and report your actions to the community.  This trust has has been broken.

The Board has allowed Superintendent Wendy Gudalewicz to repeatedly deceive and mislead the community during the rapid action to gut and reconstitute West Valley Elementary school.  The Board has participated in this deceit by failing to represent the interests of the community in closed session, stating Board “approval” of the action without open review, and failing to provide adequate oversight of the Superintendent.  I offer a few known examples.

It took an inquiry by the Deputy District Attorney for parents to learn that the Board only discussed the action to reconstitute West Valley Elementary in a single closed session June 9, under a curious description of “Public Employee Performance Evaluation” of Wendy Gudalewicz.  It defies explanation as to how the Board “approved” the action first described as “interview and commit” and then later substantially redefined as “reconstitution” if it was only discussed once.  An action to reconstitute is a major decision affecting the community, and deserves community visibility, and yet we are told that it did not even receive a line item in the closed session Meeting minutes.  As you must be aware, school reconstitution is essentially closing the school and re-opening with most or all new staff, and is a highly controversial action reserved as a last resort solution for a habitually low performing school, in sharp contrast to a top 10% tier West Valley.  An explicit reason stated in the June 11 announcement was to improve “the school’s interaction with the parent community”, yet the Board concealed the discussion from the community.  Phyllis Vogel has asserted that there was no “formal vote” in this discussion, as the reason why this action was not even reported from the closed session, yet the action was often described as “approved by the full Board”.  The legal wordplay deceived the community.

Although the CEA teachers union says that they had not heard of any issue at West Valley until late May, and there was only one ”facilitation session” on June 2, Superintendent Gudalewicz stated that “multiple interventions took place throughout the year”.  Superintendent Gudalewicz was asked to clarify what she stated as an ”all day session” to “access (sic) the school climate”.  Ms. Gudalewicz answered, “A 3rd party facilitator spent the day with teachers to try to set conditions to move forward in a positive fashion.  The session was not successful.”  Only on August 11, parent questioning revealed that the “3rd party facilitator” was Royce Holladay, who described herself as an “educational systems consultant”.  Ms. Holladay said that she only “facilitated a discussion“.  It is reasonable to assume that Ms. Holladay would have had a strong financial incentive for the session to “fail”, leading to reconstitute West Valley, because she is now paid to facilitate the “re-imagining” of West Valley which was said would take 3 to 5 years.  Superintendent Gudalewicz has deceived parents about the level of effort to resolve the purported “tensions” and the troubling conflict of interest of those involved.

When parents directly asked about the Superintendent’s connection with the consultancy group “Human Systems Dynamics Institute” (HSD) of which Royce Holladay is a Director, she responded that she has had no financial interest in the consultancy group and the title of “Associate” was given to anyone who had completed the training course.  The past Principal Theresa Johnson, new assistant Principal Grady right, new principal Robin Rbinson,and Board Presidnt Phyllis Vogel are all listed in the HSD network as “Associates”.  The HSD website posts the “Simple Rules” of being an HSD Associate including the curious requirement “Associates commit time and resources to the good of the network as a whole and to the Institute.”  The HSD website lists Gudalewicz both currently as “Associate” and previously with an additional title of “HSDP Teaching Associate” suggesting closer ties than she had disclosed to parents.

Superintendent Gudalewicz and Phyllis Vogel have repeatedly refused explanation of the action to reconstitute with the reason that it was a “personnel” issue.   A legitimate personnel issue would allow the rightful rebuttal by those accused of “low morale” by Superintendent Gudalewicz, which was not done in the closed session Board meeting.  If the “personnel” issue is not discipline, then it is really a policy issue which should be discussed in open session.  The closed door Board discussion was not to protect the privacy of employees, since Superintendent Gudalewicz publicly shamed both parents and teaching staff with unsubstantiated innuendo of “tensions”, while deceiving parents of her own major role in creating “tensions” and low morale.

Board Policy 4113 has been offered as the authority of the Superintendent to make staff assignments without Board approval.  The Board understandably has delegated this authority for routine day-to-day operation, but the Board still retains the ultimate authority and responsibility.  The action to reconstitute a school is not a routine procedure, as it is so extraordinary that Board policy does not define the possibility.  Even with the most imaginative interpretation of Board policy, the limited policy was violated.  The policy states tht “teachers may be assigned to any school in the district according to the collective bargaining agreement and Board policy.”  The CEA teachers union issued a “cease and desist” for the reason that the “interview” plan violated contract agreement, and on June 15, the CUSD administration conceded with cancellation of the scheduled teacher interviews.  The Board should have been aware that the ”interview” plan clearly violated contract terms that allows legitimate transfers based on need and seniority.  Not only did the Board allow the Superintendent to proceed with the substantially different action to reconstitute with no renewed oversight, the Board declined numerous requests by parents for a Special Board Meeting.

In the June 11 letter, Superintendent Gudalewicz told parents of a plan where teachers would “ask to apply and successfully interview.”  At the same time, the internal CUSD administration plan was 20 of the 24 teachers would be transferred, which leaked to parents only later. ( The other teachers did not have their contracts renewed.)  Not only would that correctly be called a reconstitution, it indicates that the pretense of teacher interviews was a sham, and the results were predetermined.  Parents simply do not know what plan was discussed in the closed session Board meeting.  It suggests that the Superintendent deceived parents about the extent of the planned transfers.

The CEA website posted comments on June 13 that the union had already issued a ”cease and desist” to the interview plan as being in direct violation of the process already defined in their collective bargaining agreement.  The CEA also notes that ”the district has decided to open every position at West Valley for anyone to apply.“  On June 15, teachers were notified that CUSD had cancelled the interviews.  That evening, with Phyllis Vogel voicing Board approval for the interview plan, Superintendent Gudalewicz held the ”Parent Information Night” and knowingly misled parents to believe that the interview plan was still in effect.  In July, Superintendent Gudalewicz was asked to clarify why she did not tell parents that the teachers were all being transferred out, and she only replied with the false statement, ”The MOU came up on Tue 6/16.“  Even this assertion is proven false by the CEA post June 15, which announces both the upcoming evening Parent Information Night meeting at Cupertino Middle School, and that the union was ”working on a MOU, Memorandum of Understanding, which will guide us through these difficult times.”

The CEA already posted June 13 that “the district feels that our contract gives them the right to do this,” and “CEA feels that the problems at West Valley was exacerbated by the administrator helping to create low morale.”  (Recent internal CUSD communications indicate that the principal’s actions and demeanor had fostered low morale.)  A CEA post dated June 15, prior to the evening parent meeting, notes their surprise that “The staff, teachers, secretarial, janitorial, IA’s job are all on an open vacancy list.  We as a union are making sure that the process is following our contract.”  In blatant contrast, Superintendent Gudalewicz tells parents in the June 18 letter, “After our parent meeting on Monday (June 15), the teacher’s union leadership asked for a process change and requested we not interview teachers to return to West Valley, but simply reassign all teachers.  We have agreed to the union request.”  Superintendent Gudalewicz misstated facts to deceive parents about union involvement.

Unlike how Superintendent Gudalewicz and the Board have miscommunicated with the community, I offer you facts and rationale, with this proposal to ease tensions: I suggest the resignation of Superintendent Wendy Gudalewicz and Board President Phyllis Vogel as a start to restore some trust of the community.

Sincerely yours,

E. Brown

West Valley Elementary Parent