Sweetwater in the News from SUHSD website Experienced Curriculum Expert Hired to Oversee Sweetwater Instruction Dr. Dianna Carberry new Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Dianna Carberry is no stranger to San Diego County’s educational system. With degrees from the University of San Diego and Pt. Loma Nazarene College and professional experience gained at several area high schools, Carberry knew about Sweetwater’s large and successful district even before she applied to be the district’s lead on developing curriculum and enhancing instruction. “When I was principal at Orange Glen High School, we often looked to Sweetwater to see what the district was doing in terms of special programming and funding,” Carberry said as Sweetwater’s new Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction. “In studying programs like AVID and English Language Learners, I learned the district was engaged in very positive activities for its students.” For a guide to success in her current position with the largest secondary school district in California, Carberry can call on her experience directing curriculum, instruction and assessment at Orange Glen. In this role she oversaw textbook adoption, curriculum writing, staff development and curriculum mapping—much of the same responsibilities she will have with Sweetwater. “We are very pleased to have someone with Dr. Carberry’s credentials and experiences join our Sweetwater leadership team,” said district Superintendent, Dr. Jesus Gandara. “Dr. Carberry will play a major role in ensuring our students are receiving the most current classroom content and finest instruction possible. She is a terrific addition.” Carberry’s work with teachers and administrators will have a direct impact on what Sweetwater students learn in the classroom. She describes her role as assisting in the development of systems that provide schools the support they need to positively impact what happens to students in the classroom. “Most notably, the goals for this position will be to see that all kids pass the CAHSEE and that every school meets its targets each year,” Carberry said. “It is critical that we do everything possible to instill hope and a sense of accomplishment in all students while preparing them for life after graduation.” Carberry has hit the ground running as a member of Sweetwater’s leadership team. Her fresh perspective was a real benefit to the development of the district’s new strategic plan and she will play an important role in the implementation of many of the plan’s strategies. She looks forward to the opportunities for collaborating with teachers, staff, parents and community members to meet the plan’s objectives. “I’ve been struck by the friendliness of people and how willing they are to lend support,” Carberry said. “I am very excited to be with Sweetwater.” |
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| Dr. Dianna Carberry |
| Principal leaving Orange Glen High By Blanca Gonzalez STAFF WRITER September 30, 2005 ESCONDIDO – Dianna Carberry, principal at Orange Glen High School, has resigned to accept a position with Moreno Valley Unified School District. Carberry said she will be moving to join her husband, who took a coaching position with Mount San Jacinto College two years ago. Her last day at Orange Glen will be Oct. 21. In her new job as director of secondary education for the Moreno district, Carberry will oversee instructional programs for students in sixth through 12th grades. Carberry has been at Orange Glen since 2001, when she was named to the post after principal Shirley Rehkopf was demoted to a teaching position. Rehkopf unsuccessfully sued for gender discrimination. In April, Carberry was at the center of controversy when a jury found that a basketball coach was wrongfully fired from Orange Glen and awarded him $1.2 million in damages. The coach, James Carter, accused Carberry of retaliation for an incident involving her husband. Carter, who previously worked with her husband at Monte Vista High School, told the school's athletic director that Ed Carberry had urged a player to take a weight-gaining substance. Carter eventually quit Monte Vista and was hired at Orange Glen and Carberry later became principal at the school. The Carberrys denied any wrongdoing, and the district is appealing the verdict. Carberry joined the Escondido Union High School District in 1999. Prior to Orange Glen, Carberry served as an assistant principal at Escondido High School and as director of curriculum for the district. Carberry, who previously taught science, math and physical education, came to the Escondido district after 10 years in the Grossmont Union High School District. During her time at Orange Glen, the school has gone from an underperforming campus because of low test scores to being honored as a California Distinguished School. "It's been one of the most memorable and exciting experiences for me to have been a part of that," Carberry said. "That's a great high to end my time at Orange Glen." Escondido superintendent Ed Nelson said a search for a new principal for Orange Glen will begin immediately. |
| The infamous woman who fired Coach Carter now claims she's a victim of employee abuse |
| Dianna Carberry is so fond of her husband that she fired a coach who reported that her husband had recommended a substance to a student who later developed kidney failure. That's one way to get to the top, Dianna. You don't get ahead by playing nice, right? But why are you now whining about being demoted? |
| Dianna Carberry is complaining about being demoted by Jesus Gandara of Sweetwater Union High School District. It's amazing that Dianna Carberry, whom jurors found responsible for 1.2 million for her actions against Coach James "Ted" Carter, is now the poster girl for unhappy employees at SUHSD who claim the superintendent is too high-handed with employees. Sweetwater's Miracle Worker Turned Lightning Rod By EMILY ALPERT June 21, 2009 Jesus Gandara was described as a miracle worker when Sweetwater Union High School District, the largest high school district in the state, hired him as its leader nearly three years ago. It was an apt image for Gandara, who introduced himself to schools as a man of faith. School board members touted his record of upping test scores in a tiny, impoverished school district on the border of Texas and Mexico. And Sweetwater welcomed miracles after a turbulent year: It had cycled through two interim chiefs before tapping Gandara. Sweetwater Union High School District Superintendent Jesus Gandara. Image Courtesy of NBC 7/39 But now, as he nears the end of his third year overseeing a district that encompasses the middle and high schools from National City to San Ysidro, Gandara is in the crosshairs of a campaign to unseat him. Four labor unions from teachers to custodians have joined forces, gathering signatures for a petition that argues that he "neither welcomes nor respects input" and "relies on intimidation to gain consent." Union leaders estimate that nearly 2,000 of their roughly 6,600 workers have signed the petition. Their complaints are numerous, from Gandara's attitude to his actions. The union has clashed with the school district over its contract, pushing for a deal that keeps their salaries and benefits intact. Others criticize Gandara's spending on meals and trips on the school district dime, which averaged more than $1,200 a month this year. An editorial in a high school newspaper called him "a Marie Antoinette figure, complete with financial irresponsibility and social insensitivity." And unions are not the only ones angry: Many principals and middle managers were stunned by his decision to demote two of his highest ranking employees in March. The school board has largely stayed out of the fray after a member highly critical of Gandara, Jaime Mercado, lost his re-election bid last fall. Gandara dismisses the furor as a union tactic as bargaining goes on with the teachers union and the budget crisis barrels on. "The superintendent is the lightning rod -- I understand that," he said. "I don't take it personally. I have to do what I think is right for children." Complaints about superintendents and their leadership styles are not unusual, especially as the budget crisis pushes school districts to slash jobs and programs. A milder petition criticizing "top-down administration" was delivered to San Diego Unified by its teachers union last week; former Sweetwater superintendent Ed Brand was previously dealt one. School district leaders are hopeful that the recent election of a new teachers' union president, Alex Anguiano, will cool the furor: Spokeswoman Lillian Leopold said that Anguiano has a better relationship with Gandara, who said that when the old President Sam Lucero was voted out, "he got his vote of no confidence -- and his was louder than mine." But several sources within the union said that the vote indicated a push for "a wartime president" who will continue their fight, not call it off. Employees charge that the uproar is not about proposed salary cuts or layoffs, which have been canceled as Sweetwater found other ways to cut $11.6 million from its $348 million budget, but about Gandara himself. And those worries -- whether real, perceived or politicized -- have not abated. One union leader remembered Gandara visiting her after she complained to the school board about a computer system. "He yelled at me. Just chewed me out. 'You're never to go to the board again. Don't ever go to the board again and make this kind of complaint. You have an issue, you bring it to me.' He was yelling and waving his finger in front of my nose," said Julie Hitchcock, president of the Sweetwater Counseling and Guidance Association. She added, "Now it's coming from the directors. He bullies them, they bully us -- it all kind of trickles downhill." Outsiders who have worked with Gandara in other capacities found the criticism strange. Scott Himelstein, director of the Center for Education Policy and Law at the University of San Diego, said that he had never found Gandara to be combative. But a chorus of complaints focuses on Gandara's attitude toward employees. They are not confined to unions: Numerous employees in management positions declined to be quoted for this story, saying they feared for their jobs. A retiree has become their spokeswoman. The demotions "were the tipping point," said Mary Anne Stro, who retired as a principal eight years ago. "If they can do this to Karen and Dianna, they can do anything to anybody." Stro was referring to the demotions of Karen Janney and Dianna Carberry, two assistant superintendents who lost their jobs after declining lesser positions in the school district. Demoting Janney, in particular, has inspired outrage from longtime employees who praised her as a competent and caring leader, citing the lofty awards she received and local projects she helped to complete. Sweetwater has since hired an outside consultant for $50,000 over roughly three months to take on leadership in curriculum and instruction and has chosen another consultant for $15,000 to help find replacements for the two chiefs. "She had the respect and trust of the community, and to have someone like that have their legs cut out from underneath them -- it was a shock," said Colleen Cooke-Salas, a teacher at Mar Vista Middle School. Reasons for the demotions are unclear. While Sweetwater schools learned they had much room to improve in a critical report from the County Office of Education, the report was not shared with Gandara and other staff until weeks after Janney and Carberry were demoted. Janney's department was ranked highly in an internal survey last year of how managers felt about Sweetwater departments and their timeliness, communication and quality; Carberry was in the middle of the pack. Board President Jim Cartmill said that decisions about the top personnel must be left to Gandara. "We can't keep a superintendent accountable for results unless he or she is allowed to hire who they want," he said. "The reassurance I would give the public is, if we don't see progress on a yearly basis, then we hold the superintendent accountable." Gandara had overseen or held high positions at several small Texas school districts before Sweetwater came calling. Board members in Mercedes Independent School District, the last system he oversaw, credit him with helping to pass facilities bonds and getting poor families involved. Business became his focus in Sweetwater, where he names the dysfunctional computer system that Hitchcock complained about as one challenge, along with dropping enrollment, budget woes and its $644 million facilities bond. Though most of the bond projects are in their infancy, Gandara prides himself on roughly $10 million in savings from three large projects where bids came in below estimates. But the bond also became a bone of contention. Changes to the bond projects included in the list angered the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, which complained that promises were being broken as the school district canceled some of its plans. Gandara said that the original bond plan included needless repairs. Lani Lutar, president of the group, said Sweetwater staffers told her they were only barred from building projects that were not included in the bond list. Gandara seemed not to care "if his decisions contradicted commitments to voters," she said. Rudy Gonzalez, who leads the committee charged with overseeing the bond, called it a misunderstanding. Not all bond projects on the list had to be done, he said. "They were examples." Critics and supporters of Gandara alike say he has largely left the educational side of schools, curriculum and instruction, to his subordinates. He now says that was a mistake and he will get involved. A County Office of Education study of Sweetwater schools that recently found that strategies to help lagging students were inconsistent, though annual test scores show improvement in Sweetwater over time. "I was focused in other areas," Gandara said. "I was making assumptions that what I was asking to be done was being done, that we had rigor in our classrooms, that we were moving in the right direction. But when you have an outside entity come in and they say, 'You're lacking rigor' -- that was a wake up call for me." Meanwhile, his critics are still issuing a call of their own. "When you can get almost half of your employees saying, 'Get rid of this guy' -- that's telling to me," Stro said. |
Southwestern College website
Jaguar Football
Head Coach
Ed Carberry
Coach Carberry will begin his
31st season in coaching and
his second season as the
Head Coach for the
JAGUARS. Coach Carberry is
no stranger to San Diego
County having spent 14 years
at Monte Vista H.S. in Spring
Valley. Over his last 11
seasons at Monte Vista, Ed's
teams won 10 championships.
2 CIF Championships, 8
League Championships and a
CIF Finals appearance in
1999. He has been named the
San Diego Union Tribune
Coach of the Year, National
Football Foundation Coach of
the year, San Diego East
County Coach of the Year
twice and League Coach of
the Year 8 times. In 2003, Ed
became only the 24th high
school coach in section
history to record his 100th
career victory on the way the
Division II CIF Championship.
Ed spent 3 seasons at Mt.
San Jacinto Community
College in Riverside County.
His three year record at Mt.
San Jacinto was 19-12. His
overall coaching record is 124
- 92 in four stops as a head
coach. St. Anthony High
School in Long Beach, Monte
Vista High School and Mt. San
Jacinto College. In 2005,
coach led MSJC to an 8-2
record and a berth in the U.S.
Bank Beach Bowl against
Saddleback College. The
2006 Eagles finished with a 7-
3 record.
Over the past 4 community
college seasons COLLEGE
SCHOLARSHIPS | FINANCIAL
AID offers have been made to
51 players on Carberry's
teams allowing them the
option to continue their
playing career. Offers have
come from all levels of football
from Division I, I AA, II, III and
NAIA schools.
OFFENSIVE PHILOSOPHY is
a SPREAD SHOT GUN NO
HUDDLE Offense. All
receivers and running backs
are expected to carry the
offensive load as we spread
the ball around and attack all
areas of the field. Carberry's
offense led the Foothill
Conference in passing in
2006 and was second in Total
Offense. Coach's QB in 2005
was an Academic All American
as they passed for 2,700
yards. Our last 4 QB’s have
all received scholarships
including 2007 QB All Foothill
Conference Drew Westling
who moved on to SDSU.
DEFENSIVE PHILOSOPHY
can be defined by ATTACK,
ATTACK, ATTACK. An
aggressive multiple front and
coverage style that
emphasizes the individual
talent of the players on the
team. His defense led all
Southern California teams in
interceptions in 2004. His
2006 defense was ranked #1
in the state in Total Defense
at mid season and finished
with a ranking of #16.
SPECIAL TEAMS are
dominated by speed on the
coverage team and
outstanding field position play.
In 2004 Carberry's team lead
the state in punt returns and
had a first team All American
Return man.
Ed has been married for 29
years to Dr. Dianna Carberry.
Dianna earned her doctoral
degree from Northern Arizona
University and is currently the
Assistant Superintendent for
the Sweetwater Union High
School District. Their
daughter Maegan earned her
undergraduate at U.C.L.A.
and then a Masters at the
Medill School of Journalism at
Northwestern University in
Illinois.
Jaguar Football
Head Coach
Ed Carberry
Coach Carberry will begin his
31st season in coaching and
his second season as the
Head Coach for the
JAGUARS. Coach Carberry is
no stranger to San Diego
County having spent 14 years
at Monte Vista H.S. in Spring
Valley. Over his last 11
seasons at Monte Vista, Ed's
teams won 10 championships.
2 CIF Championships, 8
League Championships and a
CIF Finals appearance in
1999. He has been named the
San Diego Union Tribune
Coach of the Year, National
Football Foundation Coach of
the year, San Diego East
County Coach of the Year
twice and League Coach of
the Year 8 times. In 2003, Ed
became only the 24th high
school coach in section
history to record his 100th
career victory on the way the
Division II CIF Championship.
Ed spent 3 seasons at Mt.
San Jacinto Community
College in Riverside County.
His three year record at Mt.
San Jacinto was 19-12. His
overall coaching record is 124
- 92 in four stops as a head
coach. St. Anthony High
School in Long Beach, Monte
Vista High School and Mt. San
Jacinto College. In 2005,
coach led MSJC to an 8-2
record and a berth in the U.S.
Bank Beach Bowl against
Saddleback College. The
2006 Eagles finished with a 7-
3 record.
Over the past 4 community
college seasons COLLEGE
SCHOLARSHIPS | FINANCIAL
AID offers have been made to
51 players on Carberry's
teams allowing them the
option to continue their
playing career. Offers have
come from all levels of football
from Division I, I AA, II, III and
NAIA schools.
OFFENSIVE PHILOSOPHY is
a SPREAD SHOT GUN NO
HUDDLE Offense. All
receivers and running backs
are expected to carry the
offensive load as we spread
the ball around and attack all
areas of the field. Carberry's
offense led the Foothill
Conference in passing in
2006 and was second in Total
Offense. Coach's QB in 2005
was an Academic All American
as they passed for 2,700
yards. Our last 4 QB’s have
all received scholarships
including 2007 QB All Foothill
Conference Drew Westling
who moved on to SDSU.
DEFENSIVE PHILOSOPHY
can be defined by ATTACK,
ATTACK, ATTACK. An
aggressive multiple front and
coverage style that
emphasizes the individual
talent of the players on the
team. His defense led all
Southern California teams in
interceptions in 2004. His
2006 defense was ranked #1
in the state in Total Defense
at mid season and finished
with a ranking of #16.
SPECIAL TEAMS are
dominated by speed on the
coverage team and
outstanding field position play.
In 2004 Carberry's team lead
the state in punt returns and
had a first team All American
Return man.
Ed has been married for 29
years to Dr. Dianna Carberry.
Dianna earned her doctoral
degree from Northern Arizona
University and is currently the
Assistant Superintendent for
the Sweetwater Union High
School District. Their
daughter Maegan earned her
undergraduate at U.C.L.A.
and then a Masters at the
Medill School of Journalism at
Northwestern University in
Illinois.
| Does football culture work well when used by management in schools? |
| Support for Dianna Carberry Anonymous said... I am so proud of the Sweetwater community. So many people are getting involved, at personal risk, in trying to turn the tide of fear and disrespect that currently grips our district. I believe that goodness will prevail. We have to keep going strong and advocating for what we believe in. There is some evidence that the letters, phone calls, petitions, no confidence votes, etc... are making a difference. Distribute this blog to as many people as possible. We need to reach out and let everyone know there is something they can do. We are not powerless, there is definitely strength in numbers. March 28, 2009 11:27 AM Anonymous said... The machinations of our superintendent are nothing less than a coup attempt. With a mere two years in the district serving "our" students, he is arrogantly and capriciously displacing persons (mostly WOMEN) who have worked for decades to improve education and provide a path to success for ALL the students in our district. This is done to promote his loyal cronies and ensure that his plans will be approved. The fact that the school board approved this plan 5-0 is frightening and makes me wonder who is watching out for those of us who have endured through the years, always giving our best for our students and colleagues. The decisions he has made are morally, ethically, and educationally unsound, and will end up costing our district dearly - in terms of lawsuits, lost personnel, and, saddest of all, the lost energy of professionals who are forced to work in this atmosphere of fear and confusion. March 28, 2009 6:42 PM Anonymous said... Is this the same Dianna Carberry that fired coach James "Ted" in Escondido for reporting that Dianna's husband told a student to take a substance, and the student developed kidney failure? July 2, 2009 5:49 PM Anonymous said... I meant to write James "Ted" Carter. July 2, 2009 5:50 PM |