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| Lawsuit Against Chula Vista Educators and former President Gina Boyd 2007 |
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| CTA Lawyers Ann Smith Fern Steiner Bernhard Rohrbacher |
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| "Castle Park Five" Teacher Nikki Perez |
San Diego Union Tribune
By Chris Moran
STAFF WRITER
August 21, 2004
CHULA VISTA – Teachers and parents at Castle Park Elementary
School are protesting the superintendent's decision to transfer five
veteran teachers out of the school.
About 75 teachers, parents and students held a rally at the school
Thursday night to criticize the decision and organize a call and letter
campaign directed at school board members and administrators.
First-grade teacher Nikki Perez; third-grade teacher
Stephenie Petitt; sixth-grade teacher Victoria Singleton; and
special-education teacher Robin Donlan said they received
notices that they are being transferred from Castle Park and
expect to be given their new assignments soon. They said
fifth-grade teacher Peggie Myers, who is out of the country
and has not yet received a notice, will also be transferred.
The teachers said they did not know why they had been transferred
and had not been given a specific reason, even in one-on-one
meetings with the superintendent.
Chula Vista Elementary School District Superintendent Lowell Billings
confirmed that he had ordered the transfer of several teachers from
the school. He said that laws protecting employees' privacy prevent
him from giving details about the moves...
Castle Park teachers said that with Donlan's transfer and the
retirement of three other special-education teachers this summer,
Castle Park has no credentialed special-education teachers.
Donlan and Myers are past winners of the school's Teacher of
the Year award.
[Note: Donlan and Myers were NOT chosen by the staff as a
whole, but by a small committee. The selections of the
committee, like most of the decisions at the school, were
based on teacher politics.]
[Donlan was sued for $7 million in 2007 because fraudulently-
optained stock options from Wireless Facilities ended up in
one of her accounts.]
Although the teachers directed much of their frustration at
Principal Olympio Matos, Billings said it was he, not Matos,
who made the decision. Matos' secretary directed a reporter
to the superintendent's office for comment.
"What did we do? That's all we want to
know," Perez said.
Perez said she had intended to teach at
Castle Park for many years and asked the
gathering, "Where is Mr. Matos going to be
five years from now?"
Castle Park has had eight principals and interim principals in
the past decade, including two who are now South County
superintendents: Billings and San Ysidro's Tim Allen.
About 80 percent of the 577 students at the kindergarten through
sixth-grade school last year were Latino. Approximately two-thirds
were from low-income families and more than 40 percent did not
speak English fluently.
By Chris Moran
STAFF WRITER
August 21, 2004
CHULA VISTA – Teachers and parents at Castle Park Elementary
School are protesting the superintendent's decision to transfer five
veteran teachers out of the school.
About 75 teachers, parents and students held a rally at the school
Thursday night to criticize the decision and organize a call and letter
campaign directed at school board members and administrators.
First-grade teacher Nikki Perez; third-grade teacher
Stephenie Petitt; sixth-grade teacher Victoria Singleton; and
special-education teacher Robin Donlan said they received
notices that they are being transferred from Castle Park and
expect to be given their new assignments soon. They said
fifth-grade teacher Peggie Myers, who is out of the country
and has not yet received a notice, will also be transferred.
The teachers said they did not know why they had been transferred
and had not been given a specific reason, even in one-on-one
meetings with the superintendent.
Chula Vista Elementary School District Superintendent Lowell Billings
confirmed that he had ordered the transfer of several teachers from
the school. He said that laws protecting employees' privacy prevent
him from giving details about the moves...
Castle Park teachers said that with Donlan's transfer and the
retirement of three other special-education teachers this summer,
Castle Park has no credentialed special-education teachers.
Donlan and Myers are past winners of the school's Teacher of
the Year award.
[Note: Donlan and Myers were NOT chosen by the staff as a
whole, but by a small committee. The selections of the
committee, like most of the decisions at the school, were
based on teacher politics.]
[Donlan was sued for $7 million in 2007 because fraudulently-
optained stock options from Wireless Facilities ended up in
one of her accounts.]
Although the teachers directed much of their frustration at
Principal Olympio Matos, Billings said it was he, not Matos,
who made the decision. Matos' secretary directed a reporter
to the superintendent's office for comment.
"What did we do? That's all we want to
know," Perez said.
Perez said she had intended to teach at
Castle Park for many years and asked the
gathering, "Where is Mr. Matos going to be
five years from now?"
Castle Park has had eight principals and interim principals in
the past decade, including two who are now South County
superintendents: Billings and San Ysidro's Tim Allen.
About 80 percent of the 577 students at the kindergarten through
sixth-grade school last year were Latino. Approximately two-thirds
were from low-income families and more than 40 percent did not
speak English fluently.
| The following was the first article in the San Diego Union Tribune about the "Castle Park Five." The SDUT, however, refused to allow its reporters to write about the $100,000s of taxpayer dollars that the district had paid to defend transferred teachers Robin Donlan, Peggie Myers, and others. A large number of letters, articles and/or editorials were printed after this one, but they were not written by a reporter. They were written anonymously by editor Don Sevrens or an unknown member of the public chosen by him. |
| "Castle Park has had eight principals and interim principals in the past decade..." -SDUT 2004 |
| [Note: The answer to Perez's second question is that Matos is the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum at Lemon Grove School District.] |
Voice of San Diego
Lee wrote on April 10,
2008 2:29 PM:
"I taught for 35 years
and knew several
'Teachers of the Year',
and, although many
were good teachers,
many were also
chosen because of
their popularity or
their ability to promote
themselves. The very
best teachers I knew
were never the most
popular, just the most
effective."
Lee wrote on April 10,
2008 2:29 PM:
"I taught for 35 years
and knew several
'Teachers of the Year',
and, although many
were good teachers,
many were also
chosen because of
their popularity or
their ability to promote
themselves. The very
best teachers I knew
were never the most
popular, just the most
effective."
| Castle Park Elementary teacher Nikki Perez and her teacher friends, with the help of parents such as Kim Simmons, and the support of the Chula Vista Educators teachers union, succeeded in getting principal Oly Matos to leave Castle Park in 2005. Nikki Perez went back to Castle Park Elementary, and she and her friends succeeded in getting rid of another principal, Carlos Ulloa, who recently resigned. The Big Issue? Teachers didn't want to stay with their classes when they visited the Computer Lab! The teachers main gripe about both men was that they wanted to take away the teachers' break of 45-minute a week when their classes were sent to the computer lab. Teacher Ann Folting, a very highly paid and highly credentialed teacher, was given full salary to pull disks in an out of computers all day, and to oversee the classes that came in and out every 45 minutes. An aide could have done the same job. The principals wanted to use Ms. Folting's skills to teach children. Why doesn't superintendent Lowell Billings do something to help this dysfunctional school? Because fixing the school would require coming to terms with wrongdoing that occurred in the past, wrongdoing that the board is determined to keep covered up. An honest man would fix the school anyway. Lowell Billings was not hired to be honest. He was hired to do whatever the board wanted. And so he kept the truth hidden when he testified under oath to Lionel Richman, who gave this opinion about the transfer of the "Castle Park Five." The only thing that will fix this school would be to deal directly and openly with the psychological and legal problems of its teachers. And Lowell Billings can't do that because he has overseen the expenditure of $100,000s of tax dollars on lawyers paid to cover up the wrongdoing. |
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| [Note: The answer to Ms. Perez's first question is, starting with misdemeanors and working up to felonies, in order to protect your power at the school. After that, you really went out of control. Any regrets, Nikki?"] |
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