EDUCATION POLITICS-For at least the last 8 years, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) administrative leadership has systematically targeted teachers at the top of the salary scale, and/or about to vest in lifetime health benefits, and/or disabled, because it is able to save very significant money in combined salary and benefits in just the first year when it forces these high seniority teachers out of their profession in favor of a fresh out of college Teach for America type "teachers" who are hired to replace them on an emergency credential at much lower pay and significantly less benefits.
These senior teacher "financial liabilities" to LAUSD are targeted for removal based on fabricated evidence and directed testimony from students and others who are told what to say to support the case for removing these expensive albeit innocent teachers.
By adding a morals charge under California Education Code 44939, which is done in most cases, LAUSD administrators are further able to leapfrog over all of the teachers' union collective bargaining rights of the targeted teacher to grievance and arbitration, which is why so many of these targeted teachers are hit with defamatory false allegations of immoral conduct.
Although no "verification" of these charges with statements made under penalty of perjury as is required by law is ever part of these charges, the LAUSD Board has admitted that it continues to vote to dismiss these teachers.
I know firsthand of the suffering and unfair treatment experienced by so many at the hands of LAUSD administrators because I was a targeted teacher. I have been in "teacher jail." This is why I am reaching out to all current teachers who are being targeted and former teachers who have been forced out of their jobs, out of their life careers, under these dubious circumstances.
If you, like me, are a victim of these reprehensible practices and would like to have your voice back and be heard, please contact me. I am interested in bringing us all together in a lawsuit to bring it to an end. (Phone me at: 323.938.1258)
(Leonard Isenberg is a Los Angeles observer and a contributor to CityWatch. He’s a second generation teacher at LAUSD and blogs at perdaily.com. Leonard can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
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CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 6
Pub: Jan 20, 2015
