CommentsFIRST PERSON-If you want to stop the criminal behavior by those running the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and other sabotaged public school districts like it around the country, I think you will need to consult sections of the California Penal Code as well as the belated enforcement of criminal felonies described therein against LAUSD administrators. LAUSD Board member Dr. Ref Rodriguez’ illegal behavior at LAUSDis not an isolated case. In fact, he is small potatoes when compared with other felonious actions systematically carried out throughout the District.
Presently there is a critical shortage of teachers across the United States. This is a premeditated, self-inflicted wound created by what is a step in the privatization and “charterization” of public school districts for profit. Locally, in what seems to be LAUSD's never ending battle against and removal of expensive high seniority teachers (for the sole "crime" of being at the top of the salary scale) it has been difficult -- if not impossible -- for these targeted teachers to prove their innocence. This is because it often comes down to their word against the LAUSD administrators in front of a judicial system that bends over backwards to rubber stamp the clearly illegal and reprehensible behavior of LAUSD and other districts like it.
In venues like the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) or a local Superior Court, targeted teachersmust defend themselves in situations that are predisposed --if not outright controlled -- by LAUSD to stack the deck and presume them guilty instead of innocent, the opposite of what is their constitutional right under law.
In such a situation, I would argue that the best defense to use is a good offense, especially since LAUSD administrators have made it easy by making no attempt to hide their illegal actions and biases. Furthermore, they have engaged in openly criminal behavior by fabricating or destroying "evidence" to substantiate trumped up charges against these innocent high seniority teachers.
What makes this relatively easy to prove is that the administrators seem to have no problem admitting under oath that they have engaged in this behavior. In my own case, then Assistant Principal Rene Martinez, when asked under oath at a deposition and after soliciting and submitting only negative letters from my students, "Did any of Mr. Isenberg's students write positive letters about him?" Mr. Martinez said, "Yes." When subsequently asked what he did with them, his response was, "I destroyed them." My attorney asked,"Why did you do that?" Martinez's respond was, "They didn't go toward the charges against him." My attorney then said, "You mean exculpatory evidence is not admissible?" to which Martinez responded, "What's that?"
The same obfuscation was practiced by the Office of Inspector General's Mr. Johnson, who had no explanation as to why my whistleblower complaint about students being graduated with valid diplomas -- even though they had low elementary school Math and English levels of achievement -- was not looked at for months after I filed it. When it was finally investigated, this task was given to Principal Janet Seary and her immediate superior Jan Davis, who were themselves subjects of my whistleblower complaint. Outrageous?
Add to this Jan Davis' signing documents to memorialize the punishments that would subsequently be meted out to me weeks before the due process hearings took place. This is only the tip of the iceberg of systematic and verifiable criminal behavior that, as of this writing, has gone unaddressed. In the meantime, I and thousands of other senior teachers remain fired and blacklisted from the teaching profession.
Penal Code 132
"Every person who upon any trial, proceeding, inquiry, or investigation whatever, authorized or permitted by law, offers in evidence, as genuine or true, any book, paper, document, record, or other instrument in writing, knowing the same to have been forged or fraudulently altered or ante-dated, is guilty of felony."
Penal Code 134
"Every person guilty of preparing any false or ante-dated book, paper, record, instrument in writing, or other matter or thing, with intent to produce it, or allow it to be produced for any fraudulent or deceitful purpose, as genuine or true, upon any trial, proceeding, or inquiry whatever, authorized by law, is guilty of felony."
Penal Code 135
"A person who, knowing that any book, paper, record, instrument in writing, digital image, video recording owned by another, or other matter or thing, is about to be produced in evidence upon a trial, inquiry, or investigation, authorized by law, willfully destroys, erases, or conceals the same, with the intent to prevent it or its content from being produced, is guilty of a misdemeanor."
"A person who knowingly, willfully, intentionally, and wrongfully alters, modifies, plants, places, manufactures, conceals, or moves any physical matter, digital image, or video recording, with specific intent that the action will result in a person being charged with a crime or with the specific intent that the physical matter will be wrongfully produced as genuine or true upon a trial, proceeding, or inquiry, is guilty of a misdemeanor."
If you or someone you know has been targeted,is in the process of being dismissed and needs legal defense, get in touch:[email protected].
(Leonard Isenberg is a Los Angeles, observer and a contributor to CityWatch. He was a second- generation teacher at LAUSD and blogs at perdaily.com. Leonard can be reached at [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
