Cajon Valley Union School District Leadership Failure

In the documentary Waiting For Superman, Davis Guggenheim undertakes an exhaustive review of public education. If you can stomach the poor state of education in this video, you would also think that six years later from when this documentary was released, we could point to a change in how we educate our kids.  After all, "education is the great equalizer" to the American Dream. 

This documentary hits home for us in the Southern California school district, Cajon Valley Union School District (CVUSD).  I'm sure if you seek the salaries of our education administrators across California, you will find that many make an annual salary of $250,000.  

In the CVUSD, David Miyashiro is compensated quite well  to lead education away from the pitfalls that we find in the documentary Waiting For Superman. You can see his compensation package here.  As a side note, the median household income in El Cajon, CA is  $45,750. This equates to a $200k delta. 



When we questioned the lack of a library at the Bostonia Language Academy, we were told by both the David Miyashiro and Izela Jacobo that we would have $10,000 allocated to purchase books. Can you imagine the disparity between the median income in the community, the resource allocated for our children's library, and the Superintendent's Salary?

One of the issues leading to the lack of educated and experienced Principals and blended educational programs is a salary compensation issue. Furthermore, from what I see at the district level, there is a disconnect in the allocation of resources. The district would rather send their board to TED Talks in Canada, than pay for the library books a school needs to enlighten students.

Be leery to offer congratulations to David and his claims of his technology blending into education. He lacks any form of technical competency and we discovered this the hard way when he turned our Language Academy into a web surfing daycare.  

During my volunteering days in my daughter's class, I walked up on the "math" teacher as she was shopping for maternity clothes via Amazon.com.

I've posted three blogs on the Failure of Bostonia Language Academy in El Cajon, CA.  The overall issue is poor leadership by the Principal, Izela Jacobo. The second issue is a lack of academics. The three blogs talk to some of this in detail and I've also included a slide deck link.  

Blog 1 

Blog 2

Blog 3

On 3 May 2016, my wife and I were going to present our findings to the school district Superintendent, David Miyashiro along with the Bostonia Language Academy Principal, Izela Jacobo.

The meeting was changed at the last minute. We met with David Miyashiro alone. He discovered that one of our parents sought an audience with the California Department of Education and we provided all of our parent statements for review. Needless to say, he was upset with that and also questioned some social media "tweets". 

He was pretty impressed with the fact that he knows everyone on the board, and  they won't do anything with our inquiry.  This is an important trait we've discovered and will share more in the next blog about district level concealment of problems. 

So here's my slides for review:

Failure of Bostonia Language Academy Talking Points

You Can Leave if You Don't Like It Here: Bostonia Language Academy Failure Blog 3

In year three of the dual language program, the School District told us that it desired to open a language academy. The problem was that they didn't want to tell us where. In addition to that small detail, they didn't want to hear anything from parents or the teachers on how that academy should take form.  That's an issue that will come out soon in this account, but to the point, it started as a failure. 

Once the "where" was set, the next mystery entailed who was going to lead the school. When we discovered it was Izela Jacobo, we knew there would be issues. First of all, she had no experience as a Principal and her only experience in the district was as an English Language Learner Coordinator.   To this day, we are uncertain what her credentials are and question whether she has a Bachelor of Science or Arts much less a graduate degree for her current role.  We do know that her reputation is one that not many think highly of her from a professional or personal standpoint. She's plain nasty to people and it brings her joy. 

As involved parents, we spent our time supporting the new school. We wanted it to succeed, so we invested our time daily for six months. My wife worked in the three teachers' classrooms (school implemented a three teacher rotation noted in my second blog) and wrote a monthly newsletter for the school in both English and Spanish. She also put together the inaugural yearbook that took six months of nightly work. I also helped in the classroom and as a Board member of the School Site Council. In addition, I trained eight teams of six students for the school's color guard. The other parents of our group were equally active. The point in bringing this to light is that we gave a full effort to better the school. 

In comparison to the three earlier years of volunteering in the classroom, we observed a lost program with no form or academic rigor. It's a daycare with no plan for education. In the meantime, the Principal and her group of followers, or Yes Women, were claiming all kinds of success to the district headquarters.  The mantra of these teachers is "lo que diga la hefa" which translates to "whatever the boss says we do." They used this mantra when Izela Jacobo had report cards changed without a connection to student output school.   "If the grades are too low, then the parents complain".

We had a meeting with the three-teachers and although they gave such raving reviews of our student's work, they had nothing to show for it, and wondering why we wanted to meet with them when we told them we noticed a decrease in her Spanish vocabulary and writing skills.  We insisted that the three teachers get on the same page and start conducting spelling tests in Spanish and English. We also found ourselves instructing the teachers on how to lead their classrooms. I've never seen that before. They were lost and couldn't figure out how to work with each other. 

We then met with the Principal and her defensive response was that nothing was going to change. She even told one parent to leave the school if they were not happy with the program. It was such a clown show. One of the teachers was escorted off the campus after not agreeing with the principal at a meeting during the month of March. So there our kids are; 75 students without a math teacher.

New Flash; Kids go to school to learn. You get five hours a day, Monday - Friday over the course of nine months. Take out the holidays and weekends and that leaves anywhere from 140-150 days of instruction. Principals get paid to guide teachers. Teachers get paid to follow through on the education plan. The Principal did not have plan and was not talented enough to figure it out how to lead a school much less a dual language immersion program. So she retaliated at her experienced teachers and FIVE resigned. Yes, brand new school and five teachers left. 

After we discovered that the principal was altering report cards, to keep parents from complaining, and a raw attack on some of the teachers, we took the conversation to the Superintendent and Board of Directors. Once we aired the problems of the school, our kids were singled out by the teacher clique and we were no longer to volunteer in the class.  

I'll discuss the School District Leadership and Board of Directors in my next blog.  

You can read our letters to the Superintendent and Board of Directors here: Letter 1 and Letter 2

Let's Make a Deal: The Failure of Bostonia Language Academy Blog 2

Military families move around quite a bit. In 2010, after a move from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, our family was settling into our new home in San Diego. 

We wanted to start a school with high standards and continuity for both our children. Both of them were embarking on their elementary school journey.  In my previous blog, I noted what we were looking for in schooling. We found an opportunity when the Cajon Valley Union School District advertised a dual language program that was to start at Jamacha Elementary with a group of 25 students. This program started right in time for one of my kids first year of school.

Our two students starting their new schools in 2012

In order for our family to be considered into the program, we had to first agree to have our child academically assessed. The other portion of the deal was that our student had to commit through the 5th grade. 

Not bad. Spanish immersion, the same group of kids for six years, and essentially a guarantee that my child would be bi-literate by 5th grade.  

In addition to the tangible benefits of his program, it was certain that we would build a community within our students and parents. Everyone became extremely involved in the classroom and dedicated to supporting teachers and the school.

Here's a summary of each of our school years. Watch what happens in 3rd Grade. The short story is that the school district failed to inform us that they were going to back out of the agreement and start a new school with our kids and three other schools. You can read about the uproar courtesy of ABC News here. They refused any input from teachers and parents and told us that the new school would be resource rich and better than ever. Spoiler alert; it was far below my wildest imagination on how poor a school can be after having three years of success. 

• Kindergarten 2012-2013: Our first teacher in kinder, was Senorita Moncada, a young and wonderful teacher. She worked very hard in class and had everyone believing that she did not speak English. As a first year teacher, she made everyone invested believe in the program. Principal Michael Serban, a solid leader met all our needs, concerns, and left no room for anything other than pleasantries on a daily basis.

• 1st Grade 2013-2014: The first grade teacher was Senora Soto, and she kept up the hard work of speaking only Spanish in class. Our students were doing great. We were so impressed with the quality of the education and their grasp of academic Spanish. Principal Kathy Skube took over the leadership at Jamacha Elementary and did a fantastic job showing she cared for her community, school, and families. 

• 2nd Grade 2014-2015: Our third year in the program was superb. Senora Zavala came into our classroom to teach 2nd grade. She was the best teacher I've had the privilege to watch in class. She reminded me of one Mrs. Pam Cotten, who was an amazing educator (and my 5th Grade Teacher). Senora Zavala was the most experienced dual language teacher with degrees in both Mexico and U.S. She was firm yet sweet to the kids. She treated our kids as if they were her own. And by the way, each of her three own kids went to Stanford University, Loyola Marymount University, and Santa Clara University. 

• 3rd Grade 2015-2016: Complete failure. Principal Izela Jacobo (I can't prove that she has a college degree) led the program we loved so much right into the ground. A Three teacher rotation began between Ms. Bradbury, Ms. Meier, and Ms. Caro. One teacher was responsible for English Literature, another Spanish Literature, and one responsible for Math. The teachers rotated around the students. Classroom was extremely sloppy and unorganized. We went from a classroom of 25 students to 75 and three teachers. No homework was graded and the kids sat in front of computers all day on a hodgepodge of software. They were also directed to spend hours in the evening on computers to toil away in easy software drills far below their grade level. High achieving kids were assigned as "in-class" tutors for students behind and lacking in the subjects. Some kids spoke only English and other kids spoke only Spanish. Some kids could not read in English or Spanish. The use of Google Translate was encouraged for Spanish writing assignments. Five teachers decided to resign from the school as of May 2016. What went wrong? Well this is only the wave tops of it all. I'll share more in my following blogs. 

Parenting and Spanish Dual Language Education Blog 1

As a parent, getting the education in place for my children is one of the most important things my wife and I can do for our kids. There's no limit to what a child's future holds if you open the door to all the possibilities. It's almost simple; give love, guidance, and instill confidence to their little bodies and watch them take off.  Nurture their curiosity with  routine trips to the library, and open the door to limitless imagination encounters through literature.  By following this recipe, there is a seamless transition to the education system and without surprise, the little Eagles begin to soar early on.

Nicholas Kristof wrote about the eroding American Education in his article, Our Broken Escalator. The topic of his article is epic in its problem description. The connection to my thoughts are that I passionately agree that education is the escalator to opportunity. It's the American Dream Enabler. 

We find that the foundation for our children is cemented is Reading, Writing, Mathematics, Science, History, Social Studies, and all the educational fundamentals where there are no shortcuts. Moreover, we also believe that these fundamentals are important to learn in a dual language immersion.

As a Hispanic family with cultural roots with ancestry from Mexico traceable to the 1800s, we found that enrolling our children in a bilingual education program was opening significant opportunities for them in culture and overall development. In addition to the educational positives of bi-literacy, there are several high achieving results when learning additional languages. In the blog, Surprising Advantages of Bilingual Education, Bridget Bentz talks about these benefits.  The quick summary is that it makes young brains resilient and problem solving machines. There's no  downside to learning a new language, especially when the dual language program follows research based methodologies. The authority on dual language programs is the Center for Applied Linguistics and they publish The Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education.

We found a program in El Cajon, California that met our family goals in 2012 and I want to share the journey with you.

The rest of my blog will address educational leadership from parents, school districts (Superintendent and Board of Directors), Principals and Teachers.  Please stay tuned.