Are Bullying and Favoritism Undermining Las Cruces Public Schools?

There's apparently a bullying problem within the Las Cruces Public School District: many employees say Superintendent Stan Rounds shows extreme favoritism toward folks he likes but has many others “very scared.”

This column is based on extensive conversations with people who will go mostly unnamed because they fear retribution from Rounds. I've found many folks convincing. I've noticed consistency among accounts from different people in different schools and in different positions. 
 
I've also heard the fear in people's voices, a fear that has no place in a well-run organization. One person, declining to comment, said that the walls had ears, adding that someone could be listening outside the door. “I can't afford to lose my job for answering your question.” 
 
Many allege that Rounds's favoritism torpedoes morale. They complain of his favoritism toward his fiancée Kathy Adams and her family. 
 
The JUMP (Joint Ungraded Multi-age Program) story is a beautiful one that turns sad. Teachers from JUMP (and LEAP) speak with true excitement about the teaching they did. The idea was to work with kids who might otherwise be held back because they couldn't read, using a creative combination of new technology and ideas as old as the one-room schoolhouse to improve kids' academic performance.

It seems to have worked. Teachers describe a very non-traditional classroom where a second-grader would be helping a kindergarten kid make her letters and another student would be reading to a row of stuffed toys along the wall. “They thought they were playing. They didn't even know they were learning.”

But they did learn. Not by rote, either, but by good old-fashioned creative teaching. My understanding is that by year's end these kids – from the most difficult socio-economic backgrounds and with the poorest histories of reading and study – had gone from “They'll have to be left back” to above-average among their peers.

But Mr. Rounds's personal motives got in the way. He made Ms. Adams the instruction specialist, although she was not particularly qualified. There was an interviewing process in name only.
Barbara Hammond, an experienced teacher who interviewed for the position, says there were applicants far more qualified than she or Ms. Adams; but she says it was clear that the administration had someone in mind. Ms. Adams, whom she likes, even tried to warn her, urging her (before the selection was made) not to be disappointed. An early teacher in the JUMP Program stated that Ms. Adams was by far the least qualified candidate for the position.

Once installed as instruction specialist, and later principal (though she'd never been an assistant principal, so far as I know), Ms. Adams pressed her ideas on the teachers and invoked Mr. Rounds's name to up the pressure when she didn't get what she wanted. According to some teachers, she forced the group to use methods that didn't fit what they were trying to accomplish. Teachers who'd gone to work joyfully began having a very different experience. 
 
I'm told that most or all of the teachers in JUMP (and LEAP) filed extensive grievances this past year about Adams; but since the grievances go only to her supervisor, Mr. Rounds, getting a fair hearing has been difficult. 
 
There have also been extensive complaints about JUMP (and LEAP) getting goodies other schools and departments don't procure so easily.

Regardless of whether there's serious bullying and favoritism, I'm wondering about the ethics of Rounds making decisions to spend significant chunks of public money on his girlfriend. How can he be expected to make those decisions in an unbiased way, purely in the school district's interest, as the law requires? We all know love makes things awfully complicated.
                                                         -30-

[The column above appeared in the Las Cruces Sun-News this morning, Sunday, 14 June and will appear later today on KRWG-TV's website.  It's the second of two related columns.  The first  primarily discussed MacArthur Elementary.  The comments people posted in response to that first one were interesting.  A couple of additional individuals with experience at MacArthur echoed what I'd been told; and one (who apparently joined the "blogging community" this month just to comment negatively on my post) defended principal Ragan.  Privately, someone I know who left before Ms. Ragan's tenure took issue with my favorable reference to her predecessor Mr. Stuart, and said he too was a bully.]
[Meanwhile, several people have asked me why Mr. Rounds is not on administrative leave pending the reported investigation of LEAP.  He told me he hadn't been told what it's about.  That suggests that the board may not trust him and that he may be a target of the investigation.  That does lead one to wonder why he should not only be still in the office but reportedly scheduling interviews for the outside investigators.  But since the Board also doesn't tell me what's going on either, I can't begin to answer anyone's questions concerning Mr. Rounds.]

[These sorts of columns are draining to write, and this one was all the more so because I was revising it well into the week -- while recovering from a full hip replacement operation I had Tuesday morning.  (btw, if you may need such an operation, let me note that after having had two hips replaced within the past 12 months, plus a little investigation, I could not recommend Dr. Brandon Broome in El Paso more highly.  He seems excellent; I recovered quickly and fully from the first operation, and this one seems to have gone well too; other people I know have also had good experience with him.  He's in El Paso.  Charles Brandon Broome.)  

It's draining to deal with people who are scared and stressed.  It's draining to deal with people who put their hearts and souls into something -- whether it's being a sheriff's deputy or teaching kids -- and are getting unnecessarily abused in a work-place where it's clear that speaking out could be a career-ending move.] 

[I've worked in a variety of situations, and have never understood the mentality that demands maximum personal credit for everything good, while rinsing oneself clean of blame as frenetically as Lady MacBeth.  I always felt that folks who spread the credit around fairly were more appealing and ultimately more effective.   I tried to do that when I supervised people.  And I worked more comfortably for people who supervised me that way.

Here, from the NBA because it's on my mind, is a great example.  Game four of the championship finals.  Golden State Warriors, favored, fall behind two games to one in the best-of-seven series, knowing no team has ever come back from a 3-1 deficit in the finals.  The Cleveland Cavaliers, led by Lebron James, are winning, partly by slowing the game down and partly because Lebron is unstoppable.  

Suddenly in Game 4 the Warriors change their starting line-up, starting aging former all-star Andre Iguodala in place of seven-foot center Andrew Bogut, playing 6 foot 7 forward Draymond Green as center, and putting Iguodala on James most of the time on defense.  They "went small" to speed up the game, risking loss of a bunch of rebounds to the taller Cavs.  At least for the moment, it worked.

Head Coach Steve Kerr readily admits that the suggestion came not from him or his top coaches, and not from a star player, but from the low man on the coaching totem pole, a 28-year-old  video assistant.  But Kerr accepted it and gave the kid full credit.  As one commentator put it, "It's rare to see such an open and supportive environment in the NBA, as head coaches are often afraid to be overshadowed by their assistants. In Oakland it seems no one is afraid to speak their minds."

I thought of the Las Cruces Public Schools, where several knowledgeable people have told me that Stan Rounds will often pick a relatively unqualified candidate for principal over a better-qualified candidate who won't ask inconvenient questions.  (There's some anecdotal support for that view, but it would be hard to prove how accurate it is, particularly since personnel records are rightly confidential.)] 

[Ugly things continue to happen at the Las Cruces public schools.]

Troy Tudor, Candidate for School Board

Chamber of Commerce Vice-President Troy Tudor is running for the school board.

Normally that would merely mean he could have divided loyalties. Suppose some measure would help the schools but hurt the Chamber? Say the school was looking at some land for its purposes but a prominent Chamber member wanted it for his business.

But the Chamber apparently seeks control of our county's politics. Businesses are waging a vicious and misleading municipal recall campaign. The incoming Chamber president says the Chamber will run candidates for all local offices. Is Tudor's candidacy part of that plan?

It may seem unfair to bring in the spurious and fraudulently-conducted Recall campaign; but Mr. Tudor is reportedly behind the “Close the Cafe” website that's been cheering on the Recallers with misleading posts. There's good reason to believe he is involved with it, but I have not been able to ask him whether he is or not. He may deny it, if he ever calls back.

Tudor didn't show up at a recent forum where all the other candidates spoke out and fielded questions. Nor has he returned the messages I left on his cell-phone Saturday and Monday morning.

Mr. Tudor recently “tweeted” that “Fox News rocks” – apparently in connection with his family closing its DirectTV account over DirectTV's business dispute with Fox. He can watch whatever he likes; but does his comment indicate he prefers the safety of a single voice to the open clash of ideas that should mark our politics and our school board meetings?

I'd not want school board members whose votes were motivated by ideology (left or right!), not by a fair and thoughtful consideration of facts.

In 2014, Mr. Tudor wrote against the new Monument, adding, “[L]et the will of the people as a whole be heard.”

Rightly or wrongly, a strong majority of local citizens favored the Monument. Surveys consistently confirmed that. After several years of discussion, and compromises with law enforcement and other interests, the President was ready to proclaim the Monument. Yet Tudor and the Chamber urged another delay to hear “the people as a whole” again. He apparently didn't like what “the people as a whole” thought.

Although the Monument appears likely to help local businesses at least a little, Tudor's ideology apparently overrode his obligation to further local business interests.

In September 2009, a neighbor sued Tudor for diverting water that harmed the neighbors property. Tudor denied most most allegations and counterclaimed for damages.  (He also asserted twice that the Plaintiff spent a lot of each year in Thailand, as if that were a highly material fact.)  After a court-mandated settlement conference, he settled, in a written settlement agreement.  He was to do various work to restore the land to its prior state. Six months later Plaintiff had to reopen the case, alleging Tudor had reneged.  Tudor had done nothing, and Plaintiff told the Court Tudor's conduct, then and earlier, had shown Tudor "to be disingenuous, uncooperative, and contemptuous of the law, and willful."  He also alleged Tudor had settled in bad faith.

Tudor's insurer intervened, joining the discussion even though it complained Tudor gave the company late notice of the problem and that an "intentional act exclusion" protected it  After a little more legal sparing, a June 2011 court judgment ordered ordered Tudor to do restoration work and pay $1,500 in damages and $3912 costs, plus interest. Again Tudor apparently reneged. Plaintiff reopened the case again. In September 2012 – three years after the lawsuit's filing – Tudor (or the insurance company) apparently payed the judgment amount.

There's likely a better side to Troy Tudor: but available evidence suggests he's not the ideal school-board member. If he doesn't care enough to answer questions, will he be forthcoming and transparent with the public if elected? Does his opposition to the Monument suggest that our schools' interests would also take a back seat to ideology? What does his behavior in the lawsuit tell us?

By contrast, Maury Castro is a conscientious individual with the public good in mind. He has real experience in education, as well as with budgets and policy-making – and is troubled by the stress that overemphasis on standardized tests places on students and teachers. He's in this race to improve the schools, whatever that takes – and not to impose a preconceived extremist ideology on our schools.
                                                     -30-
[The election is Tuesday, February 3.  My Sun-News column this coming Sunday will look at the school board races from a different perspective.  Meanwhile, I did want to get this posted -- and will add further information during the next couple of days, if time permits.]
[Tudor's conduct in the lawsuit may resonate more with me than with most because I've seen other situations where an innocent party (here, a neighbor whose property was being damaged and who couldn't get a cooperative response from the person damaging it, then went to law and paid extensive legal fees to get justice -- but, given Tudor's further conduct during the twice-reopened litigation, probably paid a lot of money for his justice and waited three years.  Whatever the merits of the original case, Tudor's conduct during the litigation seems like that of a spoiled child caught doing something wrong who just kicks out destroying stuff instead of apologizing and cooperating in repairing the damage he's done.]
[By the way, it's mid-day Thursday, and he still hasn't returned my calls from last Friday and this Monday.  Doesn't offend me at all.  But doesn't suggest he's a fellow who wants to answer questions, either.]
[Someone just sent me a link to a recent KRWG interview with Mr. Tudor .  I listened to the whole 12 minutes.  Folks should listen if they have time.  He sounds reasonable in tone, but everything he says is so incredibly general it tends to suggest that although he wants the school-board position he doesn't know much about the local school system and hasn't bothered to learn yet.  When interviewer Fred Martino asks him a clear and specific question, Mr. Tudor either doesn't know or announces that it's a very complicated situation.  (Things often are complicated, but his description of the complications teaches us very little.)   Among other things he didn't meaningfully address the huge issue of excessive standardized tests and the use (or misuse) of those in evaluating teachers.]

Was School Too Hasty in Firing Jesus Solis

Last week's column discussed the Jesus Solis case, in which a popular teacher was accused of touching children sexually and was indicted on 52 felony counts. When those counts evaporated, he essentially pled guilty to hugging kids.

Police and prosecutors eventually reached the right result. No sex crime.
Meanwhile, Solis was fired by the school board.

School board members are non-lawyers. Some were teachers. They want to do the right thing.

Solis's termination hearing was run largely by their legal counsel, who also drew up the notice of firing. It's not illegal for him to perform dual roles; but was it wise? He wasn't required to follow the rules of evidence, and he didn't.

So what was the testimony?

No child testified Solis did anything sexual. No one testified to seeing him do such a thing.
(Superintendent Stan Rounds, who had a second school-hired lawyer as prosecutor, probably could have brought in the little girl or girls allegedly involved. He didn't. Solis's lawyer had apparently made a “gentleman's agreement” with the D.A. not to subpoena the girls without the D.A.'s permission, and he was having trouble reaching the D.A. The school's lawyers refused to give him more time. Months after the alleged event, what was the sudden urgency? Could it have been that the school's lawyers feared the charges would be exposed as hokum? When prosecutors, looking to convict Solis, questioned the first girl and two others who initially supported her, there was nothing there!)

School principal and counselor testified that one day as they finished questioning a girl about alleged lesbian activities or improper conversations on the subject, and the girl knew she was in trouble, she suddenly, out of nowhere, claimed that Mr. Solis, her teacher the previous year, had touched her inappropriately.

Principal and counselor testified they did not particularly believe or disbelieve the alleged victim.

Two teachers who'd taught the girl testified she had a bigger problem with lying than most kids. Witnesses said two other girls felt so strongly that the alleged victim was lying that they went to the principal.

Both sides agreed that at least two dozen witnesses would have testified in favor of Solis.

The prosecution had the burden of proof (though just a preponderance of evidence, not the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard). So what did the prosecution present?

Rounds and an HR guy testified they believed the little girl. Neither man had talked to her.
Rounds testified that if the girl recanted, he'd still fire Solis.
 
Rounds waffled about whether he'd consulted the principal and what she'd said. He testified that the principal's opinion often contributed to such a decision, and he implied that this principal had supported firing Solis. In fact, she didn't, as she testified under oath.

Rounds testified he acted once Solis got indicted. (An indictment describes the charges but isn't actual evidence. Guilt or innocence gets determined in the criminal proceedings that follow the indictment.)

Rounds and the school's lawyer had padded the termination letter with a bunch of other charges that sound minor. Rounds testified these charges alone were enough to fire Solis. But if that's true, why didn't Rounds do it months ago, and save us some money?

The evidence against Solis was hearsay. Unconvincing hearsay, in my view. The school declined to comment, given an imminent appeal and possible litigation.

There's a lot the board didn't hear in the hearing. Here's hoping the board members take a more active role in deciding the appeal. Rubber-stamping a questionable decision could prove costly.

Mr. Solis, his students, and the taxpayers deserve a fair and reasoned decision.
                                                                                    -30-
[The column above -- Part II of II -- appeared today, Sunday, 10 August in the Las Cruces Sun-News.  Part  I, which ran in the paper a week ago sub nom A Conscientious Teacher Put Through Hell, is available at A Sad Story - Part I or by just paging down past these italicized comments below.]
[I mention in the column that the school district authorities declined to talk to me, because Mr. Solis's appeal hearing is coming up soon and because there could also be litigation of some sort.  I mention that to explain why the school's point-of-view isn't set forth in the column, and certainly not to criticize that silence.  With what I've had available, I've tried to write a fair and accurate account -- and, obviously, I think I've managed that.]
[I can only reiterate that the deeper problem -- how to ensure that we give a huge and empathetic ear to the least hint of sexual molestation of kids while avoiding unnecessarily ruining lives of beloved teachers or other adults who've done nothing of that sort -- remains important, subtle, and challenging.]

A Sad Story -- Part I

This is a sad story that needs to be told.

One victim is a good and conscientious teacher named Jesus Solis.

I'm not sure there's a villain.

I won't discuss all the details, or name other names. But one day a troubled young girl was called to the principal's office and questioned about talking in the girls' room about stuff schools don't want 10 or 11 year-olds talking about. She knew she was in hot water. After the principal finished questioning her, the girl suddenly blurted out a claim that a teacher had touched her sexually. As best I can tell, he hadn't. As best the District Attorney's Office could tell, he hadn't. But she told her story, and two other girls initially went along with it.

The story that made the news was that Mr. Solis was charged with 52 felony counts. There was a photograph (probably taken after a night in jail wondering whether anyone would believe he hadn't done it) in which Mr. Solis looks like someone who would do any bad thing the newspaper said he did.

But he hadn't touched the girl sexually, according to the weight of the evidence. The school prejudged him guilty. The police investigated, and eventually he was indicted; but as the police and the DA investigated further, the case unraveled. The girls contradicted themselves, recanted, or changed their stories. There was also strong evidence undermining the first girl's credibility.

Ultimately the DA dismissed all the felonies. Mr. Solis pled guilty to hugging kids. A misdemeanor. Nothing sexual. But hugs that were perhaps unwanted. (I get those, not being a huggy kind of guy, but it's in the culture now; and it was in the culture Mr. Solis grew up in.) The DA was agreeable to a suspended sentence for the hugging.

Meanwhile, although some people who should have known better joined the bandwagon, a lot of teachers, parents, and students stood up for Mr. Solis. He is reportedly a popular and dedicated teacher.

Why do I mention all this? Because the guy whose picture we saw in the paper and whom we each casually judged seems to be a pretty good guy, and we have put him through hell. We the citizens whose School Board failed us and him. We the citizens who judged him based on a headline and a bad photograph. We the audience of news media that saw in this a titillating tale.

I doubt the girl understood what she put Mr. Solis through. She appears to have had a bit of a crush on him, and a lot of confusion about her sexuality. On the day she told her story to the principal, she smiled at Mr. Solis and repeatedly visited his classroom on flimsy excuses. She liked him.

The girl is clearly a victim: of a culture dominated by sexual messaging; perhaps of some predatory teen or adult; and of school administrators so determined to CYA that they ignored the fact that she'd made other questionable statements and allegations. Once she was closely questioned, her factual statements didn't even really amount to much.

The point here is not the girl, who probably deserves sympathy and help. It's not her parents, who supported her vigorously even as her account shrank and lost credibility. (Friends say that's because they love her; others hint that the parents thought a lawsuit against the school could turn their finances around.)

The point is to remind ourselves not to rush to judgment, but allow for what we don't know, and to use this incident to assess how our public institutions performed in a tough situation.

                                                     -30-
[This column appeared Sunday, 3 August, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, under theheadline "Good and Conscientious Teacher Put through Hell by Sex Allegations."]
[As you can imagine, this was a hard column to write.  Two sides [at least!] to the story, and everyone quite convinced that his or her view is The Truth.  Truth is a weird-shaped beast, actually -- nearly as rare as the unicorn, and not always as appealing.  This ain't the first time I've sat in rooms with people on consecutive days hearing diametrically opposed accounts, each delivered passionately and persuasively.  Neither Jesus Solis nor the girl's father would have enjoyed listening to everything I heard about him.  Solis wasn't guilty of molesting kids and got a raw deal here, but that doesn't make Jesus Solis into Jesus Christ.  At the same time, most everyone who looked into this came away believing: that the girl had a reputation for telling stories (a habit you'd figure her parents would have noticed) and that part of the parents' motivation in pushing this was financial.
I spent a lot of time looking into this matter, and have tried to write about a delicate subject fairly and accurately, including enough information for the column to make sense but without adding a bunch of information that would add to anyone's embarrassment.]
[In this extra space, I'll address two questions:
1. Is the DA "soft on criminals?"  Well, I don't think so.  I think the D.A., like most lawyers, wants to win.  Here, Solis was the ideal guy to run right over, an alleged sex offender and thus inherently unpopular in the community.  This would have been an ideal case for the D.A. to use to answer that "soft on criminals" allegation, leveled by political enemies and probably also by people, including victims, who don't fully understand the calculations that necessarily to into decisions on what to charge and which cases to settle at what price.   Sure, people who worked with Solis and kids he taught mostly liked him a lot, but by definition he didn't have any powerful political constituency behind him.  Great case, except for one thing: the facts, as developed by investigators who were not on Solis's side, simply didn't add up to a case with much chance of winning.
By the way, the girl's father says he the D.A. didn't do his job.  He says the case should have been taken to trial.  He has created a website,  https://www.facebook.com/RESTOREJUSTICELC, where you can add your name to his petition on the subject.    I definitely don't share his view, but some readers may.
2. Then did the police screw up?  For the most part, I think not.  Just because a criminal case settles doesn't mean the police were wrong in bringing it.  For one thing, if you have any doubt at all, how do you not want to see further investigation, with advocates for both sides, of a credible allegation of this sort?
I didn't see this case as the investigating detective saw it, or listen as he did to what the witnesses were actually saying and how they were saying it.  I suspect he was also getting some pressure from the parents. Could the truth have been ascertained earlier, sparing the participants -- particularly Solis -- further angst?  I'm reluctant to judge.
Nearly 40 years ago I was a long-haired motorcycle bum who got hired as the Las Cruces Bureau Chief for the El Paso Times.  Once I was riding along with one of the city's first female police officers, to do a feature story on her. We'd picked up a male officer who needed a ride back to his car.  A call came over the radio of a burglary in progress in a residential neighborhood.  Because the male officer happened to be with us, she could take the call.  She did.  We arrived at a dark house in a quiet neighborhood.  I quickly realized that I'd better stay damned close to the two officers, because any back-up officers would instantly assume the long-haired guy was the "perpetrator."   The officers knocked on the door.  No answer.  We went in, and through the living room, and down a dark hallway.   At the far end, on the left, a door opened.  The female officer, in front, moved quickly from the hallway into a vacant room.  I, in the rear, quickly moved from the hallway into a vacant room.  The officer in the middle had no convenient exit, so he crouched and pointed his gun and shouted "Freeze! Police! at the individual who emerged from the opened door.  That individual, a tall, slender Hispanic gentleman, very sleepy, was in fact a friend of the owners whom the owners had forgotten to mention to the neighbors.  Fortunately, his first reaction was to slowly raise his hands as ordered.  But afterward, the officer and I talked.  He was shaking, because he knew how close he'd come to shooting the guy -- or at least, that if the sleepy citizen had made some sudden move, out of fear and confusion, he'd probably have shot him; and for me -- a young fellow with a radical background and quite varied experiences of police officers -- it was a good lesson.  Had the other fellow made some quick and ambiguous motion, and had there been a shooting, I could not have faulted the officer; but I knew that had I not been there, but merely read about the shooting, I might easily have condemned the shooting of an unarmed citizen.] 
[At any rate, what I hope to do in next week's column is to discuss briefly how our institutions -- law enforcement, public prosecutor, and school administration -- performed in this case.]

[I don't usually bother with stuff like this, but someone called "Sound Off" (which, for those from other places, is a feature in the local newspaper in which folks can call in and have their comments, questions, insults, and what-not printed in the paper) and we saw on Thursday this:
"GOODMAN COLUMN> Peter Goodman routinely offers innuendo, rumor, and lazy fact gathering, then draws wild conclusions.  In his latest instance of reckless commentary, he blames the school board and administrators for a person's arrest and indictment as though they, and not police and a grand jury, perform those functions."
One reason I don't usually answer these is my feeling that if someone does you the courtesy of reading what you write, s/he deserves a little respect in return.  However, it's not clear that this person read much more than the headline.  
I'm open to plenty of criticisms.  But how do you accuse me of "lazy fact-gathering"  and relying on "rumors" when I took the time to interview quite a few people and even read actual evidence, which I suspect most folks have not?   How do you get the idea I'm blaming the school board for an indictment when I say no such thing and discuss what the police and prosecutors did?  The school has certain legal obligations when there are allegations of child molestation and the like.  I think that requirement is right, although it can lead to some unfair situations.  I certainly can't fault the school for complying with the law.  Of course you want to separate the alleged wrong-doer from the kids forthwith.  I have serious questions about the school's conduct, and I'll ask them; but for the moment the school has declined to discuss the matter with me because it's still the subject of an administrative appeal within the school system and could be the subject of litigation.  (I'm not criticizing their refusal, just noting it.)
It's possible that the indictment and the withdrawal of all felony counts were each proper exercise of judgment at the time each occurred.  That's sort of how the police and prosecutors see it; the girl's father has made clear he doesn't agree with dropping the sex charges; the teacher might reasonably feel that interviewers should have gotten to what appears to be the truth somewhat sooner, or delayed an indictment.  I reserve judgment.]
[On the other hand, the reader/complainer has this disadvantage: s/he probably hasn't investigated the matter so fully, and although I've tried to be clear and fair, (1) it ain't as if I know everything there is to know either, (2) some of what folks have shared with me was conditioned on my not attributing it to the person, and (3) I resisted including several additional bits of material that, while they were accurate and (in my view) would have made the case clearer, might have unnecessary embarrassed the young girl or her family.]  
 

As you'll read in my next column, I do question the school board's action in firing the guy; but even so, I resist jumping to conclusions: I've seen a lot of evidence, but not everything; and
 

Dodgeball, Anyone ?

Our radio discussions frequently return to a critical problem with education: parents need to care, parents need to participate.

But what happens when they do? 
 
Some years ago, concerned parents resuscitated the parents' group at Desert Hills Elementary School. They organized and ran several large-scale fund-raising events. They were deeply involved in what went on at the school. 
 
The group reportedly did a lot of good. Members raised funds and helped teachers, students, and staff. “It was becoming a family,” said Gena Castillo, who headed up the group.

Then Desert Hills got a new principal, Liz Gonzales, whose people skills allegedly weren't strong. One teacher recently told me that but for the parents' group, she'd have transferred.
Turnover rose dramatically: formerly, one or two of 74 teachers/staff left each year. One teacher was told when she arrived, “You're awfully lucky. People never leave Desert Hills.” Now turnover is more like 18 of 74 – with a few departees reportedly stating they'd have stayed but for Ms. Gonzales.

The school's warmth and unity have reportedly disappeared. 
 
Ms. Gonzales's management style is an issue. During the spring and summer, parents tried repeatedly to get a meaningful response from the school administration. They met with two people from H.R., then Steve Sanchez, and ultimately Superintendent Stan Rounds. They say they got no satisfaction at any level. Almost everyone promised to get back to them. No one really did.

Then on August 5, Ms. Gonzales sent out an email announcing that the Parents' Group was being disbanded, but would be “folded in” to a new School Advisory Committee (“SAC”). She created the SAC without following District rules and regulations. (She reportedly said the School Board or Superintendent Stan Rounds had authorized an exception.)

Regulations state that within the LCPS District, to start an SAC the principal should solicit candidates, announce an election, and hold the election by the end of the academic year. Ms. Gonzales should have started by Spring 2013, to create a democratically-elected SAC for the 2013-2014 academic year. Instead, she created her own.

The SAC is meant to provide outside advice to the principal. By appointing her own rather than having parents vote, Ms. Gonzales undermined the chance for such independent advice. 
 
SAC's are meant to encourage parental involvement in policy matters. The existing group was highly involved, and knowledgeable. The principal placed none of its members on her new hand-picked SAC. 
 
Ms. Gonzalez also allegedly retaliated or tried to retaliate against parents and faculty who spoke up about her. At one point she reportedly demanded a list, with contact information, of all parents who'd attended a certain meeting of just parents. She told teachers not to talk with parents about internal matters at the school. She told a teacher who'd openly criticized her that the teacher would get a “marginally effective” rating under Professionalism on her evaluation, but backed down when the teacher pointed out how that would look. She allegedly offered to raise another teacher's evaluation if the teacher would contradict others' accounts of the problems at the school.

Morale at the school is said to be lower than ever. Superintendent Stan Rounds spoke to the teachers at a special meeting in mid-December, and said his assistant Liz Marrufa would be there to help fix the problems; but one teacher said Ms. Marrufa has been to the school only once since that meeting.

I've never been inside the school. I have no idea who's right. 
 
But whoever's right (or if each side's testimony contains some truth), a serious issue is the apparent failure of the school administration to address these problems candidly and productively. “We just want to be heard,” one parent told me.

Beneath the surface lie other issues, some very serious, that I'm not yet in a position to discuss in a meaningful way. (I invite teachers or parents with useful information to contact me.) 
 
And I'm hoping to discuss with Mr. Rounds some of what he said to the Desert Hills teachers on December 12^th, and what follow-through has occurred.

Two things happened as I was writing this column: a parent spoke about this issue to Tuesday's regular school board meeting; and Ms. Gonzales provided a great example of just what parents had complained of in the way of non-responsiveness.

I called. She called back. She very politely said nothing substantive. She asked that I call back at a certain time the next morning. I did. Didn't get her. I called twice more. No call back. That evening I got a call from Eric Montgomery, a parent new to Desert Hills. He's on the new SAC. He knew nothing about the issues I'd been interested in, but said that the SAC was accomplishing good things and always seeks additional parental involvement.

However, he hadn't even heard of the December 12^th meeting or the serious problems discussed there by Rounds, which suggested the school hadn't disclosed to the SAC things the old parents' group had known.

Dodgeball, anyone?
                                                             -30-
[This Sunday column appeared in the Las Cruces Sun-News on 26 January, 2014.]
[Writing this column, I'd have preferred to hear from Ms. Gonzales her views on these issues.  Even when I spoke with Mr. Montgomery, who seemed like a concerned, candid, and well-intentioned parent, I urged him to point out to Ms. Gonzales that I was interested in presenting a balanced column; but she never chose to present her side, or even call back to explain that for some reason she shouldn't or that I should talk to someone else or whatever.  Frankly, she started sounding a whole lot like the non-responsiveness that  others had described to me.]
[I do know that one issue that helped create or deepen the rift at Desert Hills was the handling of the suspension of a fourth-grade teacher accused of sexual misconduct.  He was reportedly very popular with his students.  While it's not clear that anyone questions his suspension, the students (who saw him there one day and gone the next, with no explanation whatsoever, not even that there were legal issues administrators weren't allowed to explain yet) were understandably unsettled.  (So were some teachers.)  According to one source, Principal Gonzales was surprised to hear that the teacher's disappearance troubled the students.  If true, that would seem a symptom of being insensitive or out of touch with her students.]
[In any case, there's reason to suspect that there are several interesting stories here that demand to be looked into.  I'm particularly interested in the specific causes (and results, if any) of the December 12th meeting Superintendent Rounds had with teachers at Desert Hills.]