A close-up look at NYC education policy, politics,and the people who have been, are now, or will be affected by these actions and programs. ATR CONNECT assists individuals who suddenly find themselves in the ATR ("Absent Teacher Reserve") pool and are the "new" rubber roomers, people who have been re-assigned from their life and career. A "Rubber Room" is not a place, but a process.
The Los Angeles police department is moving toward charging celebrated teacher Rafe Esquith with one count of inappropriate touching of a juvenile,
LA School Report has learned.
The single charge could come within a few weeks after being reviewed by the city attorney and U.S. district attorney’s offices, said LAPD Captain Julian Melendez, head of the juvenile division of the police department.
“The results came from information passed on to us by the LAUSD investigation, and we conducted our own interviews and investigation,” Melendez told LA School Report.
Esquith was LAUSD’s most renowned teacher, winner of national and international awards, author of books about teaching and founder of the
Attorney Mark Geragos filed a $1 billion class-action lawsuit on behalf of Esquith and other teachers against LAUSD to stop the teacher jail practice.
That lawsuit alleges that teachers were deprived of pension and health benefits by forced resignation or unfair dismissal by the district.
Ben Meiselas of Geragos’s office denied all of the charges against Esquith and said LAUSD continues “an obvious witch hunt.” He pointed out that no student or parent has ever made any allegations against the teacher. He also said that several former students have hired attorneys and will be bringing lawsuits
against LAUSD for the harassment and abuse inflicted on them by LAUSD investigators.
Neither Meiselas nor Geragos could be reached for comment about the possible criminal charges against Esquith.
When LAPD detectives looked into the district’s allegations they found that some of the potential charges were beyond the statute of limitations, and some
of the witnesses refused to give statements, Melendez said.
Melendez said that his department would not be investigating any potential monetary fraud or inappropriate emails that were also mentioned in the
Melendez acknowledged that the investigation initially started from a complaint of a reading from a passage of Mark Twain‘s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,”and that led to other allegations.
The police department said that officers tried to speak to Esquith’s attorney Geragos, but found that he was on vacation.
An LAPD spokesperson said the department would most likely issue a press statement when the charge is filed.
Re-posted from Parentadvocates.org Rafe Esquith may have collected more accolades over the years than any other
teacher in America....But this year has seen Esquith embroiled in a controversy
with the Los Angeles Unified School District — one that continues to unfold and
which threatens to attach a far more nefarious set of labels to Esquith’s name.
Esquith was removed from his classroom in April and subsequently terminated in
October after an investigation was launched into allegations of misconduct. It
started with a complaint about a nudity joke that Esquith made to his students,
but has since ballooned to include a slate of other allegations about
inappropriate behavior, often of a sexual nature, in a school setting. SEE:
JUST IN: LAPD confirms ‘ongoing investigation’ of Rafe Esquith
‘How is my favorite Hottie?’ Documents allege
years of sexual misconduct by famous L.A. teacher.
By Yanan Wang December 9, 2015 LINK
Updated with response from Esquith’s lawyers
Rafe Esquith may have collected more accolades over the years than any other
teacher in America. His honors include Disney’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year
Award, the National Medal of Arts and Oprah Winfrey’s $100,000 “Use Your Life
Award.”
A fifth-grade teacher of three decades at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School in
the Los Angeles Unified School District, the gregarious Esquith, 61, was known
for devoting long hours to his classes, comprised largely of low-income
immigrant children from in and around Los Angeles’s Koreatown neighborhood, and
pioneering innovative teaching methods that he popularized in acclaimed books.
This sterling record led The Washington Post’s education columnist Jay Mathews
to proclaim Esquith “America’s Best Classroom Teacher” in 2007.
But this year has seen Esquith embroiled in a controversy with the Los Angeles
Unified School District — one that continues to unfold and which threatens to
attach a far more nefarious set of labels to Esquith’s name.
Esquith was removed from his classroom in April and subsequently terminated in
October after an investigation was launched into allegations of misconduct. It
started with a complaint about a nudity joke that Esquith made to his students,
but has since ballooned to include a slate of other allegations about
inappropriate behavior, often of a sexual nature, in a school setting.
New documents released by L.A. Unified late Tuesday to The Washington Post and
first reported by the Los Angeles Times extensively detail years of allegations
against Esquith, starting from when he was still a teenager working with
schoolchildren at the Westside Jewish Community Center. Most of the allegations
deal with Esquith’s time at Hobart, including snippets of innuendo-laden email
messages he allegedly sent to female students no older than 14.
Esquith’s lawyers, Mark Geragos and Ben Meiselas, responded Wednesday to The
Post’s earlier request for comment, calling the allegations “discredited and
baseless” and saying they had been “cherry picked …. No student, or parent, to
this day, has ever made any allegation against Mr. Esquith …. The school
district instead invaded the homes and colleges of these students demanding
that they say something negative about Mr. Esquith and threatening to return if
they did not.” Their entire response can be viewed here.
According to the Los
Angeles Times, which originally reported the story, Geragos sent
L.A. Unified a letter prior to the document release accusing the district of
generating a “fraudulent narrative” and calling the documents L.A. Unified’s
“latest effort to smear.”
After he was terminated in October, Esquith filed a $1 billion class-action
lawsuit on behalf of nearly 2,000 teachers against the district. The complaint
alleges that L.A. Unified practices age discrimination by disproportionately
removing teachers nearing retirement age from their classrooms and placing them
in a kind of administrative limbo Esquith calls “teacher jail” in an effort to
compel them to resign without receiving a full pension and health benefits.
Though Esquith has not been charged with any crimes, the teacher presented in
the school district’s 66 pages of documents and records bears little
resemblance to the one beloved by the public: a generous man who nurtured a
love of learning in his students and compelled them to be moved to tears by
“Huckleberry Finn,” as shown in a 2005 documentary about his annual class
Shakespeare productions.
The documentary portrayed Esquith as “a genius and a saint,” as the New York
Times explained when the film aired on PBS. Now L.A. Unified contends the
legendary teacher is something quite different.
From 2008 to 2015, the L.A. Unified documents claim, Esquith inappropriately
touched female students, made sexual jokes to students and kept his 5th grade
students after school to watch movies depicting nudity and sexual intercourse.
The most disturbing allegations, however, come in the form of emails that
Esquith supposedly sent to adolescent former students.
“Hey beautiful…another terrific day…hope you are getting ready for a
sleepover,” the teacher allegedly wrote to a 14-year-old former student. The
documents claim that Esquith maintained a frequent correspondence with the
student for over a year starting in 2012, writing from a district-issued
computer using a personal email address.
The messages were laced with sexual suggestiveness. “You’re soooooooooooo fine,”
Esquith allegedly wrote. “You are stuck with me forever!”
The female student, who at one point wrote, “I’m not lusting,” expressed
confusion in many of her responses, and insisted that she was not interested in
dating anyone at her age. To these protestations, Esquith allegedly said, “You
know many things, and are a fabulous student. But you do not understand men and
their wants and desires. You are their dream come true.”
According to the documents, Esquith maintained similar communications with
other students over the years, and on several occasions alluded to giving them
money to cover various expenses. In emails to a 13-year-old former student, he
allegedly signed off as “Your favorite ATM.” He also told the student, whom he
addressed as “Supermodel,” that he would cover the cost of her uniforms and
additional classes.
“It sounds like books/uniforms/classes will run about 1800,” Esquith wrote, the
documents claim. “…I don’t get to relax, but seeing your pretty face is even
better! Do not worry about movies and giving them back. Just enjoy and know I
love you.”
In another email, he purportedly asked, “How is my favorite Hottie?”
The documents also include allegations from former students — now adults — who
recalled that Esquith fondled two boys and two girls in the 1970s and 1990s.
One man stated that while babysitting him as a 9-year-old, Esquith rubbed his
genitals, punched him and slammed his head against the floor, threatening to
kill his mother if the child told anyone about the incident.
Another man reported a similar encounter while Esquith was babysitting him.
According to the man, who was 8 years old at the time, Esquith told him to
sleep naked and squeezed his penis in the middle of the night.
[Opinion: L.A. district continues to persecute one of the nation’s best
teachers]
L.A. Unified has expanded its investigation to include a look at the Hobart
Shakespeareans, a nonprofit run by Esquith that funds his class’s annual play
and field trips to Washington, D.C., Mississippi, New York and Yosemite
National Park.
According to the Hobart Shakespeareans website, all the children at Hobart
qualify for free breakfast and lunch, and few speak English as a first language
(the school is predominantly Asian and Latino). “Many are from poor or troubled
families,” the site says.
Sir Ian McKellan, the renowned Shakespeare actor, has made visits to Esquith’s
class and joined in their readings.
“You can’t watch the little actors without wanting to cry,” McKellan is quoted
saying on Hobart Shakespeareans page. “Why do you cry? I suppose it’s
happiness, really, and a regret that not all the children in the world could
have a Rafe Esquith for a teacher.”
In contrast to his public image and reputation, L.A. Unified’s documents paint
a portrait of Esquith as quick to offer cash to his low-income students in
order to win their favor and, in some cases, have something to hold over them.
In one email exchange with a 14-year-old former student, Esquith appears to be
accusing another former student of being ungrateful for receiving financial
help from him in the past.
He wrote, according to the document:
I saw J(redacted name) walking down Harvard with H[redacted name]. J, who…I got
a full scholarship to Willows. Paid her hospital bill when she was hurt. Paid
for 2 years of drum lessons. Took to Ashland, Washington DC, and Idaho. Spent
two years of Saturdays teaching her. Took to the Magic Castle. Took to
Disneyland twice for 3 days. I called out, ‘Hi J!’ And she ran away.
L.A. Unified also cites fellow teachers at Hobart who say they witnessed
Esquith engaging in inappropriate behavior. Jay Gowan, a fourth-grade teacher,
allegedly walked in on Esquith tickling his female students. Esquith stopped
after he noticed Gowan. Another time, Gowan witnessed Esquith point to one of
his female students and say that she “loved green M&Ms because they made
her horny.”
Back in April, Esquith described his removal from his classroom at Hobart as an
injustice. “We overreact to everything,” he told the L.A. Times this past
summer. “That’s the American way and I’m a victim of that overreaction. I want
to fix this system.”
His supporters — including students, parents and teachers — were outraged that
he had been taken out of the classroom, holding rallies in which they invoked a
mantra that Esquith taught them: “Be nice, work hard! Reinstate Rafe!”
This was before specific details of L.A. Unified’s investigation surfaced. The
documents released this week under the California Public Records Act are the
most comprehensive account of the allegations against Esquith to date.
L.A. Unified has recently handled multiple
cases of sexual misconduct from teachers and administrators, paying
$139 million last year to victims at Miramonte Elementary School after the
accused teacher was allowed to stay in the classroom.
Yanan Wang is a reporter on the Morning Mix team.
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jls1110
12/9/2015 9:42 PM EST
Part 4
I can assure you that in those 2 years, he has NEVER touched us in a SEXUAL
way, nor did I feel threatened by him in any way. The tickling it happened
maybe once or twice in the whole year and it was just horsing around. He never
touched us anywhere besides the sides of your tummy to tickle us to
death…..again to get a reaction from us….he thought it was hilarious.
The comment about “surf the net for porn like we always do” obviously it was
sarcasm and he told the teacher “it’s a joke” come on. It really was a joke. If
you knew him, you could imagine the tone of voice he would say it in. Of course
they wouldn’t surf for porn and the firewall on LAUSD’s computers don’t even
allow us to do that anyways, I think. We can’t even go on Youtube for God’s
sake.
About showing videos of a sexual nature, I do remember him showing us Romeo and
Juliet but that was after we read the play in FULL, and Juliet was topless at
one point in the movie but he warned us of that beforehand and those that felt
uncomfortable didn’t have to watch, I think there was a parent consent form. He
wasn’t showing us porn, and he didn’t show us Romeo and Juliet for the fun of
it, it was after a culmination of reading the Shakespeare play, like he did
with other plays and books, such as To Kill a Mocking Bird, Henry V, Othello,
etc. It was the 1968 version where film critic Roger Ebert gave 4/4 and said,
“I believe Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet is the most exciting film of
Shakespeare ever made" and Rotten Tomatoes critics gave a 97% Fresh
rating. So, how horrible of Rafe Esquith to have exposed me to this great film
of all time?
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jls1110
12/9/2015 9:41 PM EST
Part 3
I even remember he used to tell us, “Don’t eat the green M&Ms because it’ll
make you horny”. I have no idea why he said that, I feel like he said there was
research on that color and horniness? But I’m just sharing that story because
he said it in a joking tone of voice and we would giggle, probably wonder if
that’s true, not even knowing what horny meant, but we didn’t take it seriously
and he would say those kinds of things and we didn’t think twice about those
jokes.
Now as an adult looking back, I personally wouldn’t say that but that’s just my
own personality. His personality is to joke around about everything….his main
objective seemed to be to elicit an embarrassed response from us because he
thought it was the funniest thing. He loved SNL, David Letterman, Seinfeld, so
his sense of humor was a bit racy perhaps along the lines of SNL/Letterman
jokes perhaps. But in 5th grade, I also watched SNL, Letterman, Seinfeld late
at night, so it wasn’t anything I didn’t already hear on TV everyday. Am I
forever scarred by those jokes where we all laughed as a class, whether we got
the joke or not? No. Am I going to now try and sue LAUSD for Rafe making
inappropriate jokes long ago, no. Does that make him a pedophile? No. Does that
make him a creep? No. Fine, maybe his Principal or fellow teacher should’ve
told him, hey, you should knock it off, those jokes are not kid-friendly…but
does that mean he doesn’t even get a warning and should be fired and lose his
pension? NO. He is THE BEST, most HARD-WORKING teacher I know. He didn’t use
good judgment perhaps, but it doesn’t warrant him being smeared like dirt by
the LAUSD after 30 years devoting his life to enriching the lives of inner city
kids.
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jls1110
12/9/2015 9:40 PM EST
Part 2
These snippets of ALLEGED inappropriateness released by the LAUSD are,
remember, THEIR findings. So from the thousands of emails he must have, since
we started using email in the 90s, they are only releasing the ones that they
combed through by their “Tiger Investigation Team” to smear his name. So what
there are 3 or 4 emails out of thousands of email exchanges that they deem
“inappropriate”.
But, you guys don’t know Rafe like we, the students, knew and know him. He is
brilliant, talented, all of those things. But he is also a big jokester,
prankster, sarcastic, pretty much has a good sense of humor. When you read in
the media, that in his email, he called a 14 year old, hottie, I’m sorry, but
so what? That is just what he called all of us. He rarely used our names. We
got nicknames the first day of class and he would greet any of us “Hey hot
stuff” “Hey hottie, how’s it going?” This was not said to us in private, it was
said casually, like hey you, how are you? He didn’t mean anything by it people!
We would all laugh because it was silly and he just liked the reactions he
would get from us, because we were so shy. He was constantly joking around, the
type of guy that would say, ok Ladies and Germs. He would say things like Heads
I Win, Tails You Lose, and we would be so confused….and he would think it was
hilarious. He enjoyed getting that reaction.
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jls1110
12/9/2015 9:37 PM EST
As a former student of Rafe Esquith for 2 years, I just want to say he is THE
BEST teacher, bar none. Not only for the world-class education, but for the
life-changing experiences (trips to D.C., Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Yosemite
National Park, Disneyworld, San Diego Shakespeare Festival) and for planting in
me, a dream, for believing in me even when I couldn’t see beyond the
poverty-stricken life I had with my immigrant family. If he cared about me more
than just another teacher, THANK YOU for making me feel special, for building
in me self-confidence, for investing in my life, caring for my emotional
well-being, and for my future. If spending extra hours after school and before
school to introduce me to Shakespeare and to have me perform it, classical
music (teach me to play on guitar and take us to Hollywood Bowl), the Beatles,
Seurat, Mondrian, Van Gogh, classical literature like Dickens, Anne Frank, A
Separate Peace, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 454, etc as a 10 year old whose parents
never even went to high school, then THANK YOU Mr. Esquith for crossing the
boundaries and caring too much for your students. I will never forget my
experience and no teacher, no one person, has ever come even close to caring
that much about me.
And now, isn’t it interesting how the LAUSD who is always trying to cover up
their scandals, are all of a sudden “releasing” THEIR investigation findings
against Rafe Esquith, who is by the way heading a class action lawsuit for $1
BILLION? LAUSD does not want to lose this case or maybe even hoping he or his
lawyer will decide to drop the lawsuit. They don’t have $1 Billion. So now what
is the motivation of these cherry-picked leaks.
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NeIlachapman
12/9/2015 8:46 PM EST
When are folks going to realize that you can't identify these predators? You
have to ensure that there is never one adult alone with a child - period.
The BSA addressed this a few years ago with "two deep leadership"
rules. It's the only protocol that makes sense.
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jhb8426
12/9/2015 11:07 PM EST
Yeah, that "two deep leadership" really works well doesn't it. Pedoes
still get into BSA leadership positions and cause problems. The main problem is
no one wants to report that nice guy, maybe we just misunderstood his actions.
LikeReply
KBlit
12/9/2015 5:42 PM EST
Welllllll there was the math teacher in Stafford County who was having sex with
students but the District did not want to fire as math teachers are hard to
find. A lot of teachers who are guilty of this stuff are just moved from school
to school until their actions become impossible to hide.
December 9, 2015
LAUSD HITS NEW LOW IN WITCHUNT AGAINST TEACHERS
Mark Geragos and Ben Meiselas, attorneys for internationally renowned teacher
Rafe Esquith, have issued the following response: LAUSD, which is run by
Superintendent Ramon Cortines who (1) used $350,000.00 in tax payer money to
settle his own crotch-grabbing lawsuit, and (2) who defends a policy in
California Courts that the age of consent for his students with teachers is 14
years old, has hit a new low by its own exceedingly low and perhaps
non-existent standards.
The release of discredited and baseless allegations with no validation in law
or any court, and the piecemeal out-of-context release of an email from a
graduate from years ago, reflects the depths of retaliation and retribution
from LAUSD on its last throes of existence due to the class action brought
against it by thousands of teachers who have been victims to LAUSD teacher
witch-hunts. As an initial matter, Mr. Esquith has never used an LAUSD email
account. This means that LAUSD would have had to hack into Mr. Esquith's
personal AOL Account, without a warrant or notice, and harvested thousands of
emails for over a decade since the account was set up. LAUSD illegally accessed
attorney-client documents and marital documents, and crafted an illegal and
criminal strategy to smear Mr. Esquith by purporting to selectively quote an
email from a graduate from years ago from the hundreds of thousands of emails
that would have been processed. No student, or parent to this day has ever made
any allegation against Mr. Esquith.
In fact, LAUSD's hit squad invaded the homes and colleges of these students
demanding that they say something negative about Mr. Esquith and threatening to
return if they did not. The students had nothing negative to say. Several
former students have hired attorneys and will be bringing lawsuits against
LAUSD for the harassment and abuse inflicted on them by LAUSD investigators at the
direction of Superintendent Cortines. Additionally, LAUSD is a mandatory
reporter under the California Penal Code, Government Code, and Education Code,
to report misconduct to the California Teacher Credentialing Commission which
conducts investigations into teacher misconduct.
The California Teacher Credentialing Commission run by the Governor’s Office of
the State of California, closed its file on May 27, 2015. If LAUSD believed
that an email from 2012, read in context, or an allegation from when Mr. Esquith
was a teenager from 1960 constituted misconduct, they never reported it. This
is because there is no misconduct. Further, the computer instructor Barbara
Hayden, who reported Mr. Esquith for quoting Huck Finn, which began the
witchunt, emailed Mr. Esquith on three separate occasions telling him that she
hoped he returned soon and encouraging his lawsuit against LAUSD. Ms. Hayden
was unaware that LAUSD would use her allegation as pretext for the
witchunt.
Finally, rather than release reports and documents to Mr. Esquith’s attorneys
when they requested it for months, LAUSD rapidly provided documents to the LA
Times in the same way LAUSD introduced the LA Times to the mother of a phony
accuser from the 1960s so they could get a quote. In response to the public
records request, Mr. Esquith demanded that all documents be turned over, and
not LAUSD cherry-picked documents. This includes internal emails from
Superintendent Cortines and from the LAUSD hit-squad team. This includes the
materials submitted by LAUSD to the California Teacher Credentialing Commission
when the allegations were discredited. Mr. Esquith requested all documents
relating to the tactics, the cost to tax payers, and all internal emails
bearing his name be turned over. LAUSD responded that Mr. Esquith would have to
seek a Court Order to release all information. Mr. Esquith was previously
subjected to numerous background checks by the United States Government before
receiving the National Medal of Arts from the United States President. He was
subjected to grueling background checks upon being named Disney’s Teacher of
the Year and Oprah’s Teacher of the Year.
He was subjected to rigorous background checks before being made a Member of
the British Empire. Mr. Esquith has nothing to hide and wants the most
transparency rather than a piecemeal leak of fabricated information by LAUSD to
the LA Times. That said, LAUSD has established a dangerous precedent for all
teachers. Without any case or formal charges pending against them in any forum,
LAUSD will hack into your private email accounts, harass and assault former
students, and rush to turn over illegally seized and fabricated information to
the press. It is now clear that LAUSD, which traditionally objects to public
records requests on privacy grounds, has now forever waived those objections
based on its conduct here. We encourage all citizens to make public records
requests regarding (1) the personnel files for Superintendent Cortines and
General Counsel David Holmquist including but not limited to all allegations of
sexual harassment and abuse brought against them, (2) for all of the internal
emails by LAUSD relating to teacher jail, (3) for all information regarding the
formation and conduct of the LAUSD hit squad team and the goal of divesting
teachers nearing retirement age of their benefits, and (4) for all information
and documents, including internal emails, relating to pending FBI and other
governmental investigations into LAUSD.
Post navigation
Cortines: LAUSD
responded ‘correctly’ in Esquith dismissal
More salacious charges against celebrated teacher Rafe Esquith were released this week, and for the first time LAUSD superintendent Ramon Cortines commented publicly about the case.
At a forum last night, Cortines said he was surprised about the charges but stood behind the district for taking action, once its investigation was complete.
“For me, six months ago it would be hard to believe about a teacher, yet the evidence was there, and yet when we said there was something about it, the school district was highly criticized,” Cortines said. “And now it has been proven that the school district indeed did handle it correctly.”
The case led to Esquith’s dismissal and a $1 billion lawsuit against LAUSD filed by lawyers on his behalf, seeking to end the district’s “teacher jail” program.
One of Esquith’s lawyers, Ben Meiselas, denied all of the charges against Esquith and said the release of the documents continues “an obvious witch hunt” by the district.
“The release of discredited and baseless allegations with no validation in law or any court, and the piecemeal, out-of-context release of an email from a graduate from years ago reflects the depths of retaliation and retribution from LAUSD on its last throes of existence due to the class action brought against it by thousands of teachers who have been victims to LAUSD teacher witch-hunts,” Meiselas said.
He also said the district improperly hacked into the teacher’s personal email account.
“No student, or parent – to this day – has ever made any allegation against Mr. Esquith,” said Meiselas, who instead pointed to the many who have demonstratedon the teacher’s behalf. “In fact, LAUSD’s hit squad invaded the homes and colleges of these students demanding that they say something negative about Mr. Esquith and threatening to return if they did not. The students had nothing negative to say. Several former students have hired attorneys and will be bringing lawsuits against LAUSD for the harassment and abuse inflicted on them by LAUSD investigators at the direction of Superintendent Cortines.”
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Police Department has the information provided by the district and is conducting its own investigation in the juvenile division.
Cortines said, “We are in a business that has humans; we are doing a better screening of all employees, teachers and classified.”
In the latest information revealed after a Los Angeles Times public records request, Esquith was fired on seven charges, including immoral and unprofessional conduct, dishonesty and failure to follow and obey school laws. A 32-page document by the district, dated Sept 30, 2015, outlines its version of the claims, several reflecting accounts from former students. Previously, all the documentation and discussion presented to the school board was held in closed sessions.
The details include when Esquith worked in the after school program of the Westside Jewish Community Center in the mid-1970s. In one instance it says Esquith accused a student of plagiarizing homework and in front of a group of students “slapped ‘M’ in the face, punched ‘M’ in the head and struck ‘M’ with the papers from the assignment.”
The charges also include details of a series of graphic instances in which Esquith was accused of highly improper sexual behavior involving students and teachers, some of it involving sexual contact.
Other charges involve student trips under the auspices of Esquith’s group, the Hobart Shakespeareans. Some trips had 30 students but only the Esquith and his wife as chaperones. The district said Esquith charged the students $100 a month, which was paid directly to the teacher with no receipts given. The teacher told them it was for expenses of the trips.
Teacher Rafe Esquith's misconduct investigation is a high-profile test for LAUSD's 'tiger team' LINK
When a
colleague complained that Rafe Esquith, the most celebrated teacher in Los
Angeles, had made a joke about nudity to his fifth-grade students, the district
called into action a newly formed squad of investigators to get to the bottom
of it.
Internally dubbed the
"tiger team," the unit was created last year in the wake of repeated
sex abuse scandals that had long plagued the nation's second-largest school
district. These investigators were supposed to cut through the bureaucracy's red
tape and investigative backlog and quickly ferret out wrongdoing.
In Esquith, they had
their highest-profile subject and their biggest test.
This week, based on the
unit's investigative efforts, the school board behind closed doors voted
unanimously to fire Esquith.
On Thursday, Esquith
attorney Mark Geragos criticized the inquiry into his client and slammed the
unit as "an investigative hit squad" that was determined to find
wrongdoing by probing, if necessary, into every aspect of an employee's life.
Mark Geragos
District officials
defended the work of its investigators, saying they've brought professionalism
and a faster resolution to complex cases, which is better for teachers and for
students. They said that nearly half of the employees investigated by the unit
returned to their jobs.
The team includes seven
full-time investigators, a supervisor and two forensic specialists. Among them
are former L.A. Police Department detectives and a former investigator with the
L.A. County Sheriff's Department. Three former administrators review their
work, and the unit is headed by Jose Cantu, who's been with the district for
more than 30 years, including 14 as a principal.
Also participating in the
Esquith investigation is an outside law firm, a practice the district has
reserved for especially sensitive cases.
Esquith qualified for
special handling because he is one of the most famous and honored teachers in
America, the subject of articles, a documentary and White House accolades. He's
renowned for coaxing stirring performances of Shakespeare from Latino and Asian
students who live in the working-class neighborhood around Hobart Avenue Elementary
School.
In denouncing the unit,
Esquith's attorneys pointed to how the investigation started: with a review of
a joke about nudity that Esquith made to his fifth-graders in March. Several
weeks later, officials pulled Esquith from his classroom, and he never
returned.
The evidence gathered in
the case is confidential, but district officials outlined allegations in an
August letter to Esquith's attorneys. According to the letter, investigators
were looking into accusations that Esquith improperly touched minors before and
during his decades- long teaching career, that his school computer contained
images and video "of a sexual nature," that he exchanged
inappropriate emails with students, that he threatened a parent and two
students, and that he mishandled a nonprofit through which he funded field
trips and other benefits for students.
Esquith's attorneys said
they were astounded at how a routine review of a harmless joke ballooned into a
sweeping inquiry.
The district has
acknowledged that the unit, formally called the Student Safety Investigation
Team, decided to examine the nonprofit without specific complaints against it.
Officials also insisted that serious allegations emerged that could not be
ignored, and that Esquith was not removed from class because of the joke.
Esquith's attorneys
already are pursuing litigation to reinstate the acclaimed teacher, but on
Thursday they upped the ante. They filed a class-action lawsuit in Los Angeles
Superior Court on behalf of Esquith and other teachers, alleging violation of
due process, age discrimination, whistleblower retaliation and wrongful
discharge.
Esquith's experience,
they contend, is indicative of a larger problem: District officials target
higher-paid, older teachers to strip them of retirement benefits.
"The vast majority
of investigations are based not on student or parent complaints, but rather
upon vague allegations by LAUSD administrators which eventually widen to
encompass a complete audit of a teacher's life and every association,
affiliation, and relationship the teacher has ever had his or her entire
life," according to the complaint. "Teachers with unblemished and
impeccable records … fear for their lives and reputations."
In the process, students
are being mistreated as well, Geragos said at a Thursday news conference. The
unit "basically intimidates and tries to extract statements from students
that they then use for kangaroo-court-style proceedings in order to get people
to resign," he said.
District officials
rejected that characterization, saying in a statement that "investigations
are conducted in a sensitive manner."
The investigative unit
grew out of the 2012 arrest of Miramonte Elementary teacher Mark Berndt, which
led to a flurry of allegations and several prosecutions. At one point, more
than 320 instructors were in limbo after they'd been pulled from classrooms.
The district has since
paid about $200 million in settlements, judgments and legal fees related to
Miramonte and other cases — and took a public-relations beating.
Attorney Brian Claypool,
who represented 18 families in the Miramonte case, said the investigative
team's work is proof that the district learned from the sexual abuse scandal.
"Our goal from Day
One was to make fundamental change to eliminate this systemic failure that
they've had for decades, and we're now seeing a real heartfelt attempt to cure
this problem and to finally put the kids first," Claypool said.
Then-Supt. John Deasy
adopted a zero-tolerance approach that won praise for putting student safety
above all other considerations. But critics said some teachers were fired or
over-punished for relatively minor or unproven infractions.
Esquith is just the
latest victim, said Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews, who has chronicled
Esquith's classroom success.
The district "has
let itself be swallowed up in a witch hunt, with a school board too frightened
by the very mention of molestation to stand up for a great teacher,"
Mathews said. "L.A. schools were making steady improvement, but what energetic
and imaginative teachers are going to want to work in a system that has decided
to sic attack-dog lawyers on anyone who says something that might seem even
mildly offensive?"
The
head of the teachers union, however, said the handling of cases has improved
under the current superintendent. "In Ramon Cortines we have found a
willing partner to address that overreach on the part of Deasy," said Alex
Caputo-Pearl, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.
He put the current number
of suspended teachers at around 100.
He added that provisions
in the new teachers contract provide additional safeguards, but that the union
remains concerned about whether the district is abiding by these commitments in
all situations.
He declined to comment on
Esquith's case.
"We've reached out
and been in contact with Mr. Esquith," Caputo-Pearl said. "He opted
to hire his own private attorney, which is his right. We support his ongoing
efforts to have his due process respected."
Times
staff writer Sonali Kohli contributed to this report.
ESQUITH'S ATTORNEY TURNS DOWN LAUSD 'KANGAROO COURT' HEARING LINK byMike Szymanski
Esquith Attorney Ben Meiselas
In another testy exchange with LA Unified, a lawyer for teacherRafe Esquith said district investigators are asking “loaded questions” of past and present students about theconduct of the teacher.
The district called for a hearing this month with Esquith, who is still on payroll while in “teacher jail,” but the attorney turned down the request, calling such a hearing a “kangaroo court.”
In a letter of response sent yesterday, Esquith’s lawyer,Ben Meiselas, said he was declining the request because it said district investigators would be discussing “your inappropriate conduct.”
“The hearing will be biased, unjust, and will seek only to effectuate the purpose of the witch hunt from the very beginning, which was admitted by LAUSD investigators, which was to destroy Mr. Esquith’s career, as it has done with thousands of other teachers,” Meiselas said.
He said Esquith would not participate in “LAUSD’s kangaroo court system.”
Meiselas said school investigators have “engaged in threatening and harassing conduct toward students and parents in low-income and minority neighborhoods” in asking questions about Esquith, a celebrated teacher who started theHobarth Shakespeareans. He was removed from the classroom after what an assistant teacher thought was an inappropriate reading fromMark Twain.
Meiselas’s letter says that school investigators asked students such questions as have they ever “sat in Mr. Esquith’s lap.”
The district disputed Meiselas’s characterization of the communications with district officials.
In a statement today, the district said it has “endeavored to expedite the investigation of teacher Rafe Esquith to a swift, yet thorough and fair conclusion. Mr. Esquith was not requested to attend a ‘hearing,’ as asserted by his attorney. Rather, he was directed to attend an informal meeting so that he could respond to the allegations made against him.”
The district said those kinds of meetings are conducted before any disciplinary action in the spirit of due process.
“Through his attorney’s letter, Mr. Esquith has flatly refused to comply with this reasonable directive,” the district said. “The District, of course, must investigate serious allegations of misconduct and protect students. It would prefer to accomplish this task with the full cooperation and participation of Mr. Esquith but will take appropriate and responsible next steps regardless.”
Esquith’s legal team has filed a class action lawsuit that lawyers say involves hundreds of teachers who have fallen into what the district calls a “teacher housing” situation while investigations are being done. A Los Angeles Police investigationis also being conducted on the Esquith accusations involving children.
Meiselas said Esquith will no longer do the daily “check-in” as required by teachers in the housed situation.
