Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara Scolds the NYC Department of Education For Not Making Schools Accessible To Disabled Children

Preet Bharara

Preet Bharara calls out city school system in scathing letter

By Jay Goldberg and Yoav Gonen, 

December 21, 2015 | 5:43pm

LINK

After taking down dirty Albany politicians Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos, Preet Bharara has set his sights on the city’s Department of Education.

The Manhattan US Attorney fired off a letter to the Education Department’s general counsel Monday, calling out the city’s school system for still failing — some 25 years after passage of the American With Disabilities Act — to make most elementary school buildings fully accessible to disabled children.

Bharara demands a response that will provide an “outline and timeline of corrective actions that will remedy this unacceptable state of affairs.”

“Our investigation revealed that … the City is still not fully compliant, and children with disabilities and their families are being denied the right to equal access to a public school education,” Bharara said in a statement.

In his damning 14-page letter, he wrote, “Based on the City’s own statistics

and characterizations of its schools, 83% of public elementary schools are not ‘fully accessible’ to people with disabilities and six of the City’s school 

districts … do not have a single school that is ‘fully accessible’ to people with disabilities.”

Continuing to blast the troubling situation, the letter, which came after a two-year probe, added that “children with disabilities are frequently denied the experience that many of their peers take for granted…. Instead, starting in kindergarten, these children are often forced unnecessarily to travel outside of their neighborhoods to schools where there are no familiar faces.”

Bharara also wrote that “the costs of this situation are acutely illustrated, when 

a parent so wants a child … in the local zoned school that the parent is willing 

to go to the child’s school several times a day to literally carry the child up and down stairs.”

In response, the Education Department said that its most recent capital plan earmarked $100 million to accessibility projects.

“Our goal is to ensure that all our students have access to a high-quality education, and a student’s disability should never get in the way of their access to a great school,” said spokesman Harry Hartfield. “We are reviewing the United States Attorney’s letter and remain committed to increasing the accessibility of our school buildings.”

Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children, said the access-problem for the disabled at the city’s elementary schools has been around for too long.

“It’s exciting to see the US Attorney take action,” Sweet said. “It’s been an issue for a long time.”

Most New York City Elementary Schools Are Violating Disabilities Act, Investigation Finds

Benjamin Weiser, New York Times

LINK

A two-year federal investigation has concluded that 83 percent of New York City’s public elementary schools are not “fully accessible” to children with disabilities, in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. 

 In a blistering letter to the Education Department’s top lawyer on Monday, the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said that the investigation also showed that sixschool districts, which serve more than 50,000 elementary students, did not have a single school that is fully accessible.

“Nowhere is it more important to tear down the barriers to equal access than with respect to the education of our children,” Mr. Bharara’s office said. “But today, in New York City, 25 years after passage of the A.D.A., children with physical disabilities still do not have equal access to this most fundamental of rights.”

Mr. Bharara, in a brief statement, said his office had asked the city for a response to the findings, “including an outline and timeline of corrective actions that will remedy this unacceptable state of affairs.”

The 14-page letter gives the city 30 days to provide a response. The investigation had not been previously disclosed publicly.

Harry Hartfield, a spokesman for the Education Department, said the department was reviewing the letter and remained “committed to increasing the accessibility of our school buildings.”

Mr. Hartfield said that the department had been cooperating with the investigation, and that as part of its most recent capital plan, it had set aside $100 million for accessibility projects.

“Our goal is to ensure that all our students have access to a high-quality education, and a student’s disability should never get in the way of their access to a great school,” Mr. Hartfield said.

In the letter, which was addressed to the department’s general counsel, Courtenaye Jackson-Chase, the government said the disabilities law reflected a “comprehensive mandate” to eliminate what had become pervasive discrimination against people with disabilities, which denied them equal access to “critically important government services and programs.”

“Our investigation found that New York City’s elementary schools still are not ‘readily accessible to and usable by’ individuals with disabilities,” Mr. Bharara’s office wrote, “a population which includes not only students, but teachers and family members as well.”

The letter described the effect the violations had on families. Mr. Bharara’s office said that it had spoken with one family that had gone to what the prosecutors called “extreme measures” to keep a daughter enrolled in her local school, rather than subject her to a lengthy commute to the closest “accessible” school.

“A parent of this elementary school child was forced to travel to the school multiple times a day, every school day, in order to carry her child up and down stairs to her classroom, to the cafeteria, and to other areas of the school in which classes and programs were held,” the government wrote.

The alternative for children with mobility impairments was for the students to spend significant time traveling to a school that could accommodate their physical disabilities, the letter said.

“Requiring elementary students with disabilities to travel extensively at the beginning and end of each school day — a condition which is not imposed upon their peers — can impose particularly onerous physical demands on these children,” the government wrote.

The city had also not complied with the requirements of the disabilities law as to alterations made in schools since 1992, when the law went into effect, the letter noted.

In what it described as the most “glaring example of the city’s failure,” the letter cited the construction of an addition to a school in Queens in 2000 that was “riddled with inaccessible features,” like an elevator that was not the proper width, and noncompliant door knobs, bathroom “grab bars,” drinking fountains, sinks and faucets. The school also lacked visual alarms in classrooms, as required.

“The city’s failure to consider the needs of individuals with disabilities when upgrading and renovating its existing facilities is inexcusable,” the government said in the letter, which was signed by two senior lawyers in the office’s civil rights unit, Lara K. Eshkenazi and Jeannette A. Vargas.

Mr. Bharara’s letter was accompanied by a 73-page submission that offered a detailed list of violations in 11 schools across the boroughs, 10 of which the city had designated as “not accessible” and one it described as “functionally accessible.”

But the school designated as “functionally accessible” lacked “certain crucial accessible features,” the letter said, “raising a serious question as to the accuracy of the city’s categorizations.”

In each of the 11 schools, the report said, the investigation identified alterations made after 1992 that were not compliant with the A.D.A., including fire alarm systems, door hardware, toilet partitions, cafeteria seating, main office counters, library furniture and playground areas.

In its letter, Mr. Bharara’s office included four pages of what it said were the “minimum actions necessary” to remedy the violations. As an initial matter, the letter said, the city must develop a comprehensive plan to survey all elementary schools and recommend a systemwide remediation plan to address the lack of accessibility.

“The city should make it a priority to increase the accessibility of the first floors of school buildings and the rooms used by all students, teachers, parents or other visitors to the schools,” the letter said.

 Continue reading the main story

RECENT COMMENTS

bronxteacher

 9 hours ago

Bravo! A first step in this tragic story. I hope he moves his focus to the countless violations occurring every day for our high school age...

RG

 12 hours ago

As Americans we are unwilling to commit adequate resources to education, most students are underserved and the truly talented and gifted...

Lyn

 15 hours ago

My daughter attends a special ed school and yet she can't access the cafeteria or playground - basically the best places to interact with...

·         SEE ALL COMMENTS

LA Teacher Rafe Esquith May Be Charged With Criminal Misconduct Say Los Angeles Police

Rafe Esquith with his students

Should Rafe Esquith be permanently fired despite the fact that by all accounts he is a great teacher?

If the new criminal charges are proven, absolutely.

Betsy Combier
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter

Posts about Rafe Esquith on this blog

More Incriminating Evidence Arises Against LA Teacher Rafe Esquith

Post navigation
JUST IN: LA police say Esquith could face one juvenile crime charge

Posted on December 17, 2015 9:05 am by Mike Szymanski

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 

Hobart Shakespeareans at the school where he taught, Hobart Elementary. 

LA Unified took Esquith out of his classroom in April and held him in the daytime “teacher’s jail” while the school’s Student Safety Investigation 

Team found other allegations and used them to dismiss Esquith.

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 

LAUSD documents for reasons of Esquith’s dismissal.

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.

NYC Gives $25 Million To Boost Arts Instruction

It is always fascinating to watch Carmen Farina at work, pulling a fast one on the public via her photo opps ("opportunities") and newspaper friends. Where money is concerned, there is always someone who is willing to take it for him or herself. Always.

When my youngest daughter was admitted to kindergarten at PS 6 (pictured above) in Manhattan, Carmen was the principal. At the welcoming party for new parents I introduced myself, and she told me that the Annenberg Challenge For The Arts had given $75,000 for 3 years to PS 6 and our sister school, PS 198 on 96th Street, and would I please think about how we at PS 6 could continue to fund the arts after the 3 years were up.

I went home that night thinking that this was a momentous honor, to be asked to help the principal raise funds for the arts. My mom was in the Broadway arena as a benefactor of the theater and Trustee of the Neighborhood Playhouse, so I grew up sort of "on Broadway". I also have my own company, Theater Kids, Inc. Two of my daughters were signed up to sing at the New York City Opera at the ages of 9 and 5, so I consider myself a person of and in the arts.

I designed the Arts Together Community Partnership (ATCP) and brought it to Carmen the next day, or a few days later. She loved it. I became her arts program lead parent, and I also was on the Executive Committee as the "Director" of the ATCP. My one condition was that I would not handle any money, checks, accounting, etc. Nada. Carmen said that was ok.

Carmen Farina

We worked on this project together for two years, and Carmen spent $2000 on the brochures I wrote describing the project which was distributed to the parents, staff and neighborhood. Then, on May 23 2000 after I came home from the Annenberg Conference at Riverside Church in Manhattan to which Carmen had sent me, and where I had asked "where is the money" to the PS 6 Assistant Principal (PS 198 teachers also there had told me at the Conference that they had no information about ATCP or any arts programs), Carmen called me at home and screamed for about 20 minutes vile and insulting accusations about me. I hung up on her.

I have never been given an answer to that question ("where is the money - $225,000- Carmen?").

On or about May 24, 2000 Carmen and parent (and Corporation Counsel Attorney) Jane Gordon threw away the ATCP brochures, I was told. I have 5 of them.

I wrote a report and sent it to Annenberg, and in 2003 they published the Summary findings. I suggested that there be accountability measures more clearly in place to prevent misuse of funds. Without this, the programs would continue to fail.

I wrote this in 2004:
Carmen Farina: Politics Wins With Her Appointment as Deputy Chancellor in New York City

In fact, Carmen told the parents and media back in 1999-2001 that this would "bring the arts back to NYC schools"

What did she say in her photo opp captured by Ben Chapman?

"Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña says the plan has "brought the 

arts back in a very serious way."

Strangely familiar. Follow the money, folks. Know where it is every step of the way!!!!!!

(Ben - are you doubling as Carmen's press person? Your article reads like a press release?)

Betsy Combier, Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter

NYC’s $23M plan introduces 22,000 kids to music, dance, art

Ben Chapman, NY DAILY NEWS

LINK

The city’s $23 million plan to boost arts instruction has introduced about

22,000 public school kids to subjects like music, dance and visual art since 

2014, a report released Wednesday shows.

The Education Department’s report also says the school system has added 

arts teachers to 113 middle and high schools across the city.

The Big Apple’s 1,800 public schools now employ 2,568 teachers who 

specialize in the arts, the report says — the most in a decade.

“We believe that this is fundamentally every student’s right and not just a privilege.”

The report also says 96% of city middle schools offered arts classes in 2015, 

up from 92% in 2014.

Education experts have long believed arts education has a positive influence 

on students in terms of academic achievement and future employment.

The SCOTUS Case Friedrichs v CTA May Be Good For Unions

How the Friedrichs v. Calif. Teachers Association SCOTUS Case Could Actually Be a Boon for Unions

December 16th, 2015 | Shaun Richman

LINK

As unions file their legal briefs in the epic Friedrichs vs.CTA anti-union Supreme Court case, one clever legal scholar argues that Friedrichs is “an unexpected tool for labor.”

University of Chicago Teaching Fellow Heather Whitney’s forthcoming paper in the NYU Journal of Law and Liberty makes a compelling case that an adverse decision in Friedrichs would hand unions a first amendment argument to refuse to represent non-members. And, as I have argued, that is a roadmap to union competition at workplaces, competing demands on individual employers and the end of contractual no-strike agreements.

Chaos, in other words—and just the sort of chaos that this attack on unions deserves in response.

Friedrichs and labor’s response

The FirstAmendment is at the heart of the Friedrichs case. It is a right-wing argument that public sector employers (in other words, the government) violate individuals’ First amendment rights by compelling employees, through contracts negotiated with unions, to pay a fee to a union. Currently, unions that are certified to represent a group of employees in a bargaining unit are legally compelled to represent all of the employees in that unit. That means not just bargaining on their behalf, but expending significant resources on grievances, meetings, communications and everything else that goes into running a union.

But union membership, including the payment of dues, is completely voluntary. That’s why unions negotiate agency fees into contracts. These fees are calculated through complicated formulas to only represent the true cost of bargaining representation. Agency fees do not pay for things like political activity (unions usually have separate voluntary political funds).

But the Friedrichs case argues that any interaction that a union has with the government, including bargaining, is inherently political. Agency fees, therefore, are compelled political activity.

This ridiculous argument is only before the Supreme Court now because Justice Samuel Alito inserted the issue into last year’s otherwise unrelated Harris Vs. Quinn case. That case was only a partial defeat for unions, as Alito lacked the fifth vote to totally do away with agency fee in the public sector. In his written decision, Alito basically solicited for someone to bring a case with exactly Friedrichs’ set of facts, and it has raced up to the Supreme Court. This is the stuff of a vast right-wing conspiracy.

Unions have mounted an excellent legal case, backed up by a broad array of supporting briefs. A ruling against the unions would reverse a 37-year-old precedent. The Supreme Court is supposed to be guided by the principal of stare decisis, which is essentially to let long-settled precedent stand. And finally, the case will be decided in the middle of a presidential election that is already turning on questions of inequality and workers rights. In his handling of the Obamacare and gay marriage cases, Chief Justice Roberts has shown that he does seem to care about his legacy. Would he support such a nakedly partisan political move by his Court in this election cycle?

So, on the facts, on the law and on the politics, unions really ought to win this case. And, to be clear, agency fee and exclusive representation are worth defending. They create the conditions for tremendous worker power at workplaces that have both.

But if unions lose agency fee, then exclusive representation no longer makes sense. This is not simply because of the free-rider problem that will drain union resources. It is because exclusive representation is essential to labor peace, and a Friedrichsruling that guts union rights is the clearest signal that the billionaire class does not want—nor does it deserve—any kind of peace.

Labor’s First Amendment rights

If the Supreme Court rules that every interaction that a union has with its government employer is inherently political, Heather Whitney argues in her article, then that would open the door to unions claiming their own First Amendment right—to choose who they represent. In other words, if agency fee is compelled speech, then the duty of exclusive representation imposed on unions is also compelled speech.

Imagine a group of registered nurses at a public hospital who want to bargain for much larger raises than the rest of the members of the bargaining unit. Or imagine a group of young workers who want to bargain away pensions in exchange for larger salaries in the here and now. (Forget for the moment that both scenarios are just bad unionism.) Once these contract demands are considered by the Court to be political speech, then the fact that these workers are compelled by the government to represent workers who disagree with them, and who could outvote them, is a violation of their First Amendment rights!

I’ll also point out that unions’ rights to freely engage in actual political speech is already impeded by the duties of exclusive representation. Unions are politically cautious and loathe to wade into non-economic controversies for fear of alienating a segment of their bargaining unit. For instance, most unions were slow to oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for fear of alienating bargaining unit members who were veterans or who had children in the military. Even in a so-called “Right to Work” state, those people may not be members but they could still express their displeasure by voting to decertify the union. Does that not coerce unions into more limited political activity?

This is not an abstraction. The day after the Friedrichs decision, if the Court kills agency fee by making all public sector union work “political,” does anybody doubt that the first time a non-member walks into a union office with a grievance that she will be told, “Join the union or get the hell out of our office?” And then we’ll be off to the races with a case that will go to the Supreme Court to revisit exclusive representation in the public sector without agency fee.

Then, the only question would be whether the government has a “compelling interest in requiring unions to negotiate and grieve their nonmembers’ complaints without receiving just compensation.” And here scholarship would demonstrate that it has been the employers’ preference to deal with one exclusive representative because it is easier for them, and, as Whitney writes, “convenience is no response to whether exclusive representation is properly tailored to the government’s legitimate interest.”

Breaking the peace

So far, we’re just talking about public sector unions because having the government as employer, Alito’s right-wing conspirators argue, converts all of the activities of those unions into inherently political acts. But if this Friedrichs logic takes hold, then arguably having the government—in the form of the National Labor Relations Board—compel unions to represent workers they would choose not to (and perhaps vice versa) might become unconstitutional as well.

Currently, the NLRB will only certify unions as exclusive representatives of all of the workers in a bargaining unit, and only if the union can win a majority vote. This is often an insurmountable threshold for unions to reach in the face of intense employer opposition. In his 2005 book The Blue Eagle at Work,  law professor and labor law expert Charles J. Morris documented that in its early history the NLRB used to certify minority unions as the bargaining agent for their members only. Morris argued that this pathway was still technically open to unions to gain a foothold at a workplace and legally compel an employer to recognize a non-majority union.

The modern NLRB has dodged efforts by unions to get an advisory ruling on Morris’ theory. But if the Friedrichs logic holds, private sector unions may have a First Amendment challenge to the NLRB’s continued refusal to grant certifications for just the members they choose to represent.

And that, if you’ll follow me down this rabbit hole, could spell the end of contractual no-strike clauses. They would simply be unenforceable in an environment of competing, non-exclusive, members-only unions. Workers would simply drop their union memberships to participate in wildcat job actions. Or else join new workplace organizations that have not signed agreements committing to labor peace.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have any fantasy of some huge wave of potential strike actions that would occur tomorrow if only the enraged working class would stop being “repressed” by current union leadership and our current collective bargaining agreements. But these no-strike clauses go well beyond total shutdowns of production to include all manner or slow-downs, work-to-rule and refusal to carry out selective duties.

Any experienced union rep reading this can recall at least one incident of having to talk his members off a ledge—out of refusing a new duty or clocking out for lunch at the same time. These actions would be concerted protected activity in a non-union workplace, but under a “no-strike” contract could result in all participants legally getting fired. How the hell are we supposed to get workers who don’t enjoy union protection fired up about taking action against their bosses, when their unionized peers can’t set any kind of example in terms of actually enjoying their supposed protections?

It’s funny that the First Amendment could make this possible. Union rights in this country are not constitutionally rooted in the First Amendment, but in Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce—which is one of the reasons that our labor laws make no damn sense. So, yes, Friedrichs could be a useful tool for labor by finally connecting our work to our rights of free speech and free assembly.

But if you’ve followed me down this rabbit hole and are starting to get a little excited about a possible post-Friedrichs world, let me give you an “on the other hand.” Heather Whitney’s First Amendment argument for ending the duty of exclusive representation would come before a Court that would not be weighing it against a long-established precedent as Roberts’ Court is considering Freidrichs. It will be weighing the argument against a very recent Court decision.

If labor successfully causes enough chaos of the nature I’m driving at—or even poses a credible threat to do so—don’t be surprised if the Supremes try to put the lid back on Alito’s can of worms.

SHAUN RICHMAN

Shaun Richman is a former organizing director for the American Federation of Teachers. His Twitter handle is @Ess_Dog.

MORE BY SHAUN RICHMAN

·         How the Friedrichs v. Calif. Teachers Association SCOTUS Case Could Actually Be a Boon for Unions

·         Labor Law Is Failing Us. It’s Time To Push for a New Labor Act.

·         How a ‘Right to Your Job’ Law Could Help Unions Fight Back Against ‘Right to Work’

·         The Promise and the Peril of Members-Only Unions

Rebecca Friedrichs, Harlan Elrich and Others Want To Stop Paying Dues To the California Teachers Union For Political Activities

More Incriminating Evidence Arises Against LA Teacher Rafe Esquith

Rafe Esquith

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

LINK

Here are the charges 

 Disclosures cast new light on LAUSD's probe of teacher Rafe Esquith    Editorial 

‘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.

World-famous teacher files $1 billion lawsuit against Los Angeles schools to end ‘teacher jail’

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.”

(L.A. teacher files claim against school district after being removed from classroom)

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.

LikeReplyShare
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?
LikeReplyShare
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.
LikeReplyShare
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.

LikeReplyShare
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.

LikeReplyShare
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.
LikeReplyShare
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

Posted on December 10, 2015 2:22 pm by Mike Szymanski

LINK

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.