The Infighting is hurting our children!

Remember how the D11 community was informed by indignant unionites and other status quo supporters that school board debates were taking the focus off of education and hurting "the children?" Remember how we were told that there are never any disagreements in the district and that the only people who ever argued were reform board members? Remember how the recall election was going to allow stressed out teachers to focus on "the children?"

We have already seen on this blog that there is much discord within the labor union among people who are supposed to focus their energy on students. All of the following entries were posted on the online Gazette after the Sean Paige editorial in which he detailed the labor union strife. As you can see, there is no love between warring factions of the teachers' labor union.

What about the kids, guys? What about the kids?


Good job of presenting the issue about the union without your usual union bashing, Sean. I'm sure the teachers that are represented by the union will be more careful to watch over their leadership because of this.
impressed - May 24, 2007 11:42:49 AM


Gotta love the union people using the gazette like a political tool. These are the unforgivable travesties that should get our president impeached? Pathetic. Obviously their hatred of Irma trumps their love of kids. Sad, but very typical of those willing to engaged in open warfare over menial microscopic issues. Ironically, people who like to burn down forrests many times don't realize that they could be standing right in the middle of the blaze themselves. Is that membership numbers I smell burning?
Ammo to the enemy - May 24, 2007 09:26:15 PM


You have to love the educrats in their continuing defense of the those that have done so much damage to our education system, like the unions. If you call them out, like Sean often does, as the destructive force they are, you are bashing them. Nice. Remember folks these union bosses are the ones teaching your kids, in fact that is where Irma is now headed back to, the classroom! These people have made our district a laughing stock and run it into the ground. Get your kids out now!
Lisa - May 25, 2007 08:12:26 AM


Misappropriating a thousand dollars is not menial or trivial, Big Lie. Valerio abused the teachers trust by commanding a salary of six figures, which is simply obscene. And she still has to misappropriate funds to pad her pocketbook more. She had to overspend her own budget by over half. Although I doubt that a forest fire has been sparked, if it has, it's due to Valerio's greedy self centeredness. Talk about a narcissistic personality!
Sherlock - May 25, 2007 10:54:50 AM


I see that you're not above using the Gazette yourself, Ammo. See, that was the problem all along, the leadership was always in the right and honorable position when thay acted, and all others were dishonorable if they dared to oppose tham. In that sense, Eric and Craig were on target for attacking the union mentality. The membership numbers will burn if those that want to blindly follow the leader continue to do so. An association should not be about leadership, but the members. Although I am concerned for those that choose to leave, I know that in the end the association will recover and represent the members in a more personal and caring way than has been modeled in the past year. You might want to don a firesuit yourself while criticizing the fire that you are standing in.
T for Tat - May 25, 2007 11:18:33 AM


There is absolutely no perspective in this thing. Irma would have been out in a year anyway, but that wasn't good enough. The political operatives wanted a carcass, so they got one. Now that they've gotten what they wanted, they don't know what to do. Where do they go, what enemy do they attack now? I suspect they will begin wars with each other soon. These CSEA politicos have forgotten the lessons of Shakespeare's Richard the Third. I give them a year and then they'll be selling their little kingdoms for little horses to ride away with to fight little issues in little towns elsewhere.
micro viewpoints - May 25, 2007 02:23:15 PM

The tangled web grows

Colorado Springs Education Association labor union executive board member Lori Watson contributed her opinion in the two previous articles dealing with the labor union scandal. She ended one of her posts by declaring that there was no "drama" to be found in the union spat. Another "anonymous" union member wrote in, also, and between Lori and this other member, we received clarification as to the turmoil in the local political machine.

Despite the clarification, there does appear to be more to the labor union story than was released. This should not be surprising. The labor union members are under orders to keep this scandal as quiet as possible. None of the members will say anything to Gazette reporter Shari Griffin for fear of retaliation by labor union bosses. It appears that the internal labor union discord goes beyond the issue of "misuse of public funds."

The following email was sent to fellow labor union members by teacher Sandra Cox. Sandra is not related to me in any way, and she did not forward this email to me.

From: COX, SANDRA
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 7:26 AM
To: ALLEN, MARTHA E.; ALVAREZ, MARTHA J.; BACH, CAROL E.; BAKER, RODNEY D.; BELL, BROOKE E.; BENNETT, MARILYN R.; BLAKELY, TERESA R.; BOYD, STUART J.; BRIDGEWATER, ROXANNE L; BROWN, DEBRA ANN; CAMPBELL, ROBERT EDMUND; CICCARELLI-CLOTHIER, DIANE; CLINE, KELLY L.; COLBY, MARK D.; CONNELL, RACHEL; CONSTANT, DEXTER C; COVINGTON, JAMES; CROSSON, KAREN L; CROWDER-JR, ROBERT H; DAVIDSON, MARTIN P.; DAVIS, REBECCA; DEFELICE, ALICE A.; DEL MARGO, ELLEN M; DEMEL, ANNETTE R.; DUVAL, CHRISTOPHER C.; GARRETT, SAMANTHA P.; GEE, KENNETH B; GILLIAM III, ROBERT H.; GOULDING, PHILIP; GRANTZ, JAMES S.; HAMPSON, NANCY E; HANAWALT, MARTHA N.; HARTMAN, PAUL J.; HAWKINSON, CHRISTINE L.; HEGERT, TODD S.; HENDRICKSON, CINDY JILL; HERGERT, PAULA K.; HIENTON, JEFFREY D.; HOFFMAN, PROMIS; HOKANSON, PETER C; JOINER, JEREMY S; KELLER, JIMMY J; KERN, STEPHEN C.; KLICHE, DEBORAH J.; KNIGHT, KELLEN K.; KOBYLECKI, EMIL F.; KOSELAK, JEREMY J.; KWAPY, JUSTINA E.; LEE-ESTRADA, KARLA A; LEWIS, GEOFFREY T; LINDAU, FRANZISKA; LIPPERT, CLAUDINE; MACFARLANE, JOHN A.; MCCOMB, RONALD W.; MIMS, JOHN W.; NAULT, MICHAEL P.; NORRIS, GEORGE D; ORTIZ, JOHN L.; OWENS, KAREN DUNCAN; PELLOW, NANCY A; PETTIGREW, NEIL; PHELPS, MELANIE; PIFFARERIO, MARY; POESE, NEIL M.; POUCEL, BONNIE B; POWELL, KIRK D; QUALLS, MARK E; RACHWITZ, KATHRYN; REID, VICTORIA L; REWEY, ERICA J.; SAWTELLE, DAVID A; SCHOENSTEIN, PATRICIA; SCHULZKI, ANTON G; SCHWARTZ, CINDEE W; SERIO, JOSEPHINE ANN; SHACKELFORD, DAVID L.; SHAFER, JOSHUA J; SIMMONS, MARY; SMITH, KEITH E.; SMITH, SANDRA J.; STEWART, CATHERINE ELEENE; STROUP, SCOTT A.; SWANKOWSKI, JULIE; TAYLOR, ROBERT P; THOMASSON, NOLA; TIERNAN, MARILYN J; URBAN, SONIA M; WOLKEN, LESLIE C
Subject: CSEA Alert

You may be concerned and confused by the events of the last few weeks. This communication is to help clarify the issues surrounding these events.

On May 11th in a vote of 8-0, the CSEA Board of Directors called for the President of CSEA's resignation because of the following:

Financial Improprieties
1. The President's expense account was exceeded by 56%. $6,000 was budgeted and $9,341 was spent.
2. The President's total compensation for this school year was to be $107,837 which is a 27% increase over the previous President's compensation. District 11 teachers received a 1% salary increase.
3. The President spent $17,000 on shirts and water bottles for members without board or Uniserve director approval.
4. For the first time since 1997 money had to be transferred from savings to balance the CSEA operating budget.

District Investigation
1. The CSEA President submitted a ProGrad expense voucher to the District that had a forged signature.
2. The president requested $1000 from ProGrad when CSEA had already paid for the trip.
3. The president received the $1000 from ProGrad in June 2006 and kept the $1000 until April 2007 when the CSEA board directed her to return it to the district.

In order to protect the members of this organization and the association's financial well being, the CSEA Board of Directors voted on May 11th to:
1. Ask the President to resign
2. Revoke the President's credit card privileges
3. Cancel the remaining balance of the President's $39,000 supplemental pay

As a result, in a retaliatory action recall petitions have been circulated against CSEA board members who have spoken up and taken positions to protect the membership of CSEA. After being informed of the above details, members have gone back and crossed their names off of the recall petitions. Should you?

I think that "concerned and confused" goes way beyond the members of the labor union.
Notice the big issue here - "financial improprieties." If you read my two previous posts, both union members who wrote into the blog stated that there was "no wrong doing," just an internal issue that was resolved by two people agreeing to step down, all for the good of the labor union, of course.

Irma Valerio exceeded her expense account by 56%. That was a $3,341 overage. When ex-school board member Eric Christen properly went to the school board and requested permission to be reimbursed for spending a couple hundred dollars over his $2,000 account, union members and union school board members, with the help of the Gazette, tried to make it into a scandal. Where is D-11 Treasurer Jan Tanner in this story? Here we have a clear-cut case of financial shenanigans, and she is deathly silent.

Valerio spent $17,000 on shirts to reward loyal labor union supporters. Christen was chastised for expensing $20-$30 for lunches with constituents. $17,000 for t-shirts? How did that help the children?

The average teacher salary in D-11 is $45,000. That is the figure that the district CFO uses for planning purposes. Valerio, like any other labor union president, does not spend a minute of her time teaching kids while serving as president. Despite that fact, and despite the fact that the labor union defends its secrecy because it is a "private organization," D-11 tax payers pay 1/4 of the labor union president's salary. D-11 tax payers paid Valerio almost $30,000 for not teaching. As Sandra Cox pointed out, Valerio took a 27% increase in her own salary while only getting a 1% raise for fellow teachers during contract negotiations. According to what she has said to supporters, she deserved the raise for her role in making the public believe that the reformers were causing chaos in the district. Notice how the labor union places a much higher premium on the value of a labor union political activist than it does on teachers in the classroom. No outstanding teachers in D-11 would ever be allowed to negotiate that type of salary for themselves with the school district. The labor union would kill any such effort.

The D-11 administration has yet to announce the results of its investigation of the theft of public funds. CFO Glenn Gustafson is likely trying to figure out the best method to sweep the whole incident under the rug. It is irrelevant at this point that Valerio reimbursed the district for her theft. If someone robs a bank and then returns the money 10 months later, they do not receive a free pass. Valerio did not do the right thing because it was right; she did what she needed to do because she was caught.

The labor union leadership likes to pretend that its focus is on kids. Nothing could be further from the truth. The CSEA is a hard-core political machine, and like many other "education" unions or Teamsters or Steelworkers, corruption is a major part of the union existence. While labor union activists were screaming and hollering about how evil the reformers were, this internal scandal, which involves an apparent felony level offense, was being hidden from public view.

This festering issue directly involves teachers who are supposed to be focusing on kids. Notice that there will be no outcry from ex-board members over this scandal. No public comments from Lyman Kaiser or Karen Teja. No press conferences by Lynn Peterson or Mary Ellen McNally. No concern for the district by Norvelle Simpson or Annie Oatman-Gardner. If anything highlights what these sad people are all about, their silence on this major issue illustrates that point loud and clear.

This incident also highlights the terrible lack of leadership on the school board. Despite the turmoil that this is causing among teachers, no one on the union purchased board has had the guts to call for an end to the internal bickering, and no one has had the guts to call for an end to labor union access to public funds.

The CSEA Issue

In a post from a couple of months ago (D11 Board considering making a Decision!!!Thursday, February 22, 2007), I "quoted" a union spokesperson, Lori Watson, as refusing to answer questions about her Colorado Springs Education Association labor union because it was a "private organization." Despite the fact that the labor union is involved in every aspect of governing the public D11 school district, union leaders believe that they are allowed to operate in the dark.

In today's Gazette, in an article on the current CSEA spat involving a possible misuse or theft of public funds, Irma Valerio, labor union chief, refused to answer reporter Brian Newsome's questions about the issue. This is how the Gazette portrayed her response to Newsome:

"Valerio declined to discuss how the CSEA is handling the situation, noting it is a private organization and the board of directors is 'dealing with it.' "

According to a CSEA source, as of tonight, Valerio was forced to resign as president of the CSEA by other members of the CSEA and the CEA. If there is solid evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Valerio, kudos to her colleagues for doing the right thing.

The D11 administration may annouce the results of their investigation as early as Wednesday, May 16th.

I posted a response from someone "in-the-know" in the response section of my first article on this topic. Go there to see the exact reply. The reply sets the record straight and provides much more information than did my initial entry and more information than the Gazette reported.

Now for corrections to my initial blog entry on the topic. Some were critical because my entry was not "exactly correct." Based on today's article and the more knowledgeable source, the dollar amount in question is $1,000 instead of $2,000. The funds in question dealt with a teacher training program called PROGRAD, and this program was disbanded. Grow Your Own was not in question. My article talked only of Valerio's involvement in the alleged theft, while the Gazette article mentioned that several people were being investigated. Tom Watson, who is on the union executive board, also resigned from the board effective July 1st. Two other board members, Brian Kachel and Scott Noller, were also asked to resign, but they refused. As you will read in the source's response, there may possibly be a recall attempt against these two members. The issue of embezzlement is supposedly not an issue at all. My apologies to all involved for using that term if that is the case.

If you read the reply to my first entry on the topic, you will see that the CSEA member's opinion is that Valerio stepped down and acted, overall, with more class and style than than did the others.

I would like to thank "Anonymous" for providing the correct details on this case.

All for the Children

The Colorado Springs Education Association is a major player in keeping D11 in the hands of inept, do-nothing school board members. This labor union has purchased school boards in D11 since the labor union first came into existence over 30 years ago. The exception, of course, was in 2003 when the docile business community aroused from its long slumber and helped to elect 4 reform candidates, myself included. The labor union leadership literally went crazy since they feel that they are the only people authorized to select school boards across the country. The result was that they spent 3 years creating an image of "chaos" within the community in an attempt to discredit any and all board members who were not chosen by them.

One of the favorite lines of the labor union leadership was that the fighting on the school board was distracting from the education environment in D11 and that the board should stop the fighting and focus on "the children." As it turns out, the labor union leaders, all of whom are teachers by trade, are spending a fair amount of time focusing on fighting themselves. Here is what is being said about the current dispute.

CSEA labor union leader Irma Valerio has been accused by fellow labor union activists of improperly reimbursing herself for expenses that she did not incur. She has also been accused of forging official documents to receive an unauthorized payment of over $2,000.

For some bewildering reason, Terry Bishop decided to give responsibility for a D11 program called "Grow Your Own" to the labor union. The program was the idea of ex-board member Sandy Shakes. The idea was for D11 to pay for future teachers to receive their teaching degrees, and in exchange for the payment, the teachers would "owe" D11 a certain number of years of teaching in the district as repayment. The idea was to provide new teachers with a working knowledge of D11 and to give them more stability in the district before they decided to move elsewhere. Why the labor union was given the responsibility of running this program is baffling. The labor union has nothing to do with education, so other than providing its leadership a chance to indoctrinate new teachers, this move did not make sense and could only lead to trouble. The CSEA labor union is a political organization, so its leadership could not have any idea how to run a grow your own teacher program.

Valerio is accused of improperly receiving reimbursement for expenses related to this program. It appears that she is accused of embezzling these funds from D11 rather than the labor union since D11 would be funding the program and paying the labor union to run it. One of the problems is that there is a lot of infighting occurring within the labor union at this time. Valerio claims that there is an organized effort to "set her up" because certain labor union activists do not like her. Her accusers claim that they have evidence of forged documents to prove their case.

The document in question is a reimbursement request. Valerio signed the document, and the signature of labor union member Diane Ciccerella also appears on the document. Ciccerella, who is no ally of Valerio's, claims that she never signed the document and that Valerio forged her signature. The challenge here is deciding who to believe. To become a labor union leader, one must disavow any loyalty to honesty as a guiding principle. Labor union activists must be totally willing to destroy critics of our mediocre education system, and honesty is a major detractor from this requirement.

The D11 administration and board have been anxious to keep this story of possible embezzlement under wraps. John Gudvangen and Tami Hasling have been telling their supporters that they are more concerned about preventing the public from learning about this labor union squabble than they are about determining if a felony has been committed. Both of them have been urging the administration to quietly drop the issue, while CFO Glenn Gustafson has been asking for an investigation. Should he prevail, don't expect the investigation to be either thorough or public. "Cover-up" will be the term-of-the-day. Labor union sweetheart Dave Schenkel claims that there has been no wrong-doing whatsoever, and he wants to brush the whole incident under the rug per the wishes of the labor union's school board members (which is everyone except Willie Breazell).

Supporters of Valerio claim that there has not been a thorough investigation of the charges against her. A vote of "no confidence" has already been taken by the executive board of the CSEA. This vote has not yet been taken to the full labor union membership. Valerio claims that she is being unfairly and untruthfully targeted by her enemies within the labor union.

If not for the felony implications involved here, this whole situation borders on amusing in a sad sort of way. Here you have opposing members of one of the most dishonest organizations in existence accusing each other of being dishonest and untruthful about each other. The reality is that both sides are correct when they accuse each other of dishonesty. Those of us who have had to deal with labor union leaders know this to be true. Is it believable that Irma Valerio could have embezzled $2000? Absolutely. Is it believable that her opponents in the labor union could be making up stories to rid themselves of Valerio? You bet. Nothing is below these people (except spending time in the classroom, which I will address again in the near future).

While the D11 community sleeps, the true seedy underbelly of the school district continues to fester under corruption and mismanagement, just as it has done for decades.

Irma Valerio & the CSEA

Irma Valerio, what have you done?

The Best and Brightest

No, the title does not refer to the high school students who are being featured in the Gazette recently. It refers to the high paid leadership in School District 11, and it indicates that the district is in deep trouble, as if honest people did not already know that to be the case.
Third grade reading scores have recently been released, and the average third grade reading results in D11 have changed slightly from 70% advanced and proficient (PA) to 71% PA. In other words, there has been no change at all. This should not be surprising since there has been no change at all from the status quo in D11.

The change from 70% PA to 71% PA in D11 mirrors the same result at the state level. Once again, D11 leaders are just happy to be along for the ride. Nothing innovative, nothing forward looking, nothing to improve the performance of the school district. Here is how the Gazette described the reading results in the D11:

Some schools in D-11 increased the percentage of third-graders scoring proficient or advanced at a quick pace. Queen Palmer, for example, went from 32 percent to 57 percent, an increase of almost 80 percent.
On the other hand, D-11 also has schools where the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced is decreasing dramatically.
Lincoln Elementary School dropped from 77 percent to 51 percent.

What you see, as we have always seen, is some dramatic ups and some dramatic downs. There is no consistency in any particular school in the district. This indicates that there has been no plan in place to improve reading across D11. It is important to understand that at the 3rd grade level, 70% PA is an appalling figure. The time from Kindergarten to 3rd grade is the time where tremendous effort needs to be made to ensure that all kids are able to read. A child who is not able to read after 3rd grade is on his or her way to failure throughout the remainder of school, and then potentially life. If the district leadership cannot take the time to develop any sort of reading strategy for the early years, then they most certainly will not be able to develop a strategy for helping these kids in their later years.

Mary Thurman is the Deputy Superintendent for Instruction in D11. She earns over $120,000 per year. Here is what the Gazette reported as to her response to the crisis in the district:

Mary Thurman, deputy superintendent of instruction, said district officials will work to find the causes of increases and decreases and then create plans specific to the needs of a school.
Thurman noted the district's scores overall increased - from 70 percent to 71 percent, but "that still to me is flat." "We can't keep doing the same thing and getting the same results," she said.

Look back over the years since Thurman has been in this position in D11 (2002) and you will see the exact quote each year after CSAP results are released. Since Thurman and all other D11 leaders in central administration have "PhD" assigned to their names, you would suspect that there would be a deeper response to a crisis than, "We will look at the results and develop a plan to address them." Where is the plan from last year, or the prior years? What are the results of these plans? Where is the documentation for these plans? How many years will it take for these plans to take effect?

Based on the random increases and decreases across the district, it is obvious that there is no plan in place to improve the academic performance of the district. As another school year comes to a close, the D11 administration and their proxies on the school board leave the community with empty promises of plans to do better next year.

Thurman's final comment above is rather confusing. What does it men to say that we can't keep doing the same thing and getting the same result? By doing the same things over again, you are guaranteed to get the same results. If Thurman does not want the same results, what has she proposed to get different results? What has the board proposed to get different results? Notice that the Gazette did not quote any board members in the article. Where is the leadership on the school board?

The obvious answer to those questions is that there is no educational leadership in D11. Neither the paid staff nor the board members have any ideas on improving education. Their answers will be as always - poor and minority kids cannot learn and there is nothing that can change that. With reform board members safely out of the way, there is no incentive for the D11 administration to do anything that might be mistaken for hard work. Where are the quotes from End the Chaos on the performance of their board members? Where are the Friends of D11 now that the district continues to be mired in mediocrity? Those questions are obviously very easy to answer. It was never about improving D11 for these aristocrats. Rather, it was always about protecting administrtors from having to do the hard work that is necessary to ensure a quality education for all kids.