From 2016 Self Authoring

6.1 District Intern program

On August 5, 1997 I was “laid off” as Chief Administrator at ZCLA. Within the week I was researching how to be an elementary school teacher for LAUSD with an emergency credential. I subbed for a while before I found out about the District Intern program.

My first mentor in the District Intern program was a tough little elderly African American gentleman who was proud to let us know he had been a Tuskegee Airman. The lesson he wanted to impart to us new teachers, which he repeated at every appropriate moment was “Show some guts!”. I was blessed to have him as a first mentor. That turned out to be the key lesson for my survival on several occasions.

First is a 120-hour orientation. (3 weeks at 40 hours a wee).. One thing you will have at the end of the orientation is a 2-week plan for your first 2 weeks of teaching. Then during the two years, while you are teaching you are taking classes every Thursday from 4 to 8 PM. You must attend all of them. And during the two years there are ten all-day Saturdays per year, from 8AM-4PM.

At the end of the two years you have a credential provided you have done the following: You have to teach a prescribed number of days during the 2 year program, and receive satisfactory evaluations from your school administrator. You will be assembling something called the Professional Development Portfolio, which you present at the end of the 2 years. And you will complete something called the Professional Development Plan. You then receive a Professional Clear California Credential. (not Preliminary or Probationary). Recognized wherever a California credential is recognized.

I started teaching at Plasencia Elementary in July 1998, at the age of 54. My DI classes started in September. Those two months teaching before my training started were hell.

6.2. Juan Diaz incident

On November 29, 2000, teaching at my second elementary school, West Vernon, I had an incident that sent my life into turmoil for 3 intense months until the case was thrown out for no merit on March 2, 2001, 4 days before my 57th birthday.

About 5 min. before noon, time to line up and walk to lunch. The line is moving along, near the room. At the end of the line I suddenly see Juan chasing a group of girls, looking very angry and serious, with clear intent to harm somebody. I match steps with him at some point and say “Juan, you’ve got to stop”. Trying to stop him without touching him. He runs right past me, catches up with one of the girls, and pushes Cristal over a bench. She falls to the ground crying. He starts running after the other girls. I catch up with him and again try to stop him verbally. He clearly intends to hurt another one. I restrain him by the arm to stop him. As soon as I see he has been stopped and the girls are safe I let go. He falls to the ground crying. Instead of trying to convince him to come to lunch with us I decide to get the rest of the class to lunch and then come back to help him.

The only possible doubt I have about what I did being 100% impeccable is very subtle shading in the matter of appropriate force to restrain him. I know that to stop him I had to restrain him. In the heat of the moment I had to decide precisely how much would be the absolute minimum force it would take to stop him from hurting more of the children. I grabbed his wrist and bent his arm behind his back. He was struggling fiercely to keep running toward the girls. I pulled up on the wrist, putting a strain on his shoulder. At the moment that I felt him stop struggling to run after the girls I let go. I think what stopped him was a little bit of pain in his shoulder when I pulled up on the arm. I don’t think I could have done anything less and still kept him from harming others. He is heavy, strong, and was single-mindedly determined.

His mother complained to the principal, who sided with her against me. They tried to get me suspended by the district. The union defended me. In intense administrative wrangling I was exonerated. The mother complained to the principal that I was not punished. The principal suggested to her that she go to the police with a child abuse complaint. She did. I was defended by the union’s law firm. The administrative judge threw out the case and apologized to me that it had gotten so far. It was an intense period of transforming life crisis into practice opportunity. 

6.3. Discovering TL program/CSULB

In the wake of the Juan Diaz incident I realized I needed to stop teaching elementary and switch to something like high school English. I scheduled a day to observe English teachers at Rebecca’s high school. Rebecca’s English teacher, Marcela Saunders, told me what I should really look into is the School Librarian job. She said it’s the secret treasure, the best job in K-12, and perfectly aligned with my skills and interests. She walked me over to meet Rosemarie Bernier, the Hamilton LMT, who told me about the CSULB credential program. I went down to meet with Lesley Farmer, and it was like being welcomed to the treasure house, a total love fest.

I started my first course in June 2001, at the age of 58. We moved from ZCLA to Clarington 2 months later. I worked at West Vernon my first year of the program. I started working as an LMT at DMHS in August 2002, while I was taking my 4th class. I finished my credential in August 2004, shortly before starting my third year at DMHS.

6.4. Running the library for 9 years (incl. Working with Morten etc.)

From August 2002 to June 2011 I ran my own library at DMHS, an extraordinary inner city public school. The hiring interview was almost giddy it was so positive. My retirement party thrown by the faculty (at Taix Restaurant) was the most incredible sustained celebration of my life I ever experienced. In between I had a vast array of extremely gratifying experiences. One of the dimensions was 9 years of ever-deepening friendships with multiple colleagues. Morten Sorensen, the school’s IT specialist, became a special friend.

6.5. UTLA and school leadership positions

In gratitude for the union vigorously defending me, thereby saving my job and my public school teaching career, I ran for the UTLA Chapter Chair position when it was left open by a retirement. I won, and gladly took on the role of defending teachers against violations of their contractual rights. I also became a member of the newly constituted Library Professionals Committee. From those meetings I became one of the 3 original members of the Article 30 Committee designated to negotiate with LAUSD on librarians’ issues. Also from the LPC I became the only librarian on the ISD interdisciplinary design team tasked with building the multi-million dollar library catalog system funded by a public bond measure. As chapter chair I was co-chair with the Principal of a committee establied by the collective bargaining agreement between UTLA and LAUSD to manage certain programs and funds at each school site. I also joined the School Site Council which by state law administered federal funds given to the school, serving for one year as the chairman. During that year I was doing all of the above simultaneously, along with wearing the many hats involved in running my library.

6.6. Diagnosis

In January of 2008 we noticed the first signs of some speech slurring. This was after Winter Break of my sixth of nine years at DMHS. Almost a year and a half later, on May 8, 2009, I was diagnosed with Progressive Bulbar Palsy, and had an intense emotional reaction. This was a little over a month before the end of my 7th year at DMHS. During the eighth year my speech continued to degenerate. I got my DynaVox device in November 2010, just before winter break of my 8th year. In the first week of the 9th and final year I had to get through to have lifetime medical benefits upon retiring, my voice gave out from my over ambitious scheduling. The Principal, who had found ways to get rid of many vulnerable teachers during my time as chapter chair, set her sights on me. Luckily, when I asked Dan Barnhart of UTLA for support, he put me in touch with the ADA compliance officer for the district. The day before the principal called me in to tell me the bad news, I obtained the forms and wrote up my accommodation plan, which involved using my adaptive speech device. Instead of whisking me out of there, she had to sign an agreement with the force of federal law guaranteeing me the right to do my job using the accommodations for my disability. To really guarantee a fantastic final year, she was promoted the same week to a position at district headquarters , and the assistant principal was hired to replace her. He was a great ally, who who had developed a lot of respect for me in his year as AP. I narrowly escaped the executioner, and had a triumphant final year.