| Del Mar superintendent Bishop fired He sounds exactly like Lowell Billings of Chula Vista. |
Voice of San Diego
Bishop’s Exit and the Widening Schism
By Ian S. Port
March 2, 2008
...When parents who were thrilled to see
Bishop depart took the mic, the trickle of
applause from a back corner left no doubt
about who was in the minority.
"There aren’t a lot of parents here
speaking in support of Mr. Bishop because
he frankly didn’t listen to parents," said
Ginny Merrifield, a district parent and
frequent critic of the superintendent, who
managed the election campaigns of the
board members who pushed him to resign.
"He misrepresented the facts, he lied and
he collaborated with others to undermine
the board. I think it’s fair to call the
question of whether or not he’s willing to
work with the board," she said, over a swell
of booing.
The roughly 90 minutes of verbal combat
yielded a spate of interesting charges:
First, that board member Katherine White
should resign, be recalled or be censured
for a quote she made in my last column
about other unsavory goings on in the Del
Mar district. (Goings-on that were not only
never denied by any of the speakers, but
which were in fact fleshed out by one of
them, who added details that White did not
offer.)
Second, that your Merge-land
correspondent is in fact a "crony" of White,
Annette Easton and Steven McDowell, the
board majority who ousted Bishop. (I try
hard to be fair and honest.)
Third, that it was the goal of the new board
majority to oust Bishop from the start, a
claim bolstered by a quote White gave to
the Union-Tribune in 2006, where she
mentioned the option of buying out Bishop’
s contract if he didn’t deal well with a newly
powerful board. ("What I mean was not
supposed to be a comment on Tom in
particular, it was just a comment in
general," White told me. "It was supposed
to be a statement of fact.")
Two questions, both of them still
unanswered, overshadowed the meeting
and will likely overshadow the Del Mar
district for some time.
The first, and most obvious, was why
exactly Bishop was booted right there and
then. All Board President Annette Easton
said, with an apology, was that she couldn’
t say.
"I would only consider a decision like this if
I really felt that it was in the best interest of
helping us as a community move forward,"
Easton told the room, still brimming two
hours in. "You see different sides of the
entire picture ... Not all of us have access
to the same information."
(Bishop is unpopular among some in the
district for having an uncompromising
management style, being less-than-upfront
on his personal agenda and not tolerating
dissenting views, all of which critics say
have hindered many district endeavors: Its
effort to sell a piece of land to the city of
Del Mar, its setting of boundaries for
attendance at its eight schools, the
process of setting up a Spanish-language
program and the management of a
nonprofit that supports the Del Mar
curriculum, among other things.)...
[Maura Larkins' comment:
Top-down management causes lots of
problems. I'd like to see more
willingness among board members
and administrators to conduct open
discussions, and to change their
plans when a better plan is
suggested. I hope the new
superintendent will have a different
style. Of course, this would mean that
he will not have an allegiance to any
faction of board members, and will not
be the pawn of district lawyers. Fat
chance, eh?]
Bishop’s Exit and the Widening Schism
By Ian S. Port
March 2, 2008
...When parents who were thrilled to see
Bishop depart took the mic, the trickle of
applause from a back corner left no doubt
about who was in the minority.
"There aren’t a lot of parents here
speaking in support of Mr. Bishop because
he frankly didn’t listen to parents," said
Ginny Merrifield, a district parent and
frequent critic of the superintendent, who
managed the election campaigns of the
board members who pushed him to resign.
"He misrepresented the facts, he lied and
he collaborated with others to undermine
the board. I think it’s fair to call the
question of whether or not he’s willing to
work with the board," she said, over a swell
of booing.
The roughly 90 minutes of verbal combat
yielded a spate of interesting charges:
First, that board member Katherine White
should resign, be recalled or be censured
for a quote she made in my last column
about other unsavory goings on in the Del
Mar district. (Goings-on that were not only
never denied by any of the speakers, but
which were in fact fleshed out by one of
them, who added details that White did not
offer.)
Second, that your Merge-land
correspondent is in fact a "crony" of White,
Annette Easton and Steven McDowell, the
board majority who ousted Bishop. (I try
hard to be fair and honest.)
Third, that it was the goal of the new board
majority to oust Bishop from the start, a
claim bolstered by a quote White gave to
the Union-Tribune in 2006, where she
mentioned the option of buying out Bishop’
s contract if he didn’t deal well with a newly
powerful board. ("What I mean was not
supposed to be a comment on Tom in
particular, it was just a comment in
general," White told me. "It was supposed
to be a statement of fact.")
Two questions, both of them still
unanswered, overshadowed the meeting
and will likely overshadow the Del Mar
district for some time.
The first, and most obvious, was why
exactly Bishop was booted right there and
then. All Board President Annette Easton
said, with an apology, was that she couldn’
t say.
"I would only consider a decision like this if
I really felt that it was in the best interest of
helping us as a community move forward,"
Easton told the room, still brimming two
hours in. "You see different sides of the
entire picture ... Not all of us have access
to the same information."
(Bishop is unpopular among some in the
district for having an uncompromising
management style, being less-than-upfront
on his personal agenda and not tolerating
dissenting views, all of which critics say
have hindered many district endeavors: Its
effort to sell a piece of land to the city of
Del Mar, its setting of boundaries for
attendance at its eight schools, the
process of setting up a Spanish-language
program and the management of a
nonprofit that supports the Del Mar
curriculum, among other things.)...
[Maura Larkins' comment:
Top-down management causes lots of
problems. I'd like to see more
willingness among board members
and administrators to conduct open
discussions, and to change their
plans when a better plan is
suggested. I hope the new
superintendent will have a different
style. Of course, this would mean that
he will not have an allegiance to any
faction of board members, and will not
be the pawn of district lawyers. Fat
chance, eh?]
| Del Mar Union School District |
| Ouster of superintendent |
Voice of San Diego
Del Mar’s Missing Money,
Mysterious Politics
By Ian S. Port
Feb. 19, 2008 |
Sometime in the middle of January, an
envelope containing about $8,000 in
cash and personal checks
disappeared from a drawer at Del Mar
Heights Elementary School.
The money was proceeds from a book
fair the school held in December to
raise money for new library books �
and no one knows what happened to
it. The locked drawer where it was kept
showed no signs of forced entry. The
money didn’t turn up in a massive
search of the school office.
Ian S. Port
Days after the envelope was
discovered missing, the police were
called. They have no leads.
The incident is obviously embarrassing
for the staff of the school, members of
which admit that they broke with district
policy by not keeping the money in the
school safe when it wasn’t being
counted.
"Mistakes were made," said Heights
Principal Wendy Wardlow. "There
should have been better oversight."
The errors were magnified by a news
story about the missing money
appeared in The San Diego Union-
Tribune. In a short Feb. 8 piece,
Wardlow was quoted as being regretful
and Superintendent Tom Bishop as
disappointed -- with him also noting the
amount of the loss as unprecedented.
United States v. Richard King
Everyone acknowledges that losing
track of over $8,000 is a pretty big
bungle.
But the appearance of a story about
the missing funds in the Union-Tribune
has raised the suspicions of many in
the Del Mar Heights community, who
wonder if the story was pushed to the
Union-Tribune by someone in the
district who might not mind seeing the
school embarrassed in the region’s
biggest paper.
True or not, such paranoia is
commonplace in the district these
days. While schools in Del Mar
manage to produce some of the
highest test scores in San Diego
County -- and absolute adoration from
many parents -- the politics of
education in this affluent and
successful community are frequently
vicious, vindictive and sometimes
nearly violent.
The U-T story raised eyebrows partly
because the paper writes barely at all
about mid-coastal elementary schools.
Besides fluffy features, the only hard
news that makes it to print is truly
major: bond measures, board elections
and major curricular crisis.
Moreover, the story was published
before many in the district -- even
many of those on staff at Del Mar
Heights School -- had heard about the
missing money, leaving a very limited
pool of potential leakers.
After Superintendent Tom Bishop was
informed of the missing funds on Jan.
24, he issued a gag order for
everyone who knew of the incident,
including staff and the school board.
Two weeks later, the story appeared.
Burglaries, thefts, narcotics violations,
vandalism and other crimes are
regularly reported at schools in the
area, so it’s hard to see why this report
would stand out. According to the
crime-mapping website Arjis.org, at
least five similar crimes were reported
at DMUSD schools between November
and January. Does the U-T check them
all out, or did something else draw the
paper’s attention to that January
incident at Del Mar Heights?
School board member Katherine White
said the circumstances -- the leak of
an embarrassing story when only a few
knew about it -- "are something."
"I didn’t read about it in the paper
when there was a principal drunk in a
school event," White said. "And I didn’t
read in the paper when a school
employee was using drugs on campus.
And I don’t read about the principal
that screams at his employees. And I
don’t read about the other thefts that
have happened in the schools this
year ... I don’t understand what makes
this such a reportable event when
those other things I’ve never even
been officially told about."
The view of the Heights School as a
target of the district administration --
specifically Superintendent Tom
Bishop -- is widely (though not
universally) held among the school’s
parents and staff.
None that I contacted would speak for
attribution on the subject, but the story
they tell is the same. Critics from all
over the district have long said that
Bishop does not tolerate disagreement
from employees. And Wardlow, the
Heights principal, has earned a
reputation as a straight-talker.
"He hates Wendy and he hates the
Heights and he’s been trying to get rid
of her for years," one parent said.
"And why is that? Because Wendy
speaks what she thinks. She’s not
diplomatic."
Bishop told me he was "disappointed"
about the missing money. He did not
return calls Friday seeking further
comment.
The spat between Bishop at the
Heights has old origins, according to
those who describe it, but the conflict
has heightened recently. In 2006, a
brand new, three-person school board
majority was elected on a message of
reform, implicitly criticizing the
superintendent and a school board
that they said had long given him
everything he wanted. Their election
came amid a mass evaporation of faith
in various divisions of the district,
especially in the nonprofit foundation
that supports Del Mar classes with
private money. Many of the most vocal
supporters of the "slate of three"
reformers were Heights parents. Two
of the new school board members sent
their kids to the school.
Since the election, the Superintendent’
s professional life has been
significantly less predictable. Board
meetings are no longer smile-a-thons
held to ratify Bishop’s desires. When
oddities occur -- and there have been
too many to list here -- Bishop is
brought into line by his board.
Last year, parents from another
DMUSD school nearly erupted into a
fistfight over the district’s plan to start
a pilot Spanish immersion program,
partly because the district didn’t bother
to tell parents of its plans until after the
decision to go ahead was made. The
principal of the school herself learned
of the immersion program minutes
before the school board voted to
approve it. But after parents revolted --
complaining that no one told them what
was going on -- the plan had to be
canceled.
Two months later, Heights Principal
Wardlow appeared in front of the
school board asking to start a different
Spanish language program at the
school. Her proposal for a smaller
program was developed entirely by the
school staff and had its support.
Despite that adding foreign language
education has been a longtime stated
goal of the district -- and that the
Heights curriculum was an obvious
chance to atone for the blundering of
the earlier immersion program --
Bishop and an ally on the board rode
Wardlow through a two-hour hearing
on the proposal, bringing to bear their
full arsenal of nitpicking on the
principal.
The message was clear: the district
can do what it wants, and it might mess
things up horribly. But even an
obviously competent and heavily
supported proposal from the Heights is
going to get the toughest scrutiny from
the district.
One wound between the Heights and
the district goes to the very existence
of the school itself. Rumors have
persisted for years -- heard by
teachers and school board members --
that Bishop has plans to close the
Heights, sell the extremely valuable
land it sits on, and use the money to
build a new district office.
The superintendent always denies this.
Of course, Heights parents and staff
still find such talk incredibly disturbing.
And in other matters, not a lot of love
rains down from the district to dissuade
parents and staff of the notion that
their school is looked upon less than
favorably by it.
The very thing that allegedly pits
Wardlow against Bishop -- her
forthrightness -- is what many parents
say they like most about her.
"Wendy Wardlow has all of my
tremendous support, as well as
everybody in the community that I’ve
ever talked to," said parent Ralph
DeMarco, who sent five kids through
various Del Mar schools, and says he
likes Wardlow the best of any principal.
When DeMarco heard about the
missing $8,107.18 in book fair funds, "I
went over there and I said I want to
write you a check right now."
With a tone of suspicion that has
become all-too-common around Del
Mar schools lately, he admitted finding
the U-T piece a bit weird.
"Is that somebody’s PR plan there?
Why this article like that? Is somebody
feeding that for the purpose of their
overall agenda?" he asked.
It could be nothing. But in Del Mar
these days, you just never know.
Del Mar’s Missing Money,
Mysterious Politics
By Ian S. Port
Feb. 19, 2008 |
Sometime in the middle of January, an
envelope containing about $8,000 in
cash and personal checks
disappeared from a drawer at Del Mar
Heights Elementary School.
The money was proceeds from a book
fair the school held in December to
raise money for new library books �
and no one knows what happened to
it. The locked drawer where it was kept
showed no signs of forced entry. The
money didn’t turn up in a massive
search of the school office.
Ian S. Port
Days after the envelope was
discovered missing, the police were
called. They have no leads.
The incident is obviously embarrassing
for the staff of the school, members of
which admit that they broke with district
policy by not keeping the money in the
school safe when it wasn’t being
counted.
"Mistakes were made," said Heights
Principal Wendy Wardlow. "There
should have been better oversight."
The errors were magnified by a news
story about the missing money
appeared in The San Diego Union-
Tribune. In a short Feb. 8 piece,
Wardlow was quoted as being regretful
and Superintendent Tom Bishop as
disappointed -- with him also noting the
amount of the loss as unprecedented.
United States v. Richard King
Everyone acknowledges that losing
track of over $8,000 is a pretty big
bungle.
But the appearance of a story about
the missing funds in the Union-Tribune
has raised the suspicions of many in
the Del Mar Heights community, who
wonder if the story was pushed to the
Union-Tribune by someone in the
district who might not mind seeing the
school embarrassed in the region’s
biggest paper.
True or not, such paranoia is
commonplace in the district these
days. While schools in Del Mar
manage to produce some of the
highest test scores in San Diego
County -- and absolute adoration from
many parents -- the politics of
education in this affluent and
successful community are frequently
vicious, vindictive and sometimes
nearly violent.
The U-T story raised eyebrows partly
because the paper writes barely at all
about mid-coastal elementary schools.
Besides fluffy features, the only hard
news that makes it to print is truly
major: bond measures, board elections
and major curricular crisis.
Moreover, the story was published
before many in the district -- even
many of those on staff at Del Mar
Heights School -- had heard about the
missing money, leaving a very limited
pool of potential leakers.
After Superintendent Tom Bishop was
informed of the missing funds on Jan.
24, he issued a gag order for
everyone who knew of the incident,
including staff and the school board.
Two weeks later, the story appeared.
Burglaries, thefts, narcotics violations,
vandalism and other crimes are
regularly reported at schools in the
area, so it’s hard to see why this report
would stand out. According to the
crime-mapping website Arjis.org, at
least five similar crimes were reported
at DMUSD schools between November
and January. Does the U-T check them
all out, or did something else draw the
paper’s attention to that January
incident at Del Mar Heights?
School board member Katherine White
said the circumstances -- the leak of
an embarrassing story when only a few
knew about it -- "are something."
"I didn’t read about it in the paper
when there was a principal drunk in a
school event," White said. "And I didn’t
read in the paper when a school
employee was using drugs on campus.
And I don’t read about the principal
that screams at his employees. And I
don’t read about the other thefts that
have happened in the schools this
year ... I don’t understand what makes
this such a reportable event when
those other things I’ve never even
been officially told about."
The view of the Heights School as a
target of the district administration --
specifically Superintendent Tom
Bishop -- is widely (though not
universally) held among the school’s
parents and staff.
None that I contacted would speak for
attribution on the subject, but the story
they tell is the same. Critics from all
over the district have long said that
Bishop does not tolerate disagreement
from employees. And Wardlow, the
Heights principal, has earned a
reputation as a straight-talker.
"He hates Wendy and he hates the
Heights and he’s been trying to get rid
of her for years," one parent said.
"And why is that? Because Wendy
speaks what she thinks. She’s not
diplomatic."
Bishop told me he was "disappointed"
about the missing money. He did not
return calls Friday seeking further
comment.
The spat between Bishop at the
Heights has old origins, according to
those who describe it, but the conflict
has heightened recently. In 2006, a
brand new, three-person school board
majority was elected on a message of
reform, implicitly criticizing the
superintendent and a school board
that they said had long given him
everything he wanted. Their election
came amid a mass evaporation of faith
in various divisions of the district,
especially in the nonprofit foundation
that supports Del Mar classes with
private money. Many of the most vocal
supporters of the "slate of three"
reformers were Heights parents. Two
of the new school board members sent
their kids to the school.
Since the election, the Superintendent’
s professional life has been
significantly less predictable. Board
meetings are no longer smile-a-thons
held to ratify Bishop’s desires. When
oddities occur -- and there have been
too many to list here -- Bishop is
brought into line by his board.
Last year, parents from another
DMUSD school nearly erupted into a
fistfight over the district’s plan to start
a pilot Spanish immersion program,
partly because the district didn’t bother
to tell parents of its plans until after the
decision to go ahead was made. The
principal of the school herself learned
of the immersion program minutes
before the school board voted to
approve it. But after parents revolted --
complaining that no one told them what
was going on -- the plan had to be
canceled.
Two months later, Heights Principal
Wardlow appeared in front of the
school board asking to start a different
Spanish language program at the
school. Her proposal for a smaller
program was developed entirely by the
school staff and had its support.
Despite that adding foreign language
education has been a longtime stated
goal of the district -- and that the
Heights curriculum was an obvious
chance to atone for the blundering of
the earlier immersion program --
Bishop and an ally on the board rode
Wardlow through a two-hour hearing
on the proposal, bringing to bear their
full arsenal of nitpicking on the
principal.
The message was clear: the district
can do what it wants, and it might mess
things up horribly. But even an
obviously competent and heavily
supported proposal from the Heights is
going to get the toughest scrutiny from
the district.
One wound between the Heights and
the district goes to the very existence
of the school itself. Rumors have
persisted for years -- heard by
teachers and school board members --
that Bishop has plans to close the
Heights, sell the extremely valuable
land it sits on, and use the money to
build a new district office.
The superintendent always denies this.
Of course, Heights parents and staff
still find such talk incredibly disturbing.
And in other matters, not a lot of love
rains down from the district to dissuade
parents and staff of the notion that
their school is looked upon less than
favorably by it.
The very thing that allegedly pits
Wardlow against Bishop -- her
forthrightness -- is what many parents
say they like most about her.
"Wendy Wardlow has all of my
tremendous support, as well as
everybody in the community that I’ve
ever talked to," said parent Ralph
DeMarco, who sent five kids through
various Del Mar schools, and says he
likes Wardlow the best of any principal.
When DeMarco heard about the
missing $8,107.18 in book fair funds, "I
went over there and I said I want to
write you a check right now."
With a tone of suspicion that has
become all-too-common around Del
Mar schools lately, he admitted finding
the U-T piece a bit weird.
"Is that somebody’s PR plan there?
Why this article like that? Is somebody
feeding that for the purpose of their
overall agenda?" he asked.
It could be nothing. But in Del Mar
these days, you just never know.
| How come stories like this are covered up by the Union Tribune if they happen in Chula Vista? |
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