• Athletics
  • Big Ed
  • Ed Tech
  • Educators
  • Elections
  • Federal Policy
  • Parents
  • Students
  • The Testing Industry

K-12 News Network's The Wire

K-12 News Network: People-Powered Public Education News

  • Budgets
  • Charter Schools
  • Federal Policy
  • School Districts
  • State Education Law
  • School Boards
You are here: Home / Charter Schools / Redacted

Redacted

February 26, 2016 by Carl J. Petersen

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail

Redacted Complaint_Page_01Following up to our email exchange of last week, attached for your reference is a redacted UCP complaint. As you can see, most of the information has been redacted due to confidentiality issues.”

-LAUSD, Office of the General Counsel

After declaring that they had “no further documents to provide”, the LAUSD finally emailed one of the three Uniform Complaint Process (UCP) forms that were filed against Granada Hills Charter High School (GHCHS) during the period of January 1, 2014 through November 2, 2015. Unfortunately, any hope that this represented a decision by the District to be more transparent was quickly dashed when the document was opened. Apparently, they hired an ex-CIA operative to handle the censoring of the document since almost the complete document was marked “redacted.”

Redacted Complaint_Page_02The only information that can be gleaned from the release is that an 11th grade student at GHCHS was involved in an incident involving “sexual harassment/cyber bullying” sometime on or before March 10, 2015. Instead of just blacking out identifying information, the District ignored its responsibility of being transparent and removed the entire description of the complaint from the form. Even the names of LAUSD personnel involved in the investigation of the complaint were deemed to be confidential. An e-mail included as evidence by the complainant not only had that person’s name redacted, but the name of whomever the complaint was sent to was also removed.

Redacted Complaint_Page_03Even worse is the fact that the LAUSD still has not released any information about how the complaint was handled. The stakeholders of the District deserve to know if the Charter School Division (CSD) actually looked into the allegations or simply left them to the school to handle. If violations of the ed code were found by the CSD, did they notify the Board of Education? Has the CSD tracked these types of complaints to find if there is a pattern that justifies revoking the school’s charter?

Redacted Complaint_Page_10Below is a copy of the e-mail that I sent to all seven members of the elected School Board. As of this writing, none of them have responded or even acknowledged its receipt. Is this lack of response a result of the fact that parents do not have any representatives on this elected body or is this what millions of dollars in campaign spending buys the California Charter School Association? Either way, Eli Broad continues to knock.

____________________________________________

Dear LAUSD Board of Education:

As you may have seen, last night I released an article and press release detailing how the LAUSD Charter School Division and the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) have been unwilling to release complaints about a charter school that the District is charged with overseeing. Perhaps in response to this article, the Office of the General Counsel released one of the three UCP complaints to me today. As expected they redacted the personal information about the complainant. They also redacted every other part of the form except the school that was involved, the category of the complaint and the date the form was signed. Most disturbingly, the name of the LAUSD employee with whom this complaint was originally discussed was also redacted.

It should be noted that the OGC still refuses to release any correspondence from the District regarding the resolution of this complaint. They have also declared that all complaints lodged against the school are confidential and will not be publicly disclosed.

The charter movement has expanded in California by promising choice to parents. However, parents can only make an informed choice if they have complete information about these schools, including the complaints that have been filed against them. It is, therefore, perplexing that the District is working to actively prevent parents from having this information.

I am asking for your help in not only having the information that I have requested released, but also in ensuring that no other parent is stonewalled the way that I have been. Additionally, at this point I think that it is clear that the LAUSD Charter School Division needs to be audited to ensure that they are properly serving their function of overseeing schools that have been chartered through the LAUSD. Included in this audit should be an investigation of how appropriately information is being shared with the School Board concerning violations of the Ed Code by these schools, their conformance with their charters and matters of financial impropriety.

If you require any additional information about these matters, please contact me.

Sincerely,

Carl Petersen

____________________________________________

I am a former candidate for the District 3 seat on the LAUSD School Board, founder of Change The LAUSD and member of the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. Opinions are my own.

Facebooktwitterlinkedinrssyoutube

Filed Under: Charter Schools, LAUSD, Los Angeles, School Boards Tagged With: California Public Records Act, Granada Hills Charter High School, LAUSD Charter School Division, LAUSD Office of the General Counsel, LAUSD School Board

About Carl J. Petersen

Carl is a parent and special education advocate, elected member of the Northridge East Neighborhood Council and was a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race. During the campaign, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action and Dr. Diane Ravitch called him a “strong supporter of public schools.” Opinions are his own.

Sign up for our newsletter

* indicates required
Email Format

Buy a hybrid Facebook+ website today!

Federal Policy

Quick Education Voter’s Guide to the California CD34 Race, April 4, 2017

There are twenty-three candidates running to fill former Congressman Xavier Bacerra’s seat in Congressional District 34 in Southern California. (Bacerra is currently the state’s Attorney General, replacing Kamala Harris, who, after November 8, 2016, became our US Senator.) Election Day is Tuesday, April 4, 2017, 7:00 am to 8:00 pm. You can find your polling […]

Betsy DeVos, #NOTMYSDOE

Take the pledge to #resist and fight for public schools as a public good TODAY. DeVos had to have the assistance of Vice President Mike Pence’s unprecedented tie-breaking vote in order to win her confirmation. Two GOP Senators voted against, all Democratic Senators voted against. Yet all the other GOP Senators who received campaign donations […]

Next #DemDebate MUST Include K-12 Education Policy

The next #DemDebate is scheduled for the important primary state of Iowa on November 14, 2015. It’ll be broadcast by CBS in partnership with the Des Moines Register. Professor Julian Vasquez Heilig is leading the call for the families of 50 million students K-12 across the nation and the communities they live in to have […]

More Posts from this Category

K12NN on Blog Talk Radio

Online Politics Progressive Radio at Blog Talk Radio with MOMocrats on BlogTalkRadio

Categories

February 2016
S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
2829  
« Jan   Mar »

Copyright © 2022 · The Wire Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in