Arielle Curry, the principal of Washington Elementary School in Santa Barbara (she’s the one on the left) rigged the vote count in the student election results to elect two losers, including giving her own daughter the post of sixth-grade president. The principal was foiled by a whistleblower, put on administrative leave, and then, incredibly, allowed to resume her job.
Take that last part in slowly. This is the culture in schools. This is the culture in California.
In a letter to parents, Curry wrote that she ” led deliberations after the student votes were tallied that resulted in overriding the outcome of two positions.” She apologized “for allowing this practice to persist” while acknowledging that “our school’s process for selecting student officers lacks transparency and fairness.” She added, “I am committed to making this right moving forward.”
By resigning? Nothing else will do.That letter is all by itself justification for dismissal. What disgusting weasel rhetoric! Altering vote totals to benefit a family member is “deliberations”? She allowed a practice to persist by engaging in the practice…it wouldn’t have persisted if she didn’t engage in it. The school’s process for selecting student officers lacks transparency and fairness? No, she lacks transparency and fairness, also honesty, respect for students, shame, trustworthiness,accountability, and ethics generally.
There are tangible benefits in being elected a student officer at the gifted and talented education magnet school in Santa Barbara’s Mesa neighborhood. Student government members receive privileges like leaving class to attend meetings, while the president gets the opportunity to deliver the graduation speech at the end of the school year. The student body also helps select school activities, including themed events such as “Crazy Hat Day.” (Do they have a “Sociopath Principal Day”?
Cuury tried to steal these perks from deserving students and bestow them on her choices regardless of the election results. How can the school, the district, and the parents allow Curry to keep her job? What possible justification could they cite? (Don’t say it!)
“District officials confirmed the expected policy was for the actual vote totals to determine the winners” one news source says. Ya think? “The district expects that for student/ASB elections, the candidate with the most votes wins,” assistant superintendent for human resources John Becchio said. Really? Then why do you continue to employ a principal who doesn’t get the “most votes win” thingy?
Curry has worked in the Santa Barbara Unified School District for several years, previously serving as principal of Santa Barbara Junior High and as an assistant principal at Washington and Franklin elementary schools. This is how your young are being aculturated, America. These are the people shaping their conduct and values. Do you care? What are you going to do about it?
Me? I’m heading to the woodchipper…
So much in California has become corrupt. Just one of the reasons we escaped five years ago. Even if they remove her, the not-so-transparent process is to find a place for her in administration at the district. People are rarely truly fired which is just one reason there is so much bloat and so much money spent on education, while not enough trickles to the classrooms. Shameful
“The district expects that for student/ASB elections, the candidate with the most votes wins,” assistant superintendent for human resources John Becchio told The Independent.
That is gold. Pure gold.
jvb
Yawn…our high school principal was allowed to continue after it was found that she called in favors with the city police and DA to protect a faculty member who was molesting children. She wasn’t even disciplined.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the vast majority of high school administrators don’t put their thumbs on the scales of student council elections. They probably think it’s justified to make sure the kids who take those positions are people they, the administrators, think they will be able to work with during their tenure.
This never occurred to me. I really am a gullible Pollyanna at heart, I guess.
It isn’t just student council elections, it is pretty much anything that involves a ‘select’ set of students. At my high school, teams were sent to math and English competitions. How were the students selected? Well, they were the teacher’s pets and the children of influential people in town (the DA’s son, for instance).
Some people started to notice and complain that the best students in the math classes, for instance, weren’t going to the math competitions. This resulted in my math exam scores for the semester looking like this: 100, 100, 100, 50, 100, and 100. Where did that 50% come from? I don’t know, the math teacher ‘lost’ that test. I still had an ‘A’, but didn’t qualify for the math competition. The exact same thing happened the next semester; one 50% test that was lost, never to be seen again.
Well, parents were then upset with that, so the principal was forced to make special ‘qualifying tests’ for the competitions. Well, after one such test, the English teacher spent 5 minutes in class fawning over my classmate who qualified despite only being a sophomore. She explained how unusual it was and what an honor it was to be on the team as a sophomore. Well, I qualified as well, but she ‘forgot’ to tell me about it and I didn’t go because I didn’t know I was supposed to.
Yes, teachers and principals do this all the time. It is the rule, not the exception.
Well why isn’t it a scandal, then? Where are the op-eds about it?
It may not surprise anyone here that as the editorial editor of my high school newspaper I wrote a front page editorial about how the students viewed as stars and prestige-college-bound were held to different standards than the rest of the student, and I cited examples, not using name, like my best friend at the time being caught smoking in a rest room and getting “The King’s Pass” while a lesser-regarded student, who also was a fiend of mine, got a three day suspension. The administration was furious at me. My friend who was let off was suddenly suspended. My editorial was the topic of a school board meeting. The paper’s faculty advisor was called on the carpet.
I’m going to assume it’s not a scandal because the higher ups are okay with the process.
I learned within the last ten years that two of my best high school friends were reported as tied for valedictorian of our class, but the friend who was an Anglo was given the title as in 1969 Miami the brothers figured no one was ready for a Cuban refugee valedictorian.
It isn’t a scandal because it’s TEACHERS. You know, all teachers are super-caring heroes! OK, so they fail to teach 80% of their students to read, do math, etc, but they CARE. You can’t say anything bad about the teachers.
When my town’s school superintendent was caught protecting a faculty member who had been molesting children for over a decade, she was made Superintendent of the Year and ran as the Democratic candidate for State School Superintendent. There was 1 online article about her in a negative light (but a lot of social media). The major newspapers and TV stations all endorsed her for the State Superintendent job. This is the Democratic liberal elite system at work. It runs the schools and the media.
So, Jack, inquiring minds want to know: Who are these people you keep stuffing in the woodchipper?
I’ll admit it is a unique way of coping with stress . . .
ME! Haven’t I been clear about that? I’m searching for one of those large, open entry ones that a man can jutst jump into and come out as mush, as in a memorable CSI episode. I certainly don’t want to go though the one Steve Buscemi ended up in.
https://banditchippers.com/product/2590-towable/
Like this wood chipper?
Exactly!
I’m curious as to what exact “deliberations” and “process” lead to a school election winner different from the one for which the most students voted. Does “equity” and “social justice” enter the process at some point and give extra weight to votes for or by (difficult if secret ballots) minority, female, disabled, etc. students?