Bites is hammering on this K.J. showering with teenagers thing again, and rightly so, but it makes me a little queasy to write about it. I'm no high-minded moralist. I'd rather focus on issues that would affect the kind of mayor he'd be. Don't some of you readers have personal experiences with St. Hope, and if I'm not mistaken, unfavorable impressions of K.J.? If so, here's a good anonymous forum to air them.
today's bee article about the alleged fondling of a St Hope student is pretty interesting. apparently the student had to discuss the incident w/ KJ's lawyer before the authorities were even called. her teacher (who did report the incident to the authorities) quit over how it was handled.
ReplyDeleteToday's article was disturbing, and their actions were illegal. I am sure not sure I can separate his mayoral views from the alleged possibility that he's a child predator. I mean, that's creepy.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't have personal experience with St. Hope, but I'm a SCUSD teacher and saw the fallout with the other teachers who left Sac High in droves. Certainly St. Hope and KJ are not to blame for what happened to Sac High, but they didn't handle it well afterwards (ask the parents how they felt about what happened to the band equipment). And the administration of that school has been shady at best.
"Shady" is the word that keeps coming to mind. Plus, a lot of the people supporting KJ are people with whom I regularly disagree pretty vehemently on issues of local politics.
ReplyDeleteI can't vote for Fargo, though. I don't like any of the other candidates. I guess Muriel is the best but she seems pretty loony.
i was hired to be an art teacher with sac high about three years ago. after going through the lengthy hiring process i arrived on my first day to find that no one actually at the school knew who i was (their HR offices are off campus) and shuttled me around to few different classrooms until they decided i should sub a ballet class until they found a new ballet teacher. i know nothing about ballet mind you.
ReplyDeletelater in the day i found out that the principle of the school of the arts quit without notice as well as a hand full of teachers. this seemed like a bad sign. i muscled through the ballet gig for awhile and was then sent to teach english and after about a month decided i couldn't take it anymore. no one knew what i should be doing and when i needed a principal or other supervisor for disciplinary issues of which there were many help was almost impossible to find.
in my first week it was suggested to me by one of the campus security guards that i never let myself be alone with a student and later the same security guard asked me if i had experienced any physical confrontations yet. when i said no he seemed surprised.
in general the place was woefully disorganized and the things the students were allowed to get away with shocked me. on my first day i discovered that one of my students had been going to adult dating sites on the teacher's computer. after i sent him to the office i looked in the history on the computer and found that this had been happening for a while.
i could go on and on but i won't. needless to say with Sac High as an example of his keen managerial skills i would say that i am most definitely nervous about the possibility of KJ for mayor!
I've taught in Oak Park for almost a decade and have heard fairly mixed accounts of the St.Hope experience. Disorganization is definetly one that comes up a lot. And then there's the whole charter school crap (not just St Hope..). They brag about their test scores, but they can pick who they want to be in their schools. They don't mention that during the bragging and St. Hope does the same thing.
ReplyDeleteI want to like KJ, but I don't know if he's cut out to go pro in politics. As the Bee keeps pointing out, he's not been the most forthcoming public figure. Not a good sign.
Jed
I thought it was so crazy how the Sac High teacher quite over the investigation of the fondling incident! What a stand up guy.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it would be easier to talk more about his actual positions on the issues if we actually heard some of his views on the issues. Unfortuately, he has missed a lot of the scheduled public forums and debates where his views might be aired.
ReplyDeleteI know that protecting privacy rights is one of his big issue, especially as it pertains to his privacy when showering with teen girls.
ReplyDeleteI think that discussing KJ's alleged behaviour with young girls is a VERY valid point- a strong component of leadership is sound judgement and acting appropriately. Whatever happened in AZ (or at St. Hope) it's pretty clear that KJ failed on both counts. I'd like to have someone at the helm of the city who is capable of figuring out that showering with a 16 year old with mental problems is a bad idea.
ReplyDelete-omf
I worked at Sac Charter HS for three years. I had an incident with Mr. Johnson himself (even his mother calls him Mr. Johnson, by the way), in which he invited me into a conference room to "sternly" insult me for the way I voted, brought up my religion, tell me that because of the election results the teachers would unionize (he was very unhappy about this), tell me that even though he had "no idea what I did", he had a God-given talent to identify good people and had expected more of me, and then decided to kiss me on the cheek and walk out of the room. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. I have enough knowledge of the sort of intimidation tactics he is capable of and is willing to use to know that it would be a very, very bad idea to put him at the helm of a city, much less a school.
ReplyDelete