Opinion: The Sourest Note in the Dance of the Lemons
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
Where did they get this idea — from the Catholic Personnel Management Handbook?
A page-one story today by my Times colleagues describes how a high school assistant principal in the LAUSD had been investigated for allegedly having sex with a student and pulling a gun on her stepfather. His punishment? Being transferred to a Watts middle school — where he has now been arrested for molesting a 13-year-old girl.
Where have we heard this management technique before? Let me think … oh yes: from the Catholic Church. Priests accused of molesting young parishioners were often transferred from parish to parish, where all they did was … molest more parishioners.
This tactic has cost the Catholic Church hundreds of millions of dollars in payouts, and incalculable damage to the church’s reputation.
Yeah, the LAUSD can sure afford to take those kinds of hits.
And to dump Steve Thomas Rooney at Markham, a middle school that is just emerging from trouble and strife to start looking like a model for the district, with donations for computers, uniforms, its own Boys and Girls Club, more discipline, better security, a full-throttle community effort to turn Markham around — it bespeaks contempt for the school, the students, the teachers, the parents and the neighborhood. Sure, dump the guy at Markham — they won’t care.
Police investigated Rooney after he allegedly pulled a gun on the stepfather of the 17-year-old girl he was allegedly having a relationship with, but the charges went unproven; the girl refused to cooperate with investigators. During the investigation, Rooney was put in a non-school job, and when the investigation went nowhere, he went to Markham.
Do principals and assistant principals have a union? If this ultimate ‘dance of the lemons’ transfer turns out to have happened because the district would rather invite trouble with the law, with students and with parents than trouble with a union — that will send a message about the district’s priorities. Exactly who is ‘’unified’’ around here, and for what?
a