Offer to help with LCUSD complaints

Six years have passed from the days that I was sick to my stomach every day that I sent my 7-year-old into his classroom. I am still angry with the administrators that allowed that teacher to stay in the classroom for the 7-10 years prior to my son having her in second grade.

I was naively optimistic in believing that meetings with the teacher would lead to an improved classroom situation. I was extremely reluctant to file a complaint. I wasn’t so much afraid of retaliation as afraid that the teacher would not respond rationally. It sounds paranoid. All I can say is my feelings and emotions were real.

My goal is to share my experience, not the teacher’s. I know some of the teacher’s story, but my empathy lasted only a little while. I needed to protect my child. I did not start the complaint process until May 2006.

Even now, as I re-read the district’s Article XX rules, I am still confused about which of my more than six meetings with the teacher should have qualified as the “complaint” meeting to move the process forward to the Level 1 (written complaint) part of the process. I do know that my first attempt at the written complaint was subsequently invalidated because the teacher did not have the opportunity to invite her union representative to our prior “complaint meeting.” I had to repeat the “complaint meeting” and then I was allowed to submit a new Level 1 (written complaint).

By the time all this was done, the school year was over. When I received a phone call from the principal, in August, informing me that the teacher would not be returning to the school that fall, I cried more than I celebrated.

I am writing this letter for one reason only. If you, or anyone you know, would like help in filing a complaint against a teacher in LCUSD, I will guide you through this process, to the best of my ability. It would be my honor to be able to help in such an important way. Email me at belindarandolph@cal.berkeley.edu.

Belinda Randolph

La Cañada Flintridge