The Daily Review, Hayward

1/18/04

Schools probe appears bungled

Hayward board releases documents

By Ricci Graham

HAYWARD -- A few days after the Hayward school board fired controversial Superintendent Joan Kowal, district officials suspended two top administrators for unspecified offenses.

For the past year, the district has refused to provide reasons for the disciplinary action, even resisting efforts by The Daily Review to learn the details.

Now, a Superior Court judge has ruled that investigative documents are public record, forcing the district to do what it declined to all along: Release documents that could shed light on why the top administrators were disciplined.

The records paint a picture of a bungled investigation. One administrator apparently flaunted district policy and was assailed by employees as having a "Mommie Dearest" management style. Another was reprimanded five times, yet was permitted to remain in the district even though there were allegations that he abused his authority.

Despite the investigation's findings, no one has been fired. At the heart of this political firestorm is Gloria Tejeda, the former executive director of instructional support and a staunch Kowal ally.

Tejeda has been on paid leave for 13 months. She's been working from her Danville home while earning her $126,867 annual salary. Most of her work involves administrative assignments that have been mailed to her by the district, a district official said. Her contract expires in July.

Documents obtained by The Daily Review reveal Tejeda skirted district hiring practices, encouraged the falsification of timecards by employees while serving at Burbank Elementary School as principal, lost thousands of dollars in grant money, and offended workers with a my-way-or-the-highway approach to management.

The investigation was launched shortly after Tejeda allegedly was seen removing boxes from the district's headquarters soon after Kowal's firing in December of 2002.

The district's far-flung inquiry, however, dredged up more questions than answers.

Tejeda, whose attorney instructed her not to comment for this article, has filed a lawsuit against the district. The suit says she is an innocent victim of officials who are bent on going after employees who were loyal to Kowal.

Her attorney, Gregory McCoy, said, "I think it was an extraordinarily poorly conducted investigation."

Records show the district's lengthy investigation of Tejeda unearthed additional allegations that were then investigated as well.

"She was not accused of any of those things when she was placed on leave," McCoy asserts.

District documents show Tejeda had 17 formal complaints filed against her by employees before she was placed on administrative leave.

Tejeda and associate Superintendent Sunday-Joseph Ote-ngho were placed on adminstrative leave Dec. 27, 2002. The Daily Review's repeated efforts to learn why were stonewalled by the district.

On Nov. 5, 2003, the Daily Review filed a California Public Records Act lawsuit. The FOI petition demanded the release of documents pertaining to the internal investigation of Tejeda and Otengho.

Alameda Superior Court Judge Steven Brick ruled in favor of The Daily Review and ordered the district to pay the newspaper's legal costs, not yet determined.

District documents reveal that the investigation began four months after Tejeda was initially accused of removing documents and concluded nearly nine months after she was placed on leave.

Initially, the district tried to find out what Tejeda removed from her office in December 2002. The inquiry never identified what the documents were, but it did uncover a number of alleged improprieties by Tejeda.

Rick Minnis is chief of human resources for the Alameda County Office of Education. He investigated the alle-gations against Tejeda.

On Feb. 24, 2003, Minnis submitted a preliminary finding of fact on behalf of the district. In it, the district concluded that Tejeda encouraged workers to falsify timecards, violated hiring policy at least twice and cost the district thousands of dollars in grants by neglecting a program geared to improve student achievement at two elementary schools.

A review of the district documents revealed:

Tejeda "was aware" that para-educators -- or instructional assistants -- falsified timecards during her tenure at Burbank Elementary School. Para-educators, records show, worked only 4.5 hours on some days but were "instructed" by Tejeda to list a seven-hour workday on their timecards.

Tejeda instructed the noon duty supervisor at Burbank Elementary School "to falsify records" and make payments to parents who worked as substitutes without being fingerprinted or formally hired by the district.

This practice, district records show, violated the state's education code mandating that all public school employees are fingerprinted. The code is in place to protect students from people with criminal records.

Tejeda is alleged to have made arbitrary job offers on two occasions and then summarily rescinded them. Specifically, Tejeda informed current Markham Elementary School vice principal Lynn Medici in September 2002 that Medici would be assigned to Glassbrook Elementary School as interim principal. Shortly thereafter, Tejeda denied offering the job to Medici, who declined to comment.

Around the same time, Tejeda allegedly offered the Strobridge Elementary School principal position to Gwendolyn Harrison, who showed up at the school only to be told that no such offer had ever been made.

In both cases, Tejeda insisted there was a misunderstanding.

Former interim Superintendent Jay Totter declined to comment for this article.

However, in a "confidential" letter to Minnis obtained by The Daily Review, Totter affirms that he had begun the administrative process to hire Medici as interim principal of Glassbrook -- at Tejeda's instruction. Totter writes that Tejeda informed him that he, too, had misunderstood her intention regarding Medici. Totter writes, "I found this a most puzzling conversation."

With regard to Harrison, who has since sued the district in connection with her alleged job offer by Tejeda, Totter also wrote a confidential letter to Minnis. In it, he says he was present when Tejeda discussed a salary schedule for Harrison as principal of Strobridge Elementary.

Later, Totter writes, Tejeda again informed him than he had "misunderstood" the conversation. He writes, "It is my understanding that Ms. Tejeda again informed ... the district's attorney, that she had not made an employment offer to Dr. Harrison. I continue to disagree with Ms. Tejeda's statement since I was present at the meeting where she offered Dr. Harrison the position."

During the investigation, the district sought to determine what role Tejeda may have played in the loss of thousands of dollars in Bay Area School Reform Collaborative grant money, records show. BASRC had provided $325,000 in grants for a six-year period for Shepherd and Eden Gardens elementary schools and Tennyson High School to improve student performance. But BASRC pulled its funding in June 2002 after Tejeda ignored repeated requests by Kowal and the organization to submit a revised budget, district records show.

Tejeda insisted that Debbie Bradshaw, the executive director of assessment, research and evaluation, was responsible for the program, records show. But Bradshaw contends that Tejeda oversaw the program and was responsible for the loss of funding, records indicate.

"Ms. Tejeda was in charge of the budget and the program," Bradshaw told The Daily Review. "I can produce documents that show she was the fiscal agent. She told Dr. Kowal that she had submitted a (revised) budget, but she never did.

"It caught up to her."

"If in fact any of these things are true, and I don't think they are, I would think they would have shown up in (Tejeda's) performance evaluation," McCoy counters.

McCoy is also critical of the district's investigation for starting late and taking too long to complete. Former board members Betty DeForrest and Larry Booth agree the investigation was not done in a timely manner.

"One of the problems became the length of time it took," DeForrest said. "It was very unfortunate that it took so long."

Booth, who was one of two board members to be voted out of office in November as a result of the controversy surrounding Kowal, said: "I never got an explanation about why it took so long."

McCoy accuses the district of violating Tejeda's rights by bumping her from the administrative position before opening its investigation. Tejeda, however, is tenured and can return to teaching.

McCoy also suggests the district's investigator, Rick Minnis, had a conflict of interest in investigating Tejeda. Minnis' wife, Leila, McCoy said, was once supervised by Tejeda. Leila Minnis is the district's director of professional development.

"That does not make for a neutral or impartial investigation," McCoy said. The connection, McCoy adds, "was brought to the attention of the district. The district did nothing."

Totter said the district's attorney considered the matter.

"We didn't perceive it to be a conflict of interest at all," Totter said. "(Leila Minnis) was not involved. Our attorney clearly felt it was not a violation."

Rick Minnis originally was signed as a consultant to assist in the restructuring of the district's human resource department. But once it was clear the district had a handle on the restructuring and that Minnis' services for that project weren't needed, he offered to conduct the investigation since he had a background in personnel issues, a district official said.

The district, faced with an $18 million deficit and under pressure to avoid paying an outside contractor to lead the investigation, accepted Minnis' offer.

District officials concede the investigation quickly careened out of control after Minnis began interviewing employees. With each interview, another allegation against Tejeda would surface that Minnis felt compelled to investigate.

By the time he concluded his inquiry, Minnis had interviewed nearly two dozen district employees, ranging from teachers and administrators to janitors and instructional assistants, in an attempt to corroborate evidence against Tejeda.

"The investigation was interesting because it went into other allegations," Booth said. "It was the first investigation of this type that I've ever been involved in. We asked that they speed it up, but we never saw anything."

After six months of work, a district official said Minnis recognized that the investigation had taken too long and was going in too many directions. So, an official said, Minnis never billed the district for his time.

The official added, "He wasn't paid a dime."

During Minnis' investigation, employees who were interviewed said Tejeda managed through fear, often using her close ties to Kowal as a way to intimidate those who challenged her, records show.

One employee characterized Tejeda as having "a very controlling management style," district records show. Toward the end, the employee told Minnis, "(Tejeda) was very rigid and (it) seemed the decisions were based on, 'I want it my way.'"

Another employee told Minnis that Tejeda was well-respected before she was promoted by Kowal. "Now, we find out that was not the truth. Tejeda made staff feel like they owed her for their jobs."

A custodian interviewed by Minnis referred to Tejeda as "Mommie Dearest," and another district worker said, "It was distasteful to watch how Tejeda would treat someone she felt was 'on the outs.'"

Many of the 17 formal complaints filed against her centered around Tejeda's allegedly abrasive management style, which many assert undermined morale and left some employees frustrated and disillusioned.

"If she liked you, that was one thing," one employee told Minnis, documents show. "If she didn't, she made your life miserable."

Despite the wide range of allegations against Tejeda, the district failed to find cause for her dismissal.

But records show the district failed to pursue the more serious allegations that surfaced during Minnis' investigation, and Tejeda remains on the payroll.

Board president Paul Frum-kin III said trustees concluded there wasn't sufficient cause to terminate Tejeda.

New board member Sarah Gonzales said the botched investigation, coupled with the controversial tenure of Kowal, has continued to haunt the district and created a sense of apprehension in the community.

"It was one of the reasons why the incumbents weren't re-elected," she said.