The 2nd Largest Elementary School in California, Miramonte, spent two years, millions of state funded budget dollars and lots of hard work and sweat and accomplished what the teacher's union says is all that matters – Test Scores showing not everyone is a failure.

Sadly, it appears that a menacing pedophile Mark Berndt preyed on his students the whole time and probably for the 32 years he's been showing up to hunt/work.  He has now been charged of 23 counts of lewd behavior.

According to Colorlines, fear kept the kids and the parents silent. Now is a good time to ask ourselves as parents, taxpayers and moral beings whether we will continue to support public school systems that give teachers tenure but do not require that they actually impart knowledge to their students.

Miramonte, located South of Los Angeles, in a neighborhood ravaged by gangs, poverty and drug wars, brought in a new Principal, Martin Sandoval who was determined to bring cohesiveness to an otherwise disengaged school. And he succeeded through more parental involment, assemblies, dances, art programs, and one-on-one tutoring. Not only did this bring hope to the school, but the entire neighborhood seemed to calm down.

Then the Berdnt bombshell, which theoretically can undo all of this hard work.

Many have speculated that given the size of the school and the intent of the predator, this could go on unnoticed forever. A man, who doesn’t give out homework, passes out cookies, plays dress-up games with the kids behind locked doors and attends their birthday parties ought to be a red flag.  To this school, his popularity perhaps was seen as a good thing as it kept kids in class and excited to go back.

But underneath this lies more. According to the Times, families in the area rank poorest in L.A., and two-thirds of the adults do not have a high school diploma.  Nearly half are immigrants, most from Latino Countries and half the students are English learners.

There is a lot of finger pointing going on; educators blaming parents because they don’t speak English, or have a very real fear if they step forward they will be deported.  The California Federation of Teachers are blaming the sheer size of the school, how easily students can get lost academically and emotionally and the head of the L.A. Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy is blaming the United Teachers Union (UTLA) President John Warren for letting something so dispicable go unnoticed for so long.

According to KCPP, after John Deasy replaced all 88 teachers and supporting staff, he lashed out at the Teachers Union outraged after seeing hundreds of disturbing pictures and hearing various testimonies. The fact that Berndt has worked there for 32 years with allegations dating back to 1993 is indeed alarming.

UTLA President Warren Fletcher’s response was, “What we don’t do is make allegations that smear an entire faculty prior to investigation.”

According to Colorlines.com, many of the immigrant mothers interviewed said they were very involved with the school, attended all the school meetings, quizzed their daughters repeatedly and never saw any sign of trouble.

However, there is speculation that many parents knew what was going on but were afraid of stepping forward due to possible deportation.  Given the district the school is in, unlike the LAPD, which has a policy on the books intended to protect undocumented workers and witnesses, the department has immigration enforcement partnerships with the federal government.  Because Miramonte is an unincorporated the jurisdiction falls on the L.A. County Sheriff, which has a Secure Communities contact with the government.

“This causes alarm because the lines are blurred, community members stop being able to trust the police and fear coming forward. The risk of deportation is too high. What we are seeing is illustrative of exactly that critique.”

“Many of the parents with information about the case are afraid there may be negative consequences (deportation.)  Unfortunately their fear is not unfounded seen how people have been arrested and deported for selling ice cream on the streets,” Angelica Sala, executive director of the Human Rights Coalition told La Opinion.

According to the multiamerican.scpr.org., all the parents and witnesses have Sheriff Lee Baca’s word that there will be no prosecution or even inquiries into anybody’s legal status in this country.  He has set up a special Victims Unit just for the purpose of collecting information.

But many parents and witnesses remain unconvinced, given Baca had stepped up immigration enforcement programs like Secure Communities, undocumented workers, even those with no crime record get deported.   http://lat.ms/ymmDoR 

This is another wake up call to the horrid and unacceptable public education system in America. Specifically, the Teachers Union.

John Deasy is also the same man that supports keeping the Union Contract for Teachers in full force.  After a mere two years of teaching, no matter their experience or performance, teachers are granted tenure for life, unless they are criminals, perverts (caught in lewd acts) or have mental breakdowns.

A teacher could theoretically sit in a chair and play solitaire and still be granted tenure. Which means, full pay, benefits, and if they become disabled in any way, they can sit home and collect all the same, through our tax payer dollars. 

LAUSD does not require any of its 33,000 teachers to impart knowledge to pupils. At all.

The union has made it very difficult if not impossible to fire a teacher, which makes it very difficult to even investigate claims of abuse.

There is no system in place for rewarding good teachers and ousting “lemons.”

This is not to condemn all public schools. Many are exceptional, albeit hard to get into. They also have strong systems in place to notice any odd behavior, mostly coming from the child. This is where any signs of abuse will show up first.  Parents should also be familiar with them.

http://bit.ly/whGzlH   or    http://bit.ly/wqojWX 

After much pressure was put on Deasy by parents and various lawsuits last year, per the LA Weekly, he and UTLAs, Warren Fletcher hammered out an agreement essentially freeing public schools from an archaic system, or allowing schools to fire teachers based on their performance. Prior to this, if a teacher was simply horrific and parents were complaining, he or she would be sent to another school.

http://bit.ly/whlUP0 

Though hammered out it will take a while for it to be put into place.

A lot of information regarding the public school system is laid out extremely well in the Davis Guggenheim documentary Waiting for Superman.  In the end, there is no Superman. Just us.  There will be more Berndts, more bad teachers, more failing public schools, unless parents step up and create change.  Schools fail children. Whose obligation is it to help? Do we do enough?

If you want to be part of the solution text: possible 77177