Update to Multi-Year Disaster At Neva King Cooper

Last spring, Dr. Swier was kind enough to publish my education blog in a 7 part series on his excellent website. Readers who want to read my blog can access it at mdcpsallegations.com To recapitulate briefly, I recently retired from a 30 year teaching career in Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) the nation’s fourth largest school district.  For the last 25 years of my career, I taught at Neva King Cooper (NKC) a public school exclusively for profoundly mentally handicapped students ages 3-22 with IQs of 25 and below.

During the 2011-2012 school year, my school attempted to convert from a public school to a charter school. My school’s reason for attempting to convert to a charter school was that MDCPS superintendent Alberto Carvalho was attempting to force our school to adopt a new curriculum that was VASTLY above the intellectual capacity of our students. Florida law stipulates that public schools that attempt to convert from a public school to a charter school cannot be retaliated against. Regrettably, these laws provide for no punishment for school superintendents who willfully violate this law. Although many other schools throughout Florida  have successfully converted from public schools to charter schools, this process, (in violation of Florida law) has never been allowed to occur in MDCPS. When NKC attempted to convert to a charter school, superintendent Alberto Carvalho illegally removed both the principal and assistant principal and attempted to fire them. The illegally transferred principal and assistant principal sued in court (court case DOAH 13-1492). The judge ruled that Superintendent Alberto Carvalho was guilty of unlawful reprisal and abuse of authority. He noted that MDCPS was flagrant and blatant in its violation of Florida law. Although the judge recommended that both these administrators be returned to their posts at NKC, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho was under no legal obligation to do so and assigned 2 different administrators to the school. (The two administrators who were illegally removed from NKC were posted to different schools,) Those 2 new NKC administrators are principal Tracy Roos, and assistant principal Alicia Fernandez. For the last 5 years, in violation of Florida law, Superintendent Carvalho and the 2 new NKC administrators  have been retaliating against the staff of the school. Several staff members have stated that they feel like fish in a barrel  against the heavily armed above mentioned individuals.

Here is a brief list of some of the most egregious offenses NKC staff have suffered at the hands of the 2 new NKC administrators: 1) On the recommendation of principal Tracy Roos , a teacher (Mrs. Luz Morales) was illegally terminated.  Mrs. Morales appealed her termination (court case DOAH 145-2439) and the judge ruled her termination to be unwarranted. He ordered that Mrs. Morales be reinstated as a teacher in a different school. The judge recommended that Mrs. Morales be awarded 100% of the salary she forfeited during her illegal dismissal. Superintendent Carvalho ignored this recommendation and paid Mrs. Morales only 50% of her forfeited salary. The case against Mrs. Morales was so flimsy that MDCPS called not a single witness (not even Mrs. Tracy Roos, the principal of the school) during the hearing! The nation’s fourth largest school district presented literally no defense whatsoever of its decision to terminate Mrs. Morales! (It should be noted that Mrs. Morales supported investigating converting NKC to a charter school. It should also be noted that Mrs. Morales had previously accused Mrs. Roos, (the principal) of pressuring Mrs. Morales to cheat on the high stakes achievement test given to profoundly mentally handicapped students.)

2) Dr. Roos allegedly physically assaulted a school staff member on school grounds during school hours. This person was not a member of United Teachers of Dade (UTD), the teacher’s union. This person was fearful that if he/she reported this incident to the internal investigative bodies of MDCPS, his/her complaint would be ignored  or dismissed and then he/she would be illegally retaliated against. This person’s fears are well founded, as the internal investigative bodies of the nation’s fourth largest school system seem to operate to sweep problems under the rug and protect high ranking school officials. The person who suffered this alleged physical assault is still a MDCPS employee at a different work site, if Florida or Federal investigators wish to look into this matter.

3) Both principal Tracy Roos and assistant principal Alicia Fernandez filed 7 potentially career ending charges against a teacher with a previously unblemished record of over 30 years. It should be noted that this teacher was also a supporter of exploring the option of converting NKC to a charter school. These charges appear to have been filed based upon very flimsy evidence. I make this statement because the MDCPS investigative bodies very rapidly dismissed 6 of the 7 charges against this teacher. The one remaining charge was of a very minor nature. In June of 2015, this blog writer wrote a 16 page letter concerning the charges against this teacher that I sent to 5 very senior MDCPS officials (three of those people are school board members). In October of 2015, four months after I sent my letter, MDCPS, on very short notice, summoned this teacher to a meeting. As this teacher was not a member of UTD, he hired an attorney. The attorney was not allowed to attend this meeting. At the meeting, this teacher (with only one very minor charge remaining against him) was told he had only two options. These two options were to either retire immediately or be terminated. Fortunately, his attorney had told this teacher that the only remaining charge against him was very minor, and therefore, he had a third (unannounced) option. That unannounced third option was to tell these high ranking MDCPS officials that he intended to exercise his lawful right to continue his employment as a teacher. This teacher chose to exercise his right to continue his employment with MDCPS. This attempt by MDCPS officials to terminate this employee based on a very minor infraction certainly seems to be in violation of both Florida and Federal labor law. It seems highly unlikely that Superintendent Carvalho was not informed of the contents of the letter I sent to three school board members. It also seems highly unlikely that the meeting to attempt to illegally pressure this teacher into retiring could have been held without Superintendent Carvalho’s knowledge and consent. This teacher currently has 2 lawsuits pending against MDCPS. One of these is in Federal Court. The other is in state court.  It should be noted that Florida has some of the nation’s most conservative Federal judges, and a very high standard of evidence is needed to qualify for admission as a Florida Federal court case.

Two unmistakable indicators of both Mrs. Roos and Mrs. Alicia Fernandez failure as NKC administrators that MDCPS has chosen to overlook for 5 years are: 1) the high rate of staff turnover since these two administrators arrived at the school 2) the abysmally low ratings both of these administrators receive year after year from both parents and staff on the staff and parent satisfaction surveys. In my blog, I have listed 6 additional clear instances of Mrs. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez failures as administrators that MDCPS has chosen to ignore.

The greatest failure of Superintendent Carvalho , Mrs. Roos, and Mrs. Fernandez is their failure for over 2 years  to take easily implemented steps to avoid one or more preventable choking deaths among our profoundly mentally handicapped students. A little background information will illuminate this problem. One of the 7 charges against the previously discussed teacher was gross neglect and endangerment of a child. Here is the story behind that astonishingly unwarranted charge. The teacher in question had a child in his class named Toby. (not the child’s real name) Toby was so prone to choking incidents that this tendency was noted on his Individualized Education Plan (IEP) Obviously, a child at risk for choking needs to be monitored very closely at mealtimes. However, given the fact that profoundly mentally handicapped students often have seizures that happen unexpectedly and can last for several minutes, and given the fact that these students frequently have sudden emotional outbursts where they injure either themselves or their peers, it is impossible to monitor a child who is prone to choking at all times. One day at meal time, Toby began to choke on his food. The teacher noticed this, took immediate and corrective action, and Toby ejected the food he had been choking on. The child did not lose consciousness and went back to eating his meal. As our entire student population eats their meals at the same time in the cafeteria, the entire staff witnessed the professional and proactive actions of this teacher. In a normal school, this teacher would have been warmly congratulated for his effective handling of the situation. Regrettably,  NKC is FAR, FAR from a normal school. At the conclusion of Toby’s choking incident, Dr. Roos summoned our school’s on-site nursing staff for a medical report on the child. The nursing staff unanimously agreed that Toby was fine. I taught at NKC for 25 years. Never during that entire time had an administrator ever called for an ambulance for a child who was exhibiting no physical distress. After Toby ejected the food he was choking on and went back to eating his lunch, Dr. Roos took that unprecedented step. When the paramedics arrived, they were unable to identify the student they were supposed to rescue until Dr. Roos pointed out the child ( who was happily eating his lunch) to them. Dr. Roos demanded that Toby be taken to the hospital for observation. The paramedics told Dr. Roos that their regulations prohibited them from taking a child with no measurable or discernible health problems to the hospital. Dr. Roos then threatened to file a complaint if the paramedics did not take Toby to the hospital. To mollify Dr. Roos, the paramedics then tested Toby and found his vital signs to be normal. They then left the school and declined to take Toby to the hospital. Dr. Roos then allegedly phoned Toby’s guardian and threatened to report Toby’s guardian to the authorities for child abuse/neglect if the guardian did not take Toby to a doctor. Dr. Roos also allegedly strongly advised the guardian to file neglect/endangerment charges against Toby’s teacher. Toby’s guardian declined to take either of these actions. In the bizarre, perverse thinking of Dr. Roos, taking prompt and correct steps to save a child’s life constitutes neglect and child endangerment. Many staff members surmised that Mrs. Roos’ seemingly inexplicable actions might possibly have been motivated by revenge, as this teacher was one of the people who earlier reported Dr. Roos to the MDCPS authorities for possible cheating by Dr. Roos on the high stakes achievement test that we give to profoundly mentally handicapped children every year. To add insult to injury, this teacher also supported investigating converting NKC to a charter school.

As a result of the extremely serious and highly dubious charges filed by Dr. Roos against this teacher (who is widely regarded by our staff as one of the best teachers at the school) teachers are now fearful that Dr. Roos will repeatedly use choking incidents as a weapon to terminate teachers who supported the idea of exploring conversion to a charter school.

If the human brain is deprived of oxygen for just a few minutes, permanent brain damage or even death can occur. Dr. Roos seeming decision to use choking incidents as a weapon to terminate teachers she doesn’t like artificially and needlessly elevates the risk profoundly mentally handicapped children of NKC face. If an NKC student begins to choke, a terrified teacher, afraid his/her job may be at stake (even if he/she is blameless for the choking incident) may hesitate before summoning medical help, hoping the child spontaneously ejects the food he/she is choking on. Those few wasted seconds can literally mean the difference between life and death for our students.

Up until a few years ago, there was a teacher on our staff who was a graduate of the fire department academy and a fully trained paramedic who rode ambulances on weekends. This gentleman (who was also a superb teacher) is one of the long, long list of people who have left the school after Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez became our school administrators. On 3 occasions during my tenure at NKC, we had near death, stopped breathing incidents. On all 3 of those occasions, it was the teacher who was also a trained paramedic and not our on-site nursing staff who saved those lives. In one of those choking incidents, it took this fully trained paramedic nearly 3 minutes to clear the child’s blocked airways. Does NKC have the luxury ( or the moral authority) to add extra wasted time to that because MDCPS wants to play games to see if they can terminate a teacher whose only “crime” was to favor exploring conversion to a charter school? Profoundly mentally handicapped students, with IQs of 25 and below played no part whatsoever in the attempt to convert to a charter school. They should not have to pay with their lives for a decision in which they had no part. I have sent Superintendent Alberto Carvalho two certified letters. In those letters I suggested 3 actions to eliminate this needless risk. Those 3 actions are: 1) Replace Dr. Roos as the principal of NKC 2) Superintendent Carvalho should write a memo to NKC staff stating that staff who perform their duties with due diligence will not have charges filed against them. (Mr. Carvalho would then have to honor that pledge.) 3) All NKC staff should be trained in CPR on a yearly basis. In my blog, I listed 14 problem situations at NKC. Of those 14 areas of concern, eliminating the needless risk of profoundly mentally handicapped children choking to death is in my judgement the most pressing need of all.

In addition to the 2 letters I sent to Superintendent Carvalho, I sent the previously mentioned letter to 5 high ranking MDCPS officials in June 2015, I also wrote letters and sent copies of my blog to the Florida Department of Education, and the Federal Department of Education in Washington. To my utter astonishment, I have heard not a single word from a single person I wrote to! Given the fact that profoundly mentally handicapped children are needlessly being exposed to easily preventable choking deaths, this is simply inexcusable. I did not even receive confirmation of receipt of my correspondence from a single person! It almost makes me ashamed to say that I am an educator.

To my horror and astonishment, it’s business as usual at NKC. Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez are still the administrators at NKC, and the punishment and retaliation against NKC staff who dared to assert their lawful right to explore converting to a charter school continues unabated into a 6’th year.

In one of my letters to Superintendent Carvalho, I stated that Mr. Carvalho’s attitude bore a striking resemblance to Timothy McVeigh’s attitude. Timothy McVeigh was the monster who bombed the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Mr. McVeigh’s actions resulted in the needless deaths  of many kindergarten children who were housed in that building. When Mr. McVeigh was asked if he felt any responsibility for those murdered children, he shrugged his shoulders and called their deaths “collateral damage.” Mr. Carvalho has known since June 2015 that his agent at NKC, Dr. Roos, is recklessly and needlessly exposing profoundly mentally handicapped children to an easily preventable death from choking on food. Mr. Carvalho had an opportunity to replace Dr. Roos in the summers of 2015, 2016, and 2017, and has declined to do so. When I originally compared Mr. Carvalho to Mr. McVeigh, I wondered if this comparison was too harsh. Regrettably, considering Mr. Carvalho’s seeming willingness to put profoundly mentally handicapped students lives at risk  in order to “get” teachers who supported charter school conversion , this comparison seems on-target and richly deserved.

OK, it’s time for a riddle. Readers of this article (or my blog) are aware of Dr. Roos numerous egregious violations of Federal and state laws and violations of the MDCPS contract over a period of several years. Another MDCPS school principal was guilty of the sin of allowing dirty student bathrooms to exist on her campus. Superintendent Carvalho very abruptly fired one of these two principals (during the middle of the school year.) Which principal do you think Superintendent Carvalho fired? If you need a hint, the story of the school with the dirty bathrooms received prominent coverage in the Miami Herald newspaper, which caused Superintendent Carvalho to look bad. The correct answer to this riddle is that the principal with the dirty bathrooms was fired. Apparently, in MDCPS, numerous egregious violations  will not cause a principal to be fired,. However, a principal who makes Mr. Carvalho look bad will very quickly be fired.

Prior to becoming MDCPS school superintendent, Mr. Carvalho served as the press representative (minister of propaganda, if you will) of a previous school superintendent, and cultivated many friendships within the Miami media. (A few years ago, Mr. Carvalho, a married man, had an on-going romantic relationship with the education reporter for the Miami Herald.) There seems to be an iron curtain of silence by the Miami media regarding negative coverage of Superintendent Carvalho. This blog writer has been repeatedly rebuffed by both the Miami Herald and an alternative Miami newspaper with regard to unfavorable information concerning Superintendent Carvalho. A Miami t.v. news station very abruptly cancelled a multi-part expose on how Superintendent Carvalho illegally smashed NKC’s attempt to explore conversion to a charter school, just before it was scheduled to air. No explanation for that abrupt cancellation  was ever given.

The good news is that Mr. Carvalho is very swayed by negative publicity. Therefore, on bended knee, this blog writer is BEGGING readers of this article to contact Mr. Carvalho at 305-995-1430, or superintendent’s office@dadeschools.net (if this does not work, try it without the apostrophe), or MDCPS/ 1450N.E. Second Ave./ Suite 912/ Miami, Fl. 33132. Please urge Mr. Carvalho to 1) Replace Dr. Roos with another principal 2) Ask Mr. Carvalho to write a memo to the NKC staff pledging that in the future, NKC staff who perform their duties with due diligence will not have charges brought against them 3) Ask Mr. Carvalho to allow NKC staff to be trained on a yearly basis in CPR techniques.

During my last year of teaching at NKC, I was approached one day by another NKC teacher. This woman was genuinely puzzled by the fact that I was sticking my neck out to complain that the new curriculum that was being shoved down our throats (with no staff input) was FAR above the intellectual capacity of our profoundly mentally handicapped students. There is a very real possibility that profoundly mentally handicapped students will spend 19 years at NKC and learn absolutely nothing during that time from this curriculum. This teacher (who I will call Miss Insipid, which is not her real name) advised me that further protests on my part would get me in serious trouble. (This prediction turned out to be true.) I will never forget Miss Insipid’s next words: “The district [MDCPS] has been told many times that this new curriculum is completely worthless. We are still getting paid 100% of our salary. If the district wants to pay me to waste my time presenting material that everyone knows these children will never master, that’s the district’s failure, not mine.” Miss Insipid possesses the  qualities that MDCPS highly prizes. She has the ability to keep her mouth shut and she is willing to turn a blind eye and obey without question. Miss Insipid has had no trouble at all from Dr. Roos. Miss Insipid will never have to worry about being falsely accused of physically or sexually abusing students, or “cheating” on the high stakes annual achievement test that we give to profoundly mentally handicapped students.

I want to contrast Miss Insipid to another teacher I had the honor of knowing very early in my career when I taught at a middle (junior high) school. I will call this teacher Betty, (which is not her real name.) Teaching was not just Betty’s career. Teaching was what Betty lived for. Betty demanded (and got) her students’ best intellectual effort. The principal of the school, being well aware of Betty’s teaching gifts, assigned her to teach a newly offered class of honors math. Betty’s students were “the cream of the crop.” They were bright, but lazy and pampered. They were the sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers. At the beginning of the year, these students performed very poorly on Betty’s numerous and vigorous quizzes and tests, yet they did not bother to attend the tutoring sessions Betty offered, both before and after school. (Betty was one of the first teachers to arrive in the morning, and among the last to leave in the afternoon.) Betty warned her students that unless their quiz and test scores dramatically improved, they were in danger of receiving “D” or “F” grades for the first grading period. The students laughed at Betty. They said that Betty would have no choice but to award them good grades, because bad grades would make Betty look bad, and cause the students’ parents to complain to the principal about Betty. Betty assured her students that neither one of those facts would prevent her from giving out poor grades if those poor grades were merited. Betty was true to her word. At the end of the first grading period, the majority of her students did indeed receive either a “D” or an “F”. All hell broke loose. The principal came to Betty and BEGGED her to raise the students’ grades because the MDCPS downtown education bureaucrat was putting heavy pressure on the principal. Betty offered to speak to the downtown bureaucrat, but she insisted that under no circumstances would she change a single grade. Betty also faced a swarm of angry parents. Betty informed those parents that top ranked colleges are not impressed by good grades. They are impressed solely by high scores on college entrance exams. Betty stressed that high scores on those college entrance exams can be achieved only by a thorough knowledge of the subject matter. Betty also said that the self-discipline of intense studying needed for success at top ranked colleges needs to be developed starting in middle school. Betty sternly warned the principal, parents, and students that unless quiz and test scores improved dramatically, students would again receive poor or failing grades for the second grading period. Betty’s previously sparsely attended before and after school tutoring sessions suddenly became very crowded. Although Betty refused to “water down” her rigorous quizzes and tests, students’ performance did indeed dramatically increase.

The next school year, on the first day of class, Betty began with a stern lecture warning that students with poor quiz and test grades would receive poor or failing grades on their report cards. Half way through her lecture, a young man timidly raised his hand. He said, “Mrs. Smith, you don’t have to tell us that. We already know all about you.” For the remainder of her career, Mrs. Smith never again had to issue that warning. Students knew that Betty Smith was true to her word and would not back down . Students lucky enough to have had Betty Smith as a teacher learned far more than math. They learned that success comes only from hard work. They also learned that nothing improves self-esteem more than doing the best job you are capable of.

Readers of this article, which teacher would you rather have as your child’s teacher? Would you rather have Betty Smith, the teacher who demanded the best intellectual efforts of her students? Conversely, would you rather have Miss Insipid, the teacher who was willing to provide (without protest) a totally useless curriculum, provided she was paid her full salary? The sad truth is that unless your child is in an expensive private school, or a magnet program in a public school, your child’s teacher is far more likely to be a Miss Insipid than a Betty Smith. This is because grandstanding Florida politicians, in a move of monumental stupidity, have eliminated tenure for teachers. It is true that the absence of tenure makes it easier to eliminate ineffective teachers. However, a lack of tenure also washes out the best teachers. In MDCPS (and I suspect nationwide) blind obedience is prized much more than teaching excellence. A modern day Betty Smith (or Ben Smith) would simply not have her/his contract renewed because she/he gave out too many “bad” grades during the first grading period, and ignored an education bureaucrat’s order to award inflated grades.  Blind obedience is prized by education bureaucrats for both teachers and administrators. Dr. Alberto Fernandez, the previous principal of Neva King Cooper, was previously ranked as the top school principal in MDCPS. (There are approximately 350 schools in MDCPS.) His refusal to adopt a curriculum that was CLEARLY inappropriate for profoundly mentally handicapped students very nearly got him fired. Superintendent Carvalho refrained from firing the county’s top ranked principal only on the orders of a judge! How many other principals, (seeing what very nearly happened to the top ranked principal in the county) will keep their mouths shut when MDCPS imposes an inappropriate curriculum on their school? Does the phrase “Common Core” come to mind?

If I were a recent college graduate with a teaching degree, and I had to make a career choice between being a teacher at NKC, or riding on the back of a garbage truck, I would choose to ride the back of the garbage truck.I am not being dramatic when I say that. I mean that in the literal sense. I spent the last 3 years of my teaching career “teaching” a curriculum that was VASTLY above the intellectual capacity of my students. My students learned NOTHING from that curriculum. There is nothing more soulless than doing “work” that is devoid of all meaning or purpose. In contrast, emptying people’s garbage cans provides a real service that is genuinely needed.

I am enormously, enormously disappointed that after all the hard work I went through writing my blog , and after all the letters I sent out to every education bureaucrat I could think of, the same utterly worthless (and very expensive) curriculum will again be presented to NKC students in the 2017-2018 school year. When this curriculum was first introduced at NKC, it was so unpopular that we had parents with signs, picketing outside of the school! I guess the need of vendors to sell expensive products to the schools, and the need of school board members to receive reelection campaign money from those grateful vendors supersedes the human right of profoundly mentally handicapped students to receive a meaningful education.

I wish to make two final points in this article. The first point concerns the vast difference in the way  Dr. Tracy Roos treats those who favored converting to a charter school, as opposed to the way she treats those who opposed converting to a charter school. The second thing I wish to discuss is the yawning chasm in student performance on the Florida Alternate Assessment when Dr. Alberto Fernandez was the NKC principal as opposed to when Dr. Tracy Roos became the principal

Dr. Roos seems to have two vastly different criteria for administering adverse consequences to the staff of NKC. Staff who favored exploring conversion to a charter school seem to have a very low threshold for incurring punishment. A very strong case could be made that Dr. Roos’ threshold for these people is so low that it includes extremely flimsy evidence, or even outright lies. This article already discussed Mrs. Luz Morales, who was wrongfully terminated, in a case so weak that MDCPS literally presented no case in support of that termination. This article also discussed the gentleman who was accused of neglect and child endangerment, when in fact his prompt and proactive actions possibly prevented a child from choking to death. In  contrast, there seems to be little or no adverse consequences for those staff who did not support conversion to a charter school, even when those offenses are so egregious that the law DEMANDS that the principal (Dr. Roos) take immediate and legally mandated actions. For example, Mrs. Ramos, a paraprofessional still working at NKC, allegedly reported to Dr. Roos that Mrs. Ramos had observed a teacher physically abusing a child during the 2015-2016 school year. This offense is so serious that it can result in a teacher being terminated. When Dr. Roos was allegedly made aware of this situation, the law MANDATES that Dr. Roos report this to the appropriate child protection agency, or face a permanent revocation of her (Dr. Roos) education license. Allegedly, Dr. Roos merely transferred the child to another class (I believe the child was transferred to the class of Mrs. Gregory and Mrs. Green.)  The teacher who allegedly physically abused this child opposed conversion to a charter school. This teacher allegedly suffered no adverse consequences for his/her actions. It would be very easy to determine whether or not Dr. Roos reported this incident. Although MDCPs, and both Florida and Federal education authorities have been made aware of this incident, to the best of my knowledge,  no investigation seems to have taken place.

Addionally, there is the unexplained, statistically improbable dramatic increase in performance on the Florida Alternate Assessment (FAA)  since Dr. Roos and Mrs. Alicia Fernandez became the NKC administrators five years ago. If investigators wish to look into this matter,  two female staff members involved in the FAA testing who are no longer at NKC should be questioned to see if any illegal actions took place.

Finally, things will never change at NKC unless a critical mass is achieved in public pressure for an investigation and reform. I give my permission for any person reading this article to quote any part of the article (or my blog) or the entire article or blog to any interested party. Hopefully, someone reading this article will have access to a powerful media outlet, or one or more people with enough influence to trigger an investigation.