20 August 2018 letter

20 August 2018

Hello, Mr. Carvalho, 9 school board members, and Ms Hernandez Mats,

My name is Bill Detzner. I am a retired MDCPS teacher. I taught in MDCPS for 30 years.  I spent the last 25 years of my career at Neva King Cooper (NKC) a special education center exclusively for Profoundly Mentally Handicapped (PMH) students. I have a blog mdcpsallegations.com that contains a great deal of additional information about the SIX YEAR CRISIS that has been going on at NKC. It is my hope that MDCPS will soon experience a firestorm of negative publicity concerning this crisis. I am sending a copy of this letter to every school board member (plus Mr. Carvalho and Ms Hernandez Mats) so that when this negative publicity happens, none of you can bleat that you had no idea these events have occurred. I sent my first letter in June 2015. That letter was sent to Mr. Larry Feldman, Dr. Martha Perez, Ms. Perla Tabares Hantman, Barbara Mendizabel, and Dr. David More. My 16-page letter was very polite and deferential. I asked that Dr. Tracy Roos be replaced as the principal of NKC. None of the 5 recipients of my letter responded to me in any way, and I was given not even the tiniest concession. Dr. Roos performance got worse, not better. I am not stupid. MDCPS response to me was not no, it was HELL no. The door was not only slammed in my face, it was locked and bolted as well. In the intervening 3 years, MDCPS has made not even the tiniest concession, or replied to ANY of the certified letters I have sent since then (5 to Mr. Carvalho, 3 to Mr. Feldman, 2 to Mr. Gallon, 3 to Office of the Commisioner, Florida Dept. of Education, 5 to Ms. Hernandez Mats.) I sent these letters NOT because I thought they would do any good, but to leave a paper trail and to prove that MDCPS officials are well aware of the situation, and (among many other things) willfully and deliberately exposing PMH children to an easily preventable violent death by choking on their food. (My recent post, to Governor Rick Scott discusses this in great detail.) That post also discusses in detail what gives the appearance of blatant racism against African Americans by both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez. This will hopefully be the last letter I send to MDCPS people,as those letters result in no action from MDCPS. All further correspondence will be addressed to people who will hopefully force  MDCPS to protect the lives of PMH students.

I am asking MDCPS school board members to take several actions. 1) I am asking all recipients of this letter to submit written correspondence to Mr. Carvalho asking him to immediately remove both principal Tracy Roos and assistant principal Alicia Fernandez from their posts at NKC and put interim administrators into those positions until a thorough investigation is done, both of NKC and MDCPS. (It would be nice if you could send me a copy of all correspondence you send to anyone to me as a courtesy. 2) As MDCPS internal investigative bodies give the appearance of being extremely corrupt, I am asking that both yourself (i.e. school board members and Ms. Hernandez Mats) and Mr. Carvalho be asked to send a letter to the National Labor Relations Board to conduct this investigation. 3) If Mr. Carvalho fails to take these actions in a very timely manner, I am asking you to send a letter to Governor Scott, asking the governor to relieve Mr. Carvalho of his position, due to nonperformance of his duties, and reckless endangerment of both the staff and students of NKC. 4) I am asking Mr. Carvalho to reinstate Dr. Alberto Fernandez as the NKC principal, and Mr. Henny Cristobol as the assistant principal at the conclusion of the investigation. DOAH 13-1492 states that these two administrators were illegally removed from their posts by MDCPS. As Mr. Carvalho gives the appearance of being an extremely visious and vindictive man, myself and the NKC staff are concerned that if Mr. Carvalho replaces the present NKC administrators, he will replace them with administrators as bad or worse than the present ones. Additionally, Dr. Fernandez was rated by MDCPS as the most effective administrator in the county, as evidenced by the very high approval ratings he generated year after year on both the staff and parent satisfaction surveys. As the NKC principal for 14 years, he has cultivated deep ties in the community (as evidenced by the yearly golf tournament he and Mr. Cristobol hosted for many years, raising a great deal of money that was then spent to enrich the lives of NKC students.) Additionally, he has a very thorough understanding of how to be an effective administrator at a center for PMH students. Mr. Cristobol has also demonstrated outstanding leadership qualities in his role as the NKC assistant principal. 5) I am asking that the Unique Learning System (ULS) be replaced with both the M.O.V.E. curriculum and the district approved Small Step Curriculuum (SSC). Of course, if the NKC staff decides that another curriculum is superior to the SSC, perhaps that curriculum could be implemented, subject to district approval. I discussed this in my recent post to Governor Scott. 6) If the results results of an investigative body that is independent of MDCPS (such as the National Labor Relations Board) concludes that Dr. Roos and/or Mrs. Fernandez have violated one or more laws, penalties commensurate with those offenses should be imposed, including termination, loss of pension, and a jail sentence, if appropriate. One of the reasons MDCPS administrators commit frequent, brazen, and egregious violations is that UTD no longer enforces either the contract or Federal or state labor laws. It is unacceptable that for decades, MDCPS administrators who commit horrendous abuses are merely shuffled off to another school or reassigned to Mr. Carvalho’s grotesquely bloated bureaucracy, (often with both a promotion and a raise.) A well known jingle among MDCPS employees is: “If you want a promotion, you have to screw up. The bigger the screwup, the bigger the promotion and raise.”

Several years ago, Rod Paige was the superintendent of Houston schools. He was the architect of the “Houston Miracle.” Under his leadership, the dropout rate in the nation’s fifth largest urban area plummeted to jaw-dropping levels. Mr. Paige’s astonishing accomplishment caught the eye of George W. Bush, and Mr. Paige was awarded the highest position an educational bureaucrat can achieve. He was confirmed as the nation’s Secretary of Education. He served in that position for four years. Unknown to the public, Secretary Paige was keeping a terrible secret. The truth of the matter was that Secretary Paige was a fraud. The reason Houston showed an astonishing decrease in its dropout rate was because Mr. Paige had “cooked the books.” One day, an assistant principal in one of the Houston schools discovered that the dropout numbers in his school were wildly underreported. Very quietly and carefully, he began examining the figures in other Houston schools. He discovered those dropout numbers were also wildly underreported. Eventually, the assistant principal discovered that the dropout numbers had been vastly underreported throughout the Houston schools. During his investigation, word of this assistant principal’s activities got out to the thugs and goons (oops, I meant to say top educational bureaucrats) who ran that school district. There is a jingle that everyone who works in a public school system knows. That saying is: “If you see something, say something.” Everybody knows that this applies only to wrongdoing by unimportant people. If a person is a whistleblower against somone who is not well connected, that person’s whistleblowing activities will be lauded and rewarded by school bureaucrats. If a person whistleblows against a well-connected school bureaucrat, that whistleblower may be magically transformed into a child molester, a teacher who cheats on the yearly high stakes achievement tests, or an educator guilty of child endangerment. If that whistleblower was unfortunate enough to have been an NKC employee, he or she might be accused of all 3 of these potentially career ending offenses. However, I have digressed. The goons/thugs who were the top Houston educational bureaucrats threatened this man by telling him that his career was over if he persisted in attempting to bring this wrongdoing to the public’s attention. (Just as MDCPS goons/thugs also allegedly told NKC assistant principal Mr. Henny Cristobol HIS career at NKC was over when Mr. Cristobol engaged in the (supposedly) legal and protected activity of exploring converting NKC to a charter school. Fortunately, this assistant principal was an educator, not an educational bureaucrat. (and the difference between those two groups of people is the difference between night and day.) The assistant principal was a very patient and persistent man. For four long years, this man toiled in obscurity, while Secretary Paige basked in the glory of his undeserved position as the nation’s Secretary of Education. The assistant principal discovered some facts that eventually all whistleblowers learn. The first fact is that the most egregious wrongdoing will not be punished unless the public  becomes aware of it. The second fact is that with some exceptions, the media exist not to expose corruption, but to cover it up. Unless the whistleblower enlists the help of a VERY powerful media outlet, he or she will fail. This poor assistant principal spun his heels for 4 years, with no success. Then one day, a miracle occurred. The t.v. show “Sixty Minutes” picked up his story and broadcast it to a nationwide audience. Within days, Secretary Paige submitted his resignation. Secretary Paige’s fall from grace was spectacularly swift, but ONLY after it achieved exposure by a media giant.

Presently, Alberto Carvalho is the superintendent of Miami schools. He is the architect of the “Miami Miracle.” Under his leadership, the number of fights and violence in the nation’s fourth largest school district has plummeted to jaw dropping levels. Miami has REPORTED levels of violence BELOW sleepy, rural school districts with only a tiny fraction of the number of students that Miami has. Astonishingly, (if the figures are to be believed) Miami has nearly the lowest level of violence in the entire nation! The REPORTED level of violence in Miami schools is lower not only in percentages but in actual numbers of violent incidents than some of the tiniest school districts in the country! How was Mr. Carvalho able to achieve these almost too good to be true figures? Mr. Carvalho was able to accomplish this remarkable feat because he discovered a little known fact. This little known fact is that there are no penalties assigned to superintendents who tell outrageous lies about the level of violence in their schools. Mr. Carvalho’s astonishing accomplishment caught the eye of some of the nation’s highest educational bureaucrats (as opposed to educators) and he was awarded the honor of the top superintendent in the nation! When Mr. Carvalho’s deception was brought to light, MDCPS became a laughingstock. One of two things happened. Either Mr. Carvalho deceived the school board about the report of school violence in Miami, or Mr. Carvalho was candid in informing the school board that the report was wildly inaccurate, and the school board decided to remain silent about Mr. Carvalho’s dishonesty. If this happened, shame on the school board for remaining silent. If Mr. Carvalho deceived the school board, shame on the school board for expressing little or no displeasure at Mr. Carvalho for his deliberate deception when that deception came to light. Currently, the U.S. is plagued by a sea of violent school shootings. Just last February, one of the worst school shootings in history occurred in Broward County. If violent school shootings are to be eliminated, or sharply reduced, successful conflict resolution programs need to be implemented. Regrettably, the effectiveness of these programs cannot be measured unless an accurate baseline exists to compare the level of violence before and after the program was initiated. Mr. Carvalho’s recklessness, and his decision to place his deceptively achieved high reputation above the safety of MDCPS students means the district now has to waste valuable time first to ascertain the TRUE level of violence in Miami schools before the effectiveness of conflict resolution programs can be accurately  measured. I saw on the news today that Mr. Carvalho has placed at least one police officer in every MDCPS school. While this is wonderful news, the news report did NOT mention that for 3 years now, Mr. Carvalho, with his eyes wide open, and fully aware of the facts, gives the appearance of using the PMH students of NKC as “bait” in his attempt to “get” the NKC staff who were bold enough to attempt to assert their supposedly protected right to seek conversion to a charter school. Astonishingly, Mr. Carvalho has made the decision to return Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez to their posts as the NKC administrators for the 2018-2019 school year. Mr. Carvalho gives the appearance of being willing to play Russian Roulette with the lives of PMH children. The law of averages says that if you play Russian Roulette long enough, sooner or later you are going to fire a round from the chamber. Again, one needs to ask, who is the REAL Superintendent Carvalho? Is it the man who when he faces a microphone passionately advocates that children should be safe in schools, or is it the man who has done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for over 3 years (and now into a 4’th year in 2018-2019) to end a danger of violent choking to death by PMH students caused by his regent, Dr. Roos. Hopefully, the parents and students Of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School will soon be asking Mr. Carvalho that question (more about that later.) Here is another situation where one needs to ask, “Who is the REAL Alberto Carvalho?” Last March, Superintendent Carvalho convened a hastily arranged emergency school board meeting, carefully packed with his supporters. The spin put out by Mr. Carvalho’s publicist is that this saintly man turned down his dream job (becoming the chancellor of NYC schools) because at the last minute, he realized he just couldn’t bear to stop serving the children of MDCPS. It’s a heartwarming story, but the reality turned out to be markedly different. According to both the New York Times and the Miami Herald, during this circus (I mean emergency school board meeting) Mr. Carvalho excused himself from the school board meeting to go negotiate his contract with NYC. It appears Mr. Carvalho was attempting to play Miami and NYC against each other. It appears Mr. Carvalho wanted both more money and more control from NYC. He appeared to be playing a game of brinkmanship, telling NYC, “Look, either cave in to my last minute demands, or I’ll walk out of the deal,” because Mr. Carvalho’s hand-picked, packed auditorium was responding well to his “Please beg me to stay” ploy. Members of the school board, do you think Mr. Carvalho “played” (i.e. used and manipulated) you? If so, do you think this is the first time Mr. Carvalho “played” you? If so, do you feel it will be the last time Mr. Carvalho will “play” you? I am betting that even as school board members, you did not know until the last minute that Mr. Carvalho was attempting to sneak into a new job in NYC. Here is a question for you as school board members: How many other hidden, unexploded bombs has Mr. Carvalho left lying around that you don’t even know about? I suppose you will be ok, provided there is never any kind of investigation. However, should the NYT start running stories about MDCPS dirty laundry, school board members may find themselves looking very, very bad, courtesy of Mr. Carvalho’s shenanigans. Here  is yet another instance of a situation where Mr. Carvalho seemed on the verge of suddenly leaving Miamifor a very prestigious promotion, only to pull back at the last minute, once again citing the fact that he realized he just couldn’t bear to leave the dear, sweet children of MDCPS behind. Mr. Carvalho had applied for the number two position in the Obama Administration’s Federal Dept. of Education.  Getting confirmed for this position is an extremely grueling and involved process. A person’s background is VERY thoroughly checked during the confirmation process.. If you have have any skeletons in your closet, they will be found out during the confirmation investigation. Therefore, nobody seeks this position unless they have a very strong desire to see the process through to its conclusion. Well, sure enough, Mr. Carvalho, at the tail end of this long, exhaustive process had another of his “Epiphany Moments” where he reaized he just couldn’t bear to part with the students of Miami. This story just doesn’t make sense. Is it possible that during the background check, one or more unacceptably large skeletons were found in Mr. Carvalho’s closet, and the Obama Adsministration was using this fig leaf [of last minute second thoughts] to allow Mr. Carvalho to bow out gracefully? If so, those skeletons may still be in Mr. Carvalho’s closet. If so, an in-depth ivvestigation of MDCPS may cause one or more of those skeletons to reappear, at a most inconvenient time. My belief is that Superintendent Carvalho is callous about the safety of PMH children only because he currently faces no adverse publicity for doing so. Hopefully, that is going to drastically change in the very near future. Given the fact that Mr. Carvalho has outrageously “cooked the books” regarding school violence in MDCPS, has he done this in other areas? For years, MDCPS has been plagued by 8 schools that received grades of “F” year after year. Astonishingly, a few years ago, all 8 of these schools achieved passing grades, all in the same year. If this was done honestly, I salute that fine accomplishment. However, given the fact that Mr. Carvalho has been willing to stoop to dishonesty in the past, one can only wonder if this accomplishment can stand up to the scrutiny of an in-depth investigation. Prior to becoming the MDCPS superintendent, Mr. Carvalho, a married man, allegedly had an affair with the Miami Herald reporter responsible for reporting on education. As a result of this illicit affair, MDCPS enjoyed very favorable reporting from this no longer objective reporter. Has Mr. Carvalho engaged in other illicit sexual activities since becoming the superintendent? While one certainly hopes this is not the case, one can never be sure what an in-depth investigation may reveal?

Based on the fact that I have written to 5 school board members about a matter so grave that it could cost the life of one or more PMH students, and not even received the decency and courtesy of a response, I realize that at least half the school board are not educators, but educational bureaucrats/politicians. If that is the case, nothing I have said so far in this letter will have the slightest impact on you. While I hope I am wrong, some, or perhaps all school board members may have the attitude that if a serf/peasant such as myself cannot either help or hurt the school board member, then that school board member has no time or energy for the serf/peasant. While I certainly cannot help any of you (and I wouldn’t do so ,even if I could) here is the meat and potatoes of this letter. As I said earlier, a whistleblower who does not have a very powerful patron in the media will never get any traction. I have been in phone contact with Elizaeth Harris. She is the education writer for the New York Times. I have shared my blog with her. She has promised to show my blog around and see if she can generate one or more stories about my blog in the New York Times. I don’t know how far from reality some of you school board members are, but do you have an inkling of what kind of media firestorm will be generated if the NYT does one or more stories about how Superintendent Carvalho appears to be using PMH students as bait in an effort to trap NKC staff stupid enough to trust that Florida politicians promise to protect teachers from retaliation against converting to a charter school? If you have NOT YET READ MY BLOG I SUGGEST YOU DO SO BECAUSE THERE ARE SOME HIGHLY ILLEGAL THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN DONE FOR SIX YEARS TO COLLECTIVELY PUNISH THE ENTIRE STAFF. Additionally, last summer I had a chat with one or more people from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School. I asked him/her/them to join me in my fight to protect one or more PMH children from dying a horrible and easily preventable choking death. This person/persons told me he/she/they were not yet ready to commit to the project, due to the fact that he/she/they were 99.9% sure that neither Dr. Roos or Mrs. Fernandez would be back in the fall, and it made no sense to do all that work to get rid of people who had screwed up so badly that it was virtually inconceivable to think that they would be back at their posts in August. As soon as I mail this letter, I am going to contact my M.S.D. High School contact(s). Unless I miss my guess, he/she/they are going to be very, very unhappy to hear that Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez are back their posts. My first request to the M.S.D. person/persons is that he/she/they call Elizabeth Harris and BEG her to do one or more stories on my blog. If that happens, not even the extremely servile Miami media will be able to keep this story quiet any longer. It is possible that even the extremely timid and mousy Jim DeFede will have no choice but to push this story. I will make sure the NYT is fully aware of the response or lack of response from every school board member, Mr. Carvalho, and Ms. Hernandez Mats. Additionally, given the fact that I have had no response whatsoever from any MDCPS person for over 3 years, and given the fact that Mr. Carvalho has made not even the tiniest concession in over 3 years, if I hear from the NYT. or M.S.D. High School, or the Bill and Melinda Gates Educational Initiative first, I will give those people first priority, and let the chips fall where they will.

In my latest blog post to Governor Scott, I went into great detail about what appears to be the very frail emotional stability of Dr. Roos. In that post, I also describe an incident where I was called into a conference in Dr. Roos’ office. Dr. Roos asked me to be seated, and I sat in one of the many chairs under her round table. Dr. Roos then glared at me and informed me I was sitting in the wrong chair, and indicated the seat she wanted me to sit in. Dr. Roos then allegedly told me she suffers from an obsessive-compulsive disorder. (Although I personally experienced this event, have chosen to use the word “allegedly” to protect myself legally.) Dr. Roos appears to derive enormous satisfaction and pleasure  from causing enormous emotional stress to anyone having anyone having even the slightest connection to NKC. Here are additional examples that I did not cite in my previous post. I had a behaviorally challenged and highly energetic student in my class that I will refer to as Joe (not his real name.) Joe was a high functioning autistic child who took a great deal of time to adjust to changes of any kind. Joe was in my class for 4 of the 5 years he attended our school. Joe suffered from excessive anxiety, and he took medication to lessen this anxiety. Every day, Joe would take off his socks and shred them into small pieces. My para-professional (para) and I allowed Joe to do this, because it was a less destructive behavior than Joe’s alternative behavior, which was physically harming himself. Over the years, I developed an excellent rapport with the caretaker of Joe’s group home. On occasion, when Joe’s anxiety attacks became acute, in addition to shredding his socks, Joe would rub the skin off his arms, causing superficial, but not serious wounds. When this happened, I would phone Joe’s caretaker to inform her of the superficial wounds that either happened while he was in school under my supervision, on the bus on his way to school in the morning, or on the bus on his way home in the afternoon. Joe was an extremely difficult child to provide proper care for, but his caretaker did an excellent job of providing for all of Joe’s needs. Joe was in the hands of a very skilled and caring group home care giver. When Dr. Roos became the NKC principal, she confronted me when Joe arrived on campus with very small and very superficial wounds on his arm. I told Dr. Roos that I had been Joe’s teacher for 4 years. I told Dr. Roos the name and the dosage of the anti-anxiety medication Joe was on, and I said it was not unusual for Joe to occasionally arrive at school with small wounds on his arm. Dr. Roos became extremely angry and shouted, “Bill, this is physical abuse, and you know it. Either you call the authorities and report a case of suspected child abuse, or I will file [career ending] charges against you for failure to report a case of suspected child abuse.”  Dr. Roos then slammed her cell phone down next to me and remained in her office and listened in while I made my phone call to the authorities. As one of my closest friends had recently been terminated from her 28-year teaching career on the recommendation of Dr. Roos (DOAH 145-2439)  and another close friend had 7 potentially career ending charges filed against him (he had a 36-year unblemished teaching career) I took Dr. Roos threat very, very seriously. (As an aside, in DOAH 145-2439, MDCPS called not a single witness to defend its dismissal, and the teacher was ordered to be reinstated, with 50% pay during her illegal dismissal. The teacher who had 7 charges filed against him filed a lawsuit and reached an out of court settlement with MDCPS.) During the phone call I made under immense pressure from Dr. Roos, when I said that Joe’s wounds were the size of a dime, Dr. Roos shouted out, “No they’re not. They are the size of a nickel.!” As I did not want to be accused of interfering with an abuse investigation, I had no communication WHATSOEVER with Joe’s caretaker after I made that phone call to the authorities. Hence, I was not allowed to ask her about Joe’s injury PRIOR to filing charges against her. Joe’s caretaker was very, very angry with me, and quite frankly, her anger with me was highly justified. Joe had these self-inflicted superficial injuries on several occasions in the past, I suspected this did not appear to be abuse, and like a bolt out of the blue, without even bothering to ask her for an explanation, I had filed very serious charges against this very capable and caring caregiver. (Perhaps I am wrong here, but I suspect that had Dr. Roos known that the hasty, ill-advised action she (Dr. Roos) bullied me into taking had caused hard feelings between myself and Joe’s caretaker, Dr. Roos might have considered that to be an added bonus.) Joe’s caretaker had the option to transfer Joe to a different school, as Joe traveled a great distance by bus to arrive at NKC, and she wisely availed herself of this option. As I mentioned earlier, Joe takes a great deal of time to adjust to even a small change, let alone a major change. This change caused a great deal of needless turmoil in Joe’s life. As a result of this change, I learned that Joe suffered from numerous HUGE and DEEP wounds on his arm due to the heightened anxiety he suffered from his relocation to a new school. I think any reasonable person would place the blame for Joe’s unnecessary suffering at the feet of Dr. Roos. As an aside, Joe probably transferred to a school where Mr.Carvalho’s “Death Tax” was not in effect. The “Death Tax” refers to the fact that if an NKC student begins to choke on his food, even if the teacher takes immediate corrective action, and the child suffers no ill effects, that teacher is at-risk for having potentially career ending charges filed against him/her. The poor teacher is faced with a cruel choice. Does he/she immediately notify the school nurses, and put his/her career at risk, or does the teacher put the child’s life at risk by delaying notifying notifying the school nurses, hoping the child spontaneously ejects the food? If Joe had begun to choke in my class, I would have IMMEDIATELY notified the nurses, even if it caused Dr. Roos to file potentially career ending charges against me.  This is NOT because I am a better or more altruistic person than my peers. It is because I enjoy certain advantages that my peers do not. For example, I was fortunate enough to reach the top of the pay scale before Mr. Carvalho began denying annual pay raises, year after year. As my wife and I are childless, we have far fewer bills than other teachers, and as I was a30-year teacher, I would enjoy a full pension, even if Dr. Roos unjustly terminated me. What if I were a struggling mid-career or beginning teacher, just struggling to pay my bills and feed my family? Would I still risk my career by summoning a nurse if one of my students began to choke? I honestly don’t know the answer to that question. I hope I would choose to put my livelihood and my family’s well-being at risk by saving a choking PMH child’s life, but I just don’t know. However, this question begs the bigger question, which is: Why does the “Carvalho Death Tax” exist at all? (other than to punish teachers who lawfully exercised their right to explore conversion to a charter school.) Why have NKC teachers been put in the untenable position of having to choose between the well being of their family, and the well being of a PMH child? Here’s another thing to consider. Mr. Carvalho, you have already won the war. All the staff that you (and possibly the school board) might regard as “Troublemakers” (i.e. those who favored charter school conversion) have left NKC. They have either retired or transferred to other schools. You are now playing Russian Roulette with the lives of PMH children to drive away teachers who either opposed charter school conversion, were neutral toward charter school conversion, or are new teachers who will never have tenure, and can be dismissed at the drop of a hat. Mr. Carvalho, you have known since June 2015 that you have utterly and completely terrorized the NKC staff into complete and total submission. You have known this because I clearly told you this in that June 2015 letter (which is in my blog). For the last 3 years, you have been “Putting the hammer down” on an utterly defeated “foe” (in your eyes) SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU CAN!!! Mr. Carvalho, ONLY A SADIST CONTINUES TO BEAT A DOG AFTER ITS SPIRIT IS COMPLETELY BROKEN. I once compared you to Timothy McVeigh, the man who murdered several classes of kindergarten children when he bombed the Federal building in Oklahoma City. I made this comparison because when Mr. McVeigh was asked how he could justify the murder of little children, he shrugged his shoulders and said that these innocent children were merely “collateral damage.” I mistakenly thought this comparison would shame you into lifting the Russian Roulette curse you have placed on the children of NKC. If that Russian Roulette gun goes off, and one or more PMH children die a horrible and easily preventable death, will you shrug your shoulders and call it “collateral damage” in your war against a school that attempted to convert to a charter school? In the 1930’s, Joseph Stalin artificially induced a famine in the Ukraine that caused the death of several million people. He did this to beat the population into total submission, to seize the peasants land and turn it into giant collective farms. Mr. Carvalho, let me be clear that I am NOT comparing you to Mr. Stalin. The reason I am not making this comparison is because once Mr. Stalin achieved his objective, he ceased the punishment. You, on the other hand, have continued the punishment for three years AFTER you knew you had reduced the NKC staff into a state of total Fear  and Terror and irreversibly stopped the conversion process. Mr. Carvalho, the NKC staff understands that although charter school conversion is (supposedly) completely legal in Florida, “The Carvalho Doctrine” states that this simply will NOT be allowed to happen in “The People’s Republic” of MDCPS. YOU ARE NOW CONTINUING THAT PUNISHMENT INTO THE 2018-2019 SCHOOL YEAR. MR CARVALHO, HOW MUCH LONGER DO YOU PLAN TO CONTINUE TO PUNISH NKC? HOW MUCH LONGER DO YOU INTEND TO NEEDLESSLY RISK THE LIVES OF PMH CHILDREN?

Shortly after Dr. Roos became the NKC principal, she allegedly summoned the technician responsible for keeping the NKC computers running and asked him whether he supported or opposed NKC’s failed bid to convert to a charter school.  The technician replied that his sole function was to keep the school’s computers running, and he did not care whether the school remained a public school or converted to a charter school. Apparently, this was not the answer Dr. Roos was looking for. She then made a phone call and said our school no longer needed a full time technician and asked that this technician be shared with one or more additional schools. As our new curriculum, the Unique Learning System (ULS) requires the use of computers, this meant that whenever a computer broke down, teachers had to wait until our now part time technician was on campus to resume presenting the ULS curriculum. However, as the ULS curriculum is so far above the intellectual capacities of our students, I am happy to report that no loss of absorbing the concepts presented in the ULS curriculum occurred resulting from nonfunctioning computers. The truth of the matter is that teachers WELOMED nonfunctioning computers, because it gave us an opportunity to present the now forbidden Small Step Curriculum (SSC) and teach the kids self-help skills that are of REAL value towards improving student independence and improving the quality of our students lives.

The poor man who was our school psychologist wasn’t even given the chance to say whether he was for or against conversion to a charter school. Like the technician, he was only concerned about performing the task he had been hired to do. His sole function was to test our students, and like the technician, he had no preference between NKC being a public school or a charter school.This  poor man was sitting at a meeting when he got an email, stating that effective immediately, he was no longer assigned to NKC. He emailed back, stating that he would clear his things out of NKC the next day. He was told not to return to the NKC campus, and that his belongings would be returned to him via a MDCPS vehicle. A few weeks later, this poor man found himself at a meeting that was also attended by Dr. Roos. The psychologist told Dr. Roos that he (the psychologist) was not aware that Dr. Roos was unhappy with him and asked what had happened. Dr. Roos allegedly refused to speak to the man, or to make eye contact with him. In my blog, I also discuss how Dr. Roos also dismissed the entire Occupational Therapy/Physical Therapy staff at the end of the school year and how she dismissed nearly the entire nursing staff in a mass purge.

One of our teachers was on workman’s compensation for an extended period. One day, in the late afternoon or early evening, this teacher allegedly discovered Dr. Roos, sitting in her car outside his/her place of residence.  This teacher lives nowhere near NKC or Dr. Roos’ residence.

Last spring, a 30-year veteran teacher who is also a past Teacher of the Year winner, and an extremely accomplished teacher in every regard, allegedly had a nervous breakdown, on campus, during school hours. Perhaps this outstanding teacher’s nervous breakdown was due to the ENORMOUS strain NKC teachers have been under for the last SIX YEARS, after Mr. Carvalho illegally smashed the charter school conversion attempt. What has been going on at NKC for the last SIX YEARS certainly gives the appearance of being illegal collective punishment for engaging in the (supposedly) protected activity of exploring conversion to a charter school. (As an aside, at the last day of school awards ceremony, Dr. Roos allegedly presented every teacher except the teacher who suffered this nervous breakdown with a trophy. As Dr. Roos has done MANY, MANY times in the past, she chose a MANDATORY meeting to publicly humiliate a teacher. In this instance, it was a teacher  who recently suffered a nervous breakdown.) As another aside, this teacher is a UTD member. Ms. Karla Hernandez Mats, are you aware that in the U.S., Federal labor laws mandate that employers treat employees with dignity and respect? Ms. Hernandez Mats, you may not be aware of this, but even “The People’s Republic” of MDCPS is a part of the U.S., and therefore subject to Federal law. Is it possible, Ms. Hernandez Mats that you believe that the $800 per year that this poor serf shells out every year in union dues entitles him/her to nothing more than a lousy desk calendar? Will NKC continue to be a “No Go Zone” for UTD in the 2018-2019 school year? You have never had the decency or the professionalism to answer me before (despite 5 certified letters) so I suppose you will not answer these questions either. I have some questions for the school board members who are (hopefully) reading this letter. If you were a teacher, paraprofessional or school secretary, would you be happy working at NKC? If [may God forbid] you have a PMH child, would you be happy that Dr. Roos and Screamer (i.e. Mrs. Fernandez) are the two NKC administrators? Does it bother you that year after year, NKC ranks nearly at the bottom of the entire district in the yearly staff/parent satisfaction surveys? Does it bother you that in last year’s survey, in an effort to prop up those abysmally low scores, paraprofessionals were illegally prevented from participating in that survey? Does it bother you that AFTER Dr. Roos allegedly threatened an AfricanAmerican woman whose daughter was brutally murdered with an involuntary transfer to another school , Dr. Roos was then nominated for the prestigious Principal of the Year Award? Does it bother you that the African American employees of NKC consider both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez to be racists? Does it bother you that last spring, a teacher with a 17 (SEVENTEEN) year teaching career simply retired, because he could no longer tolerate the daily disrespect he was treated with, and the enormous daily stress of having potentially career ending charges brought against him, with little or no evidence? Does it bother you that an NKC teacher who still works at NKC but no longer works in the classroom was allegedly told by Dr. Roos that one of this teacher’s new duties includes “snitching” on his/her peers and that his/her yearly evaluation is dependent on how well he/she fulfills this “duty?” Does it bother you that year after year, a high percentage of NKC teachers transfer to other schools? (This year, we lost 8 teachers. Last year, we lost nearly the same amount.) (If you read my blog, you are aware that Mrs. Fernandez once went on a 20-minute nonstop screaming jag against me. I am a military veteran, and even during army boot camp, I never experienced a screamathon even close to Mrs. Fernandez unprofessional conduct that day. Mrs. Fernandez has also “treated” several other NKC serfs (I mean employees) to this spectacle. A friend who read my blog told me he didn’t like the name I had assigned to the blog (mdcpsallegations.com) I asked him what name he thought I should have assigned to the blog. He told me I should have called my blog therapeofnkc.com I think my friend is right. No one can read that blog and come away with any other conclusion than that what has happened at NKC FOR THE LAST SIX YEARS AND CONTINUES TO HAPPEN INTO THE PRESENT is anything other than Rape. (Gosh, I sure hope the National Labor Relations Board investigates MDCPS.)

Mr. Carvalho, perhaps I am wrong, but I think that you are not only the most powerful superintendent in the U.S., I think it may be possible that you may be the most powerful superintendent in the history of the U.S. You have been the MDCPS superintendent for 10 years. Over that period of time, you give the appearance of having morphed from a superintendent to a dictator. (For example, you have decreed that the Florida law that allows public schools to convert to charter schools simply does not apply in “The People’s Republic” of MDCPS.) This has not resulted in you losing a single penny in funding from either Tallahassee or Washington. You also appear to have decreed that it is ok to place PMH children at risk for choking to death. If anyone is powerful enough to have this decree overruled, I certainly hope they step forward very quickly. You appear to have usurped the ability of all agencies that are supposed to act as a counterweight to your power. The school board appears to be nothing more than your personal rubber stamp. Although you have granted almost no raises for teachers, and the ones you have granted have been miserly, and although you have steamrolled the contract and turned it into a joke, Ms. Hernandez Mats saw fit to spend UTD money to throw a party for you when you walked away from the NYC job offer. The Miami media, which is supposed to provide objective coverage of you, has turned into the Carvalho Cheerleading Squad. The Florida Commissioner, who I have sent 3 unanswered letters to, has informed me that unless you embezzle money, that office is not interested in investigating you. Mr. Carvalho, you do not appear to be a decent or humane man, but I do believe you are highly intelligent. Perhaps you also have a sense of irony. If so, perhaps you will enjoy the irony in the following situation. One of the (impossibly advanced) concepts that the Unique Learning System (ULS) asks PROFOUNDLY MENTALLY HANDICAPPED children to master is why a system of checks and balances is necessary in all branches of government. The answer, of course, is to prevent one person, or a small group of people from becoming too powerful. While PMH children will never know the ANSWER to that question, it is possible that one or more of these children may experience the CONSEQUENCES of one man becoming too powerful as they die a horrible (totally preventable) death from choking on their food.

Many years ago, NKC had a very sweet, gentle, loving young man that I will call Sam (not his real name.) One morning at breakfast, Sam attempted to swallow an entire  pancake, all at once. Sam’s airway was blocked, he turned blue, and he then lost consciousness. ALTHOUGH THE ENTIRE NURSING STAFF ASSEMBLED AROUND SAM, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM KNEW WHAT TO DO AND JUST STOOD THERE.The paramedics were called, but by the time they would arrive, Sam would have been dead. Fortunately, NKC had an ace up its sleeve. One of our teachers, Mr. Frank Lozada, was a fully trained Fire Academy medic who rode ambulances on weekends. What you may not know is that deeply lodged food often takes a great deal of time to dislodge, even by a highly skilled paramedic. I will never forget that terrible morning. It was the most stress filled experience I have ever had. The tension in the school cafeteria was so intense you could have cut it with a knife. Although most PMH children do not have speech, they do vocalize. At mealtimes, our school cafeteria is a very noisy place, filled with shouts, screams, groans, and other vocalizations. For the one and only time in my 25-year stint at NKC, the school cafeteria was utterly silent. The students, although unaware of what the problem was, could sense the very deep sense of fear and dread that permeated the cafeteria. It took Mr. Lozada 2-3 minutes, but he successfully cleared Sam’s airways, and Sam made a full recovery. Regrettably, Mr. Lozada will never save another life at NKC. Mr. Lozada has joined the LONG, LONG line of people who have left NKC due to the EXTREMELY toxic personalities of both Dr. Roos and Screamer (AKA Mrs. Fernandez) A few years later, after he graduated from NKC, Sam passed away. His cause of death was choking to death on his food. HAD “THE CARVALHO DEATH TAX” BEEN IN EFFECT THAT DAY IN OUR SCHOOL CAFETERIA, SAM WOULD HAVE DIED. MR. CARVALHO, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WILL YOU PLEASE, PLEASE,  PLEASE REPEAL “THE CARVALHO DEATH TAX?” If Mr, McVeigh, I mean Mr. Carvalho is unwilling to take IMMEDIATE action, I am hoping at least one school board member will have the decency and the courage to ask Governor Scott to immediately relieve Mr. Carvalho of his position. If a madman had a gun inside a school, immediate action would be taken to insure the safety of those students. Immediate action also needs to be taken to insure the safety of NKC students.

Shortly after World War Two ended, the Allied soldiers forced the inhabitants of a small village just outside the barbed wire fences of a concentration camp to tour that facility. The Allied soldiers were very angry that even though the inhabitants of that village must surely have known about the atrocities being committed inside the camp, not a single person had offered a word of protest. When the soldiers asked the villagers why they had remained silent, the villagers said that if they had protested, they feared that they and their families would also have become concentration camp inmates. The MDCPS school board members have no such excuse. Not only will you not be put into a concentration camp for reporting wrongdoing, you are paid a very handsome yearly salary to report Mr. Carvalho if he fails to perform his duties. If you make the choice to remain silent, and one or more NKC students chokes to death, you will have to live with that fact for the rest of your life.

Mr. Carvalho, I will end this letter with a message to you. New York City will never know how lucky they are that you turned down the chancellorship of their schools. The citizens of New York dodged a bullet. (Heck, they dodged a cannon ball.) Mr. Carvalho, I am a peasant and a serf, and as such, I have no power. I cannot make you do the right thing. But I can make you wish that you had. I am a very patient and persistent man, Mr. Carvalho.

Sincerely,

Bill Detzner

P.S. Only the weak hit the fly with a hammer. -Bangambiki Habyarimana-

P.S. Only a sadist continues to beat a dog after its spirit has been completely broken.

billdetzner@bellsouth.net 7722 S.W. 99 St. Miami FL. 33156 mdcpsallegations.com