Month: October 2018

Hi Ebony. Would you please be kind enough to forward this email to Ruban Roberts? There has been a new development at  Neva King Cooper School (NKC.) A few days ago, the school principal, Dr. Tracy Roos allegedly physically assaulted an African American severely mentally retarded student in front of witnesses who submitted formal charges against her. By the way, this is not the first time Dr. Roos has been accused of physically assaulting a person. A few years ago, an NKC employee alleged that Dr. Roos had physically assaulted that employee. The employee was so fearful of retaliation by MDCPS (who act more like a criminal enterprise than a school district)  if he/she reported the incident that the employee did not report the incident to MDCPS authorities and transferred to another school. That person is still a MDCPS employee and is a very kind person who cares very deeply about severely mentally retarded children. If this person finds out about this alleged physical assault against an NKC student, that person may be willing to come forward and tell about Dr. Roos alleged first physical assault.  Although it is MANDATORY that Dr. Roos be assigned alternate duty at another location until the investigation is complete, (for the safety of the child) Miami Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) is refusing to do this, and Dr. Roos remains the principal at NKC. This means the child’s parents must either keep their child out of school and risk having the child removed from his home and placed in foster care, or send him back to NKC where a principal who has personally told me she (Dr. Roos) has an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Additionally, Dr. Roos gives the appearance of being unable to control her vicious and vindictive impulses and has a long history of retaliating against anyone who has caused her (Dr. Roos) to look bad. Thus it is entirely possible that if this child is returned to NKC, Dr. Roos may again physically assault him. As you can see, returning this child to NKC, where Dr. Roos is still the principal is not a good idea. While allowing this child to transfer to another school  (which may result in a longer bus ride each way for a child who did nothing wrong) is one solution, it still leaves Dr. Roos (who most of the NKC staff regard as very racist) (i.e. last spring, she illegally forbade most of the African American NKC staff from taking the MANDATORY staff satisfaction survey.) in charge of a school containing other African American severely mentally retarded children. Again, given the fact that Dr. Roos has said she has OCD, this places these children at risk for being physically assaulted by Dr. Roos. For this reason, the NKC staff is hoping that the NAACP will see fit to insist that Dr. Roos be relieved permanently of her duties at NKC. As Superintendent Carvalho has punished NKC for six years ( I talk about this at great length in my blog mdcpsallegations.com) the NKC staff is very fearful that Mr. Carvalho will appoint a new principal to NKC who is as bad or even worse than Dr. Roos. For this reason, the NKC staff has asked me to ask the NAACP if this organization would consider asking Mr. Carvalho to reinstate the previous administrators who are Dr. Alberto Fernandez (principal) and Henny Cristobol (assistant principal) One other problem that results from allowing Dr. Roos to remain at NKC is the issue of witness intimidation. You see, in addition to the bus driver and the bus aide who witnessed Dr. Roos alleged physical assault of this student, an African American woman and NKC staff member who has been a MDCPS employee for over 30 years also witnessed this event. She is terrified to come forward to report what she saw, probably because she remembers what happened to the African American custodian who came forward last year and reported Dr. Roos for threatening another NKC African American woman whose daughter had just been murdered with an involuntary transfer to another school. Dr. Roos summoned the custodian to her office for a closed door meeting and threatened the man with immediate termination of his job unless he immediately recanted saying that Dr. Roos had ordered him to threaten one of his closest friends with an involuntary transfer to another school. MDCPS is more like a criminal enterprise than it is a school district, and I think the reason MDCPS is violating its MANDATORY rule that a principal accused of child abuse be removed from campus pending the results of the investigation  is because MDCPS knows that if Dr. Roos is removed from NKC, the third witness to Dr. Roos child abuse will lose her fear of testifying what she saw Dr. Roos do.

I am contacting you regarding the illegal reprisals that have been happening at Neva King Cooper (NKC) a school for severely retarded children. These abuses have been happening for 6 years, ever since Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) Superintendent Carvalho illegally smashed NKC’s attempt to convert from a public school to a charter school. (legal case DOAH 13-1492) My blog is mdcpsallegations.com The principal, Dr. Tracy Roos told me she has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and seems unable to control her vicious and vindictive illegal retaliation against staff and students. Most NKC staff view BOTH NKC administrators as extremely racist. Last spring, Dr. Roos forbade almost all African American staff from taking the MANDATORY staff satisfaction survey. A few days ago, Dr. Roos allegedly physically assaulted an African American severely mentally retarded student in front of witnesses, who submitted formal charges against her. Although it is MANDATORY that Dr. Roos be assigned alternate duty at another location until the investigation is complete(for the safety of the child), MDCPS is refusing to do this and Dr. Roos remains at NKC. This means this child’s parents must either keep their child out of school and risk having their child removed from his home and involuntarily transferred to a foster home, or send him back to NKC, where a principal who has said she has OCD and seems incapable of suppressing her vicious and vindictive impulses, and has a long history of retaliating against everyone who has caused her (Dr. Roos) to be viewed in a negative light is still in charge of running the school this Severely Mentally Retarded child attends. SENATOR NELSON, DO SEVERELY MENTALLY RETARDED CHILDREN IN FLORIDA HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE SAFE FROM PHYSICAL ASSAULT BY THEIR PRINCIPAL? The African American staff and the African American parents of NKC are FURIOUS, and a major explosion seems imminent. Over a period of 3 years, I have sent 7 UNANSWERED certified letters to Superintendent Carvalho and another 7 unanswered certified letters to United Teachers of Dade (UTD) president Hernandez-Mats. MDCPS seems more like a criminal enterprise than a school district. Reform from within will never happen as MDCPS is utterly corrupt. Would it be possible for you as a Florida senator to relieve Superintendent Carvalho of his duties and appoint a caretaker superintendent while an independent investigative body such as the National Labor Relations Board or the Florida or Federal Bureau of Investigation does an in-depth investigation of MDCPS? I have sent several letters to Governor Scott regarding this matter and he has not responded. As I am a political atheist, my friend is whoever will help me fight for the rights of Severely Mentally Retarded children. If there is an explosion at NKC and it gets in the papers that you knew of the problems and did nothing, it could hurt you in the election. I am posting this email on my blog.

I have written to you before regarding the illegal reprisals that have been happening at Neve King Cooper (NKC) for 6 years after our school attempted to legally convert from a public school to a charter school. (legal case # DOAH 13-1492) My blog is mdcpsallegations.com The school principal, Dr. Tracy Roos told me she has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and seems unable to control her vicious and vindictive illegal retaliation against staff and students. Most NKC staff view BOTH NKC administrators as extremely racist. Last spring, Dr. Roos illegally forbade almost all African American staff from taking the MANDATORY staff satisfaction survey. A few days ago, Dr. Roos allegedly physically assaulted an African American severely mentally retarded student in front of witnesses, who submitted formal charges against her. Although it is MANDATORY that Dr. Roos be assigned alternative duty at another location until the investigation is complete, (for the protection of the child) Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) is refusing to do this,  and Dr. Roos remains at NKC School. GOVERNOR SCOTT, DO SEVERELY MENTALLY RETARDED CHILDREN IN FLORIDA HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE SAFE FROM PHYSICAL ASSAULT BY THEIR PRINCIPAL? The African American staff and the African American parents are FURIOUS and a major explosion seems imminent. Over a period of 3 years, I have sent 7 UNANSWERED certified letters to Superintendent Carvalho and 7 more unanswered certified letters to United Teachers of Dade (UTD) president Hernandez-Mats. MDCPS seems more like a criminal enterprise than a school district. Reform from within will never happen as MDCPS is utterly corrupt. Would it be possible for you as Governor to relieve Superintendent Carvalho of his duties and appoint a caretaker superintendent while an independent investigative body such as the National Labor Relations Board  or the Florida or the Federal Bureau of Investigation does an in-depth audit of MDCPS? I will also contact Senator Bill Nelson and ask for his help. As I am a political atheist, my friend is whoever will help me fight for the rights of Severely Mentally Retarded Children. If there is an explosion at NKC and it gets in the papers that you knew of the problems and did nothing, it could hurt you in the election. I am posting this email on my blog.

Hi Nancy. This is Bill Detzner. Nancy, I know you are a very busy woman. Having said that, I have sent you three (3) unanswered emails. My question to you is: Given the fact that one of the most important missions of the PTA is to protect children, and given the fact that severely mentally retarded children who literally cannot speak for themselves are the children MOST in need of the PTA’s powerful voice, does the PTA intend to ask Superintendent Carvalho to end the needless risk he has placed the severely mentally retarded children of Neva King Cooper (NKC)  under FOR OVER THREE YEARS? If so, would the PTA be kind enough to share with me any correspondence the PTA has with Mr. Carvalho and/or the school board in this matter? Thank You so much for all of the advocacy work you do on behalf of children.

Hi Nancy. This is Bill Detzner, with an additional piece of information that I hope will be of use to the PTA of MDCPS. A few years ago, in protest of the new curriculum (Unique Learning System (ULS) that MDCPS unilaterally imposed on Neva King Cooper (NKC) School, the parents of one of our students, to protest the fact that the new curriculum is far too advanced for any of our students to grasp, stopped sending their son/daughter to NKC, saying it was a waste of the child’s time, as he/she had no hope of grasping concepts that vastly exceeded his/her intellectual capacity. The response of MDCPS was to present these parents with an ultimatum. That ultimatum was to either send the child back to NKC (with no compromise whatsoever on the curriculum presented to that student), or have child protective “services” remove the child from his home and place the child into a foster home. Here is the dilemma faced by parents of NKC children. Either send your child to NKC, where the child faces an entirely preventable artificially elevated risk of choking to death on his/her food, or have the child involuntarily removed from his/her home and placed into a foster home. It’s bad enough that these children now have a curriculum where they may learn almost nothing after up to 19 years of attendance, but now these parents are involuntarily forced to play Russian Roulette with their children’s lives, because Mr. Carvalho, who has known about this problem for over 3 years, has done NOTHING to solve this easily preventable problem. Nancy, if you had a child in attendance at NKC, would YOU be happy with this arrangement? Please be advised that every email I send to you is posted on my blog. Please also be advised that I am attempting to interest both the New York Times and the Miami Herald (and many other parties, including the Marjory Douglass Stoneman community, Rick Scott, and Bill Nelson) in this story. Thank You so much for any help you are able to provide in this area, and I appreciate the advocacy you do on behalf of children.

Hi Nancy. This is Bill Detzner. First, I want to express my deep appreciation for your very informative Olli class. I was very impressed with the depth of your knowledge of the subject. As class ended yesterday, I asked if you had time to read the email I sent you a week ago. You replied that you had been very busy and have not yet had time to read my email. While I respect the fact that you are a very busy person, I am also deeply concerned about the Damocles Sword hanging over the heads of severely mentally retarded children. To refresh your memory, I asked you as the PTA President of MDCPS to express the PTA’s concerns to Superintendent Carvalho about the easily preventable choking to death danger the students of Neva King Cooper (NKC) have been exposed to for over 3 years. My fear is that with your very full schedule, taking care of this urgent problem will be forgotten and slip through the cracks. I have posted my October 4, 2018 email to you on my website (mdcpsallegations.com) My concern is that if (God forbid) an NKC child chokes to death on his/her food, readers of my blog will discover that the PTA has been aware of this problem since October4, 2018 and did not act to protect the lives of children so vulnerable that they literally cannot speak for themselves. I am sure you can appreciate the avalanche of negative publicity the PTA would experience if this were to happen. In my website, I suggested 3 steps Mr. Carvalho could take to safeguard the lives of the children of NKC. Those 3 steps are: 1) immediately relieve both NKC administrators of their duties and replace them with the previous NKC administrators (Principal Dr. Alberto Fernandez and assistant principal Mr. Henny Cristobol) 2) Have Mr. Carvalho issue a memo to all NKC staff stating that staff who practice due diligence in the performance of their duties will not be subjected to disciplinary measures. 3) Provide yearly training for all NKC staff in lifesaving first aid. If my 3 suggestions exceed the mandate of the PTA, I am asking the PTA to make whatever suggestions fall within the PTA mandate to Mr. Carvalho. I am also wondering if the PTA would be gracious enough to send me a copy of any communication the PTA sends to MDCPS officials? Thank You for your help, Nancy, and I deeply appreciate all of the advocacy you do on behalf of school children.

Hi Nancy. This is Bill Detzner (from your Olli class on the 12 amendments) .I am asking that the PTA advocate for the removal of the child endangerment of the severely mentally retarded children of Neva King Cooper School (NKC) My website mdcpsallegations.com describes the current hazardous condition in great detail. In a nutshell, during the 2014-2015 school year, a child who is so prone to choking incidents that it is noted in his Individual Education Plan (IEP) began to choke on his food. The child’s teacher took immediate proactive measures and the child expelled the food he was choking on without losing consciousness, and immediately went back to eating his lunch. Principal Dr. Tracy Roos conferred with the school’s on-site nurses, who assured Dr. Roos that the child was fine. Dr. Roos took the unprecedented step of summoning an ambulance crew to NKC to examine the child. The ambulance crew also examined the child and found him to be fine. Dr. Roos then allegedly threatened both the ambulance crew and the child’s guardian with legal repercussions if those two parties failed to take the child to the hospital and press child endangerment charges against the teacher. Both of these parties declined to take either of these actions. Dr. Roos then wrote up potentially career ending charges against this teacher for child endangerment. As the entire school eats in the cafeteria at the same time, the entire staff witnessed the timely and proactive actions of this teacher in response to a choking incident that was not the teacher’s fault. As a result, all staff are now fearful that even if a choking incident that is not their fault occurs, and even if they take immediate, correct, and proactive measures that result in no harm occurring to the child, Dr. Roos may also write potentially career ending charges against them. For this reason, if an NKC child begins to choke on his food, the teacher, fearing his/her job is at stake, may hesitate for 30-60 seconds before summoning the nurses, hoping the child spontaneously ejects his food. That 30-60 second delay may literally mean the difference between life and death for an NKC child. In my blog, I describe a situation where an NKC child attempted to eat an entire pancake in one bite and stopped breathing for 2-3 minutes. The school was lucky in that one of the teachers was a fully fire academy trained paramedic who rode ambulances on weekends. It took this highly trained paramedic 2-3 minutes to remove the food. If you tack on an extra 30-60 seconds that a teacher hesitates to seek help, fearing his/her job may be at stake, the danger of a fatality greatly increases. The teacher who saved that child’s life is no longer at NKC. Also, during this choking incident, the on-site school nurses literally stood there and did nothing because they did not have the training to handle that situation. During the 2011-2012 school year, NKC exercised its (supposedly) legally protected right to explore conversion from a public school to a charter school. In court case 13-1492, Mr. Carvalho and top MDCPS officials give the appearance of breaking every law in the books to illegally smash that conversion attempt. Shortly after, Mr. Carvalho paid his one and only visit to NKC and made what many staff consider to be a very threatening statement. In the following 6 years, staff feel that NKC has been under a virtual lockdown, with many illegal and punitive measures taken against NKC staff. It is the feeling of the NKC staff that Mr. Carvalho intends to continue this illegal retaliation in perpetuity. The NKC staff also believe Mr. Carvalho is willing to risk the lives of NKC children to attempt to terminate NKC staff. I have sent Mr. Carvalho 6 certified letters over a 3 year period to address this issue. I have heard not a word of response from Mr. Carvalho. It is the feeling of the NKC staff that MDCPS is basically a criminal enterprise, with Al Carvalho playing the roll of Godfather. The staff also believes that only an outside agency can correct the hopelessly corrupt MDCPS cesspool. For this reason, I am reaching out to both Governor Scott and Bill Nelson, and people from the Marjory Stoneman Douglass community, and other people. The fear is that if this matter is not resolved PRIOR to the November 6 election, elected officials will lose interest in the case. Please feel free to share this email with Mr. Carvalho and MDCPS school board members. They have not responded to my certified letters. Perhaps they will respond to the PTA.

February 7, 2018
Dear Florida K-12 Education Committee Legislator,
Hello. My name is Bill Detzner. I am a retired public- school teacher and a former recipient of the Teacher of the Year award. I taught for 30 years in Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS), the nation’s fourth largest school district. I read with shock and horror that MDCPS superintendent Alberto Carvalho has been invited to sit on a panel to develop policy for Florida charter schools. Inviting Superintendent Carvalho to help develop policy for Florida charter schools is like inviting a fox to guard a chicken coop. Superintendent Carvalho’s astonishing statement that he supports charter schools is akin to an atheist stating that he or she is also an Evangelical Christian.
For the last 25 years of my career, I taught at Neva King Cooper (NKC), a public school exclusively for profoundly mentally handicapped (PMH) students (I.Q’s of 25 and below), aged 3-22. During the 2011-2012 school year, my school attempted to convert from a public school to a charter school. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho illegally smashed this charter school conversion attempt and he has illegally been retaliating and punishing the staff of NKC for nearly six years. I have written in-depth about this on a blog that can be accessed at www.mdcpsallegations.com
At one time, NKC was one of the finest schools in Florida for profoundly mentally handicapped students. The principal was Dr. Alberto Fernandez, a man that MDCPS rated as the most effective principal in the district. The assistant principal was Mr. Henny Cristobol, an equally outstanding administrator. The school curriculum consisted of two parts. The first part addressed academic needs. It was called the Small Step Curriculum (SSC) and it addressed mastering self-help skills such as toileting independently (our students cannot be placed in sheltered workshops after they graduate from our school unless they have mastered this very important skill. I’ll discuss this more later on.) eating and drinking independently, dressing and grooming, developing speech (either the spoken word or sign language), learning appropriate social skills such as sharing, taking turns, and refraining from physically abusing either themselves or their peers, etc. As the school’s most important overall goal for these children upon graduation from our school was placement in a sheltered workshop, the curriculum placed a very heavy emphasis on the acquisition of repetitive vocational skills.
A large percentage of our students are in wheelchairs. If a person sits in a wheelchair all day long for years at a time, muscles atrophy and the body slowly freezes into a permanent sitting position, causing excruciating pain in adulthood. For this reason, the second part of our curriculum consisted of working with a team of on-site physical and occupational therapists to get our students out of their wheelchairs and into physical therapy devices designed to stretch and exercise their muscles. This was the M.O.V.E. curriculum. During the 2011-2012 school year, a coalition comprised of NKC administrators, teachers, and parents explored the option of converting our school from a public school to a charter school. We did this for two reasons: 1) Even though every year the Florida legislators increased the public -school budget, every year the money allocated to our school decreased. (This was because the MDCPS bureaucrats diverted ever larger amounts of money to growing an already bloated bureaucracy to a gargantuan monstrosity that did not work to provide a quality education to students. Rather, the purpose of the bureaucracy seemed to be to shield and protect Superintendent Carvalho, MDCPS bureaucrats, and MDCPS school site administrators from the consequences of actions that often seemed blatantly illegal.) 2) Every year, the district placed more and more pressure on our school to discard our highly effective Small Step and M.O.V.E. curriculums to adopt a new curriculum called the Unique Learning System (ULS), which FAR exceeded the intellectual capacities of our students. If remedial math students were switched to an honors calculus curriculum, the results would be similar to what happened to our students when they were involuntarily forced by MDCPS into the new curriculum. When we worked out our school budget as a charter school, we were astonished to learn that even after awarding ourselves a generous raise, we would still enjoy a year end surplus of $400,000. This is because as a charter school, we did not have to subsidize a downtown bureaucracy. On May 2, 2012, PRIOR TO THE END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR, Superintendent Carvalho took the highly unusual step of removing BOTH NKC administrators. Such a drastic and unprecedented action can be justified under only dire circumstances, which did not exist at NKC. In fact, at the time of their illegal removal from their posts as NKC administrators, both Dr. Fernandez and Mr. Cristobol enjoyed some of the highest approval ratings on the annual staff and parent satisfaction surveys in the entire MDCPS district. In spite of this, Dr. Fernandez and Mr. Cristobol received notice from MDCPS that they were facing imminent termination of their employment. Dr. Fernandez and Mr. Cristobol file suit against the district. In case DOAH13-1492, it was ruled that the district was guilty of abuse of power. Astonishingly, MDCPS was NOT obligated to return these two administrators to their posts at NKC, even though Superintendent Carvalho was flooded with requests from both staff and parents that these two administrators be returned to NKC. Superintendent Carvalho was obligated by a court of law ONLY to provide these two illegally removed administrators with an administrative post anywhere within the district. This has been Superintendent Carvalho’s pattern of behavior throughout the nearly six- year period he appears to be punishing NKC for exercising its (supposedly) legally protected option to convert from a public school to a charter school. He has pursued a “scorched earth” policy towards the NKC staff. He will do what he is legally mandated to do by the courts, and nothing more. (I will talk more about this later.)
At this point, I believe a scolding of the Florida legislature is richly deserved. Ladies and gentlemen of the legislature, the staff of NKC went WAY out on a limb and put our careers on the line for profoundly mentally handicapped children because we thought you guys “had our backs.” Imagine our astonishment and dismay when we discovered that although Florida statutes are very explicit in describing what the superintendent can and cannot do when a public school attempts to convert to a charter school, and Florida law emphatically states that employees who attempt to exercise this legal right cannot be retaliated against, the law provides for NO PENALTIES WHATSOEVER for superintendents who violate this law, no matter how flagrantly they violate this law. Florida legislators, for nearly 6 years CONTINUING TO THE PRESENT TIME, Superintendent Carvalho and his two NKC administrators, principal Dr. Tracy Roos and assistant principal Mrs. Alicia Fernandez (Screamer) have kept NKC in a state of permanent lockdown, and the staff that report to work every day are fearful that their school site administrators may A) physically assault them, B) scream at them for prolonged periods of time, C) file possibly career ending charges against them based on flimsy or wholly fictional evidence, D) do all of the above actions.
Florida legislators, if you read the transcript of DOAH 13-1492, you will be shocked at how brazenly and openly Superintendent Carvalho and his top lieutenants violated Florida law. My guess is that they never even attempted to cover their tracks because they believed that 1) No one would ever find out what they had done. 2) Even if they were caught red handed (which they were) there are no penalties whatsoever for their egregious violations of the law. Florida legislators, for nearly six years, and continuing to the present time, you have left us to the “mercy” of Superintendent Carvalho, a man who gives the appearance of being a very vicious and vindictive man. The NKC staff’s decision to take the significant risk of attempting to convert to a charter school was based on three factors. 1) Many public schools in Florida had successfully converted to charter schools without being retaliated against 2) We seem to have erred in concluding that Superintendent Carvalho was a fair and decent human being, and that the welfare of profoundly mentally handicapped students was a concern to him. 3) We thought Florida legislators had crafted a law that provided significantly punitive consequences to prevent school superintendents from retaliating against public schools that attempted the charter school conversion process. Both myself and the majority of the NKC staff have paid DEARLY for attempting to exercise a (supposedly) legally protected activity. In my case, the work environment became so toxic and hostile that I retired 5 years earlier than I planned to, cutting my pension nearly in half. I only partially regret standing up for the educational rights of profoundly mentally handicapped children, because my worst fears have become reality. At NKC, the new principal, Dr. Roos took the unprecedented step of requesting that the entire Physical and Occupational Therapy (OT/PT) staff, (who were highly regarded by both parents and staff) be replaced at the end of the school year. Astonishingly, this highly unusual request resulted in no questions being asked by the downtown education bureaucrats and was granted. At the beginning of Dr. Roos second year as the NKC principal, the entire OT/PT staff was new to NKC and had no idea what to expect. They were (and remain so to this day) justifiably terrified that at any moment Dr. Roos could send them packing, like she did to their hard working and highly competent predecessors. The new OT/PT staff would very much like to do the job they have been trained to do, but Dr. Roos appears to have forbidden them from leaving their office and working with the students. Is it a wise use of taxpayer money to have a highly trained and expensive team of specialists on-site, and then discourage them from doing their jobs? The very expensive PT equipment that used to be used to stretch and strengthen the muscles of wheelchair bound children now sits in a storage room, gathering rust and dust. NKC students now sit in their wheelchairs ALL DAY LONG. This means that their bodies will eventually “freeze” into a sitting position and they will suffer excruciating pain throughout their adult lives. (I once heard NKC principal Dr. Tracy Roos BOAST about the fact that NKC students no longer receive PT/OT). Federal law MANDATES that special education children receive a F.A.P.E. (free, APPROPRIATE, public, education.) I will leave it to the reader of this letter to decide if confining a special needs child to a wheelchair ALL DAY LONG, when on-site staff are forbidden to provide therapy for them constitutes an appropriate education. The parents of NKC students have never been told that OT/PT for their children has been discontinued. I suspect that should parents become aware of this fact, NKC will once again be visited by parents with picket signs. I have sent Superintendent Carvalho 3 (THREE) certified, return receipt requested letters detailing these and other concerns that I and other NKC staff members have. These three letters are included in my blog. Sadly, Superintendent Carvalho seems to lack the professionalism and courtesy to respond to my letters. That is why I am including some questions with this letter that I am hoping Florida legislators will ask Superintendent Carvalho on behalf of the staff of NKC. As Florida legislators control some of the funds Superintendent Carvalho is relying on, perhaps Mr. Carvalho will see fit to answer these questions. If I can ask one more favor from the Florida legislators, could you please forward a copy of this letter to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos? As the Federal Department of Education also provides some of the funds Superintendent Carvalho is counting on, perhaps Secretary De Vos can persuade Mr. Carvalho to take some long overdue actions to put his extremely dysfunctional house in order.
As I stated earlier, the new curriculum MDCPS imposed on us without our input or consent, the Unique Learning System (ULS) is VASTLY above the intellectual capacity of our students. Here is a sample of some of the concepts I was asked to teach to profoundly mentally handicapped children with IQ’s of 25 and below. 1) Name the three branches of government, describe the duties of each branch, and give examples of the checks and balances that each branch uses to prevent the other two branches from becoming too powerful. 2) Describe the chemical process by which fire reduces a piece of wood to ashes. As I stated earlier, when these children graduate from NKC, if they have not been toilet trained and mastered the performance of repetitive vocational skills, these children, (who have committed no crime) will be condemned to a life sentence, with no hope of parole to a dreary, cheerless group home where they will be warehoused for the remainder of their lives.
Every human being, from a Nobel Prize winning scientist to a profoundly mentally handicapped child with an IQ of 25 and below has a built-in, human need for achievement. As a college student, I toured a sheltered workshop. While there, I was approached by a young lady who was an employee of the sheltered workshop. In a voice bursting with pride, she told me, “I earn a paycheck, just like everyone else.” She then very proudly showed me her paycheck. Although the amount of her paycheck was extremely modest, her pride was unmistakable.
During my last year of employment at NKC, I received three frantic phone calls from the mother of one of my students. Each time the mother called, she BEGGED me to toilet train her son. While I would have dearly loved to honor this mother’s highly appropriate request, assistant principal Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) had a master key to my classroom and frequently let herself into my classroom, unannounced. Had my student been found on the toilet, (as opposed to “learning” about the chemical processes by which fire reduces a piece of wood to ashes), I would have had hell to pay. Again, Superintendent Carvalho is well aware of this situation, and has chosen not to respond to any of the three certified letters I have sent him. There is a very real danger that a child who enters NKC at age 3 will exit that school 19 years later, having learned practically nothing. Again, I ask if the Federally mandated F.A.P.E. policy is being met? The reader of this letter cannot know how angry it makes a teacher to present a curriculum to students that appears to be utterly and completely useless to them, knowing that children who could have been placed into a sheltered workshop will be needlessly condemned to a lifetime of confinement in a dreary, cheerless group home warehouse. After I retired, my wife told me that she would not speak to me for the first hour I was home from work to give me time to decompress.
A fellow teacher (who has joined the long list of personnel who have left that unhappy place) who is one of the best teachers I have ever met, and a totally fearless man, made the mistake of loudly and openly stating at a department meeting that the ULS curriculum was completely worthless to our students. Shortly after, this outstanding teacher (with a previously unblemished 30+ year teaching record) found himself accused of 7 (SEVEN) possibly career ending charges, including possibly sexually molesting a child, cheating on the high stakes yearly achievement test we give to PMH children, and gross neglect of a child. (The child in question was choking to death on his lunch. It was the prompt action of this teacher that saved the child’s life). I will discuss this further, later in this letter.
When the ULS curriculum was first forced on our school, it was so unpopular with parents that one morning we had parents with protest signs picketing on the street outside our school. One mother, stating that her child was learning absolutely nothing with the new curriculum, stated that NKC was a waste of her child’s time and she said she would no longer send him to school. She then carried out her threat. YIKES! If you are a school principal, and your “customers” are picketing your place of business, and a mother is keeping her child out of school because he is not learning anything, isn’t that a clear an unmistakable signal that you better either significantly beef up your curriculum, pronto, or face a mass exodus of students to a charter school? Well, in a market economy, that’s exactly what would have happened. Unfortunately, Dr. Roos had an unfair artificial advantage. You see, Dr. Roos has a monopoly. She is the only game in town. There are no charter schools that this desperate mother can turn to. Dr. Roos did NOTHING to beef up her pathetic curriculum. She didn’t have to. She merely reported this desperate mother to child protective services. The mother was told to either take her son to “school” at NKC or lose custody of her son. So, this young man’s body was physically present at NKC, and no, he didn’t appear to learn a damn thing under the new curriculum. (He was, by the way, a prime candidate for being placed in a sheltered workshop).
I have discussed how students have suffered since Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) became the NKC administrators. I would now like to provide examples of the continuing state of what appears to be lockdown and punishment that Superintendent Carvalho and his two NKC administrators appear to be imposing on the staff for close to 6 (SIX) years now. Shortly after Superintendent Carvalho illegally smashed NKC’s attempt to convert to a charter school, he (Mr. Carvalho) paid his one and only visit to the NKC campus, where he made what we refer to as his “Conquistador” statement. In the presence of the school secretaries, some of whom are still at NKC and can attest to this fact, Mr. Carvalho made the following statement: “This is a Miami-Dade County Public School. It will ALWAYS be a Miami-Dade County Public School, and if anyone wants to change that, they need to go through me.”
One of the most beloved NKC staff members is an African-American woman named Mrs. Green. Although she earns a very modest salary as a paraprofessional, Mrs. Green frequently uses her own money to purchase clothes and other gifts for profoundly mentally handicapped (PMH) students who come from poverty- stricken homes. One of the worst tragedies a mother can experience is to have her daughter brutally murdered. This is what happened to Mrs. Green, right after Hurricane Wilma heavily damaged her home. Mrs. Green’s son-in-law was in jail, on suspicion of committing the murder. Left behind was Mrs. Green’s five year- old grandson. I don’t know of anyone who can simultaneously bury a daughter, repair a hurricane damaged home, and gain legal custody of an extremely emotionally distraught 5- year old child without taking some time off from work, but that appears to be what Dr. Roos expected of Mrs. Green, who was granted emergency leave time by MDCPS. Although Mrs. Green took only a few days off, Dr. Roos appears to believe that even those few MDCPS approved days were excessive. When Dr. Roos met Mrs. Green in the hallway on Mrs. Green’s first day back at work, Dr. Roos allegedly very pointedly and deliberately turned her back on Mrs. Green and stalked off without saying a word. Regrettably, that was Dr. Roos’ high- water mark. Things went markedly downhill from there. The next day, Dr. Roos allegedly threatened Mrs. Green with an involuntary transfer to another school. The MDCPS contract explicitly states that disciplinary matters are extremely confidential matters and that a principal cannot reveal one staff member’s disciplinary status with another staff member. However, rules, laws, and contracts appear to mean very little in “The People’s Republic of MDCPS.” You see, Dr. Roos appears to have neither the courtesy or the decency to threaten this grieving mother to her face. She allegedly sent an African-American custodian, Mr. Aaron Jackson to deliver her hateful threat to Mrs. Green. Mrs. Green then took the extraordinary step of reporting this abuse to the MDCPS authorities, who appear to have a well -deserved reputation for allegedly denying nearly all accusations of misconduct by an administrator against staff and then turning a blind eye when the administrator illegally retaliates against the staff member who reported them. Evidently, this problem was deemed as too big to sweep under the carpet, so “The People’s Republic of MDCPS” decided to pretend to take some action. The MDCPS authorities scheduled two different meetings with Mrs. Green, cancelled them both, and never bothered to sit down with Mrs. Green to discuss the issue. During one of the cancelled meetings, Dr. Roos, who allegedly knew the meeting had been cancelled, told Mrs. Green to report to the conference room where Mrs. Green sat waiting for an hour for a meeting that never occurred. While Mrs. Green was out of sight in the conference room, Dr. Roos allegedly summoned Mr. Aaron Jackson to a closed -door meeting in Dr. Roos office. Dr. Roos then allegedly threatened to terminate Mr. Jackson’s employment if he (Mr. Jackson) did not recant that Dr. Roos instructed him to threaten Mrs. Green with an involuntary transfer. Mr. Jackson, fearful of being terminated, allegedly recanted his story. Both Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Green are still employed at NKC. As Dr. Roos appears to be an EXTREMELY vicious and vindictive person, (perhaps she views Superintendent Carvalho as a mentor) both of these African-American employees are VERY fearful that Dr. Roos will retaliate against them in a few months. If Florida and Federal educational authorities are interested in enforcing state and Federal laws, they might want to interview these two employees, provided the state and Federal authorities forbid MDCPS from retaliating against these two vulnerable employees.
Another person who is still a MDCPS employee, but no longer at NKC was allegedly physically assaulted by Dr. Roos in Dr. Roos’ office. Dr. Roos allegedly called this person in for a “conference.” During the conference, Dr. Roos allegedly became very angry and began screaming at this person. The victim of Dr. Roos screaming temper tantrum had his/her head down and was staring at the floor. This action further enraged Dr. Roos, who allegedly seized the victim’s jaw and jerked the victim’s jaw upward until the victim’s eyes were looking into Dr. Roos’ eyes. Dr. Roos then allegedly screamed at the victim, ”Look at me when I am speaking to you.” Dr. Roos’ directive to “look at me when I am speaking to you” may have confused the victim, because Dr. Roos was not SPEAKING to the victim. Dr. Roos was SCREAMING at the victim, allegedly, of course. I realize that in “The People’s Republic of MDCPS” that subtle difference may not count for much. However, to the best of my knowledge, Federal labor laws that prohibit employers from physically assaulting their employees apply even in “The People’s Republic of MDCPS.” (which accepts Federal funding) Had the unfortunate employee screamed at Dr. Roos (or even more egregiously, physically assaulted Dr. Roos,) that employee might very well have been fired. The NKC staff member that Dr. Roos allegedly screamed at and then physically assaulted was not a member of the United Teachers of Dade (UTD) the union for educators, so he/she could not lodge a complaint with UTD. The victim is a very savvy person who was well aware that he/she had the option of becoming a whistleblower and reporting the incident to the internal MDCPS investigative bodies. The victim (very wisely) chose not to exercise this option. The internal investigative bodies of MDCPS appear to owe their jobs to Superintendent Carvalho and there is a widespread perception that these MDCPS investigative bodies exist not to protect employees, but to protect Superintendent Carvalho and MDCPS administrators. There appears to be a frequent pattern of whistleblowers’ complaints being swept under the carpet, and the whistleblower then being retaliated against. It is very telling that the alleged victim of this assault did not have enough confidence in MDCPS willingness to both conduct an in-depth investigation of the complaint and to protect him/her from retaliation by MDCPS officials to report this incident. In one of my 3 unanswered certified letters to Superintendent Carvalho, I fully informed him of this incident. This alleged victim is still a MDCPS employee at another work location, should Federal labor law attorneys wish to speak to him/ her.
Recently, Harvey Weinstein, one of the biggest and most powerful icons in Hollywood, fell from grace when it was revealed that he had allegedly brazenly sexually abused an astonishingly large number of women for many years. Then it was discovered that Mr. Weinstein was merely the tip of the iceberg. A very long list (that is growing longer with each passing day) emerged of very powerful Hollywood icons who have allegedly sexually abused both male and female actors. People may ask how such a HUGE amount of abuse could have gone on for many, many years when there was a union (The Screen Actors Guild) that was supposed to protect its members? My guess is that the Screen Actors Guild is a make-believe union, and that the union was well aware of the breadth and scope of the abuse its dues paying members were enduring. People may have the opinion that a make-believe union that takes money from its members that it then allows to be abused and exploited is worse than no union at all. If these things are true, then the Screen Actors Guild is much like the impotent and powerless MDCPS educator’s union (i.e. UTD) I will further discuss this point later. If Federal labor law attorneys do an in-depth audit of MDCPS, will they find widespread and systemic violations of Federal labor law by MDCPS officials, such as sexual assault, sexual harassment, physical assault, and employees being screamed at/shouted at or threatened? My guess is that this will indeed be the case.
I would next like to describe the shocking violations of Mr. Rick Massa’s employee rights by MDCPS. It is important to note that Mr. Massa was a strong supporter of the charter school effort, he was listed as a defense witness for both DOAH13-1492 and DOAH145-2439, and he stated at a teachers’ meeting that he felt the ULS curriculum was inappropriate for NKC students. As Mr. Massa is not a member of UTD, he has the potential for very large legal bills to protect himself from charges MDCPS leveled against him based on what appears to be scant or nonexistent evidence.
An employee who files a lawsuit against MDCPS faces an incredibly steep uphill battle. The odds are very heavily stacked against the plaintiff for 3 reasons: 1) The courts have a very pronounced bias in favor of school boards and government entities 2) The school board, as the beneficiary of taxes extracted from taxpayers has nearly unlimited resources. 3) The courts have ruled that when a person becomes a school board member, he or she forfeits most of his/her First Amendment rights of free speech. In a nutshell, if you are a school board employee, your right to legal redress, no matter how egregious the school board violations are, is sharply curtailed.
One of the 7 charges leveled against Mr. Massa was cheating on the high stakes yearly achievement test given to profoundly mentally handicapped children every year. This test is called the Florida Alternate Assessment. (FAA) I feel some background information is in order. In an effort to cut costs, FAA testing materials are extremely limited. There are not enough testing materials for each teacher to have a complete set of testing materials. Therefore, when a teacher finally gets the test booklet, that booklet may have been used by one or more other teachers. When Mr. Massa received the test booklet, it had already been used by a first year (rookie) teacher. This first- year rookie teacher had marked off the correct answers to the test questions in the test booklet. It should be noted that this action by itself would not necessarily indicate that the rookie teacher was attempting to cheat, as our students are so intellectually limited that even seeing the correct answer marked off would not tip them off as to what the correct answer is. Nevertheless, having the perception that both NKC administrators were looking for an excuse to level career ending charges against him, Mr. Massa took the precaution of going to the office of assistant principal Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) with the marked test booklet and showing the marked test booklet to her (Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer)) and explaining to Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) that the test booklet was marked that way when Mr. Massa received it from the rookie teacher. THERE WAS ANOTHER TEACHER PRESENT IN MRS FERNANDEZ’ OFFICE WHO WITNESSED THE ENTIRE EXCHANGE BETWEEN MR. MASSA AND MRS. FERNANDEZ (Screamer) Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) thanked Mr. Massa for this information and waited until Mr. Massa began testing his students in his classroom. She then used her master key to enter Mr. Massa’s classroom, unannounced, and was SHOCKED, SHOCKED to discover that Mr. Massa was “cheating” on the test. Mrs. Fernandez then wrote up potentially career ending charges against Mr. Massa. Mr. Massa then approached the teacher who witnessed the exchange in Mrs. Fernandez’ (Screamer) office, and asked if this teacher would be willing to testify at Mr. Massa’s upcoming Federal and state court cases against MDCPS. Unfortunately, this teacher falls under the category of teachers who can at any time in their career be fired for any reason at the end of the school year. He or she told Mr. Massa that he or she has a family to feed and greatly feared his/her employment would be terminated if he/she were to testify on behalf of Mr. Massa. This person will not be testifying at either of Mr. Massa’s court cases. However, he/she is still an NKC employee. If Federal labor law attorneys are willing to provide him/her with protection, it can be shown that Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) knowingly and willfully filed false, potentially career ending charges against Mr. Massa.
Mr. Massa was also charged with endangering the life of one of his students. What actually happened was that Mr. Massa, observing that one of his students was choking on his lunch, took immediate and proactive actions and the child ejected the food lodged in his throat without losing consciousness and went back to eating his lunch. In the Alice-In-Wonderland, Bizarro world of “The People’s Republic of MDCPS,” saving a child’s life constitutes endangering his life. The young man in question is so prone to choking events that it is so noted on his Individual Education Plan (IEP), a legal document. Nevertheless, Dr. Roos saw fit to file possibly career ending charges against Mr. Massa for his heroic actions. As our entire student body eats together in the cafeteria, the entire staff witnessed Mr. Massa’s prompt and entirely appropriate actions and noted that he still faced possibly career ending charges filed against him. As the reader of this letter can imagine, this had a chilling effect on our staff. Teachers fear that if one of their students begins to choke on their food, Dr. Roos or Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) may use this as an excuse to file potentially career ending charges against them. Therefore, a teacher may be tempted to wait before summoning help, hoping the child spontaneously ejects the food he/she is choking on. That minute or two that a teacher, fearing for his or her job, hesitates before summoning help can literally mean the difference between life and death for a child who literally cannot speak for himself/herself. (Most of our students do not have the ability to speak.) While it is true that NKC has a staff of on-site nurses, these nurses seem more qualified to tube feed children and administer medications than to save the life of a choking child. I say this because on the 3 occasions that a person on our campus nearly died from a lack of oxygen, it was the actions of Mr. Frank Lozada, a former teacher at our school who is a graduate of the Fire Academy and a fully trained paramedic who rode ambulances on weekends. Regrettably, due to the extremely hostile and toxic work environment that both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) seem to have deliberately cultivated at NKC, Mr. Frank Lozada has joined the long, long list of staff who have left NKC. Do I need to mention that Mr. Lozada was a supporter of converting to a charter school?
Beginning in June 2015, I have written Superintendent Carvalho 4 letters, BEGGING him to take 3 easily implemented steps to avoid the entirely preventable choking deaths of one or more PMH students. Superintendent Carvalho seems to lack the professionalism to take these 3 actions, or to respond to any of my letters. If Superintendent Carvalho appears before the Florida K-12 Education Committee, can someone PLEASE ask this man when he intends to get off his bottom and end this needless risk to the lives of PMH children?
Mr. Massa was also charged with possibly sexually molesting one of his students. While it is true that Mr. Massa was alone with this young man, those periods of time were so brief as to make it nearly physically impossible for Mr. Massa to have molested this young man. Federal labor lawyers may wish to interview the paraprofessionals who worked with Mr. Massa during the 2014-2015 school year (who are still MDCPS employees, but no longer at NKC) to see if Dr. Roos pressured them to make false statements about Mr. Massa.
One other bit of information needs to be noted. During the 2014-2015 school year (the year the 7 charges were lodged against Mr. Massa), most of the staff were of the opinion that Mr. Massa had by far BOTH the most behaviorally challenged class in the school, coupled with the paraprofessional who had the most modest behavior modification skills in the school. Rightly or wrongly, the staff felt that this was not an accident. The staff felt that Dr. Roos did this both to punish Mr. Massa and to send a warning to the rest of the staff that staff who incurred the displeasure of either administrator could expect a similar fate. If Dr. Roos deliberately did this, she needlessly risked the well-being of the students of that classroom, as grouping several students with acute behavior problems together in a classroom, coupled with a paraprofessional with very modest behavior modification skills greatly enhances the risk of injury to one or more of those students.
In June 2015, I sent a lengthy letter to 5 very senior MDCPS officials. (I have included that letter in my blog) In that letter, I went into great detail about the charges filed against Mr. Massa, so it was highly unlikely that Superintendent Carvalho was unaware of Mr. Massa’s situation. Mr. Massa was rapidly cleared of 6 of the 7 charges against him, due to a lack of evidence. The only remaining charge against Mr. Massa was of a very minor nature. Nevertheless, In the fall of 2015, a few months AFTER my June 2015 letter, Mr. Massa, on very brief notice, was summoned to an Orwellian meeting downtown that his attorney was not allowed to attend. At that meeting, MDCPS officials allegedly told Mr. Massa that he had only 2 options. Those two options were to retire immediately or be terminated. What the MDCPS officials allegedly did NOT tell Mr. Massa was that due to the minor nature of the one charge still pending against him, Mr. Massa had a third option, which was to exit the meeting and continue his career. Fortunately, Mr. Massa’s attorney made Mr. Massa aware of this third option, which Mr. Massa chose. Would it be possible for Federal labor law attorneys to conduct an investigation into this matter to determine if Mr. Massa’s labor law rights were violated?
Mrs. Luz Morales, a former department head and former winner of the Teacher of the Year Award, and a supporter of the charter school conversion process, was improperly terminated by MDCPS at the recommendation of Dr. Roos. In case DOAH145-2439, it was ruled that Ms. Morales had been terminated without just cause, and Superintendent Carvalho was ordered to reinstate her, at a different school. MDCPS case was so weak that they presented literally no defense whatsoever, and no witnesses were called to defend that illegal termination.
While Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) have filed numerous potentially career ending charges against staff who supported conversion to a charter school, on flimsy or nonexistent grounds, an entirely different and much more lenient set of standards seem to apply to staff who OPPOSED conversion to a charter school. I believe it was the fall of the 2015-2016 school year when Mrs. Ramos, a paraprofessional who is still an employee of NKC, allegedly approached Dr. Roos and told Dr. Roos that she (Mrs. Ramos) had observed a teacher physically abusing a student. (I believe the student suffered a hand injury as a result of this alleged abuse.) Physically abusing a child is a very serious offense, that can result in termination of employment and revocation of one’s teaching license. The law states that it is MANDATORY for an educator to report suspected child abuse to the authorities, on pain of losing one’s teaching license. What this means is that when Mrs. Ramos reported the suspected child abuse to Dr. Roos, if Dr. Roos then failed to notify the proper authorities, she (Dr. Roos), would be permanently stripped of her teaching credentials. The teacher in question OPPOSED the charter school conversion effort and was on very good terms with Dr. Roos. Allegedly, Dr. Roos failed to report this incident to the proper authorities and merely transferred the child out of the class where Mrs. Ramos was the paraprofessional. I think the child was transferred into the class of Mrs. DeAnna Gregory. Allegedly, the mother of the allegedly abused child went to the district office to lodge an official complaint. The district people also allegedly failed to follow MANDATORY reporting procedures of suspected child abuse. If investigators wish to interview Mrs. Ramos and check to see whether or not Dr. Roos reported the incident to the proper authorities, I would think this would be relatively easy to do.
The Florida Alternate Assessment (FAA) achievement test has been administered at NKC for many years, under both former principal Dr. Alberto Fernandez and the present NKC principal, Dr. Roos. When Dr. Fernandez was the principal, student performance was at a very low level, every year. For the nearly 6 years Dr. Roos has been the principal, student performance has skyrocketed to statistically improbably high levels. Dr. Roos is paid a handsome bonus for this astonishing increase in student performance. If a person were to ask Dr. Roos what has caused the astonishing increase in student performance after she became the NKC principal, she might attribute this increase to the fact that she requires teachers to use concrete visuals when testing students. For example, if a student is shown 3 pictures of a comb, a hat, and a clock, and the test question states “point to the hat,” Dr. Roos has instructed the testing teachers to have an actual physical comb, hat, and clock for the child to look at when making his or her choice. While Dr. Roos does indeed do this, Dr. Fernandez also did this, so that cannot explain the astonishing difference in test results. Dr. Roos might also attribute the dramatic improvement in test scores to the fact that when Dr. Fernandez was the principal, we did not use the ULS curriculum, and Dr. Roos DOES use that curriculum, so all year long students practice their test taking skills on the monthly ULS pretest and post- test. However, this argument is also invalid, because the students in my class and nearly every other class in the school achieved dismally low scores on both their ULS pretests and their post- tests. Here is an anecdote that might shed some light on why NKC students are now scoring improbably high scores. In my last year of teaching at NKC, I had a student who was both completely blind and unable to point with either of her arms, which were permanently encased in heavy metal braces. Obviously, this young lady scored a zero every month on both her pretest and posttest. One day, Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer), as was her custom, used her master key to enter my classroom, unannounced, and, as was her custom, began screaming at me. She screamed, “Why has this child been scoring zeroes all year long?” When I explained the reason for the child’s zeroes, Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) screamed at me,” You are testing the child incorrectly. From now on, after you ask the test question, look at the direction the child’s [completely sightless] eyes SEEM to be pointing. If the child’s eyes appear to be pointing in the direction of the correct answer, give her credit for a correct answer!” As I feared ANY response I made would result in my being written up on a charge of insubordination, I said nothing. If I had felt safe enough to contribute my input, I would have made the following two points: 1) As the three test answers are very close together, it would be nearly impossible for me to accurately know which of the three test answers the child’s [sightless] eyes were pointed toward. 2) The child’s [sightless] eyes are almost never pointed anywhere near the test answers. Fortunately for me, I retired at the end of the school year. Had I returned the next year, and had that child again been my student, I suspect that Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) would have written me up for insubordination, for continuing to HONESTLY record that child’s test performance. Had I been written up for insubordination, I suspect that UTD, the union I paid dues to for 30 years, would have done NOTHING to defend me. However, this anecdote does not fully explain the startling increase in student performance on the FAA at Neva King Cooper. In plain language, investigators might want to examine FAA test bubble answer sheets and look for many erasure marks. Should investigators find frequent erasure marks on student answer sheets, I can provide the names of two women who were heavily involved in the testing process at NKC who have since moved on to other work locations, (provided investigators are willing to protect these women from retaliation from MDCPS.)
Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) has been given a nickname by the NKC staff. I suspect that readers of this letter can make a very educated guess as to what that nickname might be. When Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) has one of her numerous temper tantrums, she screams at whatever serf/peasant has angered her. One day, she screamed at me nonstop for 20 minutes. On 4 occasions during that tirade, I asked her to lower her voice. The first time, she very briefly did so. The next three times, she merely ignored me. Every time I tried to interject, she simply shouted me down. I am an army veteran. Mrs. Fernandez’ (Screamer) 20-minute tirade was louder and angrier than any screaming I heard from army drill sergeants during my basic training in boot camp. Mrs. Fernandez’ (Screamer) temper tantrum was actually my “post-observation chat” after Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) failed me for the one and only time I failed a teacher observation during my 30- year teaching career. A teacher observation determines whether a teacher will be rehired for the next school year. As I passed my follow-up teacher observation the next day, I was considered to have passed my yearly teacher observation. I discussed the abuse I suffered both during my observation and after words and the UTD contract rules Mrs. Fernandez violated in order to fail me on my observation in my blog. During Mrs. Fernandez’ (Screamer) 20- minute observation of me, she was on her cell phone for nearly the entire observation. Twenty minutes is the minimum time needed to make a teacher observation legal. The contract states that in order to fail a teacher, the administrators must continue the observation for the entire class period, because a teacher who begins poorly may rally and present an acceptable lesson as time progresses. Regrettably, in ”The People’s Republic of MDCPS,” staying on one’s cell phone during a teacher observation (which determines employment status for the following year) and failing a teacher after only observing him/her for 20 minutes are acceptable practices. Dr. Roos cannot say she is unaware of Mrs. Fernandez’ atrocious lack of professionalism during my failed observation, because I provided Dr. Roos with an 8-page written report (March 2015) of Mrs. Fernandez’ (Screamer) egregious behavior during and after my failed observation. I have included that written report in my blog. My failing observation came shortly after I was subpoenaed to testify on behalf of Mrs. Luz Morales in DOAH 145-2439. This is supposedly a protected activity, but I guess Federal laws don’t mean much in “The People’s Republic of MDCPS.” After Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) calmed down from her 20- minute temper tantrum, she told me that I had presented an outstanding lesson! (However, she failed me on a lesson she considered outstanding.) On that one point, Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) and I are in agreement. I was failed despite presenting an outstanding lesson.)
Karla Hernandez Mats, the president of UTD is well aware of the 4 prolonged screaming jags that Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) has directed at UTD members of NKC and done NOTHING about it. My guess is that Mrs. Hernandez Mats figures that the $800 per year that teachers pay for union dues entitles those teachers to nothing more than a desk top calendar, and after the teacher has received his/her calendar, Mrs. Hernandez Mats has no further obligations to that teacher for the remainder of the school year. I have sent Mrs. Hernandez Mats numerous emails and certified letters. Mrs. Hernandez Mats responded to my first email. Since then, I have not heard from her. She has done only one of the many things I asked her to do to rescue UTD members at NKC (and that one action was done very poorly and feebly). I have included my unanswered certified letters to Mrs. Hernandez Mats in my blog. To my great dismay and disappointment, I have learned that (at great risk to himself/herself) a very brave serf/peasant who is still an inmate at NKC has spoken AT GREAT LENGTH to Mrs. Hernandez Mats about the miserable working conditions at NKC. He/She reports that Mrs. Hernandez Mats has done NOTHING to rein in the excesses of Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer). My hope is that an effective president will replace Mrs. Hernandez Mats in the next UTD election.
Many employees of MDCPS view that institution not as a school district, but as a criminal enterprise, with Superintendent Carvalho playing the part of the Godfather. Perhaps readers of this letter have reached a similar conclusion.
OK, it’s riddle time. The readers of this letter have read several pages of horrendous violations of Federal and state law, plus egregious violations of the UTD contract by both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer). Additionally, these two NKC administrators have suffered from abysmally low scores on the yearly staff and parent satisfaction surveys for 5 consecutive years, plus an astonishingly high staff turn -over rate. Given these facts, I am asking readers of this letter to hazard a guess as to how Dr. Roos is viewed by her superiors. If you view this question from the perspective of a free market economist, where good performances are rewarded and poor performances punished, you might be astonished that Dr. Roos is still employed as an administrator. You might also guess that she is very close to being washed out of the system. (Dr. Roos makes the Dilbert cartoon characters Wally or the pointy haired middle manager seem almost gifted in comparison), Regrettably, such a guess is very wide of the mark. If you are “lucky” enough to be an employee in the Alice-In-Wonderland Bizzaro “People’s Republic of MDCPS,” you have probably guessed that Dr. Roos was nominated for the prestigious Principal of the Year award! If Dr. Roos is one of “The People’s Republic of MDCPS” BEST principals, can you imagine what the WORST principals are like? In the real world, Dr. Roos’ nomination for this prestigious award would be viewed as an obscenity. However, if one views MDCPS as a criminal enterprise, the nomination is richly deserved.
Here are some other “fun facts” from “The Enchanted Kingdom of MDCPS.” 1) According to figures released by MDCPS officials, MDCPS has very nearly the lowest incidents of fights between students in the entire nation! This is because the state of Florida did not include a penalty for falsifying these figures, so Godfather Carvalho defined a “fight” so narrowly that almost nothing short of an exchange of nuclear weapons between students constitutes a fight in “The Enchanted Kingdom of MDCPS.” As readers of this letter know, school shootings and school violence have become a problem throughout the U.S., and schools nationwide are instituting programs in an effort to curb school violence. However, it is impossible to determine whether those programs are working if the baseline of school violence prior to the initiation of the program is unknown. 2) For years, MDCPS has been plagued by 8 high schools that received a grade of “F” for those schools’ academic performance for several consecutive years. However, recently, by some miracle, all 8 of those schools elevated enough to receive passing grades. If this event was achieved honestly, this accomplishment deserves recognition. However, (and I hope I’m wrong), given Godfather Carvalho’s seeming fondness for “cooking the books,” investigators may be wondering if this astonishing accomplishment is genuine. 3) A few years ago, Godfather Carvalho applied for the number two position in the Federal Department of Education. This is a very long, strenuous, and stressful undertaking. I remember reading in the newspaper how after the torturous confirmation hearings, Godfather Carvalho had an Epiphany, and suddenly realized that he couldn’t bear to depart from His post as the beloved Henchman of “the People’s Republic of MDCPS.” He tearfully announced that he was withdrawing His candidacy for the number two post as the Assistant Secretary of Education in Washington, D.C. As I read this newspaper account, it just didn’t make sense. I asked myself why someone would willingly undergo the grueling process of seeking political confirmation to a very high office if the person didn’t really want the job. Perhaps when the investigators did a background check on Godfather Carvalho, they found more skeletons in His closet than there are in a cemetery, and the Obama Administration was providing Godfather Carvalho with a graceful exit from a post He had been found unfit to fill.
4) A few years ago, the media specialist at Miami Norland Senior High School, Mr. Trevor Colestock, was told by some students that some teachers at the school were helping students to cheat on the yearly high stakes achievement test. (The Adobegate Scandal.) The U.S. government has a slogan that says, “If you see something[illegal], say something.” In “The People’s Republic of MDCPS,” this slogan has been perverted to, “If you see something [illegal], keep your mouth shut.” (or face retaliation/punishment at the hands of MDCPS bureaucrats.) Mr. Colestock had a decision to make. He had to decide whether he was a faceless, soulless MDCPS bureaucrat or a decent and moral human being. (In “The People’s Republic of MDCPS, you have to choose. You cannot be both.) Mr. Colestock made the wrong decision in terms of his own career advancement. However, if Mr. Colestock’s intent was to provide an example of courage, morality, and decency to the students of his school, he made the correct choice. Mr. Colestock correctly reasoned that school teachers who actively participated in helping students to cheat were teaching students to choose expediency over honesty, hard work, and self-discipline. As a man of great moral courage, Mr. Colestock made the decision to report his cheating colleagues to the authorities. After all, what kind of role model are cheating teachers to impressionable adolescent boys and girls? The reaction of the officials of “The People’s Republic of MDCPS” was swift and unequivocal. “The People’s Republic of MDCPS sent an unmistakable message that it had a zero tolerance for…..whistleblowers. Yep, Mr. Colestock, the courageous man who stuck his neck out was involuntarily reassigned to another school. At least one of the allegedly cheating teachers is still teaching at Miami Norland Senior High School, while Mr. Colestock, who “did the right thing” (to use a phrase popular in “The People’s Republic”) was involuntarily exiled. Godfather Carvalho, what kind of message do you think that sends to young people? Godfather Carvalho, what kind of message do you think that sends to other MDCPS employees who are contemplating engaging in (supposedly) legally protected whistleblowing activities? The heroic Mr. Colestock now has a lawsuit against “The People’s Republic” in the Florida state courts. Again, Godfather Carvalho is using taxpayer dollars that are SUPPOSED to be used to educate children to hire high powered attorneys to find any excuse, however flimsy, to get this case thrown out of court. It should be noted that Mr. Colestock is suing “The People’s Republic” because “The People’s Republic” committed egregious violations of Mr. Colestock’s rights. I call on Godfather Carvalho to instruct his attorneys to cease all efforts to get the richly deserved lawsuits of both Mr. Massa and Mr. Colestock dismissed and allow these lawsuits to either be heard in a court of law or to be settled out of court.
I would like to compare public schools to restaurants. Although I have never been to Cuba, I know people who have visited there. In Cuba, there are two kinds of restaurants. There are government run restaurants and privately- owned restaurants that are run for profit. My friends say that government run restaurants are to be avoided at all cost. The food is of inferior quality, the wait staff is slow and surly, the facilities are dark, dirty, and dingy, and the food may actually make you sick. The privately- owned restaurants are vastly superior to government restaurants in every category. They have to be better. Privately owned restaurants know that if they provide a product of inferior quality, the customer will simply take his or her business elsewhere. To an open market capitalist, government run restaurants may seem incomprehensible. The open market capitalist may ask himself or herself how an establishment that provides an inferior product year after year can stay in business. The answer is simple. Government run restaurants are of very poor quality because they can afford to do this. They know that no matter how inferior their product is, the government will continue to fund them, year after year. They simply have no incentive to improve. If you ask who is responsible for the deplorable condition of government run Cuban restaurants, the answer is the Cuban government. The best thing the Cuban government could do to improve the quality of government run restaurants is to stop funding them. They would then be forced to either sink or swim on their own. If you ask who is responsible for the deplorable condition of some of Florida’s public schools, the answer is the Florida legislature. The best thing the Florida legislature could do to improve the quality of some of the government run public schools is to stop funding them. They would then be forced to either sink or swim on their own. Career educational bureaucrats such as Godfather Carvalho, Dr. Roos, or Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) would never survive in a school where the only criteria for continued employment is the delivery of a high quality educational experience. If a highly competent charter school for profoundly mentally handicapped children were to open up in the south end of Miami-Dade County, Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) would have no students. This would not be a problem for them, as they would also have no teachers.
In the 1980’s, when Communism was on the verge of collapse in the Soviet Union, Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the twin policies of glasnost and perestroika in a desperate attempt to reform and save Communism. When Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn was asked for his reaction to these new policies, he replied, “Communism cannot be reformed. It can only be replaced.” The same can be said for public education. It is too corrupt and rigid to be salvaged. Public education is a cancer that is destroying our children’s chances of successfully competing in a job market that is increasingly competitive and global. Our children, our taxpayers, and our educators deserve an open market school system, where schools, both public and charter are awarded varying and fluctuating amounts of taxpayer dollars based solely on the degree of academic achievement they have achieved. The problem of declining academic performance in public schools will never be resolved if those poorly performing public schools continue to be paid with taxpayer dollars. Public school bureaucrats, both at the level of superintendent and school-site administrators will have little motivation to discard educational practices that clearly are not working as long as they continue to be funded regardless of poor academic achievement by the students of those schools.
One final thought: Mr. Carvalho, as you know, the best time to replace abysmally performing principals and assistant principals is during the summer months, when school is not in session. The summer of 2018 will be the 4’th (FOURTH SUMMER) you have been aware of the horrendous performance and egregious violations of Federal and state law, plus UTD contract violations by BOTH NKC administrators. It needs to be said that you could also have replaced these two underperforming administrators during the summers of 2015, 2016, and 2017, but you chose not to do so. This is not to say that you should wait until the summer of 2018 to replace these two HORRENDOUS administrators. Given the fact that both Mrs. Green and Mr. Jackson are in great danger of facing retaliation from one or both NKC administrators, I am hoping you will choose to replace BOTH NKC administrators as quickly as possible, PRIOR to the end of the 2017-2018 school year.
To refresh your memory, a few years ago, you very abruptly fired a high school principal (I believe it was the principal of Sunset Senior High School) DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR for having dirty bathrooms at the school. Superintendent Carvalho, can it be possible that you view dirty bathrooms as a more serious offense than deliberately exposing Profoundly Mentally Handicapped children, who literally cannot speak for themselves to a horrible death via choking on food FOR CLOSE TO THREE YEARS? Given the fact that the high school dirty bathrooms were front page news, while for almost THREE YEARS, the Miami mass media have refused to even mention the on-going crisis at NKC, perhaps a more accurate barometer of how serious you as superintendent judge a problem to be is the amount of negative publicity that problem generates for you personally.
Respectfully,
Bill Detzner
Bill Detzner/ 7722 S.W. 99 St./ Miami, FL. 33156/ billdetzner@bellsouth.net 305-279-5488
P.S.1 I am enclosing a list of questions I am hoping legislators will ask Superintendent Carvalho
P.S.2 Please feel free to publish any part of this letter, or the entire letter, if you see fit to do so.
P.S.3 Staff at NKC who have read my blog have asked in astonishment why Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) are still NKC administrators, given the fact that Superintendent Carvalho and MDCPS school board members are fully aware of their numerous, egregious violations of Federal and state law, and UTD contract violations. The NKC staff have asked me under what circumstances would these two horrendous administrators be relieved of their duties? My reply to them is that I do not know the answer to that question. My question to the readers of this letter is: Do Mr. Carvalho, Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) have an infinite blank check?

October 9, 2018
Dear President of the Miami Chapter of the NAACP,
Hello. My name is Bill Detzner. I am a retired school teacher and a former union steward from Neva King Cooper (NKC) School. I am writing this letter at the request of many African American staff of NKC. The Miami Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) appears to be a very vindictive organization that retaliates against any staff member who reports the misdeeds of MDCPS. As I am retired, I cannot be retaliated against, and that is why many African American staff at NKC have asked me to write this letter. I have written three previous letters to the NAACP (beginning in October 2017) that have not been answered. The first thing that the staff of NKC have asked me to say is that they have the deepest love, respect, and admiration for the NAACP. Having said that, the NKC staff is very worried that the NAACP has known about the serious civil rights violations committed by MDCPS against the African American staff of NKC for over a year, and do not appear to have responded in any way. The NKC staff want to strongly emphasize that they are alone and friendless. At this point, no person or organization has stepped forward to protect the civil rights of the African American staff of NKC. I have sent 6 unanswered certified letters to Superintendent Carvalho, 6 unanswered certified letters to United Teachers of Dade (UTD) president Karla Hernandez Mats, and at least one (and as many as 5 to some members) unanswered certified letters to every MDCPS school board member. The NKC staff have been punished for over six years for attempting to convert from a public school to a charter school. My blog mdcpsallegations.com contains many examples of the horrendous things that have happened at NKC for over six years. For example, a staff member said he/she was physically assaulted by Dr. Roos and had so little confidence in the internal MDCPS investigative bodies that, fearing retaliation, he/she was too frightened to report the alleged assault. Are there other NKC staff, including African American staff who have experienced similar situations? That answer is unknown. The NKC staff has asked me to ask the NAACP to ask the National Labor Relations Board or another agency not controlled by MDCPS to do a districtwide audit of MDCPS. The possibility exists that NKC African American staff have either been physically assaulted by the NKC administrators, or they have a fear that they will be assaulted by NKC administrators. The NKC African American staff have asked me to ask the NAACP if it will enforce these staff members rights to work in a non-hostile work environment. In a previous letter, I stated that although all NKC staff are shouted at and spoken to in an insulting and disrespectful manner, African Americans are treated the worst of all by both NKC administrators. I said that an African American staff member experienced two lengthy screaming tirades from assistant principal Mrs. Alicia Fernandez. The African American NKC staff have asked me to ask the NAACP if it (the NAACP) will enforce these staff members rights to be spoken to by NKC administrators in a courteous and respectful manner. In my letter, I stated that two African American staff, Ms. Green and Mr. Aaron Jackson are at risk for retaliation and possible termination during the 2018-2019 school year. If Dr. Roos does what she has done in the past, she will receive one of her famous “anonymous” phone calls, accusing one or both of these employees of career ending charges. The African American staff of NKC have asked me to ask the NAACP if it will protect these people from unlawful termination of their employment. I stated that for the last three years, the severely mentally retarded children of NKC have been placed at a needless and easily preventable risk of choking to death on their food. Many of these children are African Americans. The African American staff of NKC have asked me to ask the NAACP if it intends to safeguard the lives of these African American children who literally cannot speak for themselves and had nothing to do with the attempt to convert NKC to a charter school.
In my September 4, 2018 letter to the NAACP. I listed six actions that the African American staff of NKC would like the NAACP to take on their behalf. I have enclosed a copy of that letter for your convenience. It is the hope of the long suffering NKC staff that the NAACP will take as many of these actions as possible. The most urgent action is to partner with NKC in filing a grievance with the U.S. Dept. of Education, Office for Civil Rights, in Atlanta GA. Last May, MDCPS had a MANDATORY staff satisfaction survey that ALL staff are REQUIRED to fill out. The NKC administrators, in violation of the law, did not allow paraprofessionals to fill out this survey. This meant that only a tiny fraction of the African American staff of NKC were permitted to fill out this MANDATORY survey. The Atlanta address of the Dept. of Education Office for Civil Rights can be found in item #2 of the six suggested actions listed in my September 4, 2018 letter. As stated in my previous letter, this action needs to be taken as soon as possible, as civil rights violations must be reported within six months of the occurrence, and that deadline is rapidly approaching. If the NAACP allows this deadline to occur without lodging a grievance, the African American staff of NKC are going to be greatly disappointed.
All of us can remember the school yard bullies of our childhood. The staff of NKC view Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and the two NKC administrators as school yard bullies that are far too powerful for the NKC staff to confront. Imagine how you would feel if as a small child you were being bullied by the school yard bully, and two of your very strong and very powerful siblings stood by watching and did nothing to help you. In this case, the two very strong and powerful “siblings” are the United Teachers of Dade (UTD) and the NAACP. As I stated previously, I have sent UTD six letters, and BEGGED them to send a UTD official to NKC. The officials of UTD appear to regard NKC as a “no go zone,” as they NEVER visit the campus. UTD has not lifted a finger to help its own members at NKC. Many African American UTD members at NKC believe (with justification) that UTD exists SOLELY to provide generous salaries for UTD staff. The African American NKC staff appear to be baffled and deeply hurt by the fact that so far, the NAACP appears to have done nothing to protect them from the bullying the NAACP has known about for a year. As I said before, these members have asked me to express their love, respect, and admiration for the NAACP. They are asking me to ask the NAACP to pay a visit to the NKC campus to hear the complaints of African American staff. This visit needs to be announced well in advance, and well publicized. If the NAACP is gracious enough to do this, they will hear some eye- popping stories of abuse by NKC administrators. The UTD steward at NKC is Mr. Brett Darwin Brown. He is an African American man. His father was very active in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s. Mr. Brown is a courageous man, who will suffer severe retaliation unless the NAACP makes it very clear that retaliation against Mr. Brown will not be tolerated. Mr. Brown has already suffered retaliation for engaging in protected UTD activities at NKC. A staff member had been terminated from her employment at NKC, without cause, and was appealing her dismissal (DOAH 145-2439) Mr. Brown was subpoenaed, and, as the UTD steward, he agreed to testify at the hearing. (MDCPS lost the case, did not call a single witness to defend this firing, and was ordered to reinstate the teacher at a different school, and pay her 50% of the salary she missed when unjustly fired). A few weeks after the hearing, NKC principal Dr. Tracy Roos received one of her famous “anonymous” phone calls accusing Mr. Brown of using a ruler to discipline an unruly student! This charge could have resulted in the termination of Mr. Brown’s employment.
The NKC staff who asked me to write this fourth letter to the NAACP have asked me to stress that after six years of punishment, they feel that they are at the end of their rope, NOBODY is in their corner, and things at NKC are getting MUCH worse very quickly. When the paraprofessionals had the right to participate in the annual staff satisfaction survey, (On paper, they still have this right, as it is a MANDATORY survey, but a rule that is not enforced does not really exist) the two NKC administrators had to limit their mistreatment of the African American staff, due to fears that they (the NKC administrators) would get a bad evaluation if their illegal punishments of African American staff were excessive. However, Mr. Carvalho, the president of UTD, and the 9 school board members know that the NKC administrators are illegally preventing the African American paraprofessionals from participating in this MANDATORY survey (I sent all of them certified letters informing them of this fact) and they have decided to turn a blind eye and give the NKC administrators a blank check to do whatever they want to do, even if what they are doing is not legal. The African American paraprofessionals of NKC know that now that they are no longer allowed to take this MANDATORY survey, Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez will treat them even worse than they have in the past. Getting back to the school yard bully, what happens when the bully gets his or her way? The bully gets drunk with power and the victim gets treated worse and worse. Dr. Roos has already allegedly assaulted at least one staff member. What happens if she feels safe enough to assault an African American staff member? A person who has been physically attacked has a right to defend themself. However, if an attacked African American staff member defends themself, will Dr. Roos claim that she (Dr. Roos) was attacked by the African American staff member? If so, you can bet your bottom dollar that both Mr. Carvalho and the UTD president will fully support Dr. Roos. There is one word that I heard over and over from the African American staff who were describing working conditions at NKC. Can you guess what that word was? (I’ll give you a clue. That word begins with the letter “P.”) The word they used was the word “Plantation.” The NKC staff have asked me to ask the NAACP if the NAACP is comfortable with the fact that African American staff at NKC are being treated the same way that slaves were treated back in Plantation days?
It should be fairly easy to get both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Alicia Fernandez the “reward” they so richly deserve for the way they have treated the NKC staff for the last six years. Both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez have been responsible for administering the high stakes annual achievement test given every year at NKC. That test is called the Florida Alternate Assessment (FAA). For six years, severely mentally retarded students at NKC have been achieving test scores on that test far above their ability. It is possible that cheating has occurred on that test. Both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez have received hefty financial bonuses for the results achieved on that test. A few years ago, some Georgia school officials went to jail for cheating on the yearly achievement test. I know two people who are no longer at NKC who can shed some light on possible cheating on that test if an investigative body independent of MDCPS is brought in. Additionally, it appears that Mrs. Alicia Fernandez willfully and knowingly filed false charges against an NKC teacher for allegedly cheating on the FAA. In the resulting lawsuit, Mrs. Fernandez allegedly perjured herself in her sworn testimony under oath in her deposition. I can provide the name of a teacher who is no longer at NKC who can attest to these facts.
Finally, if the NAACP does nothing, it is likely that there will be some kind of explosion at NKC in the near future. The staff have been punished for over six years. They understand that their treatment is about to become MUCH worse, and that NOBODY will lift a finger to help them. If that happens, please know that all four letters I have written to the NAACP are posted on my website. I am trying to get parts of my blog published in the Miami Herald and/or the New York Times. If wealthy donors discover that the Miami NAACP has known about this crisis for a year and done nothing to stop it, donations may decrease significantly. The African American staff of NKC REALLY, REALLY, REALLY need the help of the NAACP.
Sincerely,
Bill Detzner
Bill Detzner/7722 S.W. 99 St./ Miami, Fl. 33156 billdetzner@bellsouth.net

October 5, 2017
Dear Dr. Johnson,
Good morning! My name is Bill Detzner. I am a retired MDCPS teacher. I taught students at Neva King Cooper (NKC) a school exclusively for profoundly mentally retarded children. Many years ago, I was a UTD building steward. The only thing about being a UTD steward I did not like was the monthly building steward meetings downtown. I do not like meetings, and I thought the monthly meetings were mostly very boring. The only part of those meetings I enjoyed was “The Dr. Shirley Report.” Dr. Johnson, I don’t know if you are aware of it, but you are a very powerful and passionate public speaker. I always felt energized and uplifted after your presentations. Although I never got the chance to know you personally, I got the feeling that you are a deeply spiritual person. This is important to me, because I am also a deeply spiritual person.
I am writing to you today in reference to two African-American employees of Neva King Cooper (NKC). Those two fine people are Mrs. Green and Mr. Jackson. Mrs. Green is one of the kindest, sweetest people I know. She is the kind of person who always puts other people first. One year, when Mrs. Green and I were working together, we had a young man who came from a very poor home. His clothes were clean, but old and worn. Mrs. Green bought this young man new clothes and shoes out of her own pocket, and para-professionals are not paid nearly enough for all the hard work they do. As for Mr. Jackson, he is a complete gentleman. He is the kind of man any mother would be proud to claim as a son.
Recently, Mrs. Green’s daughter was brutally murdered. On her second day back to work after that tragedy, Mrs. Green had a brief chat with the NKC principal, Dr. Tracy Roos. Although Mrs. Green was very polite and courteous to Dr. Roos during this brief chat, somehow Mrs. Green offended Dr. Roos. Dr. Roos then told Mr. Jackson to deliver a verbal message to Mrs. Green. That message was: “Tell Mrs. Green that if she is unhappy here at NKC, Dr. Roos will be happy to arrange for a transfer of Mrs. Green to another school.” Both Mrs. Green and Mr. Jackson are extremely upset by this .Mrs Green was so upset that she took the bold and risky step of filing a formal complaint against Dr. Roos. I use the words “bold” and “risky” because both Dr. Roos and assistant principal Mrs. Alicia Fernandez are very brutal and ruthless people who have ruled NKC with an iron fist for the last five years. Those few people courageous enough to report the NKC administrators’ numerous contract violations to either UTD or MDCPS have had potentially career ending charges filed against them by one or both NKC administrators.
Dr. Johnson, both Mrs. Green and Mr. Jackson are in grave danger of having completely false charges such as sexually or physically abusing a child filed against them by one or both NKC administrators. I have been writing to MDCPS superintendent Alberto Carvalho for over two years now, but I am just a little tiny retired school teacher, with only a very tiny voice, and no power, and Mr. Carvalho has not even bothered to answer any of my letters. (I have enclosed a copy of my latest letter to Superintendent Carvalho for your inspection.) Dr. Johnson, Mr. Carvalho can afford to ignore me as he only responds to power. The NAACP is one of the mightiest, most powerful organizations in the U.S. If the NAACP warns Mr. Carvalho that retaliation against either Mrs. Green or Mr. Jackson will not be tolerated, those two individuals will be safe. Thank You, and God bless you for the WONDERFUL work you have done, both for UTD and NAACP.

Respectfully,
Bill Detzner
Bill Detzner/ 7722 S.W. 99 Street/ Miami, FL. 33156