mdcps allegations

September 4, 2018
Dear Dr. Johnson,
Hello, my name is Bill Detzner. I retired after 30 years as a Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) teacher. I spent the last 25 years of my career at Neva King Cooper School (NKC) a public school for Profoundly Mentally Handicapped (PMH) children. I was also the UTD building steward at NKC for 10 years. You can read about the many terrible things that have been happening at NKC FOR THE LAST SIX YEARS on my blog mdcpsallegations.com I have written to you twice before and you have not responded to my letters. While the staff of NKC are not very happy at all that the NAACP has not responded to our two pleas for help, as a former UTD steward for my school, I have a great deal of sympathy for the position you (Dr. Johnson) are in as both a former vice president of UTD, and as the current president of the Miami NAACP. Dr. Johnson, my guess is that you did not respond to our two pleas for help because you assumed that UTD could, should, and would respond to its members desperate need for help. Dr. Johnson, I am very sorry to have to say that UTD is only a tiny shadow of what it used to be back when you so capably and eloquently served as its vice president. I have sent a total of 18 certified letter to MDCPS officials. Six went to UTD president Karla Hernandez Mats, 6 went to Dr. Larry Feldman, (the school board member that is supposed to serve the NKC school) and 6 letters went to Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. I have received literally not a single word of response to ANY of those 18 certified letters. Not. A. Single. Word. (I have kept all 18 of my green return receipt cards, so I have proof that the people I sent those letters to received them.) Ms. Hernandez Mats is so controlled by Mr. Carvalho that I think she gets permission from him 30 days in advance before she even sneezes. NKC has been in a state of total lockdown for SIX YEARS (now starting the seventh year), ever since Dr. Tracy Roos became the NKC principal, and Mrs. Alicia Fernandez became the assistant principal. NKC has been in lockdown for SIX YEARS because Superintendent Carvalho is very angry at the school for attempting to convert from a public school to a charter school. Both these NKC administrators give the appearance of being very prejudiced against African Americans. I have listed 5 examples below of what appears to be extreme prejudice by BOTH these administrators against African American employees at NKC. Again, all these events are discussed at length in my blog.
1) Last fall, shortly after Hurricane Irma damaged her home, an NKC paraprofessional named Mrs. Green suffered the tragedy of having her daughter murdered, leaving behind a five -year old grandchild, who was in the house at the time of the murder. Although he has not been charged, many people think the husband was responsible for this death. Mrs. Green was granted an emergency leave to bury her daughter and obtain temporary custody of her grandson. On her first day back at work, Mrs. Green crossed paths with Dr. Roos in the hallway. Rather than express her (Dr. Roos) condolences, Dr. Roos wordlessly turned her back on Mrs. Green and walked away. The next day, Mrs. Green spoke very briefly with Dr. Roos. (again, Dr. Roos never expressed her condolences to Mrs. Green.) At NKC, courtesy and respect are a one-way street. Staff are courteous and respectful to administrators. However, FOR SIX YEARS, courtesy and respect are not shown to staff by NKC administrators. Furthermore, showing courtesy and respect to administrators is NOT enough to keep staff out of trouble. NKC administrators expect AND GET extremely meek and deferential treatment from staff. Mrs. Green, wracked by grief, was polite and courteous to Dr. Roos when she (Mrs. Green) spoke to Dr. Roos, but she did not bow and scrape. Dr. Roos then “allegedly” did a very evil thing. (To protect myself legally, I will use the word “allegedly,” even though I am certain that this and other events described later in this letter occurred.) Dr. Roos then summoned one of Mrs. Green’s closest friends, an African American custodian named Mr. Aaron Jackson. Dr. Roos then allegedly ordered Mr. Jackson to deliver a very thinly veiled verbal threat to Mrs. Green. The alleged verbal message was, “Tell Mrs. Green that if she is not happy here [at NKC], Dr. Roos can easily arrange an [involuntary] transfer for her.” MDCPS regulations state that disciplinary matters are a very sensitive and private matter and are to be handled privately between ONLY the affected employee and the administrator. MDCPS regulations also state that even if an employee is given an order he/she believes is illegal, that order is to be carried out, lest the employee be charged with insubordination. Can you imagine the terrible sense of anguish Mr. Jackson must have felt as he delivered this cruel message to one of his closest friends, whose daughter had been brutally murdered just days ago? Dr. Johnson, unless you are unfortunate enough to be an NKC employee, it is difficult to understand the very, very deep sense of fear that staff there have of being fired from their jobs (again, FOR THE LAST SIX YEARS.) If an employee is stupid enough to report a contract violation to UTD, the union will do NOTHING WHATSOEVER, and then turn a blind eye as the employee is retaliated against once the “investigation” (wink, wink) is completed. After Mr. Jackson repeated Dr. Roos thinly veiled threat to her, Mrs. Green had a “Rosa Parks moment,” because she decided she was sick and tired of being disrespected. She then did something that most NKC serfs would call “career suicide.” Mrs. Green reported Dr. Roos to the MDCPS authorities. A meeting was scheduled to discuss Mrs. Greens’ concerns. That meeting was postponed, but Mrs. Green was never informed of this fact. At the end of the school day, Mrs. Green reported to the assistant principal’s office and sat in that empty room for an hour, waiting for a meeting that everyone except her knew had been postponed. While Mrs. Green sat in that empty office, Dr. Roos then allegedly summoned Mr. Jackson to a closed -door meeting in Dr. Roos office. (Staff members saw Mr. Jackson enter and leave that lengthy meeting in Dr. Roos office.) At that meeting, Dr. Roos allegedly threatened Mr. Jackson with immediate termination unless he recanted saying that Dr. Roos had ordered him to make that cruel comment to Mrs. Green. Mr. Jackson, fearing his job was on the line, then recanted saying that Dr. Roos had ordered him to deliver a threat to Mrs. Green. If one is to believe Mr. Jackson’s recantation, then one has to believe that Mr. Jackson, a very kind -hearted person, would willingly subject one of his closest friends to a terribly cruel threat on his own initiative shortly after the brutal murder of his close friend’s daughter. A second meeting was scheduled to address Mrs. Green’s concerns. That meeting was also canceled, and never rescheduled. Apparently, MDCPS did not think the very serious threats made against this 20+ year African American employee after the murder of her daughter were worth even one meeting to discuss! Regrettably, MDCPS was not finished humiliating the African American employees of NKC. A few weeks AFTER this disgraceful event, MDCPS saw fit to nominate Dr. Roos as a candidate for one of its most prestigious awards. Astonishingly, Dr. Roos became a candidate for the Principal of the Year Award!
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT BOTH MRS GREEN AND MR JACKSON ARE IN DANGER OF BEING TERMINATED DURING THE 2018-2019 SCHOOL YEAR. A little background information is needed before I explain how these two fine people could be fired during the present school year. Prior to my retirement, Dr. Roos summoned me to her office for a meeting. She asked me to be seated at a table containing several chairs. I randomly selected a chair and sat down. Dr. Roos gave me a deeply disapproving stare. I knew I had somehow upset Dr. Roos, but I had no idea what my offense was. Dr. Roos continued to give me the evil eye, but as I had no idea what I had done to offend her, I had no idea how to escape her disapproval. After a long and intense stare down, Dr. Roos told me I was sitting in the wrong chair and told me she wanted me to sit in the chair right next to the chair I was seated in! Dr. Roos then “allegedly” told me she suffers from an obsessive- compulsive disorder. (Again, even though Dr. Roos personally told me this, I will use the word “allegedly” to legally protect myself.) Dr. Roos often appears to be sullen, lethargic, in a bad mood, and having very little energy. All of this changes dramatically when Dr. Roos actions have caused one or more staff to be in trouble, even if the staff member is in trouble because Dr. Roos exaggerated or even straight out lied. When Dr. Roos actions have caused a staff member to be in trouble, she seems almost giddy with joy and happiness, and she seems to have an incredible amount of energy. Dr. Roos gives the appearance of being almost addicted to the joy and energy boost she experiences when she has been very nasty to a person, deeply humiliated a person, or caused that person to be at risk for losing his or her job. Perhaps I am wrong here, but Dr. Roos does not appear to be able to control her impulses to be deliberately hateful or to humiliate her staff, tell outright lies in order to cause trouble or even danger of job termination for the NKC staff. Again, my blog tells of many examples of this. Additionally, Dr. Roos gives the appearance of being an extremely vicious and vindictive person. If a staff person has made Dr. Roos look bad, even if it is entirely the fault of Dr. Roos that she (Dr. Roos) appears in a bad light, Dr. Roos allegedly WILL NOT REST UNTIL SHE HAS EVENED THE SCORE. Dr. Roos looked bad as a result of her vicious and cruel actions against both Mrs. Green and Mr. Jackson. In the past, Dr. Roos has waited until the following year to get her revenge so that it doesn’t look like revenge. In the past, Dr. Roos favorite tactic is to receive an “anonymous” phone call, accusing the person she (Dr. Roos) wants to get even with of a very serious offense. While I hope I am wrong, I suspect that sometime during the 2018-2019 school year, Dr. Roos is going to receive an “anonymous” phone call accusing Mrs. Green and/or Mr. Jackson of physically and/or sexually abusing one or more PMH students. As very few of these severely mentally retarded students are able to speak, these charges will be extremely difficult to disprove. IF MRS GRREN OR MR JACKSON FIND THEMSELVES ACCUSED OF THESE OFFENSES, YOU CAN BET YOUR BOTTOM DOLLAR THAT NEITHER UTD OR MR CARVALHO WILL LIFT A FINGER TO PROTECT THEM. For this reason, I am hoping that the NAACP will stand up for these two African American employees, because UTD will not.
2) At the end of the school year, it is MANDATORY that every staff member, both teachers and para-professional fill out an anonymous, on-line “staff Satisfaction survey”. This survey asks staff to rate their level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their school site administrators. Prior to the last six years, our previous administrators, principal Dr. Alberto Fernandez and assistant principal Mr. Henny Cristobol received very high approval ratings from the staff, year after year. However, during the last six years, both principal Dr. Roos and assistant principal Alicia Fernandez have been rated, year after year, as among the worst administrators in MDCPS. Last spring, in an effort to raise the horribly low staff satisfaction survey scores, the para-professionals were illegally forbidden to take part in this MANDATORY survey. At NKC, there are almost as many paraprofessionals as there are teachers (due to the fact that teachers need help lifting wheelchair bound students in and out of their wheelchairs to change diapers.) Most of the para-professionals are African American. Only a small percentage of the teachers are African American. In this MANDATORY survey, nearly half of our staff, and almost all our African American staff were illegally forbidden from participating in this MANDATORY survey. Dr. Johnson, the staff of NKC are BEGGING you to PLEASE involve the NAACP in addressing this grievance. What the NKC staff would like the NAACP to do is to partner with NKC in filing a grievance with the US. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights against MDCPS for this egregious civil rights violation. The address of the agency is: U.S. Dept. of Education/ Office for Civil Rights/ Atlanta Office, Southern Division/61 Forsyth St. SW/ Suite 19T10/Atlanta, GA. 30303. The contact person would be Michelle Reid (404) 974-9386 (I have found her to be very helpful) or Arthur Manigault at (404) 974-9376. The UTD steward at NKC is Mr. Brett Darwin Brown. I think you will also find him to be quite helpful. This needs to be done quickly, as civil rights complaints need to be filed within 6 months of the event, or they don’t count. As this event occurred last spring, this complaint will need to be filed as soon as possible.
3) 3) Last spring, the lead secretary for our school retired. Her obvious replacement was an African American woman who has been a MDCPS employee for 30+ years. This woman is an extremely competent, pleasant, hard- working team player who gets along well with everyone. She is punctual and has nearly perfect attendance There is not a single secretarial skill that she cannot perform in a timely fashion. To the astonishment of the entire staff, this exemplary employee was passed over for promotion, and Dr. Roos hired a secretary from outside NKC, which meant this new secretary had to be taught her job. At NKC, African Americans are frequently passed over for promotions by the NKC administrators.
4) The assistant principal of NKC (Mrs. Alicia Fernandez) has a nickname. Her nickname is “Screamer.” She has this nickname because when she is upset with a staff member, (and she gets upset easily, and very often) she screams at them. In my blog, I discuss an incident where Mrs. Alicia Fernandez screamed at me, nonstop, for 20 minutes! On 4 separate occasions during her tirade, I asked her to lower her voice. The first time I made this request, she very briefly lowered her voice, then went right back to screaming at me. The other 3 times I asked her to please lower her voice, she simply ignored me. Every time I tried to say something during her screaming tirade, she just shouted me down. Dr. Johnson, I am a military veteran, and I have to tell you that even during army boot camp, not even army drill sergeants screamed at me as long, as loud, and as disrespectfully as Mrs. Fernandez (AKA “Screamer”) did. When Mrs. Fernandez finally left my classroom after her 20- minute long Screamathon, I felt very deeply humiliated and emasculated. When I reported Mrs. Fernandez temper tantrum to Dr. Roos, Dr. Roos shrugged her shoulders and said, “Well, Bill, you must have done something to upset her!” At no time did either Dr. Roos or Mrs. Fernandez ever offer me an apology for Mrs. Fernandez unprofessional behavior. Dr. Johnson, I have to be very candid with you. As badly as Mrs. Fernandez treated me that day, I got off easy. I am Caucasian, and both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez treat African Americans with even more disrespect and contempt. There is an African American para-professional who has a 20+ year unblemished record at NKC. He is a hard worker who cares deeply about mentally retarded students He has been the victim of Mrs. Fernandez Screamathons at least twice. The second time, after Mrs. Fernandez ignored his numerous requests that she lower her voice, he simply exited her office, saying he would be happy to resume the “discussion” when she had calmed down. He also stated that in the future, he wanted his UTD steward to be present whenever he was called to either administrators office. For this “offense” he was summoned to Dr. Roos office, and BOTH administrators then read him the riot act, and threatened to place a charge of insubordination in his file. At no time has this gentleman ever been offered an apology from either Dr. Roos or Mrs. Fernandez for Mrs. Fernandez unprofessional screaming tirades. Are there other African American NKC staff who have been the victim of one or more of Mrs. Fernandez screaming tirades, but not reported it because they knew UTD would do little or nothing to protect them? I would bet my bottom dollar that this is the case
5) The head custodian of NKC was an African American man with a 30- year unblemished record at MDCPS. Shortly after Dr. Roos became the NKC principal, this man was summoned on numerous occasions to Dr. Roos office and shouted at and spoken to in a very disrespectful way by Dr. Roos. In anger, one day this man said some things that were probably best left unsaid, and he was involuntarily transferred to another school. It does seem very strange that a man can work for 30 years, have not a single blemish on his record, and a few months after Dr. Roos became the principal, he is suddenly ( for the one and only time in his career) a “problem employee.”
Dr. Johnson, if you read my blog, you will be astonished at how badly NKC staff have been treated for SIX YEARS. The NKC staff is VERY, VERY angry, and VERY, VERY frightened. That is not a good combination. You can only mistreat people for so long before they feel they are in a position where they feel they have nothing to lose. Dr. Johnson, the NKC staff feel that there is NOBODY in a position of authority who is willing to help them. To be quite honest, they are not at all happy that the NAACP has not helped them. Several NKC staff have urged me to post the 2 unanswered letters I have sent to the NAACP on my blog in an attempt to prod the NAACP into taking action to help them. As a compromise, I offered to send the NAACP a third letter, and then publish all 3 letters on my blog if the NAACP declined to respond in the near future. Dr. Johnson, NKC is like a rumbling volcano. Smoke is pouring out of the mountaintop, the ground is rumbling and shaking, and there is a strong smell of sulfur in the air. If the NAACP declines to help the NKC staff, perhaps some of the wealthy donors who make generous financial contributions might become less enthusiastic about contributing to the wonderful organization that the NAACP has always been.
Here are the actions that the NKC staff are hoping the NAACP will take on their behalf. 1) Would the NAACP be willing to write a letter to Superintendent Carvalho, asking that both principal Tracy Roos and assistant principal Alicia Fernandez be removed from their posts at NKC immediately? 2) Would the NAACP be willing to partner with the NKC staff in filing a civil rights grievance with the civil rights office of the Dept. of Education? 3) If an investigation reveals wrongdoing by either NKC administrator serious enough to merit dismissal as MDCPS employees, would the NAACP be willing to insist that this be done? 4) Superintendent Carvalho gives the appearance of being a very vicious and vindictive man. The NKC staff has a well- founded fear that if Mr. Carvalho replaces the two present NKC administrators, he will replace them with new administrators who are as bad or even worse than the present ones. Given the fact that in legal case DOAH 13-1492, it was recommended that both principal Dr. Alberto Fernandez and assistant principal Henny Cristobol be returned to NKC, and given the fact that MDCPS previously rated Dr. Fernandez as the most effective administrator in the district, and given the fact that both previous NKC administrators enjoyed high approval rating year after year on both the staff and parent satisfaction surveys, would the NAACP be willing to ask Superintendent Carvalho to restore the previous NKC administrators to their posts? 5) Would the NAACP be willing to ask that the National Labor Relations Board be called in to do a complete audit of MDCPS to determine how well civil rights laws are being enforced? 6) Would the NAACP be willing to send a copy of any correspondence they send to any party to either the NKC union steward (Mr. Darwin Brett Brown), or myself as a courtesy, so we can report how things are going to NKC members? God Bless you and Thank You Dr. Johnson for any help you and the NAACP are able to provide in these areas.
Respectfully,
Bill Detzner
Bill Detzner/7722 S.W. 99 St. Miami, Fl. 33156 billdetzner@bellsouth.net mdcpsallegations.com

In an effort to keep my blog from becoming too lengthy, starting today, I will not post all new developments on my blog (and there have been many exciting new developments in the last few days) For the first time since I wrote my first letter 3 years ago, I am now confident that in the near future, the average person in the street will know about the continuing crises, BOTH in MDCPS and NKC. Please stay tuned. Things are about to become highly interesting.

30 August 2018

Dear Gates Foundation,

Hello. My name is Bill Detzner. I am a retired public- school teacher. I taught for 30 years in Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS), the nation’s fourth largest school district. For the last 25 years of my career, I taught at Neva King Cooper School (NKC), a public school exclusively for Profoundly Mentally Handicapped (PMH) students, with IQ’s of 25 and below. During the 2011-2012 school year, my school attempted to exercise the (supposedly) legally protected right under Florida law to convert from a public school to a charter school. We did this for 2 reasons: 1) Even though the MDCPS budget INCREASED every year, our school (NKC) saw a DECREASE in its budget, year after year. The increased funding was going to grow the MDCPS bureaucracy to truly grotesque and gargantuan proportions. 2) The MDCPS bureaucracy was putting enormous pressure on NKC to abandon its highly effective curriculum (the Small Step Curriculum (SSC), in favor of a vastly more expensive and totally inappropriate new curriculum that is far above the intellectual capacity of our students. By becoming a charter school, we could cut out the vast, expensive, and inefficient MDCPS bureaucrats. By our very conservative figures, backed up by an accounting firm, we saw that we would be able to offer our teaching staff a hefty raise, increase the services we offered to our students, and still end up with an obscene surplus at the end of the school year. The MDCPS superintendent, Mr. Alberto Carvalho, illegally smashed NKC’s attempt to convert to a charter school (legal case DOAH 13-1492). For the last 6 years, NKC has been virtually under lockdown, with brutal and illegal collective punishment for the entire NKC staff. All of this is described in my blog mdcpsallegations.com The result is that although many Florida public schools have chosen to convert from public schools to charter schools, not a single MDCPS school has done this, due to the extreme sense of Fear Superintendent Carvalho seems to have deliberately cultivated in the schools he rules over. I have written certified letters to Superintendent Carvalho, all members of the MDCPS school board, Florida Governor Rick Scott, and the Florida Department of Education. Not only have none of these people taken any action, not a single one of them have even replied to my letters. This is a case of David vs. Goliath. In this case, David is prone on the ground, with Goliath’s boot on his throat. If the Gates Foundation decides to offer its considerable influence to this situation, perhaps MDCPS will have no choice but to either improve the quality of education it offers to its students, or allow its schools to convert to charter schools. MDCPS presently enjoys an undeserved monopoly on public education, and that monopoly affords it the luxury of offering an inferior educational experience to the students that it is presently serving so poorly.

Respectfully,

Bill Detzner

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

29 August 2018

Dear Senator Nelson,

Hello, my name is Bill Detzner, and I live in Miami, Fl. My blog is mdcpsallegations.com I am writing this letter to you regarding the extremely dangerous and deplorable conditions at Neva King Cooper School (NKC) a public school for severely mentally retarded children in Miami Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS). During the time that Rick Scott has been the Florida governor, the Miami schools superintendent (Mr. Alberto Carvalho) has illegally smashed NKC’s attempt to convert from a public school to a charter school. (DOAH 13-1492) Mr. Carvalho has been illegally punishing the entire staff of NKC for SIX YEARS. As my blog explains, (mdcpsallegations.com.) Dr. Roos, the NKC principal, gives the appearance of being both an extremely vicious and vindictive person, and a person who appears to be in very fragile mental health. As a result of these two conditions, the situation at NKC is very volatile. As my blog explains, the majority of the African American staff of NKC feel that both principal Tracy Roos and assistant principal Alicia Fernandez are racists. As my blog explains, for the last 3 years, Dr. Roos appears to have cultivated a situation where Profoundly Mentally Handicapped (PMH) children appear to be deliberately exposed to a danger of choking to death on their food in an effort to terminate staff who exercised their (supposedly) protected right under Florida law to explore conversion to a charter school. Both the New York Times and the Miami Herald are exploring the possibility of doing one or more stories on the SIX YEAR crisis at NKC. I am sure you understand the avalanche of negative publicity Governor Rick Scott will receive if those two newspapers publish stories showing Governor Scott has been aware of this situation for a considerable period of time and done NOTHING for children who literally cannot speak for themselves. Most people have a soft spot in their heart for mentally retarded children, and they have VERY strong feelings about public figures (such as Governor Rick Scott) who do not take measures to protect our most vulnerable citizens. Senator, Governor Scott is currently running a t.v. ad where he accuses you of cheating on Medicare and other taxes. If you were to air a t.v. ad showing Governor Scott’s neglect (for SIX YEARS) of children so severely mentally retarded that they literally cannot speak fore themselves, perhaps it will spur the reluctant governor to take some LONG, LONG overdue action to protect these vulnerable children. Senator, I am a political atheist. I do not care whether you or Governor Scott win the Florida Senate seat. What I VERY passionately care about is the fate of PMH children. My friend will be whichever of either yourself or Governor Scott take appropriate action(s) to protect PMH children. Senator, I am asking you to take any of the actions mentioned below that are within your power to take. I am asking you to immediately relieve both principal Tracy Roos and assistant principal Alicia Fernandez of their duties. If there is cause to also remove Superintendent Carvalho of his duties, that should also be done. Finally, if you have the authority to ask an investigative body (such as the National Labor Relations Board) or any other investigative body independent of MDCPS to do a complete audit of both MDCPS and NKC, that would be very helpful.

Governor Scott cannot claim not to know about the SIX YEAR crisis at NKC, because I have sent him (Governor Scott) 3 certified letters about the NKC crisis, and I have kept the green return receipt requested cards, proving his office received those letters. I have also sent 3 certified letters to the Florida Dept. of Education, Office of the Commissioner. Again, I have kept the green return receipt cards, proving that office received that correspondence. Finally, on February 7, 2018, I sent a letter to the 21 (TWENTYONE) Republican K-12 education committee members of the Florida Senate and House. I am including a copy of that correspondence with this letter. (for the record, I did not send any correspondence to any Democratic Party members of the Florida K-12 education committee.) Those House Republicans are: Michael Bileca, Jennifer Mae Sullivan, Larry Ahern, Manny Diaz Jr., Byron Donalds, Jay Fant, Jason Fischer, Chris Latvala, Amber Mariano, Rene Plasencia, Mel Ponder, Elizabeth W. Porter, Jake Raburn, and Charlie Stone. The Republican Senate members include: Dorothy L. Hukill, Debbie Mayfield, Bill Galuano, Tom Lee, Keith Perry, David Simmons, and Wilton Simpson. Please feel free to contact me if you need further information from me.

Sincerely,

Bill Detzner

Bill Detzner 7722 S.W. 99 St. Miami Fl. 33156 mdcpsallegations.com billdetzner@bellsouth.net

27 August 2018

Dear Governor Scott,

Hello, my name is Bill Detzner This is my third letter to you regarding the extremely dangerous and deplorable conditions at Neva King Cooper School (NKC) a public school for severely mentally retarded children. (I have retained the green return receipt cards, so I have proof that your office received those 3 letters.) You will find the letters I have written to you posted on my blog mdcpsallegations.com along with a great deal of additional information about the illegal activities that have been going on at NKC for SIX YEARS. Additionally, I am sending you a copy of the February 7, 2018 letter I sent to the 21 (TWENTYONE) Republican K-12 education committee members of the Florida Senate and House. Those House Republicans are : Michael Bileca, Jennifer Mae Sullivan, Larry Ahern, Manny Diaz Jr., Byron Donalds, Jay Fant, Jason Fischer, Chris Latvaia, Amber Mariano, Rene Plasencia, Mel Ponder, Elizabeth W. Porter, Jake Raburn, and Charlie Stone. The Republican Senate members include Dorothy L. Hukill, Debbie Mayfield, Bill Galuano, Tom Lee, Keith Perry, David Simmons, and Wilton Simpson. Additionally, I have sent 3 certified letters to the Florida education Commissioner(and again, I have the green card return receipt requested cards to prove the Commissioner received those letters.) Finally, I am sending you a copy of the August 20,2018 letter that I sent to Superintendent Carvalho, the 9 members of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS)  school board, and United Teachers of Dade (UTD) president Ms. Hernandez Mats. Given all of this correspondence, voters will find it hard to believe that you have been unaware of the SIX YEAR crisis at NKC. To review, during the time you have been the governor, Superintendent Carvalho has illegally smashed NKC’s attempt to convert to a charter school. He has illegally been punishing the entire staff of NKC for SIX YEARS. As you are aware, Dr. Roos, the NKC principal, gives the appearance of being both an extremely vicious and vindictive person, and a person who appears to be in very fragile mental health. As a result of these two conditions, the situation at NKC is very volatile. As you are aware, the majority of the African American staff of NKC feel that both principal Tracy Roos and assistant principal Alicia Fernandez are racists. You are also aware that for 3 years, Dr. Roos appears to have cultivated a situation where Profoundly Mentally Handicapped (PMH) children appear to be deliberately exposed to a danger of choking to death on their food in an effort to terminate staff who exercised their (supposedly) protected right to explore conversion to a charter school. Both the New York Times and the Miami Herald have read my blog and are exploring the possibility of doing one or more stories on the SIX YEAR crisis at NKC. I am sure you understand the avalanche of negative publicity you will receive if these two newspapers publish stories showing you have been aware of this situation for a considerable period of time and did NOTHING for children who literally cannot speak for themselves. Most people have a soft spot in their heart for mentally retarded children, and they have VERY strong feelings about public figures who do not take measures to protect our most vulnerable citizens. Governor, I am a political atheist. I do not care whether you or Bill Nelson win the Florida Senate seat. What I am VERY passionate about is the fate of PMH children. Accordingly, I will also send a very similar letter to Mr. Nelson, alerting him to what gives the appearance of being neglect of the welfare of PMH children by yourself in your capacity as the governor. My friend will be whichever of the two of you take action to protect PMH children. Governor, if it is within your power, I am asking you to immediately relieve both principal Tracy Roos and assistant principal Alicia Fernandez of their duties. If there is cause to also remove Superintendent Alberto Carvalho of his duties, that should also be done. Finally, if you have the authority as governor to ask an investigative agency (such as the National Labor Relations Board) or any other investigative agency independent of MDCPS to do a complete audit of both MDCPS and NKC, that would be very helpful.

Sincerely,

Bill Detzner

Bill Detzner 7722 S.W. 99 St. Miami Fl. 33156 mdcpsallegations.com billdetzner@bellsouth.net

 

20 August 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely,

Bill Detzner

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

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

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

Dear Governor Scott,

Hello, my name is Bill Detzner. On May1, 2018, I sent you a letter, stating my deep concerns about the situation at Neva King Cooper (NKC), a public school exclusively for Profoundly Mentally Handicapped (PMH) students in Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS), the nation’s fourth largest school system. Since the time of my letter, things at that unfortunate school have ominously taken a turn for the worse, and my fear is that an explosion is immanent unless you as the governor personally intervene . If you need an in-depth description about the SIX YEAR crisis at NKC, my blog can be accessed at mdcpsallegations.com. (Governor Scott, I know that you are a bald man, but if you DID have hair on your head, reading my blog would cause your nonexistent hair to curl!) I have been in phone contact with Elizabeth Harris, who is the education reporter for the New York Times (NYT). She is aware of my blog and has promised to explore the possibility of the NYT doing one or more stories about my blog. Additionally, I am in the process of establishing contact with students/parents of Marjorie Stoneman Douglass High School. My guess is that they share my conviction that violent, entirely preventable deaths on school grounds are unacceptable, whether they occur from a madman with a gun, or a superintendent who knowingly and willfully exposes profoundly mentally handicapped children to choking to death on their food. Governor Scott, if you do nothing to defuse the crisis at NKC, and a tragedy ensues, and the public discovers that you received not one but two letters warning you of this preventable potential tragedy, my fear is that your popularity will plummet sharply with Florida voters. I have an additional concern that you should be aware of. The NKC principal, Dr. Tracy Roos gives the appearance of being mentally unstable, with extreme mood changes, and engaging in erratic and unpredictable behavior. Let me add the disclaimer that I am not a psychologist, and these are merely my perceptions, and I am not attempting to make a mental health diagnosis of Dr. Roos. Having said that, I have a masters degree in the field of guidance and counseling, and a background in psychology. As I do not want to be sued, I am going to use the word “allegedly,” even though I personally experienced the event I am going to describe to you. One day, Dr. Roos called me into her office for a conference. In her office, Dr. Roos asked me to be seated at a round table with several chairs under that round table. As Dr. Roos did not indicate a preference for which chair I sat in, I randomly chose a chair to sit in. Dr. Roos’ formerly friendly demeanor instantly changed to a very stern demeanor, and she glared at me. I was aware that I had done something to displease Dr. Roos, but I had no idea what I had done to displease her, so I gazed at her quizzically. In a very stern voice, Dr. Roos allegedly told me I was sitting in the wrong chair, and patted the back of the chair (right next to the one I was seated in) and asked me to move to that chair. Dr. Roos then allegedly told me that she suffers from an obsessive compulsive disorder. Dr. Roos gives the appearance of receiving a great deal of satisfaction from causing emotional distress to anyone under her authority. Often, Dr. Roos gives the appearance of being very lethargic and moody. However, when her (Dr. Roos) actions have caused acute emotional distress to an employee, Dr. Roos gives the appearance of being highly energized and almost giddy with happiness. Dr. Roos gives the appearance of almost being addicted to the happiness and energy lift she appears to get when her (Dr. Roos) actions have caused emotional distress to an employee.    During the 2011-2012 school year, NKC attempted to exercise its legal right under Florida law to convert from a public school to a charter school. MDCPS superintendent Alberto Carvalho illegally smashed NKC’s attempted charter school conversion process (you can review the legal case in DOAH 13-1492), and illegally transferred both principal Dr. Alberto Fernandez and assistant principal Mr. Henny Cristobol out of NKC.  The new NKC administrators, principal Dr. Tracy Roos and assistant principal Alicia Fernandez have ruled NKC with an iron fist, and for the last six years, NKC has been virtually under lockdown, with collective punishment being administered to the entire staff. Florida law explicitly forbids punishment against employees who attempt to convert to a charter school. Regrettably, the Florida law that prohibits retaliation against employees who attempt to convert to a charter school contains NO penalties for superintendents who violate that law!!! Governor Scott, can you please ask the Florida legislature to either repeal this law entirely, or add penalties sufficiently severe to detract superintendents from smashing and then punishing conversion to charter school efforts? In an effort to keep MDCPS officials appraised of this SIX YEAR crisis, I have sent 5 certified letters to Superintendent Carvalho, 3 certified letters to MDCPS school board member Larry Feldman, 2 certified letters to MDCPS school board member Steve Gallon, 3 certified letters to the Office of the Commissioner, Florida Department of Education,  and  5 certified letters to United Teachers of Dade (UTD) president Karla Hernandez-Mats. It is a lucky thing that I saved the green cards showing that these people received my certified letters, because not one of these people had the professionalism and courtesy to respond to ANY of my letters.! There are 3 flashpoints that could potentially cause an explosion at NKC , and I will discuss those 3 flashpoints in detail. The first flashpoint is what appears to be blatant racism against African-American staff exercised by Superintendent Carvalho, Tracy Roos, and Alicia Fernandez. Mrs. Fernandez has a nickname. Her nickname is “Screamer,” because when she is upset with a staff member, she engages in lengthy screaming jags against the unfortunate staff member. One of her victims is an African-American gentleman, who has endured at least two of her screaming jags. After one of these attacks, this 20 year employee stated that he wished to have the school UTD steward present during any further “discussions” with “Screamer” (i.e. Mrs. Fernandez) The second potential flashpoint is Superintendent Carvalho’s apparent willingness to subject profoundly mentally retarded students (who literally cannot speak for themselves) to a violent and easily death of choking to death on their food by using them as “bait” in an effort to “get” staff who exercised their right to explore conversion to a charter school. The third flashpoint is the numerous draconian punishments that the 2 NKC administrators have doled out to KNC staff for SIX YEARS!  (Again, these incidents are fully discussed in my blog.) Superintendent Carvalho seems to be fully on board with this SIX YEAR punishment of the NKC staff. I say this because shortly after he illegally smashed NKC’s attempted conversion process, Mr. Carvalho paid his one and only visit to NKC. In the presence of witnesses, who still work at NKC, Mr. Carvalho made the following thinly veiled threat: “This is a MDCPS school, and it will continue to be a MDCPS school, and if anyone wants to change that, they are going to have to come through me.”

Here is why I feel  Superintendent Carvalho, Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez are actively practicing racism at NKC.  (I will try to be brief here, because this incident is fully discussed in my blog). Shortly after Hurricane Irma seriously damaged her home, Mrs. Green, an African-American teaching assistant with over 20 years in the system, suffered the brutal death via a hand gun of her (Mrs. Green’s) daughter. Although her daughter’s husband has not been indicted for this death, many people suspect him of murdering his wife. Mrs. Green’s five year old grandson was in the home when the death via hand gun occurred. The child was heavily traumatized by the incident. The child needed to be consoled, and Mrs. Green needed an emergency leave to gain temporary custody of her grandson, and to repair her hurricane damaged home. This leave was granted by MDCPS. Perhaps Dr. Roos felt that  MDCPS had granted Mrs. Green too much leave time, as Dr. Roos behavior toward Mrs. Green when Mrs. Green returned back to work was decidedly ungracious. On Mrs. Green’s first day back at work, Dr. Roos and Mrs. Green encountered each other in the school hallway. Rather than express her condolences to Mrs. Green, Dr. Roos made the decision to turn her back on Mrs. Green and wordlessly go the other way. Regrettably, that was the high water mark of Dr. Roos behavior towards this grieving grandmother. At NKC, courtesy and respect is a one way street. It is given by the staff to the 2 administrators, but that courtesy is NOT returned to staff by the 2 NKC administrators. (As I said earlier, assistant principal Alicia Fernandez’ nickname is “Screamer.”) It is NOT enough for staff to be polite and courteous to the NKC administrators. BOTH administrators EXPECT AND GET EXTREME SERVILITY AND DEFERENCE from staff, especially from African-American staff. (I’ll discuss another incident of this shortly) Mrs. Green, in the depths of grief, was polite and courteous to Dr. Roos, but not servile and meek. I do not know what Dr. Roos’ motives were for her next unspeakably cruel and demeaning actions. Perhaps Dr. Roos felt that Mrs. Green needed to be “taught a lesson” and “put in her place.”  For whatever reason, Dr. Roos then summoned a very close friend of Mrs. Green, an African-American custodian named Mr. Aaron Jackson. Dr. Roos then allegedly ordered Mr. Jackson to personally deliver the following verbal message from Dr. Roos to Mrs. Green. Dr. Roos alleged message was, “Tell Mrs. Green that if she is not happy here at NKC, Dr. Roos can arrange for an [involuntary] transfer to another school.” Contractually, administrators are FORBIDDEN from disclosing disciplinary matters involving an employee to any other employees. Also, employees are taught that if they (the employee) are given an order by an administrator, even if the employee thinks the order may be an illegal order, that employee MUST carry out that order, or face a charge of insubordination. Can you imagine the conflict and emotional turmoil Mr. Jackson must have experienced as he was forced to deliver Dr. Roos thinly disguised threat to a dear friend who was so depressed and bowed by grief that she could barely drag herself out of bed to come to work in the morning?  Mr. Jackson did as he was told. Mrs. Green then had what some people would call a “Rosa Parks moment.” Mrs. Green decided she was sick and tired of being disrespected. Mrs. Green then did something that in “The People’s Republic” of MDCPS can only be described as career suicide. She reported Dr. Roos to the appropriate MDCPS internal investigative body. As I discuss in my blog, in “The People’s Republic” of MDCPS, internal investigative bodies exist NOT to remedy offenses committed by MDCPS officials, but to sweep those offenses under the carpet, and then to retaliate against the employee that was stupid enough to report those offenses. A meeting was scheduled by MDCPS with Mrs. Green to discuss the incident. That meeting was then rescheduled for another day. Dr. Roos failed to inform Mrs. Green that the meeting was rescheduled. At the end of the school day Mrs. Green went to the assistant principal’s office and waited for an hour in that empty room for a meeting that never took place. It was an extremely humiliating experience for Mrs. Green. While Mrs. Green was out of sight in the assistant principal’s office, Dr. Roos then allegedly convened a hastily arranged closed door meeting with Mr. Jackson. At that meeting, Dr. Roos allegedly threatened to (illegally) terminate Mr. Jackson’s employment as a custodian unless he recanted that Dr. Roos had forced him to deliver that hateful message. Mr. Jackson, knowing he had a family to feed, recanted his statement. (There are witnesses who saw Mr. Jackson enter and leave Dr. Roos office for a lengthy closed door meeting.) So, if Mr. Jackson’s [forced] recantation is to be taken at face value, it would mean that Mr. Jackson, of his own initiative, decided to deliver a very hateful message to one of his closest friends, in her moment of greatest grief and vulnerability. Other than the soulless career bureaucrats in “The People’s Republic” of MDCPS, does anyone else really believe that nonsense? MDCPS rescheduled Mrs. Green a second time, and also failed to show up for that meeting either. The result was that MDCPS scheduled 2 meetings with Mrs. Green, stood her up both times, AND NEVER MET TO DISCUSS HER CONCERNS!!! As humiliating as this was to Mrs. Green, Mr. Carvalho and MDCPS were not yet finished rubbing the face of this grieving grandmother into the dirt. Perhaps they felt that one last slap in the face was needed to show what happens to African-Americans bold enough to attempt to assert their federally mandated employee protections. A few weeks AFTER Dr. ROOS disgraceful actions, Dr. Roos became a nominee for the prestigious MDCPS Principal of the Year Award!! If Dr. Roos is one of the BEST principals of MDCPS, can you imagine what the underperforming principals must be like? Regrettably, the WORST may be yet to come in this disgraceful affair. Dr. Roos gives the appearance of being a very vicious and vindictive person. In Dr. Roos’ eyes, it is possible that she blames both Mrs. Green and Mr. Jackson for the fact that Dr. Roos got very, very brief negative attention from Dr. Roos superiors. In the past, if Dr. Roos felt she had a score to settle with an employee, she would wait until the following year (in this case, the 2018-2019 school year.) to settle that score. I am DEEPLY,DEEPLY worried that both Mrs. Green and Mr. Jackson are in very great danger of suffering from MASSIVE (possibly career ending) retaliation at the hands of Dr. Roos. In my blog, I discuss the mysterious “anonymous” phone calls that Dr. Roos sometimes receives, accusing employees of very serious wrongdoing. By a very curious coincidence, these employees are always employees Dr. Roos has a score to settle with. If Dr. Roos takes a page out of her old play book, sometime during the 2018-2019 school year, Dr. Roos will receive one of her anonymous phone calls, accusing these two sitting ducks (i.e. Mrs. Green and Mr. Jackson) of sexually and/or physically molesting one or more NKC students. If this happens, my guess is that neither Superintendent Carvalho or UTD president Karla Hernandez Mats will lift a finger to defend either one of these African-Americans

Yesterday, (August 17, 2018) I had lunch with a few current NKC employees. During lunch, an African-American paraprofessional made the statement that she had made extremely flattering compliments to both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez that she didn’t mean, and that those compliments were highly undeserved. I suspect that making these flattering statements was an extremely humiliating experience for this very proud and dignified person. Earlier, I stated that BOTH administrators expect AND GET very servile, deferential treatment from NKC employees. Now that tenure has been eliminated, an employee who is not sufficiently meek and humble can be fired with little or no recourse. While this is not a STATED condition of employment, at NKC, it is an understood condition of employment. I have known this paraprofessional for many years. She is an incredibly hard working and highly competent person. If she decides to attend college and obtain a teaching degree, she would make an outstanding teacher Wouldn’t it be a nice thing if “The People’s Republic” of MDCPS were to  join the rest of the United States and make competency and dedication and not meekness and servility the conditions of employment? It is, after all Federally MANDATED, and even “The People’s Republic” of MDCPs is a part of the United States. My observation is that while ALL NKC employees are pressured and expected  to grovel before their two NKC administrative “Masters,” it appears that African-Americans are expected to grovel the  most.

Another area in which African-Americans at NKC appear to be discriminated against is in the area of advancement within the school. For example, the head secretary of the school recently retired. A very competent and highly trained African-American woman with over 30 years in the system was inexplicably passed over for this promotion and Dr. Roos hired a person from outside NKC to fill this position

Yet another example of what appears to be discrimination of an African-American is the sad fate of the head custodian of NKC. This gentleman had served for 30 years in the system, with an unblemished record. All of that changed when Dr. Roos became the new principal. As I said earlier, Dr. Roos gives the appearance of going out of her way to humiliate and harshly treat her employees. Perhaps in the heat of the moment, this man made some inappropriate remarks, but doesn’t it seem odd that a man can have a30 year unblemished record, and shortly after Dr. Roos becomes the principal, this man suddenly becomes “a problem employee?”

The second potential flashpoint I want to discuss is the entirely preventable danger profoundly mentally handicapped children at NKC have of choking to death on the food they consume on the school campus at breakfast or lunch. A few years ago, during mealtime, a young man that I will refer to as Toby (not his real name) began to choke on his food. Toby is so prone to choking incidents that this fact is noted on a legal document called the Individualized Education Plan (IEP). When Toby began choking on his food, his teacher took immediate appropriate action, and Toby ejected the food he was choking on without losing consciousness. His only ill effect was a red face. Following this incident, Toby went back to eating his meal. The entire school witnessed this incident, and we were sure this teacher was going to be lauded for his prompt and correct actions. To our astonishment and dismay, Dr. Roos filed a potentially career ending charge of child endangerment against this teacher. Please read my blog, because I discuss in great detail the pains Dr. Roos appears to have gone to in order to manipulate people to make a case for pressing charges against this teacher. As a result of this incident, NKC teachers have a [well founded] fear that if a child in their care begins to choke, even if that teacher takes immediate corrective action, the teacher (fearing his or career may be on the line) may hesitate for 30 second to a minute before notifying the school on-site nurses. As deeply lodged food sometimes takes a few minutes to dislodge, that 30 second to one minute delay could literally mean the difference between life and death for a Profoundly Mentally Handicapped (PMH) child. Superintendent Carvalho has been aware of this situation since June 2015. For three years now, Superintendent Carvalho has played Russian Roulette with the lives of PMH students. For reasons known only to God, Superintendent Carvalho has made the astonishing decision to return Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez to NKC during the 2018-2018 school year, so he is willing to roll the dice yet again. I hope he gets lucky again, but the law of averages says that if you play Russian Roulette long enough, sooner or later you are going to find a live round in the chamber. Governor Scott, if you ask me how capable the NKC on-site nursing staff is of preventing an NKC student from choking to death, the honest answer is that I do not know the answer to that question. It is unlikely that Superintendent Carvalho, or Dr. Roos or even the on-site NKC nursing staff itself knows how capable it is of preventing a choking death. Here is why.  Due to the fact of Dr. Roos’ highly offensive and bullying personality, the turnover rate of nurses assigned to NKC by the staffing agency that fills these positions is EXTREMLY high. At one point, Dr. Roos fired almost the entire nursing staff all at once!. I would be very surprised if similar purges haven’t happened since I left NKC. I imagine that NKC is staffed by whatever nurses are willing to put up with Dr. Roos’ extremely abrasive personality. My guess is that highly trained nurses who have other options avoid NKC like the plague, leaving the least trained nurses to “get their feet wet” by working at NKC.  I have sent 5 unanswered letters to superintendent Carvalho concerning this problem. I have suggested 3 steps that I think would greatly reduce the chances of an accidental choking death from happening at NKC. Those three steps are: 1) Remove both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez, and replace them with the two previous administrators (who were illegally removed by Superintendent Carvalho) Those two people are principal Alberto T. Fernandez and assistant principal Mr. Henny Cristobol. 2) Provide annual training for all NKC staff in lifesaving first aid. If staff who successfully complete this training could be awarded master plan points toward recertification of their teaching certificates, this would be wonderful. 3) Have the superintendent issue a statement that in the future, staff who  carry out their duties in an appropriate manner will not face disciplinary measures.

The third potential flashpoint at NKC is the fact that NKC has been in a state of lockdown for six years now. I do not think you as Governor know how desperate the situation has become at NKC. It is not a situation where your career could end if you make even the tiniest mistake.  The fact is, if either of the administrators dislike you, charges will be brought against you that are either wholly (and knowingly) false, or wildly distorted and exaggerated, even if you have done nothing wrong. Governor, did you know that last year, a 30 year veteran teacher who is a former teacher of the year award winner and an outstanding teacher in every regard had a nervous breakdown right on campus during duty hours, with students in her classroom?  Governor, Profoundly Mentally Handicapped (PMH) students may not know exactly what is going on, but they are very attuned to a teacher’s emotional state. When teachers are very highly stressed, every day, for six years, it also takes an ENORMOUS toll on the PMH child’s sense of security and well-being. Being an outstanding teacher in every regard has no bearing on whether or not entirely false or wildly exaggerated, possibly career ending charges will be leveled against you by an administrator who appears to suffer from wild mood swings, appears to derive immense satisfaction out of creating chaos and emotional distress in people’s lives, and allegedly confesses that she suffers from an obsessive compulsive disorder Did you know that last year, a veteran teacher with 17 (SEVENTEEN)  years in the system simply retired, because he could no longer deal with the humiliation and abuse both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez deal out on a daily basis? Did you know that this year, we lost 8 teachers  (nearly half of our staff) due to transfers to other schools? Did you know that we lost nearly the same amount of teachers the year before as well? Did you know that in the 6 years that Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez have been the NKC administrators, NKC has been either at or near the lowest scoring school on the staff satisfaction survey for the entire county? Did you know that in an effort to prop up the abysmally low staff satisfaction surveys, this year the paraprofessionals were illegally prevented from taking that survey? Did you know that once I endured a 20 minute, nonstop screaming jag from assistant principal Alicia Fernandez? (hence her nickname, Screamer) Governor, On four occasions during her 20 minute screaming tirade, I asked Screamer to please lower her voice. The first time I made this request, Screamer did indeed very briefly lower her voice. The other three times, she simply ignored me. Every time I tried to interject a comment in my defense, Screamer simply shouted my down! Governor, I am a military veteran. Nothing I encountered in the military, even during army boot camp came close to the Screamathon Mrs. Fernandez subjected me to.

Governor, I want to stress that as much as the NKC staff have suffered during the past 6 years,  the profoundly mentally handicapped students of our school have suffered FAR,FAR worse.  For example, many of our students are confined to wheelchairs. If a child sits in his/her wheelchair all day long, day after day, after a period of several years, that child’s body irreversibly freezes into a permanent sitting position, causing EXCRUCIATING pain in adulthood. When Dr. Alberto Fernandez was our school principal, our school used the M.O.V.E. curriculum, which got students out of their wheelchairs and into some very expensive physical therapy equipment that stretched their muscles and kept those muscles from atrophying. This very helpful and worthwhile M.O.V.E. curriculum has been completely eliminated since Dr. Roos became our principal, and that very expensive physical therapy equipment now sits in storage, gathering dust and rust. A second way NKC students are suffering is because our school now uses a curriculum called the Unique Learning System that is COMPLETELY inappropriate for our students because it is far, far above their intellectual capabilities. Imagine a class of remedial math students and announcing that from now on those students will be taking an honors calculus class! That is similar to what happened to our students Our school used to use a curriculum that was approved by MDCPS called the Small Step Curriculum (SSC) That program breaks down complex tasks into a series of simpler tasks that are taught one at a time. A child who learns to perform a series of simple tasks in sequential order can then perform a complex task. In my blog, I described how the Small Step Curriculum (SSC) was used to teach a child that I called Grace to independently tie her own shoelaces. Governor, every school has their “best and brightest” and a school for profoundly mentally handicapped children is no exception. Using the SSC, we were able to achieve our goal of placing our “best and brightest” into a sheltered workshop when they graduated from NKC. Here is the contrast between the Unique Learning System(ULS) and the Small Step Curriculum (SSC). Under the ULS, there is a very strong possibility that a student can attend NKC for up to 19 years and learn absolutely nothing. Under the SSC, our best and brightest got into a sheltered workshop, and nearly every child in the school learns self-help skills that greatly enhance the quality of their life. There is no greater Hell than to spend one’s entire life warehoused in a state run facility  for the rest of your life, with no chance to experience life outside those walls, because you didn’t master the skills necessary to get you into a sheltered workshop. The only greater suffering would be if you also suffered excruciating pain all day long because your body was permanently frozen into a sitting position because nobody took the effort to put you into physical therapy equipment to prevent your muscles from atrophying. Did you know that at one time, MDCPS rated Dr. Alberto Fernandez as the most effective administrator in the entire county? Governor, if you were to ask me what single action would do the most to restore Neva King Cooper School to its former greatness, my answer would be to reinstall Dr. Alberto Fernandez as the principal. and Mr. Henny Cristobol as the assistant principal. Governor Scott, do you have the authority as governor to take this step, ?

Governor, there is a strong possibility that one or both NKC administrators have committed criminal activities in their capacity as NKC administrators. For example, when Dr. Fernandez was the NKC administrator, student performance on the annual achievement test , the Florida Alternate Assessment (FAA) was quite low every year. When Dr. Roos became the NKC principal, student achievement on this test inexplicably soared to astonishing levels. The MDCPS internal investigative bodies appear to be very corrupt and  appear to serve only to cover up illegal activities by MDCPS officials. Can you as governor order another agency to investigate possible cheating on the FAA by NKC administrators? Another possible criminal activity involves assistant principal Mrs. Alicia Fernandez allegedly knowingly and willfully filing false charges against a teacher for cheating by that teacher on the FAA. As I discussed in my blog, there is a teacher who is still in MDCPS, but no longer at NKC who observed this accused teacher telling Mrs. Fernandez that when he (the accused teacher) received the test booklet, the correct test answers had already been put into the reusable testing materials by the teacher who administered the test to his class before turning over the testing materials to the teacher who was then accused of cheating. Mrs. Alicia Fernandez then allegedly perjured herself in her sworn deposition in the ensuing lawsuit. Finally, there is the matter of Superintendent Carvalho. Many illegal labor law practices have occurred at NKC for six years. My blog and my return receipt green cards from my numerous letters to both Mr. Carvalho and Karla Hernandez Mats prove that both of these officials were well aware of the problems at NKC and did nothing to solve those problems. Governor Scott, do you as Governor have the authority to ask the National Labor Relations Board, or any other agency to investigate these people for nonperformance of their duties? If Superintendent Carvalho, Dr. Roos, and or Mrs. Alicia Fernandez are found to be in violation of the law, can a penalty commensurate with their offense(s) be imposed? Governor, my concern is that for too many years, MDCPS officials have violated the law with impunity. This will stop only when offenders are assigned proper penalties for their violations. It is not enough to merely shuffle Dr. Roos or Mrs. Fernandez, or Mr. Carvalho to another post. If they are found to be guilty of offenses meriting their dismissal from their posts (with or without their pensions) that is the penalty that needs to be imposed. If they are found to be guilty of crimes that merit prison time, that is the penalty that needs to be imposed. A strong message needs to be sent that teachers are not the only ones who will be held accountable for their actions. Additionally, the current situation at NKC is highly volatile. If one were on a tiny island, and there was an active volcano on that island,and smoke was pouring out of the top of the volcano, with an ominous sulfur smell in the air, and the ground rumbling and trembling, it might be a good idea to get off that island. That is the current situation at NKC. It is possible that things could get out of hand very quickly. To defuse the situation, is it possible that Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez could be immediately removed from NKC and interim administrators placed at the school until the investigation is completed?  It is extremely unfair that the very popular and effective former NKC administrators were  removed very, very quickly (it was only 2 months from the time they got into hot water with Mr. Carvalho until they were BOTH removed,) The single charge against them was that they were attempting to intimidate staff into voting to convert to a charter school. After these two administrators were permanently removed from NKC, and it was impossible for them to retaliate against staff, the question was asked: How many staff felt that either Dr. Fernandez or Mr. Cristobol were trying to intimidate staff? NOT A SINGLE STAFF PERSON SAID THEY FELT THREATENED OR INTIMIDATED BY EITHER ONE OF THOSE ADMINISTRATORS.  In contrast, both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez have been intimidating the staff for SIX YEARS, and both Mr. Carvalho and UTD have been fully informed of that illegal intimidation, and neither one has lifted a finger to end that intimidation. I’ll end with a quote:

“Only the weak hit the fly with a hammer.” -Bangambiki Habyarimana-

Respectfully,

Bill Detzner

Bill Detzner/ 7722 S.W. 99 Street/ Miami, Fl. 33156/ (305) 279-5488 billdetzner@bellsouth.net

 

 

June 12, 2018

Dear Florida Education Commissioner,

Hello. My name is Bill Detzner. This is the third Certified letter I am sending you. In June 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 I have sent certified letters to Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS)  superintendent Alberto Carvalho, and United Teachers of Dade (UTD) president Karla Hernandez-Mats. I have also sent  MDCPS school board members Mr. Larry Feldman and Mr. Steve Gallon certified letters. In all of these certified letters I have  asked that the principal of Neva King Cooper (NKC) School Dr. Roos and assistant principal Alicia Fernandez  be removed as the NKC administrators. I am also asking that the illegally removed previous NKC administrators, Dr. Alberto Fernandez and Mr. Henny Cristobol be reinstated as the NKC administrators. Not one of the above named people (including yourself) have had the professionalism and courtesy to even respond to my numerous certified letters.  IF THE FLORIDA COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION EITHER WILL NOT OR CANNOT REMOVE TWO SCHOOL SITE ADMINISTRATORS WHO APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN UNDERPERFORMING, AND COMMITTING ACTIONS THAT APPEAR TO BE ILLEGAL FOR SIX YEARS, THE PUBLIC MAY PERCEIVE THAT THIS OFFICE HOLDER NEEDS TO BE REPLACED WITH SOMEONE WHO WILL CARRY OUT THE DUTIES OF THAT OFFICE.  In the 2011- 2012 school year, NKC attempted to explore its supposedly legally protected option of exploring conversion from a public school to a private school. In case DOAH 13-1492, it was determined that MDCPS illegally smashed that conversion attempt, and illegally replaced the two NKC administrators. FOR THE LAST SIX YEARS, the staff of NKC have experienced what appears to be a deliberately cultivated toxic and hostile work environment and unlawful retaliation at the hands of the present NKC administrators. Here are a few of the events that occurred during the 2017-2018 school year. ( A  more in-depth discussion of the  SIX YEAR campaign of what appears to be retaliation by the present NKC administrators can be found in my blog mdcpsallegations.com) 1) Shortly after the brutal murder of her daughter, NKC African-American staff member Mrs. Green was allegedly threatened with an involuntary transfer to another school. This happened when principal Dr. Roos allegedly ordered African-American school custodian Mr. Aaron Jackson to tell Mrs. Green that if Mrs. Green was unhappy at NKC, Dr. Roos would have Mrs. Green involuntarily transferred to another school. When this action resulted in a back lash for Dr. Roos, Dr. Roos then allegedly summoned Mr. Jackson to a closed door meeting in Dr. Roos office. Dr. Roos then allegedly threatened to terminate Mr. Jackson’s employment unless Mr. Jackson issued a statement saying Dr. Roos had never ordered Mr. Jackson to threaten Mrs. Green, and that Mr. Jackson had threatened one of his closest friends at his own initiative! Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez give the appearance of being very vicious and vindictive people. If these two people repeat what they appear to have done in the past, it is possible that during the 2018-2019 school year, Dr. Roos will receive one of her famous “anonymous” phone calls accusing Mrs. Green and or Mr. Jackson of sexually and/or physically abusing one or more NKC students.  If UTD president Mrs. Hernandez Mats does what she has done in the past (I have sent her FIVE unanswered certified letters) she will turn a blind eye, and do as little as possible to defend UTD member Mrs. Green from retaliation and baseless charges.  2) Last spring a 30 year MDCPS employee who has spent almost his/her entire career at NKC and is also a past recipient of the Teacher of the Year Award, and an outstanding teacher, had an hours long, uncontrollable crying jag while on duty at NKC. It is highly unusual for a person with these credentials to suffer this kind of an experience. I (Bill Detzner) can tell you that during the three years I was at NKC while Dr. Roos was the principal, and Mrs. Fernandez was the assistant principal, EVERY SINGLE DAY I worried that Dr. Roos or Mrs. Fernandez would level potentially career ending charges against me, based on little or no evidence. This outstanding teacher has endured that kind of pressure for SIX YEARS!!! (When will what appears to be illegal retaliation and punishment against NKC staff who exercised their supposedly legally protected right to explore conversion to a charter school end??? I have asked Superintendent Alberto Carvalho this same question in the FIVE UNANSWERED CERTIFIED LETTERS I HAVE SENT HIM .) 3) On June 8, 2018, an outstanding NKC teacher who spent his entire 17 year career at NKC “retired.” If you want to hear a LONG, LONG, LONG list of what appears to be retaliation and reprisal against this person FOR SIX YEARS by BOTH Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez, I will be happy to put you in contact with this person.  4) At the end of the 2017-2018 school year FIVE NKC educators applied for transfers to other schools. Five might not seem like a large number, but when you consider that NKC is one of the smallest schools in “The People’s Republic of MDCPS,” that is a very large percentage.  5) For the sixth straight year, NKC administrators suffered some of the lowest approval ratings in MDCPS on both the staff and parent satisfaction surveys. 6) At the end of the 2017-2018 school year, Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez oversaw the moving to different classrooms of EVERY TEACHER IN THE SCHOOL TO A NEW AND DIFFERENT CLASSROOM. THIS IS THE THIRD TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED IN THE SIX YEARS THAT DR ROOS HAS BEEN THE NKC ADMINISTRATOR!!! It is difficult to see how this can be viewed as anything other than deliberately cultivating a toxic and hostile work environment at NKC. 6) For the third consecutive year, severely mentally retarded students of NKC (IQ’s of 25 and below) have been recklessly and needlessly been subjected to an easily preventable artificially high risk of dying a violent death due to choking to death. My blog mdcpsallegations.com discusses this in great detail.  These are only the violations that occurred during the 2017-2018 school year. A more complete listing of the egregious violations of both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez FOR THE LAST SIX YEARS can be found in my blog at mdcpsallegations.com

A naïve person might assume that a principal who allegedly committed these egregious violations of the MDCPS contract and both Florida and Federal laws for six years would be terminated. Regrettably, MDCPS gives the appearance of being more of a criminal enterprise that a public school district, and astonishingly, Dr. Roos was nominated as a candidate for the prestigious Principal of the Year Award!!! If Dr. Roos is one of the BEST principals of MDCPS, can you imagine what the underperforming principals must be like?

Unless I miss my guess, the Florida Commissioner of Education will do exactly what he/she has done with the last 2 certified letters I sent, which is absolutely nothing. This letter (which I have posted to my blog) will then become the basis for my January 2019 letter to the Florida legislators who fund public schools. As I did in 2018, I will urge Florida legislators to cut funding to MDCPS as much as possible. I am a very patient and persistent man. My goal is to reach a tipping point, where the financial pain of retaining Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez as the NKC administrators becomes unacceptably high for Superintendent Carvalho. Have a nice day, and I hope to hear some good news from you in the very near future.

Sincerely,

Bill Detzner

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

May 26, 2018

Hello Mr. Gallon, Mr. Feldman, Karla Hernandez-Mats, and Mr. Carvalho,

On May 9, 2018, I sent three of you a scathing 8- page, 5,556 -word scathing letter that I sent to Karla Hernandez-Mats regarding the numerous egregious violations of Federal, state, and UTD contract violations of Neva King Cooper (NKC) administrators, principal Dr. Tracy Roos and assistant principal Alicia Fernandez (Screamer). The following day I wrote three of you an additional letter, asking (among other things) that BOTH of the current NKC administrators be relieved of their duties as soon as possible, and that they be replaced by the previous NKC administrators, principal Dr. Alberto Fernandez, and assistant principal Henny Cristobol. An extremely naïve person might believe that sending 2 school board members, plus the school superintendent those two letters would result in the present NKC administrators making at least a token effort to avoid an appearance of seemingly deliberately creating a hostile work environment at NKC for the last remaining month before summer break. Regrettably but not surprisingly, this is not the case. Given the fact that Mr. Carvalho has been aware of the crisis situation at NKC for three years, and given the fact that neither administrator has altered her numerous egregious contract violations, even slightly, and given the fact that Dr. Roos was a candidate this year for the prestigious Principal of the Year award, the inescapable conclusion is that the lawless behavior of the two NKC administrators has Mr. Carvalho’s full approval.

My phone is once again ringing off the hook, with both numerous teachers and paraprofessionals complaining about two new crisis situations at NKC. Their first complaint is that THE ENTIRE SCHOOL will be expected to pack up their belongings and change classrooms at the end of the school year. THIS IS THE THIRD TIME THAT DR. ROOS HAS DONE THIS AT THE END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR. The first time I believe was the end of the 2013-2014 school year, the second time was the year NKC was repainted, and the third time will be in a few days at the end of the 2017-2018 school year. Contractually, the principal is allowed to require teachers to change classrooms at either the end of the school year, or the first week of the new school year. Having said that, during my 30- year career, only a very tiny percentage of classrooms were told to make these moves. I have NEVER heard of an entire school being asked to change classrooms. When THE ENTIRE SCHOOL is asked to change classrooms THREE TIMES DURING THE SIX YEARS THAT DR ROOS HAS BEEN HERE, it is impossible to view that as anything other than a deliberate attempt to create a hostile work environment. Ms. Hernandez-Mats, why are you not doing your duty to enforce the contract? Does UTD have “no-go” schools? (i.e. schools where the contract is frequently and egregiously violated, so UTD simply turns a blind eye, and refuses to ever visit those schools) The other focus of my flood of phone calls is that FIVE educators at NKC are seeking a transfer to another school. Five may seem like a small number, until you consider that NKC is one of the smallest schools in The People’s Republic of MDCPS. By an amazing coincidence, two of the educators applying for transfers are employees who have highly incriminating evidence against both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez that could potentially send one or both of them to prison, with felony convictions. I am wondering if the persecution of these two individuals didn’t start when Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez (Screamer) became aware that these teachers were a danger to the administrators’ careers. I am hoping the four of you who are receiving this letter have the courage or the honesty to look at three things;1) staff satisfaction surveys for the last 6 years, 2) parent satisfaction surveys for the last 6 years, 3) the percentage of NKC staff who have retired/transferred to other schools for the last 6 years, it should send an unmistakably clear signal how bad BOTH current NKC administrators have made things. In the extremely unlikely event that the courage of any of the four of you holds up (and this is probably unfair to Mr. Gallon, as there is only one unanswered certified letter that I sent to him, and that letter was only sent two weeks ago, so perhaps Mr. Gallon is still investigating the scenarios I told him about. Mr. Gallon, the Miami Herald has called you a reform minded educator. I am wondering if that distinction is deserved, or if you just got undeserved good press. I guess I will soon find out the answer to that question. I have a friend who has said good things about you, so I am hoping that optimism about you is justified.) you could compare the staff and parent satisfaction surveys of the two present NKC administrators against the staff and parent satisfaction surveys of the two previous administrators, Dr. Alberto Fernandez and Mr. Henny Cristobol. At one time, MDCPS rated Dr. Alberto Fernandez as the most effective administrator in the county.

For a lengthy list of things that have happened at NKC that astonishingly have not raised eyebrows among at least 3 of you (as evidenced by the fact that I have 4 unanswered certified letters to Mr. Carvalho, 4 to Ms. Hernandez-Mats, and 2 to Mr. Feldman.) I refer you to my May 9, 2018 letter to Ms. Hernandez-Mats. You will find that letter posted on my blog mdcpsallegations.com I will also post this letter on my blog.

I would like the four of you to imagine the following scenario. Imagine you have a three-year-old family member who is diagnosed as severely mentally retarded and sent to NKC (may God forbid that this happens to you.) In that case, I have some good news for you, and some bad news. The GOOD news is that your family member may spend 19 years at NKC and learn ALMOST NOTHING during that time. This is because the highly effective Small Step Curriculum (SSC) has been replaced by the highly ineffective Unique Learning System(ULS), which is FAR too advanced for our students. It is the equivalent to taking a remedial math class and changing their curriculum to an honors calculus class, and then wondering why the class learned nothing during the entire school year. (The fact that MDCPS shoved the ULS down our throats without any input from us was one of 2 reasons the faculty chose to explore conversion to a charter school. The other reason was that even though the district budget increased every year, the amount of money sent to NKC got smaller every year.) Formerly, under the SSC, a few of our brightest students mastered both toilet training, and repetitive vocational skills, and were thus placed into sheltered workshops after graduation at NKC. Under the ULS curriculum, neither one of these two crucial skills will be mastered, and our brightest students, who have committed no crime, upon graduation will receive a life sentence, with no possibility of parole, being warehoused for the rest of their lives in a group home. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The need to achieve is a universal need, even for severely mentally retarded children. NKC explored conversion to a charter school NOT to defy Mr. Carvalho, but to give our students the best education we could. It should be also be noted that the ULS costs a great deal more than the SSC. A popular slogan in The People’s Republic of MDCPS is “Giving our students the world.” Perhaps a more honest slogan would be “Giving our vendors the world.” Remember, now, I have just given you the GOOD news. Now here’s the BAD news: Mr. Carvalho gives the appearance of being willing to expose severely mentally retarded children to an artificially high and entirely preventable risk of a horrible death by choking to death, in an effort to “get” teachers who were stupid enough to exercise their legal right to explore conversion to a charter school. Again, I fully explained this scenario many times, most recently in my May 9,2018 letter to Ms. Hernandez-Mats. If your child suffers this horrible fate, both Mr. Feldman, the school board member who represents NKC and Mr. Carvalho, although morally responsible for your child’s death, will suffer no legal repercussions for this, because there is a staff of nurses present on the NKC campus. Hopefully, you as a parent will be comforted by the fact that these two “men” are only morally responsible for your child’s entirely preventable death. It is quite possible that one or both of these “men” will show up at your child’s funeral, and give very sorrowful and emotional speeches, and say all the right comforting things. Then, the next day, on the front page of the Miami Herald, there will be a HUGE color photograph of one or both of these “men”, and a glowing, heart- warming story, because Mr. Carvalho gives the appearance of owning the Miami media, the school board, and UTD. Mr. Feldman, this may come as an enormous surprise to you, but there is more to being a school board member than getting your picture taken with people who really ARE movers and shakers in their chosen fields.

I am DEEPLY, DEEPLY, DEEPLY concerned about the futures of two African-American NKC employees, Mrs. Green, and Mr. Aaron Jackson. In The People’s Republic of MDCPS, if you either make an administrator look bad, or you file a complaint against a MDCPS official, you are dead meat. In my May 9,2018 letter, I explained how Dr. Roos allegedly forced Mr. Jackson to deliver Dr. Roos threat of an illegal transfer of Mrs. Green to another school, shortly after the brutal murder of Mrs. Green’s daughter. The People’s Republic of MDCP then allegedly scheduled TWO meetings with Mrs. Green, cancelled BOTH of them, and never had the decency to offer Mrs. Green either an apology or an explanation for Dr. Roos alleged horrible treatment. If The People’s Republic follows previous practices, these two sitting ducks will be left alone for the remainder of the 2017-2018 school year, Then, AS SURELY AS NIGHT FOLLOWS DAY, it is possible that Dr. Roos may receive one of her famous “anonymous” phone calls, alleging that one or both of these sitting ducks (i.e. Mrs. Green and Mr. Jackson) physically and/or sexually assaulted one or more students. If Karla Hernandez-Mats repeats what she has done in the past regarding contract violations at NKC, she will turn a blind eye and either do nothing at all to defend Mrs. Green, or only pretend to go through the motions. Mr. Jackson should be thanking his lucky stars that he belongs to a different union. Perhaps Mr. Jackson’s union president has more spine than a jellyfish and will defend Mr. Jackson against baseless and unprovable charges. If both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez are removed as the NKC administrators, and replaced by Dr. Alberto Fernandez and Mr. Henny Cristobol, these two African-American employees will be safe. This would also eliminate the entirely preventable choking death of one or more NKC students. Mr. Carvalho, as I have done on numerous occasions for three years now, I am literally BEGGING you (and I repeat, I am BEGGING you) to make this desperately needed and long overdue change. My expectation is that you will do absolutely nothing whatsoever, and the two present NKC administrators will continue to have a blank check from you to do ANYTHING, regardless of how illegal it is. Mr. Carvalho, is there a “Carvalho Doctrine” that states that even though in the rest of Florida, schools can legally convert from a public school to a charter school, that “right” simply does not exist in The People’s Republic of MDCPS, and any MDCPS school stupid enough to think Florida state laws will protect them will be punished in perpetuity? It is my intention to make your continued persecution of NKC as expensive as possible. During the 2018 legislative session, I sent every member of the Florida House and Senate K-12 republican members a 19- page letter telling every bit of dirty laundry I know about The People’s Republic of MDCPS. Mr. Carvalho, was the legislature very kind to you regarding charter schools this legislative session? I promise you, my 2019 letter to the Florida legislature will be much, much worse. How much money are you willing to lose to charter schools before you restore Dr. Fernandez and Mr. Cristobol as the NKC administrators? Mr. Carvalho, I am a very patient and persistent man. Ms. Hernandez-Mats, it is my fervent hope that you are intelligent enough to grasp that more and more charter schools mean less and less money and power for UTD. Are you intelligent enough to grasp that the path of least resistance for you at this point is to ask your chum Mr. Carvalho to reinstate Dr, Alberto Fernandez and Mr. Cristobol as the NKC administrators? Remember, Karla, you are NOT fighting for the rights of the UTD members of NKC, you are fighting to preserve your six- figure salary and cushy job. Karla, I am also asking you to write a letter to the National Labor Relations Board and ask them to do the investigation that I talked about in my unanswered May 9, 2018 letter to you. When you write that letter, Karla, would you please be kind enough to send a copy to me? Thank you in advance for that favor. Mr. Feldman and Mr. Gallon, I am asking that you write two letters I am asking you to write a letter to Governor Rick Scott and ask him to do a thorough audit of MDCPS. Please refer him to my blog at mdcpsallegations.com Can you also write a letter to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and ask her to thoroughly investigate MDCPS? Again, you can refer her to my blog mdcpsallegations.com I am asking you to do this even if Mr. Carvalho agrees to all of the changes I have suggested Even in the extremely unlikely situation where Mr. Carvalho agrees to stop persecuting the NKC staff, he is simply too powerful and tyrannical and unwilling to obey Federal, state, or UTD rules and laws. Can you please send me copies of those two letters? As school board members, you are paid a salary. One of the responsibilities that comes with the office of school board member is to report the superintendent to the authorities when the superintendent is in dereliction of his duties. Many people think Mr. Carvalho crossed that threshold a long time ago. One of the things you might ask Governor Scott and Secretary De Voss to investigate is the fact that suddenly, MDCPS went from 8 failing schools to no failing schools. If this was achieved honestly, that is indeed commendable. If it was done by “cooking the books” the appropriate consequences need to be applied to the deserving parties. If Mr. Carvalho is removed from office, I would like the school board to insist that the new superintendent be someone who is NOT a member of MDCPS. When Mr. Rudy Crew was terminated, Mr. Carvalho was very quickly hired in a process that many consider to be an internal decision by the top bureaucrats of MDCPS, with almost no input from the public. The result was a superintendent that many consider to be one of the most corrupt superintendents we have ever had.

As a high school student, I was required to read a novel called “Moby Dick.” The plot involved a “mad” (i.e. insane) captain named Captain Ahab. Captain Ahab was a whaler from the 19’th century who felt he was unjustly harmed by a whale. Captain Ahab’s all- consuming obsession was to get revenge against that whale. He became so obsessive that he lost all perspective and exposed his ship and his crew to terrible and avoidable danger in his quest to get revenge against the whale that he felt had disrespected him. Captain Ahab’s all- encompassing obsession to get his revenge of the whale led to the death of Captain Ahab, almost the entire crew, and the sinking of the ship. Mr. Carvalho, your character bears a striking resemblance to the character of Captain Ahab. I am told that you have incredibly thin skin. I again want to emphasize that the NKC staff meant no insult to you by exploring conversion to a charter school. If MDCPS had not attempted to force the ULS curriculum on us, and had the district not cut our budget year after year, we would have never explored the conversion process. In all honesty, if blame is to be assigned for NKC’s conversion attempt, the blame lies solely with the district, not NKC. Captain Ahab, you have achieved your goal. The “Carvalho Doctrine” is firmly imbedded in The People’s Republic of MDCPS, and no school in the district, including NKC would ever be stupid enough to exercise their lawful right to explore the conversion process. To do so would be to invite wholly illegal but unpenalized brutal retaliation by the People’s Republic of MDCPS. Everyone knows that Captain Ahab will continue to be fully funded by both the Federal government and Florida, no matter how blatant and obvious His flaunting of the law is. By continuing to persecute NKC for SIX YEARS, all you are doing now is bombing rubble. It appears that you will continue to persecute the NKC staff, and I will continue to write letters to the Florida legislature, and charter schools will become more and more abundant in Miami-Dade County, and at some point, even the meek and mild school board members that bleat at your every command will come to realize that they are better off without you (may that day come quickly.)

During World War Two, there were some German towns located right on the outskirts of concentration camps where hundreds of thousands of innocent people were brutally murdered. For a few years, the horrible stench of burning human flesh permeated these towns. It was impossible for the residents of these towns not to have known what was happening, but nobody, or almost nobody protested against the atrocity that was taking place right under their noses. After the war, these people defended their inaction by saying they feared that if they spoke up, they and their entire families would suffer the same fate. Mr. Gallon, Mr. Feldman, and Ms. Hernandez-Mats, this defense is NOT available to you. You are not going to be put into a concentration camp, you are not going to be arrested, and all three of you are being paid handsome salaries to report Mr. Carvalho if he goes off the rails, and Mr. Carvalho is so far off the rails that he may no longer be aware of where the rails are. Find your courage and do the jobs that you are being very well paid to do.

I have spent three years writing letters to every Florida and Federal politician that I can think of. The reality is that the brutal and unlawful actions of Dr. Roos and Mrs. Alicia Fernandez (Screamer) have not diminished even a tiny bit, and they probably never will. In The People’s Republic of MDCPS, policy is altered NOT on the basis of worthiness, but on the basis of income for vendors, or embarrassment to the superintendent. If I continue writing to MDCPS bureaucrats, nothing will ever change, because I have no access to the press, and therefore no power. When I finish this letter, I am going to attempt to network with students from Parkland High School. They are presently nationwide media darlings. I have a hunch that they will not look kindly on a superintendent who appears to be willing to use severely mentally retarded children as bait to “get” teachers who attempted to explore converting to a charter school. They may also not be sympathetic to a principal who sent the best friend of an African-American woman whose daughter was brutally murdered right after her house was heavily damaged by Hurricane Irma to deliver the principal’s threat to involuntarily transfer this grieving grandmother to another school, for the crime of not being meek enough and servile enough when in the presence of the principal. Those students, who are not MDCPS employees cannot be bullied or silenced. If I can contact them and they agree to picket the NKC campus, or speak at a school board meeting, or picket MDCPS headquarters, the media might pick up on the story.

Sincerely,

Bill Detzner

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

May 9, 2018

Hello Karla Hernandez -Mats,

My name is Bill Detzner, employee 146782. This is the FIFTH certified letter I am sending you. The previous certified letters were sent to you in April 2017, September 23, 2017, October 5, 2017, and October 14, 2017. You can access those four letters, along with the MANY, MANY illegal contract- violating actions of Superintendent Carvalho, and the two administrators at Neva King Cooper(NKC), principal Dr. Tracy Roos and assistant principal Mrs. Alicia Fernandez on my blog. My blog can be accessed at mdcpsallegations.com Karla, you did not have the professionalism, courtesy, or decency to respond to ANY of those four certified letters. Recently, I chatted with a friend who is still teaching at NKC. To my utter astonishment, he/she told me that he/she has had NUMEROUS, in-depth conversations with you regarding the on-going problems that have been plaguing NKC for years. He/She said you have done NOTHING to address those egregious contract violations Ms. Hernandez-Mats, for whatever reason, you CLEARLY are not up to the task of heading the teacher’s union of the nation’s fourth largest school district. An ethical person would step down and not seek reelection for another term as UTD president. I hope you will make that decision. The purpose of this FIFTH certified letter is to make you aware of still more contract violations at Neva King Cooper (NKC) School and ask you to do something that you have never done before, which is to ENFORCE THE CONTRACT. I am also asking that you share this letter with the National Labor Relations Board, any other appropriate

May 9, 2018

Hello Karla Hernandez -Mats,

My name is Bill Detzner, employee 146782. This is the FIFTH certified letter I am sending you. The previous certified letters were sent to you in April 2017, September 23, 2017, October 5, 2017, and October 14, 2017. You can access those four letters, along with the MANY, MANY illegal contract- violating actions of Superintendent Carvalho, and the two administrators at Neva King Cooper(NKC), principal Dr. Tracy Roos and assistant principal Mrs. Alicia Fernandez on my blog. My blog can be accessed at mdcpsallegations.com Karla, you did not have the professionalism, courtesy, or decency to respond to ANY of those four certified letters. Recently, I chatted with a friend who is still teaching at NKC. To my utter astonishment, he/she told me that he/she has had NUMEROUS, in-depth conversations with you regarding the on-going problems that have been plaguing NKC for years. He/She said you have done NOTHING to address those egregious contract violations Ms. Hernandez-Mats, for whatever reason, you CLEARLY are not up to the task of heading the teacher’s union of the nation’s fourth largest school district. An ethical person would step down and not seek reelection for another term as UTD president. I hope you will make that decision, The purpose of this FIFTH certified letter is to make you aware of still more contract violations at Neva King Cooper (NKC) School  and to ask you to do something that you have never done before, which is to ENFORCE THE CONTRACT. I am also asking that you share this letter with the National Labor Relations Boars, any other appropriate

investigative body, all members of the UTD executive council, all school board members, all members of the Superintendent’s Cabinet, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, and with your chum, Superintendent Carvalho. Here are the latest contract violations at NKC. Dr. Roos has data chats with both teachers and para-professionals. If it is illegal for Dr. Roos to have data chats with para-professionals, I ask that Dr. Roos be ordered to stop this practice. During these para-professional data chats, Dr. Roos allegedly asked the para-professionals if they were in contact with me (Bill Detzner) during their off-duty hours. Contractually, Dr. Roos does not have the authority to ask staff about off-duty activities that are not in violation of the law. Dr. Roos then allegedly, (also during the para-professional data chats) forbade the para-professionals from having any contact with me during the para-professionals off-duty hours. Again, contractually, Dr. Roos does not have the authority to forbid staff from engaging in activities that are not in violation of the law during their off-duty hours. I suspect that Dr. Roos did this because many, many NKC staff are reporting the contract violations of BOTH Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez to me in their off-duty hours. My guess is that these violations are reported to me because UTD members at NKC have lost all confidence in UTD to enforce the contract, no matter how egregious those contract violations are. I also suspect that UTD members at NKC report contract violations to me because it affords them the luxury of remaining anonymous, and thus safe from retaliation from one or both NKC administrators, while still bringing those contract violations to the uncaring and apathetic attention of UTD. Karla, you give the appearance of suffering from terrible cowardice and timidity. If you can screw up your courage, (perhaps the UTD executive council can buck you up), you might want to send the very rarely seen Caridad Pupo (or whoever the UTD person assigned to NKC is) onto the almost never visited NKC campus and inform Dr. Roos that forbidding NKC employees from having contact with me is a bit like throwing gasoline onto a fire in an attempt to extinguish that fire. My phone rang off the hook with reports of this incident. This is NOT the first time that Dr. Roos has forbidden staff members from having contact with other people in their off-duty hours. As I explained to you in great deal in one of my previous UNANSWERED letters, after Dr. Roos allegedly tricked and trapped me by ordering me to write a letter urging parents to join the school PTA. Dr. Roos then read my letter, APPROVED it, and told me to have the school secretary type it up for mass distribution to parents. Dr. Roos then received one of her famous “anonymous” phone calls, informing her I had violated an obscure rule forbidding PTA business to be discussed on a paper containing the school letterhead. During the THREE subsequent meetings attended by both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez where I was SCREAMED at and spoken to very disrespectfully by both administrators, Dr. Roos demanded that I tell her (Dr. Roos) whether I was in contact with either of the two former NKC administrators (Dr. Alberto Fernandez and Mr. Henny Cristobol) who had been illegally removed by MDCPS from their posts as NKC administrators prior to the end of the school year. (This is covered in legal case DOAH13-1492) Although my off-duty contact with associates had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with a PTA letter I had written, I was afraid that if I declined to answer this question, I would be written up for insubordination. Although at that point I had been a UTD member for THIRTY YEARS and had in the past been the UTD steward at my school for 10 years, my fear that was UTD would fail utterly to back me up if I reported this incident, and the look the other way when Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez then retaliated against me for reporting their illegal activities. I therefore very meekly and truthfully answered their illegal question, and I never reported the incident. However, I am now a retired member of UTD. Neither Dr. Roos or Mrs. Fernandez can retaliate against me, so on behalf of the terrified UTD members of NKC, I am asking UTD to ENFORCE THE CONTRACT and forbid BOTH NKC administrators from asking any contractually unauthorized questions of NKC staff. To complete the story of what appears to be a deliberately set trap for me by BOTH NKC administrators, Dr. Roos threatened to place a disciplinary letter in my file for carrying out her order to distribute a PTA recruitment letter to parents that she ordered me to write, and then approved. I was saved from this NOT by UTD, but by a powerful friend who tipped off MDCPS officials who called Dr. Roos to a meeting and ordered Dr.Roos to apologize to me and not place a letter of reprimand against me. At that meeting, Dr. Roos promised not to retaliate against me. Dr. Roos word seems to be worth very little, as she failed to keep this promise.

Given the fact that both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez have BOTH engaged in numerous egregious contract violations over the past 6 years, I am asking Mrs. Hernandez-Mats to submit a written request to Mr. Carvalho asking that both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez be removed from their posts as NKC administrators as quickly as possible. Furthermore, if an investigation (preferably by an agency not affiliated with MDCPS) finds illegal activities by one or both of these administrators, I ask that penalties commensurate with their offenses be assigned to them. The staff at NKC have a fear that Mr. Carvalho, in an effort to further punish NKC for its legal attempt to convert from a public school to a charter school (DOAH13-1492) will appoint new administrators to NKC that are as bad or worse than the present administrators. (During His one and only visit to NKC, shortly after He illegally removed BOTH NKC administrators DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR) Mr. Carvalho made a very sinister statement to the NKC secretaries. He said: “This is a Miami Dade County Public School. This will always be a Miami Dade County Public School, and if anyone wants to change that, they are going to have to come through me.” To prevent possible further retaliation against the NKC staff, I am asking that Mrs. Hernandez-Mats submit a written request to Mr. Carvalho that principal Alberto Fernandez and assistant principal Mr. Henny Cristobol be named as the new NKC administrators. (They were the previous NKC administrators, prior to their illegal removal by Mr. Carvalho.) Due to the many egregious contract violations that have occurred at NKC, and I suspect throughout MDCPS, I am also asking Mrs. Hernandez-Mats to submit a written request that the National Labor Relations Board (or whatever the appropriate investigative agency is) do a system wide audit of MDCPS. Again, if violations are found, I ask that penalties commensurate with those violations be assigned to the appropriate officials. If possible, I would like to receive copies of the letters that Mrs. Hernandez-Mats sends to investigative bodies. I am including with this letter (as I have several times in the past) a paper titled “Fourteen Problem Situations at Neva King Cooper School.”

Here are some, but not all of the incidents that I believe merit both the administrator changes at NKC, and the MDCPS system wide audit by members of the National Labor Relations Board. As I have discussed these incidents at length in my blog, I will merely list them here. 1) Dr. Ross has allegedly physically assaulted at least one NKC staff member, (and perhaps more than one staff member) That alleged victim has since transferred to another MDCPS work site. If that person can be protected from retaliation by MDCPS, perhaps he/she may be willing to come forward and testify. 2) In DOAH145-2439, Ms. Luz Morales was improperly terminated from employment, on the recommendation of Dr. Roos. The case against Ms. Morales was so weak that MDCPS called NOT A SINGLE WITNESS to defend its illegal action, and Ms. Morales was ordered to be reinstated, recovering 50% of her lost wages. 3) Shortly after her home was seriously damaged by Hurricane Irma, an African-American para-professional at NKC named Mrs. Green experienced the tragedy of the murder of her daughter. The alleged perpetrator was Mrs. Green’s son-in-law. Mrs. Green’s five- year- old grandson was at home at the time of this brutal murder, and was seriously traumatized by the event. Possibly because she felt Mrs. Green was authorized more emergency leave time than Dr. Roos felt was merited, Dr. Roos then allegedly ordered an African-American custodian named Aaron Jackson to tell Mrs. Green that Dr. Roos was considering involuntarily transferring Mrs. Green to another school. Allegedly, when this incident caused unfavorable consequences for Dr. Roos, Dr. Roos then allegedly summoned Mr. Aaron Jackson to a closed -door meeting in Dr. Roos office and Dr. Roos allegedly threatened to terminate Mr. Jackson’s employment unless Mr. Jackson issued a statement stating that Dr. Roos had not ordered Mr. Jackson to deliver this threat to Mrs. Green. Although MDCPS scheduled two meetings with Mrs. Green to discuss this incident, MDCPS cancelled both of these meetings, and the meeting never took place. MDCPS gives the appearance of being so arrogant that Mrs. Green is not even entitled to an explanation of MDCPS inexcusable behavior. If Dr. Roos and Mrs. Frenandez follow their past practices, both Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Green will be left alone for the remainder of the 2017-2018 school year. However, during the 2018-2019 school year it is entirely possible that Dr. Roos may receive one of her famous “anonymous” phone calls, accusing Mrs. Green and or Mr. Jackson of sexually or physically abusing a child, or some other potentially career ending charge. 4) On very short notice, Mr. Rick Massa, a strong supporter of exploring converting NKC to a charter school, was summoned to a meeting downtown. Mr. Massa’s lawyer was not allowed to attend this meeting. At that meeting, MDCPS officials told Mr. Massa he had two options. Those two options were to retire immediately or be terminated immediately. What Mr. Massa was NOT told was that due to the fact that almost all charges against him had been dropped, due to a lack of evidence, and the only unresolved charge was of a very minor nature, he had a third option, which was to simply exit that meeting and continue his teaching career. Fortunately for Mr. Massa, his attorney made him aware of this option, which he exercised. 5) Mrs. Alicia Fernandez wrote up possibly career ending charges against Mr. Massa, charging Mr. Massa with cheating on the Florida Alternate Assessment (FAA). The FAA is the high stakes annual achievement test given to Profoundly Mentally Handicapped (PMH) students. As only a few copies of the test are given to the school, the testing materials are shared among several teachers. When Mr. Massa received those testing materials, they had already been used by a first-year rookie teacher, who had circled in pencil the correct answer to each question. When Mr. Massa received those testing materials, he immediately took them to assistant principal Mrs. Alicia Fernandez, in her office and showed the marked testing materials to Mrs. Fernandez. THERE WAS ANOTHER ROOKIE TEACHER PRESENT IN MRS FERNANDEZ OFFICE WHO WITNESSED THE ENTIRE CONVERSATION BETWEEN MR MASSA AND MRS FERNANDEZ. Mrs. Fernandez thanked Mr. Massa for this information and ordered Mr. Massa to go to his classroom and administer the test. Mrs. Fernandez then waited 15-20 minutes, used her master key to enter Mr. Massa’s classroom, and was SHOCKED, SHOCKED to discover that Mr. Massa was “cheating” on the test. Mr. Massa then went back to this rookie teacher and asked if he/she would be willing to testify to what he/she witnessed. Due to the new rules, tenure no longer happens, and a teacher can be dismissed at the end of the school year for his/her entire career. This teacher said he/she had a family to feed, and greatly feared termination of employment if he/she testified. This teacher still works at NKC If this teacher can be protected from retaliation by MDCPS, perhaps he/she will be willing to testify. This will reveal that Mrs. Fernandez allegedly both knowingly and willfully filed false charges against Mr. Massa, and then allegedly perjured herself in her deposition at Mr. Massa’s pending lawsuit against MDCPS 6) A student in Mr. Massa’s class, who has it written on his Individualized Education Plan (IEP) that he is prone to choking incidents, began to choke on his food one day in the cafeteria. Mr. Massa took immediate appropriate action, and the child ejected the food without losing consciousness. The child then went back to eating his lunch. Although both our on-site nursing staff and the ambulance crew that Dr. Roos summoned to the school found the child to be fine, and suffering no harm, Dr. Roos chose to write Mr. Massa up on I believe child neglect/child endangerment charges. As the entire school eats in the cafeteria at the same time, and thus witnessed this event, the opinion of the staff is that Dr. Roos has made the decision to use choking incidents as a weapon to file potentially career-ending charges against staff she doesn’t like, even if the staff member takes immediate appropriate action, and is not responsible for the occurrence of the choking incident. As a result of this fear, a staff member who has a student who begins to choke, fearing his/her job may be at stake, may hesitate for 30-60 seconds before notifying administrators or the nursing staff, hoping the child spontaneously ejects his/ her food. That 30-60 second delay can mean the difference between life and death for a Profoundly Mentally Handicapped child, as it can take 2-3 minutes to dislodge the food a child is choking on. While it is true that our school has an on-site nursing staff, during the 3 near death stopped breathing incidents that happened while I taught at NKC, it was NOT the nursing staff, but a teacher who was also a fully trained paramedic who rode ambulances on weekends who saved those three lives. That teacher was Mr. Frank Lozada. Regrettably, Mr. Lozada has joined the LONG, LONG line of staff who have left NKC since Dr. Roos and Mrs. Alicia Fernandez became the NKC administrators. I have sent Superintendent Carvalho FOUR certified letters telling him of this entirely preventable accidental choking death danger at NKC. Mr. Carvalho has not seen fit to reply to any of those letters, nor has he instituted any of the 3 steps I suggested that would eliminate this entirely preventable danger. Mr. Carvalho gives the appearance of being willing to use Profoundly Mentally Handicapped children as bait to get rid of teachers who dared to explore converting from a public school to a charter school, even if this tactic results in a horrible choking death by one or more profoundly mentally handicapped children. 7) Dr. Roos filed charges against Mr. Rick Massa for possibly sexually molesting a child. The entire NKC staff is aware of these charges. My guess is that these charges caused Mr. Massa a great deal of embarrassment, and loss of esteem by his colleagues. Investigators might want to interview any paraprofessional who worked with Mr. Massa during the year these charges were filed against him (I believe it was the 2014-2015 school year) to see if Dr. Roos pressured them (those paraprofessionals) to make knowingly false statements against Mr. Massa. 8) A yawning chasm seems to exist between the disciplinary action Dr. Roos appears to take against those teachers who supported converting to a charter school as opposed to those who did not support converting to a charter school. Those who supported exploring the conversion process seem to have draconian disciplinary charges leveled against them, with evidence that appears to be either flimsy, or even wholly false. Those who opposed the conversion process to a charter school seem to get off without even a slap on the wrist, even when they commit potentially career-ending offenses. An example of this occurred in I believe the 2015-2016 school year. A para-professional, who still works at NKC, came to Dr. Roos and reported that she (the para-professional) had witnessed a teacher using corporal punishment on a student. The teacher who used corporal punishment to punish a student was strongly opposed to converting to a charter school. He/She was also one of the very few staff that Dr. Roos appeared to approve of. Under law, Dr. Roos is OBLIGATED to report any suspected child abuse to the authorities. Failure to do so can result in the permanent revocation of Dr. Roos professional licenses. Dr. Roos allegedly failed to report this incident, and merely transferred the child to another class. That para-professional is still working at NKC. Perhaps if he/she is guaranteed protection from retaliation by MDCPS, he/she will be willing to testify. That would also make it possible to determine whether or not Dr. Roos followed the MANDATORY abuse reporting procedures. 9) Shortly after Mr. Brett Brown, the UTD steward at our school testified on behalf of Ms. Luz Morales at her illegal termination hearing (DOAH145-2439), Dr. Roos received one of her famous “anonymous” phone calls, alleging that Mr. Brown, and the two paraprofessionals assigned to his classroom, Ms. Yolanda Deya, and Ms. Zenaida Castellanos were using a ruler to administer corporal punishment to one of the students in that classroom. This happened during the end of the 2014-2015 school year. Again, it should be checked to see if Dr. Roos took the MANDATORY step of reporting this “anonymous” phone call regarding alleged child abuse to the authorities. 10) For the last six years, Dr. Roos and Mrs. Alicia Fernandez have had some of the lowest ratings on BOTH the staff and parent satisfaction surveys in the entire MDCPS district. Additionally, the NKC staff turnover percentage rate is also among the highest in the district. Why do you suppose that is? In contrast, the previous NKC administrators, Dr. Alberto Fernandez and Mr. Henny Cristobol were very highly evaluated for several years on BOTH the staff and parent satisfaction surveys. BY MDCPS own measure, Dr. Alberto Fernandez was rated one year as the most effective administrator in the district. 11) The Florida Alternate Assessment (FAA) has been administered to NKC student for many years. When Dr. Alberto Fernandez and Mr. Henny Cristobol were the NKC administrators, NKC students performed very poorly on this test, year after year. In the 6 years that Dr. Roos and Mrs. Alicia Fernandez have been the NKC administrators, student performance on this test has skyrocketed. Year after year, under Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez, NKC student are achieving test scores that are statistically improbable. It should be noted that Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez receive financial bonuses for these amazing test results. There are two people who are no longer at NKC who were heavily involved in the testing process who may be able to shed some light on how these remarkable test results have been achieved. If they can be protected from retaliation from MDCPS, perhaps they will be willing to testify.

A person not familiar with how MDCPS operates could be forgiven for believing that as a result of these actions, both Dr. Roos and Mrs. Fernandez had been dismissed from their posts, and awaiting trial, or perhaps serving prison sentences. Regrettably, MDCPS is not a typical school district. It operates more like a criminal enterprise, with Al Carvalho playing the part of the Godfather. Dr. Roos is a loyal and unquestioning lieutenant, appearing to be willing to carry out ANY order to rid NKC of all supporters of exploring conversion to a charter school. To my utter astonishment, I found that Dr. Roos was nominated for the highly prestigious Principal of the Year award this year. If Dr. Roos is one of the finest principals in MDCPS, can you imagine what the poorly performing administrators must be like?

Recently, a very fine and professional NKC teacher with over 30 years of teaching experience who is a UTD member, allegedly went on an uncontrollable crying jag at school that lasted for hours. Ms. Hernandez-Mats, I know what you are probably asking yourself: “What could she possibly be crying about? Doesn’t she know how lucky she is to have a boss who was one of the nominees for Principal of the Year???” Ms. Hernandez Mats, do you suppose that having to endure FOR SIX YEARS the strain of seeing several of your colleagues charged with potentially career ending offenses, and on any given day, knowing you could be next, on scant or possibly wholly false evidence, with UTD nowhere to be found, with administrators who have received not so much as a slap on the wrist for their numerous egregious contract violations, and a principal who is a candidate for Principal of the Year could have had an adverse effect on this poor soul’s well-being? Ms. Hernandez-Mats, that teacher pays $800 per year to be a UTD member. As far as I can see, all he/she gets for $800 is a desk calendar. Ms. Hernandez-Mats, do you think that is good value for money? If UTD members at NKC were offered a prize of one million dollars if they could identify the UTD organizer for NKC out of a line-up, I don’t think anyone, including the NKC building steward could collect on that offer. Ms. Hernandez-Mats, if you were a rank and file UTD member, would you vote to retain as president someone with your record during the last two years?

A few months ago, Hollywood was rocked by a scandal involving one of the titans of the industry. A few very brave women risked career suicide to step forward and accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual abuse. It turned out that fear was the only thing keeping things quiet. It was common knowledge that if only one or two brave souls tried to be whistleblowers, they would be utterly destroyed. Once more than a few courageous people stepped forward, the dam broke, and it was revealed that Mr. Weinstein’s alleged abuses involved very large numbers of women and stretched back over decades. Then it was revealed that Mr. Weinstein was not a lone wolf, and that in fact, it was a fairly common occurrence for the powerful in the industry to abuse underlings who had little power. The “Me Too” Movement was born. You might be saying, if those actors had a union, this systemic sexual exploitation could not have been so widespread and so prolonged. That assumption is incorrect. The actors DID have a union. The name of their union is The Screen Actors Guild, and as you can see, it failed utterly to protect its members from unwanted sexual advances. Perhaps the president of the Screen Actors Guild thought it was ok if union members were sexually exploited, as long as things were swept under the carpet and he or she continued to receive a very generous salary as president of that union. Ms. Hernandez-Mats, would you and I be in agreement that a union that is either unwilling or unable to protect its members from exploitation is just a make- believe union? Ms. Hernandez-Mats, I am proposing that during your watch (and perhaps even before you became the UTD president),UTD became (and still is) a make- believe union, and either cannot, or will not protect its members from exploitation from both Mr. Carvalho and from school site administrators. For example, you have known for quite some time that Dr. Roos allegedly physically assaulted at least one member of the NKC staff. You have done NOTHING with this information. Has Dr. Roos and or Mrs. Fernandez allegedly physically assaulted more than one NKC employee? You don’t know, and you seem remarkably uncurious about the answer to this question. Have other school site administrators allegedly physically assaulted one or more of their staff? Again, I am betting that you neither know or are very curious about the answer to this question. How about alleged sexual assaults, either by administrators against staff, or staff against other staff. I am betting that you also do not know the answer to this question. I am hoping that physical and or sexual abuse experienced by MDCPS employees is NOT ok with you, even if it stays under the carpet, and even if in spite of this, you continue to receive your very generous six figure salary. Ms. Hernandez-Mats, MDCPS will NEVER investigate this matter. That is why I am urging you in the strongest terms to write a request for a systemwide audit of MDCPS by the National Labor Relations Board. Otherwise, in a few years, people may talk about how UTD members were exploited while you happily drew your six- figure salary.

Europe has experienced a massive influx of refugees in recent years. The internet now contains numerous stories saying certain parts of numerous European cities have become so dangerous and crime ridden that the police no longer venture into those parts of town. The areas of cities where European policemen no longer dare to go are called “no go zones.” Ms. Hernandez-Mats, does MDCPS have “no go schools,” places where abuse of the contract by school site administrators is so egregious and pervasive that UTD officials no longer dare to go there? I have a feeling you know the answer to that question as well as I do. Ms. Hernandez-Mats, I used to work in a “no go school.” That school is NKC. Not only do you and the union organizer Caridad Pupo not dare to go there, you don’t even dare to answer the 4 certified letters I have sent you! Is NKC the only “no go school” in MDCPS? I seriously doubt that. I am willing to hazard a guess that a significant and GROWING percentage of Miami Dade County Public Schools are becoming “no go schools” for UTD. I am also willing to bet that for all practical purposes, the “contract” between MDCPS and UTD no longer exists. My guess is that it is no longer a “contract,” but a “suggestion” that school site administrators are free to violate with impunity.

In biology, there is a term for an organism that takes from another organism without giving anything in return back to its host, and then either harming or even killing the host in that process. Biologists call such an organism a parasite. Ms. Hernandez-Mats would it be fair and accurate to say that UTD has become a parasitic organization? I think the answer to that question is an emphatic YES! Here is why I say that. UTD charges members $800 per year to be a part of UTD. The union has two basic functions, which are to secure adequate salaries/benefits, and to enforce the contract. UTD has failed utterly at both these tasks. How about the last part of the definition; the part that says “while harming or even killing the host in the process.” Recently, Mr. Carvalho torpedoed his chances of becoming the Chancellor of New York City Schools. Many UTD people, myself included, would say that Mr. Carvalho has by a landslide been the WORST superintendent MDCPS has ever had. Although MDCPS teachers have significantly improved test scores, wages have been frozen for years. Prior to Mr. Carvalho, the contract was largely observed by MDCPS. Under Mr. Carvalho, the contract has become little more than a worthless scrap of paper. When Mr. Carvalho hosted his recent “please beg me to stay” circus, you, Mrs. Hernandez-Mats willingly joined Mr. Carvalho’s amen chorus! I heard that you used UTD funds to host a party when it was discovered that we would not be rid of the curse of Mr. Carvalho after all. Ms. Hernandez-Mats, I know a great many UTD members who consider your urging Mr. Carvalho to stay in MDCPS, and then spending UTD money to throw a party when he took that horrible advice to be treason to the hopes and aspirations of the UTD rank and file. Ms. Hernandez-Mats, it seems that the goals of you as UTD president are diametrically opposed to the goals of UTD members. Mr. Carvalho is as welcome as cancer to most UTD members that I know.   Getting back to that poor soul from NKC who allegedly had an hours long uncontrollable crying jag on the NKC campus, will he/she be better off, or worse if UTD ceases to exist? My guess is that he/she will be better off if UTD ceases to exist. Here is why. At NKC, the contract has not existed for the last 6 years. If UTD ceases to exist, this poor soul will still be utterly at the mercy of Dr. Roos, but he/she will have $800 more in his/her pocket. Ms. Hernandez-Mats, this may be hard for you to hear from a 30- year UTD member who was also a building steward for 10 years, and a member of the retired UTD chapter, but if UTD ceases to exist, the only difference it will make is that former members are $800 richer. Only a fool or a sucker would pay $800 a year for an organization that does nothing except give them a desk calendar once a year.

I got a frantic email saying that if UTD is unable to achieve 50% membership of the bargaining unit, it will be decertified. Fifty percent membership seems like a ridiculously low bar to achieve, but as I said before, only a fool would give $800 a year to an organization that neither provides a decent salary or enforces the contract.

Many of my UTD friends are puzzled by the fact that even though UTD is literally fighting for its life, President Hernandez-Mats seems nearly catatonic. I hope I am wrong about this, Ms. Hernandez Mats, but I can’t help but think that you engage in activities that seem suicidal in terms of UTD’s survival (such as spending UTD funds to throw a celebratory party for Mr. Carvalho’s unfortunate decision to remain in MDCPS) because you have been captured by an anti-union organization. Is it possible that you have been offered a lucrative, multi-year contract with an anti- educational union think tank in exchange for your cooperation in the destruction of UTD?

Some of my friends have warned me that this letter may result in you (Ms. Hernandez-Mats) using scarce UTD funds to get a court injunction against me to silence my criticism of your leadership of UTD. I don’t know if my friends are being paranoid or realistic, but to protect myself, I have given several friends copies of this letter and copies of my blog, and permission to publish and distribute any part of my blog they wish when it comes time for the next UTD presidential election. In closing, Ms. Hernandez-Mats, I would again like to urge you in the strongest terms to NOT seek reelection as the UTD president. You clearly are NOT up to the task. Finally, I want to emphasize that my membership in the retired chapter of UTD does NOT mean I believe in the union or have any confidence in it. I belong to UTD ONLY to give me legal standing to report the numerous abuses at NKC that terrified UTD members there are too frightened to report.

In Unity,

Bill Detzner

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