Fixing Disaster At Rialto Unified
The Rialto Unified School District is mired in incompetence, mismanagement, low-achievement and educational malpractice. At this point, that's hardly news. But the disastrous district is showing signs, however tentative, of dragging itself out of the morass.
Next month's elections offer the city's parents and taxpayers a decent chance to start reshaping the school board, which is a crucial step toward reshaping the entire 26,000-student district's dysfunctional culture – assuming, of course, they care enough to vote.
A bit of catch-up for the late arrivals: Last year, district bookkeeper Judith Oakes was arrested for embezzling more than $1.8 million over an astounding 14 years. In the ensuing uproar, the board placed District Superintendent Harold Cebrun and his deputy, James Wallace, on paid administrative leave until the authorities could sort everything out.
A pair of audits released earlier this year found, among other things, “questionable” expenses, “significant material weaknesses” in district management, and “a systematic lack of focus on instruction and lack of guidance from the highest level of leadership.” The board negotiated Cebrun's departure in March, avoiding a massive six-figure payout and settling instead on a small six-figure payout.
Three weeks after Cebrun's exit, RUSD made international news after the San Bernardino Sun reported on an eighth-grade writing assignment that asked students to argue whether the Holocaust really happened.
Interim Superintendent Mohammad Z. Islam was unequal to the task of handling the controversy honestly or transparently. He first defended the essay topic, then dissembled, then finally took “full responsibility” for the fiasco. Yet he's still on the job. District officials in May announced they had withdrawn the offensive assignment, but they took months to answer public-records requests.
In fairness, the district has taken some steps to mitigate the damage from that one assignment. It claims to have revamped the “critical thinking” unit on the Holocaust – although officials are understandably mute about critical lapses in their students' basic reading and writing skills – and has partnered with the Anti-Defamation League to better educate students on the reality of the Holocaust.
All to the good. And maybe it will bear fruit eventually. But how do you undo something like this? “Many believe the Holocaust to be an event that almost exterminated all living Jews while other [sic] believe it to be nothing more than a propaganda act. I believe that it was a propaganda act, and my reasons are: no cyanide resident [sic] on the walls of gas chambers, only a small amount of Jews died in concentration camps, and even “The Diary of Anne Frank” is a lie.”
That isn't “critical thinking.” It isn't even good writing. That's the product of a particularly virulent strain of relativism, which infects public schools everywhere, not just Rialto Unified. Adding insult to injury, that student received a “B” for his work.
The good news is most of the district's top management is out. Better still, school board President Joanne Gilbert, who has served on the board for 13 years, opted not to run for reelection. She says she's tired. Who wouldn't be after presiding over nearly a decade and a half of mediocrity?
Yet it's difficult to be optimistic. It's an outrage, really, that Rialto parents aren't more outraged.
An effort to recall two board members who opposed Cebrun's ouster, Joe Ayala and Joseph Martinez, fell short last month of the 9,450 signatures that organizers needed. The recall committee tried to put a happy face on the defeat. “Our goal is to never let the community get apathetic again regarding who is elected to our board of education,” Michelle Sanchez said shortly after the bad news broke.
Never again? The community seems as apathetic as ever.
Parents who actually pay attention know that Rialto Unified's problems run deeper than mere incompetence at the central office. They want their kids to feel safe. They want their kids to know how to read, write and compute beyond basic competency. They want their kids to go to college. Rialto Unified isn't delivering.
This piece originally appeared in Riverside Press Enterprise
This piece originally appeared in Riverside Press Enterprise