Schools of Terror!

• Two Victor Elementary School District schools nominated for the "California Distinguished School Award" while the district was still being monitored for retaliating against a teacher who reported the district for civil rights violations! (The District was eventually found guilty of these charges.)
• Victor Elementary School District found in Violation of Civil Rights Act of 1964, by the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (OCR), for attempting to retaliate against the teacher who had filed charges of racism, and refusal to assist students with special needs (these, and other stories listed below) with OCR.
• Learn about the botched attempt, made by Janet Young, Personnel Director and the Victor Elementary School District, to revoke the credential of a teacher who reported them to the United States Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights on charges of racism and refusal to assist children with severe special needs. Furthermore, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing Harassment (CTC) participated in this bold (but botched) attempt by permitting it to continue for more than one month. Not surprisingly, that teacher had ALWAYS received exemplary evaluations while employed by VESD. This obscene attack on the teacher finally resulted in the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights finding that VESD had violated a Federal law regarding intimidation and retaliation against individuals who file complaints against agencies such as school districts.
• Lomitas Elementary School - a "National Blue Ribbon School????"
• Del Rey Elementary School - Great "discipline?"

Quick Facts About the
Victor Elementary School District

The Victor Elementary School District (VESD), of Victorville, California, has had an "illustrious" past. Here are just a few pieces of information that may be of interest regarding VESD some items in this history.

• The district employees approximately 300 teachers. A high percentage of these are very young teachers (fresh out of college), hired from other states and, as a result, are required to obtain "Emergency Teaching Credentials," or other temporary teaching permits, because they do not meet the requirements for a regular California Teaching Credential (which is, allegedly, more difficult to obtain than those from many of the states these teachers come from).
• Each year, approximately ten to thirty teachers are fired, "let go," or are "asked to resign," or quit in disgust, even though the Victor Elementary School District claims that they only hire the "finest teachers anywhere."
• Often the teachers that are fired are some of the most outstanding ones but, because they are unwilling to compromise their integrity and refuse to kowtow to the whims of the district, are the ones who get canned.
• Teachers who are fired by the Victor Elementary School District are often STRONGLY encouraged to "resign" so as not to have a "negative impact" upon their "employment record." (This also allows VESD to not pay for any unemployment benefits these teachers may have been entitled to had they been fired.) Then, when these teachers do try to obtain employment elsewhere, VESD interferes with the employment process (see below for an example of one teacher who quit).
• Victor Elementary School District often interferes with teachers' attempts to find employment elsewhere. (This also applies to teachers that quit.)
• Students within the VESD are subjected to other bizarre forms of treatment. Click here [link no longer valid] to see a news report by CBS News (Los Angeles Channel 2 Television News) on how one student was taped to his chair to control his behavior.
• Children within the Victor Elementary School District are denied greatly needed services. Administrators within the VESD have often been heard to state the "children with special needs 'take money' away from 'normal' children who would more greatly benefit from that money."
• VESD has, for years, provided every teacher with actual copies of standardized tests, that are allegedly used to "measure" student achievement, at the beginning of the school year.
• Students, with special needs, often don't complete these standardized tests thereby allowing their scores to NOT be included in school/district results. This artificially inflates individual school's scores.
• District Administrators have been offered financial bonuses when students "show growth" on standardized tests.
  Individual schools are rewarded financially when their students obtain certain results on standardized tests.
• Schools with needy populations (lower socioeconomic backgrounds) have often not, in the past, received the financial rewards that schools with "wealthier" population receive. Clever schemes are devised to segregate students by race and socioeconomic status so as to benefit "elite" groups of students. One, rather blatant example, includes two schools - Irwin Elementary and the "Academy of Performing Arts and Languages." Both "schools" are housed on the same site that is divided into two completely separate campuses. "The Academy" is a "magnet school" and is the only school in the district that has any type of "music program." Parents must apply for, and have their children "accepted" into the "Academy." Many of these students come from the "wealthier" communities of Victorville (esp., Spring Valley Lake) and are subject to being placed back into their neighborhood schools if they don't meet "The Academy's High Standards." Irwin School, on the other hand, is a "neighborhood school" serving a highly transient, mostly non-English speaking, Hispanic population that is eligible for considerable additional Federal funding designed to provide for the additional needs of these students. By combining "The Academy" and Irwin School into just "one school," VESD is able to spend the money, designated for Irwin School on computers, musical instruments, and other materials for "The Academy." Furthermore, it allows the district to mask the extreme differences between these schools by combining the high standardized test scores obtained by students at "The Academy" with low test scores obtained by students at Irwin School thereby giving the impression that these schools are within the "average" range and hiding the fact that extreme differences exist between the completely separate student populations housed at that one site.
• Mentor Teachers or Child Molesters? Some of Victor Elementary School District's "Finest" Teachers.