Editorial: Manufactured Outrage Prompts Special AUSD Meeting

It seems like every year we get a news cycle that the Antioch Unified School District is in crisis and Superintendent Stephanie Anello must resign or face termination.

It’s predictable, silly and boring. It has become politics as usual when it comes to the AUSD which is why little progress has  been made by the school board in over a decade–putting teachers, staff and admin at a disadvantage when they should be focusing on improving test scores.

It is as if the community cares more about personality conflicts, the drama and egos than they do students. And this year, we now get to tackle apparent “bully bosses” in the court of public opinion versus using the Ed Code and legal means available to litigate this matter–which is what every single union employee has fought for decades to earn.

If you all want to do this in public, cool. More clicks and views for me. But I would advise against that.

Now, the public gets advised of a second attempt at a special meeting, where should there be a quorum, the Board of Trustees will tackle two items:

1. Public Employee Discipline/Dismissal/Release [Pursuant to Government Code section 54957]
2. Public Employee Performance Evaluation Title: Superintendent [Pursuant to Government Code section 5495

But what is worse, we have yet another public outcry by Trustee Antonio Hernandez calling for Superintendent Stephanie Anello to resign.

This is foolish and irresponsible–especially since this is now the second meeting called without even knowing availability of other trustees. This is a complete waste of everyone’s time all to make the evening news and keep this story alive. This is nothing new from a guy who has done this before with no basis and no success–this time he should be called out for stirring up a media circus.

“I maintain my position that the Superintendent must take accountability and resign. I urge my 3 colleagues, Clyde Lewis, Mary Rocha, and Gary Hack, who refuse to meet as a board to do their jobs by joining me in demanding accountability. I will do all that I can to ensure that we take care of the tax money you entrusted to this school district and more importantly, I will never stop fighting to ensure that we stay focused on ensuring that every student gets a quality education,” said Hernandez via a social media post.

Hernandez has done this before during his tenure as a trustee:

1. Use of Force at Antioch High School (this one was classic, he lied about the public outrage which was confirmed in a public records request)
2. Congressman Mark DeSaulnier being denied access to host a political event at Deer Valley High School
3. Antioch School District Employee Dressed up in a Scooby Doo costume

Let’s be honest, Hernandez is calling these fake special meetings knowing three board members are not available in an effort to make Trustees Hack, Lewis and Rocha look bad. Nothing more other than dirty politics and a playbook directly from his buddy the Mayor of Antioch Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe.

Ironically, Hernandez is going to school to become a doctor. His history of behavior towards Stephanie Anello is equivalent of an internet diagnosis and then offering treatment without doing any testing or information gathering—if you want this type of decision making from this type of quackery, be my guest, I am going to seek out a second opinion from another doctor. So should the community.

Also, for a guy who is supposed to become a doctor and have doctor-patient confidentially, I doubt he can be trusted  because he is believed to be leaking confidential communications to the media as a school board trustee. He now could be held liable for taking personnel matters public.

For anyone using logic, which in a school setting I hope would happen, the AUSD is the largest employer in the City of Antioch with nearly 2,000 people. If Anello was involved in every disciplinary action or investigations, very little would get accomplished. That is why you have a human resources director and an entire department to handle this. In her time as Superintendent, I doubt she has had to insert herself into disciplinary matters more than a handful of times–and this “bully boss” claim would not be one of them because it never warranted reaching her desk in the first place.

Instead, this stinks of dirty politics, not lack of discipline or performance by the District. Even worse, you have the Assistant Regional Representative of the CSEA playing along all because his wife is one of the main complainants. This is just too obvious I am surprised many didn’t pick up on this orchestrated outrage.

My warning to the union is this…  tread carefully here because if they want to put this complaint in the public eye, does it mean the rest of the District is now fair game? The next time a teacher is accused of something are we going to get personnel information? What about a teachers aid? Librarian? Lunch lady? Janitor? Site safety? This could get really interesting really fast should others receive complaints and people go to the media.

Or, is this a human resources department problem? Hopefully a public records request being answered will clear this all up at some point and either resolve some of these issues or highlight the problem with local media blowing things out of proportion.

At the end of the day, I get it. People do not like Director Ken Turnage II and that is okay. He can be blunt and quick to express an opinion, but the dude did keep me on a schedule with good time management. He is my friend and some days I don’t even like him–I know, I did a podcast with the guy. But people forget Turnage comes from the private sector in construction and as a business owner– known to pull pranks, make jokes and moving into a union environment has a learning curve–if he crossed the line, I have faith Human Resources would handle it appropriately within Ed Code and discipline handed out. And in case anyone forgot, they already did the investigation over a year ago.

And quite frankly, if this all occurred 15-months ago, why now? If it was such an egregious act as claimed, I would hope he would have been disciplined appropriately  because I know for a fact Anello would never put her job on the line to protect Turnage or any other employee.

What would be interesting is of the 10 alleged complaints that had been filed, which anyone can file by the way, how many were sustained, unfounded, or dismissed?  Who reviewed the complaints and how did they come to that determination? How many people in each investigation were interviewed? Until we get answers, everything will continue to be speculation.

I advise folks to simmer down, take a step back, and let the information come to fruition before any decisions are made and really sends the District down a path of no return—similar to the city of Antioch once Ron Bernal retired. Its been pure chaos and nothing of substance has been achieved other than scoring political points.

Board Failed to Take Action After Lewis Promise at September 13 meeting

I want to point everyone back to the September 13 meeting during public comments when Kim Atkinson spoke and asked for help from human resources. In response to the public comments at the meeting, then Board President Dr. Clyde Lewis responded by apologizing for not addressing the workplace environment and stated “we will look into it”.

It took until April 2024 for the Board to even give this a second though–not until Bay Area media picked up on the story. Its a school board either asleep at the wheel or a failure to act–including Hernandez who could have requested this as early as December when he became president of the board.

Board Was Already Getting “Bully Boss” Debrief in May

Prior to reporter Candice Nguyen going to the dais a few weeks ago, Hernandez already requested a debrief regarding what was going on in the maintenance department. Anello said they would be getting a debrief at the first meeting in May. Here is the email sent by Anello on April 23:

“President Hernandez asked for a debrief on April 10^th; I said that we could discuss it at the May Board of Education Meeting in closed session. I did not hear anything else from him,” stated Anello.

That silly thing called logic pops up where.  Hernandez knew a story was already coming with the reporter going to the dais to speak, so he made the request and the rest has now become local politics at its worst. Nothing was done for 8-months and hours before a reporter spoke at the Board meeting, he miraculously made the request for a debrief on Turnage? Give me a break.

TV Investigative Reporter Goes to the Dias for Public Comments

When NBC’s reporter Candice Nguyen inserted herself into the story and began asking questions to the Superintendent. She knew Anello could not respond. This was a clever media trick to spice up a story and create outrage.

But what is worse is Board President Hernandez did next to nothing to reign it in. He let Nguyen continue to drill the Superintendent knowing she couldn’t answer and sit there in silence.

What he should have done, like any chair or board president, is stop Nguyen and direct her to address the Board with her concerns and questions, not the superintendent because they are not supposed to respond in public comment.  That is the role of a board president. He failed.

That said, Nguyen did her job and got her story–whether some like it or not.

Superintendent Review

Now many are making a stink that Anello has not been reviewed in 4-years. That is far from her fault, that is a failure of the school board. Directing anger at her is both ignorant and misplaced. That beef is 100% at the Board and why no review has been given.

Final Thoughts

To be continued. I am waiting on a public records request that was submitted on April 19. Until then, this is all hearsay and speculation of what went down.

At this point, I am encouraging folks to chill out until real information is released because the media circus often blows up minor issues and turns them into end of the world incidents.  The truth will come out and I can’t wait to get down to the bottom of this.

But if we truly want to talk about a “Bully Boss”, then perhaps people should begin to look at Hernandez and his behavior towards Stephanie Anello which is now being modeled after Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe who is liking attempting to backdoor a Project Labor Agreement into the bond funded projects.

Such a shame for someone claiming to be all about the students in Antioch… its ultimately always about politics.

Editors Note – Still waiting on public records request made on April 19 before I tackle this even harder with facts not with hurt feelings and fake outage. In speaking to Turnage, he welcomes an investigation and says the cards will fall where they fall but believes his actions did not warrant termination. He is also willing to release all documents associated with an investigation once it is complete and in a way that does not compromise employees in the District, but added the investigation will prove the facts being stated in the media about the Antioch Unified School District are being exaggerated and twisted.

Mike Burkholder
Publisher of ContraCosta.news
[email protected]