I Need Your Vote!!!

The election begins Today, Monday, Aug. 19.  I need your vote.  I ask you to consider the following points:

1) Ask yourself, "Who does the District want to win?" They are worried for the first time that there will be someone to challenge them.  Ms. Porche says you have to have a "working relationship" with the District.  But the relationship of compliance is only working for the District, not us.  Peg Myers has a pretty good "working relationship" with the District, and Ms. Porche, who has never objected to her actions, seems just as close to the District, sending them my confidential documents with the message: "Here you go! Jennefer."  I have scanned and attached this email exchange.  I am saddened that such an individual would even be allowed to run for office.  CTA knows of these violations and is not reacting.

2) When the contract is violated, the remedy is right in the contract: ARBITRATION (going to a neutral arbitrator to make our case).  Ms. Porche sends out her "campaign manager" Ron Marcus to say that I want to file a legal suit against the District that will take years.  Mr. Marcus does not know the difference between a civil suit, which can be lengthy and expensive, and arbitration, which takes a few months and relatively little expense.  This represents the legal expertise of the current administration.  So instead Ms. Porche wants you to organize yourself, site by site, to solve your own problems.  Overworked teachers are generally not going to do this, and the District is free to ignore this response.  Ms. Porche sees herself as a leader of organizing when  she still has not been able to fill more than 5 of the 8 governing board seats.

3) Look at what Ms. Porche lists as her major accomplishments: a) building a website (which was actually created by friend and VP Sharon Quinn); b) "Cultivated relationships inside and outside CVE that produced positive results."  Well if the results are so positive, why not list them?  This is babble speak.; c) "Implemented an effective, dependable grievance process to ensure enforcement of our contract."  Do you think the contract is enforced?  Not one issue has been brought to arbitration.  Do you believe that you are being required to work overtime?  Of course you are. So what is being enforced?

4) The other side has misrepresented that I want teachers to work to contract hours.  I never said that.  That does not work because teachers are committed to their students.  I said that I will pursue a grievance to make sure that overtime work is voluntary and in the control of those generous teachers, and not fulfilling mandatory requirements of the District.  I also said that I will force the District to pay for overtime work that they have required.  This is the most basic function of a union, and it is lost on Ms. Porche.

5) Some still believe that I illegally used the District email system.  The District never had a policy preventing me from using their system for union communication.  This is why I have never received so much as a letter of reprimand from them.  I proved that at the PERB administrative hearing on May 21, 2013 (an action that I brought against them, not them against me) when Escobedo was forced to admit it under penalty of perjury.  I will win this action this Fall.  Ms. Porch testified at this hearing on behalf of the district.  She said it was not customary practice for the union to use the District email system because of "confidentiality."  A couple of days earlier she had secretly turned over my confidential documents to Superintendent Escobedo. Wow!

6) Some say I am too aggressive.  In truth, I do not enjoy conflict.  But you go to any competent attorney and describe the work being required to implement common core and the hours that we are supposed to be working in our contract, and ask them if we have a case. She or he will say, "What are you waiting for?"  

Ms. Porche says I cannot effect change alone.  I have a lot of supporters helping me.  But the truth is all that she accomplished in a year (make a website, visit schools with cookies, babble speak about positive results) I could do alone in a few weeks while at the same time defending your contract rights.  But I do need you now.  I need your vote to get started.  I would be humbled by your support and work every day to earn the confidence that you have put in me.  Thank you for your support,

Manuel Yvellez

Let Teachers Teach

Campaign Speech 2 Video
http://youtu.be/d29BWuEQvNo

If you have trouble accessing this video, please go to YouTube and search "Manuel Yvellez" and it will come up.

Campaign Speech #2

I want to give teachers the power to use their creativity and control their teaching. Thus my slogan: Let Teachers Teach

* The current administration has done nothing to protect our work conditions, our work hours, our curriculum consultation rights, our evaluation procedure, or our job security through tenure.

* All we get is endless yellow paper talking about negotiated items without explanations of really what they are or why they are important. And then the message is always the same: negotiation resumes.

* Our overtime work should be voluntary and on projects we feel passionate about. Instead we have been forced to work overtime, without the slightest compensation, on District mandates that we were never properly consulted on per the terms of the contract.

* The District has no incentive to give on any issue that you may be concerned about as long as it knows that CVE remains ineffective at asserting its rights.

* I will use my legal skills to protect you and your families, to enforce the contract, and to allow you to again love your profession.

I can think of no other profession that is as micro-managed and put upon as elementary teachers. Even high school teachers are treated with the respect of being allowed to teach in the ways that they know best, answerable to the results and not the process. Somehow it is in this profession that every district official thinks that they know how to do your job better than you. They don't get that teaching is not a collection of unproven strategies. It is a performance which draws upon knowledge, human interaction, spontaneousness, a flexible but organized course of study, and lots of patience and love. And the teachers that master this performance know that good teaching is way beyond a particular strategy, a particular environment, a particular desk arrangement that can be captured in a "walk through." 

I ask you please to view my campaign speech on YouTube and come out next Thursday at a site to be determined to hear the candidates speak.

http://youtu.be/d29BWuEQvNo

Sincerely,

Manuel Yvellez
Let Teachers Teach

PS. For those that would like to help me, please contact me if you would like to pass out leaflets at your site. But the best thing you can do is to write a personal message of why you are voting for me and send it out to your friends and colleagues. Thank you for your support.

CHALLENGE SUSTAINED!!!

There will be a new election because of violations by CVE President Jennefer Porch:

1. She turned over confidential union communications of co-candidate Manuel Yvellez to Superintendent Escobedo who subsequently sent out an email suggesting that Mr. Yvellez violated District policy. I did not.

2. She personally handled unsecured election ballots, violating the integrity of the election process.

Giving Ms. Porch every benefit of the doubt of such actions, which she admitted only after confronted with the evidence, these actions show that Ms. Porch just does not have the correct instincts to represent members.

In the same way that I presented the laws and evidence to successfully challenge the election, I hope to defend the rights of teachers in the following ways:

• If elected, I will file a grievance on behalf of the membership for being required to work beyond the 6 hours and 15 minutes provided in the contract. I will seek payment for the hours of overtime worked by teachers for years.

• If elected, I will file either a grievance or unfair practice charge to force the District to meaningfully consult with the union regarding curricular changes such as the ad hoc implementation of teaching to the vague common core standards. I will prevent the District forcing teachers to develop curriculum on the fly. And I will demand on behalf of the membership that a professional new curriculum be officially adopted before any drastic changes are made.

• If elected, I will fight against the irrational use of test scores in what I consider secondary evaluations of effectiveness that are not provided for in the contract.

• If elected, I will fight to have every teacher on a path to tenure. Dedicated teachers who have proven themselves deserve the security of due process.

I want to protect teachers and their families from the stress of meeting unreasonable demands by the District. I want to have teachers be recognized as professionals who know what works and what does not work in the classroom. I want teachers to be happy in their work so they may sustain teaching with the patience and love our students need and deserve. YOU can help me achieve these goals by giving me your confidence to be your next CVE President. I am humbled by the great amount of support I have received, and I will do my best not to let you down.

Manuel Yvellez
Let Teachers Teach

Email to Jena Ritchey, CVE Elections Chairperson RE Election Violations

Thank you Ms. Ritchey for an additional opportunity to add to my challenge of the CVE Presidential election. There are some additional facts and arguments that I would like to speak to arising from the Rep. Council meeting of June 3, 2013, for which both you and I were present. At that meeting Ms. Porch addressed my email calling for her resignation and recommendation that my challenge be sustained so as to redo the election. My demand was based upon Ms. Porch, as campaigning candidate and CVE President, using her office by way of the "CVEpresident" email address to turn over my email, meant only for fellow CVE members and marked as "Confidential Union Matter," to the Superintendent of the District with the words, "Here you go! Jennefer." At the meeting of June 3, 2013, Ms. Porch read a prepared statement to the council. I did not write down her exact words and I would ask that you obtain the statement for the record and forward me a copy. But I believe it can be fairly stated that she admitted what she did was wrong and I believe said something like that she "would never do it again." I believe there was some additional comments addressing her relationship with the Superintendent which I did not fully understand.

I believe the statement will further reveal that Ms. Porch never disputed that she was acting as both candidate and CVE President at the time of forwarding the email to the Superintendent as I assert in my request for resignation and approval of challenge. She did not dispute that she violated her fiduciary duty to put the interests of the represented above her own. She did not dispute that the Superintendent's resulting email to all certificated employees regarding my email hurt my reputation during the election. She did not even dispute that such an effect was her purpose. Despite reading from a prepared statement, Ms. Porch did not address her purpose. She also did not state the nature of the conversation between her and the Superintendent regarding me. She also did not state whether she had other communications with the District regarding me. She has also not addressed these issues to me personally. I believe it is the responsibility of the elections committee, which is charged with preserving a fair election, to investigate these issues thoroughly. However, I also believe that Ms. Porch has lost credibility as to these issues and that her admission of wrongdoing alone under these circumstances is sufficient to sustain the challenge.

What Ms. Porch's mental state really was in forwarding the email is essentially impossible to prove. I don't know what Ms. Porch is capable of. I would not have thought her capable of the admitted wrongdoing. I have seen the good in Ms. Porch and understand why many would rather summarily excuse her action rather than think ill of her. But it cannot be the responsibility of a challenging party such as myself to prove Ms. Porch's mental state beyond doubt. The fact is that it is very rare to discover the act of wrongdoing which has been admitted here. Ms. Porch did not admit she did anything wrong until confronted with the evidence. And this evidence was obtained only because of the District's inept ability to recognize what it was. This is the "smoking gun" that one almost never obtains. Furthermore, no one need believe that Ms. Porch presented the information to the Superintendent to affect the election to understand that the appearance of a fair election cannot be established under these circumstances, and the only remedy is to sustain the challenge. It is still my hope that Ms. Porch will realize that CVE cannot move forward as a united union under these circumstances and request the CVE elections committee to sustain the challenge.

Other issues to investigate would include whether anyone assisted Ms. Porch in her prepared statement. It would be unfortunate if CTA continued to involve themselves in CVE's election by assisting only one candidate. Further, it was mentioned by one of the representatives at the council meeting of June 3, 2013, that "extra" ballots were provided to site representatives and that she put those in with the envelope. This is evidence that "extra" ballots were available, perhaps even in the envelopes submitted to CVE. I have provided evidence that Ms. Porch accepted an unsealed envelope filled with ballots. I believe it would not be in keeping with the spirit of the rules of a fair election to even take control of sealed envelopes filled with ballots. It was most definitely a critical error to accept unsealed envelopes. To add to these facts that it would be relatively easy to obtain blank ballots completely destroys the integrity of the election. Imagine that I had taken control of unsealed envelopes during the election and had access to blank extra ballots before the ballots were counted. Whether Ms. Porch or I could ever think of changing ballots is not the point. It simply is not in the spirit of a fair election for ballots to ever be handled in this way. The membership cannot have confidence in the election process given these facts. And it is essential for all members, not just the majority, not just my supporters or Ms. Porch's supporters, to have confidence in the election process. For this reason, this error also alone is enough to sustain the challenge.

Thank you for your consideration of these matters. Sincerely,

Manuel Yvellez

Campaign Flyer

Original Declaration of Candidacy Speech

I have declared my candidacy for President of CVE. I do not relish the idea of leaving the classroom as I still love teaching, even after 15 years. I hope, if elected, that I will eventually return to teaching. For now, however, I see it as my responsibility to establish a strong voice for teachers in the district. We need a voice to not only protect our interests, but the interests of our students because I do not believe that the District recognizes that teachers are in the best position to improve education, not the administration or university professors. Unfortunately, we currently have no voice, except perhaps as one teacher put it at the District Board meeting: we have a simple pattern of us requesting and the District denying.

I have watched our organization carefully this year, and I still do not even see an agenda of priorities, much less a strategy or plan to achieve objectives. At a meeting in early 2013, I was told by my site rep that CVE wanted to know what issues were important to us; more than halfway through the year, my union does not know what issues are important to the membership? I do not question the commitment of the current leadership and am amazed how some have continued the frustrating task of negotiating without any leverage to bargain with. This is not really negotiating; this is pleading. I am not convinced, on the other hand, that CTA has helped us with local issues as much as they could considering the amount of money we send them (I believe Jennifer told me that they get about 65% of our dues which should be about $1 million [$1200 x 1300 members x .65].

Despite contrary comments which I would generously describe as overly optimistic, I see a union in decline and mired in apathy. This experiment in self-government is failing. I believe that one reason is that the average teacher feels divorced from having an impact. We have a hierarchy of representatives and board members who do not really have time to follow the bi-laws on constantly polling members' opinions on issues. Many members have long-since stopped coming to meetings with their representatives, and there are a significant number of schools without a representative (How are their voices being heard?). Without an ability to quickly have a say, I think members feel less connected to our organization. This is the democratic deal; we agree as a group with similar interests to pursue those interests in the direction of the will of the majority in exchange for having our voice heard in the market place of ideas before things are decided. We are about 1300 well-educated people who I believe would be well-suited to politely debating issues, often in a convenient online forum, and then deciding matters with a direct vote. I think this kind of participation and decision-making could make it OUR union again.

I also believe that teachers feel rather resigned to the outcomes of union/district relations because it has been so long since we actually effectively asserted ourselves. One of my site representatives told me that during the rep training it was explained that CVE has not challenged the District through arbitration (the informal and relatively inexpensive forum to enforce provisions of the contract) in about five years. I also don't think that they have taken an issue before the Public Employment Relations Board, the other inexpensive referee of our disputes, during that time. So the District has been unhindered in asserting itself in basically any way it pleases. 

My administration would analyze the legal issues surrounding temporary contracts (Why do we have teachers working 7 years with a "temporary" contract?; Is this legal?), work requirements ("Non-negotiables" usually involving class environment) which essentially force work beyond the contract hours, the District's duty to consult with the union before implementing curricular changes (Yes, there actually is both a statutory and contractual duty to consult), what protections are available to prevent teachers being forced to develop curricula or materials, and to what degree if any can the District use its flawed data analysis of what makes a "highly effective" teacher in making employment decisions. We would mount a legal challenge whenever reasonable to attempt to protect our interests. We would finally show the District that we are capable of defending our interests.

To address compensation, I believe that we need a lot more information and a way to share that information with the community. Teachers have to realize that every time the District makes major expenditures like handing out hundreds of iPads or hiring hundreds of subs so teachers can go hear the unproven strategy of the month, we are saying that those items are more important than teacher compensation. Teachers need to be aware of the exact costs and make an independent cost/benefit analysis to share with parents. The District, like most districts, will say that their administration costs are low. But I see tons of wasted money that could have been spent to give teaching professionals a sense that they are valued and that this is a career that they can commit to

If you want more of the same organization that we have seen over the last five years, vote for someone else. We put out about $1.5 million in union dues. Right now only a very small portion of that is at our disposal. But for that kind of money, we should have a big chair at the table. We should have our position fully represented in the media and at District board meetings. We should have a proven track record of enforcing our statutory and contractual rights. We should have an organization that allows us to have the entire membership hear our concerns and debate our ideas for improving education and our interests. If you are ready to get started building that kind of organization, I would appreciate your vote.

                        Manuel Yvellez

Boalt Hall School of Law, UC Berkeley 89'


Law Firm of Stutz, Gallagher, and Artiano 89' - 91'

Research Attorney II, San Diego Superior Court 91' - 94'


Homemaker / Student 94' - 98'


Teacher, CVESD, 98' - Present