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CTA praises Fallbrook for control of board

Fallbrook falls in with union’s state plan

The California Teacher Association (union), reinforcing a mission that they are making increasingly clear statewide – that local chapters need to get board members elected that are union-sympathetic for maximum salary and benefit increases and get rid of superintendents who enforce rules with teachers – recognized the Fallbrook High School chapter for the successful takeover of the local school board majority in the organization’s monthly magazine, Educator.

Written by Sherry Posnick-Goodwin, the story, entitled “Organizing gets results, cures apathy in Fallbrook,” which appeared in the May 2007 edition (Volume 11, Issue 8), boasted that “the school board and superintendent didn’t see it coming.”

Citing Fallbrook High School Teachers Association President Tim Oder as the source of information, the article talks about Fallbrook teachers being angry over contract negotiations concerning raises in salary and benefits.

It was this, the writer reports, that propelled the Fallbrook chapter to “declare war and rally the troops.”

Oder, the writer stated, said part-time science and computer teacher Webber J. (Joe) Comella served as the campaign chairperson to get the three union-sponsored candidates elected.

As stated in the article, “In no time at all, [Comella] sought advice from politically active chapters, started a political action committee, got a tax ID number, set up a bank account, found a printer and scheduled regular meetings.”

In a Fictitious Business Name Statement filed May 26, 2006, with the County of San Diego Recorder/County Clerk’s office, The Fallbrook Teachers Association Political Action Committee (FTA PAC) was activated.

The three individuals listed as the leaders of the committee were Comella of Fallbrook, John Coleman of Escondido and Tim Oder of Encinitas.

The writer goes on to report that “each of the 150 chapter members was asked to contribute $99 to the cause and nearly all of them said yes.”

It was disclosed that CTA’s political action committee, CTA/ABC, contributed “nearly $8,000” from the state level and that it wasn’t long before the group had $17,000 “in the bank” to help get their candidates elected.

The selection process of candidates was exposed by Posnick-Goodwin.

“They decided on Marc Steffler, a former principal who had left the district in disgust and whose wife still teaches at the school and coaches its cheerleaders; Bill O’Connor, a retired teacher from another district; and Michael Schulte, a businessman who is also married to a teacher.”

Campus sources said Steffler was disgruntled because he desired a different job in the district that the superintendent did not give him and that Schulte’s wife, Heather, had recently resigned from the position of athletic director after demands she had made were not met.

It appears that two of the three union-backed candidates may have had scores to settle with the by-the-book superintendent of ten years, Tom Anthony.

Posnick-Goodwin explained that organizers took the initials of the candidates last names – SOS – and developed the “Save Our Schools” slogan. The campaign strategy was to convince voters that the students were on a slippery slope educationally due to poor board decisions.

To promote their candidates, Posnick-Goodwin said a local real estate company was “convinced” to allow the committee to use its office for making phone calls. Money from state union coffers helped again.

“With CTA’s contribution of 10 cell phones, the bank was soon booming,” Posnick-Goodwin wrote. “Sympathetic parents and the candidates themselves also worked the phones, eventually reaching just about all of the 27,000 registered voters in Fallbrook.”

After the union successfully got their three candidates elected who would comprise the new board majority, the writer reported the coup, “With a new board in place…it could provide an increase of more than 12 percent over the next three years” for district employees.

Mission accomplished, in other words.

For longtime union advocate Oder, who used to complain regularly at district board meetings before the new board majority was elected, the serious business of education is likened boastfully to a game.

“I’m an old coach,” Posnick-Goodwin quotes Oder as saying, “and this was as much fun as winning a big football game.”

 

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