“What’s happening here is terrible, and the kids are the ones who are suffering,” said a source we’ll call Julie Smith, one of several educators who spoke to The Press and asked that for fear of retaliation, their real names not be used. “At this point, I wouldn’t place my dog here. That’s how bad it is.”
The target of the complaints is Turner Special-Education Principal Dr. Barbara Berman, who has served in the County Office of Education since 2001. A public school in the Antioch Unified School District, Turner devotes five of its classrooms to the county’s special-education programs.
Concerns expressed by Smith and several Turner special-education teachers include two recent incidents involving the closing of the special-ed playground and the locking up of classroom tricycles.
The first event occurred Oct. 4, when Berman ordered the playground closed after a student tore a 6 to 8 inch oblong hole in the rubberized surface underneath the tire swing.
“It has come to my attention that a student from Turner Room 1 picked apart a pretty large size hole in the area under the tire swing,” wrote Berman in an e-mail to staff Oct. 4. “No one from Turner Room 1 notified the office that this had happened … as a result, none of the Turner classrooms will be able to use the playground until it is repaired. Also a cost will be involved to repair the playground … Brenda, please use money from the classroom budget for Turner Room 1 to pay for the cost of the repair to the playground.”
Smith said staff did contact the custodian about the hole in the rubberized surface, which the custodian did confirm to The Press. According to Katie Gaines, Berman’s boss and the director of educational services with the county, Berman was off-campus the day of the incident. Gaines said once Berman was made aware that the incident had been properly reported, Berman issued an e-mail on Oct. 9 rescinding the order to take the repairs out of classroom funds and apologized to the teachers, but the playground remained closed.
According to Smith, when one little girl saw that the playground swing had been closed off, she dropped to her knees and began banging her head against the fence.
“It was terrible, absolutely awful,” she said. “She was devastated and we couldn’t make her understand why she couldn’t go in and play.”
The playground remained closed for 20 days and underwent repairs this week.
“The rubberized mat under the tire swing was repaired by our facilities department today,” wrote Gaines in an e-mail to the Press this week. “The repair needs to dry overnight. The tire swing will be open to students tomorrow, Wednesday, Oct. 24.”
Swings are essential tools for students with sensory problems, said Smith. Among other things, they help develop balance, spatial awareness and overall behavior. The swinging motion also has a significant calming affect on students and is critical to their emotional as well as physical wellbeing.
During the period the playground was closed, students did have access to a play structure and the school blacktop, but for many of the students, play and particularly the swing are as essential to their educations as traditional learning.
“Teachers were trying to compensate (for the loss of the swing) themselves by physically swinging the children in the classroom,” said one teacher. “Imagine what that was like.”
Smith remained incredulous. “You tell me why it was necessary to close the playground for a small hole,” said Smith. “The kids can’t understand why it’s closed, and for many of them, that swing is a sensory thing; it’s part of their IEP (Individual Education Plan). Why would you punish the students like that?”
The second incident occurred a few days later. When staff members did not return the student’s tricycles to the storage shed before the 3 p.m. deadline, Berman had the tricycles locked up – in plain sight of the students – for several days. The students, many of whom are nonverbal, were unable to understand why they could see their tricycles but were not allowed to ride them.
“This was the punishment for the staff not putting the bikes away by 3 p.m. – locking them up and not letting the kids use them for a few days,” wrote one teacher to The Press in an e-mail accompanied by a picture of the tricycles. “The custodian put them in a hallway where the kids come to use the restroom.”
Gaines, speaking on behalf of Berman, who did not return calls seeking comment, believes the two incidents were simple cases of miscommunication. “First let me just say that our priority is always the safety and emotional wellbeing of the students,” said Gaines. “Dr. Berman is an experienced special-education educator and administrator … It seems there was some miscommunication; there was nothing punitive about it … I’m satisfied that it’s been taken care of.”
But teachers at Turner feel differently. The relationship between staff and Berman has deteriorated, many say, to the extent that fear of reprisals have teachers fearing for their jobs and the wellbeing of students who have borne the brunt of what they believe is Berman’s lack of communication and inflexibility.
“She just kind of railroads over you; that’s how she is,” said a teacher we’ll call Jane Jones. “She just doesn’t seem to know what we do on a daily basis … she has no idea what goes on here and she just throws out these rules and standards. And when we try to voice our concerns she ignores us or takes it out on us … sure, you can believe we are afraid for our jobs, but we’re more afraid for our students.”
Although Smith has not yet filed charges regarding these incidents, she said she has filed charges with the Department of Labor and the California Labor Board regarding Berman’s handling of staffing, support and overtime pay issues, but according to Peggy Marshburn, chief communications officer with the county, there has been no such notification of charges filed. In the case of the playground and tricycle incidents, if the tire swing or tricycles are included in any of the students IEPs, it’s possible the county could be looking at compliance issues.
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they are out of compliance,” said Jones. “I’d be surprised if they weren’t.”
For the teachers, the endgame could go one of two ways. “I guess we would be happy with either having her gone or seeing some drastic changes in how things are handled,” said Jones. “I mean, we all want things to work out, but at this point it seems impossible.”
In the end, added Smith, it’s all about keeping the focus where it belongs – on the students.
“I guess my core problem with her (Berman) is that she’s all about the rules and not the kids and I’m all about the kids and not the rules,” she said. “The bottom line is that we all love the children and we want what’s best for them. If we can’t give them what they need, then we’ve got a problem. And I think we have a problem.”
1. The staff did not contact the newspaper. The newspaper contacted them. This tells me that an outside agency requested an inquiry.
2. The staff answered honestly which tells me they are so frustrated and demoralized that they have reached the point of enough and CANNOT do this anymore.
3. From thee comments, Ms Berman, the office, and custodial staff appear to create a toxic work place.
4. Parents and staff feel disrespected, devalued, unsupported, and bullied.
5. The staff and parents are afraid of Dr Berman.
6. The staff loves these kids. They want to do the best they can for their kids and they CANNOT do the best for these children if they do not have administrations’ support.
7. As a grandparent of a child with special needs, I can tell you we depend on the teachers, support staff, behaviorists, speech therapists, and psychologists. We all rejoice when our children make the tiniest achievements.
8. The educational services person in charge of this area has badly misjudged this situation.
9. The staff that exposed this should be commended. I hope they won’t be punished for telling the truth. Honesty is such a rare quality these days.
10. DR OVICK, PLEASE DO NOT LET US DOWN, WE ARE COUNTING ON YOU!
Another concerned grandparent.
I think that we are all in agreement that the kids should come first. That’s the easy part.
There seems to be consistent experiential, if anecdotal, notes regarding Berman’s management style. These messages portray a manager who is not well liked; is not considered effective; and is consider punitive. Worse, there appears to be a pattern of reprimand or other punitive actions towards the teachers.
Regarding the bikes… If my child’s teacher needs to spend some extra time with him and does this instead of putting bikes away, that seems to me to be the right behavior. The CorvetteCustodian had the time to bring the bikes inside (for those not “in the know”, the bikes were much closer to the shed where they belong, than the hallway that they were locked up in – right in front of the students restroom) and then to thread the chain through the spokes. It would have taken much less time to put the bikes in the shed. The only reason to lock them up, was to make a point, to be punitive. A good manager would have recognized that the bikes were not put away, and made a determination why – and if the why is taking care of kids (and not laziness or sloth) the manager, Berman, should have figured a way to get the bikes put away to HELP the teacher. Instead, the result was to PUNISH the teacher, and PUNISH the kids.
Regarding locking up the swings… We need to understand that all of the swings are in a single fenced area. The ground has a “rubber” cover to help keep the kids from getting hurt when they fall. At first blush, having the “rubber” damaged could lead to a kid getting hurt. Protecting the kids is pretty important, so locking up the swings (there seems to be a theme in “locking things up” with Berman) could be seen as a good idea. However… the “hole” had a circumference of about 9 inches, the size or a personal pizza, or the area you could cover with an outstretched hand. Kids shoes, up to size 13 are less than 8 inches long. More importantly is how deep the hole was… again, about the depth of a pizza. Have you ever tripped on a pizza? The Theatre of the Absurd Management gets worse… the “hole” was directly beneath the tire swing, you know the type a full size tire (30 inches of so round) suspended on a few chains. Have you ever tripped on a pizza, one that was protected by a heavy duty tire swing? Locking up the swings was not done to protect the kids. Maybe it was to protect the school, to make sure no one tripped on a pizza protected by a swinging tire… Locking up the swings was to punish the teachers. Verman was mad because one of the staff was not diligent enough to make sure that a child did not reach through a swing and drag their hand on the ground (none of us have ever dragged a foot or a hand on the ground while swinging, right? I still remember the sand going through my fingers!). That the child was PLAYING and accidentally tore up a little bit of rubber.. for Berman to be mad at the staff is ridiculous. I’m sure that the custodian could have easily patched the rubber temporally. From what I hear, the repair itself only took an hour… What kind of leader keeps essential tools from employees and kids (the swings) for 20 days? There were simple solutions; the repair took only an hour.
When the poster Pulitzer attacked the writer of the article and the teachers voicing concerns for their anonymity or skill revealed the problem really pretty clearly. The staff is AFRAID of Berman. They are NOT working together in harmony to provide for the kids. There is a clear management vs. teacher vibe going on. There is no upside for the kids when Berman is punishing teachers instead of supporting them.
The really funny thing about this article and the resulting posts? The service providers for kids on the Autism spectrum is a close knit community. We all know each other (even if we make each other crazy). We’re trained to see, and feel, patterns that may not be evident. Our kids cannot always speak and tell us what they need or want. We have to intuit their needs. Our training helps up do that. An important pattern is how people speak (or write). The pacing, the use of words, the phrasing. Many people presume that Antioch Reader is Dr Verman, or a supplicant. The parents of kids who are posting, they write much like they speak, we can easily tell who is whom.
Getting back to the point.. Our kids should come first. Our teachers should come second. Anything that the school district does to disenfranchise the teachers hurts the kids. I don’t want a manager who is so unskilled that she cannot understand that punishing a teacher when it hurts a kid is the wrong thing to do. I don’t want a principal who manages like Berman. Having the teachers be scared for their jobs, being financially punished because kids act like kids, having the custodian waste her time to lock up bikes instead of helping the teacher by putting them away… these are all terrible management choices. As a taxpayer, I don’t want to pay for this type of leadership.
Ultimately I cannot stop with Berman as the “source” of the problem. The one person who is responsible for the quality or leadership and education for our kids is Dr. Joe Ovick. Dr. Ovick is doing a great job with a budget ravaged by the economy. Dr. Ovick's leadership is good, however, he cannot see the results of all of his administrators. I think Dr. Ovick needs to know about this problem. I am writing him today, and I think each of you should as well. You can reach Dr. Ovick at jovick@cccoe.ca.usk12.ca.us.
Lastly, I want the teachers to know that we appreciate you and know how hard you work. As parents we know how hard ONE special needs child is. A classroom full of them? Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Read more: thepress.net - Special education principal under fire
She doesn't give you straight answers, she beats around the bush.
I found it interesting that the article didn't point out any potential safety concerns may have "resulted" in closing the play area.
Hope the Pulitzer committee gives bonus points for ruining the principal's career with a plan to file a complaint by someone who won't give their name. Bravery like that deserves reward. And what a great country when you can ruin someone's professional career without using your name.
And reporting is easier than ever. If you don't want to work hard and report the news you can interview disgruntled people and MAKE news. And you can do it without going outside, in fact, if they are anonymous you dont even have to interview them. Pulitzer!
Looks to me like the reporter worked hard and tried to get answers but someone did not respond.
If it was a safety hazard the staff would not have a problem with is being closed.
There are enough problems already with education in our country and in our communities and Dr. Berman is only creating more. Problems with Dr. Berman's handling of staff, support and overtime pay issues, we don't need this. Dr. Berman is not solving problems or helping our kids she is hurting them and their ability to learn.
I expect more from the Office of Education. Do we need to elect new school board members? Picket the school? What do I as a parent need to do to get the County Office of Education to act and to stop covering their a$$ and protecting Dr. Berman? Sounds like we need a major management change in this school and I demand answers! Turner Elementary School needs to address this in a real way and not cover up for Br. Berman. As parents we must not allow this situation and Dr. Berman's misconduct to be forgotten or ignored.
Dr. Barbara Berman you must go!
What I don't understand is why was the playground or swings closed when it didn't sound like it was big enough tear or out in the open where it would be a problem. Just get it fixed after school and if it needed to be closed for one day for drying, do so with communication of that to teachers and parents.
Second of all if there is a problem with staff putting away trikes etc. don't lock them up. This should be dealt with diciplining the staff not the students.
THEY RAN CHAINS THROUGH THE SPOKES OF THE TIRES AND PLACED MASTER LOCKS ON THEM...FOR THE KIDS TO SEE!
I can't believe some of you people, let's attack the staff, attack the reporter, attack the editor, attack the website and detract from the real issue. NOTHING SHOULD STAND IN THE WAY OF HELPING OUR KIDS! When management no longer supports the kids they need to go! Barbara should be responsible and professional and resign immediately.