Fullerton High Vice Principal Shuttled Off Campus
The OC Register is reporting that FUHS Vice Principal Joe Abell has been removed from campus and is cooling his heels at District HQ, presumably until the furor dies down about his yanking a student off stage at a school-sponsored “Mr. Fullerton” contest.
Apparently the boy, Kearian Giertz, 17, wandered off the FUHS Indian reservation and made unscripted comments about hoping to find and legally wed the (male) light of his life.
As always, thought of the Friends are welcome. Please try your best to be mature.
This latest development is a bad overreaction. The guy made a mistake and apologized.
On the other hand I’d like to now why we pay some dude six figures plus benefits to babysit a Mr. Fullerton pageant.
Exactly. These administrators are just ambitious teachers put in charge of piddling crap and making a bunch of money – with summers off.
The most despicable aspect of this whole circus is that all of the students’ speaches required pre-approval by school administrators.
speeches with an a.
I use the Urban Dictionary, you illiterate.
In 2008 when the budget first came to light as excessive spending, there were several things removed and canceled to save the district. What I can’t fully comprehend is how admin believes they deserve a six figure salary. If the graduation numbers were increasing as well as GPAs and IQs, then yes, a salary like that would be warranted. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Hell, they could cut the salaries in half and use that money to fix the maintenance of all the high schools in the district. And what seriously chaps my hide is rolling into the parking lot and seeing Mercedes and Jaguars next to a beat up Honda.
I wish I had a video of the event. On one hand, I agree the guy made a mistake and apologized. Kudos to him and the District for doing that. On the other hand, boy, it sure sounds like a monumental mistake and I am curious as to whether or not this individual (whom I know nothing about other than this story) is competent to perform this job.
You ask that as if that is a criteria to work at FHS.
Because the Mercedes and Jaguars belong to the admin and the Honda belongs to a teacher.
I do not concur with this. There are many, many teachers in that district who make six figures. As of the last count that Travis made, 535 employees of both the FJUHS District as well as the Fullerton Elementary District made over $90,000/year in salary without benefits. Teacher’s unions demand to be paid based upon their average performance. The average teacher is not under-paid. If they were, you would not have hundreds lining up to respond to available spots. The finest are certainly under-paid.
well said Chris.
And to add, the under average teacher is over-paid, and there are plenty of those teaching every day.
Bull, NO teacher is underpaid. I work in sales, on commission, effectively self employed, earning straight commission or exactly what I’m worth. Don’t sell something, don’t eat.
These teachers, cops, whoever keep getting paid work or not, effective or not. I know you’ll disagree but few on salaries do an effective job and are worth the money paid usually for little or nothing. End of diatribe.
Joe Abell he is a great person, and yes, the speeches for that event at FUHS had to be turned in for approval before saying them on stage. So, I believe the Administrator was correct for thinking something needed to be done to correct the wrong action of the child, but now realizes the way he did it was not in the “best interest of the child”. So he did apologize, “publicly”, and also considered the child by speaking with him before he went public with his apology. Enough is Enough, this should be over.
Joe Abell is the most gracious and respectable administrator on the FUHS staff. It appalls me that this has now happened, where he had to go somewhere else for “fury” to die down, while others on the staff at FUHS have done and said worse to other students. And, even though parents complained repeatedly in written and verbal form, the complaints fell on deaf ears. I know this from personal experience, and it just saddens my heart that it seems like others have been left alone, and one of the “best” seem to be “hung out to dry”. SICK!
17 is not a child, pretty much anywhere but in this country a 17 yr old is married and working. In this country childhood goes on forever.
Then explain to me why the district is looking for a bail out. And when was the last time you did a campus tour of the high schools? I read reports of maintenance reviews and many were below par. It’s compared to seeing a restaurant with a C grade from health inspectors. And lastly, are you related to Ernie Thompson, long time principal for Jordan Elementary in the Lowell Joint district?
This is hardly the worst conduct by a FJUHSD employee. Or even a FUHS employee. The incompetence and moral bankruptcy is widespread.
FUHS teacher Larry Archey married one of his students when she turned 18 but nobody turned that into a media circus.
I bet Abell never thought he’d be the one bent over a barrel when he rushed on stage.
During the early part of the school year, last year, my son was to be ‘home schooled’ by his special ed teacher who worked at Fullerton High. Time after time, he would have his assistant call me at the last minute to say he couldn’t make it. OK. Teachers can get busy, I understand. Then, one day I decided to go with my son to his high school near our house where this teacher said he would meet him that day for home schooling in the library. As I was sitting in the main office with my son waiting for his teacher, his assistant phones me to say Mr. Booker is at Sonora High and your son is not there yet. REALLY? I told her my son and I are in the office here at Sonora waiting for Mr. Booker and we don’t see him. She calls me back again 5 minutes later to say Mr. Booker is waiting in the library. Then the administrator calls up the library, talks to the librarian who states ‘no one is in this library but me’. The administrator then tells me, if this guy is a teacher with our district (FJUHS) he should know to come to the front office an get a visitors pass.
Needless to say, this teacher, (like many Fullerton cops) lied through his teeth and never showed up.
When I brought this up to Mr. Endlemen, the Director of Special in front of the teacher at our next IEP meeting, he just stared at me as if to say, “So what!” or “You’re crazy!”
That particular meeting was called by the IEP team because they stated my son was failing to show up for his home schooling.
As you can see, this district operates much like it’s police department. When the teachers or staff screw up, they blame the victim; in this case, my son and their superiors, ie. principals, assistant principals, director of special ed aid in the COVER UP.
I wonder if Chris Thompson has any affiliations with FJUHS District and has seen this kind of incompetence before within this district?
Wrong, that is why I asked about his relation to Ernie Thompson. If he is related, I can understand his die hard loyalty to the schools and union. And you are absolutely correct when you compare the teachers union to the police unions. All groomed and conditioned to honor a system which contains no merits any more. I fully comprehend his method of thinking as I was raised in the district and by the district. The difference is I choose to be loyal to my bloodline and not to an institution who protects child molesters and gets paid for it. And what Thompson fails to mention is teachers are not paid solely on performance; a majority of their pay comes from attendance.
I would concur with that La Roo, because I’ve been heavily involved in my son’s schooling since kindergarten and I’ve seen some teachers, not very bright ones and disliked by many students driving Mercedes and BMRs.
For a guy who promotes transparancy you would think Chris would want to be more involved in this topic. But then again, with all the years in the district, he may be amune to the poor management or simply loyal to his long-time career, therefore uncomfortable talking about this.
We’ll wait and see.
WG-I would guess that the reason Mr. Endelmen stared at you silently is there was no way in the world he was going to say anything verbally about the FJUHSD employee in an IEP meeting. I would have been more pointed and ask him what he thought about the situation. Was the IEP being taped by you? You should ALWAYS tape your IEPs, give them 24 hour notice(its the law).Taping is a game changer. These are legal proceedings and to admit you were right is to admit they are wrong and that won’t ever be done in an IEP. Period. Keep in mind the teachers are protected by the all too powerful teachers union. I am sure there was more that happened after you left regarding the teacher lying but you will never know. This is classic IEP behavior by an administrator, they are protecting their legal arses at all times, that is a priority.
If you get nothing from my post..please get this “TAPE RECORD ALL IEPS”! Digital recorders are cheap. Once they know you are taping they will bring their own tape recorder, this is standard protocol.
Thank you for that valuable advice Anon.
I did learn about the importance of recording these IEPs shortly after this meeting for the reasons you mentioned.
I even got an attorney, pro bono thank goodness but this attorney thought Mr. Endelmen was a wonderful reasonable guy, which I do believe he was and is, however it’s frustrating yet somewhat amusing to see how a professional in this high ranking position could ‘freeze up’ when you confront him about one of his teacher’s misdeeds.
The IEP ended up being advantageous overall, since they ended up paying for my son’s residential placement in Utah for over 8 months last year.
It sounds like you’ve been around this IEP thing for some time. Was your child on an IEP or do you work for a district?
Wrong, was wondering was Mr. Booker paid for those days he said your son wasnt there? especially that last one when you and he were waiting for him in the office.
That’s a darn good question Merjoe. My guess is that he wasn’t because he did his regular special ed class from 8:00 to 1:00, then he would ‘plan’ to meet up with my son at 2:00 or 2:30 for an hour, which when he did show up, was only 15 minutes.
This is what sickened me. They blamed my son for not showing up, which he did blow off one or two home schoolings, but that was after Mr. Booker flaked out at least 3 times.
A kid who has difficulty attending school is more than likely to flake out especially after his teacher (authority figure) flakes out.
Geez, these lefty edutards are doing a poor job of gay indoctrination.
Public schools are often a, Liberal, public Union wasteland. Compared to other Countries the USA is way below many Industrialized Nations academically. So much of the money goes to administrators and bureaucracy its ridiculous.
Some of Fullertons Schools do very well.
“If we were to grade the academic performance of the world’s industrialized economies, Singapore, South Korea, and now Shanghai would get an A — the United States would get a C, at best, and in math we’d get an F.”
“…It tested 15-year-olds in 65 of the world’s industrial economies on reading, math, and science. Once again, the United States’ scores were far from the top: 17th in reading, 23rd in science, and 31st in math.”
-Michelle Rhee
http://www.studentsfirst.org/blog/entry/international-study-finds-u.s.-students-far-behind-those-in-other-countries
Its a real sad situation, a Great teacher can teach 3 times as much. But performance can be punished and never rewarded.
I could never understand how kids can be in High School and not be able to read.
It is simple..it’s called Social Promotion, they have been doing it since I was a child in Fullerton (and most everywhere else in the US).
LAUSD recently admited they do it and they won’t be stopping because they have no money (Its all in CALPERS)
http://www.dailynews.com/education/ci_20066331
When the US government spends money, it is estimated that 34% goes to waste fraud and abuse. And that does not include all the sheer stupidity involved at many levels.
What have you personally done as a School Board member to change this?
http://www.ocregister.com/news/abell-349675-school-fullerton.html
When Jeff Spicoli was asked what he thought of Mark “Cutback” Davis or Bob “Jungle Death” Gerrard he replied?
Recall, recall, recall the FUHSD leadership for letting this happen on their watch!!!
Getting desperate, much?
Yes…. I’m almost out of my special brownies! Please send help….pleaseeeeee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd9BMYzScdw
Fullerton school district is a joke. You think that the cops are fleecing the City of Fullerton, do a little investigating and dig into the district. The good old boys club is active and in full operation! If you complain then they label your child, and they suffer. It would be interesting if Chris Thomas put in as much time cleaning up the school district, as he has the recall. The district does nothing to deal with any tracher problems, they just move them around to other schools in the district or to the district office or they become librarians! I have one left to graduate out of the Fullerton district and for that I am truely grateful. I would never recommend any of the high schools to anyone.
“tracher problems”? Didn’t Troy just win some big time competition twentysome years in a row? I don’t think they need your recommendation…just sayin.
It is a Magnet school sucking in the best of the best and pushing most of them off of a cliff with the insane workload and preparing them for what is beyond me. No thanks. Apples and Oranges bony.
The statement that 535 employees of FJUHSD and FSD make over $90,000 is a total lie. I am on that list as making $128,000. I don’t make half that amount. The list was taken from the OC Register and then manipulated. If it was done on purpose or by mistake I don’t know, but Travis was told that is was not accurate but chose not to publish a corrected list.
Oh sure ya do. Just tell the truth. It will set you free.
Troy is the only school anyone cares about at FJUHSD. In fact so much so, the school’s administrators arms now grow directly out of their backs, so they won’t strain their shoulders reaching back to pat themselves. Winning academic awards years in a row should not be the only ruler used to decide the quality of a school.
Open enrolled(outside of Fullerton) students make up the majority of this school. They have two programs that are suitable for education, for the highest of IQs and the lowest of IQs, the school openly cares little about anything that falls in between. I was present for a parent meeting in the gym in front of hundreds of people (I was one of 10 Caucasians) and the Principal stated that if you weren’t a high achiever than you should probably go to FHS. It was insane, my mouth was agape. They don’t want their scores pulled down by typical peer Fullerton resident students.
So Tushboy, which program at Troy did you attend?
We have a gifted student who graduated from Troy with honors and got many scholarship offers and has since graduated from college. If we were to do it again, our student would not have attended Troy. It was our home school.
Wrong Guy,
Just a question. How much do you think we taxpayers have had to pay the FJUHSD school district to support your child over the course of his education? Sounds like he is a special ed kid. We had to pay for him to go to a residential treatment program in Utah? How much have you and your family cost us?
The same amount that we would pay for your son or daughter if they were in need of special education.
Darrell-
Im sure it was way less then was handed over to the 3 monstrosities of Fullerton over the course of decades including their salaries/pensions and perks for napping and arrogance not to mention putting up with their constant happy horsecrap.
Now we have a eugenecist on our hands do we? Special ed kids also have the same seventy five thousand miles of circulatory system that the Margaret Sanger worshippers do as well. DONT GO THERE PAL.
what are you implying darrell, if you have a special needs child they aren’t entitled to FAPE because it costs too much?
You my friend, have major Karma coming your way, and I don’ t think that will be in a good way. I just wish I was around to see it happen. And I am 100% certain you don’t have enough character to apologize to WG when your life has been changed by a special needs child.
I was told that Troy High School has decided to cancel their Mr. Troy event scheduled for June 1st. This is the same type of event that the VP over reacted in regards to an answer. I hope that this is not true and I will be calling the school on Monday to confirm.
The end is coming…if not apparent by this ridiculous thread, then certainly apparent by the demise of society as we watch and wait, do nothing, and blame. Live it up folks. You’ll never see it coming when it hits…