An insight into how the teacher's unions control local politics.
Long Beach, CA August 18, 2007 - More allegations about Michael Shane Ellis, the Long Beach (CA) School Board Trustee who was subject of previous reports by the Long Beach Press-Telegram. (See previous coverage.)
Ellis was the teachers union candidate who was elected to the school board in 2006. Since then, he has convicted of leaving the scene of a car accident, driving with a suspended license, and, most recently, drunken driving.
NEW ALLEGATIONS: The new allegations were in a letter mailed to about 200 members of the union's Representative Council by a faction of union leaders who want to get rid of Scott McVarish, the current president of the Long Beach Unified teachers' union. McVarish recruited Ellis to run for the school board. Previously Ellis was bargaining unit president of the Centinela Valley Secondary Teachers Association, one of four unions that McVarish served as executive director.
The letter alleges that Ellis and two other teachers were subjects of an investigation in 2003 by Centinela Valley Unified High School District officials into drinking by faculty members while in the presence of students they were supposed to be chaperoning.
What's more, Scott McVarish, who now is the embattled head of the Long Beach Unified teachers' union, got involved, leading to an accusation by the Centinela district's lawyer that he impeded the district's investigation into the incident.The school district's attorney at the time wrote
that McVarish had "purposely disrupted" district interviews with student witnesses who were on the field trip "by convincing students not to cooperate with the district.Each of the students retained the same lawyer who, coincidentally, had in the past represented McVarish's union either directly or through the California Teachers Association.
Recently, union board members sent a letter to teachers telling them that McVarish spent millions to finance the election campaigns of Ellis, for school board and Gerrie Schipske, the union's staff lawyer, for Long Beach City Council. Both were successful.
League of California Women voter information about Gerrie Schipske.
Long Beach Board of Education.
TT - The time to tell voters all this was BEFORE an election.
BACKGROUND: Long Beach is infamous for the vicious beating of three white women by 20 to 40 of black youths last Halloween.
One woman suffered a dozen fractures on her face, and they all got concussions, cuts and bruises and had their jewelry and clothes stolen. The crowd of males and females yelled racial slurs as they punched and kicked the women.They were also beaten with skateboards. The assault left one victim with multiple fractures in her nose and around her eye. She will require surgery to re-position her eye." Nine were found guilty. Eight were found guilty of a hate crime and all nine were sentenced to -- home detention.
