SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- The rhetoric for the upcoming elections for school board for Santa Clara Unified School District has gotten ugly. It also exposes a cultural divide within Santa Clara, between the highly educated and the less educated, between relative newcomers and long-standing families who have been here since “it was all orchards.”

“When it was all orchards” is a phrase one hears a lot in Santa Clara. It’s a poetic expression that conjures up a time long past, when blue collar workers could make a good living working in the orchards, enough to buy a simple house, raise their children, and give them a good education. Before the Santa Clara Valley became the Silicon Valley.

Fast forward a generation, to the Silicon Valley of today. The orchards are gone. A highly educated work force pays a lot more for the same thing, a simple house, and hopefully a good education for their children. But in the Santa Clara Unified School District, a good education is not a given.

An aggressive teachers’ union is part of the problem:

http://santaclarity.com/2014/11/01/michael-hickey-union-b...

http://santaclarity.com/2014/10/27/who-the-teachers-union-wants-on-santa-clara-school-board/

Another issue, a more esoteric one, is pushback, from the “when it was all orchards” camp, resentful of the highly educated newcomers, wanting to cling to that simpler time, when you didn’t need a Phd to buy a house in Santa Clara.

Of course, that’s an editorial oversimplification. There are long established families with advanced degrees and newcomers with blue collar jobs. And you can buy a home without a PhD. But the nastiness leading up to the 2014 school board election begs for a discussion about the cultural divide in Santa Clara.

The question is, does the nastiness amount to slander?

Case in point: Vickie Fairchild, a former psychologist with Santa Clara Unified School District. Fairchild has been on the warpath to unseat school board members Ina Bendis and Chris Koltermann, running a facebook page devoted to that purpose.

Fairchild’s recent allegation is that she was “offered a job as a part time school psychologist (one day a week) in August 2013. When Koltermann found out, she…demanded that I be sent home.” Fairchild goes on to recount how this “firing” led to a lawsuit that ended up costing the school district over $70,000.

The only problem is, Fairchild’s story is untrue. Click here for the real story:

http://santaclarity.com/2014/11/01/the-truth-about-vickie-fairchilds-firing/

The article in the link above outlines how Fairchild never even applied for the job. So there was no firing. Fairchild wanted to be given the job as a crony appointment. Koltermann and Bendis have worked to end the cronyism that plagued Santa Clara Unified School District before they joined the board. This has drawn the ire of the heads of the teachers’ union, which filed a lawsuit on behalf of Fairchild.

Are teachers’ union members aware that untold dollars of their union dues are being spent on behalf of Fairchild, who is not even a member of the union? The school district’s necessary *response* to this lawsuit is what has cost over $70,000.

On one level it’s distressing that Fairchild can so blithely post on facebook things that are just not true, and people believe her. On another level, it’s interesting to see the cultural divide.

One of the responses to Fairchild’s post regarding her supposed firing says “This is definitely NOT putting kids first, and it doesn’t take a BACHELORS, much less a DOCTORATE to DO THE MATH.” Note the angry, outraged all caps. Moreover, note the disdain for higher education. Bendis has a J.D. and an M.D. Koltermann, originally from Wisconsin, has a PhD from Stanford.

Isn’t higher education a good thing? Isn’t a PhD from Stanford something to be admired, rather than demeaned?

The larger question: Does Fairchild’s mudslinging amount to slander? Slander is defined as “the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person’s reputation.”

Surely, Fairchild’s lies about her supposed hiring and firing, and her lies about Koltermann, who is in the middle of a reelection campaign, amount to slander.

Even if one has never watched Real Housewives, enough of what the show is about has filtered down to the mainstream media. Everyone knows the ugly behavior that has made this franchise so popular. And the ugly rhetoric leading up to this school board election reminds one, well, of Real Housewives.

Who are the Real Housewives of Santa Clara? If Bravo were casting the show, surely Vickie Fairchild would be one of the first recruited. However, Fairchild’s fate might be like that of Teresa Giudice, who is on her way to prison after exposing who she really is on “Real Housewives of New Jersey.”

In the end, the real crime is that education in the Santa Clara Unified School District could be better. The money is there, in part because the district is funded not just by personal property taxes, but also by a commercial property tax base. There is just a lack of will. Here are just two examples:

Milliken Elementary is the highest ranking school in the district, highly coveted by students and parents alike. Enrollment is by lottery, and so many children want to enroll that Santa Clara could have a second Milliken-style school. But the teachers’ union is against having another high-performing, Milliken-like elementary school. Why?

Jim Luyau, a former superintendent for Santa Clara Unified School District, has finally been indicted for allegedly writing himself checks from the school district’s coffers:http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_26516866/former-santa-clara-unifed-official-charged-felony-conflict. When this scandal was exposed in 2012, one would have thought the teachers’ union would be against Luyau and his alleged felony. However, the exact opposite happened. The teachers’ union rallied around, and spoke on behalf of Luyau, and berated the school board members (Koltermann and Bendis) who wanted this case properly investigated and perhaps even have the money returned to the school district.

In the end, Santa Clara school district voters need to do some soul searching for the school board election. Even for those who have been sucked into Real Housewives of Santa Clara, starring Vickie Fairchild, clearer heads can prevail come election day.


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