To date, the controversy over the district’s pulling the VSA (variable service agreement) for Volleyball Coach Julie Crawford has generated many questions and much frustration in the community. Adding fuel to the fire was the revelation that the district spent over $22,000 on a nearly 100 hour investigation into a coach’s decision about a player who happened to be the daughter of a school board member.
That investigation generated a seemingly nuanced finding, in which the investigator apparently concluded it was “more likely than not” that the coach’s decision was “at least in part influenced” by her dispute with the school board member.
While there are many specific questions in the community, many of those involve sensitive and confidential personnel matters that school board members and personnel are precluded from answering. Many of the 18 main questions and followups that the Vanguard did pose to Board President Gina Daleiden are procedural, and we should note that Ms. Daleiden went out of her way to answer questions as directly as possible, but she did have to clear many with district legal counsel.
One of the key questions that arose last night after the Vanguard ran the story regarding the $22,000 in expenditures on the 100 hour investigation is how often these investigations occur, whether the district spends this much typically on an investigation and, if not, how much do they typically spend.
For the most part, the Board never sees most investigations, as they get handled administratively and the board generally only gets involved if and when there is an appeal.
Ms. Daleiden did state on the record that “there are different types and levels of investigation.”
“Generally speaking, you might imagine that when an investigation involves a Board Member or a top administrator, it really needs to be done by someone outside the DO (district office) rather than internally,” she said. “The nature of the complaint might also necessitate an outside person or an attorney/professional investigator. It does very much depend on the individual case.”
For the ease of understanding the first portion of questions that Gina Daleiden answers, we will use a Q&A format. It is important though to remember that where she avoids direct answers, she may have legal constraints that prevent her from answering as much as perhaps she would like. The way she was able to answer many of the questions was to avoid talking about the specifics of this case. These are the answers to the first four questions.
Vanguard: Who ordered the investigation and determined who would be the investigator?
Gina Daleiden: “In any complaint process, once the District receives a formal written complaint, the District administration must determine which complaint policy applies and who is appropriate and available to investigate to some extent. Investigations are often conducted by personnel within the District, by general counsel to the District, or by other investigation professionals like an attorney or a private investigator.”
Vanguard: Who is entitled to have access to either “the report” or a summary of the report? Do you see conflicts between the investigator and other work that they have performed?
Gina Daleiden: “Because the Board itself may, in any given case, ultimately have to act in a quasi-judicial role and impartially consider the case, details or even the existence of various complaints are usually not shared with the Board until an appeal is requested. Once the Board decides to grant an appeal, the Board may access the report and relevant material. Because the District endeavors to protect the privacy rights of employees and students, investigation documents are often deemed ‘confidential’ because they contain personnel or student information that should not be released to the public. Investigation documents may also be privileged from release to the public on other grounds, such as attorney-client communication.
“In terms of specifics on the case you are referencing, the Board has yet to go through all of the relevant material and detail, and so at this time I do not, as an individual Board Member, have an opinion about possible conflicts.”
Vanguard: Would the complainant receive a copy of the report or a letter from the district HR Administrator?
Gina Daleiden: “The District provides the complainant and the respondent with correspondence regarding the results of the investigation, including the factual findings, conclusions (if any), and the next steps in the process. “
Vanguard: Would that document be considered a personnel document?
Gina Daleiden: “The District has an obligation to protect confidential personnel matters, confidential student matters, attorney-client communications, and the deliberative process. Investigation documents are often deemed ‘confidential’ because they contain personnel or student information that should not be released to the public. Each document is unique and is handled on a case-by-case basis at the administrative level.”
For more detail, see the DJUSD Administrative Regulations listed here:
Gina Daleiden later added, “In the next few days, I expect the Board to have further detail from counsel about the appeal process and how and when we will access detailed information about this current complaint/appeal.”
As we reported yesterday, on Sunday we learned that Ron Duer and Jordan Friend have taken over the team on an interim basis. But Rob Cole was apparently told by district administrators that he would be the interim coach and then the district changed its mind.
According to one source that asked to be anonymous, the Vanguard learned that Mr. Cole has close ties to Nancy Peterson and coached her kids in Sacramento.
Mr. Cole was quoted in the paper having believed he was offered and would receive that position; however, by the end of the day the district went with Ron Duer and Jordan Friend.
Mr. Duer said, “Jordan Friend and I are co-interim coaches until Julie gets her job back.”
Board President Gina Daleiden told the Vanguard late Tuesday, “It’s important to remember that employees are not ‘hired’ until the Board votes to approve employment.”
She explained that the hiring process for coach includes screening, panel interview, reference checks and fingerprinting. She said, “Information is gathered at each stage in order to inform employment decisions.”
She added, “It is not uncommon that an offer of employment is withdrawn if there are legitimate reasons. In this instance those legitimate reasons did not come to the attention of our staff until after the employment offer had been made.”
The Vanguard will receive additional responses and publish those accordingly.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Vanguard: For more detail, see the DJUSD Administrative Regulations listed here:
Source
Nancy Peterson ran as a candidate that was interested in educational equity for those less fortunate and falling behind as a result of race, poverty or cultural dynamics. Most of her time on the board has been spent mired in a mess that smacks of privilege for her own family. $22,000 would buy a lot of computers or classroom aide support. I guess all students are equal in her view but a few are more equal.
Add in the time for staff, managers, senior manager, and in-house council to review and communicate about this reserve player losing her team slot, and this whole fiasco might have cost the citizens of Davis more than $100,000.
More difficult to calculate are the “opportunity costs” involved. What if all of these individuals each had 2 more hours a day, 5 days a week, for 2 or 3 months, to work with at-risk students. That is the true travesty.
I appreciate Gina being willing to answer questions, but I didn’t get much from her answers….I would especially invite questions regarding the Board’s role and ethics….and the Board’s role in assessing competence of administrations in handling these matters.
Just remember she’s only answered four of eighteen questions so far.
If my child was cut from a team without a reasonable explanation, I would have filed a complaint too.
You’re not on the school board.
Conversation that should have happened.
“Dad, she cut me from the team!”
“Oh, man, that’s really too bad. I’m so sorry. I wish we could do something about it, but since your mom’s on the school board it would look like a conflict of interest if we got involved. Maybe there’s another sport you could play. I know, it doesn’t seem fair, but that’s what’s best for everyone.”
Your persistent defense of the utterly indefensible is amazing.
In fact, I cannot believe this is a discussion you would have had with your child, based on your past descriptions of how you’ve handled your own dealings with the school district. My impression is that you feel the education of the children comes first and that you’ve acted on that belief.
You would willingly accept a school coach cutting your child in retaliation for what your wife did as a school board member? You’re fine with the district treating student athletes so unfairly, just let such a practice continue without speaking up.
You and David argue that a student’s well being and a family’s complaint rights outlined in district policy no longer should apply once one parent is elected to the school board? That school employees should get free shots at children of board members they dislike?
“Best for everyone?” Maybe for the screwed up adults involved.
I consider high school athletics very unimportant, that being on a team is a privilege, and that coaches have — and should have — a great deal of latitude as to who is on the team. Unlike you, I don’t remotely believe that “the district treat(s) student athletes so unfairly.” I frankly find it amazing that anybody cares this much about volleyball. There are other sports, other coaches, and other ways to enrich your high school experience.
I think you are way off the mark, completely and totally, in your relentless defense of the actions of the Petersons. Since you post anonymously, I have to assume that you are a friend of the family.
Don, your two answers above help me understand your perspective very well. It is a perspective that is held by a substantial portion of the nation’s population. I doubt Davis is any different from the rest of the Nation. For the most part I agree with your perspective. Call it the “suck it up buttercup” perspective. Life gives us all setbacks/challenges and situations like the one that the Petersons’ daughter experienced prepare each of us for dealing with similar setbacks/challenges that come in the future.
That same perspective is precisely why I oppose non-academic intra-district transfers. The personal challenges a student may have within their academic learning environment are opportunities to grow their personal character.
And, as noted before, any policy based on your opposition to “non-academic intra-district transfers” would be very harmful to individuals, and would have destroyed my child’s academic outcomes, as well as that of other individuals that I know. But I don’t expect you ever to change your position in this regard, nor am I surprised that you chose to inject it into this thread. You simply have no idea what you are talking about on this topic.
but a lot of people consider high school athletics very important – hence the amount of coverage in what amounts to a coaches decision to cut a player. while i may agree with your point mostly, i have trouble reconciling your individual value judgment with community standards.
besides this ends up being a far more important issue when you consider conflicts of interest and abuse of power.
How many players get cut across the various sports options every year in DJUSD? What criteria do the coaches use? Is it simply stats, or are there subjective criteria involved? How do the other coaches feel about this kind of micro-managing of their decisions-making processes? How many different sports are available, team and club and what-not, for a student to choose from?
I understand that sports can teach kids lots of valuable lessons. This one is teaching some pretty murky lessons, I’d say.
PE is important… competitive teams playing other schools for ‘glory and honor’, not so much in my opinion. Perhaps another solution, moving forward, is to get rid of the team sports program, and redirect the funds and efforts to physical education for everyone, more spending for resources to promote the arts (for ALL students), industrial arts (again, for all), ‘core stubjects’ deferred maintenance, capital improvement, and/or reduction of parcel taxes. Please note I specifically did not include salary increases, but would definitely make sure basic medical/dental was covered.
I wonder how much money would be freed up by eliminating all the “professional HS” sports programs.
This is the best reform of policy and use of funds suggestion, I’ve read in the entire discussion.
By that logic, should we also remove the competitive orchestra and band programs which require auditions to join and replace them with general music classes which could benefit all students? Replace any program or class that costs the district money and benefits a handful of students with simpler programs that benefit everyone?
Competitive sports provide important opportunities for kids to develop self-confidence and a sense of identity that’s not tied to academics. Sure, the academic stars don’t need that avenue so much, but there are a lot of kids for whom sports make the rest of the school program palatable.
I wouldn’t object to some budget analysis to ensure a rational balance between the various academic and non-academic programs, but calling for elimination ignores the whole student.
I also wouldn’t object to the elimination of excessively dangerous sports like football, which I think is going the way of the dodo eventually as a result of liability exposure. But then we’re a baseball family, not a football family. 🙂
Well, there the difference. I consider it important how district employees treat students in our schools as important, whether it’s in the classroom, gym, shop, cafeteria or principal’s office.
You misrepresent my questions about how you suggest you’d deal with the situation for which you provide the dialogue “that should have happened.” Are you really saying that you’d remain silent if you felt illegal retaliation was involved with your own child?
It helps to understand that you feel high school athletics is “very unimportant.” Still, they’re there and the “privilege” to belong should be determined on a fair basis for all.
Coaches do have “a great deal of latitude”–as long as it doesn’t devolve into inappropriate biases that violate school policy.
Full disclosure about the Vanguard moderator’s snarky comment, assuming that I “must be a friend of the (Peterson) family”: absolutely wrong. I’ve never even met any of the parties in this drama.
I’d hope that you would weigh comments on their content rather than whether they come from a pseudonym poster.
Time for you move next to attack secret poster TrueBlueDevil whose “relentless defense of the actions” of the coach have been filled with allegations against players and baseless misinformation.
It’s unclear if the athlete and/or the parents contacted the coach, to ask for an explanation, but I see no evidence that this occurred, per the procedures outlined elsewhere. It is unclear whether the next steps, following procedures, were followed either. From what I’ve seen written, it appears the “nuclear option” or “power play” kicked in immediately. That is just wrong and inappropriate, if that is what occurred.
The Enterprise story described an administration meeting with Dr. Peterson, Coach Crawford and others in an attempt to resolve the issues. After this fell apart, Dr. Peterson filed a complaint.
In the broader interest of the community that Nancy Peterson serves, this may have been a good place to drop it.
If they were unwilling to do so, it may have been the time to resign from the school board.
Yet the first step was to have a disussion with the coach. No evidence I’ve seen to date that discussion was reqested, or took place. That’s a foul.
Illegal? No, I wouldn’t remain silent. You believe the coach acted illegally?
So, what method is ‘fair’? Only an objective measure? On that basis, we could just have a computer determine the team roster.
Of course, you wouldn’t remain silent. But that’s what you say Dr. Peterson should have done when he believed the coach acted illegally (or in violation of DJUSD policies)
No, I don’t know if the coach cut the player out of spite. But, that’s the complaint and that’s what the district investigation apparently determined (to the administration’s satisfaction).
What’s “fair” for students? No need for a computer, just don’t use prohibited considerations to make selections.
Using race isn’t fair. Being pissed at a player’s parent isn’t a fair contribution to player evaluations.
This isn’t rocket science.
Is the concept that the “cut” was retaliation truly supported?
Funny, I keep waiting for the Coach Crawford / Bobby Knight meltdown scenario to become public, but all I read and see is that the Peterson family is still whining from the decisions from last summer. I read the stories last summer, and they smelled. They were loaded for bear from that point.
I think the more interesting items to me were over 20 student-athletes showing up to support their coach at a 7 AM meeting, as well as parents. The Blue Devil student newspaper included 4 video clips that were telling to me. Second to this is maxpreps and the statistics it presents.
I’m sure that at some point, Coach Crawford may have raised her voice, or had some manifestations of the stress that she has been under for over a year. She is human, after all. But I value loyalty, respect, hard work, and commitment, and she has apparently put together several excellent volleyball teams and true team unity. I have seen no Bobby Knight meltdown, maybe one is hidden in the double secret report.
But I have read where Mrs. Peterson wanted an assistant coach fired from the previous coachs’ staff, and then Coach Crawford’s staff. How presumptuous and overbearing. If this is true, then Coach Crawford would be at minimum the 3rd coach she has wanted removed in a short period of time.
Nuances keep getting revealed. The recent line is whether the Peterson’s used lower-level conflict resolution options. It appears that they may have gone for the nuclear option (another poster’s term), which makes sense given their unresolved bitterness and seeming sense of entitlement.
But I guess given your opinion, you feel that the assistant coaches and 20+ players are part of some grand conspiracy?
I am all for standing up for what is right. But at some point it’s not worth the price tag. I would not be okay with the district spending $22,000 to decide if my child was unfairly cut from a team, even if I knew I was right.
” I consider it important how district employees treat students in our schools as important, whether it’s in the classroom, gym, shop, cafeteria or principal’s office.”
I agree!
I’m not sure there is much to disagree about in this statement.
I think the key point you are missing here is that Peterson is trying to have it both ways – she is trying to be a school board member and a parent. There are times when those two roles conflict and once she decided to not only vote no but issue a strong statement, she was better served sending her daughter to Sacramento playing volleyball on a sports club.
I understand the point you keep making.
I think the key point you won’t acknowledge is that this is a question about whether Coach Crawford engaged in retaliation by cutting the student athlete from the team.
Of course, you’re correct that the coach wouldn’t have had the chance to get even with the family this way if the daughter had decided to try out for another team in Sacramento. Or, applied for transfer to another school. Or….
And, of course, we also wouldn’t have been in this fix if the coach hadn’t cut the student from the team, right?
There are all kinds of options different people could have taken. But, here we are.
And somebody should acknowledge is whether the appropriate ‘lower drama’ remedies were sought, prior to the “formal” complaint. In my opinion, that is crucial information before coming to judgement either way.
I understand that. But when Nancy Peterson made those comments about her child’s coach, she put everyone into an awkward position. And that started the cascade of events. As you know, I’m much more concerned about official conduct by elected and upper administrators than whatever the coach did. That’s not totally dismiss her role in this, but it’s to understand the nature of the power discrepency.
Well, it must be difficult if you can’t accept that the school district is dealing with the official conduct of the coach at this point.
A “power discrepancy” also can happen at a lower level than is within view if you only look at the top. Between a coach and a student, for example.
Sure, Nancy Peterson “put everyone into an awkward position” when she made her board meeting comments. But, that wouldn’t justify the coach cutting her daughter two months later, would it?
I never said anything like what you suggest, I only clarified where my concern lies.
“I think the key point you won’t acknowledge is that this is a question about whether Coach Crawford engaged in retaliation by cutting the student athlete from the team.”
I guess where I differ with you is that I believe “there is a question” about whether there was retaliation, but I don’t believe “this” as in “this controversy” is about that.
“we also wouldn’t have been in this fix if the coach hadn’t cut the student from the team, right?”
Essentially what you’re suggesting is that once Board Member Nancy Peterson issued her statement, Coach Crawford could not have cut her. That problem I think illustrates that the real origin of this problem was not at the point where the player was cut, but rather at the point where Nancy Peterson believed she had the right to publicly criticize a district employee and then send her daughter to play for that district employee. To me that is the issue at hand and everything else flowed that flawed decision.
So, you’re ignoring the issue at hand (Coach Crawford’s appeal) in order to place blame on the board member for her unwise official actions almost a year ago.
We definitely are looking at two controversies here. Your’s is old and mine is current.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that Ms. Peterson’s griping about the coach somehow protects her daughter from having to compete fairly in the future.
You keep saying that Ms. Peterson “sent her daughter to play” as though that’s an indictment and without considering that the decision might have been the daughter’s alone.
But, consider the flip side of your argument. Once the early dispute happened, should the coach be allowed to cut a player to retaliate for the mother-board member’s actions?
That is the allegation/complaint that the district evaluated. Now, the board gets to decide whether the decision not to rehire the coach should be reversed.
First I’m not ignoring anything, but I am more concerned about the conduct of an elected official than a coach and believe that the elected official precipitated this.
It is an indictment and at the moment that Nancy criticized the coach publicly, she took the decision out of her daughter’s hands.
The coach has to be able to do her job – which is to make sure the team is competitive and that means she has to have the ability to decide who plays and who doesn’t.
To me the far more important question is the conduct of Peterson rather than whether the board decides to rehire the coach. But I recognize I’m in the minority on that point.
Thank you for your logic, David. If the well was poisoned last year, and now we are served bad water this winter (from said well), do we blame the wait staff? Or do we blame the person who spiked the well?
Recent history has proven that Coach Crawford excels at her sport. Proof of this are her awards from the league. Her assistants support her wholeheartedly, and her players almost unanimously support her. Before the Power Play was unleashed by a well-known broker, her direct superiors were also supportive.
If we are to believe Nancy Peterson, is everyone else that blind? And as a well-educated individual, why didn’t she follow the set protocol?
Please let us not forget that this situation has been going on for the last 4 years. It was just the last three volleyball seasons that it became public because it was time to renew coaching vas’s (this just so happens to be the same time our newest board member was voted in). Lets not forget each time a large number of people have spoken out in support of Coach Crawford, not just once, but every time her credibility has been questioned.
In fact we know that this board member continually was showing her unhappiness (verbal and non verbal) toward Coach Crawford for the last four years and continually not getting her way (the removal of one head coach from the program and then the removal of Coach Crawford).
In my opinion, all the people who have stood up for themselves when they have been bullied in this situation have taken the heat, when in fact we should be reprimanding the one person doing the actual bullying.
How do I know this? I have been watching it first hand from the very start. It is quite disturbing what has gone on, how it was allowed to continue to happen, and how Coach Crawford has been treated horribly both privately and publicly before and even worse after the election .
This is not new information, however I just don’t understand why it is so hard for people to believe. This is and has been happening for quite awhile folks, its time to stand up to it.
If you have witnessed injustices I encourage you to stand up and speak out against them. Doing so anonymously lessens the credibility of your statements. You say its time to stand up, I suggest you lead by example.
sorry my name didn’t originally post.
I have said this over and over to the ALL levels of administration and nothing was done. I was told “we know she does stuff like this but there is nothing we can do about it”
I actually filed a formal complaint against Nancy for bullying and harassment last school year and it was investigated by none other than alex sperry. He sided in favor of nancy.
Sorry Leigh, I’m getting all the “blue devil” name mixed up.
I guess this is the $22,000 question? Hope the answer was worth it.
Define reasonable. One of the handbooks states that the decisions on team makeup are the responsibility of the coach. UC Davis had a men’s basketball player in the D2 days who was 6’11” and played varsity for 3 years. He never played basketball in high school because the coach cut him.
unfortunately we are probably never going to know if it was reasonable, given it took 72 pages and 100 hours, we at least can be assured it might be thorough.
with all due respect in my opinion there is a reasonable explanation. However, every single time that explanation is brought up it is considered attacking an athlete. Just because the parents did not like the outcome of the tryout doesn’t mean that the explanation wasn’t reasonable for the athlete not making the team. It means it was just not reasonable enough for them, so they decided to take it to another level and file a complaint.
True, I agree with you. Coaches also have to think longer term, bringing in younger Blue Devils onto the team to be next years leaders. You’re correct, her objective statistics are listed at maxpreps. Even her ratios, which make the stats proportional, are at the bottom, or next to bottom, for almost every category.
Twenty years from now these families will still recall this ugly mess. Imagine if the good doctor had suggested to his daughter and wife to “cut their losses”, and refocus on some new passions, club volleyball, and college admissions. After the previous mess, they had to know that there would be another very public uproar, and given the delayed notification, the parent (Olga Simons) who suggested this as an ambush doesn’t sound crazy.
http://www.bluedevilhub.com/2014/02/13/school-board-grants-appeal-crawford/
(Four videos from the last public meeting.)
I’m not even convinced that a “reasonable reason” was lacking here. Are the students not “At Will” as are the coaches?
In the Yahoo Sports article, which links to Maxpreps, there are only about 5 comments. There was one comment that was a classic.
Danny: “As a coach myself, I start off with this sentence to the parents on our first parent/coach meeting over dinner ‘I don’t come to your house to tell you how to raise your kids, don’t come to my court and tell me how to coach.’ So far, it has been drama free for the past 15 years. =) Coaching, it’s a thankless job, but I love it. =)”
According to procedure, you and/or the athlete should have talked to the coach LONG before a formal complaint was filed. I’ve seen no evidence of this having occurred.
I do not question the Peterson’s decision to file a complaint. I question the districts decision to pay $22,000 to investigate the complaint.
“David, how much of the cost is for an investigation and how much is for the district to get legal review and advice on proceeding?”
“That question ends up falling into a realm of attorney-client privilege, so if I had asked for more detail, I would have gotten a lot of blacked out portions of documents.”
I am not following you here. My question refers only to the hour/rate columns on the table you’ve been showing called, “District Expenditures on the Investigation of Julie Crawford.” Not questioning anything that would be attorney-client privileged, just trying to gain an understanding of what you’re presenting that’s public information.
Is the title of the table provided by the district or by The Vanguard? Is the white block just a cut-and-paste from the document the district provided? Maybe you could just you post a copy of your request and the district response and provide readers a link?
We’ve expressed concern and outrage that the investigation and 72-page report cost over $22,000, and we’ve concluded that from the table. Does the table reflect only the cost of the investigation itself?