Guest Opinion | Why did PUSD Pay Patricia Pinto $57,000 Hush Money?

[Please note: Pasadena Now publishes guest opinions as a service to the community, to allow freedom of expression and diverse points of view the opportunity to reach the public. The authors are solely responsible for the content. Pasadena Now does not edit opinion pieces and is open to receive op/eds from members of the local public on any topic.]

The Pasadena Unified School District paid Roosevelt Elementary School 3rd grade teacher Patricia Pinto $57,000+ hush-money in October, 2013, to induce her to resign from PUSD and to keep her quiet about something at Roosevelt. It’s likely that PUSD paid her to cover-up cheating at Roosevelt – cheating that so far is uninvestigated, unreported, and undisclosed. But we’ll never know for sure unless PUSD conducts a rigorous investigation and declares a disclaimer affidavit amnesty.

There was probably 2011 test cheating with 3rd grade students, not just the reported cheating with Roosevelt 2nd grade students

When Ruelas was Roosevelt’s principal from 2009-2015, it was a Northwest Pasadena school with predominantly Latino students, a substantial number of English-second-language students, and the largest number of students with disabilities among PUSD’s elementary schools.

2011 was when Ruelas achieved the astronomic overall API score of 888, ranking Roosevelt 3rd best in the District and coming close to challenging #1 Sierra Madre and #2 Don Benito. 2011 was also the year that Roosevelt was caught cheating on testing 2nd grade students and had to forfeit its Blue Ribbon school nomination.

The 2011 cheating that was investigated and reported did not include 3rd grade students. But Roosevelt’s 2011 3rd grade scores were even more remarkable than the 2nd grade scores. Even with a high population of English-second-language students, 97% of Roosevelt’s 2011 3d grade students were reported as testing “Proficient” or higher in English and 100% proficient or proficient+ in math. But when the 2011 3rd grade class became Roosevelt’s 2012 4th grade class it tested only 57% proficient or higher in English. When it became the 2013 5th grade class, it tested only 49% proficient or higher in English.

Roosevelt’s pattern of a 3rd grade class with astronomically high test scores followed by a deep score decline the following 2 years is a statistical test-score analysis pattern consistent with cheating on tests in 2011 followed by more valid scores in 2012-2013. The premise underlying such analysis is that in 2011 there was uninvestigated Roosevelt 3rd grade cheating, at least some of which was not done in 2012 – because the school was caught cheating on 2011 2nd grade cheating and therefore had to be more careful in 2012, because the people testing knew that the California Department of Education resumed statewide erasure detection in 2012 and they would get caught if they coached students to erase wrong answers and replace them with right answers as they had done in 2011, and/or because Roosevelt in 2012 wass forced to change its testing coordinator and the new coordinator was cleaner than the old one. The unlikely alternative explanation for the pattern is that the 4th and 5th grade teachers who taught what was the 2011 3rd grade class were really bad teachers – not a very credible explanation.

Our road to getting the PUSD-Pinto Settlement Agreement

As we did our due diligent fact-finding on student testing cheating while Juan Ruelas was Roosevelt’s Principal, we tried to interview past and present Roosevelt teachers and teacher aides. We found pervasive fear that PUSD would come after them if they spoke to us. We were told that PUSD instructed employees not to talk to anyone asking about happenings at Roosevelt. PUSD employees would not even speak with us unless we agreed that we would not attribute anything to them nor disclose who talked to us. By agreeing to those restrictions, we interviewed a few past and present Roosevelt employees.

The persons we could interview explained that former Roosevelt teacher Patricia Pinto refused to sign a statement saying that she was unaware of any cheating at Roosevelt. They said that when she refused, PUSD went after Pinto trying to fire her and that Pinto then left for a different school district. When we couldn’t arrange an interview with Pinto, we guessed there was probably a PUSD-Pinto settlement agreement that sealed her lips. Under California law, a settlement agreement is a public record that PUSD must disclose upon request. So we sought from PUSD any Pinto-PUSD settlement agreements. We obtained a copy of an October, 2013,Pinto-PUSD settlement agreement requiring PUSD to pay Pinto $57,000+.

The PUSD-Pinto Settlement Agreement recited that on August 9, 2013, PUSD “served Pinto with a Notice of Intent to Immediately Suspend and Dismiss with Charges that included charges based on immoral conduct and evident unfitness for service.” In layman’s terms, the recital language meant that PUSD put Pinto on paid administrative leave on August 9, 2013. She probably was given her Skelly due process rights to present a rebuttal. After she did, PUSD was ready to fire her, cut off her pay, prevent her from getting unemployment insurance, and relegate her to appealing her firing while without an income stream. With that leverage against her, PUSD initiated settlement discussions and agreed to pay $57,589.82 to Pinto and her attorney the equivalent of 8 months salary.

PUSD got in exchange Pinto’s resignation and Pinto’s agreement to a confidentiality restriction that muzzles Pinto from talking about both the terms of the Settlement Agreement and about the underlying dispute concerning her PUSD employment that was settled. In other words, PUSD paid her hush-money.

While it is questionable that a contractual “confidentiality” duty against an ex-public employee could legally be enforced to gag her from serving the public interest by disclosing information about public school testing cheating, Pinto and her attorney would reasonably fear that she could be sued for beaching her contract if she talked about why PUSD fired her. So PUSD is getting what it bargained for – Pinto won’t talk.

Roosevelt’s weak remedial measures include counter-productive coercive disclaimer affidavits

We should not jump to the assumption that Pinto herself cheated. Much of Roosevelt’s testing was not done in the classroom. Rather much testing occurred under a testing coordinator’s supervision in a separate testing room. So cheating on tests for 3rd grade students may or may not have occurred in Pinto’s classroom. Roosevelt’s 2011 testing coordinator was a faculty member who our sources describe as Ruelas’ right-hand man. One of PUSD’s remedial measure for 2011 cheating was to replace Roosevelt’s coordinator for the 2012 testing. There was apparently no discipline for the 2011 coordinator, and Ruelas returned him to the testing coordinator position by 2013.

Other appropriate remedial measures were not taken. A good faith investigation would have asked questions like “Have you observed cheating? Have you heard about cheating? Do you have any suspicions that there has been cheating? Etc.” Rather than asking those questions, Ruelas required Roosevelt employees to sign affidavits saying they were unaware of any Roosevelt cheating. While painted as a remedial measure, these disclaimer affidavits were actually a an intimidation tool. The problem with them was that practically everyone at Roosevelt believed there was cheating – some observed it, some were told about it by those who observed it, and some heard about it 3d or 4th or 5th hand. Instead, employees were called into a room to meet alone with Ruelas, handed the affidavit, and asked to sign it. Ruelas’ implicit threat was that if you don’t sign the affidavit, you will be disciplined for cheating or failing to report cheating. Most employees just signed the affidavits rather than risk their jobs. But apparently there were at least two employees who refused to sign. One refuser was an employee who told Ruelas that he would not sign because he observed a teacher (not Pinto) coaching students to change or complete their answers. He was threatened im for not reporting the cheating, and he left the District The other one was 3rd grade teacher Patricia Pinto.

Why would Patricia Pinto refuse to sign the disclaimer affidavit?

We don’t know why Pinto refused to sign the disclaimer affidavit. But every hypothesis related to Roosevelt cheating is a problem for PUSD.

Hypothesis #1 is that Pinto herself cheated on her 2011 3rd grade students’ tests or on her 2012 or 2013 class testing. PUSD’s problem with that hypothesis is that it did not make the legally-required reporting to the CDE that there was cheating in any grade besides 2011’s 2nd grade nor did it report Roosevelt cheating after 2011. If PUSD tried to fire Pinto for herself cheating, it would be an admission that PUSD failed to make legally-mandated cheating reporting to the California Department of Education.

Hypothesis #2 is that Pinto observed someone else cheating and failed to report it. Hypothesis #2 has the same problem as hypothesis #1 – it assumes there was cheating that PUSD was legally-mandated to report but did not.

Hypothesis #3 is that Pinto believed there was cheating and would not sign the affidavit because it falsely represented her beliefs. Hypothesis #3 is a problem for PUSD because it can’t discipline someone for refusing to testify contrary to their beliefs, irrespective of whether the belief is right or wrong.

Hypothesis #4 is that PUSD paid Pinto hush-money for something unrelated to Roosevelt cheating.

Whatever the truth is, past and present PUSD employees believe hypothesis #3 that PUSD retaliated against Pinto because she believed there was cheating at Roosevelt and wouldn’t sign the disclaimer affidavit for that reason. So they are afraid that, if they talk about cheating at Roosevelt, PUSD will use the disclaimer affidavits against them.

An affidavit amnesty is the only road to a meaningful investigation

The coercively-obtained disclaimer affidavits are a fundamental barrier to any meaningful process seeking the truth on the extent of Roosevelt’s cheating. Patricia Pinto has successfully moved on, but the example of PUSD’s perceived retaliation against Pinto chills the nerves of Roosevelt’s past and present employees. Everyone we talked to believes that Pinto fate is a lesson that they will be retaliated against if they tell the truth and that the affidavits they signed will be used as clubs against them if they now speak truthfully.

Of course the first problem is to get Superintendent McDonald and the Board to face up to the fact that the widening ripples over Ruelas will continue to cause institutional damage to PUSD because his critics are not going to disappear. The next problem is that they have to recognize that PUSD’s integrity will be restored only if there is a fair, rigorous, and transparent investigation. And then the Superintendent and the Board need to recognize that no investigator will get to the truth about Roosevelt cheating until the ill-conceived disclaimer affidavits are trashed, the truth is welcomed, and past and present Roosevelt employees are freed from the disclaimer affidavits chokehold. Besides all that, they need to face the fact that Ruelas’ reputation for an educational miracle at Roosevelt is not credible, and Dr. McDonald needs to remove Ruelas as Madison’s principal.

Dale Gronemeier and Skip Hickambottom are local civil rights attorneys who represent the Madison grassroots coalition, the Citizens Council for Empowerment and Justice at Madison.