29 January 2000

Subject: Grievances Continue; Request for Forms

Mr. Smith,

I strongly object to any conclusion that my grievances have been resolved, or that the original grievance action has ended. In my letter to Chancellor Gallego on 12 October 1999, I stated: "During this time, my grievances, properly filed on July 12, 1999, have not been addressed appropriately and I have suffered greatly as a result. This letter is a further effort to involve you more directly in solutions which will require a much more organized, thorough, and professional approach than I've encountered thus far."

This letter to the Chancellor continues: "So far, informal resolution has largely failed and my grievances are growing. Assistant Chancellor of Student Services, Lynn Neault, who was selected by Vice President of Instruction, Jim Smith, to serve as Grievance Officer instead of Dean Barbara Penn, has since June extended the trail of neglect on essential matters that so far your administration apparently chooses to ignore . . . . One only has to look at the grievance statements that I've submitted and the district's responses to see the gaping holes in accountability and documented investigative action. I request documentation of progress to date, and to know what further actions are under discussion or underway."

An incident involving Dean St. John and Associate Dean Lyon on the first day of the fall semester 1999, made it painfully clear that the lack of professionalism and abuse has not been checked by my earlier grievance action. This incident left me in shock with a back injury. The physical and emotional toll resulted in my notifying West City Center faculty that I would not be able to attend any of their classes until such time as I sufficiently recover. After a number of weeks, I gradually began attending a few of the classes I had enrolled in on the first day.

Through the end of the semester, I was still not able to regain the momentum I had prior to the above mentioned incident. The letter I received from Ms. Neault, as well as the letter from you, did not begin to address the scope and depth of the grievances, and showed a lack of job commitment. I do not know for certain what kind of district politics was behind the whitewash directed at me, but my letter of 12 October 1999 to Chancellor Gallego was, in part, to see if there was leadership in the District that was above the apparent political foot dragging I was encountering. A previous letter of strong concern to the Chancellor on 27 June 1999 was not answered, but I felt it worthwhile to try again, particularly since I am sure he is relying on you and Ms. Neault to address student issues — and particularly grievances — properly.

Your response to my 27 Jan 2000 e-mail that cited my 12 October 99 letter of complaint to Chancellor Gallego was very upsetting. Did you overlook the last paragraph which reads:

"That my increased concerns regarding the fairness and adequacy of the grievance process apparently did not filter down through the chain of command is very troubling. So troubling, given the circumstances I've outlined above, that I request additional statement of grievance forms be sent to me as soon as possible, along with any instructions regarding continuance of the grievance process already underway."

While I await response from Chancellor Gallego, I would appreciate receiving Statement of Grievance Forms AND Grievance Hearing Request Forms faxed to or otherwise made available to me through the West City Center Office manager or supervisor.

Tom Darling

c.c. Augustine P. Gallego, SDCCD Chancellor
Lynn Neault, Assistant Chancellor of Student Services
Brian Olson, Trustee

Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000
From: Jim Smith RE: Grievances: Request for Continuation of Process
To: "'Tom Darling '"

Mr. Darling,

I have to be in Sacramento tomorrow, but when I return on Wednesday I will consult with Ms. Neault concerning your grievance. Last summer Ms. Neault and I both sent you letters regarding our proposalls for a solution to some of your concerns. You were asked in Ms. Neault's to respond if you felt we had missed anything. You never responded to either of us. It is my opinion that your lack of response ended that process, but I will double check that interpretation with her.

Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000
From: Jim Smith
Subject: RE: Grievance Update Prepared 26 Jan 2000
To: "'edutrue@mailcity.com'"

Mr. Darling,

I spoke with Ms. Neault yesterday and she concurs with my opinion expression to you early in the week that you original grievance has been concluded. If you wish to initiate a new grievance, that is certainly within your rights, but the original action has been concluded.

26 January 2000

Mr. Jim Smith, Vice-President of Instructional Services Educational Cultural Complex 4343 Ocean View Blvd. San Diego, CA 92113

Mr. Jim Smith:

It would be a mistake to assume the patience I have exercised in allowing you and others sufficient time to address my grievances can best be interpreted as clear indication that the grievances have been resolved. Was it not reasonable for me to assume that once I formally submitted my grievances, using proper District protocol, that my grievances would receive prompt and thorough attention? Instead, only a small fraction of my grievances was addressed, and even then not satisfactorily.

Your offer to "work with" Dean St. John on some issues has resulted in little if any improvement in the issues I have raised. Associate Dean Lyon continues his belligerent ways, Otis Williams persists in trying to provoke me, and Associate Dean Grimes has left the Administrative Conference in disarray, expecting a part-time counselor to take over for him. After many meetings with counselor Roy Hernandez, it is apparent that he lacks the clarity, focus, and initiative required to intelligently discuss and adequately explore the issues I've raised. Furthermore, Mr. Hernandez has repeatedly violated confidentiality policy, has been unprepared for or missed meetings, and has allowed the ASB to flounder.

I have provided both Mr. Grimes, and Mr. Hernandez adequate documentation to draw from to assist any serious grievance review and further investigation by Ms. Neault or yourself. I see no indication thus far that either Ms. Neault or you have made a sincere and conscientious attempt at processing this information in ways that will move the grievance process forward in a thorough and efficient manner. To expect even more documentation from me without taking sufficient interest in what I've made available is unfair.

Since the grievances were submitted in July, I have not just been idly sitting by. Firstly, I have watched for signs that documentation provided to Mr. Grimes was being used to further a deeper investigation into incidents and events that took place at West City Center. I have seen neither detailed not incisive reference to many of the key documents that I so carefully prepared and shared with Mr. Grimes and others mentioned. What consideration was given to my grievances regarding Mr. Grimes and Mr. Lyon? Can you understand why I might doubt the degree of professionalism versus internal politics afoot here? Secondly, I have allowed time to observe the extent to which the relatively meager promises you made to "work with" Dean St. John on some of my concerns would pan out. And many of these promises haven't — and there appears to have been a lack of monitoring, and faithful documentation to completion.

Actions and inaction on the part of Ms. Neault and yourself indicate to me that — for the majority of my grievances— you prefer to ignore, brush off, or brush them under — for whatever reasons you may have. Therefore, in my letter to Chancellor Gallego on 12 October 1999, I asked him to personally address the poor response I've received regarding so many issues awaiting further investigation and resolution.

That my increased concerns regarding the fairness and adequacy of the grievance process apparently did not filter down through the chain of command is very troubling. So troubling, given the circumstances I've outlined above, that I request additional statement of grievance forms be sent to me as soon as possible, along with any instructions regarding continuance of the grievance process already underway.

Tom Darling

29 January 2000

Subject: Grievances Continue; Request for Forms

Mr. Smith,

I strongly object to any conclusion that my grievances have been resolved, or that the original grievance action has ended. In my letter to Chancellor Gallego on 12 October 1999, I stated: "During this time, my grievances, properly filed on July 12, 1999, have not been addressed appropriately and I have suffered greatly as a result. This letter is a further effort to involve you more directly in solutions which will require a much more organized, thorough, and professional approach than I've encountered thus far."

This letter to the Chancellor continues: "So far, informal resolution has largely failed and my grievances are growing. Assistant Chancellor of Student Services, Lynn Neault, who was selected by Vice President of Instruction, Jim Smith, to serve as Grievance Officer instead of Dean Barbara Penn, has since June extended the trail of neglect on essential matters that so far your administration apparently chooses to ignore . . . . One only has to look at the grievance statements that I've submitted and the district's responses to see the gaping holes in accountability and documented investigative action. I request documentation of progress to date, and to know what further actions are under discussion or underway."

An incident involving Dean St. John and Associate Dean Lyon on the first day of the fall semester 1999, made it painfully clear that the lack of professionalism and abuse has not been checked by my earlier grievance action. This incident left me in shock with a back injury. The physical and emotional toll resulted in my notifying West City Center faculty that I would not be able to attend any of their classes until such time as I sufficiently recover. After a number of weeks, I gradually began attending a few of the classes I had enrolled in on the first day.

Through the end of the semester, I was still not able to regain the momentum I had prior to the above mentioned incident. The letter I received from Ms. Neault, as well as the letter from you, did not begin to address the scope and depth of the grievances, and showed a lack of job commitment. I do not know for certain what kind of district politics was behind the whitewash directed at me, but my letter of 12 October 1999 to Chancellor Gallego was, in part, to see if there was leadership in the District that was above the apparent political foot dragging I was encountering. A previous letter of strong concern to the Chancellor on 27 June 1999 was not answered, but I felt it worthwhile to try again, particularly since I am sure he is relying on you and Ms. Neault to address student issues — and particularly grievances — properly.

Your response to my 27 Jan 2000 e-mail that cited my 12 October 99 letter of complaint to Chancellor Gallego was very upsetting. Did you overlook the last paragraph which reads:

"That my increased concerns regarding the fairness and adequacy of the grievance process apparently did not filter down through the chain of command is very troubling. So troubling, given the circumstances I've outlined above, that I request additional statement of grievance forms be sent to me as soon as possible, along with any instructions regarding continuance of the grievance process already underway."

While I await response from Chancellor Gallego, I would appreciate receiving Statement of Grievance Forms AND Grievance Hearing Request Forms faxed to or otherwise made available to me through the West City Center Office manager or supervisor.

Tom Darling

c.c. Augustine P. Gallego, SDCCD Chancellor
Lynn Neault, Assistant Chancellor of Student Services
Brian Olson, Trustee

10 February 2000

Mr. Smith

Subject: Unresolved and new grievance issues pertaining to Policy 3100

I respectfully request a response to this e-mail, and my 27 Jan, and 29 Jan 2000 e-mails as soon as possible.

The shock of such a clearly inadequate grievance response on the part of you and Ms. Neault greatly added to my emotional and physical suffering, and showed disregard for the many grievance-related documents made available through Mr. Grimes, Associate Dean, and Mr. Hernandez, West City Center counselor. Ms. Neault was made aware of the conscientious effort I made to document all significant events — despite the District's ongoing lack of sufficient and accurate sharing of documentation. District inattention to response protocol remains problematic and continues to thwart progress on virtually every issue.

I have observed a pattern of disregard for many student-related concerns, and I see this continuing at all levels of SDCCD administration, from the Chancellor's office on down to the counselor level — as in the case of Continuing Education counselors Eric Cuellar (since departed) and Roy Hernandez. Handling of student concerns at the site dean level remains uneven, disorganized, and haphazard, and I continue to be subject to retaliation, such as suffering further false accusations, stonewalling, and punitive use of the campus police. This "messenger" may have had to to drop out of school, as I have done several times in attempts to escape and recover from continued abuse and negligence by District personnel, but the validity and relevance of the "messages" remains. Hopefully, my former full immersion in information tchnology courses can resume provided the grievances I have filed can be resolved.

I don't recall ANY action taken by you or Ms. Neault regarding my grievances concerning Mr. Grimes and Mr. Lyon, and no apparent investigation of the abuses and negligence cited with regard to Dean St. John. For your part, I view your promised actions as woefully inadequate with poor results. I believe you could have determined this yourself with more careful follow-up. To put this process on track, I believe that a first step would be a thorough investigation of the earliest false accusations by West City Center administrators, a matter that Mr. Grimes, Ms. Neault, and yourself have apparently chosen to avoid. Once this is done at sufficient depth to uncover the truth, and factual and procedural errors are acknowledged in writing, the investigative process can address other related issues raised at that time, and finally proceed to subsequent alleged violations of Code 3100 on more solid footing.

Along with lost sleep and disrupted class time, ongoing disregard for the hundreds of hours already spent documenting incidents at West City Center places an unfair burden on me. The negative Impact on my health and educational progress has been so extreme that I alerted Chancellor Gallego on 12 October 1999 (as described in my 29 January 2000 E-mail to you) of the severity of the problems, including the continued failings of District personnel related to the grievances and their resolution. It seemed appropriate for the top administrator to have the opportunity to take any steps he felt necessary to put the handling of my grievances on firmer footing, particularly since, with regard to due process, grievable violations of Code 3100 are currently occurring at top administrative levels within SDCCD administration.

If you and Ms. Neault are unwilling to continue to work on the grievances already submitted and respond to the substantial documentation already provided, I feel there will be no resolution and turnaround in the lack of full compliance with District policy and goals at West City Center. To whom do I submit grievances regarding you and Ms. Neault? Should I forward such grievances to Chancellor Gallego and request assignment of an alternate Grievance Officer, particularly since one of the Chancellor's Cabinet is involved, and my objection to Dean Barbara Penn has already been registered, and remains changed.

An additional concern is the apparent mishandling of documents from the District intended for delivery to me. During the 1999 fall semester Mr. Roy Hernandez indicated that Ms. Neault had sent information regarding my objection to blocked access to public records by the former ASB President at West City Center. Neither my earlier nor more recent request for delivery was successful, and apparently Mr. Hernandez feels he is under no further obligation. Would you please ask Mr. Hernandez to recall what he has done with the documents in question, and to make them available through a regular on-campus staff member as I requested of him?

Unfortunately, Mr. Hernandez appears unwilling to acknowledge his lack of professionalism, and continues to accuse me of not being responsible for my actions. Now really, how can all this careful documentation, attention to policy and protocol strike anyone as irresponsible? I feel that anyone hired for an advisory role as a counselor should be better trained, respect confidentiality, and refrain from deflecting valid complaints with spurious ones — essentially blowing smoke. Despite many efforts to share with him my educational goals, he recently claimed no knowledge of them. I am willing to remind him, if necessary, of my educational goals, once these grievance matters are behind us, and provided he regains my confidence as a counselor and shows a sincere and informed interest in my progress in information technology. Frankly, I feel Mr. Hernandez is badly in need of some of the training available at West City Center, and forgoing it, will limit his effectiveness as a counselor, and his ability to fully appreciate specific training opportunities that exist now as well as emerging program developments which are being further considered as our horizons expand.

I am prompted to ask whether Mr. Hernandez has stated any educational goals of his own. There may be opportunity to receive a direct response from him at our next meeting. To your knowledge, are counselors asked to declare their own continuing education goals as part of either recruitment or evaluation procedures? As a student within SDCCD's Continuing Education division, I trust that such a question is relevant to all District employees, in light of their potential as role models, and the District's encouragement of professional development for its staff. Hopefully, Mr. Hernandez will be happy to share with me his own professional development plans.

I will await further word from you regarding the questions and issues I've raised. I encourage input from others who have an interest in seeing student grievances resolved, and who wish to proactively uphold the mission and goals of the District.

Tom Darling
edutrue@lycos.com

c.c. Brian Olson, SDCCD Trustee; Augustine P. Gallego, SDCCD Chancellor; Lynn Neault, Assistant Chancellor of Student Services; Bobby Wilson, Interim President of Continuing Education; Ortega St. John, West City Center Dean; Barbara Penn, Mid-City Center Dean; Bill Grimes, ECC Associate Dean.

17 Feb 2000

Mr. Jim Smith,

Subject: Unresolved and new grievance issues/District policy compliance

Your responses appear to lack comprehension of what I have been saying and cast doubt on your capacity to discuss matters with clarity and integrity with respect to District policy. There is no need to open the attachment to my 26 Jan 2000 e-mail, because it is only a copy of what appeared in-line; as I stated, the attachment was sent with the thought that it might enhance readability of the in-line text, a common practice. Of real concern is your apparent failure to apprehend what I've stated in-line and your responses show it, both in their brevity and lack of necessary focus.

Just as the most critical content of my grievances was totally ignored, so now the most critical content of my e-mails is being ignored. Your claim to have made timely responses is not credible based on the clearly evasive and obvious incompleteness of your responses. Does any response count as real response?

This pattern of incompleteness and disregard leads me to think that you cannot look in a whole and non-defensive way at valid criticism of yourself or your colleagues. I feel that you are willing to treat students as an underclass — who you apparently feel do not deserve more than your chauvinistic and patronizing effort. Being 55 years of age, I object to your telling me "Listen, son, let me tell you the facts of life," likening me to a "Don Quixote," or a "tempest in a teapot," or telling me I can't do anything to change things because "it's all political."

The poor response by Ms. Neault and yourself to my grievances is evidence to me that you take these grievable violations of Policy 3100 policy by District personnel very lightly — or that you will selectively enforce Policy 3100 in order to avoid potential embarrassment, and to avoid further scrutiny of you and your colleagues. As Ms. Neault said in our only scheduled meeting, "A formal hearing would be ugly."

You and Ms. Neault have aborted due process and chosen to abandon further effort — despite my valid objection already registered. I object to gag orders, false accusations, broken agreements, and retaliation going unaddressed. Considering your history, I obviously doubt whether you and Ms. Neault can be unbiased in handling grievances against both of you, nor would that be appropriate regardless. This was one of the points I raised in my 10 Feb 2000 e-mail to you, which was c.c.'d to a number of your colleagues. Just who can the District select to handle grievances against you and Ms. Neault for aborting the original grievances, rather than using all resources available to resolve them.

I never gave any indication that the original grievances were resolved, nor could they be until they were all fully addressed, which the paper trail shows is far from the case. As I explained earlier, the gap in further discussion during the fall semester was due to the fact that I was going night after night without sleep due to various District employee actions and inactions. When I asked you to intervene in Mr. Lyon's continued retaliation at the start of the semester, you should have been able to recognize this as further evidence of a continuing grudge and your ineffectiveness regarding my grievance against him that cited repeated retaliation, and numerous other violations of Policy 3100.

If you had followed this up further, you would have learned how others had mishandled this situation, including Dean St. John and Mr. Hernandez. You also would have learned that I had to suspend further meetings with Mr. Hernandez and that I submitted a letter to the entire BIT faculty stating my regret that due to continued problems with District personnel, I would be unable to continue classes as hoped. In my case, I believe you have been defensively "not seeing" clearly, rather than "seeing" what you are not looking at. This is not an attribute that gives me confidence in your administrative integrity, competence, or your commitment to still "learning on the job." Even after all your years of District employment, doesn't the "lifelong learning" motto of SDCCD Continuing Education apply to all administrators as well?

Unless otherwise directed, I will comply with your request that I submit any new grievances either directly to you or to the office manager at West City Center. However, I repeat my request to know who will be most appropriate and qualified person to address my grievances against you and Ms. Neault for violation of due process. I have suffered further serious harm because both the full depth and full scope of the original grievances have been ignored. I do not look forward to another administrator handling new grievances against you and Ms. Neault in the same manner in which you have so poorly handled my grievances against Dean St. John, Mr. Grimes, Mr. Lyon, Mr. Williams (custodian), and Mr. Hayes (past ASB President).

I would like to see more authentic unity within SDCCD administrative ranks that embraces the District's Educational Master Plan, Mission and Goals, and Policy 3100 so that students will no longer be treated as an underclass. An informed student body is a respected student body — and we are currently poorly informed and poorly served in the areas my grievances address. Rather than circling the wagons in shared denial and knee-jerk defensiveness, recognize the vision vacuum which exists when District governance policies are blatantly and frequently violated in both word and deed.

Tom Darling
edutrue@mailcity.com

c.c. SDCCD Trustees: Brian E. Olson, Kenneth J. Moser, James B. Mack, Maria Nieto Senour, Evonne Seron Schulze; Augustine P. Gallego, SDCCD Chancellor; Lynn Neault, Assistant Chancellor of Student Services; Bobby Wilson, Interim President of Continuing Education; Ortega St. John, West City Center Dean; Barbara Penn, Mid-City Center Dean; Bill Grimes, ECC Associate Dean.