Madison Elementary School teacher Patricia Guzman was returned to her classroom teaching duties on Feb. 22, but she is subject to a Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) gag order.
Guzman is a 30-year Madison veteran teacher who was the United Pasadena Teachers Union site representative when Superintendent Brian McDonald unilaterally imposed Juan Ruelas as Madison’s principal in May 2015, without a principal selection committee of site stakeholders – while McDonald allowed other schools to have such site selection committees.
At the beginning of the school year, Guzman complained to the teacher’s union President Alvin Nash and Superintendent McDonald about a dispute with Ruelas. After Guzman’s complaint, Ruelas reported that he allegedly observed Guzman physically abusing a student earlier in the day. California law requires reporting child abuse immediately, but Ruelas did not report the alleged abuse for eight hours. Guzman alleges that Ruelas concocted the allegation in retaliation for her complaining about him to Nash and McDonald. The Pasadena Police Department investigated Ruelas’ allegation of child abuse and found that it was “unfounded.” But PUSD put Guzman on paid administrative leave, barred her from the Madison campus, and purported to re-investigate the alleged child abuse incident. Guzman was paid to do nothing for nearly six months. During that time, McDonald suggested that Guzman transfer, but she refused to do so. On the morning of Feb. 22, Guzman triumphantly returned to her classroom after PUSD caved and did not suspend her for any time, nor did they fire nor demote her.
Teacher’s union attorney Eli Eduardo Naduris-Weissman of the Pasadena law firm Rothner, Segall & Greenstone has successfully represented Guzman against PUSD during PUSD’s purported investigation and for her reinstatement.
In January, Nash publicly demanded to the PUSD Board that Guzman be reinstated. Guzman has also been represented by Skip Hickambottom of the Eagle Rock law firm of Gronemeier & Associates, which is also representing the grassroots organization seeking to remove Ruelas as Madison’s principal, the Citizens Council for Empowerment and Justice at Madison.
While imposing no job action discipline on Guzman, PUSD’s Human Resource Director
Kathleen Sanchez has purported to issue a gag order by directing Guzman to “refrain from involving other staff members, parents, or members of the community in your personal disputes with site administration.”
Hickambottom said, “PUSD’s gag-order against Guzman is plainly an illegal restraint of her rights as the site teacher’s union representative to engage in concerted activity with other teachers, with parents, and with interested members of the community to object to Ruelas’ bullying conduct that has created a hostile work environment for Madison teachers. 14 of 21 certificated personnel at Madison have either retired or transferred because of Ruelas’ thuggish administration. PUSD’s gag order attempts to trivialize Guzman’s role as the union’s site representative by characterizing it as a personal dispute with Ruelas; in fact, it is legally-protected concerted activity. We expect that a complaint against PUSD to the California Public Employees Relation Board that the gag order is illegal will be sustained. But in the meantime, Guzman will personally refrain from speaking out in order to avoid giving PUSD’s administration a pretext to resume its harassment of her.”
Hickambottom added that “Guzman’s return to the classroom is a great victory, but paying her to do no work for six months is a shameless squandering of taxpayer money. PUSD’s Board would be well-advised to wake up from its slumber and rein in its out-of-control administration before PERB finds it guilty of an unfair labor practice. My father would never have permitted a PUSD administration to get in a fiasco like PUSD’s Madison debacle.” Hickambottom’s father, Elbie J. Hickambottom, Sr., was a long-time board of education member and its president before his death in 2003. The board of education conference room at PUSD’s administration building is named in his honor.
