Jackson school principal under fire

Jackson Elementary School Principal Garry Dudley is under fire from parents, employees and community members who have submitted 18 formal complaints
– 11 of which were found to have merit or to be true either in part or in full – since 2008.
Editor’s note: This story contains some profanity.

Jackson Elementary School Principal Garry Dudley is under fire from parents, employees and community members who have submitted 18 formal complaints – 11 of which were found to have merit or to be true either in part or in full – since 2008.

In the complaints, Dudley is accused of sexually harassing staff members, verbally abusing students, including calling two Hispanic students “little banditos,” sharing confidential information, failing to address the needs of the Hispanic community, not complying with Jackson’s site plan and California Education codes, and making inappropriate comments to parents and employees.

The complaints were acquired by the Morgan Hill Times through a public records request after the Times received dozens of phone calls, e-mails and visits by Jackson staff members and parents. Dudley, 61, was hired in summer 2007 by former superintendent Alan Nishino. His contract was renewed for the 2010-11 school year and in 2008-09 he earned $112,860.

Dudley has refused to comment and deferred all questions to MHUSD Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Jay Totter. Totter and Superintendent Wes Smith would not comment because it is a personnel matter, they said, though Smith did say that the district takes the complaints seriously and “is dealing with them.” The school board of trustees has also heard and reviewed the complaints, and Smith said that “they value and are responsive to the concerns of the community.” Board president Bart Fisher declined to comment.

Every complaint was investigated by Totter and the parties involved were interviewed by Totter. Complainants have the opportunity to appeal, which leads to a hearing in front of the superintendent and board of education. One complaint is still under investigation.

Dudley, who is married to a retired educator and the father of three grown children, has worked in education for 16 years, though never as a credentialed teacher. He was a principal in the Turlock Unified School District from the 2005 school year through the end of 2007 before he was hired by MHUSD four years ago.

Before Turlock, Dudley worked for the St. Helens School District in St. Helens, Ore. for one year as its director of curriculum and federal programs. Dudley served as a colonel in the United States Air Force and also taught flying.

The complaints about Dudley’s behavior reach beyond a lack of leadership, some parents say. “In addition, his flirtation with mothers and his crude remarks about women are well discussed among some at Jackson,” one complaint read. Dudley is accused of sharing confidential information with a parent about which teachers received pink slips at Jackson and that he had made mistakes in hiring other teachers, whom he named, according to the complaint.

A sexual harassment complaint details an incident in January 2008 in the library at Jackson in which Dudley made an employee feel uncomfortable when he talked to her quietly from behind. According to the employee, he then laid his head sideways on her shoulder “so that his chin was angled next to my neck and his forehead was toward my shoulder. He looked up at me and batted his eyelids several time while still looking up at me.” The employee said her personal space was violated and she felt trapped and extremely embarrassed.

A second incident occurred between a teacher and Dudley in August 2008 in front of a classroom full of students. The teacher said she quietly told Dudley that only three of her students had given a correct an answer on a math problem. Dudley allegedly responded, “My training officer said to me on my wedding night, you’re going to do it tonight and then you’re going to keep on doing it until you get it right,” the complaint read.

Complaints to the Times have recently become more prevalent due to Jackson’s Program Improvement status, which is often referred to in conversation.

“He came in like a steamroller and turned the entire school upside down,” said Nola Martini, whose two oldest children, now students at Live Oak High School, attended Jackson Elementary. She was Home & School Club president for two years and was a substitute teacher who worked exclusively at Jackson for five years. Martini said the first year Dudley became principal was “the most disappointing, hellish year of school” and that “I never thought in my wildest dreams, I would pull (my child) out of their home school,” Martini said.

Dealing with Dudley was too much to handle for Martini and her family. Martini referred to his military background when she spoke about the decisive, controlling, toxic place that Jackson became. In 2007, at least five families Martini knows left the school because of Dudley, including her own daughter who attended San Martin/Gwinn the remainder of her elementary school years.

Jackson started 2010-11 in year five of Program Improvement after failing to meet the No Child Left Behind standards that are determined by the standardized testing done every spring. California public schools in year five of PI that do not improve on the Academic Proficient Index or the Adequate Yearly Progress measures used to determine PI status must make “transformational” and governance changes at the school to work its way out of PI.

The height of community outcry over leadership at Jackson and the schools’ PI status came during two well-attended town hall meetings that were held last spring, where parents were visibly concerned and agitated at the lack of information Dudley and the school district were providing.

Jackson’s student population has been called “unique” by district staff because about half the children live in the upper-class Jackson Oaks neighborhood nearby and half are bused in from the west side of Monterey Road, a low-income and mostly Hispanic community.

The “unique” disparity accounts for the low test scores produced by students identified as “English language learners” and in an interview about Jackson’s PI distinction – it’s the only school in the district in year 5 – Dudley said the low scores were a result of about dozen English language learners’ inadequate test scores.

Assistant Superintendent of Education Services Socorro Shiels is working with Smith and Jackson staff to turn the school around. Smith said the district is close to hiring a person who will work exclusively with Jackson staff and who will have on-site office at Jackson, working alongside the district and county office of education to bring Jackson out of PI year five.

The district’s Hispanic community, organized as the English Learners Advisory Committee, filed a complaint on behalf of the district ELAC chapter claiming that Dudley has not supported or involved the Hispanic community. In the 2009-10 school year, one ELAC meeting was held at Jackson, while other schools hold monthly meetings with an established set of ELAC officers leading.

Written in the school’s “single plan for student achievement” and PI restructuring plan is that Jackson will provide bus transportation for students to attend its after-school homework club.

On Wednesday, Dudley said he’s still working on getting buses lined up so children can attend. He said he placed a call to MHUSD and Gilroy Unified, yet no buses are available; now, he said, he’s working with the East Side Union High School District to schedule busing.

One parent, who declined to give his name for fear of possible retaliation, said that Dudley runs Jackson “like a banana republic. (Dudley) comes to us with a military background, demanding respect while not earning it. He has very little compassion for the children, and has destroyed the morale of the teachers at the school. I have personally seen him verbally abuse children and use foul language on campus,” the parent wrote.

A different parent had one of the more concrete pieces of evidence against Dudley: a handwritten conversation between the parent and Dudley in which Dudley wrote that he wished he could clone one teacher and replace the others with her, adding that some staff were “dumbshits!”

The severity of the complaints range, though an incident between Dudley and two students at Jackson, witnessed by a Jackson staff member and corroborated by the involved mothers, left parent Sandra Chacon feeling not only intimidated but desperate to reach a resolution. Chacon, who does not speak English, met at the Times accompanied by a friend for support and a translator.

On May 7, Chacon received a call from a Jackson employee that she needed to come to school because her fourth-grader and three other boys were caught playing with Pop-Its, tiny poppers that make a firecracker snapping sound when thrown to the ground, according to a Jackson volunteer who was on campus that day. Dudley, a staff member contends, only disciplined the boys behind closed doors whose mothers only spoke Spanish. The parents of the other two boys “did not face anything” like the sons of Chacon and a second mother, according to the Jackson staff member.

“He said to (my son), ‘I’m going to call the police and give them pictures of you so everyone will know you’re a thief. So every one will know about you!’ ‘You’re a little bandito!'” Chacon said. “Mr. Dudley yelled at him. I didn’t know how to respond,” Chacon said. Chacon said she thought her son needed to be disciplined, but not in that way.

In a response from Totter to Chacon, Dudley denied that the incident occurred as described by Chacon and other witnesses and when asked, would not comment about the matter.

According to a second witness, Dudley was heard yelling at both boys – who were called in with their mothers and translator at different times – and asked each of them to put the Pop-Its in their hands. He yelled, “Pop them! Pop them in your hand! Show me how much of a man you are!” Chacon said. She said her son began to close his hand to pop them as he asked, but Dudley stopped him.

Dudley allegedly said to the boys that, “‘I’m the big dog on campus. If I tell you to take your shirt off, you will take it off. If I tell you to sit, you sit,” the witness said.

In the about 15-minute closed-door meeting with each of the boys and their mothers, Dudley demanded that the boys stare at him in the eyes while he was speaking and that the boys were going to “end up in jail, and be everyone’s little bitch,” according to Chacon, who relied on a translator to understand what Dudley was saying. The boys, two fourth-graders and two sixth-graders, were suspended for three days.

Besides Chacon and other parents, some teachers at Jackson feel oppressed by Dudley, Martini said. “They won’t speak up because they believe they will face retaliation,” she said.

“That’s wrong. Whether he does it or not, if that’s a feeling that people have that’s not a principal you want at any school, or a person you want to have any connection to a child.”

COMPLAINTS FILED AGAINST JACKSON PRINCIPAL GARRY DUDLEY

• Aug. 30, 2008: Sexual harassment including vulgar language and inappropriate touching (filed by a staff member)

• May 15, 2008: Failure to assess a child with learning disabilities and “emotional and physical pain” caused by Dudley

• March 23, 2009: Adversarial and obstructive behavior, not addressing concerns at Jackson

• Oct. 21, 2009: Verbally abusing and yelling at a parent volunteer (filed by a parent)

• April 15, 2010: Disclosed detailed information regarding employees’ job status, ability (filed by a parent)

– Breach of confidential information regarding families and children

• April 19, 2010: Lack of professionalism, sharing confidential information (filed by a parent)

– Denial of teacher’s and parents’ requests for assessment (filed by a parent)

– Disrespectful comments and behavior, not assuring all students are provided with equal learning opportunities

– Lack of willingness or leadership to work with diverse community, lying

• April 20, 2010: Condescending and embarrassing comments (filed by a parent)

• April 21, 2010: Failed to address the needs of the Hispanic/Latino students

• April 29, 2010: Little effort and ineffective effort to work with the Hispanic community (filed by English Learners Advisory Committee or ELAC)

• May 13, 2010: Dudley threatened a student, yelled and used foul language (filed by a parent)

• May 21, 2010: Dudley verbally abused a student and said inappropriate things to him (filed by a parent)

• June 1, 2010: Dudley did not follow the Single Plan for Student Achievement 

• It’s unclear who filed each complaint, but those named in parentheses were derived from the supporting documents. 

** Dates listed are when the complaint was filed not the date of the alleged incident(s).