Parents fight removal of school principal
Community plans districtwide boycott of classes on April 25
In response to what they consider the unfair removal of Belle Haven Elementary School Principal Todd Gaviglio, parents, students and teachers are planning a series of protests this month and urging a districtwide boycott of classes on April 25.
Gaviglio was reassigned March 19 to the district office on “special assignment,” said district publicist Rolando Bonilla. He said that the move had been planned since last August and Gaviglio will not be returning as principal.
But Gaviglio and his supporters disagree with the district’s reasoning. They said Gaviglio was removed from the school in retaliation to a discrimination complaint he filed with the district’s human resources department, given that his removal came just one school day after he lodged the complaint.
So Belle Haven Elementary School parents and other community members — who have set up a Facebook page (https://bit. ly/2IHfjbH) to share their activities — are demanding that the district reinstate Gaviglio as the school’s principal and that the board not renew Superintendent Gloria Hernandez-Goff’s contract, which expires June 30. Hernandez-Goff could not be reached for comment.
Organizers are planning to hold a protest at 5 p.m. Thursday at Bell Street Park in East Palo Alto. They will also march from St. Francis of Assisi Church to Ravenswood City School District offices at 5:30 p.m. April 26 before the board meeting, where they plan to ask that he be reinstated.
Students have been holding protests outside the school every day before classes start since April 3 and plan to continue doing so until the next district board meeting. On April 4, roughly 200 — or 44 percent — of Belle Haven Elementary students boycotted classes.
A letter from the superintendent to the school community said Amanda Kemp, principal at Ronald McNair Academy, another district school, will be the Belle Haven principal.
“Change is never an easy process, but you have risen to the occasion because you understand that what is at stake is the future of the children of the Ravenswood City School District,” the letter said.
Board trustee Marielena Gaona-Mendoza is calling for the board to convene a special meeting regarding Gaviglio before April 26, citing the large outcry that followed his removal.
“Currently, the district is undergoing a routine federal program audit,” Bonilla said. “Although the audit will touch all district sites, it will focus heavily on Belle Haven and Costano (Elementary). In anticipation of this audit, in August of 2017, the district sent Mr. Gaviglio to train on the federal program audit subject matter. Because of his newly acquired background, and his intimate knowledge of Belle Haven, he was selected for special assignment to support the district on these efforts.”
Ronda White and others disagree with the district’s reasoning. They said Gaviglio was removed from the school in retaliation to the discrimination complaint, given that his removal came just one school day after he lodged the complaint with human resources.
Gaviglio filed the complaint with the district — as well as a class action claim with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights — alleging that Hernandez-Goff has a history of making derogatory statements about administrators with babies, citing himself and five other administrators in the district. Gaviglio with his partner adopted a baby last year and he has been periodically taking paternity leave since then. He said in the complaint that the superintendent suggested he should resign as principal to focus entirely on taking care of his baby.
“That would make her life easier because she could just put her buddy in,” he said April 7.
In a letter sent to human resources March 14, Gaviglio said Hernandez-Goff notified him she would be removing him as principal and reassigning him as a teacher for five reasons, including sharing a confidential letter with a teacher, taking fingerprints of students after a fire alarm was pulled, continuing problems of the school complying with a court-ordered special education mandate and being “overheard saying negative statements about the district.”
He disagrees with her assessment. Gaviglio said Belle Haven is doing a better job of complying with the court order than any other school in the district, at the same time that Hernandez-Goff over the past year decreased the number of teaching assistants working with specialneeds students at the school, he added.
He and others also pointed out that the school’s custodial staff was cut by a third, leading to unsanitary conditions in bathrooms. At the same time that the district hired a public relations firm and created a new position for former Menlo Park City School District superintendentMaurice G hy se ls at roughly the same $180,000-a-year salary as Hernandez-Goff.
“I think what really captures what’s going on is she extravagantly spends money on support for herself so she doesn’t have to do her job and can have somebody clean up after her,” Gaviglio said. “She has all of these people, but kids don’t get services they need or clean bathrooms.”
East Palo Alto Mayor Ruben Abrica agrees that the superintendent is mismanaging the district’s finances and that Gaviglio should be reinstated as principal.