Last week Fly took a look at the many miscues of former county schools chief Jon Gundry, who was so good at his job that the Santa Clara County Office of Education gave him $151,000 (plus bennies) to ride off into the sunset. But before everyone goes back to ignoring the mess that is the SCCOE, it’s worth reporting one last detail on Gundry’s reign of terror. In addition to numerous claims of harassment and shady deals, Gundry also was accused of racism by Maribel Medina, the SCCOE’s former lead counsel. In a sworn deposition, she said Gundry ordered her to speak Spanish and treated her like a Mexican day laborer instead of an attorney. Medina filed a lawsuit and the SCCOE recently settled for $320,000. On Nov. 1, in one of his final acts as superintendent, Gundry signed the agreement. Of course, this was after he fired Medina in 2015 and the SCCOE paid the remaining $289,000 of her annual salary. SCCOE spokesman Peter Daniels cheerfully emphasized in an email to Fly that the settlement was 100 percent “funded by our insurer.”
The Fly
Former County Superintendent Jon Gundry Settled Lawsuit for $320,000 in One of His Final Acts
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Jon Gundry signed off on a $320,000 settlement agreement with former employee Maribel Medina, who Gundry had already paid $289,000 after firing her in 2015. (Photo via Facebook)
Another scoundrel Superintendent bites the dust! Well at least it’s gold dust! Just another in a line of failed SCCOE superintendents who parachute to lucrative safe landings. Can we ever forget Xavier De La Torre? Now there was a real gem of a superintendent! All hired by a skullduggerous band of thieves known as the Santa Clara County Office of Education Board! Will any of these Board bandits take responsibility for these catastrophic failures and resign? I think not! Life is too good for these pompous advocates of their own selfish political self-interests. They will continue to seek and hire weak, milquetoast, pliant superintendents who will let the Board carry out their own shenanigans while they are encouraged by their sycophant superintendent to mirco-manage the activities of the Office. Such a nice arrangement!
Just a manifestation of the lack of leadership so prevalent in our nation today!
Enough is Enough!
> All hired by a skullduggerous band of thieves known as the Santa Clara County Office of Education Board! Will any of these Board bandits take responsibility for these catastrophic failures and resign?
Speaking of SCCOE Board Members, isn’t it about time for another spasm of virtue signaling from former SCCOE President Joe DiSalvo?
Without periodic moral guidance from Joe I become confused about whether I’m for or against racism, poverty, and social justice.
I was thinking the same thing myself!
Joe’s unparalleled perception of himself can only be matched with the faux sincerity and expertise he demonstrates for student learning!
I can remember a meeting where the Board had requested the opportunity to discuss the prevalence of gangs within the community. Chuck Weiss, the current superintendent, assembled a representative group of community members to discuss the issue. However, this was not good enough for Joe. He became irate at the fact that the Board Room was not FULL to the gills with representatives. What is the point of discussing an issue if there is not a roomful of community members to stroke Joe’s gargantuan ego. In a signature Joe Huff and Puff, he publicly remonstrated Chuck and in one HUGE Huffer, he wondered why we were even having a meeting and he abruptly called for a Break even though we were 10 minutes into the meeting. He arose from the dais and sulked down the center aisle in a dramatic fashion to the hallway. It was all that everyone in the audience could do but to refrain from bursting into laughter at the actions of this pompous fool. Thanks for being a catalyst for this wonderful memory!
Booble let me clear up your confusion – You’re obviously an intolerant racist,totally indifferent & unsympathetic to poverty & an undeniably staunch opponent of social justice. One only needs to read a fraction of your innumerable reprehensible comments to draw the same conclusions. I will give you credit for being consistent,no matter whatever the issue is at hand you’re always predictably on the wrong side. You can spin,deflect & obfuscate while playing the victim ad infinitum,but we all know who you are & we take great pride in disparaging you & everything you embrace at every possible opportunity. It’s always great sport to ‘prick’ the Booble as ‘prick’ is the word most often associated with him. While he’s revered by a handful of like-minded dimwits & bigots,the number of his dedicated detractors grows larger everyday. Q: What’s the difference between a pea-brained turkey like the Booble & your delicious Thanksgiving turkey ? A: You’ll never feel overwhelmingly compelled to beat the stuffing out of your holiday bird ! “And the bird came down & he said the word & what was the word ? The word was ‘food’ & we ate him” ! – The Firesign Theatre.
> You’re obviously an intolerant racist,totally indifferent & unsympathetic to poverty & an undeniably staunch opponent of social justice.
Waxy:
Would you agree that the County of Santa Clara, the City of San Jose, local school districts, and any publicly funded entity should never employ any person who has been accused of being “an intolerant racist” or “indifferent” or “unsympathetic to poverty” of “an opponent of social justice”?
Accused,certainly not ! Nor would I send someone to prison who was accused of a crime,but hadn’t been convicted. Most people in public employ who embrace such repulsive beliefs have the good sense to keep them too themselves. Those foolish enough to make themselves too conspicuous & become an embarrassment,or who violate their employer’s code of conduct or the law must face the consequences of their actions. Each case must be decided based on the evidence provided by all the parties involved to an impartial arbiter. In that case only their union representative or a good lawyer may be able to save their job. My personal feelings aren’t pertinent in matters involving the job security of public employees,but I’ll gladly share them when I feel the necessity to do so !
Public Employees are too cagey to be caught being overtly racist or opponents of social justice! For example, administrators in Santa Clara Unified School District failed to hire a director for English Learners for many years even though they receive millions in federal and state dollars to support EL students. In this way, they can divert federal and state funds intended to go to English Learner students to their own pet projects usually to the benefit of the white majority!
You are spot on!
LOL.
Dummies , for $320K I’ll go away and stop harassing you too!
Avoid lengthy litigation,just go away & stop harassing us now dummy ! It’s time to melt you down for scrap. LMAO
Lefists, you make me laugh…
All you advocate for is to Ttke power away from individuals and give it to the government. But oops, government is made up of individuals, just with no transparency, no skin in the game and moral hazard out the wazoo. Then of course, without a trace of self awareness or irony, you write these articles. Of course incompetent, corruptable people migrate toward government specifically because there is no transparency, no skin in the game, and moral hazard. How can you people get so much education but think so foolishly? Alum Rock District, incompetent and arrogate water district rep, Mr Gundry is exactly what you are fighting for… Until we are under the tryanny of the singularity, which will tap into the collected and sythesized set of objective reasoning, and we are pets in it’s zoo, government will always be less effective than private management because there is no skin in the game and the people that make the decisions are protected from the consequences of those decisions.
The point of your indecipherable rambling diatribe must have been lost when it was translated into English. Or did the late Professor Irwin Corey rise from the dead to befuddle us with one last perplexing monologue ? Then again Norm Crosby could be ghostwriting your material. Speaking of pets & zoos or petting zoos,it was once said that if you put enough monkeys in front of enough typewriters that one would eventually duplicate the works of William Shakespeare. There’s a huuuge shortage of typing monkeys now & the Trump Administration refuses to provide enough H1B Visas to alleviate the problem. So keep typing Kulak !!! P.S. – What the hell did Mr.Gundry do to you ?
> There’s a huuuge shortage of typing monkeys now & the Trump Administration refuses to provide enough H1B Visas to alleviate the problem.
OH WOW!
RACISM ALERT! RACISM ALERT!
Waxy calls immigrants “monkeys”!!!!
Booble,it’s you making the inference that immigrants are monkeys,which coming from you is no surprise ! My point is that SJ Kulak’s comments make no sense whatsoever, could eventually be duplicated by typing monkeys & that one might conclude that English may not be his/her primary language. I have no idea whether he/she’s an immigrant or not,that’s solely conjecture on your part not mine. For that matter you may in fact be a recent immigrant,after all few of us can say that their ancestors were Native Americans. Once again your comments are misleading,hateful,divisive & just plain ignorant (just like you are). If you really believe that monkeys are eligible to receive H1B Visas (or capable of applying for them) you’re even stupider than I thought you are (I think you’re a drooling dimwit),a virtual impossibility. I’ll just assume that SJ Kulak’s baffling comments,rife with grammatical errors & malaprops makes perfect sense to someone of your limited mental capabilities. Oiseaux d’un troupeau du plume ensemble or aves de un rebano de plumas juntos if you prefer. It takes one to know one & you’re firmly entrenched with like-minded,addle-brained nitwits. Revel in it & rejoice,you’ve made a huuuge fool of yourself in writing again & again & again !
Simply Pathetic is the most appropriate description for these inept, useless bureaucrats engorging themselves at the public trough with little or no oversight. All at taxpayer expense.
No doubt SCCOE buys its insurance from a consortium of similar California agencies. So to say, “funded by our insurer” likely means California taxpayers at large, not only Santa Clara County taxpayers, and not anything to be proud of.
I was thinking the same thing myself!
Joe’s unparalleled perception of himself can only be matched with the faux sincerity and expertise he demonstrates for student learning!
I can remember a meeting where the Board had requested the opportunity to discuss the prevalence of gangs within the community. Chuck Weiss, the current superintendent, assembled a representative group of community members to discuss the issue. However, this was not good enough for Joe. He became irate at the fact that the Board Room was not FULL to the gills with representatives. What is the point of discussing an issue if there is not a roomful of community members to stroke Joe’s gargantuan ego. In a signature Joe Huff and Puff, he publicly remonstrated Chuck and in one HUGE Huffer, he wondered why we were even having a meeting and he abruptly called for a Break even though we were 10 minutes into the meeting. He arose from the dais and sulked down the center aisle in a dramatic fashion to the hallway to lick his bruised emotional wounds. It was all that everyone in the audience could do but to refrain from bursting into laughter at the actions of this pompous fool.
Thanks for being a catalyst for this wonderful memory!
I agree with the spot on comments from Steve and Vacancy Vaquero.
It truly is difficult to get one’s head around the magnitude of the malfeasance and its impact not only on taxpayers but also on the boys and girls that this organization and others like it should be serving.
I can remember working for the Santa Clara School District where a state audit of the District found that it had “mis-allocated” over $3 million dollars intended to be used by schools to support English Learners. The money was supposed to have been dispersed directly to schools and schools were supposed to budget the funds in support of their English Learners. The District administration instead held the money for their own “purposes.” To the state, $3 million is pocket change so they allowed the District to rework their books and distribute the funds to the schools with no penalty and no accountability even though these ugly budget practices had gone on for years. The District administration (Kathy Knavel) recommended that schools actually save funds from year to year to pay for resources. Priceless.
This budgetary travesty occurred right after the School Board received a report from an independent audit company that their books were “Perfect.” The scurrilous Santa Clara School District Board had just finished a budgetary witch hunt where they went after the principal at Cabrillo about a supposed mis-allocation of a $300 Student Club Budget. After intensive and very expensive audit, the principal and school were cleared. While all the time the District was mis-allocating $3 million in federal funds. Rome burns while the Board fiddles and manufactures problems where none exist.
Students and families pay the price for all of this larceny!
> Accused,certainly not !
Oh, good.
I can still work for the gubbermint.
So that’s why you use an alias,you fear that if your employers & coworkers knew who you really are you’d soon be unemployed. I find it hard to believe that you’re employed at all,much less by a government entity. That being said without janitors,groundskeepers,crossing guards & cafeteria dishwashers doing their vital jobs,our society would quickly grind to a halt. If you are in fact on the government payroll somewhere,the civil service exam certainly isn’t stringent enough. You’re undoubtedly one of the least civil of all civil servants & a poster child for wasted tax money & misused government resources. Besides your political views will be of little consequence when they finally catch you filling your lunch box with toilet paper everyday. Then you can kiss your cushy government pension bye bye ! I”ll weep for you (not).
> So that’s why you use an alias,you fear that if your employers & coworkers knew who you really are you’d soon be unemployed.
Well, that’s ONE of the reasons.
Other reasons I use a “pen name” include preventing progressives from:
1.) firebombing my house,
2.) keying my car
3.) poisoning my pets
4.) having child protective services seize my kids
5.) turning me into the IRS
6.) accusing me of sexual harrassment
7.) reporting me to the ATF for owning too many guns and too much ammo
8.) accusing me of willful and chronic insensitivity
9.) investigating me for colluding with the Russians and interfering with elections