2001-2002 An SST (Apparently, this acronym stands for Student Success Team. It is a meeting where various stakeholders in a student's education meet in an initiation of allocation of special education resources.) about 2 particular students causes then-ELL (English Language Learners) director Emma Lerew to decide, top-down and unilaterally, to create a K/1 bilingual class at Bidwell in the next year.
2002-2003 1st-year teacher Celina Kanat is hired to teach the class. 1st graders come from English-only kindergarten. She leaves at end of year to teach a non-combo class elsewhere in Hayward. She left teaching only a few years later.
2003-2004 A new teacher, Mr. Bess, hired 2 weeks before the start of school. A tend of year, he suggests in a power-point presentation that parents transfer their children to other Hayward schools with bilingual 2nd grade. Only one family does this.
2004-2005 Mr. Bess' 2nd year in the assignment. End-of-year discussions with Emma Lerew for a solution to the problem give no results. At any rate, Dr. Lerew retires in May 2005, expressing no responsibility for the class in her written communication.
2005-2006 Mr. Bess' 3rd year. Mr. Bess holds end-of-year discussions with Letty Salinas, new ELL director, and Mr. Grasty, principal. Mr. Bess presents significant data on children's reading progress in English. Ms. Salinas decides to expand the program to a full K class and a 1st grade/ 2nd grade combination class. Unfortunately, Mr. Grasty gets word at the end of the year that the status quo will continue.
2006-2007Mr. Bess' 4th year in the K/1st combination bilingual classroom. Again, at the end of the year, it is decided to have a full K class and a 1st/2nd split. This time it works. Over the summer, Mr. Bess attends the interview of the incoming teacher, Melynda Esquivel.
2007-2008 Mr. Bess' 5th year, and 1st year of teaching only one grade, Kindergarten. Ms. Esquivel, an excellent beginning teacher, teaches a nearly full class of 1st graders and a very small number of 2nd graders, 2 or 3 children, too few to be a really viable educational situation. At the end of the year, Ms. Esquivel, like Mr. Bess before her, suggests to her exiting 1st graders' families that they transfer to a Hayward school with a viable bilingual program, or to an English-only 2nd grade class at Treeview Elementary. All take her advice and transfer to SEI (English-only) classes, but 2 students are told by Mr. Grasty that they cannot transfer to another school when they try to just before the new school year. This is offensive and probably illegal. Thus, Ms. Esquivel's class stays a combo class, despite having a full class of kindergartners to fill it.
2008-2009 Mr. Bess continues teaching Kindergarten bilingual. Ms. Esquivel is again forced to teach a split-grade class, again with only 2, or sometimes 3, 2nd grade students, too few to make the 2nd grade part of the class really viable. Ms. Esquivel quits in October due to medical issues. The class has daily substitutes, who do not speak Spanish, for several weeks, then a long-term substitute who speaks some Spanish for about a month. Eventually, a Spanish-speaking teacher is hired. At the end of the year, Mr. Bess distributes information to parents at Open House about the history and future of the bilingual program. A meeting is scheduled with Ms. Salinas and the parents of the students in the bilingual class, but she fails to show up. Mr. Bess and the parents take the issue to the school's ELAC (English Learners' Advisory Council). Ms. Salinas comes to ELAC, but presents only information of the types of programs in Hayward schools. The decision is made to regress to a K/1 split and no 2nd grade at all, causing Mr. Bess to resign from the position:
2nd June, 2009
Dear Mr. Grasty,
Dear Ms. Salinas,
I firmly decline to accept the bilingual kindergarten/ first grade position at Bidwell Elementary for next school year.
For 7 years, we have had a bilingual program here. For 5 years, it consisted only of a Kindergarten/1st grade split-grade class. Anyone with the slightest insight into the bases of bilingual education should know that only 2 years of bilingual education is generally not as effective as no bilingual education at all.
For4 of those 5 years, it was I who was saddled with K/1 bilingual assignment. I was able to carry out my task effectively because of staggered reading and the dedicated support of my fellow teachers. In my 5th year, I was happy that the program expanded to a full kindergarten class and a first grade/second grade split. The teacher who taught that class extremely effectively, again with major support from our colleagues, left, presumably frustrated, early in the second year of its existence.
I have volunteered to teach a bilingual split grade class again, if it is that 1st
/2nd grade split. Unfortunately,our school will be reverting to having only one bilingual class, a K/1 split.
As an educator and as a learner, I live to progress, not to regress. This regression to a K/1 bilingual class is unacceptable to me. I will no longer allow this class to continue with my involvement. I fit were in my power to help stop this class from happening at all, I would stop it.
It is in my power to ask: does this school district really have the human, financial, and political resources to create and support an effective bilingual program at Bidwell Elementary?
Piet Bess
2009-2010 Mr. Bess teaches 2nd grade at Treeview Elementary in English. David Beaston takes the bilingual K/1 position. At the end of the year, Mr. Bess takes the issue to the school's SBDM (Site Based Decision Making, a democratic body of representatives of all stake holders with limited executive power), arguing that the program should be canceled.
2010-2011 We have a change of educational leadership: Dr. Jessica Bonduris is our new principal. Change begins, and the bilingual program starts to grow through the grades. Mr. Beaston has a full K class. Mairtin MacAnGhoill teaches a 1/ 2 split.
2011-2012Growth continues: Beaston, K. MacAnGhoill, 1, and Audrey Nichols teaches a 2/ 3 split at Treeview
2012-2013 Beaston K. MacAnGhoill, 1. Mr. Bess agrees to rejoin the bilingual program at Dr. Bonduris' request, seeing that the program is valued and supported, and is growing upwards through the grades. He teaches the 2nd
grade, albeit at Bidwell, the sole 2nd grade class at that site. Yanira Canizales, an excellent teacher, teaches the small 3/ 4 split bilingual class at Treeview. Mr. MacAnGhoill leaves mid-year due to medical issues, and his class suffers a string of substitutes until Ms. Jameson, an excellent sub with Spanish skills comes in from May until the end of the school year. Mr. Beaston opts to leave bilingual because of heavy assessment loads in kindergarten, and, in the case of bilingual, a double load of them. With half a class of 4th graders, 12-13 was our high water mark.
2013-2014 Sadly, Dr. Bonduris leaves us. The program recedes: Ms. Canizales' students are put in SEI, and the program supports up to 3rd grade. All bilingual classes are split-grade classes at the beginning of the year. This is a hard decision taken by Dr. Bonduris and discussed in our SBDM . Bilingual teachers assent to the split-grade classes in order to ease combos in English-only classes, especially in the case of a particular SEI cohort with big behavior problems. Even so, bilingual combo classes typically have fewer children than the English-only classes. Ben Hinchman, K/1. Mr. Bess, 1/ 2, and Laura Mingst with the 2/ 3 combo at Treeview.
2014-15 After the interim principal, an incompetent named Andrea H*, failed to hire teachers in a timely manner in May of the previous school year, we get a new principal, Jennifer Reichert. She is a strong leader, but uses a deception towards me and other members of the school community as part of her leadership style, uses a racist slave ship picture explaining her leadership plan, and appears to suffer some ethical lapses, according to second-hand information from teachers. The year starts with Mr. Hinchman in K, Mr. Bess in 1st grade, and Noemi Hernandez, a very competent 30-day sub with native Spanish skills in 2nd grade. A planned 3/ 4 split is canceled before the 10th day of the school year. Terrifyingly, there was an attempt to shut down the whole program at this point, early in the year, but Ms. Reichert argues successfully against this.
We would have had a chance to grow the program out to its historic high, up to serving children through 4th grade, albeit in the diminished form of a split-grade grade classroom, but it didn't happen.
2015-16 The program is axed by Sandra Escobedo. District director of English Learner programs. Mr. Bess and Mr. Hinchman take jobs at other school sites through the involuntary transfer process. The mother of one of the students, Ana Navidad, is very involved in this process. With Mr. Bess's informational help about where bilingual programs are located, she focuses on Schafer Park Elementary, a 2009 building, where Mr. Bess happens to find a 1st grade DLI (Dual Language Immersion). She convinces a large proportion of the Treeview 1st grade class to transfer there.
2016-17 Mr. Bess is transferred to 3rd grade at Schafer Park to its last remaining bilingual (as opposed to DLI) cohort, teaching many of those same former 1st graders.
As of 2024, both Mr. Bess and Mr. Hinchman are at the same schools, though Mr. Bess was taken out of the DLI program without explanation in 2022.
*Ms. H was taken to task about joking about Mr. Hinchman and another teacher, a woman, being paedophiles. Responding to me, the union representative, about remedying this situation, she chose not to take responsibility for what she had said, but rather to threaten to expose the fact that I and other teachers had gathered during work hours after school on the last day of the school year at a colleague's house to celebrate. It turned out that the party had been called at that hour so that a male stripper could entertain for a teacher who was retiring that year. So, the principal was incompetent, failed to grasp boundaries about speech at work, and did not hesitate to use blackmail as a tool. I wish her unwell.
2002-2003 1st-year teacher Celina Kanat is hired to teach the class. 1st graders come from English-only kindergarten. She leaves at end of year to teach a non-combo class elsewhere in Hayward. She left teaching only a few years later.
2003-2004 A new teacher, Mr. Bess, hired 2 weeks before the start of school. A tend of year, he suggests in a power-point presentation that parents transfer their children to other Hayward schools with bilingual 2nd grade. Only one family does this.
2004-2005 Mr. Bess' 2nd year in the assignment. End-of-year discussions with Emma Lerew for a solution to the problem give no results. At any rate, Dr. Lerew retires in May 2005, expressing no responsibility for the class in her written communication.
2005-2006 Mr. Bess' 3rd year. Mr. Bess holds end-of-year discussions with Letty Salinas, new ELL director, and Mr. Grasty, principal. Mr. Bess presents significant data on children's reading progress in English. Ms. Salinas decides to expand the program to a full K class and a 1st grade/ 2nd grade combination class. Unfortunately, Mr. Grasty gets word at the end of the year that the status quo will continue.
2006-2007Mr. Bess' 4th year in the K/1st combination bilingual classroom. Again, at the end of the year, it is decided to have a full K class and a 1st/2nd split. This time it works. Over the summer, Mr. Bess attends the interview of the incoming teacher, Melynda Esquivel.
2007-2008 Mr. Bess' 5th year, and 1st year of teaching only one grade, Kindergarten. Ms. Esquivel, an excellent beginning teacher, teaches a nearly full class of 1st graders and a very small number of 2nd graders, 2 or 3 children, too few to be a really viable educational situation. At the end of the year, Ms. Esquivel, like Mr. Bess before her, suggests to her exiting 1st graders' families that they transfer to a Hayward school with a viable bilingual program, or to an English-only 2nd grade class at Treeview Elementary. All take her advice and transfer to SEI (English-only) classes, but 2 students are told by Mr. Grasty that they cannot transfer to another school when they try to just before the new school year. This is offensive and probably illegal. Thus, Ms. Esquivel's class stays a combo class, despite having a full class of kindergartners to fill it.
2008-2009 Mr. Bess continues teaching Kindergarten bilingual. Ms. Esquivel is again forced to teach a split-grade class, again with only 2, or sometimes 3, 2nd grade students, too few to make the 2nd grade part of the class really viable. Ms. Esquivel quits in October due to medical issues. The class has daily substitutes, who do not speak Spanish, for several weeks, then a long-term substitute who speaks some Spanish for about a month. Eventually, a Spanish-speaking teacher is hired. At the end of the year, Mr. Bess distributes information to parents at Open House about the history and future of the bilingual program. A meeting is scheduled with Ms. Salinas and the parents of the students in the bilingual class, but she fails to show up. Mr. Bess and the parents take the issue to the school's ELAC (English Learners' Advisory Council). Ms. Salinas comes to ELAC, but presents only information of the types of programs in Hayward schools. The decision is made to regress to a K/1 split and no 2nd grade at all, causing Mr. Bess to resign from the position:
2nd June, 2009
Dear Mr. Grasty,
Dear Ms. Salinas,
I firmly decline to accept the bilingual kindergarten/ first grade position at Bidwell Elementary for next school year.
For 7 years, we have had a bilingual program here. For 5 years, it consisted only of a Kindergarten/1st grade split-grade class. Anyone with the slightest insight into the bases of bilingual education should know that only 2 years of bilingual education is generally not as effective as no bilingual education at all.
For4 of those 5 years, it was I who was saddled with K/1 bilingual assignment. I was able to carry out my task effectively because of staggered reading and the dedicated support of my fellow teachers. In my 5th year, I was happy that the program expanded to a full kindergarten class and a first grade/second grade split. The teacher who taught that class extremely effectively, again with major support from our colleagues, left, presumably frustrated, early in the second year of its existence.
I have volunteered to teach a bilingual split grade class again, if it is that 1st
/2nd grade split. Unfortunately,our school will be reverting to having only one bilingual class, a K/1 split.
As an educator and as a learner, I live to progress, not to regress. This regression to a K/1 bilingual class is unacceptable to me. I will no longer allow this class to continue with my involvement. I fit were in my power to help stop this class from happening at all, I would stop it.
It is in my power to ask: does this school district really have the human, financial, and political resources to create and support an effective bilingual program at Bidwell Elementary?
Piet Bess
2009-2010 Mr. Bess teaches 2nd grade at Treeview Elementary in English. David Beaston takes the bilingual K/1 position. At the end of the year, Mr. Bess takes the issue to the school's SBDM (Site Based Decision Making, a democratic body of representatives of all stake holders with limited executive power), arguing that the program should be canceled.
2010-2011 We have a change of educational leadership: Dr. Jessica Bonduris is our new principal. Change begins, and the bilingual program starts to grow through the grades. Mr. Beaston has a full K class. Mairtin MacAnGhoill teaches a 1/ 2 split.
2011-2012Growth continues: Beaston, K. MacAnGhoill, 1, and Audrey Nichols teaches a 2/ 3 split at Treeview
2012-2013 Beaston K. MacAnGhoill, 1. Mr. Bess agrees to rejoin the bilingual program at Dr. Bonduris' request, seeing that the program is valued and supported, and is growing upwards through the grades. He teaches the 2nd
grade, albeit at Bidwell, the sole 2nd grade class at that site. Yanira Canizales, an excellent teacher, teaches the small 3/ 4 split bilingual class at Treeview. Mr. MacAnGhoill leaves mid-year due to medical issues, and his class suffers a string of substitutes until Ms. Jameson, an excellent sub with Spanish skills comes in from May until the end of the school year. Mr. Beaston opts to leave bilingual because of heavy assessment loads in kindergarten, and, in the case of bilingual, a double load of them. With half a class of 4th graders, 12-13 was our high water mark.
2013-2014 Sadly, Dr. Bonduris leaves us. The program recedes: Ms. Canizales' students are put in SEI, and the program supports up to 3rd grade. All bilingual classes are split-grade classes at the beginning of the year. This is a hard decision taken by Dr. Bonduris and discussed in our SBDM . Bilingual teachers assent to the split-grade classes in order to ease combos in English-only classes, especially in the case of a particular SEI cohort with big behavior problems. Even so, bilingual combo classes typically have fewer children than the English-only classes. Ben Hinchman, K/1. Mr. Bess, 1/ 2, and Laura Mingst with the 2/ 3 combo at Treeview.
2014-15 After the interim principal, an incompetent named Andrea H*, failed to hire teachers in a timely manner in May of the previous school year, we get a new principal, Jennifer Reichert. She is a strong leader, but uses a deception towards me and other members of the school community as part of her leadership style, uses a racist slave ship picture explaining her leadership plan, and appears to suffer some ethical lapses, according to second-hand information from teachers. The year starts with Mr. Hinchman in K, Mr. Bess in 1st grade, and Noemi Hernandez, a very competent 30-day sub with native Spanish skills in 2nd grade. A planned 3/ 4 split is canceled before the 10th day of the school year. Terrifyingly, there was an attempt to shut down the whole program at this point, early in the year, but Ms. Reichert argues successfully against this.
We would have had a chance to grow the program out to its historic high, up to serving children through 4th grade, albeit in the diminished form of a split-grade grade classroom, but it didn't happen.
2015-16 The program is axed by Sandra Escobedo. District director of English Learner programs. Mr. Bess and Mr. Hinchman take jobs at other school sites through the involuntary transfer process. The mother of one of the students, Ana Navidad, is very involved in this process. With Mr. Bess's informational help about where bilingual programs are located, she focuses on Schafer Park Elementary, a 2009 building, where Mr. Bess happens to find a 1st grade DLI (Dual Language Immersion). She convinces a large proportion of the Treeview 1st grade class to transfer there.
2016-17 Mr. Bess is transferred to 3rd grade at Schafer Park to its last remaining bilingual (as opposed to DLI) cohort, teaching many of those same former 1st graders.
As of 2024, both Mr. Bess and Mr. Hinchman are at the same schools, though Mr. Bess was taken out of the DLI program without explanation in 2022.
*Ms. H was taken to task about joking about Mr. Hinchman and another teacher, a woman, being paedophiles. Responding to me, the union representative, about remedying this situation, she chose not to take responsibility for what she had said, but rather to threaten to expose the fact that I and other teachers had gathered during work hours after school on the last day of the school year at a colleague's house to celebrate. It turned out that the party had been called at that hour so that a male stripper could entertain for a teacher who was retiring that year. So, the principal was incompetent, failed to grasp boundaries about speech at work, and did not hesitate to use blackmail as a tool. I wish her unwell.
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