An abuser relies on the secrecy of their behavior for empowerment. Once their abusive behavior is exposed, their ability to continue abusing is threatened.
Last week, I posted a diary, Our Autistic Son was Handcuffed and Arrested in School, We Were Not Notified, in hopes of exposing what we believe to be the abuse that our son has received at the hands of various authority figures. Never, did my wife and I expect the level of support we received from the Kos Community, and never, did we expect that we would get public confirmation from our son's abusers that the Kos Community was rattling the hell out of them.
We are reaching out to you again as we prepare for tomorrow, day number one of (Redacted) v. Temecula Valley Unified School District.
Last week, we provided a link to this petition. The district has shared that only three people within the district knew about the undercover operation while it was occurring, school board member Bob Brown, who until recently was board president, Superintendent Tim Ritter, and the Director of Child Welfare and Attendance, Michael Hubbard. Each time the petition is signed, those three people, as well as all other board members receive the petition in their email, putting them on notice that their actions in this matter will not remain a secret.
Their email addresses, which are part of the public record, and are posted on the TVUSD website, are tritter@tvusd.k12.ca.us, krutz-robbins@tvusd.k12.ca.us, rshafer@tvusd.k12.ca.us, bbrown@tvusd.k12.ca.us, voneal@tvusd.k12.ca.us, apulsipher@tvusd.k12.ca.us, mhubbard@tvusd.k12.ca.us.
After posting the article to the Kos Community on Friday, the petition received about 800 signatures by the time we went to bed, (right now, it stands at 1,123). Now here's where it gets interesting. At 5:06 pm PST, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse informed me that she had received the following email:
The Temecula Valley Unified School Distinct has received the following email from the same list serve approximately 460 times in the last week. We have reason to question its authenticity and believe that at least some of the e-mail addresses and salutations have been inappropriately and/or fraudulently created, obtained, and used, without the permission of the individuals named in the e-mail. The District requests that whoever has created such suspect emails to cease and desist misrepresenting senders. The District will continue to encourage open and direct communication, including opportunities for participation by the public during Board of Education meetings. Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.
On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 4:49 PM, (xxxxx) wrote:
Immediate Action is Required!
To: Temecula Valley Unified School District
We as a community are banding together in defense of our Special Education students. We are offended by taxpayer-funded School Administrators who are secretly cultivating a dangerous environment, allowing predatory, actions of undercover officers who prey on the most vulnerable children in Public Schools. We believe this behavior is criminal and harmful, especially when excessive disciplinary measures are being implemented to punish and subsequently expel these Special Education students for falling victim to manufactured crimes. We represent a large body of voting taxpayers and immediately demand meaningful and transparent changes to this system. We also demand a public hearing to address the behavior of our elected school officials who are involved and feel they must be held accountable. Let it be known that we will all be paying close attention to the actions of the Temecula Valley Unified School District on this very serious issue.
(xxxxx@xxxxx)
--
Michael Hubbard
Director of Child Welfare & Attendance
Temecula Valley USD
31350 Rancho Vista Road
Temecula, CA 92592
951-506-7984
951-676-6701 fax
mhubbard@tvusd.k12.ca.us
We immediately started getting phone calls, emails and texts from numerous others who were reporting the same thing.
All he accomplished was ensuring that he received hundreds more emails from outraged citizens, letting him know that yes, they were real and yes, they were angry.
We can assume that he was feeling some discomfort that the district's actions were no longer a dirty little secret. However, the discomfort that he, or anyone else from the district is feeling cannot compare to the damage that was done to our son, who we believe was abused under their watch.
Here are just a few of the responses that some of you shared in response to Mr. Hubbard's stern words. First, from emeraldmaiden:
Dear Mr. Hubbard (or your automaton),
I am who I say I am, and my email address reflects that. There are not very many (my real name redacted) out there, let me tell you. I happen to have been one since 1991.
If you would like to stop getting this petition, then perhaps you and your school district ought to reconsider how you treat your special needs students. This is not only about the student referenced in the upcoming hearing, but all other students who have been unfairly (and, in many opinions), illegally interrogated by your authorized representatives and the police. Shame on you all; you should know better. Child Welfare, indeed. If you are incapable of seeing the difference in special needs students, and are insensitive to the medical and psychological issues inherent in an Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis, you are not worthy of your position and should resign it immediately, on grounds of incompetence.
Sincerely,
{emeraldmaiden's real name}
This, from
Cyberwizard:
Mr. Hubbard, I'm a real person.
My first child, a son, was born with a severe disability, and I know how hard it is for parents to deal with this issue. I have taught autistic children in afterschool programs, and I understand that they need to be dealt with by people who understand what's going on and who are trained in these issues.
I also know how easily they can be misled because they don't understand cues and language that normal children do.
So, let me assure you that I am real and I am very outraged that the investigating officer either was not told that his suspect was autistic or was not trained to deal with autistic children. Mainstreaming makes such a huge difference to these children, and to the children who interact with them. Seeing a classmate that they all knew was disabled arrested and led away in handcuffs sends quite an ugly message to every child in that grade and to any other autistic or Asperger's child in the school.
I think that there's clear evidence of a need for change.
And this, from
wdm:
Mr. Hubbard,
Please rest assured that my petition signature was authentic. If I am correct that you were participating in and/or knowledgable of the operation that resulted in the detention of a student with disabilities with no notification to his parents, you should be at the very least ashamed of your involvement, and at most prosecuted for unlawful imprisonment and interrogation of a minor. Unfortunately for the taxpayers of your distict, your prosecution (and paid leave) will most likely come out of their pockets.
If I can assist in the prosecution of you and others involved in this operation, I will offer my services to those affected. I have plenty of free time and deep resources; if I were you, I would hire a good lawyer because you will need one (or several).
Sincerely,
Last week, we spoke to the press, and yesterday, the Inland Empire Press-Enterprise front paged the article,
Undercover deputy targeted mentally disabled teen, parents say, giving it a huge amount of real estate.
We are now asking you to comment on this article, which has seen a very high number of comments already. In order for more people in Temecula to feel empowered to speak out, they need to see that they have a groundswell of support. And they are doing so, more and more, as they see that the world is paying attention.
My wife and are currently choosing to refrain from posting comments on the article. The vast majority are very supportive of our son, but there are a handful of law and order types who are outspoken there. We are aware of reasons why some of these critics may have an agenda, though I will not discuss them in a public forum. And as an engineer, I think it is appropriate to mention how much I admire the work of the software engineers who designed the Daily Kos private messaging function.
On behalf of my wife, and my entire family, thank you for you continued support. We will keep you updated.
http://www.temeculapost.com/...
http://www.pe.com/...
12:26 PM PT: The reporter for the Press Enterprise has just published a blog post about the petition, as well as Michael Hubbard's emails that he sent accusing the email addresses as not representing real people. Please go to the blog post, show some love, and verify that, yes, you are real.
http://blog.pe.com/...
Tue Feb 05, 2013 at 8:23 AM PT: Leaving for day 1 of the due process hearing in a few minutes. The support here has been overwhelming, to say the least.
We love you.
Stay tuned...