Attorney Kim then argued, also, that the latest Treem “observation” of Oliver — with which the school administrators had justified the scheduled admonitory hearing — needed to be voided.
Bad ‘observation’ was retaliation
While noting that Oliver had had “great observations as an ARL teacher” [his previous school, Bailey ES. had rated him an effective teacher at 3.0, nine times], she pointed out that the Treem vice principal had given him their “dirty” observation only minutes after he’d refused to participate in their grade-falsification operation.
The clearly retaliatory intent of the Treem administration, she argued, made this an instance where a usual practice of CCSD schools — forwarding transferring teachers’ latest administrative observations on to their new schools — should not be followed.
Jara quickly agreed, says Oliver, who was then told that until Jara’s people had identified the new school where Oliver would be assigned, he could work from home.
It was two hours later the same evening that Oliver received the phone call from Kim already mentioned.
Jara’s chief of staff, she said, wanted to know if he still had the children’s grades from the start of the school year, and if he could send them over. Because the Treem administrators had erased them, the superintendent’s office wanted both the original grades, if possible, as well as any of the new “tests” that Oliver might have replicated in screenshots.
Michelle Kim said she’d been informed CCSD would be conducting a complete investigation throughout the entire district, “and that it would take about a year.”
As Jara had at the meeting, Cupid-McCoy relayed — via lawyer Kim — another request that Oliver not tell anyone.
So Oliver, the following day, forwarded multiple screenshots to the union. When he checked to see if they’d arrived, he was told they had.
Whether the images ever made it to Jara’s chief of staff, however, is not clear. Kim had instructed Oliver to send the files to John Vellardita, the union’s executive director. However, it seems evident that no district-wide investigation of Treem-style cheating in CCSD ever actually ensued.
Jara’s office, however, only took one workday to locate a new school where Oliver was to teach. Late the following Monday, James was informed he’d be going to Will Beckley Elementary.