HBCSD Corruption

Proof of the lie:

Pat Escalante was not qualified to be superintendent and therefore it is unlikely that she had decided to apply for the superintendent position at HBCSD on her own.

Pat Escalante had no experience as a superintendent of a school district.  She is the only HBCSD superintendent in memory who did not have a Doctor of Education degree.   Why would Pat Escalante think of replacing Dr. Bruce Newlin at HBCSD when she had no education or experience as a superintendent?  Why would school board members consider hiring her as superintendent?  Please see school board members Patti Ackerman and Jack Burns superlatives about Pat Escalante in the article Principal takes helm of Hermosa Beach School District by Robb Fulcher in April 2012. 

1. Although Pat Escalante had been let go from the Beverly Hills Unified School district after five years as principal, HBCSD Bruce Newlin had exclaimed that Pat Escalante was chosen from out of 70 other candidates for the principal job at the June 8, 2011 school board meeting.   How did she win out over 70 other candidates after her resume showed that she had been let go from BHUSD after five years as principal at El Rodeo School? 

   
   

2. HBCSD Superintendent Dr. Bruce Newlin announced his retirement in July 2011 after Pat Escalante was hired to be principal at Valley School.

   
   

3. Superintendent Dr. Bruce Newlin gave HBCSD school board members six months to find another superintendent when he announced his retirement in July 2011. He formally left the HBCSD superintendent position on December 31, 2011.

   
   

4. HBCSD school board members did not start a superintendent “search” to replace interim Superintendent Newlin until after he had already left the district in January 2012.  Why didn’t school board members start a superintendent search as soon as Bruce Newlin announced his retirement in July 2011?

   
   

5. At the last minute, before Dr. Newlin was planned to retire from HBCSD on December 31, 2011, instead of looking for a new full-time superintendent from July 2011 to December 2011, school board members hired formally retired superintendent Dr. Alan Rasmussen as interim superintendent on December 14, 2011. HBCSD school board members hired Dr. Alan Rasmussen for only six months. How did school board members know that they would only need Dr. Alan Rasmussen to fill in as interim superintendent for six months?   Apparently HBCSD School Board members did NOT start their permanent superintendent search until March 2012 when they decided on the unqualified Pat Escalante as the new HBCSD superintendent.

   
   

6. In the Superintendent Search and Selection Recommendations, HBCSD administration seemingly tried to sell the idea of looking at the exceedingly few or non-existent number of “qualified” and interested candidates within HBCSD small staff to fill the position.  Who were the other candidates on the HBCSD staff that Pat Escalante won out over for the superintendent position?

History of the superintendent position at HBCSD from 2000-2020:

Robert “Duffy” Clark – 2000-2003:

Please see the timeline from 2000 to 2003 for more details.

1.       Dr. Robert “Duffy” Clark was hired to be HBCSD superintendent in June 2000. In November 2002, school board members passed $13.6M Measure J.   By July 2003 Superintendent Clark had resigned from HBCSD.

2.       Only three years after being hired, and six months after the district’s Measure J was passed, Robert Duffy Clark left the school district.

3.       School board members would ultimately spend $19.5M on HBCSD facilities, with $11M going toward a gymnasium complex instead of the promised 13 classrooms.  School board members would also spend approximately $1M from school district coffers in order to finish the gymnasium complex.

4.       Did Duffy Clark leave HBCSD because he cared about his reputation and did not want to make a gymnasium the priority over needed classrooms at HBCSD?  Did Dr. Clark decide that he did not want to lie for the cabal and so left the district instead?

Dr. Sharon McClain – 2003-2008:

Please see the timeline from 2003 to 2008 for more details.

1.       Dr. Sharon McClain oversaw the district during Measure J.

2.       Superintendent McClain did not disclose information about the Memorandum of Understanding or the Agreement for the Sale and Purchase of Pier Avenue School to the public.  It was her responsibility to know the full leasing details of the Agreement for district use of the gymnasium, auditorium, classrooms, office and storage space.

3.       Superintendent McClain did not advocate that additional classrooms, parking and lunch facilities be the priority over a low-priority extremely expensive gymnasium. 

4.       The school district had rent free, priority leasing rights to use the gymnasium, changing rooms and tennis courts at the Community Center two hours a day and an additional 10 days during the school year.  The CDE does not require that California schools have a gymnasium.

5.       Dr. McClain left HBCSD in late summer 2008 after the gymnasium had been built at Valley School.

6.       Dr. McClain took a job at She left HBCSD for a superintendent position at Del Mar Unified School District in September 2008.

7.       Dr. Sharon McClain was fired from the Del Mar Unified School District in March 2010.

Dr. Bruce Newlin – 2008-2011:

Please see the timeline from 2008 to 2011 for more details.

1.       At the September 2008 school board meeting, school board members contemplating hiring a superintendent search firm to find HBCSD Superintendent Dr. Sharon McClain’s replacement. 

2.       Four superintendent search firms had assured HBCSD school board members that they could find a new superintendent for HBCSD within five months.   In fact, the board recommendations from 2008 stated that a new, permanent superintendent could be found in two to three months. 

3.       It appears that the COSCA Group was hired to do the superintendent search. However, for some reason, school board members stopped the superintendent search process and hired formally retired, 74-year-old Bruce Newlin to fill the position. 

4.       Dr. Newlin was a 74-year-old formally retired superintendent with 30 years of superintendent experience at six different school districts with enrollment of up to 14,000 students and 20 schools.   He was obviously exceedingly overqualified to work at HBCSD, a small K-8th grade district with only 1,200 students and two schools.

5.       Dr. Bruce Newlin came to HBCSD at a sizeable cost for the small Hermosa school district at the time.  As of January 2009, the Salary Schedule for Bruce Newlin was Step 1: $160,000.; Step 2: $168,000; Step 3: $176,400; Step 4: $185,220; Step 5: $194,481. 

6.       It is likely that Dr. Newlin did not need the superintendent position at HBCSD for financial or career reasons, after all he was hired as an interim superintendent, and supposedly he already had a hefty retirement pension.  By the time Dr. Newlin finally retired from HBCSD he was 77 years old.

7.       Why did school board members choose to hire a formally retired, overqualified, 74-year-old superintendent Bruce Newlin when they could have certainly found a well-qualified yet less expensive, non-retired superintendent for the small Hermosa Beach school district? 

8.       Why would school board members declined to employ a superintendent search firm from 2008 to December 2011?  It is likely that a superintendent search firm would care about its reputation in the industry and only represent well-qualified, reputable candidates to be superintendents.

9.       Was the cabal looking for a superintendent who would be willing to lie to the public and put his or her reputation on the line to do the cabal’s bidding?  (Please see the introduction for more details on the cabal.)  Is that why school board members decided NOT to employ a reputable search firm to find a new superintendent?

10.   It is likely that Dr. Newlin did not want to put his reputation on the line to do the cabal’s bidding either.  Is that why Dr. Newlin did not start the district’s facilities process during his tenure despite his extensive knowledge and experience?

11.   However, as a formally retired superintendent who didn’t really need this job, Dr. Newlin would have no problem being a placeholder while the cabal* searched for the perfect superintendent to help carry out their plans.

12.   Was Bruce Newlin actually hired to be a “placeholder” until school board members could find the “right” candidate who would be willing to put his or her reputation on the line to do the CABAL’s bidding? 

13.   *Please see the MOTIVE for more details on the cabal and their suspected plan.

14.   With 30 years of experience as a superintendent for six different school districts and with presumably lots of experience with school facility decisions, why didn’t HBCSD School Board members have Dr. Newlin start the facilities process for HBCSD from at least 2009?   Why wait until Pat Escalante was made superintendent in 2012, with NO superintendent experience, before starting a process to examine district facilities?  Why not investigate options and make plans for expansion before being faced with a crisis?   Was the reason Dr. Newlin didn’t get involved with district facilities because Dr. Newlin cared about his reputation and didn’t want to be caught lying for the cabal?

15.   Superintendent Newlin did not disclose information about the Memorandum of Understanding or the Agreement for the Sale and Purchase of Pier Avenue School to the public.  It was his responsibility to know the full leasing details of the Agreement for district use of the gymnasium, auditorium, classrooms, office and storage space.

16.   Was the reason school board members ignored overcrowding until it became a crisis, because the cabal was waiting for the overcrowding to become a crisis so they could use it to pressure the community into passing an unnecessarily expensive facilities bond?

17.   After hiring a second, formally retired, interim superintendent in January 2012, HBCSD school board members decided to forego using a Superintendent search firm in favor of hiring from the extremely limited (or non-existent?) qualified candidates within the Hermosa Beach School District.  

Patricia Escalante – 2012-2020:

Please see the timeline from 2012 to 2020 for more details.

1.   Hermosa Beach City School District Superintendent Search and Selection notice just prior to the unqualified Pat Escalante being hired (HBCSD document #S-30-11/12) states: 

  “The selection of the superintendent is one of the most important decisions any school board will make.”  “The superintendent is the person through which the direction of the board is carried out.”  “As befits a decision of this importance, it is one that should be arrived at with care.”

2.   Hermosa Beach City School District Superintendent Search and Selection notice #S-30-11/12 also gives three options to fill the superintendent vacancy: 

(1)    Executive Search Firm: cost $18,000 to $23,000.

(2)    In-House staff [search]: cost $8,000 to $10,000

(3)    Select from Current Staff: cost for a [superintendent] coach $10,000-$15,000/year.  Overall net savings to the General Fund would be approximately $125,000.

NOTE:  It is not clear how the district arrived at net savings of $125,000 by hiring from current staff.   Was it because a superintendent hired from current staff could be paid much less than overqualified, formally retired, interim superintendents Dr. Bruce Newlin and Dr. Alan Rasmussen?  Wouldn’t it be possible to hire a less expensive qualified superintendent and still save the district money?  Couldn’t either hiring a superintendent through an executive search firm or an In-house search result in the same net savings to the General Fund?  Why was the statement about “net savings” only added to Option (3) Select from Current Staff?

NOTE: HBCSD paid approximately $40k for superintendent “lessons” for Pat Escalante from 2012 through 2014. 

3.   School board members (Patti Ackerman, Jack Burns, Carleen Beste, Lisa Claypoole and Ray Waters) voted to promote Pat Escalante to the superintendent position in April 2012.

NOTE: After initially taking a pay cut as Valley School principal for one year, Pat Escalante was then given an approximately $30,000.00/year salary increase when she was made superintendent at HBCSD.  The following year Pat Escalante’s superintendent salary was increased by $3,372. 

NOTE: According to HBCSD, Ms. Escalante’s final salary in June 2020 was $192,540/year (not including $32,131.08 in bonuses in her last two years at HBCSD).  Her June 2020 salary, after only eight years at HBCSD, was a 53% increase above what she had last been paid at Beverly Hills Unified School District ($125,688/year) and a whopping 79% increase over her salary as principal her first year at HBCSD.   

NOTE:  According to Transparent California information Pat Escalante’s total pay had increased to $203,409.00 in 2020 (after only eight years) with $39,803.00 in benefits for total pay and benefits of $243,212.00. 

WHY HIRE THE UNQUALIFIED PAT ESCALANTE TO BE HBCD SUPERINTENDENT?

1. Why would HBCSD school board members hire Pat Escalante to be superintendent when she was clearly unqualified for the job?  School board members even paid up to $40,000 for Pat Escalante to be given superintendent lessons by retired superintendent Alan Rasmussen at taxpayer expense. 

2.   Was the reason school board members declined to go with a superintendent search firm, because a search firm would only represent qualified candidates who would probably not want to put their reputations on the line to lie for the cabal that was working to keep HBCSD out of the Community Center?  Would a more qualified superintendent agree to do the cabal’s bidding, which would require lying to the residents of Hermosa Beach and keep students in overcrowded conditions until an expensive bond was passed to build a brand-new campus? 

3.   Did the cabal members assure Pat Escalante that they would protect her and elevate her within the community if she did their bidding?  Please see Lie #20: Claiming that Pat Escalante was honored by the Creative Coalition at Sundance Festival in Park City Utah.

NOTE: All other HBCSD superintendents have had Doctor of Education degrees.

CORRECT INFORMATON:

1. When Pat Escalante was hired as principal for Valley School she was unemployed.  Pat Escalante was an older, single woman with a less than stellar resume looking for a job at the height of the Great Recession.   She was also approaching retirement.

2. Was Pat Escalante the cabal’s choice for superintendent all along.  Bruce Newlin wanted to retire again, and the district’s ‘placeholder’ would soon be gone.  Did the cabal elevate the unqualified Pat Escalante because she was willing to put her reputation on the line to lie for the cabal in exchange for a 53.18% increase in pay (not including $32,131.08 in bonuses in her last two years at HBCSD) and a more comfortable retirement?  Did members of the cabal assure her that they would publicly elevate her in the community and protect her if she would lie to the community about the district’s facility facts in order to pass an expensive bond to rebuild North School and keep the district out of the Community Center?  

3. Dr. Bruce Newlin did not announce his retirement until July 13, 2011 (P-14-11/12), one month after Pat Escalante was hired as principal at Valley School.  Is it possible that previously retired, interim Superintendent Newlin got the okay from HBCSD school board members to finally retire after Pat Escalante was hired as principal with the nod to her being named superintendent the following year?

1. Although Pat Escalante had a less than stellar resume, HBCSD Bruce Newlin had exclaimed that Pat Escalante was chosen from out of 70 other candidates for the principal job at the June 8, 2011 school board meeting.   How did she win out over 70 other candidates after her resume showed that she had been let go after five years as principal at El Rodeo School? 

   
   

2. Dr. Newlin finally retired from HBCSD on December 31, 2011.  After which school board members hired formally retired superintendent Dr. Alan Rasmussen as interim superintendent for only six months.    How did school board members know that they would only need Dr. Alan Rasmussen to fill in as interim superintendent for six months?  

   
   

3. HBCSD school board members did not start their so-called superintendent “search” to replace interim Superintendent Newlin until after he had already left the district in January 2012. Why didn’t school board members start a superintendent search as soon as Bruce Newline announced his retirement in July 2011?

   
   

4. In the Superintendent Search and Selection Recommendations, HBCSD administration seemingly tried to sell the idea of looking at the exceedingly few or non-existent number of “qualified” and interested candidates within HBCSD small staff to fill the position.  Who were the other candidates on the HBCSD staff that Pat Escalante won out over for the superintendent position?

4. From Superintendent Search and Selection Recommendation: …“(3) Select from Current Staff:  Often times Boards’ of Education look at inside candidates to fill an open position when there are viable candidates.  (How was Pat Escalante determined to be a “viable” candidate for HBCSD superintendent?)  In considering this option, restructuring of existing administrative staff may be required as well as providing a coach to support the candidate during their first year to insure [ensure] a successful transition.  The cost and timeline in selecting the superintendent is greatly reduced.  The cost for a coach would range from $10,000-$15,000 for the year.”… 

The recommendations for the superintendent search was seemingly written to “sell” the community on the idea of hiring Pat Escalante instead of looking for a more qualified candidate.  The district’s recommendation seemed to have been created to fit the school board’s predetermined plan three months before Pat Escalante was publicly hired.

NOTE:  School board members seemed to bend over backwards in order to hire Pat Escalante as superintendent.  They paid for two years of superintendent coaching lessons at a cost not to exceed $40,000.  Would it have been cheaper to pay the estimated $18,000-$23,000 fee for a search firm to find a more qualified superintendent AND still restructure existing administrative staff than to hire from the school district’s exceedingly few and obviously unqualified superintendent pickings? 

1. Pat Escalante was named HBCSD superintendent in spring 2012 after serving only one-year as principal at Valley School.  Instead of keeping Pat Escalante on as principal at Valley School and finding a more qualified candidate to become superintendent, school board members seemingly bent over backwards to find another temporary principal at Valley School until their other choice, educator Kimberly Taylor, could step into a permanent principal position in October after just giving birth. 

    

2. Pat Escalante had no experience as a superintendent of a school district.  She is the only HBCSD superintendent in memory who did not have a Doctor of Education degree.   Why would Pat Escalante think of replacing Dr. Bruce Newlin at HBCSD when she had no education or experience as a superintendent?  Why would school board members consider hiring her as superintendent?  Please see school board members Patti Ackerman and Jack Burns superlatives about Pat Escalante in the article

   
   

3. School Board members paid for superintendent “lessons” for Pat Escalante after they hired her.  Why wouldn’t school board members just hire a more experienced superintendent?