by David Safier
Based on the comments and emails I've received from students and [former] teachers from Imagine Prep at Superstition in Apache Junction, there's lots more to the story about two-thirds of the school's teachers being fired. The Republic covered the story and I posted about it Friday.
I received an email with a few pictures from the student protest. A commenter on the earlier post, apparently a student, posted a long comment which I'm reproducing here in full.
According to the person who sent the photos, this shows students who walked out of the school when they learned about teachers being fired. The police are there, according to the source, because the administration called them, and the police threatened the students with arrest.
This photo shows school uniforms the students ripped up and hung on the fence outside of the school to protest the firings.
Below is a comment on my last post from a student. I've included the entire comment, though you'll have to continue below the fold to read the whole thing. There are a few misspellings and minor errors which I haven't corrected — certainly no more than in the average comment. I thank the student for taking the time and effort to explain what happened. It's a clear, well written, valuable timeline of the events. Others should feel free to comment on it, add to it, or correct anything they believe is an incorrect statement. You may either comment on this post or send me an email: safier@schooltales.net. I keep all correspondence confidential.
Okay, so just to clear things up, this is why/what happened at Imagine Prep Friday morning. Its kind of long, but please read!
The events that occurred were because of an on going struggle between student/teacher and administration/regional receiving and distributing respect. (Regional, for those that do not know, is like the head of the district)
Over this past year, many issues have been handled in shocking ways. It seemed that the only form of punishment was suspension and being aloud to speak on your behalf was out of the question. The lack of respect given to the students was extremely low, and each day the bar was dropping. Many students turned to their teachers to seek comfort or to just simply vent. But once we found out that over half of our teachers were not asked to come back next year, because of their "lack" of commitment for the students, we as a student body knew we must do something.
The first "rebellion", was not a success. The rebellion was to dress down on a non dress down day. However, it didn't last long because a certain "man", if you will, went on a rampage suspending students left and right. He did NOT do this in a respectful manner. Matter of fact, this is the first time that MOST of the students of Imagine Prep had ever seen/heard of him.
From that moment on things at our school were headed downhill. The principle even told our valedictorian that her speech wasn't good enough and a disgrace to our school. WHY? Because it contained information on the way that things have REALLY been happening at this school. She ending up having to rewrite her speech, just hours before graduation.
However, there is one person who stood up to them. He called them out for the lies that they had been telling everyone, and for the way that they had been acting. His name if Mr. Alex Ivan. He is one of the most inspiration teachers anyone can every have. And he defended his peers, colleagues, and students at graduation. Mr. Ivan did this not by naming calling or shouting out, but simply with the power of literature. Because he did this in front of the entire school, parents, other teachers, and other members from the regional office, they fired him today during first hour.
Upon hearing this, teachers and students felt that they had had enough. Students rallied together and marched over to the regional office to seek answers. Nothing was given to us, as usual from this school. After that we bonded together in the gym, refusing to return to class, demanding answers. Teachers were not encouraging us to continue, they were just overseeing what we were doing and making sure that we were safe. The principle could not get us to listen, so he began threatening the teacher's jobs and even saying that he was going to have them arrested.
Us students had enough. That was our school, those were our teachers. We deserved answer and damned well deserved to say goodbye to our teachers.
Once they pulled more than half of the teachers away with the police and fired them, the students left the buildings along with them.
I do not tell everyone this to start more drama or to even talk crap. I am informing those on Facebook because Imagine Prep is a small school. There were barely 200 students attending that school. I am asking you to inform others as to what happened so that we as a community can take action. The students at Imagine may have started this, but we still need help. In order for this to have on effect we need many people to report them to – Charter Boards (http://charterboards.org/about-us/contact-us ) and The Better Business Bureau (https://www.bbb.org/consumer-complaints/file-a-complaint/get-started ) . If you have any other questions of concerns, here is the number to the regional office, 480-355-0502.
I don’t think Leona Group knows. Perhaps someone should contact them.
Here is the web page for the local region; http://www.leonagroup.com/AZ/index.htm
The number for the region is (602) 953-2933. Tell them Kerry Clark has been at Imagine Prep since February or March. I had seen him in the other building long before he came over to the school and started acting like he was the principal.
Maybe we should call Leona Group and ask them if they know Kerry Clark and Rosie Rodriguez now work for Imagine.
How is it that Kerry Clark is the Principal of two schools? Is that illegal or at the very least a conflict of interest. Does Leona Group know this?
The “Clark and Rodriguez” Former Student mentions are Kerry Clark and Rosie Rodriguez. They used to be with a high school with Leona Group. Check it out here. http://leonaaz.com/home/?page_id=14
I think he’s the real principal, not Mr. Stirpe. I also think he’s the principal next year. He suspended a bunch of the students who protested that day by not wearing their uniform. How could he suspend them if he wasn’t the principal? The teachers also said he was going to be the principal next year, and he was the one leading the meetings with the students talking about the changes at the school.
I actually witnessed that happening too, so she is definitely not the only one. Believe me, Stirpe and his administration definitely put on acts for the parents. The way they treat students and teachers truly disgust me…
As a parent of an Imagine Prep student I would like to know more about Mr. Stirpe’s behavior exspecially that day. I would like to know this information because he is calling my child a liar by saying an incident which she witnessed never happened. This incident would be Mr. Stirpe manhandling a child ( a child of an employee )which my daughter claims happened, she was very upset by it and she says she wasn’t the only student who saw this happen. I confronted Mr. Stirpe the day of the parent information meetings and his answer to me was “IT NEVER HAPPENED”
You only learned what the Administration wanted you to learn. Too learn you have to be fully informed on every aspect of what has been occurring and what occurred that day.
Haha, what’s funny is I think there is a person who works there named Nancy Rodriguez, so I’m pretty sure that comment really was by the administration, hahaha. Anyways, what happened was absolutely ridiculous and I am glad I am outta there. The administration is trying to transform the school into something it is not and is very money and power hungry. It became more than evident when Stirpe brought Clark and Rodriguez(most likely specifically you up there^^) came in and made unnecessary changes and took complete control over everything, and the way things were handled were ridiculous. It became so obvious to eveyone that these three people only cared about marketing, money and power. Also, their so-called “improvement” which included ugly paint jobs and a 51-inch plasma TV in the lobby(which is an absolute waste of money) are absurd, and not asking the teachers to come back show how much they really don’t care about what kind of teacher they receive. Their lack of care was clearly shown on the last day when all the teachers were fired and the principal was being disrespectful and even went as far as to calling the cops, which I felt only made conflicts worse. Everyone was crying and angry, and the administration as well as Mr. Stirpe did not show any care for it on their faces. I wouldn’t believe them one bit, they are only putting on an act for the parents. Don’t send your child to this school unless they make changes to the principal and the administration.
LIES!!!!
The administrators for the school flat out lied about this incident and wrongly fired teachers. This school has wrongly fired teachers on more then one occasion. The students and teachers are tired of the techers being fired. The administrators are now trying to turn this school into a Tech school.The teachers were against the administrators on this issue are were fired for it. The students backed there teachers. The administrator for this school and the principal shouled be fired for there conduct not the teachers.
Everything I read about your comment, in one helpful line:
“Hi everyone, I’m from Imagine Administration, and I’m helping cover everything up.”
Ma’am, I know several (>90%) of the students who were protesting, and I know several of the teachers personally. I know that none of the students would simply start a protest because of what they “think”. As for the teachers, they were very dedicated to the “No religion/politics in school” ideal, and while passing out business cards sounds like something they MAY do, “bizarre religious messages” is something they would not do.
So yeah, your entire post sounds like it came from administration.
While I think the student who posted the original comment believes that they are right, in fact they are totally misinformed. From what I learned today, the school is trying to improve standards for the students and teachers. They want to get better at college preparation. I’m sure some students and some families don’t like this. There are probably several teachers that don’t like this either. However, not one single teacher was fired, not even the graduation speaker! He finished his contract and will even be paid over the summer. So will the other teachers. Only three teachers weren’t offered teaching contracts for next year, but they said they were fired….that isn’t true either. All school’s get to choose which teachers they want back and I’m not surprised that the school didn’t want these teachers back based on their terrible behavior like lying about being fired and passing out their own personal business cards and flyers with bizarre religious messages on them. Maybe the school knew what it was doing not bringing these teachers back. Either way, the whole situation was made worse by the teachers. I know this from my own student who was told by her teacher to “go to the gym to protest Mr. Ivan getting fired”, even though he wasn’t…
Teachers graduation speech that got him fired
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ueDRbQ2WK4&feature=youtube_gdata_player
It should also be noted that their student body president was removed from office because she aided in the dress down protest noted above.
You know i went to this very same school for two years. My freshman year there was amazing. I would also like to not that i was actually there very first person to ever enroll at this school. I had great grades, got along with all the faculty and was rewarded immensely for my great work and support for the school. Then my sophomore year came. Everything started to change. Freedoms i was once given were taken away. The principal was leaving and many teachers were not returning. I left that school that year knowing i was going back to a school that i should have never left. Through the contact of my friends that remained at this school i saw it diminish into this sickening excuse for a school. I saw and heard my friends being treated poorly. There is a fine line between being a disciplinary figure and someone who is just down right disrespectful. It is horrible to see what this school, the school i once worked so hard to make successful, fall to such a low. During my first year there i got the pleasure of being able to not only share a dinner with, but also interview the man who made Imagine Schools. Dennis Bakke himself. This is not what he had intended for his schools. While i know there are some Imagine schools that are amazing i can surely say that this is not, nor has it ever been, one of them. It only continues to infuriate me even more to read that Ms. Cagle, the spokeswoman for Imagine Schools, has said that they may file charges against the students and teachers for what took place. I can say this to you Ms. Cagle. SHOVE IT! If you had listened to the students and the faculty about what was going on this wouldn’t have happened. I hope this event receives more media. It is time the Imagine was punished for what they did in this school. I will happily put my real name down below. I can only hope for the best for the teachers who were fired. I also hope that something is done for all of those 8th graders, now freshman, who had there moment in the spotlight taken away from them. Perhaps those parents will get answers at that meeting on Wednesday.
David, I think you need to read this:http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/what-a-scam-poor-kids-money-snatched-by-private-schools-20120523
And to the student that posted what’s been going on at your school, thank you so much for writing.Something very wrong is going on here.
Thank you for posting this!