By Carlos Avalos

A former teacher is alleging that the Etiwanda School District’s administration in recent years compromised its educational mission in favor of maximizing funding it receives from the state, destroying the district’s once cutting-edge preschool program in the process, and is now disadvantaging the district’s youngest and most vulnerable students.
Antoinette Jensen taught for seven years in the Creating Learning Opportunities Utilizing Diverse Strategies (CLOUDS ) program within the Etiwanda School District. Initially, she taught as a permitted early child education preschool teacher at Grapeland Elementary, then at Golden Elementary for the 2022-2023 school year, followed by a position at Terra Vista Elementary for the 2023-2024 school year.
The district’s administrators spent more than a decade of building the CLOUDS program into what many considered to be a model program for integrating preschool students into a learning environment and bringing them up to speed with regard to basic academic skills so they take full advantage of the educational opportunities awaiting them in first grade, second grade and beyond, thoroughly familiarizing with how the State of California funds its public school system. Having learned how to tap into that generosity to be able to run legitimate programs aimed at targeting students of varying socioeconomic means and across the entire cognitive spectrum, those running the district eventually fell to manipulating the funding protocols to prioritize not furthering the education of the students the district was entrusted with but to bring substantial amounts of money into the district by enrolling more and more students into programs for which the state would provide augmentation funding whether or not the amalgam of students placed into those classes resulted in a beneficial learning environment or not, Jensen alleges.
In the case of the district’s CLOUDS program, according to Jensen, the teachers found themselves being overburdened with students across too wide of an age spectrum being intermixed in the classes, resulting in their focus and span of control being tested beyond the breaking point. This, Jensen says, resulted in the once successful educational atmosphere within the classes being ruined and student academic achievement plummeting.
As a consequence, according to Jensen, the Etiwanda School District disserves the special education students in its preschool program, exploits their special-needs status, and even tolerates the abuse of special education students in its pre-kindergarten programs. Continue reading →

Those manning crucial posts within San Bernardino County government have been thrown into a tizzy over reports, none of which could be confirmed at press time, that County Counsel Tom Bunton is on his way out as the county’s top in-house lawyer.
The office of county counsel is the county’s stable of staff attorneys. Bunton, who was formerly assistant county counsel with the County of San Diego, assumed the role of county counsel in San Bernardino county in January 2022.
In recent days and weeks there have been mixed signals emanating out of floors four and five of the county administrative building located at 385 North Arrowhead Avenue in downtown San Bernardino.
One indication was that Laura Feingold, who was elevated by Bunton to the position of chief assistant county counsel 16 months ago, will be sliding into the post which is yet officially held by Bunton.
Undergirding that were a series of developments this week relating to the board of supervisors and the office of county counsel.
The board this week, on Tuesday June 10, held its regularly scheduled meeting. It was next scheduled to meet on June 24. The board customarily holds its regularly scheduled meetings on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month or, more rarely, the first and third Tuesdays of each month. Abruptly, however, after the close of normal business hours today, Friday, June 13, the June 24 meeting was canceled. Instead, announcement was given that the board would hold a specially called meeting next week, not on Tuesday but Wednesday June 18. Based upon the contents of the agenda, it appeared that the matters that would have been discussed and potentially voted upon at the June 24 meeting were going to be taken up at the June 18 meeting.
Of note is that the board of supervisors has no meetings scheduled for July, such that there will be a 48-day gap between the June 24 meeting and its next regularly scheduled meeting on August 5.
Placed on the agenda for a closed door executive session of the board to take place prior to the public portion of the June 18 meeting was an item worded thusly: Public Employee Appointment (Government Code section 54957) Title: County Counsel
That seemed to imply that a change in who will hold the position of county counsel is in the offing.
At a meeting of the board on April 1, the supervisors, in a closed session engaged in evaluations of the job performance of both Bunton and County Chief Executive Officer Luther Snoke. When the board emerged from that closed session, there was no report of any action taken. If an elected body takes action during a closed session, under the Ralph M. Brown Act, California’s open public meeting law, a report of that action is supposed to be made. In most jurisdictions in California, as is the case in San Bernardino County, the primary counsel for the agency – in this case, Bunton – makes that announcement. Since Bunton and Snoke were the subject of the evaluations, they were most likely not present during the April 1 closed session as is normally the case, although that is not publicly known to absolutely be the case. As there was no report out from the meeting, it is unknown, precisely whether Bunton was given a positive evaluation.
He has remained as county counsel in the intervening time. Nevertheless, rumors are extant within county governmental circles that Feingold’s stock is on the rise.
Bunton, at least until recently, was believed to have rock solid job security, given the amount of inside information – much of it potentially and actually damaging to the members of the board of supervisors – he is privy to.
From the outset of his time as county counsel, Bunton has been entrusted with a compendium of exceedingly sensitive information pertaining to how the county is run, places and occasions where its employees and both low and high officials have made mistakes, engaged in wrongdoing and/or misfeasance and malfeasance. Bunton has been present during virtually all closed door executive meetings of the board. In those sessions, in addition to Bunton providing the board with briefings relating to pending or ongoing litigation, real estate purchases or sales were discussed, negotiations for the sale or purchase of real estate took place, the job performance of key county staff members was evaluated, discussion of staff hirings, discipline and firings occurred and board members disclosed information or details with regard to action in which they were involved. The disclosures and information brought forth during these closed sessions are supposed to be held in the strictest confidence.
Very early in his tenure as county counsel, Bunton became aware that the district attorney’s office under District Attorney Jason Anderson had neglected to monitor the county’s real estate fraud prosecution program funding in violation of California Government Code § 27388. Around the same time, Bunton learned of a extortion scheme then-County Chief Executive Officer Leonard Hernandez was engaging in which he was withholding from disclosure information about bribe money being filtered to members of the board of supervisors. When press efforts to obtain documentation that would unmask the nature of the blackmailing that was ongoing, including Hernandez’s meeting calendar, through the California Public Records Act, Bunton choreographed county officials through the crisis by instructing them to simply brass it out and refuse to hand over the requested documentation.
When the county botched its emergency response to the 2023 arctic storm that blanketed the county’s mountain communities, which included the deaths of several individuals who were snowed in and isolated, Bunton shepherded the county out of harm’s way. When Russian mobsters hacked into the sheriff’s department’s computer and communication system, with the entire system rendered unusable and at risk, not to mention gigabytes of information relating to highly questionable actions by law enforcement officers now potentially at risk of discovery by the public at large, Bunton advised the county to accede to paying a $1.1 million ransom so the sheriff’s department could recover control of its database. When the county board of supervisors at last resolved to be rid of Hernandez as county chief executive officer, Bunton assisted in formulating a strategy to freeze him out of the county administrative suite while he was on vacation and then negotiated a $650,000 payout to keep him silent about the damaging information pertaining to the members of the board he had accumulated while he was running the county.
Bunton attended and graduated from Indiana State University Kelley School of Business with a four-year degree in 1988 and thereafter attended Georgetown University’s School of Law graduating in 1993. He practiced law in Indiana and passed the California Bar in 1997. He thereafter worked for the law firms of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego and then Gibson Dunn & Crutcher in its San Diego Office before working as a litigator with Baker McKenzie for a short spell. He began as a senior deputy county counsel with San Diego County in September 2001, remaining in that post until 2016, when he promoted to chief deputy county counsel. In March 2019, he reached the number two position in that office as assistant county counsel.
As of right now, Bunton is being provided with an annual salary of $346,497.76, in addition to which he is provided with $27,354.34 in perquisites and pay add-ons and $150,505.54 in benefits for a total annual compensation of $524,357.64.
While Bunton’s departure from the graft encrusted San Bernardino County government has not been confirmed, those in the know say that by virtue of his having demonstrated skill in purchasing the silence of so many top tier county employees when they have made their exodus from the county, he should be able to wring from the taxpayers’ stewards no less for himself and can look forward to a payout of approaching $1 million to go quietly into the good night.

By Richard Hernandez
The diametric polarity of current American politics went manifest late last week and all of this week as the Donald Trump Administration’s promised policy of immigration enforcement began in earnest in Southern California, following a three-month abeyance.
As first reported previously in the Sentinel, the Trump Administration’s intention had been to initiate strict immigration enforcement in California as early as March by massive round-ups of undocumented aliens in both San Bernardino and Riverside counties with the cooperation of local authorities before having the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Department of Homeland Security turn their attention to the far denser concentration of illegal aliens in Los Angeles County. The administration, however, at the last minute abandoned that plan when both San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus and Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco signaled they would not countenance having their respective departments assist federal officers in any action that would leave local residents distrustful of or uncooperative with law enforcement.
Accordingly, federal authorities instead regeared, making preparations, which were massive in scope, to undertake the removal, within the next two years, of an estimated 2.2 million illegal aliens from California. As a matter of practicality and simple math, that effort most logically would be centered in Los Angeles County, immediately adjacent to San Bernardino County.
The final brick in the edifice of “Operation Alta California,” scheduled to begin June 2, was put in place with the installation of Bill Essayli, temporarily pending confirmation by the Senate, as U.S. Attorney for Central California.
That schedule was met, with more than a dozen U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency sweeps across Los Angeles on June 2, more than a score in Los Angeles County on June 3 and hundreds completed by June 6. Consequently, immigration enforcement was given a lesser emphasis in San Bernardino County in the same timeframe, though U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency agents were notably present in the cities of San Bernardino, Colton, Rialto and Ontario at that time.
Predictably the immigration sweeps quickly sparked national outrage from Democratic leaders in California and outside the state, the advocates for illegal immigrants and those who in general tout themselves as liberals and progressives. Many of those question the constitutionally and applicability of immigration law altogether. They believe the nation should have open borders. They believe the Trump Administration’s conception of law and order does not match their own. There are outspoken elements among them who consider Donald Trump to be a criminal and a racist and celebrate those in his administration as criminal and racist, as well.
The California legislature passed the California Values Act into law in 2017 with the approval of Senate Bill 54, asserting the enforcement of federal immigration law is contrary to the ethos of the Golden State. Together with the specific declarations by a multitude of California cities and a general declaration by the State of California that they are sanctuaries from federal immigration law, those in the overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature and string of governors going back for more than a decade have demonstrated themselves to be of a mindset consider the enforcement of federal immigration law to be both immoral and impermissible. Among the minority of Democrats who support securing the borders and following immigration law, ones who acknowledge that the previous Joseph Biden Administration had not been aggressively enforcing immigration law, there is yet a belief that the Trump Administration is breaking the law and endangering the safety of people by the manner in which it is conducting the raids, most particularly when they are putting people into custody who are, in fact, legally registered, in the country legally or are citizens. They have emphasized that many or even most of those caught up in the Trump Administration’s immigration dragnet are hardworking people arrested while they were at work and trying to support their families through what the vast majority of Americans consider to be honest employment. The Trump Administration should reserve its enforcement firepower for concentrating on “true criminals,” in their view.
This clashes directly with the way those in the Trump Administration see it. They point out that federal law, which existed well prior to the advent of even the first Trump Administration, holds that for foreign nationals to enter into and remain in the United States, they must not only register their presence but be granted a visa or other form of permission to be in the country. Those failing to do so, or those who have snuck into the country, are in violation of the law, they maintain, and are criminals. As illegal aliens, they are subject to arrest and deportation, those in favor of the current enforcement effort believe. They point out that the raids are not targeting those immigrants who came into the U.S. through the legal process and complied with the word and spirit of the law, at what was for them tremendous expense and bother. Those migrants coming into the country illegally or overstaying the time limits on their visas are criminals, straight out and simple, they say, and those who are maintain that the enforcement of the law is wrong or racist or illegal are intellectually dishonest, plain stupid or criminals themselves.
By June 4, there were massive shows of public resistance to the raids. Massive protests seemed to be materializing in the areas where workplace arrests were taking place or near federal buildings. The mystery about how this was taking place was cleared up when it was revealed that community groups advocating on behalf of illegal immigrants were using their own self-styled Rapid Response Network, which employs a succession of hotline via phone numbers those in Southern California are able to call to report sightings of federal officers, primarily ICE officers. Those managing the hotline then relay word to hundreds, indeed thousands, of activists with whom they are affiliated through cell phone contact, giving precise instructions and directions to where ICE is setting up or involved in actions.
Crowds got in the way of several ICE operations. In some instances, riot conditions took place or were on the brink of manifesting. Looting of some businesses in those areas occurred. Cars and then a fleet of delivery vans owned by one company were overturned and/or set afire.
On June 6, David Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union California. was arrested during a demonstration against ICE action at a workplace in downtown Los Angeles when he reported became physical, assaulting a law enforcement officer while smashing a gate screaming profanities in the direction of officers.
U.S. Attorney Essayli charged Huerta with conspiracy to impede an officer, a felony under federal law with a potential punishment of up to six years in prison.
Simultaneously, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, having learned of the Rapid Response Network, began exploring the possibilities that its use constituted a violation of the federal wire fraud statute and represented a device used in an act of conspiracy to obstruct justice. Essayli’s office made clear that if protesters are brought to the scene of an ICE raid where a legally-issued search warrant is being served and activists swarming around the agents or their vehicles in an effort to impede them, the FBI and federal marshals on hand are authorized to arrest them and the U.S. Attorney’s Office intends to pursue charges against them.
While the Democrats and advocates for the illegal aliens maintained that the Trump Administration was overreacting and taking the enforcement of immigration law too seriously, there were plenty of others who believe the protesters had overreacted to the Trump Administration initiative in California. That overreaction resulted in what may prove to be a critical defection, indeed set of defections, from the illegal alien support network in California.
Previously, there was a strong and seemingly unbridgeable divide between, on one hand, the federal government and its employees and agents looking to enforce immigration law and, on the other hand, California State and local officials ready to defy federal law. The California Values Act and the declarations by California cities that they were sanctuaries from federal law, along with the statements of law enforcement stalwarts such as Dicus and Bianco that they would side with Sacramento rather than Washington, D.C. when it came to rounding up illegal aliens left little prospect that the federal agents could count on support in their mission. As early as June 4, however, LAPD officers were reporting that people in the crowds at the protests where they had come to ensure peaceful demonstrations could take place were throwing bricks, rocks, flaming projectiles, Molotov cocktails, concrete, M-80s and quarter sticks of dynamite their way.
The 101 Freeway was twice shut down Sunday, June 8, when protesters on an overpass threw rocks, debris, and M-80 explosives at California Highway Patrol officers and vehicles below them.
By June 5 Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, was promulgating that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were conducting operations at schools, hospital emergency rooms and homeless shelters.
The Department of Homeland Security immediately responded, calling what Bass had said, “blatantly false,” and challenging the mayor to provide proof to support her assertion and identify the source of her information. When Bass was unable to identify any schools, hospitals or homeless shelter where either the Department of Homeland Security or ICE had carried out operations, Bass retracted her statement and a member of her staff said she had relied on information pertaining to the illegal alien roundups posed through the Rapid Response Network. This intensified Essayli’s scrutiny of the Rapid Response Network.
True to precedent, other California Democrat politicians were inserting themselves into the controversy, lodging protests against the enforcement of the law in ways that skirted lesser laws relating to maintaining the public peace. Once again, depending on which side of the political divide the observer is on, those politicians came across as noble crusaders on behalf of illegal immigration or scofflaws themselves.
Congresswoman Norma Torres, who represents California’s 35th Congressional District, which includes the southwestern extension of San Bernardino County, was among, she said, a four-member “peaceful Congressional delegation oversight visit to the Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles on June 7, 2025… to observe and bear witness to the conditions and treatment of individuals in federal immigration custody. The visit was prompted by reports of violent encounters involving ICE agents and unidentified bystanders during raids at multiple locations in Los Angeles County, as well as reports of dangerous overcrowding at the facility.”
According to Torres, she and the other three members of Congress arrived at the Roybal Building at 8:30 am and “requested an invitation to enter and be given a briefing. At no point did we request entry for anyone other than members, and we clearly displayed our Congressional Member identification. Rather than accommodating the request, as required under law, we were denied access to the facility under a false pretext. Contrary to ICE’s public claim that over 1,000 protesters were present, this was a small, peaceful delegation.”
Torres maintains that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement made a “false characterization” of the circumstances surrounding the visit “designed to justify the dangerous and unjustified deployment of chemical agents against elected officials and other non-violent participants. We were a delegation of approximately fifteen individuals, including Members of Congress, legal counsel, congressional staff, media, and representatives from the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) and the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN).”
As a consequence of being subjected to the use of tear gas that was employed to get the crowd to back off, Torres maintains, “I was admitted to the emergency room for respiratory treatment, observation, and now must take medication.”
During the course of the delegation’s visit to the Roybal Building, Torres said, she learned that the federal officials responsible for the incarceration of the illegal aliens at the Roybal building spurned the efforts by some of those arrestees family members to provide them with medication and that ICE has not updated the database charting those prisoners in federal custody with the names of those arrested during the Los Angeles immigration raids.
She further asserted that ICE denying the Congressional delegation’s access to the Roybal facility was a violation of federal law granting members of Congress access to federal detention facilities.
It was, however, the position of Todd Lyon, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Essayli, that Torres, the other Congress members and their entire party, by showing up unannounced at the Roybal Building, were in potential violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)) 18 U.S.C. § 1512(d)) and 18 U.S.C. § 371. Essayli is weighing the filing of charges against all 15, depending upon the identification of the 11 individuals accompanying the Congress members and what action the Congress members are to take in their official capacity with regard to the immigration enforcement effort and the events of June 7.
Similarly, five days later, on June 12, as the Trump Administration’s Director of Home Security Kristi Noem was addressing members of the media in a restricted, by-invitation only press conference at the Westwood Federal Building in Los Angeles, the senior Democratic U.S. Senator from California Alex Padilla, an indefatigable advocate for illegal aliens, attempted to interrupt her presentation, triggering a response from Noem’s security detail, which included FBI agents, ICE agents, agents with the Department of Homeland Security, at least two members of the Secret Service and a U.S. Marshal.
The Sentinel has learned that Padilla, in his capacity as a senator, was meeting that morning at the Westwood Federal Building with General Gregory M. Guillot the head of the United States Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Known by its acronym USNORTHCOM, which conducts homeland defense, civil support and security cooperation with elements outside the federal government, including U.S. state officials and foreign governments and entities. While engaged with Guillot, one of Padilla’s staff members learned that Noem was giving a presentation in the building. Padilla, who with members of his staff had already gone through a security check including a metal detector to get into the Westwood Federal Building, cut short his exchange with Guillot and was led by an FBI agent to the room where Noem was engaged with several members of the media and local government agents in a presentation relating to the goals of the current immigration enforcement efforts in California. He was allowed into the presentation despite not having an invitation, on the basis of his being escorted into the conference by an FBI agent.
Padilla took up a place along a wall with others there. Noem, in providing a description of the rationale and parameters of the California operation, which at that point was centered in Los Angeles, was making the point that the enforcement activity was being handled unilaterally by federal employees and over the passive resistance of state and local officials. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE were attempting, Noem said to “liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that the governor and the mayor have placed on this country.”
That was too much for Padilla, who moved away from next to the wall, stepping past a photographer positioned to have an unobstructed angle on the secretary, and interrupted Noem, speaking over her to say, “I’m Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary.”
As two Secret Service agents reacted to rush toward him, Padilla paused and continued, “The fact of the matter is that…”
The first of the Secret Service agents reached the Senator, commanding, “Sir, hands up.”
Padilla continued, saying, “…half a dozen violent criminals that you’re rotating on your…”
The second Secret Agent joined the first in restraining Padilla. Padilla sought to continue with his statement, uttering merely “…on your…” At that point, the agents, joined by a federal marshal, forced Padilla toward the hallway.
It was unclear whether Padilla’s reference to the half dozen violent criminals was to those arrested by ICE or members of the Trump Administration with whom Padilla has philosophical and political differences.
A member of Padilla’s staff, armed with a cellphone camera, caught Noem’s statements from the time they had come into the room on video and continued to video his boss in his effort to engage Noem and the aftermath, as he was moved out into the hallway, where he was first forced his knees, then to his chest, while his arms were handcuffed behind him.
Upon Padilla’s removal from the room, Noem continued with the theme of here presentation, stating that the Trump Administration had continued with its game plan. Despite political and media resistance and that the federal agents conducting the raids had been “doxxed from doing their duty… have been targeted and their families have been put in jeopardy.”
In the immediate aftermath of the incident, Democrats, liberals and advocates for illegal immigrants lionized Padilla, while Republicans and supporters of the Trump Administration’s immigration policy demonized him.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung characterized Padilla as “a complete lunatic,” which he said was documented in the video of Padilla’s “freakout.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom said Padilla’s arrest was “outrageous, dictatorial and shameful,” while offering his opinion that “Trump and his shock troops are out of control.”
Padilla was disturbed by Newsom using the term “arrest” in reference to him. Fearing the governor’s citation of his criminal or arrest record might prove difficult in future campaigns, he hastened to point out that he had not been arrested but rather “detained.”
Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant Homeland Security Secretary, second only to Noem in the department, today said, “Senator Padilla chose disrespectful political theatre and interrupted a live press conference without identifying himself or having his Senate security pin on as he lunged toward Secretary Noem,” Even if Padilla did not represented an actual threat to Noem, McLaughlin said, the Secret Service and FBI agents and U.S. Marshals in the room had no way of knowing that and Padilla exacerbated the situation after he “was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers’ repeated commands.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said federal agents had “shoved and cuffed a sitting U.S. senator… and he is not just any senator. He is the first Latino citizen senator to ever represent our state. How do you not recognize one of two senators in our state?”
Bass suggested that Padilla’s status as a sitting U.S. Senator gave him license to interrupt Noem’s press conference.
Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno, a Republican, disputed that, saying that Padilla’s action merited arrest.
California’s junior senator, Adam Schiff, a Democrat, said the manner in which the federal agents in the Westwood Building reacted to Padilla was “disgraceful and disrespectful.” According to Schiff, Padilla “represents the best of the Senate.”
Deputy White House Press Secretary Abigail Jackson pointed out that Padilla was looking to provoke a reaction and perhaps even get arrested, doing so with one of his staff members videotaping what occurred so it could become a major media event.
“Padilla stormed a press conference without wearing his Senate pin or previously identifying himself to security, yelled and lunged toward Secretary Noem,” Jackson said. “Padilla didn’t want answers; he wanted attention. Padilla embarrassed himself and his constituents with this immature, theater-kid stunt, but it’s telling that Democrats are more riled up about Padilla than they are about the violent riots and assaults on law enforcement in LA.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, called the treatment Padilla received “despicable. It’s disgusting, It is so un-American. We need answers immediately.”
The Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said that Congress should consider censuring Padilla over the way he conducted himself at the Los Angeles press conference.
Senator Ben Ray Lujan a Democrat from New Mexico, saw Padilla as a man of virtue and the hero in what had unfolded on Thursday and Noem as the villain. Noem, Lujan said, “should step down.”
Meanwhile, the border between Alta California and Baja California is more secure than it has been since General Patton departed California for Operation Torch in North Africa in 1942.
Meanwhile the left is orchestrating protests in the streets of Los Angeles that are virtually indistinguishable from riots. Simultaneously, Democrats are gearing up to prevent the confirmation of Essayli as the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California.

A cross section of Southern California’s leading Democrats are spearheading an effort to prevent the U.S. Senate’s confirmation of Bill Essayli as the U.S. attorney for Central California.
Essayli, a former California Assemblyman and the one-time chief of staff to former San Bernardino Mayor John Valdivia, while establishing himself as a rock solid conservative Republican committed to tough ideological struggles in the face of overwhelming liberal opposition, is vehemently at odds with California’s predominant Democrats.
He was twice, in 2022 and 2024, chosen by the voters in the 63rd Assembly District to represent them, but was thwarted throughout his more than 25 months in office by the Democrats, who hold supermajorities in both of California’s legislative houses, from getting any of the bills he authored out of committee. In April, when President Donald Trump nominated him to be the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California incorporating Orange, Riverside Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, Essayli resigned from the Assembly to accept the post.
Essayli went instantaneously from being an outcast in California’s lower legislative house to one of the most prestigious posts within the U.S. Justice System. California’s Central District is the most populous such judicial jurisdiction in the country, with almost 20 million people living within its confines. As U.S. Attorney, he supervises 263 lawyers and the complete support staff the offices entail in their work at the four federal courthouses located in Los Angeles along with the courthouses in Riverside, Santa Ana, Pasadena, Woodland Hills, and Santa Barbara.
While Essayli has been temporarily installed under 28 U.S.C. § 546, he is subject to being confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The Democratic Party enjoys dominance in California and in a handful of states, including New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington and Oregon. Nevertheless, following the 2024 election it lost the White House and is the minority party in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Elements within the Democratic Party, however, remain determined to use whatever power remains to them to hold the Trump Administration in check.
Essayli served as an intern in the White House Counsel’s Office during the George W. Bush Administration and during the Obama Administration was hired as a deputy prosecutor with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. While Obama was yet president, he became an assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, remaining in that capacity while working out of both the Los Angeles and Riverside offices from October 2014 to February 2018. In that role, he was part of the team of prosecutors who prosecuted or pursued action with regard to Enrique Marquez Jr., Raheel Farook, Tatiana Farook, and Mariya Chernykh for the assistance they rendered Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik in carrying out the 2015 terrorist attack in San Berardino.
Essayli ran unsuccessfully for the California Assembly in 2018 against incumbent Democrat Sabrina Cervantes, who has since moved on to the California Senate, prior to his 2022 political comeback. He has long been perceived by the Democrats as an acerbic mouthpiece of the Republican opposition. Very early on in his tenure in the Assembly, the Democrats united in an effort to block virtually all of his legislation, using various means of preventing the bills he had authored from reaching the Assembly floor for a vote. By 2024, when he was seeking reelection, the Democrats, having thwarted all of his legislative attempts, then utilized their undercutting of him to caricaturize him as a lawmaker who had never authored a law. Despite that, he was reelected.
Shortly after Essayli was nominated to the U.S. attorney’s slot, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, acutely conscious of the hostility his party had exhibited toward Essayli in the past and concerned about the hostility his party might have engendered in Essayli going forward remarked that the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California “was powerless in the Assembly, and is using his Trump-bestowed job to settle scores.”
The campaign to defang Essayli has now evolved into an effort to prevent him from remaining for a full term as U.S. Attorney.
A website put together by Democratic Party activists, stopessayli.org, is the cornerstone of the effort to prevent Essayli’s confirmation in the U.S. Senate.
The website calls upon those who have reached it to “Stop Essayli. Protect Children. Defend Democracy.”
It states “Bill Essayli poses a clear and present danger to LGBTQ+ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer plus] youth, immigrant communities, our environment, labor leaders, and the impartial administration of justice. Since being appointed interim U.S. Attorney, Essayli has weaponized the office for political gain—overturning a jury conviction of a sheriff’s deputy found guilty of excessive force, targeting SEIU [Service Employees International Union] California President David Huerta for standing with workers, politicizing the horrific Palm Springs bombings, and threatening local officials in Santa Ana with criminal prosecution for protecting immigrant communities. As Speaker Rivas put it, his “abuse of position is the mark of a small and petty man. Join us in mobilizing Californians to block his nomination.”
Claiming to be “backed by Californians who believe in real justice,” the website’s creators further maintain they are “supported by immigrant rights advocates, parents of LGBTQ+ youth, military veterans, legal experts, and thousands of concerned citizens. This growing coalition is united around a simple belief: people like Bill Essayli have no business occupying the US Attorney’s office.”
In addition to appealing to those advocating on behalf of illegal immigrants, those embracing alternative lifestyles; unionists, Democrats in general, those in favor of Essayli’s removal as the temporary U.S. Attorney and preventing his confirmation as permanent U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California also called upon environmentalists to join with them, maintaining he is “blocking regulators from reducing pollution in our environment on behalf of the fossil fuel industry.”
The website’s organizers call for those sharing their distaste for Essayli to email both of California’s U.S. Senators – senior senator, Alex Padilla, and junior senator, Adam Schiff – to ask them to oppose Essayli’s permanent appointment as U.S. attorney; to phone Padilla and Schiff in seeking the same outcome; to submit letters to newspapers advocating the U.S. Senate reject his appointment; to sign a petition being circulated that opposes Essayli’s appointment; to donate money to the effort to prevent his appointment; and to, on their own, get the word out that Essayli is a general no-goodnik.
Those seeking to block Essayli’s appointment have lambasted him as “a right-wing extremist.”
An examination of those militating against him, however, demonstrates that the “extremist” label is as applicable to them as to him, albeit from the opposite side of the political spectrum.
Two of Essayli’s positions with regard to issues that are featured in the ongoing culture war between conservatives and liberals along with Republican and Democrats – transsexual rights and illegal immigration – while hewing to the conservative/Republican side of the polemic, appear nonetheless less radical than what is being advocated by his avowed opponents.
Essayli appears to have gotten the goat of transsexual right advocates by his efforts, while in the Assembly, to bring forward two pieces of legislation, one, Assembly Bill 89, that would have required the California Interscholastic Federation to change its policies and prohibit an athlete who was male at birth from participating in a girls’ interscholastic sports team, and Assembly Bill 1314, which would give schools three days to notify parents in writing once a school employee learns a student is identifying as a gender that doesn’t align with their birth certificate or other official records. Both efforts came to naught in the Assembly, but he managed to raise awareness about the widespread acceptance of transgenderism in school districts throughout California, which in turn spawned policy changes within a number of school districts relating to parental notification when students have assumed a gender identity different than the one assigned them at birth. This resulted in legal challenges which were, in essence ultimately turned back and legislation giving students leeway to hide their gender reidentification from their parents, which is now being subject to legal challenge.
The degree to which Essayli is identified by the transsexual rights camp as an effective bulwark against their advocacy is evident in the website seeking his rejection as U.S. Attorney. In seeking to illustrate that Essayli represents “a clear and present danger to LGBTQ+ youth,” the website cites the somewhat dubious statistic that at present nearly 800,000 of the roughly 5.8 million kindergarten to 12th grade students enrolled in California’s public schools at present are transsexuals.
The website openly declared that there were “796,000+ Californian schoolchildren that Essayli would have ‘outed’ if his bill succeeded in the state legislature.”

Similarly, advocates for undocumented immigrants have an especial loathing for Essayli because of his family history.
In 1981, Essayli’s Lebanese parents were living in their native country in 1981, when fighting between Lebanese Christian militias and Palestinian insurgents intensified. The following year, the skirmishing erupted into a full-blown war, with forces that included the Palestinians and Lebanese Muslims, pan-Arabists, and leftists, backed by Syria and Iran, taking on the Christians, who had formed an alliance with Israel.
In 1983 the war moved on into the county’s mountain region and became general throughout the country. In October 1983, 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French military personnel along with six civilians were killed when two Islamic militants drove an explosive filled truck into the Marine compound in Beirut and detonated it.
At that time, despite the general circumstance in Lebanon, Essayli’s parents were able to leave the county and emigrate – legally – to the United States. This came despite their Islamic religious affiliation. That they, despite the circumstances pertaining to their status and the general atmosphere in the country at that time adhered to U.S. immigration law, in the minds of many, including Essayli’s opponents, confers on him a degree of moral authority in the enforcement of immigration law. For that reason, advocates of open borders, laissez faire immigration law enforcement, liberals and Democrats in general are seeking to prevent Essayli from becoming the permanent U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, where the enforcement of immigration law is a major engagement.
In his short time as U.S. Attorney, he has facilitated the Trump Administration’s “Operation Alta California” immigration law enforcement campaign, which was initiated in earnest on June 2. That has included obtaining search and operation warrants for those suspected of being in the country illegally or workplaces and other settings in which large numbers of undocumented aliens or illegal immigrants are or were believed to be congregating, as well as processing the deportation paperwork for thousands of foreign nationals living in Southern California who failed to comply with the requirement that they register as being present on U.S. soil and obtain visas or permission to remain as legal residents. The U.S. Attorney’s Office under Essayli has extended that support of Operation Alta California to include prosecuting those who have interfered with Immigration and Naturalization Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or Department of Homeland Security agents or obstructed the operations they were carrying out.
On June 6, David Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union California, was arrested during a demonstration against Immigration and Custom Enforcement Agency action at a workplace in downtown Los Angeles when he reportedly smashed a gate, assaulted a law enforcement officer while screaming profanities and using language likely to provoke violence.
Essayli, in his capacity as U.S. Attorney charged Huerta with conspiracy to impede an officer, a felony under federal law.
Though undoubtedly in Democratic-dominated California Essayli’s support of the Trump Administration with regard to immigration enforcement is decidedly unpopular, there are yet huge swathes of the population in California who look upon the enforcement of immigration law in a favorable light. Simultaneously, those people view the courage being exhibited by those, such as Essayli, in making that enforcement effort in a positive light. As one major landowner in San Bernardino County, who had witnessed the chaos and destructive riots that grew out of the anti-immigration enforcement protests last week in Los Angeles County put it, “You can’t take issue with holding goons who enjoy the benefit of city improvements destroying those improvements accountable.”
More pointedly, it does not appear that those trying to block Essayli’s permanent nomination, even if they can get Padilla and Schiff to go along with them, have the overall political muscle needed in the forum – the U.S. Senate – to achieve their goal.

The death of three people killed on Tuesday morning, June 10, when a motorcycle being pursued by sheriff’s deputies slammed into a vehicle in Redlands has reinitiated discussion on what limits should be imposed on law enforcement officers seeking to chase down fleeing suspects.
At approximately 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies attempted a traffic stop on a motorcycle being driven by a man later identified as Justin Sutton. The 26-year-old Sutton was, according to the department, operating the motorcycle in a reckless manner.
Sutton failed to yield, accelerating away from the sheriff’s patrol car. Blasting into the Redlands Boulevard/Tennessee Street intersection at an estimated 80 miles per hour, Sutton’s motorcycle collided with Toyota Prius being driven by 56-year-old Kenneth Stein. The force of the collision caused the Prius to roll over.
Sutton was killed instantly, while Stein died at the scene. Severely injured was the passenger in the Prius, 86-year-old Lorettaa Frug Stein. She was transferred to Loma Linda University Medical Center, where she, too, expired.
There has been a rash of either traffic collisions or vehicles leaving the roadway and/or hitting poles or structures as a result of police pursuits. On March 17, San Bernardino County Deputy Sheriff Hector Cuevas Jr. was killed when his patrol car clipped another vehicle while he was in pursuit of a stolen vehicle in Victorville and then careened into a pole at the side the road.
On March 27, Clarissa Cano of Chino was killed in the intersection of Mountain and Walnut avenues when a suspect being pursued by officers with the Ontario Police Department crashed into her car.
A handful of San Bernardino County residents and public officials have approached state officials in Sacramento with proposals that cut two ways, one of which is to enhance the penalties and punishment for anyone fleeing from law enforcement and the other calling for tightening regulations with regard to when officers light out in their vehicles after suspects who are driving a motor vehicle.
At present, law enforcement officers have wide discretion with regard to whether to initiate and continue a vehicular pursuit, and they enjoy freed from liability for engaging in a chase, no matter the outcome, as long as certain criteria and conditions are met. Under Penal Code § 13519.8 and Vehicle Code § 17004.7 peace officers qualify for immunity with regard to any untoward outcomes of a vehicle pursuit if they have received, on an annual basis, training, consisting of a class of at least one hour’s durations with regard to vehicle safety, operation, and tactics; their particular agency’s vehicle pursuit policy; assessing risk, dangers, and conditions relating to chases; public safety; officer safety; the importance of balancing the known offense and need for apprehension against the risks to officers and the public; consideration of law enforcement vehicle pursuit issues; when to initiate a pursuit; the number of involved law enforcement units permitted; responsibilities of primary and secondary law enforcement; driving tactics; helicopter assistance; communications; capture of suspects; termination of a pursuit; supervisory responsibilities; blocking, ramming, boxing, and roadblock procedures; speed limits; inter-jurisdictional considerations; conditions of the vehicle, driver, roadway, weather, and traffic; hazards to uninvolved bystanders or motorists; and reporting and post pursuit analysis.
The state of California requires law enforcement agencies to provide all peace officers employed by them with a copy of the agency pursuit policy.
According to the California Law Enforcement Vehicle Pursuit Guidelines put out by the Commission Peace Officers Standards and Training, “If the threat to public or officer safety is greater than the need for immediately apprehending the suspect, then the pursuit should not be initiated or it should be terminated.”
Officers are instructed to take into consideration the “the apparent need for immediate capture balanced against the risks to peace officers, innocent motorists, and others to protect the public; [whether there are] passenger[s] in the officer’s vehicle (e.g., citizen, witness, prisoner); [whether there are] other persons in or on pursued vehicle (e.g., passengers, minors, co-offenders, hostages); vehicular or pedestrian traffic safety and volume; the location of the pursuit (e.g., school zone, playground, residential, downtown, jurisdiction, interstate, divided highway, work zone); dangerous driving of the suspect that creates an unreasonable risk to the public; known or suspected impairment (if any) of the suspect; the time of day, weather, lighting, visibility, and environmental conditions; the road conditions and configuration (e.g., interstate, divided highway, work zone, etc.); [whether the ] suspect may be safely apprehended at a later time (e.g., suspect has been identified); the performance capabilities of law enforcement vehicle(s) and the vehicle being pursued; and the availability (time and distance) of additional resources (e.g., air support, ground units, tagging/tracking capability).”
In the year 2024, police chases and other activity orchestrated by law enforcement throughout the United States led to 692 fatalities across various categories. Among those killed were 303 drivers pursued by police; 59 motorcyclists being pursued by police; 173 uninvolved bystanders, who were struck and killed in crashes caused by police pursuits; 105 passengers riding in the vehicles being pursued by police; 60 pedestrians fatally hit by either police vehicles or vehicles fleeing from law enforcement; and 25 motorists killed in collisions with police vehicles.
The Redlands Police Department by press time was unable to account for the number o police pursuits in its jurisdiction in 2024. No such data regarding sheriff’s department pursuits in San Bernardino County in 2024 is currently available.
According to the Chino Police Department, it has a policy of restricting police chases to situations in which the need to apprehend a suspect clearly outweighs the danger posed to the public and the officers involved. Chino PD engaged in 23 nonfatal police chases in 2024.
Statewide in California From 2006 to 2020, 476 persons died in the state during pursuits, including 281 drivers fleeing from officers and 94 passengers. During the same period, chases resulted in the deaths of 91 innocent bystanders and 10 officers. In 2020, the deadliest year for chases involving law enforcement in the Golden State since 2006, 41 people died in police pursuits.

By Carlos Avalos

A former teacher is alleging that the Etiwanda School District’s administration in recent years compromised its educational mission in favor of maximizing funding it receives from the state, destroying the district’s once cutting-edge preschool program in the process, and is now disadvantaging the district’s youngest and most vulnerable students.

Antoinette Jensen taught for seven years in the Creating Learning Opportunities Utilizing Diverse Strategies (CLOUDS ) program within the Etiwanda School District. , initially as a permitted early child education preschool teacher at Grapeland Elementary, then at Golden Elementary for the 2022-2023 school year, followed by a position at Terra Vista Elementary for the 2023-2024 school year.

After more than a decade of building the CLOUDs program into what many considered to be a model program for integrating preschool students into a learning environment and bring them up to speed with regard to basic academic skills so they take full advantage of the educational opportunities awaiting them in first grade, second grade and beyond, the district’s administrators became thoroughly familiarized with and took full stock of how the State of California funds in public school system. Having learned how to tap into that generosity to be able to run legitimate programs aimed at targeting students of varying socioeconomic means and across the entire cognitive spectrum, those running the district eventually fell to manipulating the funding protocols to prioritize not furthering the education of the students the district was entrusted with but to bring substantial amounts of money into the district by enrolling more and more students into programs for which the state would provide augmentation funding whether or not the amalgam of students placed into those classes were benefiting the students or not.

In the case of the district’s CLOUDS program, according to Jensen, the teachers found themselves being overburdened with students across too wide of an age span being intermixed in the classes, resulting in their focus and span of control being tested beyond the breaking point. This, Jensen says, resulted in the once successful educational atmosphere within the classes being ruined and student academic achievement plummeting.

As a consequence, according to Jensen, the Etiwanda School District disserves the special education students in its preschool program, exploits their special-needs status, and even tolerates the abuse of special education students in its pre-kindergarten programs.

CLOUDS is a preschool program originally designed to allow Special Education preschool students 3-4 years of age to attend classes alongside General Education preschool students of the same age range. Each preschool class in the CLOUDS program is supervised by two professionals: a certificated early childhood special education teacher and a permitted early childhood education preschool teacher. Initially, CLOUDS program students attended either morning or afternoon sessions, but not both.

Over time, the district’s CLOUDS program, which began with a single class in 2005, enlarged, as the number of school sites offering CLOUDS classes gradually increased. By 2021, according to the district’s spokesman, David Oates, the district had 10 preschool cluster sites, three at Falcon Ridge, three at Grapeland and four at East Heritage. In 2022 the district increased the number of preschool classes to 13. In 2022, the district made what Jensen said was a significant change to the CLOUDS program when it welcomed transitional kindergarten (TK) students – students who are too old to be admitted to preschool but too young to be admitted to kindergarten.

Proponents of the expansion claimed that their aim was to enrich the preschool learning environment. Jensen, however, alleges that the expansion predictably had the opposite effect in the classroom and that the district’s real motive in expanding the program was simply to draw more funding from various local and state resources.

According to Jensen, through its expansion of the CLOUDS program the district sought to enroll TK students who are classified as “unduplicated.” An unduplicated student is one who is either an English learner, a foster child, or eligible for free or reduced-price meals. For each unduplicated student enrolled, according to Jensen, the district receives supplemental and concentration grants through the Local Control Funding Formula, known within educational circles by its acronym, LCFF.

There were two reasons Jensen took issue with what occurred, and is continuing to take place, in the Etiwanda School District. As originally conceived, the CLOUDS program classes brought together young students within the limited three to four year age range, ones of differing socioeconomic backgrounds to be sure, but whose experiential and developmental bases were similar enough to allow their attention to be captured and essentially maintained by the classroom’s certificated early childhood special education teacher and a permitted early childhood education preschool teacher using a variety of methodologies calculated to instill basic skills and expand the comprehension level of post-toddlers in the 3-year-old to 4-year-old age range.

Jensen’s most immediate observation was that by opening the age range too broadly, the district made it difficult or even impossible to effectively teach students of different cognitive levels. The more diverse your students are cognitively and developmentally, the harder it is to teach the same curriculum, according to Jensen. She felt this expansion of the CLOUDS program, although intended to be an adjustment that would enrich students through their involvement with others students, impacted the education atmosphere negatively.

A second related complaint is that she is bothered by the way the district used a pretext of enrichment that would benefit the students involved in the program when she feels it was actually to bring more state funds into the district.

It is Jensen’s contention that the district inappropriately exploited unduplicated students. The State of California, through its Local Control Funding Formula provides funding to school districts for each unduplicated student enrolled in a district educational program.

It is Jensen’s contention that the Etiwanda School District has cynically enrolled all of its unduplicated students in certain programs to get these state funds provided in support of unduplicated students.

The Expanded Learning Opportunities Program, known by its acronym ELOP, is a program that provides districts funds for after school activities. The district has recruited students into this program who are going to some sort of regular preschool. Prschools have separate morning and afternoon sessions. The district has allowed students who attend the morning sessions to also attend the afternoon sessions, and the district is then filing for state reimbursement through the ELO Program on the contention that it is entitled to that money because the students are involved in an after-school program, according to Jensen. Jensen feels the district has impermissibly stretched the definition of an after-school program and this is not only wrong but illegal and another example of the district trying to get funds.

Medi-Cal offers school districts funding for students classified as having special needs. Jensen claims that the district has asserted it is entitled to Medi-Cal funding it is not entitled to by lumping unduplicated students in the CLOUDS program with special education students – mixing prekindergarten students with special education students interchangeably so the district can bring in added revenue.

The disservice to these students is taking place as a consequence of creating an incompatible hybrid of preschool and traditional kindergarten that has diminished the educational atmosphere of scholastic setting, Jensen contends.

According to Jensen, as a consequence of the district’s mercenary effort to obtain state funding, students regressed – meaning they stopped performing at the expected grade level and became less able to perform academically – as a result. Put another way, according to Jensen, based upon her observations in a classroom setting over the time she has worked as an educator, the students in the CLOUDS program have, since 2022 gone backwards in their educational development. This conclusion is supported by achievement measurement criteria the district has employed in the CLOUDS setting, she pointed out.

Jensen said she was a believer in the soundness and value of the CLOUDS program as originally conceived and put into practice, and reiterated that the goal of providing positive, supportive, responsive and individualized instruction and relationships for preschool students was a legitimated supplemental education undertaking. In this way, she indicated, she previously had no problem with the district receiving revenue beyond the traditional general purpose funding it was receiving to institute the CLOUDS program and keep it running.

Prior to 2022, the program was achieving more than a modicum of success in fulfilling its stated purpose. It was when the district expanded the CLOUDS program to allow the younger special education students in the program to be joined by slightly older transitional kindergarten students, who under the previous guidelines would have been too old to be admitted to the program, that she detected problems which ultimately, she maintains, have greatly undercut the value of the program.

While an age differential of one, two or even five, ten and twenty years among adults can be of little consequence in the balance and functionality of a professional workplace in the business world, Jensen pointed out that an age difference of one year or even six-months among children of preschool age can represent a gap – and sometimes a virtually unbridgeable gap in cognitive and functional levels within a classroom setting.

She objected to the expansion of the CLOUDS program, her contention being that when slightly older kindergarten students were added to the CLOUDS environment things went awry. As a result of the change, according to Jensen, there was no longer a uniform classroom environment, whereupon teachers were being called upon to direct simultaneously a differing set of teaching lessons to three and four different educational/maturation/attention levels, resulting in one or more of those subgroups momentarily or for several minutes at a time being unfocused on or unattended to. This resulted in some students becoming bored and some of those or others acting up as they lost the attention of the teachers.

Exacerbating this situation, according to Jensen, is that at the time the CLOUDS program made this age-inclusion change, 2022, the number of CLOUDS classrooms expanded to 13. This entailed the CLOUDS classrooms experiencing a lack or shortage of supplies, including changing tables, as well as the hiring of new and inexperienced teachers who were rushed into service without adequate training. Some of these inexperienced teachers, according to Jensen, did not handle having to function in a classroom environment where there were multiple subgroups of students competing for what turned out to be an inadequate amount of attention from the teachers and the misbehavior of some to the students and chaotic atmosphere that followed as a result.

In at least some of those situations, including one in which Jensen said she was directly involved, this led to abuse of some of the students.

In essence, according to Jensen, this expansion of the CLOUDS program, which was cynically done by the district for mercenary motives, predictably diminished the capacity of teachers to effectively teach the students under their care and the quality of the classroom structure.

It is Jensen’s contention that by having 13 school’s worth of CLOUDS students enrolled in both morning and afternoon sessions, the district had militated to entitle itself to a substantial influx of Expanded Learning Opportunities Program funding from the State of California. Nevertheless, mainstream or normal or families that are not financially-challenged or English language-challenged or are not foster families must pay the district fees to enroll their children in the CLOUDS program. This has resulted in relatively light use of the program by paying families, according to Jensen, and the district has sought, perhaps unethically and maybe even illegally, to make up for this by manipulating the unduplicated status of certain students and fudging the true numbers. Simultaneously, some of the less affluent parents, foster parents and language-challenged parents are using an educational program for daycare at no cost to them, which is an abuse of the intent of the program and is likely having an impact on its overall effectiveness, she maintains.

Upon making her views known, encapsulating what she believed to be the program’s shortcomings in frank assessments to district higher-ups and/or questioned or protested certain of its aspects of the changes that had been made to the program or suggested that the state should apply some scrutiny to whether the district was adhering to the rules pertaining to both ELOP and LCFF funding, she experience mean-spirited resistance and retaliation, Jensen told the Sentinel. In her back and forth with district employees and the district’s administrative staff, she aired personal grievances against multiple district personnel, based in part on their willingness to go along with the district’s transgressions, when, she said, those staff members clearly recognized the district policy was inappropriate.

Ultimately, Jensen left the employment of the district.

The Etiwanda School District’s spokesman, David Oates told the Sentinel that Jensen’s suggestion that the 2022 expansion of the CLOUDS program to include in its classes transitional kindergarten students and from a venue of 10 classrooms to 13 classrooms was driven by financial considerations and specifically to bring more money into the district were untrue.

“Ms. Jensen’s accounts are incorrect,” Oates said. “In fact, no funding for the program changed.”

Jensen’s contention that the district used the ploy of enrolling transitional kindergarten students who are classified as “unduplicated” into the CLOUDS program to receive supplemental and concentration grants through the Local Control Funding Formula, Oates once again said was “incorrect.  Etiwanda School District does not receive any concentration grant money.”

The district’s expansion of the number of CLOUDS classes in 2022 did not represent an overtaxing of the district’s resources or unacceptable, unmanageable of counterproductive change in the program, Oates insisted.

“We had a net increase of three classes districtwide, because we already had 10 classes at our preschool cluster sites – three at Falcon Ridge, three at Grapeland, and four at East Heritage.”

The 2022 transformation of the CLOUDS program to include transitional kindergarten-aged students in the program did not have a deleterious impact on the educational atmosphere in the preschool classrooms as Jensen claimed, Oates said. Her criticisms were based on opinion, he said, which did not qualify as sound educational policy or theory.

“Ms. Jensen’s opinion is not supported,” Oates said. “In fact, the district’s state performance plan indicator for preschool outcomes increased significantly during this timeframe, indicating that the impact on the educational atmosphere was overwhelmingly positive.”

Jensen’s assertion that the district’s adding of transitional kindergarten students into the mix of students in CLOUDS classrooms using the justification that doing so would enrich the learning environments was actually a pretext to obscure the district’s true motive of bringing in more state funds is a misreading of reality, Oates told the Sentinel. He further dismissed her contention that the district inappropriately exploited unduplicated students by enrolling many of them in the Clouds classes merely to get the state funds available for the money provided for placing them in a district educational program.

“This fundamentally misunderstands education policy,” Oates said of Jensen’s accusations. “Early education has been a major initiative of federal, state and local educational leaders. The Head Start Program, the Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010, the California Department of Education’s Transitional Kindergarten Guide [and] the Universal Transitional Kindergarten Expansion Program all stress the urgency of including these students at exactly the ages we have implemented. Special education laws also stress the importance of inclusive programming. Pre-kindergarten and transitional kindergarten admissions are not, as Ms. Jensen suggests, a fundraiser. It is the essence of the urgent drive to set students up for success by their early integration into the classroom learning environment. We ensured all students who qualified under the unduplicated students program received the services and care for which they are entitled.”

Oates explained that “the purpose of transitional kindergarten students participating in the CLOUDS Preschool class was to provide them with additional support in foundational preschool skills. The enrollment process clearly outlined this, detailing the following: ‘Preschool focuses on foundational preschool skills. Children will work on pre-academic skills such as colors, shapes, letters and numbers, and social-emotional skills in an inclusive environment using developmentally appropriate activities that guide students to be actively involved in exploration, discovery, and play.’”

There was a degree of inexactitude, or perhaps a semantical dispute without any practical distinction, relating to the district’s reaction to Jensen’s charge that the district had widened, inappropriately and perhaps illegally, the admission criteria into the state’s  Expanded Learning Opportunities Program, commonly referred to by its acronym ELOP, and welcomed students into dual courses that by, some interpretations, are mutually exclusive. Preschools have separate morning and afternoon sessions. According to Jensen, the district has allowed students who attend the morning sessions to also attend the afternoon sessions, which was historically not done.

“This is incorrect,” Oates said. “Students only attended one CLOUDS session, either morning or afternoon. These students attended their half-day transitional kindergarten class during the remaining portion of the school day. Etiwanda School District assigns students to either the morning or afternoon, not both. Even if they were to attend both sessions, the district doesn’t get reimbursed any additional money for it.”

Jensen is misinterpreting the California Educational Code by implying or stating that the district is stretching the definition of an after-school program or obtaining Expanded Learning Opportunities Program reimbursement to which it is not entitled by having students who are attending both transitional kindergarten and CLOUDS sessions.

“We disagree,” Oates said. He referenced a California Department of Education posting with regard to universal PreKindergarten which stated, “California launched UPK in the 2021–22 state budget by putting into action recommendations laid out in the California Master Plan for Early Learning and Care through a dramatic expansion of TK with universal access to transitional kindergarten for all four-year-old children by the 2025–26 school year and expanded access to the California State Preschool Program for income-eligible three-year-old children and children with disabilities. While universal PreKindergarten relies heavily on universal transitional kindergarten and California State Preschool Programs, it also includes other early learning programs serving three-and four-year-old children, including the federal Head Start Program, subsidized programs that operate a preschool learning experience and are operated by community-based organizations (including family child care), and private preschool programs. Families with four-year-old children can choose which pre-K program to enroll them in, but transitional kindergarten is the only option that will be universally available, and free of cost, for all four-year-old children as part of California’s public education system. Part of universal PreKindergarten is also the ELOP, which includes before school, after school, summer or intersession learning programs that develop the academic, social, emotional and physical needs of students and provides access to a full-day of programming that meets the needs of California’s working families.”

California launched UPK in the 2021–22 state budget by putting into action

recommendations laid out in the California Master Plan for Early Learning and Care through

a dramatic expansion of TK with universal access to TK for all four-year-old children by the

2025–26 school year and expanded access to the California State Preschool Program for

income-eligible three-year-old children and children with disabilities.

While UPK relies heavily on Universal Transitional Kindergarten (UTK) and CSPP, it also

includes other early learning programs serving three-and four-year-old children, including

the federal Head Start Program, subsidized programs that operate a preschool learning

experience and are operated by community-based organizations (including family child

care), and private preschool programs.

Families with four-year-old children can choose which pre-K program to enroll them in, but

TK is the only option that will be universally available, and free of cost, for all four-year-old

children as part of California’s public education system.

Oates said the Etiwanda School District is ahead of the curve among school districts statewide in seeking to get both preschoolers, transitional kindergarten-aged and kindergarten-aged children into a welcoming learning environment.

“In California, kindergarten is currently optional, not mandatory, for children,” Oates said. “The state mandates school enrollment at age six, typically for first grade. That said, AB 2226 was recently passed by the California Assembly to make kindergarten mandatory, starting with the 2026-27 school year. This bill would require children to complete one year of kindergarten before entering first grade in a public school.”

Oates responded to Jensen’s charge that the district is engaged in what is tantamount to Medi-Cal fraud by Oates addressed Jensen’s accusation that the district was tapping into money intended to redress medical issues, using bureaucratic sleight-of-hand by lumping unduplicated students in the CLOUDS program with special education students. This mixing of prekindergarten students with special education students interchangeably crossed the line from creative billing practices to an outright criminal abuse of the federal government’s generosity to the state, she said.

“The Etiwanda School District only bills Medi-Cal for students who receive its billable services, whose parents have given us written permission to do so,” said Oates.

Initially, Oates offered a relatively terse response to Jensen’s contention that the district is doing a disservice to its preschool students by having created – with the addition of transitional kindergarten students to the CLOUDS classes – an incompatible hybrid of preschool and traditional kindergarten that has diminished the educational atmosphere and scholastic setting.

“The Etiwanda School District hired three new teachers for three new classrooms, with some of the new teachers bringing experience from other local school districts,” Oates said. “As with any teacher new to the district, those teachers were provided with training and teacher induction support from the district’s professional development department.”

The district endeavored to preserve a teachable environment in the CLOUDS classrooms, Oates said, stating, “behavioral expectations were provided.   Any student who was unable to meet those expectations was dismissed from the program.  In doing so, we created a positive, inclusive, and effective learning environment.”

He continued, “Ms. Jensen’s opinion is flatly wrong, is contradicted by test scores, and fundamentally misunderstands federal, state and local educational policies,” Oates said. “These initiatives have improved the learning environment and are improving our children’s opportunities to be college and career ready.  The data clearly supports that these strategies are working.”

The Sentinel thereafter pressed Oates with regard to the essence of Jensen’s contention that the expansion of the program had a deleterious effect on the CLOUDS classrooms by loading them with not only special education preschool students 3-4 years of age and general education preschool students 3-4 years of age but students who are at or nearly at traditional kindergarten age. The Sentinel emphasized that it was Jensen’s sincerely held belief that this change created a hodgepodge of cognitively and developmentally diverse students that proved simply too challenging for the CLOUDS instructors to handle. The Sentinel asked for refutation of Jensen’s assertion that in undertaking this expansion, that district officials were more focused on bringing money into the district than in the scholastic advancement of the students in the CLOUDS program.

Jensen, the Sentinel pointed out, appeared convinced that the district officials’ mercenary instincts had gotten the better of them and that as a consequence of the district’s effort to obtain more and more state funding, the CLOUDS teachers found themselves beset with multiple categories of students with different learning abilities, maturity levels and cognitive levels. This created classrooms – learning environments – that were too chaotic for truly productive teaching/learning to take place, according to Jensen and, resultingly, students regressed – meaning they stopped performing at the expected grade level and became less academically proficient.

Documentation showed, the Sentinel told Oates, that Jensen objected to the expansion of the CLOUDS program in 2022, her contention being that when slightly older kindergarten students were added to the CLOUDS environment things went awry. The Sentinel noted that as a consequence of what Jensen felt was a principled pursuit insistence on standards she believed to be appropriate, she was ignominiously relieved of her teaching position.

Oates responded.

“Ms. Jensen may believe that requiring teachers to integrate children with learning disabilities into the classroom is challenging for the teachers,” Oates said. “However, the reality is that many children have learning disabilities, and our first priority should be the child, not the adult who prefers a classroom where all children, including those with learning disabilities, can fully participate. Until the 1970s, children with learning disabilities had few, if any, rights to equal access to education, and even then, they were often placed in separate classrooms. Since the 1980s, the law mandates that children with learning disabilities are to be educated in integrated classrooms in the least restrictive environment. Isolating them for the convenience of adults who would rather not teach children with special needs is clearly against the law, our policy, and our mission to empower every child. Ms. Jensen’s criticism fundamentally misunderstands the law and the policies that support it.”

Oates continued, “Similarly, Ms. Jensen may believe that requiring teachers to instruct 4-year-olds is challenging, but the education policies of the United States, California, and this district acknowledge that it is even more difficult for a child to wait until they are 6 or even 5. Children benefit from a head start in education.

“Ms. Jensen’s criticism seems to stem from the belief that integrating students with learning disabilities and 4-year-old children is unique to Etiwanda,” Oates continued. “These practices are not exclusive to our district. Integrating children with disabilities is a legal requirement. While educating 4-year-olds is not mandated by law, it is strongly encouraged. When a parent enrolls a 4-year-old child who has a disability, the district is legally prohibited from denying access to 4-year-olds with disabilities. Furthermore, it is against the law to segregate all 4-year-old students with learning disabilities into a separate classroom, even if an adult prefers not to educate them.

She argues that four-year-olds with learning disabilities should not be integrated into the classroom. We fundamentally disagree. Four-year-olds with disabilities deserve to be in the classroom and benefit from the opportunities that early access to education provides.”

Oates was misstating her position entirely, Jensen said. She had no objection whatsoever to the inclusion of 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds in the CLOUDS classroom settings, she said. It was the inclusion of older transitional kindergarten students – ones nearly old enough to be in Kindergarten – into the CLOUDS classroom setting that was detracting from the education of those special needs students, she said.

“Let’s stop dancing around it,” Jensen said. “From 2022 to 2024, the Etiwanda School District placed transitional Kindergarten students into preschool classrooms during the school day, claimed they weren’t preschoolers, collected state transitional Kindergarten and enrichment funding, and called it legal. That’s false. This wasn’t ‘interpretation’ or ‘innovation.’ It was a direct violation of California education law.”

She continued, “Here are the facts: FACT 1 – Preschool programs cannot generate transitional Kindergarten funding.”

She reference a direct statement from the California Department of Education’s fiscal briefing, which says, “Preschool programs are not eligible to generate funding for transitional Kindergarten programs. Transitional Kindergarten funding is based on average daily attendance.”
Jensen intoned, “Yet, the district placed transitional Kindergarten students into CLOUDS preschool classrooms and still claimed TK attendance.”

She went on, “FACT 2: Expanded Learning Program funding cannot be used during the school day. She cited the California Education Code § 46120(b)(1), “Expanded Learning Program funding shall be expended… before or after school—not during the school day.”

Jensen said, “Yet, the district openly stated in its own program overview (CLOUDS TK+Preschool PDF) that these students were placed in preschool during the school day using a so-called “mixed delivery” model.”

She next quoted Nicholas Newman, of the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, in citing what she called  “FACT 3: Transitional Kindergarten must be taught by a fully credentialed teacher.” She offered Newman’s quote, which reads, “Transitional Kindergarten is not considered a preschool program and any teacher in a transitional Kindergarten teaching position must have a full teaching credential.”
— Nicholas Newman, Commission on Teacher Credentialing
“All CLOUDS classrooms were staffed with permit-only early childhood educators, and early childhood special education teachers, not the  multi subject credentialed teachers the law requires.”