BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
A former teacher at the Mountain View Whisman School District has accused former Superintendent Ayinde Rudolph and his “favorite” administrators of keeping students in special education classes to fraudulently get state funds that would be used for luxuries such as massage therapists, Cuban cigars and expensive food and travel.
Pauline Facciano, who taught at Graham Middle School for the 2019-2020 school year, is suing the district for allegedly firing her for trying to move two Latino students out of special education classes.
Facciano said the students were misidentified as special needs because they were learning English, and they should’ve been in a classroom with non-disabled students.
“These two students were bright, verbal and eager to learn,” Facciano said in her lawsuit, filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court in September 2021.
Attorney Adam Davis, representing the district, said Facciano’s contract wasn’t renewed due to performance and because the district no longer needed replacement teachers.
Suit says students were ‘warehoused’
In a trial brief filed on Wednesday, Facciano’s lawyer said former Chief HR Officer Carmen Ghysels and Special Education Coordinator Mariko Kobata were interested in “warehousing” as many students as possible in special education classes to fraudulently get state and federal education funds.
“By doing so, Kobata and Ghysels were able to please the superintendent by providing him with additional, misappropriated funds for use in purchasing luxuries such as retained massage therapists, expensive Cuban cigars, expensive food and travel, etc.,” Facciano’s lawyer, Stanley Apps, said in the brief. On a phone call Friday, Apps said he was forced to raise this assertion because the district claimed there was no motive for holding students back.
“The motive is obvious. Warehousing schemes happen for only one motivation, and that is financial,” Apps said.
The first day of a trial is scheduled for May 5. Both sides have opted for Judge Beth McGowan to make a ruling rather than going to a jury. Mediation didn’t result in a settlement.
Principals, teachers, aides, secretaries and special education coordinators are expected to testify, along with Rudolph, Kobata, Ghysels and Facciano.
‘Master energy healer’
The trial will look at a chapter the district is trying to move past. Parents started digging through finances in May 2024 because Rudolph proposed reducing the number of periods in middle school. Parents found “master energy healer” Alycia Chavis-Diggs charged more than $1,000 a session to meditate with principals and assistant superintendents.
Chavis-Diggs had a massage table set up at the district office until October, according to emails between her and Chief Business Officer Rebecca Westover.
“The 60-minute sessions can be more in-depth versions of some of the singing bowl, breath work or guided meditation openers I’ve used at (leadership team) meetings. Or they can be more in-depth energy work like chakra clearing and balancing which can be a combination of several modalities,” Diggs-Chavis told one principal.
Diggs-Chavis met with administrators at the district office, at their homes and virtually. She said Rudolph hired her after his personal experience with her sessions, emails show.
Diggs-Chavis had two contracts with the district through two separate companies — a $189,000 contract for wellness with Blue Violet Energy and a $270,450 contract for coaching with the management consulting firm ALULA.
At an Aug. 22 meeting, board member Devon Conley said she was “shocked” when she went to Blue Violet Energy’s website, where Chavis-Diggs talks about using “sacred geometry and sound healing to successfully change lives.”
“Just as I wouldn’t invest in a chaplain, for example, for the school district, I wouldn’t invest in sound and energy healing,” said Conley, who voted to approve the Blue Violet Energy contract two months prior.
Rudolph told Conley he hadn’t been to Blue Violet Energy’s website either.
“Everything I’ve experienced has been around stress management,” Rudolph said. “It’s not about energy or rocks or something like that.”
Taxpayers paid for Rudolph’s cigars
Angry parents made a presentation in November that included pictures of Rudolph smoking a cigar at his wedding in April 2024, two weeks after he charged $76 to the district’s credit card at TG Cigar Lounge in Washington, D.C., credit card statements show. A week before that, Rudolph spent another $114 at a cigar bar in New York City, credit card statements show.
Rudolph also hired his former boss from North Carolina, Peter Gorman, as his personal coach, according to a contract. Rudolph announced the state was auditing the district for potential fraud on Oct. 4 and went on leave on Oct. 7.
He officially resigned on Nov. 1, ending a nine-year tenure in Mountain View. The board paid him $98,260 and both sides agreed not to sue each other, according to a settlement agreement.
Contracts with Gorman, Diggs-Chavis and a PR firm were canceled to save the district $710,242, Westover announced on Nov. 7.
Rudolph has started a new company focused on AI in education called MYA Solutions.
The district has hired Superintendent Jeff Baier to replace Rudolph. The board’s contract approval process and credit card protocols have been updated.
Gorman being hired to help ‘start off’ Rudolph; In The Room Where It Happened. Although this was not done in closed session, I was on the Board at the time and supported it. Mia Culpa, based on the eventual outcome. But for ex-President’s Conley’s assertion that ‘she didn’t know’! [energy healing]. J’Accuse! [*] It is clearly evident that Conley was very adequately warned In Public at a Board Meeting about Nov 2023 by Trustee Chiang that the Chiavas-Diggs vendor was ‘charging much above (10x) similar services for other school districts / and / had no discernible customer-contact-referal web presence’.
TWICE Conley chose to just ignore the clear Red Flags that had started to wave above the Superintendent she would be directly & weekly working with (as President).
== Also, that massage table in the DO. Ha Ha! And it would have been on us, School Facilities bond taxpayers in Mountain View. Conley also had been Voting to Support over a $ million to move permanent walls in that 6-7 yr old District Office to make more meeting room! More room for Rudolph’s ‘wellness’ meetings? Sure seems exactly on-spot.
[*] some politico words just work better in their original non-English languages 🙂