THE MACHINE IS BROKEN

There was a collective sense of relief, validation and vindication from the Toppenish community late last month, after the Toppenish School Board unanimously voted to officially fire former Superintendent John Cerna. After a series of events, storylines and crime that is legitimately worthy of a made for TV movie special; the wolf has finally been removed from the hen house.

The “Cerna machine” as it has been infamously referred to, spent over a decade infiltrating the Toppenish School District introducing and also covering up legitimized sexual assault, drugs and alcohol, financial fraud, blackmail, pay-offs and most of all retaliation. Retaliation for anyone willing to “push back” or go against the “Cerna machine”. Well, while well-oiled machines often remain functioning for long periods of time, ultimately, all machines eventually break down. The Cerna machine was well-oiled; with snake oil.

The best advice I have received in my adult life was from my late father. He told me to “let a sleeping dog lie”. Ironically enough that advice came over a decade ago after I wrote a piercing article towards “the Cerna machine” in this same newspaper. At that point, I was considered to be petty, without facts and measured by most as disrespectful towards the leader of the school district. What most people’s ignorance didn’t allow them to understand however was that my family’s combined service to the Toppenish School District is well over 100 years. The Toppenish School District put literal food on my plate as a child and I was raised with an innate sense of Wildcat Pride that runs deep in my blood and forever will. While my pops, “the old peacemaker” wasn’t one for poking the bear, he also taught me to stand up for what I know is right; even if I am standing alone. For a long time, I stood alone.

Watching one man corrupt an organization that was so great for so long, not only infuriated me, but has now grown to enrage an entire staff of teachers, an entire community of parents and to be frank a social media audience reaching well throughout and beyond the Yakima Valley. All of a sudden, I wasn’t standing alone. Toppenish has been blemished by one family and specifically by one man’s control. The machine was running strong ruining everything in its path.

While we can all agree that this happened for way too long, the payoff is that, that machine is now, finally broken. The snake oil is gone, the smoke and mirrors have cleared, the wrong-doings have been exposed, the licenses have been revoked, the exploitation of minors has been put into the public eye, the financial blunders discovered, the drug and alcohol addictions clearly proven and with my sincere condolences to the family, tragically even resulted in death.

For years, we sat and watched anonymous pages on social media relentlessly expose secrets while community members fought over who was right and who was wrong. For years we picked up the paper or turned on the tv news waiting for another negative portrayal of Toppenish schools. For years we watched a previous school board sit idle and seemingly not even have enough scruples to address the issues that were glaringly obvious. But, the community rose, the community showed up, the community spoke out.

For 2 years, I sat on the school board myself with first-hand knowledge and experience of the nepotism, supremacy and control that the Superintendent embodied and because I didn’t take the bribes, didn’t accept the gifts and didn’t look the other way, I became a voiceless and powerless member of the board who was told during my first participation in the annual review process for the Superintendent by another board member, “that I had no vote because I wasn’t a team player”. Of course, by team player they meant that I was too outspoken about my distaste for Mr. Cerna’s leadership.

There is an old Chinese proverb that says “the best day to plant a tree was yesterday, the next best day is today”. Toppenish, it is time to move forward. Planting a new tree today will result in that tree bearing new fruit. Un-tainted, quality fruit. That fruit for the purpose of the metaphor is the children of the district. These are the biggest victims in this entire ordeal. We simply cannot let this past few years continue to cast a shadow over the greatness of this district.

The Toppenish School District is great! This greatness has nothing to do with the former Superintendent. The district is great because of teachers, staff and students. The district is great because of Mr. and Mrs. Dorr, Mr. Piper and Mr. Livingston. The district is great because of Mrs. Barb Ramos, Mrs. Monzingo, Mr. Chi Vela, Mr. Affholter , Mr. Lee Laroche and Mrs. Patty Schmella. The district is great because of Mr. Stauffer, Mrs. Nelson, Mrs. Nora Flores and Mrs. Celeste Garza. The district is great because of Mr. Ayling, Mr. Baker, Mrs. Carter and Mr. Robert Vargas. The district is great because of Mr. Blaine Thorington, Mrs. Betty Zuniga, Mrs. Ardeth Hammock, Mr. Steve Myers and Mrs. Debbie Voorhies. The district is great because of Rick Schutz, Sue Bounds, Jane Berghoff and Danelia Arellano. The district is great because of the influence of Officer Woody, Officer Dunsmore and Officer Shah. The district is great because of Jason Smith, Bob Winters, JoJo Mesplie and Dell Gere. The district is great because we survived Senior Boards, green-rubber gym floors, the flood of 96 and Mrs. Yeager’s bucket brigade lunch detentions.

The district is great because of THS digital media, Mr. Simpson’s athletic training and Mr. Gore’s band. The district is great because of Mr. Saldivar, Mrs. Fredricksen and Mr. Jay Sanchez’s pride and enthusiasm towards being a Wildcat. The district is great because FINALLY, employees spoke up and demanded change; they tackled the problem head-on and said “no more!”

However, over the last 2 years, our district has thrived in the midst of desolation because of Mr. Shawn Myers. Mr. Myers inherited a shattered district with hundreds of loose ends, trust issues, furious parents, rightfully disgruntled employees and investigations that eventually would reveal shocking results, crimes, cover-ups and serious ethical issues. Mr. Myers led the district through its darkest hour as interim Superintendent while being labeled as a “good ole boy’s club member”, John Cerna’s protégé and a place-holder to cover up the Cerna’s crimes.

Mr. Myers actually acted with professionalism, ethics and steadfast competence. He effectively, along with the newly elected school board, removed the wolf from the hen house. In my book Mr. Myers is employee of the year. In my book Mr. Myers is a goddamn hero.

But, remember that wolves run in packs and where there is one wolf, there is probably more. TSD secrets and other platforms have only divided our community even more. While I acknowledge that they brought some information to the public, they did it while hiding behind a computer, with no proof of sources and continued to “poke the bear” while all along the bears where doing due diligence to make sure that everything was addressed legally and ethically.

Continually fighting online to convince the Toppenish community that the School District is no good will discourage voters from supporting future bonds and levy’s. This will have an impact on the quality of the district, impacting jobs, student learning and overall morale. Eventually, maybe even causing the authors of that page to be impacted also.

A wolf inside the henhouse of the community also does our schools no-good. I urge the TSD secrets and other anonymous sites to shut down shop. There can be no pride taken in working for a school district where one feels it necessary to have a site titled “secrets”, especially if that site is run by a district employee.

It is time now, for the community to “let a sleeping dog lie”, move on and embrace the future of Wildcat Nation instead of continuing to dwell on the unfortunate past shenanigans of a man who now has no power, prowess or meaning to this district or community.

-ZSD