On Thursday, the state 2nd District Court of Appeals unanimously overturned Judge Rolf M. Treu’s June 2014 decision in Vergara v. the State of California that the state laws on teacher tenure and seniority were unconstitutional.

The appeals court conceded that students may suffer from poorer educational opportunities, but that is because of administrative decisions, such as hiring ineffective teachers. The state laws protecting teachers and the “right” to employment are not at the root of different and biased educational opportunities.

Although the Appeals Court acknowledged that some principals transfer ineffective teachers to other schools, “often to low-income schools,” and considered this “troubling and should not be allowed to occur,” the fault is not the state statutes.

“Assuming that poor and minority students encounter more grossly ineffective teachers and that this impacts their constitutional right to ‘basic educational equality’ [citing a California Supreme decision], the constitutional infringement is the product of staffing decisions, not the challenged statutes,” the appeals court concluded.

“… the evidence presented at trial highlighted likely drawbacks to the current tenure, dismissal and layoff statutes, but it did not demonstrate a facial constitutional violation,” the court wrote in its opinion. “The evidence also revealed deplorable staffing decisions being made by some local administrators that have a deleterious impact on poor and minority students in California’s public schools.”

Since upholding Treu’s opinion would not guarantee better educational services, the appeals court reversed his decision.

“Any system will have some teachers who are not as effective as others,” the court wrote.

At the local school district, Hemet Unified, Trustee Vic Scavarda wrote in an email, “there’s no argument about dismissing incompetent teachers from the classroom. They should be dismissed if they arent doing the best they can for our kids. It’s also true that it is more complicated (but not impossible) to dismiss someone after the probationary period is over.”

Scavarda noted that the appeals court did not fault the statute’s language, but blamed administrators’ implementation of it. To overcome this problem, Scavarda said HUSD “emphasizes training, in-service and further education to help our teachers to be the best-prepared professionals possible, and it’s best to catch and fix problems early on.”

On Thursday after the appeals court decision was released, the California Teachers Association issued its response.

“This is a great day for educators and, more importantly, for students,” said CTA President Eric C. Heins. “Today’s ruling reversing Treu’s decision overwhelmingly underscores that the laws under attack have been good for public education and for kids, and that the plaintiffs failed to establish any violation of a student’s constitutional rights.”

And State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson reinforced his long-standing support of CTA with the following statement, “All of our students deserve great teachers. Teachers are not the problem in our schools — they are the answer to helping students succeed on the pathway to 21st century college and careers.”

During his re-election campaign in 2014, Torlakson publicly requested that California Attorney General Kamala Harris appeal the decision.

A reader wrote to inform the Town Crier about being contacted by a purported Southern California Edison representative who demanded immediate payment for allegedly past-due electricity bills.

SCE Media Contact Susan Cox noted more than 700 SCE customers had been scammed at a total loss of nearly half-a-million dollars. “Since January 2014, more than 16,000 SCE customers have gotten telephone calls from impostors posing as SCE representatives,” said Cox. Average scammer demands for immediate payment ranged from $1,500 to $2,000. In the last quarter of 2015, Cox reported that 5,500 SCE customers had received and reported scam calls. “Customer awareness and education are the best defense against utility phone scams,” said Cox.

She explained how the scam works. “Phone imposters, claiming to be with SCE, call customers and fraudulently threaten to disconnect their electrical service unless immediate payment is made on a supposedly past-due bill,” said Cox. “The caller demands payment immediately and tells the unsuspecting customer to buy a prepaid debit card and load a specific amount of money on it and call the impostor back, providing the serial number on the back of the card.” The red flag, according to Cox, is the manner of payment — the prepaid debt card. “Once you give out the serial number on the prepaid card, the cash is untraceable and gone for good.

“Here’s what we want our customers to know: Southern California Edison never calls customers on the telephone and demands immediate payment with the threat of service disconnection; SCE does not accept prepaid cash cards for bill payments; and we do not have a disconnection department.”

Claremont Police Department Detective Hector Tamayo, working with SCE on the scam investigations, said, “Most people should be able to catch on when the caller is asking you to send a payment through a prepaid card.”

Cox suggested any SCE customer who suspects a fraudulent call should ask for the caller’s name as well as their department and business phone number. “End the call and report the incident immediately to local police or SCE at 800-655-4555 for residential customers or 800-990-7788 for business customers,” said Cox. “And never use the callback number provided by the caller.”

Cox noted more tips or clues to identify scammers:

• “SCE employees never ask for or collect money out in the field;

• SCE does not conduct credit transactions on weekends or holidays;

• SCE does not own or operate vehicles with Service Disconnection Department  signage;

• SCE employees always have their SCE ID badge displayed on their person;

• Be suspicious of anyone who arrives at your house without an appointment  asking to check an appliance, wiring or suggesting there may be some other electrical problem inside or outside your residence;

• Don’t fall for the 15- to 30-minute rush drill to extract payment. Take your time and verify your bill by calling the SCE phone number listed on your bill.”

Cox also recommended shredding utility bills before disposing in trash. “Scammers can get your account number, balance and other key information from bills not properly discarded,” she said.

For more accounts of SCE scams, visit http://insideedison.com/stories/phone-impostors-scam-utility-customers.

In Idyllwild, recent reports of thieves at the transfer station stealing paper, looking for personal identity information, stress the importance of shredding all paper with possible personal identity information before disposing in public trash receptacles. Sgt. Robert Duckett, Riverside County Sheriff’s Department Hemet Station, said he checked with all patrol shifts and noted there have been no reports to the station of this activity. Nevertheless, Duckett requested extra patrol shifts last week to see if something had gone unreported. “No activity was found,” said Duckett.

Another telephone scam, important year-round but especially at tax time, involves outbound calls purportedly from the IRS demanding payment or indicating that a case has been filed against the call recipient. As with SCE, that is not something the IRS does. For more information visit www.irs.gov/uac/IRS-Urges-Public-to-Stay-Alert-for-Scam-Phone-Calls.