RCOE Discusses Censure, Travel Fund Restrictions For Trustee Bruce Dennis

The Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE) last week discussed, but took no action, regarding both the censure of and restrictions on funding for board-related travel for Trustee Bruce Dennis.

“My personal opinion is not an ounce of travel budget as long as I’m breathing,” Board President Kim Joseph Cousins said at the September 3 meeting. “I want to be very clear, there is a legal precedent associated with him going somewhere and misbehaving, and we’re going to get sued, and I’m not going to be part and parcel to that.”

Dennis was censured last summer as a result of a complaint filed by Board Secretary Sandra Martinez accusing him of sexual harassment, unprofessional conduct and creating a hostile work environment. In addition to the censure, the board voted to remove him from his role as the board’s California School Boards Association delegate and suspend his discretionary travel and conference funds and abilities until further notice.

Trustee Ray “Coach” Curtis said he brought the item forward not to remove the censure, but to solely reinstate Dennis’ discretionary travel and conference funds ahead of the California School Board Association (CSBA) County Board Conference held last weekend in Monterey, California.

“The censure is forever,” Curtis said. “The travel and conference [fund suspension] was put together by the ad hoc committee and was set indefinitely.”

Dennis, who called his censure “absolutely the right action,” said that attending professional conferences was part of his duty as a board member to stay updated on new developments in education and to improve his ability to serve in the role. He also noted that he’s continued to attend local events without issue.

“In the last year, I have been invited to events within my trustee area,” he said. “Any request I’ve made of [Riverside County Superintendent of Schools Edwin Gomez] to attend an RCOE event, I have been allowed to attend it with absolutely no issues and no escorts, no conditions. If I can be trusted to [attend] those district and county events, I think I can be trusted to go to CSBA.”

Dennis, who said he was an advocate for women, said he had “worked like hell,” over the last year to address the behaviors brought up in the complaint and as part of the investigation into the complaint.

“I have learned through this that things that may have been allowed early in my career are no longer allowed, even a simple compliment,” he said, noting that he would not resign from his seat. “I just stay away from everything now.”

However, Trustee Jamie Azpeitia-Sachs said that the fact that this item was on the agenda, coupled with remarks from unnamed trustees that the situation had “gone on too long,” sent a “chilling message” to victims and survivors and reflected a broader issue in the organization’s culture.

“A culture of sweeping harm under the rug when it gets uncomfortable, a culture that protects reputations instead of repairing relationships and a culture that hopes silence will make the problem disappear,” she said. “Harm does not disappear just because you’re tired of hearing about it.

“Another thing that we need to do is demonstrate through action, not [public relations], not optics, that this board supports those who speak up, not those who attempt to silence them,” she continued. “This is a systemic issue, and if you still cannot see that, then, disrespectfully, you are a part of the problem.”

For Azpeitia-Sachs, a reasonable accommodation would be to have Dennis have access to funds for specific trainings and conferences, but not be given the entire $12,000 budget to use at his discretion.

Dennis said that the conferences he should be allowed to attend include the county, CSBA and Association of California County Boards of Education annual conferences and even suggested that he be provided with a $6,000 discretionary travel budget.

However, Trustee Elizabeth F. Romero felt that even having Dennis at those events representing RCOE was not something he should be doing.

“For me, this has always felt very crummy just to even have someone who’s been accused of perpetrating in this way to still be allowed to be in spaces in close proximity, one to the victim and two to other people who could be potentially harmed,” she said. “And so that, from the onset, has been uncomfortable, especially going to schools and doing those visits outside of the confines of what we’ve authorized as this board.”

Cousins went even further, stating that having Dennis attend events as a representative of RCOE with the financial support of the organization has the potential to put the office at risk.

“If I know the individual has violated people’s spaces and has [created] a hostile work environment, and I have notes and emails from people indicating it’s still going on to this day with no apology, therefore, in my mind, if I give any kind of money, and I send that individual and they have similar interactions with people [at an event] that I paid for them to go to, that puts this organization at risk again,” he said. “He’s free to go wherever he wants to go, just not on RCOE’s dime.”

Since the item was solely on the agenda for discussion, no action was taken, though Cousins told the board that if two members sent him a note about what they wanted to bring back before the board, he would put it on a future agenda.