by Mark McDermott
Manhattan Beach Unified School District Assistant Superintendent Tom Stekol is being investigated by an independent third-party firm hired by the district after over 80 teachers filed complaints that allege threatening and verbally abusive behavior by Stekol, who heads the district’s Human Resources Department.
The Manhattan Beach Unified Teachers Association also presented the Board of Education with the results of a vote in which three-fourths of its 300 members participated and 97 percent cast votes of no confidence in Stekol.
In a statement, Stekol expressed confidence that the investigation would exonerate him.
“I have a long track record of successfully helping strengthen accountability for employee performance and conduct,” Stekol said. “Although I have not seen the complaints filed by some of the teachers at the middle school, I look forward to a thorough and impartial investigation of their complaints.”
Many of the complaints stem from two meetings Stekol held with teachers, on October 10 at Manhattan Beach Middle School and October 13 at Mira Costa High School. Stekol gave presentations that outlined how teachers’ use of “personal necessity” days off would be handled differently than they had been in the past. Both meetings grew contentious. Teachers described Stekol’s behavior as hostile and intimidating. The October 13 meeting culminated in a confrontation between Stekol and MCHS social studies teacher Adam Geczi in which Stekol reportedly questioned the teacher’s physical fitness.
A complaint signed by 69 MCHS teachers was filed with Principal Karina Granger and Superintendent John Bowes after the October 13 meeting.
“When fielding questions about absence reporting procedures, Dr. Stekol behaved contentiously towards members of our staff, took an aggressive physical presence, closed the distance, raised his voice to speak over others, accused a teacher of being ‘childish’ for questioning a procedure, and publically belittled a teacher’s physical abilities for no apparent reason other than to insult them,” the complaint alleges. “Several witnesses to Dr. Stekol’s behavior left the room due to the palpable tension in the room.”
The complaint references school board policy that requires any employee who observes another employee behave inappropriately towards another employee to report the behavior to administrators. It also notes that employees receive “preventing workplace violence” training and that Stekol’s behavior at the October 13 meeting “caused alarm” in light of that training, alleging that he behaved “in a manner which appeared to intend to intimidation and cause discomfort using his physical presence by violating the personal space of others, exaggerating gestures, and talking loudly and combatively over others.”
Teachers presented their no confidence vote at the October 18 school board meeting.
MBUTA president Shawn Chen told the board that though the October 13 meeting galvanized the teachers to take action, many had reported similar issues regarding Stekol previously.
“This lack of confidence has evolved over many months and through experiences large and small,” Chen said. “….MBUTA has long advocated for fair treatment by our district administrators of teachers whose dedication to their students and professional preparation has brought to our district accolades and awards of which the board is well aware. Running counter to the appreciation we feel from many in the community and from our students on a daily basis is the appalling disregard emanating from the assistant superintendent of HR.…To have our HR director belittling our professionalism not only is a personal disservice to each teacher but exposes the district to the liability of encouraging a hostile workplace environment.”
Stekol is relatively new to the school district but is a local resident whose children attended MBUSD schools. He served as an administrator for 15 years at LAUSD, where he was a colleague of Superintendent Bowes’, and then served as assistant superintendent and HR director for the Redondo Beach Unified School District from 2013 to 2018. He worked three years as deputy superintendent for Santa Ana Unified School District before retiring at the end of 2021. He was originally hired on an interim basis in February 2022 by MBUSD. He was appointed as assistant superintendent four months later.
Bowes, in a statement, said Stekol was hired due to his vast experience in HR. He said the MBUTA vote of no confidence “is essentially an action that groups take to ensure they have leadership’s attention regarding a concern” and that as a result an investigation is occurring.
“It is my understanding that MBUTA has conducted this type of vote in the past,” Bowes said. “We do place great importance on positive working conditions and relationships; therefore, the District will examine the situation and will engage an outside professional to assure all involved that the examination and analysis is conducted without concerns of bias.”
In an interview, Chen said that MBUTA had never taken this action before.
“We’ve never run a vote of no confidence,” she said.
Stekol, in an interview, said that he believes part of what has occurred is that his efforts to rein in improper and possibly unlawful use of personal necessity days has angered teacher union members who were accustomed to a more laissez faire approach to taking days off. He noted that students are still working to overcome learning loss from the pandemic and his intention has simply been to better follow the law to ensure students get the most enriching classroom education possible.
“Not just with the learning loss, but these are very difficult times,” Stekol said. “The social and emotional needs of our students — I feel that we, as professionals, need to be putting that first. I do understand employees feel that as well, but I feel that as a professional, we put the kids first, and for better or worse, we’re second.”
Stekol’s attempts to strengthen employee accountability includes a more stringent application of what qualifies as a personal necessity, or “PN,” day off. The district’s policy is governed by the state education code as well as its own administrative policies and the contract negotiated with MBUTA and other collective bargaining units. The enforcement of that policy has changed under Stekol. Several teachers this year took personal necessity days and subsequently had their requests denied, resulting in unpaid days off. Stekol met with teachers on October 10 and 13 to explain and discuss PN policy.
Pacific Elementary kindergarten teacher Sondra Abrahms, one of the teachers who had her PN request rejected after she’d already taken days off, spoke about her experience at the October 18 board meeting. Abrahms has been an MBUSD educator for 22 years and was named Teacher of the Year in 2013. Her husband, she told the school board, is a coach on the El Segundo Little League team that in August advanced to (and eventually won) the World Series, which took place in Pennsylvania. Abrahms said she and her son attended the early rounds of the tournament, then returned for the first week of school. But as the El Segundo team continued to advance, Abrahams realized her husband was the only coach whose family wasn’t there.
“Having a spouse on the team was no different than having a child on the team, and as the team advanced to the finals, there was nowhere else I should have been but in Pennsylvania,” she said.
To get there, Abrahms had to leave on Friday and return on the following Monday. She told the board that she arranged for substitute teachers, and prepared lesson plans. She filed for two PN days.
“The support from the families in my class was amazing,” Abrahms said. “They understood my absence and they watched and cheered from home. Imagine my surprise to later have my use of personal necessity denied.”
Abrahms said that beyond the loss of pay, the change in PN policy enforcement is an affront to teachers’ sense of professionalism and ignores their contractual rights. She cited the teachers’ labor contract, which lists the reasons for PN days to include the death or serious illness of a family member, an accident, or “other situations which require a unit member’s attention during work hours, subject to a test of reasonableness, or…any reason deemed appropriate by the employee’s supervisor.”
“Many of us are having our use of sick and personal necessity days questioned,” Abrahms said. “As educators, we are tasked with teaching students with diverse learning needs, and emotional and medical needs….We give more of ourselves to our students than most people could ever imagine. We’ve been trained to handle catastrophic situations in our schools and to administer life-saving measures in times of crisis. Yet we aren’t trusted as professionals to use our personal necessity days and sick days as we see fit. We deserve better.”
At the October 13 meeting, Stekol told the teachers that the district was simply adhering to state law and administrative policy. California Education Code 44981 says employees must secure advance permission for personal necessity days except in cases of death, illness, or accidents, and along with an earlier Ed Code provision, defers to governing boards to establish rules and regulations regarding such leaves of absence. District administrative policy includes those reasons, and curiously adds another specific reason for classified employees — court appearances — as well as fire, floods, and “personal business of a serious nature which the employee cannot disregard.”
“Leave for personal necessity may be allowed for other reasons at the discretion of the Superintendent or designee,” MBUSD policy states. “However, no such leave shall be granted for purposes of personal convenience, for the extension of a holiday or vacation, or for matters which can be taken care of outside of working hours.”
The conflict with Geczi at the October 13 meeting arose when the teacher asked questions about the need for approval for absences from the classroom due to other district business. Stekol suggested they talk about this issue separately, after the meeting, but Geczi said he preferred all discussion be with the entire group.
At one point, Stekol allegedly called Geczi’s approach “childish.” At another point, Geczi asked if the administrators’ power over teachers was such that Stekol could force him to do push-ups if he so desired.
“You wouldn’t be able to anyway,” Stekol reportedly said.
Geczi is well-known among his colleagues as a firebrand and as a former member of MBUTA’s negotiating teams is well-versed in contract language. He said in an interview that he was less intimidated by the exchange than many of the hundred or so observers. He said things came to a head when he suggested that Stekol was misinterpreting the intent of state law, and asked if he had consulted with legal counsel about this matter. Stekol said he had, and Geczi asked him to name the attorney he’d spoken with.
“That’s when things kind of turned ugly, because he, at that point, called me childish,” Geczi said. “I don’t think it was a childish question. If he’s out there telling people that their pay is going to get docked, this is a very legitimate question…He got angry and said we have to do what he is telling us to do because that is just how it is, we have to do whatever they tell us to do because they are the employer — you know, he’s the employer, and I am the employee. My response to that was, ‘If that was the case, sir, then you could tell me right now to do 10 pushups and I would have to do it, and if I don’t, I would get my pay deducted.’”
Geczi said that Stekol seemed to believe that he could indeed order him to do push-ups.
“He implied that I’m too weak to do push ups, that the only reason why he’s not asking me to do push-ups is because I am too weak,” Geczi recalled.
“As I asked questions, he got more and more and more aggravated with me, he elevated his voice, he gestured at me, he walked towards me several times. For me, I was just listening, I was having a discussion. But to everybody else that was there, this whole thing, it just looked out of control. I mean, people were just in shock, 100 people going, ‘Oh, my goodness, what have we just witnessed here? This is so inappropriate.’ For me personally, it’s my supervisor, the assistant superintendent in charge of Human Resources. So yeah, I am kind of up against a heavy hitter.”
“Because it started out as a respectful question, it could have been answered in many different ways. You didn’t have to go into implying that I’m fat or out of shape or that I’m childish,” Geczi said.
Stekol said it would be inappropriate to comment on the specifics of the incident, which is part of the investigation that is underway. But in an October 19 email response to teacher Rachel Thomas, he addressed the incident.
“In 35 years in public education, I have never before experienced a more brazen disruption of a presentation than what one teacher chose to do last Friday,” Stekol wrote. “I will admit that I was surprised by the perseveration of the behavior. I will also admit that I was not prepared for it.”
Mira Costa English teacher Quincey Howerton told the school board she and many of her colleagues would not feel safe in a room alone with Stekol.
“To go from telling a grown adult he is being childish for questioning him to then ad hominem attacking him in the next breath with an insult not worthy of a 10-year-old was disgraceful, to say the least,” she said. “Half of the staff members audibly gasped; I was one of them. I immediately realized I would feel unsafe talking to Stekol one-on-one, and would never want to encounter him at the district office or elsewhere. His noticeable tactics to intimidate and overpower were on full display Friday and showed his true colors.”
A teacher who was present at that meeting but requested her name not be used for fear of retaliation said that she’d previously seen that side of the assistant superintendent. One of Stekol’s first tasks when stepping in as interim superintendent in 2022 was to complete an investigation regarding a sexual harassment complaint this teacher had filed — before his arrival — regarding an incident involving students on the Mira Costa campus.
“He went to great lengths to assure me that he had this vast knowledge of properly conducting sexual harassment complaints. We had this conversation and he assured me he’d do a great job of this,” the teacher said. “And the next thing I knew, a report was delivered to me in my classroom, by somebody else, and I was shocked because I hadn’t been interviewed for my own sexual harassment complaint.”
She said that she subsequently met with Stekol.
“In his final report, he assigned the perpetrators’ characterization of events to me,” she said. “And when I brought this to his attention, his response was, ‘Well, did you even try to get interviewed?’ So he was blaming me at this point for his ineptitude.”
The same teacher said she later had another encounter with Stekol that left her further unsettled. She said was part of a group of teachers who tried to bring attention to what they saw as a campus security concern that could be exploited were someone with ill-intent attempting to gain entrance to campus. They filed a grievance regarding the security issue and brought it to the attention of the district’s health and safety committee. At a meeting, the teacher said Stekol was combatively dismissive of the issue.
“The conversation eventually turns to, ‘What’s the number one killer of school-aged children in our country right now? School shootings, right? It’s gun violence,’’’ she recalled. “And Dr. Stekol said to me, ‘Well, to quote my favorite movie, The Godfather, if someone wants to kill you, they’re going kill you.’ That was his attitude towards safety.”
Stekol said that he is unable to comment regarding specific complaints or any other matters relating to personnel matters.
“In situations like these, the District is unable to respond fully due to its obligation to protect the confidentiality of employee personnel records,” he said. “While union members may speak freely about their issues, I cannot disclose anything to you regarding complaints they may have filed or items that may be in their personnel records, such as written memos for conduct issues.”
Stekol said that he believes much of the conflict that has arisen has been exacerbated by what he sees as MBUTA leadership’s combative approach. He said that issues that are professional in nature have been misinterpreted as personal. He suggested that union leadership did not believe in the rule of law, and recalled a specific conversation in which this was revealed.
“At a meeting on October 5, 2023 between Shawn Chen, [MBUTA vice president] Lauri Resnikoff, [deputy superintendent] Dawnalyn Murakawa-Leopard and me, Shawn argued angrily against the denial of a couple of teacher requests to extend vacation periods by up to a week with paid personal necessity,” Stekol said. “When I explained to her that Administrative Regulation 4161.2 does not allow for the authorization of PN in this manner, she said, ‘Why do you have to follow the regulations? What? Are the regulation police going to come after you?’”
“When I later explained to her that there is a hierarchy in the District starting with the Board and extending through the Superintendent that is based on a rule of law and regulation she replied, “I do not believe in this hierarchy. My dreams are of anarchy.”
Chen recalled the conversation differently.
“I don’t recall saying that my dreams are of anarchy,” she said. “I told him that I recently went to a California Teachers Association conference in which the hierarchy is likely inverted for his taste — with CTA leadership implying in their org chart that leadership serves rather than commands the people over whom they exercise stewardship. But I guess saying that I dream of anarchy fits his stereotype of the kind of leader he thinks I represent. He well knows I respect the rules and the contract and it is he who has vehemently disavowed the place of past practice in the enforcement of our contract.”
Chen said Stekol has left or been forced to leave previous school districts due to a penchant for conflict.
“It helps him to spin his deficits as a leader as ‘union rhetoric’ so he can avoid confronting the reality that has dogged him at every place of employment—universal lack of ‘appreciation for his contributions,’ let’s call it,” she said.
Stekol defended his 35 year career in public education. He said that was never forced to leave any of his former school districts but left only for promotions elsewhere, except in Santa Ana, the district from which he retired before he was recruited by MBUSD in what was initially an interim role. He said he understood from the outset at MBUSD that attempting to implement more accountability would make some employees uncomfortable, and that there would be pushback.
“I have learned over the years that when you see things like this, you shouldn’t take them personally, but you should pay attention to them,” he said. “Because it’s a sign that you need to correct something in the organizational culture and how we’re doing things. And that’s how I have looked at it. There are a lot of layers to this, and a lot of elements. In all my years of experience, I have found that the resolution should not be oppositional. It really does come down to two people communicating instead of attacking. A more collaborative, less antagonistic approach from our labor partners better serves the interests of bargaining members and the community. We have been able to work positively through many issues with our classified union CSEA. We hope to be able to do so with MBUTA at some point as well.”
Chen said that the complaints that have been filed against Stekol have nothing to do with the union.
“He definitely is anti-union, but this is not a union action,” she said. “This is an action that teachers are taking, and because the majority of our teachers are union members, they have the protection of a union, and that’s what he dislikes. Teachers are individually making complaints. And we have non-union members who have filed complaints.”
Another teacher who requested to speak anonymously in order to not come into conflict with her colleagues said that Stekol has improved MBUSD’s work environment.
“My perspective is that what has been happening for many years is there’s a handful of teachers who have been allowed to get away with things such as taking off the last week of school, or skipping mandatory meetings, or even worse, speaking degradingly in front of people to other colleagues or to administrators,” the teacher said. “Nothing has ever been done about it. And so my perspective is that Dr. Stekol is the first administrator to come in and see those problems and try to right the wrongs, which is uncomfortable for those people.”
The teacher said the vast majority of the teachers already followed the rules, but a small, vocal minority had established a culture that at times lacked accountability. She said that she also understood some of the criticisms of the assistant superintendent.
“There is going to be some truth on both sides,” she said. “Dr. Stekol is kind of a hard-ass. But at the same time, he definitely cares. He cares about really good teachers, and he wants to make sure that all teachers are working in an environment that’s fair, that follows rules, and that other people aren’t just making it crappy for the rest of us. I feel like he’s doing that. And I know a lot of my colleagues, who are both union and non-union, feel the same way.”
This teacher is an MBUTA member, and likewise had praise for Chen’s leadership.
“Basically, at the core of it, it’s that people do care, and maybe it’s the messaging, maybe it’s how the messenger is reporting it,” she said. “Shawn [Chen] and Dr. Stekol are very big personalities, and they both care about teachers.”
The investigation of Stekol is expected to be completed in the next month. ER
