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Another school may be coming to the rescue of Carden West, the small private school at 4576 Willow Road in the Hacienda Business Park that declared bankruptcy late last year.
A parent, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Stratford School may take over operations at Carden West as well as assuming its debt.
“It’s yet to be completed (but) it seems quite likely that Stratford will be coming into town,” the parent said. “They have a letter of intent with the landlord signed by both parties. They’re putting the finishing touches on the lease.”
Carden West is a nonprofit toddler-to-middle school; it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November, claiming debts of nearly $1.8 million and assets of just $6,000, only half of that in cash, with the rest in hard assets like schools desks and chairs. As of the filing, Carden West owed more than $2,600 in federal taxes and was using monthly tuition payments to pay teacher salaries.
The parent said the school amassed its $1.77 million debt over a long period of time.
“Part of it was tenant improvements on the building. There have been times when it has run at a deficit in the past and the bank has loaned money,” the parent said.
The school would become a Stratford School but is likely to keep Carden West instructors, according to the parent.
“People are drawn to Carden West because of the teachers and teaching philosophy as well as its geographical location,” the parent said. “Stratford has a similar teaching philosophy, and historically when it comes in, in a similar situation, it tries to retain as much of the student body as possible and interviews all of the teachers for positions at the site or elsewhere in the Stratford system.”
A similar situation occurred at the Carden Academy in Morgan Hill; Carden closed its doors in 2009 but was reopened by Stratford.
Stratford has schools in Blackhawk and Danville and offers programs that run from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade, according to the school’s website.
Meanwhile, about half the students from Carden West have left or filed noticed that they plan to leave. The parent said it’s hoped that the attrition can be staved off with the announcement of the merger.
Carden West’s student population as of the bankruptcy filing was 211, down about 11% from the 2010-11 school year.
A meeting between parents, Carden West staff and representatives of Stratford was set for Wednesday night. Another parent called the deal a win-win for teachers, parents, students and both schools.
Here are some updates based on last night’s back to back (public) parent meetings at Carden with first the Carden board and then representatives from Stratford. Information on this situation has been changing week to week, but things appear to be firming up.
First off, this is not a merger. Stratford will not be assuming anything (neither the debt, nor the license, nor the lease) from the Carden entity. Carden West, after implementing the necessary staff reductions and signing an agreement with the landlord, will continue through the end of this school year at the current building. At that point, Carden West will, in essence, cease operations.
Stratford has a signed letter of intent with the landlord for this location, and the lease may be final in the next few weeks. The expectation is that Stratford will sign a multi-year lease beginning in June 2012, ready the campus for their needs over the summer, and open a PK(?)-5 school (preschool unclear) for the 2012-2013 school year. This will be Stratford’s first elementary school in the East Bay or TriValley; they have been looking for several years for the right property at which to establish a TriValley location. This school is expected to be very similar to the other ~10 elementary schools that Stratford operates (from SF down through SJ and Fremont).
Stratford will be interviewing qualified candidates for positions in this school; they did not say what their expectations were for 2012-2013 enrollment.
As for this summer, it will be decided in the next month whether the Steve and Kate’s program will sublet space from Stratford to operate there as they did from Carden. In the summer of 2013, Stratford expects to offer its own summer program, similar to what they do at their other elementary schools.
Kudos to the CW “Board” for another classy move. Former parents just began receiving legal notices from the hooligan Board demanding tuition for the “contractual 60-day notice period”, even in cases where that 60-day notice was waived by the administration. The school was in clear breach of its own contract when it sent out notices to parents on Christmas Eve that it would raise tuition mid-year by 25%. When that sent parents fleeing the school to seek more viable options, the Board started backpedaling on the 25% increase, choosing instead to “request” a donation from each parent. Every single week the Board was spinning a new narrative, including the possibility of abrupt closure. The Board is now threatening legal action and notification to credit bureaus if their latest extortion attempt is not met. We are exploring a counter legal offensive in the face of this notice.
Hi Former Parent,
Yes. I am in the same situation as you. The board clearly breached the contract on 12/23/2011
Send me an email royadds2001@yahoo.com. We can join forces and make this a class action law suit. We want to gather as many parents as we can to face this bully.
Hi CW Ex Parents,
We also gave notice to terminate right after the tuition increase notice came out. The previous board and Ann Kennedy accepted our terms then. Just recently half the board quit and this guy Basil Besh became the President. He’s bullying everyone into paying and using threat of legal action and credit damage to extort the money. He and his wife are in the board which is highly unethical because of conflict of interest. I’m email the previous guy to join forces.
Yes. We got that 30-day notice of tuition increase too on that Friday afternoon 1 day before Christmas (December 23, 2011). This was a clear breach of their own contract.
We felt helpless at that time because we knew it a deliberate attempt to be deceptive. Nobody could do anything for two weeks until all other schools are open. Only then we would know what other options we would have. It definitely ruined Christmas for us and replaced joy with high anxiety.
We also received a letter “demanding” more moeny, which is clearly fraudulent. It will just cost us attorney and court costs to fight it. And don’t mention more stress
It is a good idea to join forces. Another idea is to post your comments on Carden West Face Book site:
http://www.facebook.com/savecardenwest
Heard from other carden parents about the outrageous schemes by the Besh couple on the new board. Besh told the school to go after over 100 parents with collections threat. If there are that many parents they are going after, you all should be collectively hiring a lawyer for class action against the current board or whoever in the board is really driving these. There seems to be a compelling case against the current board for breach of contract in several dimensions. If you join forces like the other parent said here, you can expose the devious attempts. The new board can’t save the school so they are going after us.
hey parents, did you consider taking the case to the local media and exposing all those who are making the extortions and collections threat?
Hi pleasantonian,
I got my notice also. How do we get together to go after this Basil Besh character. He was behind the 30-day tuition increase notice that cause the school to collapse. Now he is going to end of the earth to prove his point. He is a bully and a fraud.
Going to media is very good solution. It is also a good solution to call district attorney.
7 on your side contact email: 7oys@kgo-tv.com
Former CW parents: you are not the only ones with the dubious collections notice. Besh threatened even current remaining parents against leaving the school by slapping the 60-day notice. You know who left the school; contact them directly and join forces for a joint legal action.
Besh or even the puppet board do not represent the broader opinion of the parent community. Besh couple have worked real hard to drive away half the parents, destroy teacher morale and shutdown the school. There is lot of talk about their ulterior movies. Besh mysteriously resigned for a brief period in Jan to start a “new school” and then equally mysteriously came back to take over Carden. Go figure.
The stratford takeover talk was a devious ploy by the board and Besh – to convince parents to stay. Part of continued lies and dishonesty by this board. This past week, Besh recanted the story and told the school Stratford is independent and is not merging or acquiring any assets of CW.
Roy – I sent you an email. Parents are banding together to fight this thuggery. We are in the process of organizing and pursuing collective legal action.
How do rest of us sign up or join forces with those who are uniting?
Other than legal action, consider the court of public opinion. Valley Community Bank is a local community bank that truly wants to be in good standing with the community. They wouldn’t want to or aren’t aware all these parents can go to the press and media. They don’t want bad press. They may not even be aware that the board sent out threatening emails citing VCB. If anyone knows VCB, they should whose idea was this. Do they know the board is using them that hurts their image?
I believe the moment the board sent the families letters mandating a substantial 25% tuition increase (they called it modest) without 60 days notification, they unequivocally breached the contract. I also believe that some actions taken by the board prior to this, where they exercised extremely poor and I would argue reckless judgment, had already breached the contract, and definitely my trust in them to make sound decisions. For example, they withheld rent from the landlord and risked eviction (this is a school for goodness sake, what happens to all the children?), and after two months of nonpayment, the landlord ultimately issued a 3 day eviction notice. The board said the eviction notice forced them to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At this point the board finally had to notify the parents of the bankruptcy filing. The board blamed the landlord for being unreasonable and unwilling to negotiate. And then there was the matter of the bank loan of about $1.7 million that they couldn’t pay, but the bank was to blame for that, of course. I won’t go into other examples here, but suffice it to say that this illustrates a pattern of behavior that was quite disconcerting. I couldn’t believe everything that the board said because it was obvious to me that their actions were not well thought out, and they had a habit of blaming the other parties involved, like the landlord and the bank, instead of taking responsibility for their own decisions which jeopardized the children’s education and ultimately cost many of the teachers and support staff their jobs. To this day, I really don’t know whether it was truly just recklessness and incompetence, or something more sordid and calculated, like a scheme to get out of the lease and loan payments and wipe out all past mistakes. Perhaps they thought they could take the current student base and start a new school with a clean slate, but they incorrectly thought that the parents would follow them like blind sheep. Instead, the parents left en masse with half the student population, and now the board has the gall to go after the parents who left. Given the way they’ve treated the former parents, the teachers and staff who were so dedicated to their students, it’s difficult to give them the benefit of the doubt.
In addition to billing me for 60 days after leaving, they also billed me again for the last month we were there. Apparently it is my responsibility to prove to them that I paid already, otherwise it will also be included in the amount their bank could go after me for. Can’t they figure out by themselves that I already paid? Again, is it incompetence or trickery? Prove that you paid or we’ll get an extra month of tuition from you. Hey, we’re going to book it all as a receivable and if you don’t pay, we’re going to hand it over to the bank’s collections department. This is the one thing that all the bank’s lawyers and our lawyers agree on. Yes, and why wouldn’t they? Let’s see, that’s three months worth they’re trying to get from me, and coincidentally, they still owe the landlord a lump sum payment for three months rent…. You can draw your own conclusions.
Obviously we are going to fight this. Does the party who first breaches a contract get to come back and enforce the part of the contract that works to his benefit?
Former CW parents: we have formed a Google group to get organized. Please go to the following and request membership:
http://groups.google.com/group/xcarden?hl=en
If that doesn’t work, please email GitaBarry@gmail.com and request access to the group. Gita and a group of parents (including an attorney parent) are leading the coordination.
I have reached out to all the local papers. I love the suggestion above to also reach out to Valley Comunity Bank and will post your suggestion on the Google page.
All – to join the google group – please email the following address:
xcarden@googlegroups.com
Thanks….
In addition to forming a group, all parents should send a written response to the Board on their letter asking for money in regards to the contract breach. This is clear extortion and other than not paying a single dime to this inept school board, a civil class action law suit against them is also an appropriate action. We should claim damages for their letter, corrupt practices, mental and financial loss and uncertainty with children’s future.
I am amazed why Stratford would associate their reputation with such a Bankrupt Carden West Board. All parents should write to Stratford Management too that such acts against the residents of Pleasanton will tarnish their reputation too and their chance of success in Pleasanton are slim to none.
For the parents that want to write to the Stratford Management, here is the address and contact details (we have already complained to Stratford Management in addition to formally responding to the pathetic Carden West Board run by this joke of a character Basil Besh and his other family memebers):
Matthew Wulfstat – President
Stratford Schools
5301 Curtis St
Fremont, CA 94538-2412
Stratford has schools in other areas so an address for any other location such as Palo Alto is also fine.
Can you provide the email address for the CW Board also?
We don’t have an email for the CW Management. And wanted to formally reply via postal email for record.
Two previous posts. Joint the group and we’ll provide the email address of the board.
clearly, based on the contract given, the moment they sent an email increasing tuition, they breached the contract. the contract states, “the school must give 60 calendar days’ notice before changing tuition rates.” they sent out an email confirming that they had increased tuition without giving sixty day notice. a few weeks later, they changed their mind, but that does not negate the breach of contract. i am grateful ex-carden west has formed and is growing. i think we should give them a few days. after that, i hope we:
1. contact the fbi to report criminal activity by board members.
2. contact the pleasanton police department to file a report against board members.
3. contact the district attorney for board harassment via communication subsequent to breach of contract.
4. contact the bank to let them know point ten in the carden west contract and show them the emails from the board which clearly and officially breach the contract. my guess is they misrepresented the situation to the bank to try to sell off receivables. if the bank continues, the bank is now engaged in criminal activity as well.
5. contact reporters at pleasanton weekly about the criminal activity at carden west.
6. contact the sheriff’s office that has already placed an eviction notice at the school.
7. contact the overseeing parties of some of the main criminals like dr. besh and kathleen massey that have been there awhile. dr. besh should not be allowed to practice surgery while engaging in criminal activity.
8. try to get back the annual fee and last month’s tuition that were expropriated at the beginning of the year through lies from kathleen massey and the board.
9. contact stratford to let them know what carden’s done.
Kathy Massie quit a couple of weeks ago. Ann Kennedy quit last week. They probably saw the criminal intent of Dr. Besh and didn’t want to be a part of it.
Who’s running the school now?
from cw mgmt, i have the personal emails of three board members (haven’t checked accuracy of all addresses though). i will most likely release the addresses soon. we must let them know that we will be pursuing criminal charges against them as they are harassing and expropriating after a breach of contract.
massey is a criminal for sure. she lied straight up when i joined in november at the beginning of chapter 11 and said it was 100% certain that nonetheless the school would be in pleasanton through june 15th no matter what – no drama. this is how they collected annual fees and the last month’s prepaid rent.
the best people to contact are kim green and scott zeillinger i think and notify them that they will be treated as criminals from hereon in.
Board and Basil Besh character are synonymous. Half the board quit, principal and others quit because of the scheming and deceptions of Besh and his gang. Besh’s emails past 36 hours to some parents imply VCB never really required Besh to send the collections mail. If you write a check to CW for the 60-day notice, how does that help VCB with loan payments? Besh would use that money to pay the teachers. Think?
Whose original idea was it to raise tuition by 25%? Whose idea was to force CW into bankruptcy? Who wanted to start a new school? Why is Besh knowingly doing all these abominable things, knowing fully well the school will be shutdown? What is the connection between shutting down CW and Besh starting a new school?
Here is the contact information of all of the current board members. I think all of this information needs to be made public now. What they are doing is wrong.
Basil Besh: elbesh@yahoo.com
Amirra Besh:amirra_besh@yahoo.com
Stephane Shah: austinmanor@comcast.net
Mercedes Badger: mcbadger@sbcglobal.net
Jason Gilbert: jason.gilbert@amllp.com
Join the XCarden Google group to get email information of the board.
Kathy Massey lies to everyone. It is good that she is gone because I saw behavior from her that was uncalled for but nobody ever questioned it. I am glad to hear there will be a takeover because the way Carden was running things was totally screwy.
If someone looks into Dr. Besh’s history I am sure they will see this is how he also runs his medical practice! Deception, lies, mental and verbal abuse of his employee’s. He is a liar, tyrant and a bully!! He is a VERY unstable man and should NOT be running a school let alone a business. People should be afraid that he is in charge of running their children’s school. I suggest the people at Carden West take action as fast as possible to get this man away from their children and out of their school.
It seems like the people posting in this forum have gotten themselves all riled up in a pitchfork mob mentality. I get it you’re angry. We have a student at the school too. But could you perhaps slow down for a second to reflect on this one question:
What did *YOU* do to help the school when it got into trouble?
I’ve been on many volunteer boards and there’s nothing worse than attacks from those who get all the benefits and haven’t lifted a finger to help. That’s called free-loading. You were all happy as clams when things appearing to be working and you didn’t have to do anything to keep this collective running. Now it’s in trouble and you bailed.
There’s no denying that mistakes were made by the former ALL PARENT board that was running the school. And it is a bit bizarre that this school was being run by volunteer parents, not a professional administration.
But the entitlement attitude on this thread is ridiculous. This is a non-profit school being run by some parents, and your selfish vitriol would be akin to thinking the school was a large, for-profit enterprise.
If you attended all of the parent meetings, as we did, you’d have heard about the varying approaches that the board was taking to find a viable solution to keep the school open, at least to the end of the school year, in the face of a recalcitrant landlord, an unethical bank, and a non-supportive bankruptcy judge. Certainly the 25% tuition increase (which never went through remember) could have come with a better message like “the court is ordering this but we’re still looking at alternatives.”
And the tactic of creating a new legal entity to move forward with a clean slate seemed like a reasonable solution. That “new school” was going to be a non-profit just like the current school, not some for-profit business enterprise personally owned by Dr. Besh as somehow being alleged here.
A constructive comment during one meeting was to look at merging with another school – and that’s what’s happened. In the end, since Stratford was going to enter the market regardless of Carden’s moves (they’d already made a deal on the property), it seems like getting acquired was the most logical step. It would have had a hard time competing independently.
So those of you who “cut and ran,” what did you do to try to help save the school? Did you jump on the volunteer board too? Did you try to run a fundraiser to help close the financial gap? No, it seems you were the ones whining, complaining and then quickly bailing. Were you also some of the families who were in arears leading up to the bankruptcy and hadn’t paid prior tuition? Plenty of blame to go around here.
Certainly people wish things had worked out better. Who would want this mess? But why do some think that the current board is running a
conspiracy? Is Dr. Besh the best person to be running the school? Probably not, but a parent shouldn’t be running ANY school. It’s a bad setup to begin with. And regardless, while you may or may not have any claims regarding the money owed, your selfish attitude is non-constructive. Frankly, if you hadn’t bailed on the school so fast, you wouldn’t even have any 60-day notice issues.
In the end, this thread comes across more like a Tea Party rally than a collection of parents who truly cared about their children’s situation. Best of luck to you; you can now get involved yourselves, dealing with the bank and all. And I know the flame war will erupt now, but I’ll just say that I’m glad some of the parents I witnessed during the recent meetings will have left. Their entitlement attitude and immature behavior would never have helped to build a strong school anyway.
(By the way, where’s the outrage for a bank that let the school get that far out of line by continuing to offer high interest debt like a loan shark? Why did they not request a financial management review a long time ago, but instead acted just like all the other irresponsible banks pumping up the housing bubble? Focus your anger there perhaps since they fed the growing deficit like a drug dealer, and let it get as far out of hand as it did.)
Just so everyone knows and is no longer deceived the last post the one above this is defiantly a post by the famous Dr. Besh himself. It’s got his language written all over it. This is a feeble attempt to place blame on the parents and off of himself. Nice try Dr. Besh but we see right through you. Basil time to own up, you made a huge mistake and now you must pay the consequences.
I am more concerned about where Steve & Kate’s camp is going to be this summer! It’s a great program and currently they aren’t offering a Pleasanton location – only Danville. That won’t work for us!
Wow, I wish some of you had spent half the energy you are using now to getting involved with the school when you were needed. None the less, can I just ask, what is wrong with all of you who signed a contract saying that if you ever chose to withdraw your child from Carden West, you would provide 60 days notice or the school could collect that 60 days from you? Yes, I understand that there was a lot of turmoil and what was going to happen was unclear, but many parents exposed to the same information that you had, didn’t leave or did chose to leave, but provided the required contractual notice to the school. You signed an agreement and all the the Carden Board is doing is asking you to hold to that agreement. If you have something in writing from Kathy Massie (former administrator) or Ann Kennedy (Head of School) that waives that notice for you, the Board is more than happy to accept that. If you paid tuition for part of that time, the Board will apply that to your balance. The reason they are asking for you to demonstrate your payment is not for a lack of trust of what you say or bookeeping at the school. It is that a number of you very classy folks put stop payments on your checks that are only hitting now. Nice, professional maneuver on your part. Class acts all around.
Yes, Carden West announced a tuition increase that was 15 days short of the required 60 day notification of a tuition change. This was done as part of a Chapter 11 reorganizaiton filing and was done under judicial review and approval which does not nullify any other portion of the contract you signed regarding your obligation to provide notification. Seem one sided to you? Hey, get over it, this is the way bankruptcy filings work. One party sometimes gets advantaged over other considerations. I am sure none of you have walked away from your mortgages or had short sales on your homes. This is our economy now folks. Sometimes people over borrow or over spend and they get forgiven a portion of that or a judge changes some of the rules. This is what happened.
When the CW parents all went postal, something the Board told the judge and VCB and the landlord would happen, CW pulled back the increase and began to look for other solutions to resolve the outstanding issues without issuing a 25% increase on tuition (and by the way, if you had checked the public record, the landlord and bank had demanded a 40% immediate increase and the judge had fought for a 30% increase, until accepting the 25% as the only reasonable course of action).
As a parent at Carden West, I can attest to how upsetting all of this has been for all of us. It has been uncertain. It has been maddening. It has been sad. I wonder how mismangement over the years could have been so substantial as to bring down a school that was in business for 35 years. Clearly the seeds of this were sown some time ago and Board after Board and administration after administration continued to spend beyond what parent tuitions were supporting. This isn’t something Dr. Besh did although he has become the boogy man for a good number of you because he is asking that the school run like the business is should be for at least as long as the school remains in operation.
Those of you who chose to leave, you are well within your right to decide that CW isn’t the place you want to be. You can decide not to continue at the gym you joined. You have free will and you should exercise it, but you should also meet your contractual obligation. If you signed an agreement with any other business to provide a notice period, you’d be held to that. If you didn’t end up liking the gym hours, or the condition of the equipment or how busy the gym was, you’d still have to pay the length of your contract or that gym could turn you over to a collection agency.
I know this is particular charged because our children are involved, but you need to show them that change happens, that you handle it with as much grace and maturity as you can muster and you uphold your obligations. How many of you have I heard over the years tell your child we don’t hit someone because they hit us, we don’t say mean things because we think someone said something mean to us, you keep your word etc. I know you are all very upset and have every right to be, but that doesn’t nullify what you agreed to.
This isn’t Dr. Besh’s fault – and no, I am not Dr. Besh, nor am I his wife. I am simply a parent at CW who continues to have my child attend school there every day. The place is still open. Teachers are still teaching. You decided that wasn’t for you and that fine, but the rest of us expect you to pay your fair share as you agreed to do when you signed up.
And What exactly is a fair share? What exactly are we paying for? 21 preschoolers shoved into one classroom? no specialty classes? No admin? No head of school? 4 parents basically running the school? What exactly are we paying for and is this in the contract i signed up for?? Not to mention we keep getting “Encouraged” to make our donation!! When I signed my child up for Carden West this is NOT what I signed up for so I don’t give a damn what any of you are telling me I owe you, what about what is owed to me and my child? So what if i decided to pull my child out of this God forsaken school at the end of the month?!! You aren’t offering anything for me to stay!! I have to pay the same price if not more as any other school in the area and I’m not getting ANYTHING for my money!! Not the love, attention, support, academics, not any of it!! It looks like a ghost town. The only reason i haven’t pulled out yet is because of this 60 day contract bull. Carden West has become a joke and shame on the board and everyone else for making people feel guilty about doing what’s best for their families, shame on all of you!!
Not sure what you don’t all get….Carden closes after this school year and Stratford does not own or operate Carden in any way. I think the suggestion to contact Stratford is insane. Stop wasting everyone’s time and swallow the bitter pill you agreed to…pay up what you owe…walk away and chalk it up to lessons learned. Better luck next time to all of us. Remember though, if the next school you select is privately owned, someone makes money off your tuition – here there was no one who benefitted personally from a tuition increase…..despite all the mud you are all slinging at the boards past and present.
I have a child in preschool at Carden West. There are 17 children in the class although they are all on different schedules so I find the last comment hard to believe that there are 21 children in the stuffed into a classroom. I think that is a bit of stretch. None the less, my child continues to have a lead teacher and teaching aids as required by licensing and that’s what I would find somewhere else too. My child continues to have music and Spanish and instruction on letters, numbers, colors etc. I don’t have a specialist teacher coming in for the music class anymore, but you pretty much figure that the head teacher is capable of singing songs and teaching the basics of how music and words and movement goes together. I may have to wait for Harvard to rotate him through specialists! He has a safe place to go where the teachers know him and they know me. He has an outside area to play and other children to socilize with. I am not sure what you are looking for out of preschool beyond good, solid care and attention to your child with age appropriate educational basics. Again, like another parent said, if it isn’t the right place for you, there are certainly others. You do have to provide your notice, but beyond that no one is holding you here. I find it fascinating though that you’d be upset that going somewhere else might cost you more. I hope that you get that this is how Carden West got to the mess it has now because we all benefitted by being undercharged over time. The end result was that it wasn’t sustainable so I don’t think we should be surprised that other places might charge what they expect it to cost to keep a program up and running.
What in the world is wrong with this picture?
FBI reports?
Police reports?
Reporting volunteering parents to professional boards unrelated to school?
We need to back off attacking anyone personally. This is not a personal issue. This is not one person driving anything. There is no reason to threaten one another and act like a blood thirsty mob.
I would encourage the Pleasanton Weekly to remove all comments about the Carden West debate until everyone can act like civil adults.
This is simply disgusting and unacceptable and we should all look at ourselves in the mirror.
I would never again choose a school ran by a group of parents. While i am a parent and i understand us parents have the best intentions it’s obvious it’s best to let professionals to do what professionals to best. Carden West has been in finacial trouble before but let’s be honest and put all the cards on the table here; yes the board is a group of voluantary parents who up until recently were all pretty decent individuals. ONE person came in and pretty much corrupted that group and everyone in that group can attest to it. Now of course they all won’t say it publicly, but they say it behind his back and behind closed doors. It’s whispered all over town. That One individual is a tyrant and reckless and his behavior has caused a lot of the demise of a wonderful school. That group basically quit because of this one individual! No one wanted to deal with him or his deceptive behavior. Now he is angry and bitter and trying to punish everyone that didn’t buy into his scheme. Let’s call a spade a spade. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck it must be a duck. Dr. Besh is a Liar, manipulator, con-aritist, thief, bully and quite frankly i feel pretty sorry for the man because he must be living a pretty miserable existence to prey upon people the way he does. Good luck to him.
To the poster commenting on the school’s “nonprofit” status: Besh’s employer is a non-profit hospital. By your logic, his hospital should never be charged with fraud, malpractice, or breach of contract. By your logic, his hospital should operate with complete impunity by virtue of its “nonprofit” status. However, an organization’s tax status has little to do with its business operations. Just like nonprofit hospitals charge big dollars for their services, CW also charged big bucks for its education. It’s not a charity organization.
To the parents who decided to remain: I understand that some of you parents now find yourselves filling quasi-leadership positions given the administrative vacuum, and that sense of power must be very gratifying to you. Just because your twisted logic (and megalomaniacal whims)compelled you to keep your children in a sinking ship, how incredibly entitled and indulgent of you to force the former parents to subsidize your children’s very expensive education. If you believe that empty classrooms, vacant leadership, fleeing teachers, and an ethically compromised Board are worth thousands of dollars, then that is your sole burden to bear. Stop trying to leech off the rest of us for your personal choices.
We would like to speak to our past and present parents about those teachers
who remain. We are here working each day with dedication, collaboration, creativity,
and the utmost desire to educate our students in every subject, every minute of the
day. Throughout this hailstorm of accusations and negativity we are doing our
jobs in a very professional manner. We work at Carden because we love the
philosophy of teaching to the “whole child.” We teach because we love to teach and
we are still teaching because we want our students to see and feel our commitment
and determination to give them the very best education possible. We are also
working to teach our students that together we can make a difference, even at the
worst of times. To suggest anything different is simply untrue and very hurtful.
Thank you “Carden West Teachers” for your comments and adding some civility back to the conversation. I applaud you all for being such great role models to the kids who remain. As a Carden parent with a child still at the school, we are truly grateful for your dedication.
I am a bit taken aback by some of the comments here. My guess is the anonymous nature of the internet allows some to vent their anger and frustration. I have been on the same emotional roller coaster these past few months ranging from anger/frustration to hope that maybe a workable solution could be found.
Have mistakes been made? Absolutely. Could communication have been better between the board and parents. Absolutely. Do we all wish this didn’t happen? You betcha. Is there some criminal conspiracy by the board? No. They are volunteer parents doing the best they can to keep the school open until the end of the year. They are people who stepped up when the going got tough to try to find a workable solution.
Trying times often forge people of unquestionable character.
Call it what you want, but I sure wouldn’t want my family’s good name on some bankrupt institution’s accounts receivable aging report. The creditors are chomping at the bit to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
TO ALL EX CARDEN WESTERS AND CURRENT CARDEN WESTERS:
this is really simple – i am quoting directly from the contract that i’ve signed. point
number 10 on the contract states, “THE SCHOOL MUST GIVE 60
CALENDAR DAYS’ NOTICE BEFORE CHANGING TUITION RATES.” they clearly
changed the tuition rates in late december. an official board email was sent out that they had decided to enact a tuition hike (all carden west parents have access to this email). at that precise moment, when they changed the tuition rates and sent out physical invoices, is the point of breach of contract despite whether or not they tried to switch back later. subsequent to a breach of contract, any request for payment based on a contract that is no longer valid is entirely inappropriate. i will take the lead in having all former carden parents contact the fbi, district attorney and the pleasanton police department regarding the board’s actions shortly if the board does not back down from trying to strong-arm innocent parents after breaching their contract as i’ve clearly indicated. this is a very simple case. i will be on the phone later tonight with one of california’s premier attorneys and i will let you know if i find out anything different. numerous attorneys have already reviewed the contract, but i want to speak to california’s best tonight to see if anything was missed.
that said, i really did like many of the teachers. my understanding is that just about all of the preschool teachers are gone now. nonetheless, i am sure that many wonderful teachers are still there and i feel for them. the bottom line though is that it was a breach of contract due to a mistake by the board at the time and subsequent to a breach of contract, parents are free to make whatever choices they want.
Previous post. We are 100% behind you. The breach of contract is at so many levels. The filing of bankruptcy, misrepresentation, are couple of examples
can anyone please give me the names of the current board members? also, does anyone know if the admin joanna leblanc is still there? i know people have resigned left and right. my understanding is that a few weeks ago, the deciding board members were scott zeillinger, kim greene, and besh. is this still the case? if not, can someone please provide me with the names of the current board members. thanks so much in advance.
It is so timely that this week the monthly school Character Awards will be presented to the young students of Carden West.
Carden Character Awards we enjoy hearing about….
Kind Hearts
Helping Hands
Busy Bees “doing hard work”
Thank you to the parents that are doing all of the Kind Hearted, Helping Hand and Busy Bee work as examples to the children.
The best character award should go to board members, and the administration that quit last week.
after conferring with numerous individuals, it is my understanding at this time, that any board members or administration at all connected to the payment demands AT ANY POINT IN TIME, can now be subject to criminal actions or lawsuits. this is why it is very important to understand not only who is on the board and admin now, but also who was on the board and admin at the point at which the demand letters were sent out.
thank you to community of wonderful people who are not letting their rights be abused by a few. this is a very important lesson for all of our children. we are americans. we have rights and cannot be illegally bullied by others. i am truly hoping that all ex-CW parents continue to fight for these rights until this bullying is stopped.
And I hope that after you get done wasting your time with the FBI (who may just laugh at you) and the attorneys who will be more than happy to take your money, you’ll give us all a break from your tirades…
Then don’t come here and read the posting if you dont want to hear our tirades.
to the poster “Parent”. your board & some previous board/admin are comprised of people that should not be doing what they are doing. not sure how you can sleep at night being part of a school victimizing others in this way. it’s not right and you know it.
I actually do think it’s right. Again, I go back to someone else’s analogy of the gym membership. At the end of the day they didn’t close the doors and turn off the lights. You may not have liked the new direction, or had fears about the future of the program – we all did – but it was your choice to leave quickly, as long as you kept up your contractual obligations. And if a bankruptcy judge can vacate a portion of the contract without invalidating the rest, then your beef is with our country’s legal system, not the volunteer parents who had to figure out quickly what to do with the school’s problems.
Going back to the first signs of trouble, would you have preferred that the board simply lock the doors, fire everyone and kick your kids out to the curb with no notice or warning at all? That would have certainly kept you from having any obligation to meet your end of the contract. As it is, you got plenty of heads up time to go figure out your alternative… and you had more more than 60-days notice prior to Feb 1 (when the rate increase was supposed to go into effect) that there were problems with the school. The initial letter noting the bankruptcy was dated Nov. 9. So you could have given notice per the terms then.
Instead, you waited until some time after the rate increase notice and then left. And making a huge deal of the extra 15 days notice you didn’t get is just a smoke-screen attempt to weasel out of your obligation, particularly if that’s what bankruptcy allows.
Finally, I’m not posting here to change your opinion; good luck to you. I posted initially to ensure an opposing viewpoint was represented here for the teachers and others who have stuck it out and are trying their best to make something work out until the end of the school year. And seeing that others have joined in on that, plus the nice comments from the teacher representative, then I feel good about my part in this conversation and will sleep quite well tonight, thank you very much.
We left after Jan meeting where we were told that either we pay additional donation or the school will close. And in fact even if we do pay and everyone pays there is no guarantee it will stay open. The gym analogy is bogus. The analogy is more with a landlord who goes into a foreclosure on a house after stopping to pay mortgage and still expects his tentant to keep his part of a rental agreement, because why the house is still there 🙂 , sure the sheriff serves eviction notices, but it’s still there 🙂 So why not stay and pay until your child actually gets evicted from the building to the curb!
I feel like my family is putting it’s dirty laundry out to air. Enough in this public forum. We are not teaching anyone anything good here. SShh!!Start a private site if you want to vent and in the end agree that everyone agrees to disagree!
Dear “Parent”,
The notice of tuition increase was short by 23 days not 15. If you count the fact that they sent it on Friday 12/23/11 when all schools are closed it would be short by 35 days. They had deception in their mind by sending a one-sided email on Christmas eve.
The analogy that you should make is like renting an apartment and landlord increasing the rent in the middle of the lease. If you decide to leave you have to give your 60-day notice which implies you have to pay higher rent for the coming month. And by the way, the landlord takes your deposit too.
That is what is happening here. Even the parents that have met their contractual obligation (had this been a normal termination) have received letters demanding two months of tuition. Contract paragraph #9 says without the 60-day notice, the school can hold or charge 60-days of tuition. But they already have one month from the deposit, so the most they’ll be entitled to is another month had this been a normal termination. They conveniently ignore our deposit.
They have done everything wrong and now they expect us to bail them out. We have been deceived, lied too and most of us have gone through tremendous stress and trauma when we were at school and now with these outrageous demands, the nightmare continues.
So my “Parent” friend you don’t really have any legal argument. You’re just trying to attack our emotional side and traumatize us even more.
Sleep well tonight.
We got this message from the board today :
**************************
Dear Carden Community,
We would like to take a moment to clarify that former students who wish to return to Carden West and finish the year through May 31 with us will resume their regular monthly tuition payments and will satisfy the 60 day contract clause. Additionally, they will be eligible for the offers made by Stratford which include the waived application fee of 75 dollars, a uniform credit of 250 dollars and founding families discount of 8-10% which can come to 1400 dollars. Come back and join us. Our doors are open!
Carden West Board of Trustees
************************************************************
We still have dedicated teachers at Carden West and 112 remaining families who are praying & hoping to finish the year successfully. So we request you all to not post insensitive comments like “Let the school shut down. Remove your kids from the toxic & unhealthy environment”. We totally acknowledge the utter confusion & conflicting messages and the way the board handled the whole thing. But what has happened, has happened and there is no point dwelling in the past. And more importantly the remaining teachers and children should not be punished for the incompetent actions of the board. What good would it do if the school is forced to shut down abruptly now – that would put 15 teachers out of the jobs and 112 families scrambling around for a new school for the next 3 months. We request you all who left because of the uncertainity especially those who have gone to public schools to come back since such parents are not already tied down into financial contracts at other private schools. Things have stablilized now and we still have dedicated teachers, art, PE, music, computers. Every child that can come back now will give the teachers a better chance of keeping their jobs & the remaining families a better chance to finish the year successfully. Thank You all for your efforts to help save Carden West for the reminder of the year & for your sense of community & genroisty.
I love the comment someone put here:
“What did *YOU* do to help the school when it got into trouble?”
I’m sorry, what did I do you say?
I got my child out of there is what I did. I didn’t know it wa my responsibility to help bail out the school. Sounds like a comment from someone who has more than a few children attending the school.
Why don’t you slow down for a second and ask yourself ‘ why would anyone in their right mind keep their child at a school that would soon be closing its doors, like less than 60 days ‘
an 60 days notice out of
Dear Board of Trustees,
I don’t think any parent has any bad intentions and nobody wants to see the school fail. They just want you off their back. When you sent out these threatening letters demanding unjustifiable amounts of money, people do get angry. So if you say what is done is done, then rescind these threatening letters and drop your frivolous claims. Most parents have said they rather pay legal fees to fight you than pay the school. This will force you to hire attorneys with the money they don’t have and will definitely accelerate premature school closure. So instead of concentrating on a big legal battle, concentrate on what you can cut to keep the school going. Surely you can put more students per teacher, combine classes, cut more expenses, cut programs, or even cut more staff. It doesn’t matter at this point. Believe me, even with all the hell you’ve put us through, we have nothing against you. We just want to forget that experience.
Carden West Parent: we did try to put all the stress, drama, lies and uncertainty behind us, and our child has finally stopped crying nightly. Please tell your wonderful “stable” board to stop harassing us, and we might be able to put this shameful fiasco finally behind us. Thank You!
To Carden West parent who posted the message from board:
Can you tell your board that these frevilous collection attemp is actually hurting the school chances of survival!
Regarding Carden’s survival….Stratford is taking over the building and starting their own school there this summer. They may hire some/all of the Carden teachers and are offering discounts to current Carden families (to negate Stratford’s higher price for one year).
So if you’re thinking of going to the new Stratford school this summer or fall, it would probably make financial sense to stay with Carden through the end of this school year.
Stratford is a great brand name with strong emphasis on rigorous academics. Stratford is listed in the Top 100 CA schools recognized by CTY – John Hopkins Center for Talented Youth
http://www.cty.jhu.edu/ts/topschools/CAtop.html
Many teachers & kids from Carden will be at the new Stratford school.
So if you’re thinking of sending your child to Stratford school it makes great finanical sense to come back and stay in Carden for the reminder of the year and make use of all the Stratford discounts being offered. Almost a month of tuition of about 1400 dollars is free for the first year at Stratford and 250 dollar credit towards uniforms and the application fee of 75 dollars is waived for Carden families.
I am always amused when I see citizens try to play attorney when it is clear from their statements that they have not spoken to an attorney, at least not one who has the good sense to give them honest advice. Nonsense is usually what follows. Drivel About FBI, and sheriff’s office and attorneys general. So laughable.
I am going to make some general assumptions about the contract between the parents and the school, perhaps each party has the right to make changes within a period of time (sounds like sixty days on each side from the previous posts). Each party has an opportunity to cure any actual or perceived failure to uphold the terms of the contract, followed by a binding or non-binding arbitration ( all the rage these days in legal circles to unload the courts) followed by the proverbial day in court. I am not sure where some probably otherwise bright folks (certainly at the very least parents of attendees of a private school for what that is worth) got the idea that a court would ever consider the entire contract null and void because of a tuition hike that never actually took place. The same way parents would be given a chance to cure is the same way I imagine the school did. The folks who air their legal arguments publicaly are almost always the ones with no legal arguments to make. I wouldn’t be surprised if the lawyer-parent was a divorce attorney or tax attorney. Contracts matter in our society and are broadly enforceable because if they weren’t, we simply could not do business. There is no way the court will consider the entirety of the contract null and void. We see this all the time in the world of moving violations where the ticketee feels so aggrieved that they swear they will fight the ticket and will win because X and Y. By the time they get around to having paid the bail, they usually give up the fight. Collecting the money is a different matter altogether which is why traffic court collects its money in advance of the court date.
Let’s move on for a moment to the concept of countersuits in the corporate environment. First of all, the entire concept of a corporation is to limit the liability of the individual, particularly those serving in non-ownership roles, like board members, in this case trustees not directors as the school is a non-profit. Again, while individual parent may view themselves as aggrieved parties, there is no way that there will be liabilities for the board members. Now, let’s say you met the two criteria for successful litigation of a civil matter, namely liability and damages, how are you going to collect from a corporation that is in bankruptcy!?!? You would have to go before the bankruptcy judge just to get relief from the bankruptcy stay to even proceed with a civil suit. Hilarious!
Moving on to criminal charges, which can of course be only brought about about by the district attorney, not a private citizen, no matter what you’ve seen on Matlock about citizen’s arrests. Which district attorney do you think will sign up for this one? And what exactly is the charge? Even if there is a legitimate dispute over the contract, both parties have a right to their day in court. What exactly is criminal about that?
Finally, a word about fiduciary responsibility because I think someone mentioned it earlier. I don’t know this Besch guy from a hole in the wall, but I know his responsibility is the the corporation, not to the parents who left. Good luck making a case that he owes you guys something. He has a responsibility to uphold the contracts and enforceability is a matter for the judge to decide. That responsibility is multiplied by have creditors in a bankruptcy court. Stratford takes over at some point, but I am sure that their counsel ( not a divorce or tax attorney) has advised them to keep arms length to prevent any exposure to what we call successor liability. So it sounds like Carden dies at the end of the school year.
By now a group of you have had or are about to have a meeting where you will get yourselves all lathered up about using the courts to your advantage. You are probably thinking you are quite the pitchfork mob. Folks, that’s just not the way the world works. Slowly, a few of you will lose steam, then a few more. Some are already thinking why would I spend $25k in legal fees to avoid paying a few months tuition when it was clearly in the contract.. Oh, and who was the fool who mentioned class-action status? What judge would grant class action status against a company that will no longer be operational?!?! Again, absolutely precious!!
Go home and have a nice cup of chamomile tea and relax. Your best chance is negotiate some sort of settlement you can live with and move on with your lives. You think you have strength in numbers, but the courts are there to protect against the mobs, not to support them and your numbers will dwindle soon as a few rabble rousers amongst you will fight to keep together a coalition of the willing.
By the way, you did get one good piece of legal advice, keep your posts anonymous. You have a right to your opinions, but the posts here are out of control. There are reasons we have libel and slander laws on the books you know. As long as you keep your names out of sight, Pleasanton Weekly won’t give you up, but I would Be careful nonetheless. Just one gal’s opinion.
how on earth can a bankruptcy judge vacate part of a contract and leave the rest? that sounds very weird. have never heard of that happening. when i spoke to massey, she indicated it was a clear breach of contract also.
speaking of which, my understanding is that basil besh was on the board during the entire time that the school clandestinely borrowed $2 million and used it up? i believe besh and massey were both there the whole time. i could be wrong.
Wrong, Besh became a board member only last year in Fall 2011. By then the school was already in deep financial debt built up over years. Massey has been in school for a long time – 22 years but not the board members.
was anyone ever held accountable for going $2 million into debt without parents knowing about it?
Nope, no one was held accountable. The problem is board members change every academic year and new board members come along so there was no continuity or accountability. Kathy Massey was the longest employee at school who was incharge of all the finances. That being said she is not accused or responsible for any of the embezzlement. Seems like inefficient operations over the years and lack of proper financial controls resulted in this big mess. The school has declared bankruptcy or gone into bankruptcy about 6 years ago or so, and the Carden community raised funds and bailed the school out that time. So this is not the first time and the school has a track record of this kind of mess before too.
forgetting the breach of contract for a moment, i still don’t understand how the board/admin could expect parents not to leave and also pay 60 days when they kept sending emails that the school faced imminent shutdown? potential discontinuity of education is a huge issue for many.
this doesn’t make any sense and this whole thing is the exact opposite of what we should be teaching our children. .