About Those Leaked LCUSD Teacher Videos
Videos, transcripts, and allegations
The Videos
By now anyone not living under a rock in La Cañada Flintridge, Califronia is aware of the famous (or infamous depending on your point of view) leaked teacher videos by the pseudonymous Vilancer.
The videos have ignited a firestorm of controversy split roughly between those who are shocked at the behavior that appears to be revealed in the videos, and those irate at Vilancer for publishing them in the first place, and for doing so in such an inflammatory manner. For those who haven’t seen the videos, Vilancer has so far published three full-length videos recorded by La Canada Elementary (LCE) Principal Emily Blaney and distributed to her staff from summer of 2020 to winter of 2021:
“Full Clip - White Fragility - Season 1” – This appears to be a book club meeting of LCE staff led by Principal Blaney that occurred on July 31, 2020. The book discussed is “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo. The video was first published on Aug. 04, 2021 on Rumble, but later moved to Bitchute.
“Full Clip - Seeing White - Season 2” – This appears to be a collaboration day Zoom staff meeting that took place on Jan. 15, 2021 involving principals, teachers, and support staff from all three La Cañada Unified School District (LCUSD) elementary schools, again led by LCE Principal Blaney, discussing the 14-part podcast series “Seeing White.”
“Full Clip - Black History - Season 3” – This appears to be another online collaboration day meeting from Jan. 29, 2021 where LCE staff discuss preparations for Black History Month, which is traditionally celebrated from Feb. 01 to Mar. 01 every year in public schools.
The videos were recordings of Zoom staff meetings held online during the pandemic and obviously never intended for public consumption. Vilancer has also published about a dozen other short-length videos that excerpt scenes from the three full-length videos along with his commentary, which is often times scathing in tone. LCUSD Superintendent Wendy Sinnette characterized the first video as “intended to promote divisiveness and misrepresentation.” She elaborated on this characterization in a prepared statement she read at the Aug.10, 2021 LCUSD Governing Board meeting:
“In my opinion, the editing was designed to be incendiary and to mischaracterize the discussion. The comments and post were hurtful and caused damage to our district community. I want our educators to have hard conversations. I want them to stay informed on the relevant societal discussions that impact teaching and learning. And I want them to stay willing to expand their perspectives, whether or not they accept or reject the premises such as those put forward in this topical book. ”
The Transcripts
What remains mystifying in this episode is the reluctance of most community members to actually watch the videos. Superintendent Sinnette and the LCUSD Governing Board at first chose the unique strategy of discounting the videos on the one hand, while refusing to address the behavior displayed on the videos on the other. For two Board meetings on Aug. 10th and then Aug. 30th, the Board refused to include the videos on their agenda to thus allow a fuller exchange with the public. Instead they discounted the videos as “over a year old” (and thus not relevant today) and not worthy of investigation because they were a malevolently motivated intrusion into teachers’ private time and there was no there there. At the August 10 Board meeting Superintendent Sinnette characterized the “White Fragility” book club Zoom as “a professional conversation on complex and challenging topics, held between colleagues who know and trust each other.”
As community concern continued to build, boiling over into outrage by some parents voiced during those meetings when the Board refused to agendize the issue, the district leadership realized the incident would not just die away. Instead, to borrow a favorite phrase of the leadership, they “pivoted” and Sinnette announced that the Board would engage in “civil dialogue” by hosting a series of coffees with the Superintendent and alternating pairs of Board members to talk to concerned community members face to face. Those coffees, the first of which I attended, revealed that the community, while selectively concerned about the videos, was largely ignorant of the facts. A majority of parents and community members who attended the twelve coffees admitted that they had not watched the videos at the center of the controversy. It is difficult to defend how anyone can speak from a position of authority about the videos, if they don’t know what is on them.
Alas, to help address this deficit of facts, and to ameliorate the concerns of parents and other community members who refuse to watch the videos because they have heard they are reprehensible, an invasion of teacher privacy or beneath contempt, I have created written transcripts so community members can read the exchanges to ignore the visual setting and distractions, focus on the content of what was said during the videos, and decide for themselves if there are any problems worthy of investigation.
I ignored the dozen or so excerpted videos where Vilancer offers his interpretation and selective editing. I transcribed only the three full-length videos identified above. You may download and read the transcripts below:
“Full Clip - White Fragility - Season 1” – LCE staff book club Zoom meeting on “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo held on July 31, 2020. [ Transcript, Video ]
“Full Clip - Seeing White - Season 2” – LCUSD collaboration day Zoom elementary staff meeting to discuss the podcast “Seeing White,” held on January 15, 2021. [ Transcript, Video ]
“Full Clip - Black History - Season 3” – LCE collaboration day Zoom staff meeting on Jan. 29, 2021 to discuss preparations for Black History Month. [ Transcript, Video ]
In the interest of full disclosure, the method used to create the transcripts was I used a third-party translation service (i.e. Scribie.com) to create a first draft of the videos and then painstakingly spent dozens of hours correcting typos, mistakes and assigning attributions to speakers. If you find errors, please forward them to me and I will release updated versions. I chose to include excerpts of salient passages from each video in the beginning of each PDF document for those who don’t have the hours needed to read through the full transcripts. The full transcripts are in the back of each PDF.
The Content of the Videos
While the district continues its hunt to find the identity of the LCE teacher or teachers who leaked the videos to Vilancer, and expends untold resources trying to unmask his identity, the community remains divided about the videos and what they appear to reveal. I will discuss the issues raised by the videos in a future article.