Concerning Issue in CVUSD

There was a post on Facebook from Castro Valley News on April, 13, 2025 about an exceptionally concerning issue in CVUSD. The post started out with:

Some community members are questioning the involuntary transfer of a popular teacher at Marshall Elementary School.

Fifth grade teacher Aimee Penn received a reassignment letter from Castro Valley Unified School District administration on March 28.

The letter asserts the involuntary transfer is due to not being a good fit with Marshall staff, including but limited to teachers, related to collaboration and school culture.
“I collaborate constantly with my colleagues and get along with all teachers,” Penn told CVN. Penn filed a complaint against Marshall administration and believes the reassignment is retaliatory.

As a Castro Valley resident for decades and an educator for more than 30 years. I feel strongly to speak out about this issue. Everyone in Castro Valley should be concerned and get involved.

I have known Aimee Penn since 2002 when I was the mathematics coordinator for the Alameda County Office of Education and was providing CVUSD with mathematics professional development. The program was called PRIME (Practicing Reform In Mathematics Education) Numbers. Aimee was a participant in the program. I was so impressed by Ms. Penn's content knowledge and pedagogical practices that we at ACOE worked with CVUSD (thank you Maggie Cathey) to hire Aimee, on loan to ACOE, to be a county mathematics coach. She coached for us for many years providing mathematics coaching to hundreds of teachers in the county including CVUSD teachers.

Also, during that time, I was the executive director for ACCLAIM (Alameda County Collaborative for Learning and Instruction in Mathematics), one of the largest mathematics professional development programs in the state of CA. This was a collaborative effort between CUSEB and ACOE to provide mathematics professional development summer institutes for teachers to strengthen their mathematics content knowledge and pedagogical practices. IAs part of this effort, I ran the largest mathematics coaching network in the state of CA of which Aimee was one of our exemplary coaches. Aimee would provide content and pedagogical Saturday sessions where teachers would line up to attend her sessions. In fact, her sessions were so popular we had to add her sessions multiple times on Saturday to accommodate the teachers who wanted to attend.

All of this is to demonstrate that the issue at Marshall is clearly NOT Aimee. Ms. Penn has demonstrated exceptional collaboration for decades as I outlined previously. The issue is with the new principal, who has only been there a year. Aimee has been at Marshall for 25 years – clearly the issue is not Aimee. The new principal is the one who should be involuntarily transferred — actually let go.

Principals, district administrators, and board members can be replaced but teachers of Aimee’s caliber can’t be replaced. Having her involuntary transferred is UNACCEPTABLE and MUST NOT BE TOLLERATED.

We the Castro Valley community will not stand for treating such exceptional teachers who have dedicated their entire career to CVUSD.

–Philip Gonsalves, Castro Valley