PLEASE READ CAREFULLY AND VOTE FOLLOWING THE PROCEDURE AT THE END OF THE PAGE ON HOW TO CAST YOUR VOTE:
QUESTION:
CLARIFICATION:
This question applies only to students who attend the Weibel Elementary School and who are members of the Weibel Team that meets on Fridays.
BACKGROUND:
Summary of why the original vote was positive not to attend the 2012 Spring States from a letter I sent to the CalChess President on December 21 when negotiations to create a due process procedure to protect our players and parents broke down between us:
“Salman, in the public arena, verbally attacked one of our parents (Susan Wang) and her child (Michael Lu), refused to intervene when one, a fourth grade Weibel child (Anthony Zhou), was being yelled at by a parent from another school. Then, in my opinion, Salman went off the deep end on our child's father(Zhi Zhou) for getting justifiably upset for Salman's refusal to intervene immediately. Salman even went as far as to unilaterally remove the abused child (Anthony)from the playing hall in the middle of his game to punish his Dad(Zhi) even though we had a parent (Christy Lin)waiting for the child to finish his game. I remind you that the parent who screamed at and threatened my player(Anthony) never had his son removed from his game and that father kept sneaking back into the hotel. Our parent (Zhi)left the hotel when asked. He only wanted to wait across the street from the hotel to wait the outcome of his son’s (Anthony) game. Of even more concern, as identified in one (Christy Lin) of the four complaints our parents (Christy Lin, Zhi Zhu, Brian Lu, Susan Wang) wrote to the USCF, was that Salman left the child alone in a darkened hallway after pulling him (Anthony) from his game without supervision while he(Salman) went outside to find his father(Zhu). I reiterate—the problem is not between Salman and myself (Alan Kirshner). The problem is that when a person in authority, teacher, police officer, parent or chess organizers becomes upset with someone as Salman apparently did at me (Alan) and takes his anger out on others in the ugly manner he did—that person should not be handling children no matter how efficient an organizer he or she is.” ( I added the italics to help clarify.)
To read a more extensive summary I posted in the U.S. Chess Federation's Chess Life Online:
http://www.uschess.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=235943&sid=e36f324f4c9d4566aa5a0dee76a0ad9a#p235943
Links to the letters from Mike Lu, Susan Wang (Michael & Sharon Lu's parents) and Zhi Zhou (Anthony Zhou's father) as well as Christy Lin (Serafina Show's mother):
http://www.CalNorthYouthChess.org/COMPLAINTS-AGAINST-SALMAN-AZHAR
To read the arguments Pro and Con going to the States presented before the 2012 vote go to:
http://www.CalNorthYouthChess.org/GOING-OR-NOT-GOING-STATES-2012.html
FURTHER INFORMATION:
As most of you know, I spent over a month before the Grade Level this year trying to negotiate with the President of CalChess, Tom Langland, on finding a solution that I thought our parents could live with so we could attend.
1) Negotiations broke down when Tom reported inaccurately, to use a polite word, what we had accomplished to his Board.
2) One of the CalChess Board members, allegedly with the knowledge of Tom, wrote a letter to Robert Chan, Weibel PTO President, and Mrs. Julie Dana-Forbes, Weibel Principal, basically asking for my removal as the Director of Weibel Chess. His exact words were: “You really need to get a reasonable person to run this program.”
Despite this duplicity I did inform Tom in a number of letters that I would be happy to continue negotiating to try and find a solution that could bring Weibel and other Teams refusing to attend the State Championships to those in April. He never provided me the courtesy of an answer to my willingness to continue negotiating.
Meanwhile, I made the decision that our Team not attend the Grade Level in January. Time had run out on taking a vote with the holidays coming and the event only a couple of weeks away. We had already had two overwhelming votes not to attend. Salman Azhar was organizing the Grade Level. He had not organized it the year before and we went. In fact, while we have not attended two Spring State Championships due to votes supporting our players and parents, this was the first Grade Level we missed.
One family did decide to attend even after I warned them both in writing and verbally that the Weibel Team name would have to appear next to their son’s name due to the new structure (2014) of both Club teams and School teams. The name Weibel did appear next to his name even though he competed for a Club team. After they were removed from the Weibel Team, I did provide them the option to join the Club. I explained my reason for not changing my decision in simple terms: “I would continue to support those Weibel parents and players who had been abused in public at the 2011 Grade Level and later in Facebook.”
THE FUTURE:
Two of the parents who wrote letters to the U.S. Chess Federation are still with the Team: Christy Lin (Serafina Show) and Zhi Zhou (Anthony Zhou). Both Serafina and Anthony are in sixth grade. My feeling is that unless the vote favors attending this year’s States there is a good chance we will go next year. Salman has indicated he is turning his local operation over to someone else—of course he has made a similar claim umpteen times before. I have been told there will be other bids. The parent grievance against Salman Azhar is not a grievance against CalChess. All of these factors bode well for Weibel returning to the State Championships in 2015.
Oh, and if the vote to attend this year wins all members but the aggrieved parents will be required to attend the April States. This is a Team event and not only an individual event. If you vote not to attend, all members of the Team will agree to abide by the vote and we will not be going to the States. This vote does not prohibit anyone from attending other Bay Area Chess (Salman Azhar’s organization) open/adult tournaments or from attending their scholastic events because these do not require they be members of a school team. I do ask that you abide by the early parent vote that says that you only attend when the Weibel name does not appear as your Team and you do not wear a Weibel T-shirt.
TO VOTE:
QUESTION:
Should members of the Weibel Chess Team attend the 2014 CalChess Scholastic State Championships from April 25 through the 27?
Send an e-mail to president@weibelpto.org by Friday, March 20, 2014
In the Subject please place “State Vote”
And please type in the body of the letter one of the choices below:
Should go.
Should not go.
ABSTAIN
Again so there is no confusion—
If you vote to should not go the Weibel Team members will NOT go to the States this April.
If you vote to should go you are voting that all Weibel Team members will GO to the States this year.
This vote is only good for this April’s States.
The President of the PTO or a person he designates as his representative will count the votes.