Dear Colleagues and Friends,
As you are aware, on December 18, of last year, after an unfortunate series of events, I left The Preuss School at UCSD where I was the founding principal and chief administrator for over nine years. It has burdened me greatly to have left the school under such disturbing circumstances, and I am saddened that the students and faculty have been adversely affected as well. After so many years of successfully building a nationally recognized charter school from the ground up, it is simply impossible for me to ignore the circumstances that led to my resignation.
Around May or June of last year the University began an internal audit as a result of a grade-fixing allegation that began with the actions of one person – the school’s registrar, who was terminated for altering the grades of her own children at the school. The audit took place over a seven month period, during which I was interviewed twice and, except for those two meetings, had no other interaction with the auditors. Since that time, I have put together my statement about the audit and a detailed rebuttal of the audit. Both of these documents as well as the official UCSD audit document are available at the bottom of this page. In the detailed rebuttal, I describe how the audit violates Code of Ethics standards promulgated by the International Institute of Internal Auditor Standards and performance policies from the University of California Internal Auditor Policy Manual.
Because I have not been given the opportunity to respond directly to the University, I consider this “reaching out to the community” on my own to be the only option I have left to redeem the reputation I have worked hard to build over the past 30 years. I realize that it is a difficult task to set the record straight after the fact, but I consider it an injustice to my colleagues, associates and the students to not go on record with additional facts that most clearly give an entirely different picture than the one that has been portrayed in the audit.
I most certainly welcome your feedback, or any questions or comments that you may have. In the meantime, I look forward to continuing my career in the field of education and to seeing you again soon.
Best personal regards,
Doris Alvarez