Board displeased with lack of staff
SMMUSD HDQRTS. — The chair of the commission in charge of hiring janitors, security guards and other classified employees at the school district responded Thursday to criticism from administrators and elected officials over the perceived footdragging in hiring new district employees.
Celia Carrol of the Personnel Commission, an independent body responsible for advertising job vacancies, testing applicants and ranking them based on performance and qualifications, accepted some responsibility for the 43 positions still open midway through the school year.
But she added that there are many contributing factors and the commission is not the sole culprit.
School board members voiced their displeasure last week with the lack of nonteaching staff at several campuses throughout the district, contending the vacancies have negatively impacted student services and made the jobs of school administrators more difficult.
While district officials said the backlog in hiring was due to instability in the commission over the last two years, Carrol said principals and others in charge of selecting qualified candidates are also culpable.
Carrol said the commission, comprised of three appointed members and five employees, was going through some rough times over the last two years as directors left and analysts moved elsewhere, leaving the commission short-handed.
But since the new director, Wilbert Young, came on board in April of last year, Carrol said the commission is moving swiftly to recommend candidates to the district for hire. Of the 60 positions open at the beginning of the school year, the commission has recommended candidates for 25 jobs. Of the remaining 35, Carrol said 17 positions have been filled while candidates are being tested for the remaining 18.
Thirteen new positions have opened up in the last month, she said.
“Some of these positions are very hard to fill because they are only for two or three hours a day with no benefits and the turnover is high,” Carrol said. “We recruit mainly from the Los Angeles County area, and say for positions in Malibu that are only part-time, it is very difficult to get someone to agree to that long commute for the very little money these jobs pay. It’s improving a bit, but there is still a lot of work to be done.”
To find out why employees leave so soon, the commission will begin conducting exit interviews, Carrol said.
“We spend all this time on recruitment only to have some leave within a couple of months,” she said. “Maybe they found something better. We don’t really know.”
Carrol said the district has been supportive of the idea and the commission has sent a sample exit interview to officials in human resources. She expects to see it put in use within the month.
Carrol, who was appointed to the commission in 1998 and is currently serving her third term, said some positions have been vacant for months, even years, because there is no money. Instead of dropping the position entirely, they are kept on the school’s list of vacancies as a ‘place holder’ until money becomes available. That may give the impression that jobs are not being filled when, in fact, they can’t because of budget constraints.
“This is a very complex issue,”
“All of us are responsible … and we should use this opportunity to get more people excited about working for the district. I think it is an exciting place to work.” — Carrol said
“If you drop them, there is no guarantee they will come back,” she said of the vacant positions.
Carrol also is concerned about the lack of enforcement for administrators who receive certified candidate lists but refuse to interview or hire anyone recommended by the commission.
“Some hold out for years for many reasons,” she said. “Maybe they like the substitute they already have in that position and don’t want to fill it permanently … There is no pressure for a site to hire. In the city, if we don’t hire within a certain time, that position is taken away. It’s one of the basic problems. Principals … have too much autonomy on their campus.”
Michael Mathews, assistant superintendent of human resources at the district, said he has heard of some principals not acting upon candidate lists and he has asked commission members to notify him if that occurs.
“Once the commission passes along qualified candidates, it is our job to make sure people are hired as soon as possible,” he said. “Sometimes our principals get frustrated because the candidates recommended don’t meet the minimum qualifications.”
Rules laid out by the district and the commission state that a school administrator doesn’t have to hire a prospective candidate if there are only one or two recommended. If three candidates are presented, the administrator must hire one.
Mathews said a typical list usually includes three, but no more than five candidates.
“The positions are hard ones to fill, especially instructional aids, and there needs to be aggressive advertising and real hard work to make it happen,” Mathews said. “I see that the Personnel Commission is doing more of that now and I’m pleased. It’s a challenging job.”
In the district there are two types of employees — classified and certified. Those who are certified carry a certificate while those who are classified, such as custodians and cafeteria workers, don’t.
The commission was created to remove any bias in the hiring of classified employees. The three board members are appointed alternately by the state superintendent of public instruction and by the executive officer of the state personnel board, each of whom may consider the recommendation of the board of education, unions representing employees, as well as administrators.
A member of the commission must be a registered voter, a resident within the district and be familiar with the principal of the merit system. No member of the commission shall be a member of the school board nor be an employee of the district, according to the bylaws.
The term of office for each commissioner is three years and expires on Dec. 1. The term of one commissioner expires each year. Commissioner members are paid $25 per meeting.
The Personnel Commission’s budget for this school year is $540,000, Mathews said.
While they are not in the classroom instructing students, Carrol and Mathews agreed classified employees play very important roles in the district and they should be hired at the same rate as certified employees. District officials said there are no vacancies for certified employees.
“It’s important to have custodians. It’s important to have teachers aids,” said Carrol, who works as a city librarian. “It is critical to have a good support staff at our schools and I know we all share the same goal and we hope to move more efficiently and effectively.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 10, 2006. Read the original PDF.