Security on campus prompts new position
SMMUSD HDQTRS. — In attempts to make life easier for Santa Monica High School students, school board members are expected tonight to debate the creation of a new administrative post that would hopefully fit the bill.
The CEO of Student Life and Access, a position initiated by the board that could pay in upwards of $100,000 a year, is intended to help those students who have historically been underrepresented by linking them up with additional support services, such as enhanced counseling outside of the district.
According to Interim Superintendent Mike Mathews, the board is responding to a request from parents to look at ways to help those who are at a disadvantage and have shown signs of struggling academically.
While board members are expected to discuss the position’s expected duties, the creation of the position itself will likely be bandied about tonight as faculty and administrators at Samohi seem hesitant to support the idea.
In addition, the governing board of the teachers’ union has come out strongly against the new administrative position, asking the board to instead look at spending money in the classroom.
If approved, the CEO of Student Life and Access would be the ninth administrator at Samohi, according to the union.
“Additional resources should be used to reduce class sizes, provide teachers and students with new materials and textbooks,” said Harry Keiley, a spokesman for the Santa Monica-Malibu Teachers Association. “An additional administrator is not necessary.”
Mathews said the board is merely discussing the issue tonight and has not directed district staff to create any administrative position.
Samohi Principal Ilene Straus said the idea of helping students achieve is obviously one that she and her staff supports, however, they are not sure the position need be an administrative one rather than an additional assistant principal.
“It’s about extra intervention for kids,” Straus said. “The board’s initiative has created quite a debate of what it could be, what it should be and should it be at all. We think that to have this person focusing on all campus-wide intervention makes a lot of sense and is appropriate to consider.”
Samohi has had problems recently with security on campus, as well as with rising racial tensions between African-American and Latino students in the aftermath of racist graffiti being found and reported as a hate crime.
Those issues coupled with budget cuts and a relatively new governing structure have created the need for greater coordi-nation of services.
“We do have several people who perform a lot of these functions (the new position would handle,” Straus said. “Some people believe it would be better if they were the responsibility of one person.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 9, 2006. Read the original PDF.