Board, commission playing blame game
While both sides point fingers at one another for the abnormally long delay in hiring, schools scramble to provide the same amount of services without proper staffing levels.
“This year has been particularly difficult,” said Ilene Straus, principal at Santa Monica High School, who has done her own recruiting for security guards to fill the three vacancies at her campus. Currently substitutes serve in those positions.
“Here we are, already halfway through the school year, and we still haven’t received a list of qualified candidates to interview,” Straus added. “I am very concerned … We don’t want to appear as being whiners, but we’re the ones who are on the front line.”
There are two types of district employees: certified and classified. Certified employees — such as teachers or librarians — carry certificates, while classified employees, such as cafeteria workers, don’t. The commission deals only with the classified employees, and is responsible for recommending salaries and hearing appeals of disciplinary and dismissal matters, and protests involving examinations, among other duties.
Candidates chosen by the commission are referred to the district’s human resources department or the supervisor directly in charge of the position, who then choose the final candidate. They must go through a background check, which on average takes 72 hours, said a spokesman from the state’s Department of Justice. If the candidate passes, they are then approved by the commission members.
“We can only implore them to move faster,” Bloomfield said of the commission. “It’s frustrating.”
SMMUSD assistant superintendent Michael Mathews said last week during a board meeting that many of the 64 classified positions open have been vacant since the school year started, leaving many campuses without special education teaching assistants, custodians or substitute teachers.
“There are virtually no substitutes,” Mathews said. “We have a big problem.”
Wilbert Young, the director of the commission, defended the work of his staff, five employees in all, and pointed to the large number of qualified candidates already identified who are still waiting to be interviewed by the district.
“In terms of getting candidates to come in, I can’t say how long that takes,” Young said. “It could take days, weeks, sometimes months, but once the candidates have been identified and passed to human resources, the commission is no longer involved.”
Representatives with the district’s human resources department couldn’t be reached for comment.
Schools superintendent John Deasy said district staff is not the problem.
“I think this is a very unacceptable level of performance on their (the commission’s) part, and it is really doing a disservice to the kids,” he said. “We have waited a considerable amount of time for this to get better and it hasn’t.”
Mathews said the delay in filling the positions was most likely caused by a lack of stability within the commission. Over the last two years, there have been several interim directors, as well as staff vacancies.
“For the first time in the last two years, the commission’s office is fully staffed,” Mathews said. “Hopefully this leads to a faster selection process … The commission is aware of our concerns, and they have been working cooperatively with us to push forward as quickly as possible.”
The commission is independent of the district to ensure the hiring process is equitable and void of bias or nepotism, Mathews said.
Bloomfield said the school board will discuss ways to have more influence over the commission or at least devise a way so the commission can report to the board directly instead of members receiving information from Mathews, who attends commission meetings.
Young said he is open to any discussions that will better serve the client, which is ultimately the student.
“We always try to work collaboratively with the district,” he said. “We are responsible for identifying the best available. After that, we have no control.”
School board vice president Kathy Wisnicki said the board will meet with commission members at its next meeting to express its concern over the vacancies. If the board wanted to assert more control over the commission, Wisnicki said voters and employees would have to vote on the issue, which is something the board has not discussed in detail.
“We must continue to work collaboratively,” she said. “That is all we can do at this time.”
Meanwhile, Cabrillo Middle School is operating without a budgeted custodian and a physical education instructional assistant. Malibu High School still needs an athletic trainer, custodian and cafeteria worker, and the Child Development Service, or CDS, is operating without the 12 teaching assistants it needs, forcing staff there to work overtime.
“We have to spend the extra money because there are state regulations we must follow,” said Nancy Rivera, a teacher at CDS. “Right now we have the money in our budget, but I’m not sure for how long.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 8, 2006. Read the original PDF.