Wednesday, May 7, 2008
School site council files complaint against district
Panel says district officials disregarded its vote
VISTA ---- A group of parents and teachers that provide oversight at a VistaUnifiedSchool District magnet school have filed a formal complaint with the district, saying district officials have meddled in how some money at the school was spent. Members of the school site council at CasitaCenter for Technology, Science and Math filed the complaint about two months ago.
The group says it voted last year to hire three reading teachers to help in classrooms at the campus, but that district officials disregarded that vote and instead hired a reading technician with the costly Lindamood-Bell Reading Process. The California Education Code says school site councils were created to review programs and budgets at individual campuses and make decisions about how state-allocated improvement funds should be spent. The incident at Casita has raised questions about whether that mandate is being respected, some on the panel have said. "There's definitely a sense that an impropriety has happened," said Audrey Prosser, one of the parents on the Casita council.
Sandy Gecewicz, chief academic officer for Vista Unified, said the district is investigating the situation and hopes to have it resolved in the next couple of weeks. The bottom line, she said, is that the school got a qualified reading instructor.
Jan O'Reilly, president of the district's teachers union, said similar battles over the power of school site councils are happening throughout the district, as officials either tell the groups how to spend money or ignore their decisions. "Our school sites have been prevented from using the funds as they have in the past," she said.
District officials and school board members have pushed in recent years to expand the Lindamood-Bell program by using a variety of different funding sources, including school site money. The reading program itself has become a lightning rod, with some parents and teachers complaining that it's too expensive and not reaching enough students. The district pays the company that administers the program millions of dollars each year for coordinators, training and materials.
"I think everyone's concern is that money has been moved from other programs to pay for Lindamood-Bell," said Elizabeth Jaka, an active parent in the district who has been on a couple of school site councils.
Still, Superintendent Joyce Bales and most of the school board members stand firmly behind the program, crediting it for helping to raise some students' test scores.
After a meeting Monday, some members of Casita's school site council spoke vehemently against the merits of the program. Their feelings were echoed in the complaint filed with the district. "As a committee, our intentions were clear that these monies were not to be allocated towards any of the Lindamood-Bell clinic programs," the complaint states. "The members of the (school site council) and Casita's broader community of staff/parents are deeply grieved by the overt disregard of our wishes."
Members of the council are also concerned about the lack of communication coming from district officials, some members of the group said. Gecewicz said the district is working to improve communication. "Sometimes the chain of command breaks down or the level of communication breaks down on various levels," Gecewicz said.
Though a district representative had agreed to meet with the council at their meeting Monday, Gecewicz said she told her not to go because the district's investigation is still in progress.
"They've done a formal complaint; they'll get a formal answer back," she said.
Contact staff writer Stacy Brandt at (760) 901-4009 or sbrandt@nctimes.com.