LCUSD lays off 16 members of special-education staff, citing lack of need
Sixteen classified employee positions at La Cañada Unified School District have been eliminated for the upcoming school year, after school board members adopted a resolution Tuesday confirming the layoffs due to a lack of work.
Assistant Supt. of Human Resources Jeff Davis explained that each year in June, the district conducts a position-control review to make sure the number of employees staffed match the needs at each school site.
The special-education program is one area in which staffing needs are regularly reviewed for changes, Davis said, explaining the district often hires paraprofessional II employees to work with students in that program. For the past two years, the need for such employees had been on the rise, leading to the hiring of additional staff.
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“Unfortunately, this year, we have the opposite situation,” Davis said, adding that LCUSD projections show an overage of 59.50 hours per day, the equivalent of 16 positions.
This year’s figures indicate approximately 13 students have either left school, graduated or no longer need paraprofessional support.
According to the Classified School Employee Assn. contract, such an overage amounts to a lack of work, which is a justifiable reason for implementing layoffs. District officials spoke with CSEA labor relations representatives about the reductions.
“They completely understand that we have to do this,” Davis said.
All affected employees have been contacted and are being scheduled for individual meetings with officials who will explain the process and next steps. Those laid off will be placed on the district’s rehire list and will be automatically rehired if new positions open up in the next 39 months.
“We do believe through resignations, terminations, transfers and new students moving in … most, if not all of these employees are likely to be hired back. There’s a lot of ebb and flow that happens over the summer,” Davis explained.
The governing board voted 3-0 (Dan Jeffries and Brent Kuszyk were absent) to approve the resolution.
Groundwork laid for new facilities master plan
In other news, school board members voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve a $124,500 contract with San Antonio-based architectural firm LPA, Inc. to prepare a new districtwide Facilities Master Plan that will guide facilities modernization and improvements in future decades.
The document, created with the input of the school and broader La Cañada community, is an important precursor to LCUSD’s placing a general obligation bond measure before voters in the near future. In a February school board meeting, Supt. Wendy Sinnette suggested officials consider pursuing an election in November 2017.
Jim Kisel and Lindsay Hayward, representatives with LPA, shared their company’s background and gave a rough timeline for how the work would be completed. Once board members signed off on an agreement, the contractors would spend the summer months touring school sites to get a lay of the land and then spend the first semester of the new school year seeking input from district stakeholders and members of a Facilities Master Plan Committee.
Chief Business and Operations Officer Mark Evans explained LPA, which specializes in working with school districts and has completed about 50 master plans in California, would likely be able to complete a draft of a master plan by March to present to the board in April, in keeping with the district’s own bond-planning timeline.
Hayward said she was excited to work with LCUSD and ensured seeking input from all stakeholders as to the district’s unique needs was chief among the firm’s priorities. Sinnette said the district researched a variety of firms and found LPA to be a solid choice.
“We were looking for someone that would really help us garner stakeholder enthusiasm and dialogue,” she said. “We felt an innate enthusiasm (from LPA) that was a good match for our district.”
Board members voted 3-0 to approve a contract with the firm.
Board aims to edit textbook adoption policy
Also on Tuesday, the governing board discussed possible changes to board policies regarding the selection and evaluation of instructional materials and supplementary instructional materials. The discussion follows a recent flap led by parents over LCUSD’s selection of the Common Core math curriculum “Everyday Mathematics” for grades K-5.
Anais Wenn, assistant superintendent of Educational Services, explained that the new policy included language explaining how parents might be included, on an advisory basis only, in a selection committee’s consideration of new texts and materials. Guidelines for how materials could be reviewed by members of the public were also included in the draft of the new regulations.
LCUSD parent Belinda Randolph asked Wenn for a version of the changes that explicitly showed what had been changed. Wenn said she would prepare that information for the district’s July 19 meeting, when the item will come back for a second reading and possible adoption.
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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com
Twitter: @SaraCardine
