Decision to Transfer Custodian Critical of Teachers’ Pay Reversed

Los Angeles school officials have reversed a decision to transfer a Grant High School head custodian to South-Central Los Angeles because he publicly criticized teachers for complaining about being underpaid.

Los Angeles Unified School District spokesman Bill Rivera said Friday that James Biddle would be allowed to continue working at the Van Nuys school. A press inquiry Thursday alerted the district to the situation.

The transfer request “was on the desk of the operations branch director when we received this call,” Rivera said. “We realized there could be a violation of civil rights here.”

Biddle, a Vietnam veteran who has worked for the district for 15 years, was pleased by the reversal. The Tarzana resident said the move would have extended his daily commute by about an hour.

“It shows my constitutional rights will be upheld, and that’s what I defended in Vietnam,” he said.

The mandatory transfer by Grant Principal Robert Collins was designed to reduce tension created at the school by a letter Biddle sent to the Daily News of Los Angeles when teachers were negotiating a contract, Rivera said.

Biddle said the district on Monday gave him the option of transfering voluntarily to Manual Arts High School “or they would do it administratively.” The transfer was approved by an assistant of Allan Tomiyama, district director of operations. Tomiyama later vetoed it.

“As a taxpayer, I’m willing to give teachers a pay raise based on merit,” Biddle wrote in the letter that appeared June 1. “But so far, they haven’t demonstrated that they deserve it.”

The letter responded to an objection by teachers that skilled craft workers earn a higher salary than they do. “Of course they do,” Biddle said. “Craft workers put in eight-hour days and work 12 months a year, (while) teachers work six hours per day and nine months a year.”

‘Threatening’ Letters

Biddle said he later learned that his comments had spawned a series of “threatening” letters but that the school intercepted them before they reached him.

Rivera said “no punishment was intended” by the mandatory transfer.

“An individual has a right to express his opinion,” Rivera said. “But the principal acted correctly in trying to alleviate tension” at the school.

The teachers union applauded the reversal.

“He’s certainly entitled to his opinion, even though we don’t agree with it,” said Marilyn Landau, a union spokeswoman. “We never meant to demean custodians or anyone else.

“We understand that they’re out there working hard. We only meant that, with our degrees, we should have parity” in wages.