School Superintendent Should Be Appointive

Voters undecided about why they should make the post of county superintendent of schools an appointed office when they vote on the countywide Measure A on Nov. 8 need only remember the hundreds of handicapped children stranded last week without bus transportation to school.

A number of factors contributed to the annoying situation in which parents, worried about the safety of their children, waited for hours for buses that never came because the bus company had problems finding enough drivers.

There is, as the bus operator claims, a severe shortage of part-time, service-oriented employees in Orange County. Adding to the operator’s financial woes were rising insurance costs that tripled in the last three years and cut the amount of money available to the bus company to pay drivers.

As a result, the bus company contends that it is necessary to modify the contract so more money will be available to hire more drivers.

But the Orange County Department of Education, which educates 800 special-needs students in 21 school sites scattered throughout the county, is short of money too.

The problem came to a head last Monday when the bus operator could only muster 50 drivers instead of the 85 needed, leaving about 400 handicapped students stranded.

It also glaringly emphasized the failure of Robert Peterson, the elected county superintendent of schools, to communicate with the public and the county Board of Education, neither of which had any inkling of the potential problem.

That failure to communicate is inexcusable.

The superintendent’s office reportedly had known since late last year about the bus company’s problems in meeting the contract. If the contract dispute couldn’t be resolved by the start of the new school term, parents should have been made aware of the problem. And the Board of Education should have been kept up to date from the moment that contract trouble became apparent. That’s critical in dealing with any pupils, but it’s especially so when handicapped students are involved.

But the board knew nothing until the students were stranded. Trustees Elizabeth Parker and Sheila Meyers, who sit on the board’s subcommittee on school contracts, were the most upset. Parker says that when she asked about the bus contract situation at board meetings, she was told that everything was “hunky-dory.”

Meyers charged that the staff knew last December that the bus operator faced problems meeting contract terms, but said nothing. She believes an appointed superintendent “would have informed board members within five minutes.” She’s probably right.

In the local school districts in the county, and major departments of education in the state, the superintendent is appointed to carry out the policies of an elected board. Under that reasonable arrangement, no superintendent would dare keep the elected board members in the dark about an issue so critical to the welfare of the students for whom they are responsible. Voters can correct that problem in the Orange County Department of Education, and it is a problem, by voting to make the superintendent’s job appointive.

But of more immediate importance is getting the students to school. A watchdog state agency for handicapped children is considering filing a civil rights complaint against the county education department. It will be in order if Peterson doesn’t unsnarl the bus shortage.