1-Year Pacts for Top School Jobs Rejected

A proposal to change the terms of the contracts of four assistant superintendents from two-year to one-year agreements has been rejected by trustees of the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District.

The board voted 4 to 3 Monday to continue to offer two-year contracts to Shelby E. Wagner, assistant superintendent personnel services; Howard L. Rainey, assistant superintendent business; Emma Hulett, assistant superintendent educational services, and Betty Coogan, assistant superintendent educational support services.

The contracts of all the assistant superintendents are supposed to end June 30. By law, the board must notify the administrators by May 15 if there are to be any changes in their contracts.

Board members Jesse M. Luera, Ken Welch, Bill White and Gary V. Jones voted to continue the two-year agreements. Board members William Campbell, Bruce Butler and Sal Ambriz favored a one-year agreement.

A majority of the board had indicated a desire to discuss the issue, Ambriz said. “I wanted flexibility to decide on a yearly basis on top leadership,” he said.

Jones said the district has always given two-year contracts to assistant superintendents, and to change to one-year contracts “would be sending a poor message to employees. It would say we don’t trust them.”

Ambriz said he also was concerned that administrators had not received recent evaluations from Supt. Bruce C. Newlin. The board was expected to direct Newlin to initiate annual evaluations of the administrators, Ambriz said.

Newlin said the administrators were typically evaluated every other year.

The board is conducting an evaluation of Newlin, who has been superintendent of the 18,500-student district for 11 years. His current four-year contract ends in October, 1990.