HUNTINGTON BEACH : No-Confidence Vote Hits Superintendent

Charging that morale in the Huntington Beach City School District has dropped to an all-time low, a group of the district’s tenured teachers has given Supt. Diana Peters a vote of no-confidence.

The vote, a renewal of a similar action taken by Huntington Beach teachers in November, 1988, was the latest salvo in the bitter contract battle between the district and its teachers’ union, which has been working without a contract since last June.

“This is beyond a contract problem,” said Jim Harlan, executive director of the Huntington Beach Elementary Teachers Assn. “(We) have a real problem with the leadership and management style of the superintendent. Things are not going to get better until we see a change . . . at the top.”

A statement of no-confidence, signed by all but six of the district’s 185 tenured teachers and delivered in a letter to the district Board of Trustees at a meeting Tuesday night, charges Peters with being “inflexible” in contract talks, misrepresenting the union’s views to the public and employing a “top-down management style” that has bred dissension districtwide.

Peters attributed the no-confidence vote to heightened tensions that have marked the negotiating process and added that the 1988 no-confidence vote against her was also taken during tough collective bargaining sessions.

“I’m really very committed to teachers and students,” Peters said. “I think emotions run high when you are in negotiations. I feel that I certainly try to work with everyone in the process. “

Negotiations are stalled over salary terms and the length of the contract. The district is offering a two-year pact that calls for a 7% raise the first year and the state-mandated cost-of-living allowance, plus an additional 1% contribution to the health-care package in the second year. Union officials object to the second-year proposal, arguing that there is no way to foresee the 1991 state COLA allocation.