School Officials Might Decide to Form Union : Education: The possible action reflects discontent with Ventura schools Supt. Cesare Caldarelli. A tally of responses is expected next week.

School administrators, who like teachers have expressed dissatisfaction with Ventura Unified School Supt. Cesare Caldarelli, are considering whether to form a union, an official representing management employees in the district said Wednesday.

The action follows a poll in which 93% of the teachers expressed no confidence in Caldarelli and backed a resolution that demanded his resignation.

The resolution said the superintendent has exhibited a bullying management style and a lack of leadership. It also accused him of “starting many things, stopping most of them when trouble begins, finishing few.”

Terry Holts, assistant principal at Cabrillo Middle School and president of the Ventura Administrators Assn., said discontent with Caldarelli is also widespread among the district’s principals, assistant principals and other middle-level managers.

This week, ballots were sent to the 80 administrators in the district’s 25 schools asking whether they favor forming a union, Holts said. A tally of the administrators’ responses is expected early next week.

“The way they vote could be construed as support or nonsupport for the superintendent,” Holts said.

Caldarelli, whose contract expires in 1991, refused Wednesday to talk about teachers and administrators’ complaints against him.

“This is a complex issue, and I’m not going to have any comment to make to the press,” Caldarelli said. “I am going to communicate with my staff.”

Caldarelli, who came to Ventura in 1988, also received a no-confidence vote from a teachers group and from a group representing maintenance and clerical employees in his previous position as superintendent of schools in the Northern California town of Martinez.

Holts said unrest among Ventura administrators began last fall when Caldarelli considered promoting several employees without consulting a special committee of administrators and district officials. Administrators had to complain before Caldarelli consulted with the committee that was set up to review promotions, Holts said.

“There was a feeling among administrators that their input was not valued or needed,” he said. “These feelings just built as time went by, and there were a number of decisions made that appeared to be made pretty much by the superintendent alone.”

Administrators also complained about notices sent in March advising principals about budget cuts without consulting them on where the cuts should be made.

Last month, administrators from Ventura schools met with representatives from two unions, the American Federation of School Administrators and the Public Employees Assn. of Ventura County to discuss how they might organize, Holts said.

And earlier this month, Ventura administrators met with the Assn. of California School Administrators, a statewide professional group, to consider asking it to act as a mediator between the district and administrators.

But Holts said relations between administrators and Caldarelli improved slightly when the superintendent agreed to a series of meetings with association representatives scheduled for August.

In general, school board members have been supportive of Caldarelli. Board member Vincent Ruiz said the board hopes to arrange a meeting with teachers and administrators’ groups to get specific information about their complaints.

“We plan to wait and see what they come to us with,” Ruiz said. “I hope they come in and present us with something besides a vote tally.”

Some school board members attributed the discontent among teachers to unhappiness over a contract that was narrowly ratified in May after months of bitter dispute.

But John Gennaro, president-elect of the Ventura Unified Education Assn., said the no-confidence vote had little to do with the contract.

“I think the serious unrest began when the superintendent unveiled the ‘Million-Dollar Opportunity,’ ” Gennaro said, referring to a $1-million windfall the district received last fall from Proposition 98.

Caldarelli, who referred to the money as the “Million-Dollar Opportunity,” had proposed distributing the money among a variety of programs in the district. But teachers argued that they should decide how 58% of the money is spent and that part of it should go for teacher salaries and benefits, he said.

Although the teachers eventually got what they wanted, Gennaro said, “it got the school year, the negotiating process--everything off to a bad start.”