Board to Discuss Fate of Contract of Schools Chief : Controversy: The decision on Tuesday comes a few weeks after 93% of 524 Ventura teachers gave Supt. Cesare Caldarelli a vote of no confidence.

The board of the Ventura Unified School District will hold a closed meeting Tuesday to consider whether to extend the $84,392-a-year contract of Cesare Caldarelli, the district’s embattled superintendent.

Caldarelli’s annual performance evaluation comes during a summer lull following a rancorous year of discontent--much of it centering on the superintendent.

Caldarelli came under fire from teachers and administrators, who charge that he is an imperious manager who often refuses to listen to colleagues or subordinates.

The problems culminated in June when 93% of 524 teachers polled by the Ventura Unified Education Assn. voted no confidence in Caldarelli.

“I think teachers in general feel he wants to be in charge of everything, to have his fingers in every pie,” said Buena High School math teacher Stephen Magoon.

John Gennaro, president of the 660-member association, said Caldarelli has “a style of management that says, ‘I have plans and I am going through with those plans, no matter what.’ ”

Caldarelli, 49, who has been superintendent of the district since 1988, declined to be interviewed unless The Times published all of a 3,000-word “report card” he has written. He said it describes the state of the district and touches on some of the controversies that surfaced this year.

But many of Caldarelli’s supporters--including most of the five board members--portray the superintendent as a man who was caught in the middle during a year that included a tense school board election, protracted contract negotiations with teachers and uncertainty over state funding.

To offset a projected $1.2-million deficit, the district had to cut several positions, including two high school assistant principals and two high-ranking administrators.

“Changes that usually occur over five years occurred in one year,” said board member May Lee Berry. “Some people feel that the superintendent is carrying out what has to be done. Others are unhappy that somehow the process does not include them.”

Board member Terrence Kilbride said Caldarelli “has followed through on the goals we have asked him to meet. I’m very impressed with his ability to meet them given the pressure he was under. If staff is upset, they should be upset with the board.”

Board member John Walker was unavailable for comment this week. But in a recent interview, he said Caldarelli’s style “may be a little different from what people in Ventura are used to.”

“His charge was to change the complexion of the district, and I think what’s happening is we’re seeing the effects of that,” Walker said. “But it needs to be done in a . . . manner so that it’s not jammed down somebody’s throat.”

Walker added that he believed Caldarelli is making an effort to communicate better.

Board member Vincent Ruiz said it is up to the teachers association to contact the board with more specific complaints about the superintendent. Board President Barbara Myers was unavailable for comment.

Board members said Tuesday’s meeting will likely be the first in a series in which Caldarelli’s performance will be evaluated and a decision will then be made whether to extend the contract.

Caldarelli has two years remaining on his contract. Under its terms, he receives a yearly evaluation, after which the board may vote to extend the contract by another year.

But Buena High School special-education teacher Don Buffon said the board “should not extend his contract at this time. . . . That still leaves Caldarelli two years to work out his problems with teachers.”

Gennaro of the teachers union said he would try to reach board members to urge them to talk with teachers and administrators before deciding.

“They don’t have to act on this contract right away,” Gennaro said.

Problems in the 15,000-student district began in September with a bitter dispute over the teachers’ contract.

After working without a contract for a year, the teachers association reached a three-year agreement with the district in late May. They got a onetime bonus of $1,000 for the 1989-90 school year but no additional raises.

Under the agreement, only 50% of the district’s revenues will go toward salaries, down from 58%. The teachers took the cut to retain health benefits.

Many teachers have expressed dissatisfaction with the contract.

Two weeks after the contract was ratified, the no-confidence vote was taken. In a resolution accompanying the vote, the association cited Caldarelli’s lack of leadership skills and “bullying” management style and asked the board to demand Caldarelli’s immediate resignation.

Board member Kilbride said he believed the vote “was directly connected with contract negotiations.”

Some teachers agree.

“I think if we had gotten a 10% raise, people would think a lot more of Caldarelli,” said one teacher who asked to remain anonymous.

But other teachers deny any connection between money problems and the superintendent.

“Board members have told me he’s the messenger of bad news, but I don’t buy that,” Magoon said. “He had to bring the bad news, but there’s a way to do it.”

Also in June, the 80-member Ventura Administrators Assn. voted on whether to form a union.

Although administrators voted 40 to 19 against the proposal, they decided to ask a facilitator from the Assn. of California School Administrators, a non-union professional group, to mediate between them and Caldarelli.

And late last month, the Ventura Classified Employees Assn. also took a confidence vote in the superintendent, said President Barbara Hudoba.

But Hudoba said last week that leaders of the classified employees’ union--which represents 550 secretaries, bus drivers, cafeteria and maintenance workers and other employees--decided not to disclose the outcome of the vote until after the state budget has been approved.

About 98% of union members voted and the outcome was decisive, Hudoba said. She said the decision not to disclose the vote was made because “my main concern is that employees have jobs in the fall.”

Problems with employees are not new to Caldarelli.

As superintendent in the Northern California town of Martinez, Caldarelli also received no-confidence votes from teachers and classified employees.

“He would arbitrarily make decisions without communicating with teachers,” said Joe Avina, a retired teacher who was head of the Martinez Teachers Assn.

A member of a Martinez elementary school Site Improvement Program council, a school-based management committee, complained to the state Department of Education when Caldarelli used $52,000 of program funds to hire teachers, said Jim Waters, a state consultant who investigated the complaint.

The state ruled that the transfer was inappropriate, Waters said.

Maurice Huguet, Martinez school board president during Caldarelli’s five-year tenure, praised Caldarelli for doing “an awful lot of good things,” including working for passage of a $25-million school bond.

And despite opposition from the Martinez teachers union and 275 parents, the school board in 1987 renewed Caldarelli’s two-year contract. He had a year remaining when he accepted the job in Ventura.

Ventura board member Kilbride said Caldarelli was hired, despite his problems with the employee groups in Martinez, because officials there recommended him.

“He was a good idea man, and that’s what we need,” Kilbride said.

He said concerns about the no-confidence vote were overridden by “the positive responses we got from over 20 people we talked to.”

A Ventura resident, Caldarelli is married and has a son who attends Ventura schools. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northern Illinois University and a doctorate in education from the George Peabody College at Vanderbilt University.

His career in education spans 28 years, including four years as a teacher in Illinois and Nevada. He served as assistant principal and principal in Las Vegas and in suburban Chicago.

In 1980, he became superintendent of the 3,100-student district in Urbandale, Iowa.

John Cox, now superintendent of the Urbandale district, called working under Caldarelli a good experience.

“I had a good mentor in Cesare Caldarelli for three years,” Cox said.

In Ventura, there are signs that Caldarelli’s relations, at least with administrators, may improve.

Caldarelli has agreed to a series of meetings with small groups of principals and administrators beginning in August.

Also, the district has two retreats scheduled next month, one for the administrative staff and another for board members.

But the district also faces new negotiations beginning next spring with classified employees, whose contract expires in June, 1991.

In the coming school year, some teachers said they hope Caldarelli makes an effort to talk to teachers.

“One of the things he didn’t do was to make a real effort to go out and meet the teachers,” said Buena High School history teacher Stephen Blum. “That personal touch was missing.”