Simi School District Ceases Teaching Roles for 2 Librarians

A labor dispute in the Simi Valley school district was quickly settled Friday when Supt. John W. Duncan decided to pull two high school librarians out of the classroom and return them to the library.

The move settles grievances filed Thursday by the Simi Educators Assn. and one of the librarians, claiming that assigning them to both classroom and library duties violates the current teachers’ contract.

Since Sept. 5, librarian Angie Zagar has been teaching two 10th-grade English classes at Simi Valley High School, and Bonnie Carpenter has been teaching two 11th-grade U.S. history classes at Royal High School, in addition to running the libraries.

Duncan said he recently learned that the schools’ principals had added to the librarians’ duties to compensate for fewer teachers this fall. Twenty-five temporary teachers were laid off.

“It’s in the best interest of the students to have a full-time librarian,” said Duncan, who is leaving the Simi Valley Unified School District this weekend to serve as superintendent of a Northern California school district. “As soon as the schedule can be arranged, they will be back in the library.”

Carpenter, who has not taught in the classroom in 20 years, was surprised to learn that she would be returning to the library.

She said Duncan made the right decision because the library program would have suffered in the long run. “It’s been very difficult on my staff this year,” said Duncan, who has a full-time and a half-time clerk. Zagar could not be reached for comment.

Either part-time teachers will be hired or teachers’ schedules will be juggled to cover the classes, Duncan said.

However, the high school principals said it is difficult to find teachers to fill in part time.

“I’m tickled pink to have Angie back in the library, but there is no way we will be able to cover her classes through our regular teacher allotment,” said Simi Valley High Principal Dave Ellis, adding that special state funding would be jeopardized if English classes have more than 20 students.

Dave Jackson, principal at Royal High School, said, “I don’t have anybody in social studies who has the time to teach an extra class.”

Union representatives hailed Duncan’s decision, but vowed to pursue 14 other grievances over teacher hiring ratios, layoffs of nurses and junior high school librarians, teacher sabbaticals and extra pay for department heads.

Last spring, the school board cut $8 million from its $69-million budget, forcing layoffs of temporary teachers. The district now has 267 teachers at four junior high schools and three high schools, handling more than 8,000 students.

“It’s nice that Duncan left us on his last day with this little gift,” said union President Bill Davenport. “I think they’ve made the right move, for once.”

Davenport said union officials will keep pressure on the district to hire more teachers to reduce class size throughout the district. Late this month, district officials will tell the union how many academic classes are over-enrolled. The teachers’ contract calls for no more than 36 students in junior high and high school academic classes. State guidelines call for no more than 29 students per elementary school class.

“There are no plans to file any more grievances until then,” said Davenport, who has 40 students in one of his world history classes at Valley View Junior High School.

“A grievance will be filed for each class that is over 36 students. We would file grievances in elementary schools if they’re not hiring per the ratio in the contract.”

Associate Supt. Cathi Vogel, who will take over as interim superintendent next week, said any decisions to hire more teachers could not be made until the district’s third-quarter budget is analyzed. She expects to make a report to the district board in late October or early November. She also wants to wait to see the outcome of the grievances, which should be decided by an arbitrator by late October.

“Without waiting to see what variances pan out, I would be reluctant to make any budgetary changes. The budget is very, very tight,” Vogel said.

Hal Vick, executive director of the teachers union, said the school district will have to hire more teachers.

“A lack of funding does not exclude the district from providing a safe environment,” Vick said. “They will just have to come up with the money, that’s the bottom line.”