Orange County Perspective : Orange Unified Schools Need Leadership : * It’s Up to Newly Elected Trustees to Get the Storm-Tossed District Back on Track

It sometimes seems amazing that any teaching or learning gets done in the Orange Unified School District, rocked as it is by incessant turmoil. It’s a tribute to dedicated teachers and parents concerned about their children that the education process hasn’t been derailed by the charges and countercharges flung about in recent years.

The latest controversy is centered near the top: Deputy Supt. Richard L. Donoghue has been accused by employees of inappropriate touching of employees and sexually offensive language. Joyce Capelle, the district’s chief financial officer, was accused of tolerating offensive sexual banter. The allegations were made to school district lawyers.

The outgoing district president, Barry Resnick, claimed that district trustees knew about the charges a year ago but did nothing to investigate. Though his claim is denied by another trustee, if it’s true it provides an example of bad performance by the elected school board. Donoghue and Capelle have filed a lawsuit against the district, its acting superintendent and others, charging defamation and invasion of privacy. A lawyer said the charges against Donoghue and Capelle are ridiculous and part of a “witch hunt.”

Unfortunately for the taxpayers whose money builds the schools and pays the teachers, the eventual resolution of this case may never be made public, so the taxpayers may not learn who is right and who is wrong. State law allows personnel matters and legal action to be discussed behind closed doors, and all too often when lawsuits are settled before trial the settlement is sealed.

Nevertheless, the important thing is that the school board eventually deal with its overarching problems. It must end years of upheavals over a dismissed superintendent, a teachers’ strike, a failed recall of board members, unwarranted political ideology being inserted into school board races, and other distractions.

A start would be to pick a superintendent. For far too long, superintendents have been “interim” or “acting.” The last permanent superintendent was sent packing by the board in 1992, wrongly paid more than $100,000 to buy out the last year of his contract. He should have been allowed to finish.

The district has 26,000 students and 37 schools serving students from Orange, Villa Park, Anaheim Hills and parts of Garden Grove, Santa Ana and Yorba Linda. What it needs is leadership from the new trustees elected in November. It is their job now to get things back on track.