Troubles Test Orange Unified School District

The Orange Unified School District is beset by which of the following problems: (A) a leadership vacuum; (B) an austere budget; (C) bitterness from a recent strike by classified employees; (D) costly legal hearings involving alleged sexual harassment by three top administrators who, in turn, are suing the district for $60 million; (E) ethical questions surrounding a 26-year-old board member with a criminal record or (F) all of the above.

Answer: Partial credit for A-E. The correct response, to the chagrin of those who care about the district, is: (F), all of the above.

*

Once hailed throughout the state as a model school system, the Orange Unified School District is viewed today as one of the education system’s most dysfunctional.

The reverberations from its latest spate of bad publicity are being felt throughout the 26,000-student district, which serves Orange, Villa Park and parts of Anaheim Hills, Garden Grove and Santa Ana.

Its poor public image has district officials worried about retaining and attracting quality staff and has local realtors--fearing a drop in housing prices--quietly taking teachers aside and asking them when the school system will straighten itself out.

Many trace the source of the problems to a revolving door in the superintendent’s office--there have been seven since 1989--and to strife and turnover on the school board.

“The past four or five school boards have been dysfunctional, each in its own way,” said Lee Newcomer, an education consultant who has conducted more than 45 superintendent searches nationwide, including two for Orange Unified. “This board hasn’t spent 10 minutes talking about where the district is going. They are spending all their time fighting with one another.”

After enduring a rash of embarrassments including a bid-rigging scandal, a bitter recall movement aimed at five trustees and a teachers’ strike between 1987 and 1993, community hopes ran high in December that the district’s reputation for controversy and scandal would be erased when four new trustees were sworn onto the seven-member board.

But instead of quickly putting the troubles behind them, board members discovered the past was hard to escape.

First, there were allegations in December of sexual harassment involving three top administrators. Then, in retaliation, the trio filed a $60-million lawsuit against the district.

In January, faced with a $2.2-million shortfall in a $107-million budget, the board approved eliminating 20 teaching and classified positions. In April, trustees unilaterally forced a contract on classified workers, which imposed furlough days, cut health benefits and gave the district the power to lay off or reduce an employee’s hours at will. In protest, hundreds of the classified employees--including bus drivers, maintenance, clerical and custodial workers--held a strike for two weeks in May, crippling the district’s bus and child care systems.

And in the midst of these crises, the board was unable to select a new permanent superintendent--a post that has been vacant for more than two years. Finally, in mid-April, interim superintendent Marilyn J. Corey resigned after clashing in a closed session with board members about rising legal fees for ongoing sexual harassment hearings.

Today, officially, no one is in charge at district headquarters.

“The problems we have now are far more severe than at any other time in the district’s history,” said David Reger, head of the district’s teachers union. “We want to discuss issues. We want to solve problems, but you need someone to talk to to do that.”

But some board members--Maureen Aschoff, Robert Viviano and Max Reissmueller--contend that most of their recent troubles are inherited from previous boards. Moreover, they argue, some district unrest should be expected given the changing of the guard.

“In order to build a new building, you have to tear down the old one,” said Reissmueller, one of four new board members. “There is a lot of restructuring that needs to go on in the district. Change is painful.”

And while there is disagreement among the board members on many issues and even on whether the board should stick to policy-making or engage in managing day-to-day district problems, they agree that hiring a permanent superintendent is the first step on the path to recovery. Though the new board has had more almost six months, it seems to be no closer today to filling the position. Board members say the slew of recent troubles sidetracked them in their superintendent search.

And Orange Unified’s poor administrative reputation hasn’t made the search any easier.

“The response I’d get from prospective candidates when I asked them to talk--not apply, just talk--to the board was ‘What have you got against me?’ ” said recruiter Newcomer.

The school system’s leadership vacuum exacts a heavy price not only on its day-to-day functioning, but also on its morale, he adds.

“Paranoia sets in. There’s mistrust, hostility.” said Newcomer. “There’s nobody giving strokes when someone does a good job and nobody giving them hell when they are doing a bad job. It’s like a rudderless ship.”

If the district doesn’t turn in the right direction soon, many fear a the teaching staff--still a source of pride for the district--will be affected. The experienced teaching staff is credited with keeping student scores above state averages on the California Learning Assessment System and the Scholastic Aptitude Test, despite the embattled administrative atmosphere.

But officials wonder how long students will continue to perform well given that the district has had mixed success in recruiting young teachers.

“We are going to lose a lot of very good teachers soon,” said board member Bill Lewis. “They aren’t 30 years old anymore. They are 50 and 60, and they are looking to retire. We need to rebuild our image so we can attract new teachers.”

The district’s reputation for trouble not only hurts recruiting, but also makes it harder to keep current staff. Shortly after being honored as a top high school principal in the state two years ago, then-El Modena High Principal Gail Richards left Orange Unified for another principal job in Irvine--in part because of the district’s management and financial problems.

“The instability didn’t help any,” said Richards, who is now at Irvine High. “The cutbacks were discouraging too. You’re doing more with less all the time, and it was a lot of stress.”

The financial difficulties are weighing heavily on the district now and will be an important hurdle even if the trustees’ bickering, lawsuits and current labor trouble evaporates.

Sharp drops in state funding and mismanagement pushed the district to the brink of bankruptcy only four years ago. The district has clawed its way back to fiscal health, slashing $11.5 million from its past three budgets.

But the cutbacks meant pay cuts for teachers and classified staff, layoffs, curtailed athletic programs and increased class sizes. Orange Unified has an instructor to student ratio of 39.6 to 1 in secondary classrooms, one of the highest in Orange County, says union official Reger.

The 1994-95 budget looks no better. There’s a shortfall of at least $1.7-million, which may rise when state budgets figures are released. The district is also looking to scrape together another $400,000 for its depleted reserve fund, which is at 2.6% less than the 3% minimum recommended by the state.

“It’s a bare-bones budget that lost more weight,” said Chief Fiscal Officer Joyce Capelle.

Finances are so tight that an unexpected expense of $100,000 could throw the district into bankruptcy, which would prompt state educational authorities to step in and seize control, Capelle said.

Some regard the ongoing disciplinary hearings--connected to allegations of sexual harassment by three top administrators--as a threat to the district’s shaky fiscal health. The hearings started in March and now are expected to last through October. The district has already spent $150,000 in legal fees, but has stalled paying another $90,000 to its attorney because the board feared the payment would throw its precarious financial house into the red.

Deputy Supt. Richard L. Donoghue has been accused of inappropriately touching employees, distributing lewd materials and using sexually offensive language in the workplace. Capelle and Transportation Director Howard Mason are charged with engaging in and tolerating sexual banter in the workplace. Donoghue faces possible firing, while Capelle and Howard could be demoted and see their pay cut.

Some board members quietly second-guess their decision to discipline the trio using a costly public hearing process, but all board members said rumors that the district may halt the hearings are unfounded.

Further tarnishing the district’s public image was the disclosure earlier this month that Reissmueller pleaded guilty in 1987 to contributing to the delinquency of a minor--a misdemeanor. A group of parents distributed leaflets with Reissmueller’s court records at a school board meeting earlier this month.

Reissmueller, who was 18 at the time of the incident, originally faced the more serious charges of sex with a minor and battery. Those charges were later dropped.

Reissmueller, who will disclose few details of the case and declined to provide even the age of the victim, said he did nothing “morally wrong.” He denounced the release as politically motivated.

The information has raised questions about Reissmueller’s fitness for office.

“It really destroys any credibility he has. He should come forward with the details,” Reger said. “He should probably do the Nixon thing and resign.”

Some board members criticized the media in its recent coverage of the district, especially during the recent classified workers’ strike. They say the district is being treated unfairly and singled out by the media because of its past troubles.

But the recent unfavorable publicity has had an upside, points out board president Aschoff. It has attracted a more “aggressive” breed of parental volunteers who are determined to help their children’s schools.

For example, a parents group recently began publishing a newspaper designed to highlight district accomplishments that often go unreported in the larger media. The first issue praised parental volunteers for helping out during the classified strike.

“The troubling issues have brought this community together like never before,” Aschoff said. “The community is coming forward and saying how can we help.”

“I’m one of those eternal optimists,” she added. “We are on the brink of success.”