Trustee’s Teaching Load Questioned : Education: Teddi Lorch might exceed legal limit. Some see potential conflict, others credit her action.

The president of the Saddleback Community College District Board of Trustees, who also happens to be one of the district’s longtime instructors, is apparently teaching a heavier load of courses than state law allows.

Besides the legal issue the situation raises, some critics point to the potential conflict of interest that Teddi Lorch faces, being the boss of the district chancellor, Robert A. Lombardi, as well as his paid employee.

Lombardi said Saddleback College erred in asking Lorch to fill in as a substitute teacher when a fellow instructor suffered a medical emergency.

“That was not right, it shouldn’t have happened,” Lombardi said. “But the way it was explained to me was, it was an emergency situation.”

Lombardi said he would prefer that trustees be prohibited from teaching at all, but he noted that the California Education Code allows a trustee to teach one class at a time, in an area relating to his or her occupation.

“My preference would be that trustees make themselves fully available to the board,” said Lombardi, who said Lorch’s teaching requires her to abstain from votes relating to teacher salary, benefits and the like. “You hate to have a trustee abstain.”

But some trustees dismissed the issue as nit-picking and said Lorch is owed the district’s gratitude for helping an ailing colleague.

“She is very careful to avoid any conflict,” said Thomas Carroll, president of the Saddleback Community College District Faculty Assn.

“I really don’t think this is much of an issue at all,” Trustee John S. Williams said.

Earlier this month, Lorch was unanimously elected president by her board colleagues, some of whom now say they are uncomfortable that Lorch appears to have exceeded the Education Code’s teaching limit of one class for trustees.

This semester, Lorch, whose subjects are psychology and sociology, took on two additional classes when a colleague suffered a medical emergency and missed several sessions. Lorch filled in for 15 hours during the current semester, college district spokeswoman Diane Riopka said.

“It’s my impression trustees are able to teach just one class, and [substituting] would be more than one class,” Trustee Joan J. Hueter said. “If she’s teaching more than one class, she’s breaking the law.”

Lorch, 48, of San Clemente did not return phone calls seeking comment. An attorney for the district also did not respond to requests for comment.

Trustees are expected to walk a fine line between the competing interests of the district’s 30,000 students, its administrators and faculty--for whom the trustees regulate salary and benefits. As a result, full-time district instructors are not allowed on the board.

Retired Chancellor Richard Sneed, who refused to allow Lorch to teach while he held office, said trustees should generally be barred from teaching.

“A trustee teaching poses an inherent conflict of interest,” Sneed said.

While Lorch has abstained from voting on issues that influence her salary and benefits, Sneed said the public deserves a full-time board member.

“Abstaining on these important issues really cripples her as a board member,” he said.

However, Alannah Orrison, chairwoman of the social science department, said Lorch deserves praise for filling in for her ailing colleague.

“We were desperate,” Orrison said. “She stepped up. We didn’t think it would be a problem.”

Lorch was appointed in August 1993 to fill a vacancy on the board and earlier this year was elected to a four-year term. She has been a popular part-time instructor in the social science department at Saddleback since 1975, district officials said.

Currently, she is paid more than $40 per hour in the classroom and is paid $400 a month for attending board meetings, Riopka said.

Sneed said he barred Lorch from teaching at the district shortly after she joined the board in part because he believes the code limits trustees to teaching subjects relating to their occupations.

Sneed said he questioned whether Lorch’s professional background at the time--as a civilian analyst for the Navy--permitted her to teach psychology.

“It was something I obviously was concerned with,” Sneed said.

School officials report that Lorch is an organizational psychology consultant, although it is unclear how that applies to child and adult developmental psychology, the course she teaches.

When Lombardi took office in early 1994, he reversed Sneed’s decision based on a legal opinion. Lorch began teaching again in the summer 1994 session.

The code is somewhat unclear on trustees who teach, said Tom Nussbaum, vice chancellor for legal affairs for the chancellor’s office of the California Community Colleges.

“The code limits teaching to one class, but it’s a very technical law,” said Nussbaum, who said he personally advised Lorch she could teach one class. “I’m not sure she’s violating the spirit of it by substituting, but that has to be challenged at the local level. There are a lot of gray areas here.”