Bates Wields Threat of Suit Against Weis

The ideological battle for control of county schools escalated Monday when school board President Marty Bates said Supt. Charles Weis faces a lawsuit unless he yields to the conservative board majority.

Bates’ comments, expressed in a memo to Weis, come just two days after a committee in charge of clarifying the competing authority of the Ventura County Board of Education and the superintendent of schools failed to reach consensus.

Charging disregard of the will of citizens, Bates said Weis could be sued at the time of his reelection in two years, when such a suit would cause him the most damage.

“Sometime in 1998 we are going to end up in court, you know this and so do I,” Bates wrote. “My guess is that it will begin in about February of 1998.” February is the opening of the season for candidates to file for election.

In the same memo, Bates referred to top-level superintendent of schools office employees as “lackeys” of the superintendent, a term Weis called outrageous.

“It’s a very disparaging word that has no place in civil debate,” Weis said.

Bates accused Weis of improperly staffing Saturday’s committee meeting at taxpayer expense. Present at the meeting on behalf of the superintendent of schools were Assistant Supts. Sandra Shackelford and Bob Smith as well as Human Resources Director Cary Dritz and Jack Parham, a lawyer who handles personnel matters for the county schools.

“I don’t think the taxpayers should pay for legal counsel to protect the superintendent of schools,” Bates said. “Smith and Shackelford are not part of the committee and should have not been there.”

In the memo, Bates wrote: “At the next committee meeting, I will expect only the committee as participants. All of your other lackeys will be part of the public.”

Saturday’s meeting was a special county school board meeting, Weis said. Smith and Shackelford are always present at those and have every right to be there, he said.

“And several of the policies being discussed infringed on personnel matters and Dr. Dritz and Jack Parham were there to give advice on personnel matters,” he said.

The ad-hoc committee was set up last spring to help the board overhaul its policies, an effort spearheaded by Bates and conservative board members Wendy Larner and Angela Miller that is meant to extend the board’s authority over the superintendent.

The full committee--Weis, the five board members and one committee member appointed by each board member, as well as three representatives of the county schools’ 360 employees--met for the first time Saturday. Also at the meeting were two out-of-town attorneys who were hired to draft the new policies based on input from the meeting. The policy draft will be presented in July.

The issue of who has authority over what is complex and highly politicized. Both the superintendent and the board are elected, and both feel they are accountable only to the public.

Bates said in an interview Monday that the threatened suit against Weis could be a class action by citizens who feel they have been wronged by a superintendent who does not listen to them. Weis and the conservative board majority have clashed on issues ranging from AIDS training for teachers to the acceptance of federal grants.

“[School administrators] believe that they know more about what children should be taught than the citizens of Ventura County, and they intend to dictate what and how they should be taught,” Bates said.

The proposed policy reviewed Saturday would allow board members to take on more administrative duties in the county schools office, which has a budget of $39 million. The office operates special-education schools, provides instruction for troubled teens and schooling for incarcerated juveniles and performs some administrative functions for the 21 local school districts.

But administrative functions belong to administrators, said board member John McGarry. The board members do not have the credentials to administrate anything, he said.

“It’s all politics and it’s all power play,” McGarry said. “The staff [of the county schools] is in support of the superintendent. The school districts we serve are in support of the superintendent. Why are we trying to take away his authority?”

McGarry said that if the board tried to usurp his authority, Weis would not only have the right but also the duty to prevent the power grab.