Weis Can Pick Workshop Speakers, Lungren Says

Dealing a blow to the county Board of Education’s conservative majority, the state attorney general has ruled that the county superintendent of schools can invite any speaker he chooses to teacher workshops on such topics as sex education and AIDS prevention.

California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren’s opinion issued last week concludes that “a county superintendent of schools has the authority to select the speakers and materials to be presented at a teacher institute.”

Board members Marty Bates, Angela Miller and Wendy Larner voted in March 1995 to suspend certain groups, in particular AIDS Care and Planned Parenthood, from workshops organized by the county superintendent of schools office.

But the three board members agreed to make the suspension temporary, pending the outcome of the legal opinion Bates requested on whether the board had the authority to bar speakers from the teacher-training sessions.

“We’re very pleased the attorney general’s opinion was virtually the same as the four other opinions we received on this issue last year,” Supt. Charles Weis said.

Weis said that in 1995, the California School Boards Assn., Schools Legal Services, the California Teachers Assn. and the state Department of Education all handed down rulings that were similar to the attorney general’s conclusion.

“All of these groups came back and said the county superintendent has the authority to hire speakers,” Weis said.

“Anyone who teaches about HIV or AIDS must undergo training, and the county Office of Education is obligated to give that training.”

After the board vote last year, the superintendent criticized the board’s majority for its “far-right political agenda,” saying it was wrong to exclude these groups that have traditionally offered Ventura County teachers information on sex education and AIDS.

Announcing Lungren’s opinion on Wednesday, Bates, the board president, acknowledged that the majority had been defeated in its effort to control who speaks at teachers’ workshops. “We obviously will go along with the attorney general’s opinion,” Bates said.

Despite the opinion, Bates said he still did not want AIDS Care and Planned Parenthood to conduct workshops for teachers because he disagrees with how speakers from those organizations teach the subject.

“According to this decision, the county superintendent of schools can now inject their agenda into the teaching of our teachers with no control from the elected boards,” Bates said.

The superintendent, who like the school board is elected, offers administrative, business and personnel services to 194 schools in Ventura County’s 20 school districts. The 1994 election opened a philosophical schism between Weis and the board, which is now dominated by conservative members.

Miller called the opinion a disappointment, saying the attorney general had basically taken away what she called the board’s watchdog power.

“We didn’t want these organizations participating in our teachers workshops because there is a conflict of interest,” Miller said. “It is not what is best for our students. These workshops are an advertisement for those organizations. They come in and feed teachers with their values, which is sexual promiscuity.”

But John McGarry, a board member who sided with Weis, said that it is not the board’s role to exclude certain groups from providing information to teachers.

“I am pleased that the attorney general is being consistent with what we have had in past practices,” McGarry said. “It has always been the realm of the county superintendent of schools to conduct staff development.”

In a related issue, McGarry had tried Tuesday night to stop board members from speaking out at teacher workshops, but lost that effort in a 3-2 vote.

McGarry proposed the amendment after a group of teachers complained in May that Miller and Larner had disrupted an HIV/ AIDS-prevention workshop for teachers.

Miller said she and Larner did not disrupt the course, but had asked questions because they believed the workshop did not adequately address abstinence as a method to avoid contracting HIV.

“I just really don’t believe the taxpayers intended for there to be a gag order on board members,” Miller said, referring to Tuesday’s vote.