Oxnard Schools Chief Quits to Take Lower-Paying Job

Bernie Korenstein, superintendent of the Oxnard Elementary School District, resigned at Wednesday night’s school board meeting, saying he would take a lower-paying position directing the county’s special education programs.

The school board, after a closed-door meeting, agreed to release him from the two years left on his contract. Assistant Supt. Richard Duarte was appointed interim superintendent to assume Korenstein’s duties after he leaves Aug. 31.

Korenstein said directing the county’s special education programs was an irresistible opportunity to work full time in an area that has always held his interest.

“As an educator, I’m always drawn to doing what’s better for kids, and these are the most needy kids,” he said.

Korenstein’s departure caps a four-year tenure that began with opposition. At the time of his appointment, two board members objected that Korenstein’s selection had not been the result of an open competition.

Since then, all but one of Korenstein’s original supporters on the board have left. The remaining trustee, Jim Suter, is not seeking reelection in November.

More than 70% of the students in the district are Latino, and many parents and board members have lobbied for greater Latino representation in the district’s leadership. Four of the board’s five members are Latino.

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Previously an assistant superintendent in Oxnard, Korenstein, 55, assumed the top job upon the retirement of Norman Brekke in 1994. Brekke defended Korenstein’s appointment at the time, saying the previous board had endorsed him.

During a closed session at the board’s meeting three weeks ago, Korenstein asked the trustees to release him from his contract, which pays him about $110,000 per year.

In his new $80,000-a-year job, Korenstein will direct Ventura County’s Special Education Local Plan Area. Ventura’s countywide special education program is the third largest in California, serving 14,500 disabled students in the county’s 20 school districts, additional schools under the county superintendent’s office and those in Las Virgenes Unified School District in Los Angeles County.

County Supt. Charles Weis said Korenstein was offered the job soon after applying for it about three weeks ago.

Though Korenstein acknowledged it is unusual for a district superintendent to move into a lower-profile job at lower pay, he said, “Pay has never been an issue in my career. It’s job satisfaction, not just salary.”

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Weis added that Korenstein’s “interest in staying in this area is higher than his interest in staying in the superintendency. He loves Ventura County.”

Korenstein told the 60-member audience at Wednesday’s meeting that his years in the Oxnard district “have been more professionally and personally satisfying than I can ever, ever state.”

“I’ve loved this district,” he said before the meeting, “and I’ve loved the people in it. The children and the parents have been wonderful to me.”

Board President Arthur Joe Lopez said he was “not entirely surprised” by Korenstein’s departure but that it was “kind of sad.”

“Somebody certainly with his kind of experience can pretty much write his own ticket,” Lopez said, adding that the initial tension within the board over Korenstein’s appointment has dissipated.

“I think over the course of the years it’s been a good marriage,” Lopez said, pointing to the three state distinguished-school awards that district schools earned during Korenstein’s tenure.

Weis said he thinks Korenstein will be “a great asset” to the countywide special education program and that his experience as a superintendent will hold him in good stead with the county’s districts, including Oxnard Elementary, and the council of superintendents that oversees the Special Education Local Plan Area.

“Having positive relationships with the superintendents will make the SELPA council run well,” Weis said. “He’s very well respected among the superintendents.”

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James Foster, who directly oversees the county superintendent’s special education programs, currently heads SELPA. Foster, who will report to Korenstein, will continue supervising the county’s 611-student program.

“It’s just too big a job now for one person to do both jobs,” Weis said, adding that Korenstein will begin as SELPA director when the Oxnard board releases him from his contract.

The past year has been a tumultuous one for the Oxnard Elementary district and its leadership.

A former administrator, Pedro Placencia, was found guilty in January of illegally taping the phone calls of trustee Suter. At least one of those calls was from Suter to Korenstein and included a conversation about the superintendent’s confidential personnel evaluation. Several trustees and Korenstein testified at the trial.

Korenstein said his decision to leave the superintendency had nothing to do with “the issues that have gone on around this district in the last year.”

Korenstein arrived in Oxnard in the 1983-84 school year ago to take the principal’s position at Rose Avenue School, holding several administrative posts until becoming superintendent in June 1994.

He began his educational career with the Los Angeles Unified district, as an elementary teacher and instructional advisor. Two of Korenstein’s three adult children are also in education.

Lopez said the process of selecting Korenstein’s successor could take four to six months.