59 Administrators Face L.A. Unified Warnings

As part of a broad initiative to increase accountability, Los Angeles school officials disclosed Monday that they are notifying 59 administrators to improve or be demoted, reassigned or fired.

The deficiency notices--nearly six times the number sent last year--represent a first step by Supt. Ruben Zacarias in fulfilling a promise made when he interviewed for the job last year to take action against principals who don’t measure up.

“It’s part of the accountability process, to have people recognize they’re going to have to do better,” said district spokesman Brad Sales.

However, board member David Tokofsky suggested that there may be more spin than spine in the surge in notices because only a small percentage of those who receive them face immediate repercussions, and many of those are for deficiencies other than job performance.

During a closed session, Tokofsky said, Zacarias initially said he planned to notify 14 administrators, but not all for inadequate job performance. They included two arrested for criminal offenses, three who let their children’s center certificates expire and one on stress leave, Tokofsky said.

Under pressure from board members, Zacarias agreed to also send notices to 45 more administrators whose names were on a “focus list” intended for informal reviews, Tokofsky said. The names of the administrators were not released to protect their privacy.

Although Sales would not confirm those numbers, he acknowledged that only a small segment of the list represented what he described as the “F” level, those facing immediate action.

Others are being given only a “C” level notice. They will have goals for improvement set in an evaluation and, should they fail to meet those, would face more serious action next year, Sales said.

In most cases, he said, the deficiencies were not directly related to a school’s academic performance, but had “more to do with leadership skill, communication skill, are they being collaborative?”

A school’s test scores could be a factor if they were to slide steadily under an administrator’s tenure, he said.

Tokofsky said he was also disappointed that there were no specific performance criteria used to draw up the list.

“It felt like if noise emanated from your school, you were on a focus list, which is real troublesome, because if you’re going to [improve] your school, you’re going to make some people unhappy.”

Before taking disciplinary action against the administrators who have received notices, the district must give formal notice by March 15.

Zacarias will decide by June 30 what action to take against those notified, among them assistant principals, principals and two cluster administrators.

In a related action, the board postponed a vote on a proposal to establish a community task force that would examine how to hold teachers and administrators accountable.

The motion, by board member Jeff Horton, called for the convening of educational experts including the president of a parent collaborative, business people, college and university experts, educational organizations and the board’s Independent Analysis Unit.

The task force would recommend accountability measures based on a number of tenets, including the evaluation of every employee’s performance based on student achievement.

Horton sought a vote despite substantial changes in the motion since he introduced it in January. Saying they considered it a new motion, board members Julie Korenstein, George Kiriyama, Valerie Fields and Tokofsky voted to send it to a committee of board members who will make a recommendation.

Kiriyama said he thought the unions representing district employees should also be included in the task force.

On other matters:

* In a move to place the arts on the same plane as language, math and science, the school board adopted academic standards governing what every student should learn about dance, drama, music and the visual arts.

Although the unanimous board vote does not commit any funds to immediately reverse the erosion of arts education over the past two decades, board members said they intend to follow up with the resources needed to implement the standards.

* The board voted 4-3 to oppose the statewide initiative to limit spending on school administration to 5% of a school district’s budget. The initiative, which has qualified for the June budget, has the backing of United Teachers-Los Angeles, the district’s teachers union. Kiriyama joined with the three sponsors of the resolution, Horton, Barbara Boudreaux and Victoria Castro, in opposing the measure.

* The board referred to committee a motion by Boudreaux to have the superintendent retain an independent auditor to review and monitor the district’s contracting process. Boudreaux said her proposal, intended to allay public suspicion about the district’s handling of its contracts, could work in conjunction with Tokofsky’s proposal last year--which has yet to be acted upon--to hire an inspector general with investigative powers.