No Accord Reached on Evaluating Zacarias

Los Angeles schools Supt. Ruben Zacarias and the Board of Education failed to reach a conclusion Tuesday in initial negotiations on how to evaluate him.

After a nine-hour, closed-door session that also involved unrelated litigation issues, board President Genethia Hayes said she expects the board and Zacarias to agree on the criteria either next Tuesday or by Oct. 19.

No date has been set for the evaluation, the superintendent’s first since a slate of reform candidates swept into office in July, but Hayes said it would come soon after a decision on the criteria.

Despite persistent rumors that the new board is dissatisfied with Zacarias, the talks were amicable, Hayes said.

“The superintendent is with us,” she said. “This was not a hostile act toward the superintendent.”

The board worked on the evaluation about 90 minutes during a marathon session that also covered potential litigation over the Belmont Learning Complex as well as the district’s lawsuit against its own law firm, O’Melveny & Myers.

The agenda included discussion of the process for deciding whether to discipline nine employees accused by the district’s top auditor of failing to properly oversee planning construction of the environmentally plagued high school.

Hayes announced only one decision after the meeting. The board added 14 days to a 75-day slowdown of the Belmont work, which was approved in July to allow time for a commission to examine whether the half-completed project should be finished or abandoned.

The new timetable established Nov. 23 as the working deadline for the board to decide the fate of the project.

The evaluation of Zacarias will be the board’s first concrete indication of how it may handle the politically volatile question of whether to extend the superintendent’s contract a fourth year, through June 2001.

Although the prior board voted in one of its last acts to grant that extension, there has been speculation that the new board majority would like Zacarias to leave sooner, and might try to buy out his contract.

The contract calls for Zacarias to receive an extension unless the board decides by Jan. 15 to deny it. One possible strategy would be for the new board to simply ignore the former board’s early affirmation and vote not to extend the contract. Or it could ask to buy out the fourth year.

However, any attempt to remove the popular Latino administrator would probably draw protests from elected Latino officials and community activists whose coordinated pressure was a key in the June vote to extend Zacarias’ contract.

Citing closed-session privilege Tuesday, Hayes declined to give details on how the board would measure Zacarias’ success since July without the benefit of the criteria now being developed.

But she said board members want to complete the quarterly evaluation so there will be a track record when the critical six-month review comes due in January.

According to sources, the board has presented Zacarias with a 17-page list of goals and objectives with a complex grading system that provides point scores for each item plus a weighting factor.

In August, reacting to the apparent threat to his job, Zacarias said he would not rule out asking to have his evaluation conducted in public.

Zacarias was unavailable for comment, but a spokesman reiterated that sentiment Tuesday.

“Why they’re doing it behind closed doors beats me,” said Brad Sales. “Bring this out in the light of day so the community can be involved and have a say on it.”