Recall Gives Voters a Say in Orange Unified Crisis

Nearly lost in the firestorm of a recall campaign targeting three members of the Orange Unified Board of Education are serious questions about the way the district has been managed.

Under the stewardship of its seven-member governing board, this is a district that has spent enormous amounts of education time, energy and defense attorney fees on such issues as whether to comply with federal equal-access requirements for school facilities. The political majority has challenged health services for needy youngsters and obstructed successful after-school programs for children at risk. They revoked lifetime health care for retired teachers and turned contract negotiations into civil war.

Teachers, in response, are abandoning Orange classrooms for neighboring districts that offer better compensation and less hostile working conditions. Now all of this is heading for a showdown at the ballot box in late June when district voters will have a rare opportunity to forge a new and competent majority.

There’s no doubt that the district is a mess. But in the midst of the chaos--with charges and countercharges flying between two sides of a shrill campaign--a central question remains: Why a recall?

On the surface, it’s no wonder that parents and civic-minded community members feel the need to step in and turn the situation around. The real question is: Why now, when November elections are so close and the school board is telling critics that it’s presumptuous to disagree with their performance?

To bring some perspective, consider this: When a school system is run right, a district operates like a corporation. The Orange school board is, in essence, the board of directors of a $220-million corporation. Seven trustees are elected to four-year terms by 105,000 shareholders (registered voters). As the governing body, they are responsible for 5,500 employees at 42 plants (schools) and for collective bargaining with two employee unions every year.

A school district, as a former secretary of education famously said, is one of the most highly regulated industries in the world. In Orange, plant managers (principals) supervise between four and five times the number of employees they would in the private sector, and are responsible for 34,000 units of production (students) on an annual basis. They have no control over raw materials. They accept virtually everyone who arrives regardless of preexisting conditions. Everything goes into the marketplace. And it all operates within a 3% fiscal margin.

When the balance is right, the governing board sets policy and oversees finances. The superintendent, as chief executive officer, runs the day-to-day business. Teachers teach. Students learn. But in Orange Unified, something has gone terribly awry.

The current troubles began when the school board--acting on the advice of handpicked financial consultants--announced that the district was in danger of bankruptcy. They held back teachers’ raises, slashed health benefits and wiped out a program of lifetime retirement benefits that had attracted some of the county’s best and brightest teachers. The decisions were made behind closed doors. They were not unanimous. But the political majority made little effort to bring teachers or administrators--or the community--into the process. It took time for the volcano to burst but, in April 2000, Orange teachers went on strike.

The backlash spread through retirement groups representing every category of district employees. One after another, they filed multimillion-dollar lawsuits, which the courts for the most part have upheld. In the last two years, the district has paid attorneys more than $1.5 million to defend legal challenges to their collective judgment. The end is not in sight.

It should be noted that the chaos in Orange stands in marked contrast to neighboring districts operating under the same regulations and fiscal restraints. While other districts are hiring a new generation of educators at job fairs across Southern California, Orange recruiters are traveling as far as Montana, Michigan and Canada to find young teachers willing to work in the district. And while other districts require teachers to hold valid teaching credentials in order to be considered for job vacancies, Orange is waiving credential requirements and is said to be making student teachers full-time instructors.

Since 1998, Orange’s most experienced educators have departed in droves--more than 1,000 teachers and administrators, including Teachers of the Year, mentor teachers, counselors, librarians, nurses, reading specialists and special education teachers. Last June, when the recall was launched, the district had just lost 241 classroom teachers, and the parent-organizers feared the loss of hundreds more.

It’s taken almost a year to advance that process from idea to recall election. But on June 26, Orange shareholders will view the continuing exodus of experienced educators. They will add up the lawsuits (six and counting). They will listen to the targeted trustees defend their stewardship. They will consider all of this. And then they will vote yes.