Editorial: LAUSD’s efforts to address learning loss should inspire hope, not chaos and frustration
In the years since state-appointed school board members moved to dissolve the district’s traditional education policy school system, there has been no consensus among critics of this change that the district’s superintendent of instruction should have been allowed to implement some of the changes he would like to make, while his board president and the former board director who had been in charge of hiring staff, evaluating teachers, building and staffing schools, had been removed.
So what is the purpose of those changes? To make school better? No. To make learning better? No. To make learning easier? Maybe so.
Why take away professional oversight of district staff and principals and place it in the hands of a board member who is a former superintendent and former staffer? To make it more difficult for principals to fire poorly performing teachers or to remove teachers under certain circumstances? To make it all happen by consensus?
The result, however, is chaos.
In a statement Wednesday, the Los Altos Valley Unified School District (LAUSD) said it will implement changes to its superintendent’s tenure policy in response to the California State Auditor’s report released last week that outlined several serious problems with the system.
The state auditor described the district’s system of school principals, professional staff, and local school board members as “somewhat dysfunctional and not in compliance with established state and federal law.”
The district said the changes to its director tenure policy, which were implemented in June, will be brought to public notice on January 16.
The district also expressed a desire to make changes to its director tenure policy and director evaluation process to address the state auditor’s concerns.
Those changes will be made in collaboration with the LAUSD Office of the Chief Academic Officer (OCALO) and the Superintendent of the Los Altos School District (SDS).
The California State Auditor’s June report found that the district’s director appointment system had created a culture of managerialism. It also said principals in the district were not following California law when they recommended that administrators, instead of principals, be responsible for the termination of teachers.