An Alameda County Grand Jury
investigation into allegations of improper conduct by Newark Unified School
District's Board of Education during the 2013-14 school year has found some
trustees showed "wanton disregard for rules and regulations governing
their behavior and how they conduct the public's business."
"This disregard
manifested itself as a dysfunctional culture of interference in administrative
affairs that poisoned interpersonal relationships and created a crisis in
district leadership," the report released June 29 said.
Based on a citizen's
complaint, the grand jury probe centered on alleged violations of the state's
open meeting law, known as the Ralph M. Brown Act, California Government Code
sections regarding public meetings, the district's bylaws and the board's
responsibilities under its own governance team handbook.
"During an era when NUSD
continues to suffer from fiscal challenges year after year, the board and
administration need to come together to lead the district rather than engaging
in painful power struggles. These sustained battles have caused long-term
damage to the reputation of the district at the expense of its mission,"
the report said.
Received by the grand jury in
late August 2014, the complaint claimed the school board "participated in
inappropriate activity and communications" related to Superintendent Dave
Marken's resignation in late May of that year. The school board continued to
seek a successor when he rescinded the resignation in early August. On Sept. 9,
2014, Marken announced his return as the district's top administrator after
reaching an agreement with the school board during a 90-minute closed session
meeting, ending months of contentious relations between trustees and the
community.
Recognized as East Bay
superintendent of the year a year ago, Marken has led the district since 2011
and has been credited with turning around test scores.
Throughout the summer of 2014
there were accusations from the public that the resignation stemmed from board
members' micromanagement and employee intimidation. Many speakers at board
meetings slammed the board while asking them to keep Marken. A threatened
recall campaign sought to remove the board if they didn't resign.
At the Aug. 19, 2014 school
board meeting, trustee Gary Stadler, one of the board members accused of having
chased Marken away, along with board Vice President Charlie Mensinger,
resigned.
Mensinger, who was seeking
re-election in November 2014, dropped out of the race during the Marken
controversy.
Since then, Tom Huynh joined
the board as an appointee in September 2014 to fill Stadler's seat and won
election to the panel that November. He decided to serve the four-year term and
resigned from the appointed seat now filled by Francisco Preciado to a term
ending in November 2016.
Board President Jan Crocker
has served on the board since 2003. Nancy Thomas has more than 12 years on the
board. Having joined the board in 1996, Ray Rodriguez is the longest serving
member.
The report mentions no board
members or administrators by name.
At the board's June 30
meeting, during a discussion of the grand jury report, Marken said the document
"embarrasses and saddens me."
"This was a very
shattering report that came up yesterday (June 29) as far as I'm
concerned," he said.
According to the grand jury,
the complaint alleged three violations:
California Government Code
section 54952.2 -- prohibiting trustees from using "a series of
communications of any kind to discuss, deliberate, or take action on any item
of business" that has or will appear on the board's agenda.
California Government Code,
section 54950 (Brown Act) -- requiring local government business to be
conducted at open and public meetings, with rare, specified exceptions. The
Brown Act regulates legislative bodies, such as governing boards, regarding
public and closed meeting requirements and communications among fellow board
members, staff, and constituents.
Newark Unified School
District bylaw 9200 -- placing limits on trustees' authority by stating that
the board is a "unit of authority" and members have "no
individual authority." Trustees also are to place education of the
district's students "above any partisan principle, group interest, or
personal interest."
During the investigation, the
grand jury found other issues related to the board's governance of the
district, in addition to the complaint's allegations, such as a culture of
interference, a crisis in leadership, noncompliance with its own rules and
ineffective fiscal oversight.
The report also includes an
outline of incidents in which trustees violated state law, their own bylaws,
handbook and other guidelines for official conduct, and other examples of board
interference from February 2014 to August 2014.
While the grand jury found
the board's governance team handbook, adopted in 2005 and amended in 2012, to
be a "commendable document that could serve as a model for other
legislative bodies," several board members "failed to abide by the
rules, vision, and code of conduct they themselves authored and adopted two
years before during the 2013-14 school year," the report said.
"For example, some
trustees habitually used their position and influence inappropriately,
undermining the authority of the superintendent. In doing so, they lost sight
of the big picture in the district they were elected to govern," according
to the report.
The grand jury concluded the
board "routinely and continuously violated its own rules of governance and
behavior during the 2013-2014 school year. Such misconduct had escalated over
several years. Some trustees regularly bypassed, and therefore undermined, the
superintendent by directly interacting with and directing administrators and
staff. Board members also violated terms of the Brown Act. Although the board
in 2012 adopted a revised handbook that is a model for board behavior, some
trustees habitually ignored its guidelines and policies.
"The grand jury believes
that both sides share responsibility for the breakdown in leadership, but most
of it resides with school trustees. They intruded into administrative affairs,
fueling the crisis. Trustees have the ultimate power -- they hire and can fire
the superintendent. Voters can remove trustees, but usually only when they are
up for election."
Also, the grand jury believes
Newark residents need to pay close attention to the governance and management
of the district.
"The same people who formulated,
wrote, and approved the governance handbook were also the foremost offenders of
its rules, regulations, and guidelines. Four of the five members of the
2013-2014 school board were also trustees when the handbook was passed in 2005
and amended in 2012. They ignored their own rules."
At the June 30 meeting,
Thomas said the handbook should serve as a guide for trustees.
"I think we need to do a
lot of soul searching about how we operate and I think we need to do that in
the context of the handbook," Thomas said.
In its findings, the grand
jury said:
Trustees "with alarming
regularity, ignored and violated the rules, regulations, guidelines -- and
sometimes even the laws -- created to govern how they conduct the public's
business, which negatively affected the public's confidence in the governance
and management of the school district."
Individual board members
"frequently intruded into the duties and responsibilities of the
superintendent, to the detriment of the district, by causing confusion about the
leadership of the district."
The distinction between the
lines of authority of the school board and superintendent "became muddled,
fostering conflict and taking time and resources away from the business of
educating students and managing the district. The grand jury found that the
infighting within the board and with the superintendent took time away from
conducting the district business during board meetings."
The board's
"intervention into executive affairs has gone on for years."
Previous efforts by the board
to "self-police its own misconduct have been unsuccessful."
As recommendations, the grand
jury has suggested the board must abide by state laws, including the Brown Act
and state Education Code; must follow its own bylaws and its governance team handbook
when trustees perform their duties and interact with the superintendent, staff,
teachers, parents and community members; must amend its bylaws and handbook by
adding a formal policy that does not allow individual trustees to interfere
with faculty and staff on school issues, or visit school sites, without
permission from the superintendent or from the board as a whole; and must
follow the recently adopted formal policy allowing a majority of trustees to
censure or otherwise sanction board members when they violate laws, as well as
their own rules and regulations.
"We've got to figure out
a way that we can change the whole culture of what the board does and still do
our job as board members to make sure that we are watching out for the public
and the public's concerns and we can't destroy our staff by making them second
guess themselves and we've been doing that," Crocker said at the June 30
meeting. "We've been questioning, we've been pushing in situations that I
don't think are appropriate and whether it's a matter of how we handle it
whatever it might be, but it hasn't worked."
Board
members have until Sept. 29 to respond to the report indicating agreement or
disagreement with the findings and to describe actions taken on implementation
of the recommendations.
July 28, 2015
Contra
Costa Times
By
Julian J. Ramos
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