The Parlier Unified School
District superintendent and board of trustees must make better financial
decisions to ensure the success of their students, the Fresno County grand jury
reported Tuesday.
“The Parlier Unified School
District has undertaken many courses of action under a new superintendent that
have done little to help improve student success and much to benefit
administrators and trustees financially,” the jurors wrote.
The year-long investigation
found that the leaders gave themselves raises, went on trips, increased the
number of lawyers and administrators on staff and paid millions for
consultants. Many of these consultants are not required to report on their
progress, have duties that overlap with one another or perform functions
typically done by staff members in other districts throughout Fresno County, the
grand jury said.
The school district released a
statement acknowledging the report and saying it would begin a 90-day review
process, after which the board will be able to speak to each issue
individually.
However, Superintendent Gerardo
Alvarez talked about the report in an interview with The Bee. He said it simply
wasn’t possible for anyone to assess student growth right now.
California recently adopted new
Common Core standards, Alvarez said, and the 2014 test results were withheld
from the district. The 2015 results were delivered in late June, and Alvarez
considers these a baseline to compare against next year to determine progress.
“You can’t compare Common Core
to the former system,” he said. “It’s apples and oranges.”
Alvarez said the various expenses
incurred by the staff will yield positive results in the future.
Parlier Unified rates below
other districts in student achievement, the report says, despite having
additional state and federal funding.
Instead, the superintendent and
some trustees have wasted that money on a variety of frivolous expenses, jurors
said.
The grand jury found that
hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent to send trustees, Alvarez and his
top advisers to out-of-district conferences supposedly aimed at researching
practices to improve education within the district. Many of the expenses from
these trips are approved after they have taken place, despite district policy
suggesting prior approval is required.
These trips included two visits
to Harvard University in Massachusetts that the grand jury said had no benefit
to students — and cost $100,000.
Alvarez said these trips were
necessary to fully understand a program known as instructional rounds. This is
an evaluation system that will assess each classroom’s efficiency based on
teacher performance, student engagement and curriculum data.
“It was rigorous training,” he
said. “And we now have 20 experts that will teach other administrators how to
implement this new program.”
Trustees and Alvarez also waste
money holding meetings at restaurants instead of district offices, the report
said. Witnesses told jurors that Alvarez and some trustees believe this
practice is “a reward for their service.”
The report also accuses Alvarez
of hiring, promoting or giving raises to his and trustees’ friends and family
members.
More money was wasted hiring
administrators and lawyers, the grand jury said. Alvarez has hired more
administrators than other local districts of comparable size, and these new
hires’ roles or purpose are not clearly defined.
District leaders also need to
be vigilant in holding more board meetings, the report said. These meetings
should run for the full allotted time and allow for more public discussion,
which jurors found was silenced by board members on multiple occasions.
The grand jury recommended the
board members totally re-evaluate their roles as elected officials and the
district’s spending habits. These various practices should be individually
reviewed and dealt with.
Alvarez responded to several of
these accusations.
He said that his wife and
brother were hired well before he began as superintendent in 2013 and have not
been promoted during his tenure.
The legal fees are the result
of a recent shake-up in district administration, Alvarez said. Several key
advisers, including the head of curriculum and instruction, were fired after
Alavarez and the board deemed they reported “skewed data.” The lawyers are
necessary to defend the integrity of the district against lawsuits from these
“disgruntled employees,” whom Alvarez declined to name.
The increase in administrator
hires was necessary to replace these open positions and decrease the workload
of current staff, who Alvarez said worked “12- to 16-hour days.” He added that
the education code puts a cap on the maximum number of administrators versus
the number of staff members a district can have, and Parlier has yet to be
charged with a violation by the state.
Finally, Alvarez said the
private meetings held at restaurants were predominantly between himself and
staff members — not the board. These meetings are not required to be public
under the Brown Act. He did not discuss the financial impact of these meetings.
Alvarez invited community
members to discuss any concerns listed in the grand jury report, or any other
problems, with the board, him and his staff at the next board meeting. It will
be held at 6 p.m. July 28 in the Parlier High School cafeteria.
July 21, 2015
The
Fresno Bee
By
Rory Appleton
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