(Riverside) MURRIETA: School district responds to grand jury report

BY TOM SHERIDAN, The Press-Enterprise.com -

The Murrieta Valley Unified School District has objected to some of the findings of a Riverside County civil grand jury report that was critical of its handling of a personnel dispute, but agreed to some suggested changes, its response filed with the county court shows.

In the response, written by Superintendent Pat Kelley and filed on Aug, 29, the district stated it had implemented or would implement three of the four recommendations from the grand jury report, but objected to the contention that the accused party in the dispute should immediately have been placed on administrative leave by the district, pending the outcome of the investigation.

The action the district took was to give the teacher an involuntary transfer.

“Each situation is handled individually,” Murrieta Valley Unified School District spokeswoman Karen Parris said. “There are times that placing an employee on administrative leave is an appropriate action to take, and there are times that's not an appropriate action to take.”

The grand jury report released in July listed a series of findings and recommendations from its investigation into the district's handling of a dispute between two teachers at Shivela Middle School that occurred from 2009 to 2011. That report took the district to task for transferring, rather than disciplining, the accused teacher and called upon the district to develop procedures for handling such conflicts in the future. It also said the district should provide training for employees who investigate such complaints.

It also recommended that the district take steps to ensure employees are aware of approved and unapproved behavior by spelling them out in the employee handbook, and that the district ensure a complainant is provided with the information necessary to file an appeal.

Those were some of the recommendations the district said it has implemented or will implement.

Parris said that the Board of Education will be taking up new policies and administrative actions related to employee complaints at a special meeting on Sept. 26.

Riverside County Presiding Judge Mark Cope said he received the district's response, but there will be no further action.
“We just file it, and that's all there is,” said Cope. “There is nothing else to come from our side of it.”