The San Diego Traveler

What Does the Community Think About VUSD’s Hiring Practices?

by Carole A. Lane on June 22nd, 2007

I’ve written about Vista’s temporary teachers losing their jobs, warned new teaching applicants to stay away from Vista, and documented what the Vista Teachers Association thinks of VUSD’s hiring practices. 

But what about the community?  What are they saying about Vista Unified School District’s hiring practices?

At the June 14th VUSD Board meeting, the community was very vocal en masse, starting with the buttons handed out and worn by hundreds of attendees.

Before hearing from the community, board member David Hubbard asked district administrator Myrna Vallely, when considering the temporary teachers, do the principals have input?  She answered yes, and the crowd yelled, “NO!”  He asked if those conversations are confidential, and Vallely said yes.

Hubbard asked if the district looks at job performance data, and Vallely said yes, while the community again yelled, “NO!”  He asked if job performance information is confidential and Vallely answered that it is.

Hubbard asked if the district takes into account the training that the teachers have undergone and their attendance records.  Vallely said yes to each of these, stating her belief that the training records are available to the public, but the teacher attendance records are private.

When the crowd bristled at Vallely’s answers, claiming them to be absolute lies, Jim Gibson, President of the School Board scolded the crowd like children, admonishing them that students were present and that they were to be examples to the younger generation.

When Chris Babcock, the student representative to the board asked about the structure of the phone interview, questioning whether through this alone one could gauge the ability of a teacher to teach, Hubbard deflected with the enigmatic answer, “I wish you could see what we see,” but claiming that there are legal issues which preclude the board from telling the truth about why the teachers are being denied employment opportunities in the district.  When asked if he could at least tell the teachers involved why they were being blackballed from Vista Unified, he said that he would check with legal counsel. 

I personally cornered Hubbard at the break and asked, if a teacher has a glowing record of achievement, recommendations from teachers and parents, excellent student test scores, a great training record, and so on, and is told that she is wanted by the principal, is someone lying?  Without hesitation, he answered, “Yes.  Someone is lying.”  I asked if the teachers could be told why they are not re-hirable, as this type of secrecy allows them no recourse to correct anything that may have been erroneously reported about them.  He said, “Fair enough,” and that he would look into it.  I hope he’s not the one that’s lying.

I’ve got to wonder if denying a person employment based on secret information in their file is even legal!  Doesn’t the Fair Credit Reporting Act include protections from this sort of thing?  Doesn’t it require that an employer disclose to a consumer the nature and substance of any communication upon which any adverse action is based?

Gibson told the crowd that they don’t have to come up with a reason for release of temporary teachers.  He did clarify that he wasn’t implying that it was anything major that was causing these applicants to lose their jobs.

Vice President Steve Lilly said that the board has received a full range of data on the twenty teachers who are being released, and have gone through it all, with no change to their status.  Further, he explained that, according to the best personnel practices in the state of California, they can release any temporary employee without cause or reason.

Apparently, the board thinks that their word should be enough proof that this was a fair and impartial process.  It’s equally apparent that they’ve overestimated their credibility in this instance.

Forty-one community members were given hold cards in order to reserve two minutes each to speak to the board on this issue.  Most were incredibly well-spoken.  All were impassioned and earnest.  I tried to capture the many salient points made by the community, and will reiterate them here:

• To require that a temporary teacher, with a proven track record and a file full of information upon which to base a hiring decision, be forced to go through Ventures for Excellence’s screening process, superceding all else, is a gross misuse of this resource. 
• Hourly employees should likewise not have to go through the same process as new hires, as there is better information on file about them.
• It was stated that the district had signed an agreement that they would not misuse Ventures for Excellence, but that is exactly what they did.
• To allow a 15-minute telephone interview to invalidate the observations made during over 6,000 hours of teaching (per teacher), “we should be embarrassed.”
• There was an instance where the interviewer couldn’t find the interview tape, and said they would use the previous year’s tape;  that teacher was later told that they failed, using the same taped interview that they passed with the previous year.  How does that happen?  Other teachers who passed the telephone interview last year, were told that they didn’t pass this year.
• There were interviews conducted on cell phones in rush hour traffic.  How can these results be considered valid?
• The method for rating or scoring the telephone interview was called into question;  it was called arbitrary and unfair.
• There have been teachers who passed the Ventures for Excellence screening, who did not prove to be good teachers or to have much practical sense, so where is this process proven?
• “Ventures for Excellence” was characterized as “Adventures in Mediocrity.”
• It was pointed out that there is a “human factor” that cannot be overlooked when describing a good teacher; they are not working with widgets; they need to be able to teach and work with people; teachers are not commodities.
• As taxpayers, we have invested a great deal of money in training these teachers, as well as time spent out of the classes, perhaps as much as $120,000 per teacher;  that training will go with them to other districts, and we will have to repeat the whole process with new applicants.  Some demanded more efficiency from their tax dollars.
• It was noted that not only do students learn from teachers, but teachers learn from their students; that education [received from Vista students] would also be wasted if these teachers left.
• To use the current hiring process is to deny the ability for principals to participate, even though they know what’s needed in their schools.
• There were principals that tried to appeal the process on behalf of what they considered to be excellent teachers, but were overruled.
• Parents of teachers explained how they raised their own children, with an emphasis on excellence in school and job performance; if the district discards teachers with excellent academic and employment records, what will they teach them now?
• A student recommended that the board also get input from students about which teachers they have learned the most from.
• Another student said that the board, through their actions, is teaching students that performance doesn’t matter, that you need to “talk the talk” [i.e. do a good interview] rather than “walk the walk” [i.e. be a good teacher].
• According to one speaker, the quoted number of 18,000 applicants is a ridiculous overstatement.
• It was questioned how 85 teachers could have been rehired before the existing teachers even knew if they were on the list to be dropped.
• If teachers are being cut back due to declining enrollment, these teachers should be put on a ”rehiring list,” as other districts have done in the past.
• One teacher with a stellar record was told that attendance was an issue; she survived cancer, and has had an excellent attendance record ever since.  The board was told that if she was released because of this, they have a big problem.
• A business-person noted that companies work hard not to have turnover.
• One particularly eloquent high school student described how one of the dismissed teachers actually salvaged his seventh grade year, going far above and beyond any other.  A parent, likewise, talked about how one of the other teachers turned her son around from hating school to loving it.
• The process was compared to McCarthyism, the practice of publicizing accusations with insufficient regard to evidence.
• The issue of deteriorating morale among remaining teachers was stated, along with distrust.  The board was told that “You won’t get the results you want because morale is too low.”
• A PTA President stated that we as parents feel that our opinions don’t matter.
• More than one speaker recommended that the board go through the Ventures for Excellence process in order to decide if they remain eligible for their positions.
• A student noted that a good leader must be a good communicator, and said that the board failed, in that they failed to communicate the criteria that the teachers would be judged by.
• The board was reminded that San Diego is like a small town and word travels fast; Vista is getting a bad name in the teaching community due to their unfair hiring process.
• The board was asked why they hadn’t discussed the issues with legal counsel before the meeting: “You knew we were going to be here!”  They were called on their own accountability.
• The board was reminded that the community will be using their votes [to elect future board members], and how the board addresses this issue will be the deciding factor for many voters.

Again and again, the community speakers asked the board, “Please allow the temporary teachers to interview tomorrow.”  Sadly, their pleas fell on deaf ears.

In the end, Hubbard thanked everyone for being as passionate as they are and asked that they not think that the board doesn’t care about teachers or students.  He asked what possible advantage they could have in that, and said that you only need to look at their biographies to realize that their hearts are in the right place.  He stated that nobody was fired; they were simply asked not to come back for permanent hire.  He said that they have to have some means for screening applicants; they can’t interview everyone.  He assured us that the Ventures process is one factor, but it wasn’t the sole thing.  He finished by commending the board, stating that this is a level of communication that you can’t get anywhere else.

Gibson said that the process was not unprofessional or subjective.  He assured us that we don’t have all of the information, and that it doesn’t mean that these teachers are unfit.

Lilly said that the phone interviews were thoroughly investigated, and if anyone told us that they were disqualified based solely on a telephone interview, they were wrong; that is inaccurate.

Board member, Carol Herrera, who had been quiet throughout the whole meeting, was the most surprising in her response.  Looking just as sweet as someone’s grandma, she talked about how schools are like families.  She suggested that we all ask ourselves if there is something that we don’t know.  She said to stand back from it, and make sure we’re not dealing with the situation as someone who is losing a friend.  Frankly, I was absolutely appalled that she had minimized these teachers’ stellar careers and the parents’ concerns into some sort of coffee klatsch that we didn’t want disrupted.  Did she really have so little respect for the amount of education and collective knowledge and experience present in that room for the past 5+ hours?  Amazing!

What was not explicitly stated in the meeting (perhaps it would have been “preaching to the choir”) is that we’re all concerned about test scores and our students’ achievement.  No one want to keep a bad teacher, nor one whose students aren’t learning.  The board has latched onto the Ventures for Excellence process like a life raft, expecting that it alone will provide better results.

If the teachers that were going were underperforming or problematic, we all might have gone right along with them, applauding this move.  Instead, knowing the teachers who are leaving, and recognizing many of them as examples who could teach others to succeed as they have, the community has to question whether this new process has any hope of screening out bad teachers or  recognizing the good ones, which is a goal we all share. 

When the process is so obviously flawed, why is the VUSD board standing hiding behind it?

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