Santa Monica Unified & Community College Districts

I was somewhat apprehensive when I accepted the Santa Monica job because I had no community college experience. I did not understand the college organization or even how it was financed. I soon learned that Santa Monica College was a dinosaur in that it's Board of Education was also the Board for the Unified District, the only one in California that was so organized.

The Santa Monica School District was not large enough to warrant a community college but over the years they had worked out an arrangement with Los Angeles Community College District that allowed students from Los Angeles to attend Santa Monica under a contract and Los Angeles paid their tuition. This made Santa Monica quite a large institution.

The year I became Deputy Superintendent at Santa Monica, Los Angeles Board of Education canceled the contract between the two districts so that Santa Monica College was to lose over half of its enrollment. This meant that many of the College teachers would lose their jobs.

Reducing staff is a messy thing, to say the least, and there are many laws and policies that apply to staff reductions. In brief, all the laws and policies say that the "teachers hired last are the first to leave." It is a seniority requirement. Furthermore the procedure requires that people to be let go must be notified before May first of the previous year and there was very little time to draft notifications after Los Angeles canceled the contract.

A meeting of the college faculty was called and I was introduced as their new "Deputy Superintendent." I proceeded to explain the contract problem and told them that most of them would be getting a Registered letter stating that they might no longer have a job at the college. I tried to reassure them by pointing out that Los Angeles was not able to accommodate it's students and that no doubt the contract would be renewed but there was much apprehension. It was not a very good way to begin a new job.

I immediately began negotiations with Los Angeles and found that the real problem was with the Board of Education there. They had plenty of space available in East Los Angeles and in the San Fernando Valley but were short of space in West Los Angeles where Santa Monica had been serving their students. A couple of Board Members had discovered the unused spaces and decided to make a political fuss about it. After a few meetings the contract was renewed and the threat was ended, temporarily. We all knew that Los Angeles Board could hold a threat of cancellation over our heads and really cause serious problems.

I knew that as long as we served Los Angeles students on a tuition basis, we could be threatened with contract cancellation. In California, the community colleges are a part of the State College system and are subsidized by the State. I concluded that if we could get some new buildings on campus, financed by the state, that we could probably get the State to intervene on our behalf should Los Angeles decide to cancel our contract.

We had immediate need for a new library building and an addition to the auto shops so I began a drive to get state money to build these new facilities. It was a long hard effort but we finally managed to get both these new buildings but, more importantly, we had made the State authorities aware of the contract arrangement with Los Angeles. I have no idea what the final outcome will be but I doubt that the State will allow Los Angeles to duplicate facilities that exist in Santa Monica so I think the contract arrangement is quite safe.

Santa Monica is a unique place. It operates like a small town but is the hub of a metropolitan area. Then there is Malibu, just next door, which is a part of the school district. The children of many prominent movie and television people attend Santa Monica schools and this increases the need for security. Santa Monica High School had developed a system of checking attendance of pupils that was based on periods rather then on school days. If a pupil was not in a class he was scheduled to be in the alarm went out and the pupil was immediately located. We took no chances with the people in our charge. Yet both pupils and their parents were treated like all other children and parents. This arrangement seemed to be agreeable to every one. I have attended school programs where Jane Fonda, Barbara Streisand, Flip Wilson or Loren Green were present and they appeared to be ordinary parents.

Santa Monica Schools had a superb musical program and each spring there was a district wide concert at the huge Civic Auditorium. A guest Director was brought in and each grade level performed in turn. First the Elementary Schools, next the Junior Highs and then the High School and finally the Community College. At the end the guest director led the combined groups in a grand finale that brought down the house. The whole community was involved and it was a wonderful event and well attended.

The Superintendent of Schools at Santa Monica was a most effective administrator. He kept well ahead of the Board of Education by anticipating their "leanings" and then making decisions in response to Board Member's desires. As an example, there were a few black people in the school system and when the question of racial integration came up the Superintendent was ready with a plan. The matter was placed on a board agenda and adopted as a routine action. The community had confidence in the Board and Superintendent so matters that were so controversial in other districts were just routine business in Santa Monica. This happened because the Superintendent kept ahead of the Board and community in anticipating possible problems.

The one area where the Superintendent was weak was in the Community College. He literally hated the college organization. He was convinced that the teachers were lazy and had half a work load. He also thought they were grossly overpaid. I thought he was wrong on all counts but could not convince him that he was. Finally the President of the college retired and the Superintendent became President as well as retaining the superintendency. This proved to be too much and a new President was hired.

This new President was an ambitious energetic man who began immediately to under cut the Superintendent. His scheming worked because the Board finally fired the Superintendent and divided the College from the Unified District. I thought the whole problem could have been solved by the Superintendent changing his attitude toward the college. That institution did very well when compared with other Community Colleges. It could not honestly be compared with elementary, junior highs or senior high schools. I decided the Superintendent was seeking early retirement and he chose this way to get it.

During all the twenty nine years I spent as a Business Manager in California School Districts I had the responsibility of handling salary negotiations with employees both certificated and classified. This process gradually became more and more complicated as labor unions began to concentrate on school employees. What had been "Associations" became "Bargaining Units" and required more and more of my time. The teachers in Santa Monica District became quite militant and I was finally unable to spend the time necessary to work with them without getting some help. This same situation prevailed all over California. Teacher's groups became "unionized" to such an extent that there were some strikes in many districts.

When it became apparent that I would have to bring in some one to help handle the work load, I decided that the new person should not be in the Business Division. Many of the items we were discussing were not matters of finance but were more properly "working conditions." I therefore talked the Superintendent into putting the new man in the Personnel Division.

It took a great deal of time to revise the organization and to find a qualified person for the new position. Meanwhile I was meeting with teacher's representatives and their labor lawyers and listening to complaints about "extra duties" imposed on the teachers. They did not want to supervise students in the hallways or on the playgrounds or before school or after school or during lunch time or any time or place outside or their classrooms. It was obvious to me that the teachers were trying to get away from the students and to narrow their responsibilities for supervision of students just as much as they possibility could. This whole movement was pushed by the union leaders and endorsed by quite a number of teachers. It was obvious to me that many parents try to get away from their children in just the same way and with both teachers and parents evading their responsibilities it is no wonder that the behavior of many of our children and young people is so horrible.

Having made all these statements, let me hasten to add that teachers cannot take the place of parents. Both parties are required to do a proper job. Teachers can supplement the work parents do with children but when parents fail to do their jobs teachers cannot do it for them. Today teachers are trying to work with too many children of extremely diverse families and cultures but mainly they have too many children of all kinds in each classroom. At the same time they are being severely criticized by everyone because the children are not learning as much as is expected and are behaving like "heathens." In my opinion, the teachers are being persecuted for the failure of adults to do their jobs as parents and as financial and spiritual supporters of our schools. Nothing is as expensive as a cheap education for a child.

At any rate, we added a new employee to our staff and he handled the "labor" problems out of the Personnel Division. The new employee was Peter Sweers, a retired Army Colonel, who had been Editor and Chief of Stars and Stripes in the Asian Theater. He was a very well educated man and I had worked with him at Inglewood where he was Public Information Director. Peter did not stay at Santa Monica very long but left when the Superintendent "retired." He became Personnel Director in a large trucking firm in Palo Alto, Calif.

I found the College Faculty at Santa Monica to be completely different from the Unified District. The college had a Faculty Senate and they appointed a Salary Committee to work out an arrangement for the pay of college faculty members. During each of the years I was in Santa Monica we were able to make a joint recommendation to the Board of Education on teachers pay. It was a real pleasure to work with the college teachers on salaries and the whole area of "working conditions" was never mentioned while we were conferring.

I must note that my whole experience at Santa Monica was a very pleasant one. The Board of Education was very stable and supportive, the Superintendent was the best one possible, and the community was very proud and supportive of its schools.

I also served on the Board of the Chamber of Commerce with some of the most successful business men in the country. I don't know whether the Chamber helped the local business men or not but they surely helped the schools and, as a result, Santa Monica had an outstanding school service for its children.