Civil rights law firm Public Advocates filed a lawsuit Friday against the West Contra Costa Unified School District, accusing the district of violating students’ rights for failing to rectify issues raised in a January complaint alleging facilities and staffing problems at Stege Elementary and John F. Kennedy High School in Richmond and Helms Middle School in San Pablo.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of six educators, staff and parents, is the first to be brought under the 2004 Williams vs. California settlement, which led to new legislation establishing standards and accountability measures for educational resources and provided about $1 billion in funding to address these issues and improve California’s public schools.
Public Advocates filed three Williams education code complaints in January, saying that at these schools there weren’t enough teachers; that teachers were not competent in their assigned subject matter; and they weren’t qualified to work with English language learners.
A June 2023 complaint listed 50 Stege building issues, including opaque and inoperable windows, broken floor tiles, and mold-infested walls.
“My son is a rising fifth grader at Stege Elementary and he has not been set up for success,” said Stege Elementary parent and alum, Darrell Washington, in a press release issued by Public Advocates. “Last year he had two or three different teachers. It felt like a chaotic game of musical chairs. This system is not supportive for my child or any child at Stege. As a community activist, I want to raise awareness about what is happening at the school not just for my son, but because it is a disservice to all of our children.”
When asked about the lawsuit, WCCUSD Communications Director Raechelle Forrest said in an email to Richmondside that the district is taking active steps to address the teacher shortage by exploring various solutions to attract and retain qualified educators, including collaborating with local colleges and universities to encourage more students to pursue teaching careers and partnering with organizations in the community to provide support in every classroom.
“The district is committed to providing the best possible education to students, and we appreciate efforts to shed light on the important matter of the teacher shortage” Forrest wrote.
At Wednesday’s school board meeting district leaders said they still needed to recruit 76 elementary teachers, 23 secondary teachers, 13 special education teachers, and 247 classified employees for the upcoming school year.
The law firm said there are legislatively authorized options to fill core classroom vacancies but instead WCCUSD has relied on rolling subs, unauthorized long-term substitutes, or daily shifting teachers, resulting in “classroom chaos and learning loss for students at three of the highest-need schools in the district.”
“Students are entitled to permanent, legally authorized teachers in a school that is clean and safe,” said Karissa Provenza, Law Fellow at Public Advocates, and lead attorney on the lawsuit.
“The vacancies at Stege Elementary, Helms Middle, and John F. Kennedy High School, alongside the egregious facility conditions at Stege, highlights the district’s broad failures to provide their highest need students the stability and support they deserve.”
January complaints claim district in noncompliance
A “Williams Complaint,” part of the state’s education code, allows a student, family, teacher, or any member of the public to file a complaint about a K-12 district school for lacking educational materials, teacher vacancies or mis-assignment, and/or inadequate facilities.
Complaints are public documents, and the procedure to file one can be found on California’s Department of Education website. The complaint can be filed with a school principal or designee using a form or in writing, and these forms are available from a school or district office.
After a complaint is filed a school district has 30 days to remedy and 45 days to respond. Public Advocates said the district failed to provide a remedy within the timeline and that they instead referenced state-wide teacher shortages.
The January complaints said teacher vacancies negatively impact students’ education and place additional burdens on existing teachers to fill in the gaps.
“It is impossible for students to learn or for me to teach with these conditions,” said Sam Cleare, a teacher at Stege and one of the educators named in the January Williams complaint and quoted in a January press release. “I have had to speak with many parents and explain that their child hasn’t had a teacher for multiple years. These conversations leave me heartbroken. The inequitable learning opportunities are unacceptable.”
The complainants said that “Filling classrooms with one or more long-term substitutes is flat out illegal under the Williams settlement legislation,” said Public Advocates attorney John Affeldt in the January press release. According to demographic data compiled by the California Department of Education, 36% of Stege’s 245 pupils are Black and 37% are Hispanic or Latino.
According to an EdSource article published in April, WCCUSD acknowledged its noncompliance with the law due to unfilled teacher vacancies, attributing the issue to late teacher transfers and departures — as well as statewide systemic problems exacerbated by the pandemic — while emphasizing that the situation was not intentional, saying that they have provided support to the best of their ability within these limitations.
Overall many California school districts are dealing with low enrollment, leading to fewer state dollars, and budget cuts. WCCUSD cut 122 positions a few months ago.
According to data from the University of California, Los Angeles’ Center for the Transformation of Schools, WCCUSD has a total of 202 teacher vacancies.
The district attempted to address the vacancies in its local accountability plan for 2023-2024, allotting the equivalent of 39.5 full-time elementary school support positions, but said in its end-of-the year evaluation that the implementation of the program for the upper-elementary grades was “not as robust as initially expected,” according to the district.
Approval of the district’s 2024-25 accountability plan is currently in limbo three week’s after the beginning of the new fiscal year after complaints from parents and school board members, who said the plan lacks details about how $64.8 million in programs are helping at risk students — low-income youths, foster children, Black students and English learners.
“Ensuring that teachers are integral parts of our school communities is the key to unlocking the academic success of Black students — both locally and statewide”
— Zelon Harrison, WCCUSD Black parent leader and advocate
“By failing to uphold its mandate to address poor facilities conditions and teacher vacancies, the District creates a vicious cycle,” said co-counsel Dane Shikman from Munger, Tolles, & Olson in Friday’s press release. “Teachers leave or don’t apply for a position, in part, because of poor facilities at the school. And resulting teacher vacancies drive down student performance and attendance, causing stakeholders — including District administrators — to lose confidence and reduce investment in the school and its facilities. This suit is intended to break that cycle, so that WCCUSD students have a fighting chance to succeed in school.”
“For marginalized students who come from high-trauma backgrounds, having a sense of stability is extremely important for their academic success. What I’ve seen with the vacancies is that my students have lost hope in the educational system to provide them with a better future,” said Raka Ray, an English teacher at Kennedy High School. “They are less engaged in school, less intellectually curious, less likely to take risks in learning, less likely to engage with their peers, more likely to skip class, more likely to get into fights, and much more likely to be addicted to their phones for the temporary dopamine rush and sense of escape.”
The petitioners in the case are seeking a court order to compel WCCUSD to immediately remedy these violations, respond to complainants, and finally provide students with the safe and healthy school environment to which they are entitled.
“Ensuring that teachers are integral parts of our school communities is the key to unlocking the academic success of Black students — both locally and statewide.” said Zelon Harrison, a Black parent leader and advocate in the WCCUSD community, in the press release. “Retaining and attracting dedicated educators is our commitment to building a brighter future for our children.”
