A group of parents and teachers that lost a recent court bid to force the West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD) to only staff classrooms with properly credentialed teachers is seeking a new trial based on what it says are factual misstatements made by the district.
In October Contra Costa Contra County Superior Court Judge Terri Mockler denied the group’s July 2024 civil rights lawsuit asking the court to order the district to improve staffing issues at three schools: Helms Middle School in San Pablo and Stege Elementary and John F. Kennedy High School in Richmond, saying employing unqualified teachers is harmful to the district’s low-income, African American students, and multilingual learners.
“(Employing improperly credentialed teachers) is no more permissible than allowing unlicensed individuals to practice law before this Court or medicine in local hospitals,” the motion states.
The plaintiffs say the district made “misstatements” about its inability to transfer credentialed teachers to fill vacancies but then later did it anyway.
At a hearing set for Wednesday the petitioners plan to present evidence from Mary Vixie Sandy, executive director of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, and from the executive director of the local teachers’ union, to correct the “false record created by Respondents’ misstatements.”
“When districts unilaterally assign uncertified individuals to certificated classroom
positions as teacher of record, they do so in violation of mandatory state
certification laws established to ensure minimum teacher quality standards for the
state’s students. (Education Code section 44001),” Sandy states in her court declaration.
According to the court documents, in January of 2024 the plaintiffs filed three Williams complaints over 12 vacancies at Stege, Helms and Kennedy. It states that the district acknowledged these vacancies and conceded that it was unlawfully covering each vacancy with substitutes working beyond their authorized 30-day limit or teachers covering on a day-to-day basis. When the district failed to remedy that situation, the civil rights lawsuit was filed in July. Currently there are still five positions (one at Stege and four at Helms) without properly credentialed teachers.
“Teachers are critical to a student’s life, and having the stability of a permanent and qualified teacher is directly related to student success. In no other occupation would we stand for an unlicensed individual to fill in as a licensed provider,” said Karissa Provenza, staff attorney for Public Advocates, in a press release issued Friday.
The district has publicly acknowledged the shortage of qualified teachers, and in January the school board approved the mid-year reassignments of multiple teachers to try to fill gaps in the classrooms — a move that prompted educators to show up to the meeting waving protest signs.
Kim Moses, who recently took over as West Contra Costa Unified School District’s interim superintendent, said the reassignments are necessary to improve academic outcomes for more than 1,000 students who she said haven’t had a consistent credentialed teacher in their classrooms.
In denying the July lawsuit, Mockler said she couldn’t hold the WCCUSD accountable for a hiring and retention problem that plagues schools statewide.
At that time, the district’s response to the lawsuit was that it is “taking active steps to address the teacher shortage by exploring various solutions to attract and retain qualified educators. This includes 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.”
Richmondside reached out to district officials for comment Friday, but the district was on a week-long break and no one responded as of publication time.
The motion for a new trial also alleges that the district’s assertion that the teachers’ union won’t allow them to reassign teachers is incorrect.
In his legal declaration, Mark Mitchell, executive director of the United Teachers of Richmond, said “voluntary and involuntary transfers are permitted under our union contract,” and he pointed out that after Moses took over as interim superintendent, the district reassigned a number of teachers, thus contradicting its earlier assertion that it couldn’t do this. The WCCUSD recently involuntarily reassigned 19 fully-certified teachers to fill vacancies, after attempting to reassign 40 in December, the plaintiffs stated.
“WCCUSD is not prohibited by the union contract from involuntarily transferring teachers for various reasons beyond declining enrollment and school closures, and often does,” Michell says in his declaration.
The 2004 Williams vs. California settlement created legislation establishing standards and accountability measures for educational resources and set requirements for how school districts handle complaints about school conditions.
Teachers don’t want to teach at Helms and it starts with the parents. The disrespect from the students to the teachers is at an all time high. Then when they do get a credentialed teacher they don’t “fit” the culture. This is a product of the California way. DEI. Bring this upon themselves. You could start by raising the teachers pay.
Kids dont want to be at school and they know it’s impossible for them to fail. So they have no repercussions. Zero. But it’s not like WCCUSD is innocent in all of this.
A few facts that may be of interest.
1. The district has made efforts to get qualified teachers including reaching out to retired ones and hiring them.
2. LPS has students take 2 periods of Algebra and a study hall primarily dedicated that.
3. John Henry H. S. has 4.3% black students.
4. The U. S. public schools in the 60’s were the best in the world. There is no reason with the proper funding that can happen again.
5. The charter schools have armies of accountants and lawyers to pass legislation, elect school board members and do whatever needs to be done to transfer public $ to private hands.
6. Assuming a charter school is denied at the district level, the charter industry has corrupted these boards by massive spending in campaigns ( i. e. Valerie Cuevas 2014 in WCCUSD). The charter school will continue to appeal until it gets the result it wants as John Henry did. That was an open and shut case against renewal but was decided when one of the state board members said he would feel badly about closing a school.