A Contra Costa Superior Court judge on Wednesday rejected a request for a new trial in a civil rights lawsuit filed by student advocates seeking to force the WCCUSD to staff classrooms with fully credentialed teachers.
The group was seeking a new trial in response to Superior Court Judge Terri Mockler’s October decision to deny 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. The lawsuit says employing underqualified teachers is harmful to the district’s low-income, African American students, and multilingual learners.
The motion for a new trial was filed by civil rights law firm Public Advocates and pro bono counsel Munger, Tolles & Olson, who said in a press release that there is “compelling evidence of the district’s legal violations and its misrepresentations to the court that it had no other options to comply” with state teaching certification requirements.
“By allowing WCCUSD to ignore state certification requirements with impunity, the court has created a dangerous precedent that threatens to undermine teacher quality standards across California, potentially relegating students in underserved communities to second-class educational experiences for years to come,” the press release states. The group plans to appeal, saying the district has “dozens of staff” available to fill five teaching vacancies at the three schools.
The group is disputing the district’s practice of putting employees with 30-day substitute teaching certificates into long-term assignments, saying they lack the subject matter expertise and training to be in a classroom for a year.
Helms teacher Jeremiah Romm said via a statement, “I’m disappointed, saddened, and exhausted. It is the district’s responsibility to ensure that every child has a qualified teacher in each of their classrooms. If we aren’t committing to this right — if the district is not held to this standard — then we don’t really believe it’s a right, and I don’t know what we stand for or why I’m even here.”
The original lawsuit, filed in July 2024 under the landmark Williams v. California settlement, came after the district didn’t address formal complaints filed in January 2024 regarding unqualified teachers and dangerous facility conditions in schools serving the district’s most vulnerable students. (The dangerous conditions refers to problems at Stege Elementary, which eventually was permanently shut down and is going to be rebuilt.)
Public Advocates said it presented the court with declarations from education leaders, including Mary Vixie Sandy, executive director of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, who stated that districts “have no authority to unilaterally ignore certification requirements” and that it would create chaos across the state to suggest they could.
Mark Mitchell, executive director for the teachers’ union, United Teachers of Richmond, contradicted the district’s court arguments, stating that no contractual barriers prevent WCCUSD from properly staffing classrooms at Stege, Helms and Kennedy schools with qualified teachers who are currently serving in non-teaching and administrative positions. In the last few months, the district transferred 21 fully-certified teachers to fill existing vacancies and had planned, but halted, transfers for 19 more.
“We are deeply disappointed in the Court’s decision to deny a new trial in the fight for fully staffed classrooms at Stege, Helms, and Kennedy,” said Francisco Ortiz, president of the United Teachers of Richmond, in a statement. “Our commitment to advocating for stable, well-supported public schools — especially for students most impacted by systemic neglect — remains unwavering.”
The district has publicly acknowledged there is a 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, West Contra Costa Unified School District’s interim superintendent, said then that the reassignments were necessary to improve academic outcomes for more than 1,000 students who she said haven’t had a consistent credentialed teacher in their classrooms.
Mockler, the judge that denied the July lawsuit, said during that hearing that she couldn’t hold WCCUSD accountable for a hiring and retention problem that plagues schools statewide.
At that time, the district told Richmondside that it was “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 on the ruling Thursday but did not receive a response as of publication time.
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.
