Some DM school district parents unite in effort to protect superintendent's job

By Lee Schoenbart

Del Mar Union School District Superintendent Sharon McClain should not be fired. That is the message a group of parents in the Del Mar Union School District say they are trying to make sure the district board hears loud and clear.
Some parents and teachers contend that the board is trying to replace a second supervisor in less than two years during a time of great financial crisis and uncertainty throughout the district.
The board is seen by some parents as vigorously pursuing an expensive, single-minded agenda to terminate Superintendent Sharon McClain over personality differences.
The board’s actions are being fought on three fronts to keep the superintendent with a parent group led by Kerry Traylor of Del Mar Heights, another by Carmel Valley resident Jill Steiner and the Del Mar California Teachers Association.
“I was the one who rallied the troops for the Dec. 16 meeting when Sharon was about to be fired,” said Traylor, whose children are in the first and sixth grades at Del Mar Hills. “Through working with Vanessa Black, our PTA president at The Hills, we contacted all the PTA [leaders] in the seven other schools and made sure there were a couple hundred people at the meeting to speak out against firing Sharon McClain.”
“Out of the clear blue, last December, they were talking about the termination of the superintendent and I couldn’t believe it,” said Jill Steiner, the mother of a fifth-grader at Carmel Del Mar and a member of the PTA. “I was astonished. It was on the agenda that they were trying to terminate her for a minor incident.”
Steiner contended the incident was blown out of proportion over a disciplinary action in the form of a one-day suspension of a Sycamore Ridge student by the school’s principal that the mother vehemently objected to.
“We signed a declaration standing behind Dr. McClain and we all went to the board on Dec. 16,” stated Cassie Brunker, a kindergarten teacher at Carmel Del Mar School who has been with the district since 1990. “Instead of having 50 of us say something, we had (CTA president) David Skinner make the presentation and we all stood up at the same time.”
Brunker recalled, “Here’s our declaration saying that we stand behind Dr. McClain. We feel that Dr. McClain is a good and capable superintendent and that it would be inappropriate for her to be dismissed for any reason at this time.
“We did it within two days,” Brunker said, referring to the collection of nearly 280 district school teacher signatures. “We found out about this board meeting on Monday (Dec. 14), and on Tuesday and Wednesday we went around and got the teachers to sign this declaration.”
McClain was not fired in December and is still the district's superintendent.
Asked to comment on whether the board is still considering dismissing McClain, former board president Katherine White declined to comment, citing employer-employee confidentiality.
Steiner said she believes the board has spent an irresponsible amount of money on legal costs related to the possible termination of McClain.
“I decided to do some research because I knew there was something wrong,” she said. “I made a PRA (Public Records Act) request for the attorney’s bills involved in this effort to terminate the superintendent and it turned out they had been trying to terminate her since July 2008. I don’t think anybody knew about it.
“They had been trying to terminate her, spending all this money on the heels of having bought out (former superintendent) Tom Bishop. We haven’t finished paying off Tom Bishop the over $300,000 that we bought him out for,” Steiner exclaimed. “I have a list of all the figures.
“I was infuriated when I researched it and found they (the board) have spent almost $30,000 of our money, district money intended for the instruction of our children, on lawyers, to get rid of her,” Steiner said.
“In a time of financial crisis, we’re scrambling during these tough times to scrape together every penny we can to keep programs going for our children – and we only have two weeks left before the Feb. 15 deadline to get the money together for our ESC programs – and what are they doing; they’re pouring our money down the drain, secretively, on attorneys to get rid of this very well liked, very competent superintendent.”
Steiner said parents and teachers are angry and frustrated because of what they contend is a lack of board transparency, which was promised by board members when they ran for their seats. Now she and others feel that White, along with Annette Easton and Steven McDowell, are not living up to their campaign promises. She said parents are even more exasperated that board appointee Doug Perkins often sides with the so-called “Gang of Three” leaving what they feel is the lone vote of reason to the board’s new president and most recent member, Comischell Rodriguez.
Since the Dec. 16 meeting, where no action was taken against McClain for the parent complaint incident, board president Comischell Rodriguez, who also said she could not comment on the specifics of McClain’s employment status, said, “We’ve actually made progress and I can tell you that Sharon and I share a very good working relationship.”
The weekend of Jan. 23-24, Rodriguez and McClain traveled to Sacramento with the school board’s blessing to attend the California School Board Association Workshop for superintendents and presidents.
“We learned effective meeting norms and suggestions,” said Rodriguez, a Carmel Valley resident for 10 years. “It was a great weekend working together to see how we can structure meetings to help progress move forward.
“I came home very optimistic, and even before we went I was [optimistic] that she and I can try and move forward, not looking back,” Rodriguez said. “We really want to try and focus ourselves on the goals of the district, keep everything about the district and try not to get distracted on personalities,” she said. “I’m confident that we can do it.”
McClain said: “The board and I don’t always see eye to eye and we have had disagreements, but what I want to do is put it behind me and move forward.
“We have over 4,100 children in our district and they deserve our attention. We have difficult problems to solve and I think we can work together – board and superintendent – with the community, meaning the parents, the staffs and the whole community to solve the problems. That’s my focus. That’s what I want to do,” stated McClain, an educator since 1967.
“Now that I’m the president, here’s what I can tell you and I think it’s very important,” said Rodriguez about the situation.
“I had actually written a statement to a reporter and it never got printed, which I was really surprised,” she said. “In the little piece I wrote to that particular reporter who asked me what I wanted to say, essentially the same thing you’re asking me (about the board vs. the supervisor).
“I told her that my idea for the district is that I’m hoping that we can establish our goals and objectives because it’s like we’re in we’re in the middle of a storm and when you’re at sea and feeling a little seasick, you’re told to look at the horizon. So that’s why, in my mind, if we can just focus on our horizon, I know we’re going to have better days,” Rodriguez said. “We will have some of the tough questions answered and we just have to stay focused on those.”
“Our No. 1 focus needs to be on the education of our children and the way we educate children is unique and different because we offer our children so many extras in our curriculum,” said McClain. “Our program for our students is being threatened by the immense budget cuts in Sacramento. We have a strategic planning financial task force to try to grapple with these issues and figure out together how we can best work within our budget to preserve the wonderful programs that we have for children.
“Del Mar is a community that has the highest scores for students in the county of San Diego,” she stated. “Our students outperform most students in the county and there’s a reason for that: it’s the programs and staff we have. And we need to preserve and support that. I think that is the biggest challenge we have to face together.”
“A big piece of getting those goals and objectives solidified, we accomplished in our last meeting and that was by adopting this year’s strategic plan,” Rodriguez said. “Those goals and objectives is what we evaluate our superintendent on, so I’m looking forward to a mid-term report on our progress.
“I want to look forward,” she said. “I want to stay looking on the horizon. I want to stay focused on our future.
“I think we’ve made some significant accomplishments,” Rodriguez said, “but now are we out of the woods? No, we’re not out of the woods.”
Until Rodriguez’s efforts bear fruit to the satisfaction of all concerned, Steiner is entrenched in a grassroots effort for parents to support the superintendent.
“We are telling parents to be vigilant,” she said. “Look on the agendas of the meetings every week, and if termination of Dr. Sharon McClain is on the agenda, we’re going to try to call everyone we know to show up at those meetings just like we did in December to oppose this.”
“What I understand is, with this parent group with Jill Steiner, that they would like this board to quit spinning their wheels and spending the district’s money on Dr. McClain when there is not an issue here,” Brunker said, “and to put the focus back onto the education of our children.
“I told Jill that this had to be a grassroots community effort because they’re the ones that elected the board,” she said. “My concern is we need to fund our programs, our ESC programs especially. Right now the Del Mar Schools Education Foundation is trying to raise money. We need to have these funds by Feb. 15 and the board is not helping us by pursuing the dismissal of Dr. McClain.
“Again, it has to be a grassroots effort and that’s what I was excited when they went on Facebook originally to save Dr. McClain,” Brunker said. “I went online and said, ‘Yeah, finally!’ It has to come from the community; they’re the ones that elected the board.”
To learn more about the two parent groups seeking support for McClain, go to www.facebook.com and search for the “Parents In Support of Superintendent Sharon McClain” page.