The Santa Barbara County grand jury found “strained relations” between teachers and administrators at Santa Maria High School (SMHS), according to a jury report released April 26.
The report came following an investigation into state grant funds, communication conflicts, and concerns regarding school safety and anti-bullying procedures—most of which the jury found “to be the result of an educational program in transition,” according to the report.
“Without a doubt, poor communication and conflicting educational practices existed between site administrators and teachers,” the report stated. “The jury found the conflicts to be associated with the new direction that the SMHS principal, with the support of the district administration, had taken to address the unique needs of the student population.”
The “new direction” in question is Principal Joe Domingues’ goal to change the culture of SMHS from “teacher-centric” to “student-centric,” according to the report. Currently, the campus is in the process of becoming “community-centric,” which has required additional training sessions in cultural proficiency for teachers and staff, which the grand jury’s investigation found was met by resistance or failure to recognize a need for change.
Mark Richardson, superintendent for the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District, said in an emailed statement to the Sun that the jury’s evaluation was accurate.
“We are excited about what the future holds for our students and are dedicated to engaging all stakeholders in the process of ongoing improvement focused on what’s best for the kids,” Richardson said in the emailed statement.
Still, the grand jury’s review wasn’t entirely peachy keen—the jury conducted a district-wide climate survey in 2015, for example, to which only 70 of SMHS’s 136 faculty members responded. Of the respondents, 78.9 percent said they didn’t feel they had a meaningful role in decision-making at the school, 66 percent didn’t feel supported by the school administration, 56 percent didn’t feel valued by the administration, and 55 percent thought morale at the school had deteriorated in the previous year.
The jury attributed this tension to changes in the teachers’ union contract, introduction of the Common Core curriculum, and procedural and schedule changes made by administration. Still, the report concluded that poor communication took place on both sides of the fence.
“However, the new school schedule and curriculum are now in place,” the report stated. “A new union contract was negotiated in 2016 and there was also a change in Faculty Association leadership that year. Consequently, it appeared to the jury that relations between the school administrators and teachers are improving.”
Aside from teacher-administrator communication, the jury report focused on two other areas of concern: alleged misallocation of state funds and school safety.
The former had to do with a state grant of about $16 million, which started in 2009 and was intended to fund the high school for seven years. It aimed “to improve student achievement; reduce class sizes in math, English, science, and social sciences; to increase attendance; to provide a 300:1 ratio of students to counselors; and to increase graduation rates.”
To do this, the school hired additional teachers and counselors and installed new portable classrooms, expending the majority of the state funds on teacher and counselor salaries and portable classroom lease fees. The grant funds had depleted by June 30, 2016, and the jury concluded from its investigation that they were spent properly.
As for school safety, the jury reviewed Santa Maria’s security and anti-bullying procedures. The school campus is enclosed by a tall security fence, the jury report stated, with cameras placed around to ensure students stay on campus during the school day. With regard to bullying, the high school and its district each have areas on their websites dedicated to reporting incidents of bullying, and administrators have procedures in place for following up on those reports, according to the grand jury.
SMHS also recently hosted an anti-bullying program designed to deal with the four major types of bullying (verbal, physical, social, and cyber). A six-week course follows the program, giving extra focus to students identified by staff as needing additional anti-bullying training.
This article appears in May 4-11, 2017.