School Superintendent Takes Heat Wednesday from Parents, Teachers and Students

On the first board meeting since the start of the school year, Santa Cruz City School Superintendent Gary Bloom came under fire Wednesday night from a room packed with teachers, students and parents. 

Teachers said administrators under him were threatening them if they didn't work more than the hours they are contracted for. They said Bloom had betrayed promises to give them raises if Proposition 30 passed. When it did, they saw no raises, although they are due back at the bargaining table Sept. 27.

"I have one word: betrayal," said teacher Casey Carlson. "You have sown the seeds of betrayal." (see video.)

Carlson and other teachers, including one who won an Eddy award as teacher of the year, said they were being threatened for insubordination for not working more hours than they have contracted for. The teachers are sticking to the contract in protest of the extra hours they are asked to teach without a promised raise. They haven't had a pay raise since 2008 and have asked for a 5 percent increase. The district offered 1 percent. 

The teachers union and the district are at odds over how much more money the district was getting this year as a result of the passage of Proposition 30 last year. The district says it expects $450,000; the teacher's union, representing 450 teachers, says it is up $2 million.

Teachers' salaries range from $42,000 with one year experience to $77,000 with 25 years. Bloom got a 1 percent raise in 2012 from $155,000 to $157,000 

All wore black at the meeting to protest and they sang Johnny Cash's "Man in Black." They have been wearing black armbands to school.

Then it was the turn for parents and students who were incensed over the abrupt and improper firing of baseball coach George Arnott to take a turn at the podium.

Arnott, who served one year, was laid off with no explanation and no investigation beyond Bloom's hearing of complaints from a friend whose son played on the team and one other family. Other families and team members said they had no input.

Bloom, who thanked students for showing up at the School Board meeting to learn about democracy, then told them there was nothing they could do to have Arnott reinstated. Although more than two weeks ago, parents asked for the matter to be put on the agenda, it wasn't. It is on the agenda for October, long after practices should have begun.

"That's the great irony," said parent Mike Duffy. "He tells them they are going to learn about democracy and then he shows them Tammany Hall democracy and tells them their words don't matter and there's nothing they can do. It's corrupt."

The school has had a high turnover of volunteer coaches, but none has garnered the support of Arnott, a 36-year-old graduate who played for Cabrillo and in the minor leagues. He and his wife Abby got married on the Santa Cruz High baseball field and he spent his own time and $3,000 fixing up the field before last year's season.

No one showed up to speak in favor of the firing and Bloom asked for parents to work on a committee to hire another coach. Bloom offered Arnott a job as assistant coach, which Arnott turned down, asking instead for a probationary year and a second chance as head coach. Bloom turned that counter proposal down.

Meanwhile, on the good side of the Santa Cruz City Schools, attendance is stable, up only 23 over last year and class size ranges from 20 students in the lower grades to 27 in the higher ones.