Little comforted by the news that they will actually get paid on time, teachers in the West Fresno School District are working with the California School Employees Association to launch a recall of the school board members who plunged the district into financial chaos.
In late October, the West Fresno Teachers Association protested with picket signs when the district announced it had no money left to pay its 59 teachers or its support personnel. The tiny, 1,000-student district of two schools was in chaos as most teachers and students stayed home for two school days while the district tried to figure out where it would find money for the teachers' paychecks.
In November, under the threat of contempt fines from a judge, the school board finally agreed to let the Fresno County Office of Education cover the district's payroll temporarily.
Assembly Member Sarah Reyes (D-Fresno) has announced plans to introduce a bill allowing the state to take over the district, and Gov. Gray Davis has agreed to sign it.
Teachers and parents support a state takeover, says West Fresno Teachers Association President Laura Jones. She vows that local educators "will not turn their backs on these children and their long-term interests."
WFTA took a vote of no confidence in the school board members remaining in office after the Nov. 5 election.
Thirty years of nepotism and extravagant spending by the board is what ruined the West Fresno district's finances, sources quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle alleged. The Nov. 15 article reported that "federal and state investigators are poring over bank and credit card statements that show district money was used to buy perfume, electronics and questionable airline trips for school board members and others."
West Fresno school board members allegedly gave medical benefits to people who didn't work for the district and wrote checks to themselves and relatives from a bank account where the district had deposited a $34,000 state planning grant for a performing arts charter school.
At press time, the FBI was probing into what the district did with a $6.8 million federal technology grant.