04 Feb West Contra Costa Unified Fails to Provide Qualified Teachers, Complaints Allege

(Image courtesy of West Contra Costa Unified School District via Bay City News)

By Monica Velez, EdSource via Bay City News

Three complaints have been filed this week with the West Contra Costa Unified School District alleging some schools failed to provide students with qualified teachers, according to Public Advocates, a nonprofit civil rights law firm.

Attorneys have discovered numerous teacher vacancies at Stege Elementary School, Helms Middle School and John F. Kennedy High School, according to the complaints. There’s also been a pattern of filling vacancies with long-term substitutes, which attorneys say is illegal.

Although teacher shortages are a national problem, West Contra Costa is facing more vacancies than surrounding districts, said Karissa Provenza, a law fellow at Public Advocates. If the district can’t fill vacancies, officials need to “take advantage of the numerous lawful options for filling vacancies with emergency yearlong teachers instead of subs,” she said.

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“Beyond the emergency fixes, the district and the state need to boldly invest in sustainable solutions to attract and retain teachers from within the community who reflect the diverse backgrounds of their students,” Provenza added.

Teacher vacancies are not only undermining quality instruction for students, attorneys said, but they’re placing burdens on educators in the district by relying on them to fill vacant classes and passing students along.

“Some (students) have gone several years in a row being assigned to a class without a permanent, qualified teacher,” said Jeremiah Romm, a complainant and educator who has taught at Helms Middle School for 16 years, in a statement. “It becomes difficult to convince students that this district cares about their success, and I don’t know if I believe that myself.”

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Educator vacancies have kept Sam Cleare, a complainant and educator at Stege Elementary School for seven years, from collaborating with other teachers and focusing on instruction. Cleare said there have been times when 10 or more students are placed in classrooms for multiple days because of the lack of substitutes.

“Working over the contractual limit of students is unacceptable,” Cleare said. “It is impossible for students to learn or for me to teach with these conditions. I have had to speak with many parents and explain that their child hasn’t had a teacher for multiple years. These conversations leave me heartbroken. The inequitable learning opportunities are unacceptable.”

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