School Board Meeting Gets Testy

In a meeting filled with flares of temper, the Culver City School Board, District staff and audience members discussed the dismal budget situation, and the board eventually denied an application by Building Bridge's International to start a charter school in Culver City.

During the public comments portion of the meeting, David Mielke, of the Culver City Federated Teachers union, challenged the board on the recent issuing of lay-off notices to 19 teachers in the district, while not issuing lay-off notices to any administrative personnel. (Lay-off notices must be issued in March, but the district may choose to re-hire recipients of the notices if it decides it can pay for them later.) He also alleged that reports from staff regarding salaries contained misinformation, especially regarding the longevity bonus earned by long-time employees.

Teacher Kelly Nolan noted that she had gotten a lay-off notice - her fourth in five years of teaching at Culver City High School - and expected to be re-hired as in past years. She supported the suggestion previously voiced by Board Member Steven Gourley that all district employees take a pay cut for on year.

"This is a proposal that would let everyone share the pain," she said.

Teacher Brad Hodge, however, said that a pay cut would force teachers to "pay for public education."

In response, Board Member Katherine Paspalis pointed out that while this year no administrators faced lay-offs, several administrative positions were cut last year. She then listed several of the positions that were cut. Gourley then took his comment time to launch an all-out attack on Mielke, by name, alleging that Mielke was just as likely to misinform his constituents as Mielke claimed the board was misinforming them.

"He left out everything that would be unfavorable to him," Gourley said about Mielke's comments.

Gourley also accused Mielke of complaining about small expenditures, such as paying publicist Geoff Maleman $400 a year, when the time Maleman donates (Gourley said) is worth significantly more.

"It's despicable, Mr. Mielke," Gourley said.

Mielke rose at that point and interrupted.

"Do we have a board policy against personal attacks?" Mielke demanded.

The board reluctantly agreed and Board President Scott Zeidman went on to defend some of the board actions.

"It's time to stop the in-fighting. If you want to save jobs, come up with an innovative way to do it for the students," Zeidman said, offering to give the district back his stipend for being a board member, then pointing out that the board members, in their remarks, were expressing personal opinions rather than official board policy.

In terms of action items, Dr. Millicent Powell, of Building Bridges International, was given extra time to answer a negative staff report regarding her company's petition to open a new charter school in the Blair Hills neighborhood on the abandoned former Linda Vista elementary school site.

Powell attacked several elements of the staff report and also answered questions about the proposed site, which residents had protested on the grounds of traffic problems due to the narrow streets in the area. Board members also expressed concern about a fault line under the site's western edge, and a gas-line pipe.

Board member Karlo Silbiger - an employee of Green Dot Charter Schools - expressed reservations about the application, but suggested a conditional approval.

The rest of the board went on to accept the staff report's recommendation and voted to deny the application, with Silberger voting against the motion.

The meeting was quickly adjourned.

Correction: We apologize for mixing up Dr. Siever's and Ms. Paspalis' names. It has been corrected.