New school board candidates seek change in MUSD

The $18 million Menifee Union School District office opened in September 2016. Menifee 24/7 photo: Doug Spoon

To those who are opposed to the way the Menifee Union School District is run, the Taj Mahal is the ultimate insult.

That’s what critics call the $18 million, state-of-the-art district office, which opened in September 2016 on Haun Road near City Hall. A stylish two-story structure with lavish decorations right down to the restrooms, the facility includes an elaborate water feature outside the main entrance.

It also has a huge auditorium for school board meetings, which has increasingly come in handy for the large crowds of teachers and residents who have gathered at meetings in protest.

Those critics are vocal in their displeasure with the multi-million dollar expense on a new office complex while hundreds of teachers and students still co-exist in decades-old portable classrooms that teachers say leak during rains and have been known to house rodents.

The contrast between the administration’s “Taj Mahal” headquarters and the outdated facilities housing many students may be seen as a symbol of the alleged disconnect within the district. Even so, it is only one of many issues that parents and teachers have, not only with the administration, but with the school board members.

Now, some residents are mounting an effort to bring about change.

Three of those residents – a teacher outside the district and two spouses of MUSD teachers – have announced plans to run for school board positions in Trustee Areas 3, 4 and 5. Those seats are held by Ron Ulibarri, Randy Freeman and Jerry Bowman, respectively. All three have served in those positions since 2008, and all ran unopposed for re-election in 2013.

Kyle Root, Jackie Johansen and Kenyon Jenkins have the endorsement of the Menifee Teachers Association and hope to bring change to the school board and the district as a whole. Johansen, who once taught in the district and has children who attend MUSD schools, has viewed the issue from both sides.

“When I started teaching at Menifee Valley Middle School in 2000, they put me in this gross bungalow,” said Johansen, who is now an online instructor with Julian Charter School. “They told me, ‘When you’re a new teacher, this is where you get stuck.’ The shelf life of those buildings is five years, but they were about 20 years old at the time. And one of my former students is now teaching in those same exact bungalows.

“They spent so much on that district office so the administration could move out of their old bungalows,” Johansen said, referring to the former district office in portable structures on Menifee Road. “Twenty years ago, the superintendent (Gary Cringan) said he would stay in those until all the students were out of bungalows. That isn’t the case with this administration. I don’t feel like the money is following the students.”

Jenkins, whose wife has taught in the district for 21 years, does not mince words when explaining his primary concern about the current school board and superintendent Steve Kennedy, who replaced Linda Calloway in 2013.

“The district in the last five years has been grossly mismanaged – financially especially,” said Jenkins, a local pastor who also advocates for special needs students. “The administration lives in a district office that’s Shangri-La, basically. The teachers are in portables that are falling apart.”

Some of the other issues that are sure to be brought up during the new candidates’ campaigns:

-- The school board’s approval last November of a three-year contract extension for Kennedy at a salary of $229,918 this past school year, $236,816 in 2018-19 and $243,920 in 2019-20. That makes Kennedy's salary for leading a K-8 school district greater than those of K-12 superintendents in Murrieta, Temecula and Hemet, according to public records.

-- The administration’s decision to forego new textbooks in favor of district-developed curriculum distributed to teachers in paper packets. Many teachers who say the curriculum is insufficient have refused to use it and developed their own.

-- The district’s decision a year ago to cut bussing for all students except those with special needs.

Parents packed the district auditorium a year ago to protest cuts in school bussing. File photo

-- Allegations by parents of a sharp increase in bullying at some MUSD schools, and accusations by some teachers that principals are told to minimize disciplinary action to maintain the school’s rating and preserve state funding.

-- Stalled contract negotiations with the Menifee Teachers Association during the last three bargaining sessions. Menifee teachers are among the lowest paid in Riverside County, according to public records.

-- A district board agenda item in May that proposed the hiring in an executive position of a man previously indicted on felony conflict of interest charges. The proposal to hire Ludwig Velez, who pleaded guilty to felony charges in 2008 stemming from an issue while serving on the Hawthorne City Council, was pulled from consideration after three individuals spoke out against it, alleging favoritism.

-- Scheduling of board meetings at 4:30 p.m., when most parents are unable to attend.

“The superintendent is so arrogant; he’s all about himself,” Jenkins said about Kennedy. “They went without standard curriculum for over five years, trying to save a few bucks. Then when their system failed, instead of just letting it go, they stuck with it so they don’t have to admit their mistake.

“I have a business background. In management, they talk a lot about synergy. Success does not flow from the top down, it goes from the bottom up. In this district, it’s the administration first. The teachers need to be respected by the board members and the district.”

In an email to Menifee 24/7 in response to the allegations, Kennedy explained the district’s development of its own curriculum without textbooks in recent years.

"The units of study (were) developed when common core was first adopted by the state because there were no state-adopted materials available (publishers simply had not responded to the state’s action as yet)," he said. "Our units were developed by a team of very strong teachers who worked tremendously hard to create a curriculum that would best address the needs of the new state standards.

“However, they created a divide among our teachers, who complained about the resources available and the amount of time required to prepare. Based on this, the board authorized the district to pilot (last year) a new state-approved curriculum that was then vetted by our teachers. They overwhelmingly approved the new materials and the district has adopted them for everyone. They will be in full use this school year.”

More than once, teachers have protested outside district headquarters during stalled contract negotiations. File photo

Kennedy denied allegations of increased bullying reported to Menifee 24/7 by parents and teachers. One of the parents accusing administrators of minimized discipline pointed to the guidelines for Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) state funding for schools. One of the priorities listed when state officials consider LCAP funding is “school climate”, which includes student suspension rates, student expulsion rates and other local measures.

“LCAP funding from the state is now tied to student suspensions,” Johansen said. “If they suspend a lot of kids, they get reduced funding. Student suspensions have decreased, but that doesn’t mean there are less problems. In fact, there are more, especially at the middle school level.”

Without providing figures about the number of suspensions or specifics of bullying and other negative activity at local schools, Kennedy said efforts are being made to reduce behavioral problems at local schools.

“While there have been no increases in discipline-related activity in our schools, the issues we have faced this year identified the need for us to work even more closely with families to address these issues, not only at school, but at home as well,” Kennedy wrote in an email. “The District participated in a Thoughtexchange (a problem solving software program) that recently closed, wherein we asked an open-ended question regarding safety in our schools. We will be utilizing the responses from this exchange of ideas to re-examine current policies and procedures while bolstering identified areas of need at all sites.

“Districts are not funded based on disciplinary status; they are funded based on the number of days a child is in school and the number of English language learners, foster children and the number of students that we serve coming from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Unfortunately for MUSD, we do not have enough of this population to receive the additional funding (concentration grant funding from the state) like some districts in our area receive.”

And so the disagreements over the interpretation of state guidelines and priorities of projects continues. The application process for school board candidates began this week, and it appears that for the first time in a decade, there will be a competitive election in November.

“My concern is this: People in November will be voting for governor, not just for the Menifee school board,” Johansen said. “Ours will be the lowest thing listed on the ballot. The incumbents have name recognition; people tend to get lazy and just vote for the incumbents on the lower part of the ballot.”

The focus for the new candidates, she said, will be on campaigns that raise awareness of ongoing issues and educate the public about the candidates through social media and local news.

As for Kennedy’s defense of the new district office?

“The District Office was a much needed replacement for our old bungalows that served us for so many years,” he said. “The funding was saved over the course of the past 25 years through CFD’s (Community Facilities District financing) to be used for this purpose.”

That “purpose” and others could be at the heart of the election campaign to come.