Lakeport Unified’s interim superintendent moves forward with tasks to steady the district
- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
LAKEPORT, Calif. – With the Lakeport Unified School District Board of Trustees officially approving his contract, interim Superintendent Patrick Iaccino is getting to work to meet with staff, teachers and students, planning recruitments for teachers and a new superintendent, and looking for ways to bring the divided district together.
The school board voted to hire Iaccino, a veteran educator who retired a year and a half ago as superintendent of the Upper Lake Unified School District, at a special meeting on Jan. 14, as Lake County News has reported.
Five days earlier, the board voted to end the contract of Superintendent April Leiferman, an action which resulted in the resignation of Board member Lori Holmes the following day.
On Wednesday, the board held another special closed session, emerging after about 15 minutes to announce they had approved Iaccino’s contract.
Iaccino told Lake County News this week that the contract runs through June 30, the end of the school year. Because he is a retiree who is limited in how much time he can work, the contract is limited to 75 days of work and can’t exceed $45,000. The district also has agreed to pay for his benefits.
Already, Iaccino has gotten to work on a lengthy list of priorities needed to stabilize the district and move it forward.
At Wednesday’s meeting, both certificated and classified employees said they had spoken to Iaccino and they were ready to start – or resume – negotiations with the district.
Rob Alves, the representative for the teachers union, said he hopes the district can look through its budget and find the money for raises. He said they have a long way to go together and a lot to learn as they try to find solutions for students.
Iaccino said he is looking at making amendments to the district’s Local Control and Accountability Plan as part of finding that funding.
He said he’d had a cordial meeting with both unions the previous day, and he’s optimistic and very hopeful about working with them. He added that they would do everything they could to resolve all of the issues so the district can move forward, and energy can be put where it belongs – on students.
Iaccino’s plans include meeting in small groups with teachers and classified staff at each of the school sites. He said he wants to go over what’s in front of them in terms of the major tasks to be accomplished in a very short period of time.
Iaccino told Lake County News that he has upcoming meetings in February with the elementary, middle and high schools, where he wants to have candid conversations about the situation. “Let’s see what we can accomplish.”
He said he believes the district is having growing pains, not unlike what happened when he led the effort to consolidate the Upper Lake elementary and high school districts into Upper Lake Unified School District.
Moving forward, Iaccino told Lake County News that the list of major tasks in front of him includes, first and foremost, the hiring of a new chief business officer as Lynn Thomasson, Lakeport Unified’s current chief business officer, is set to depart in February.
He said he’s working on a contract with a consultant who could fill that position. She assists a number of districts in similar situations and comes highly recommended. Iaccino said the consultant also knows how to go through district budgets and is aware Lakeport Unified is about to start employee negotiations.
Iaccino said this week that the other big item on his docket includes the hiring of a new superintendent.
The timeline he has so far includes advertising the job in early to mid February. He proposes to do the job search in-house, rather than hiring a search firm.
The process will include putting together a committee with numerous stakeholders, from union representatives to parents, students, board members and community interest groups, he said.
That large group will then help do paper screenings of applicants to arrive at the final group of candidates who they will interview. Iaccino said he hopes interviews will take place from mid to late March, with an announcement of a new superintendent to be made in April and that individual joining the district in May or by the end of the year.
With Holmes leaving the board, Iaccino said he also needs to recruit for a new board member, a process that must be completed within 60 days of her resignation.
There also is the need to recruit for credentialed teachers, who are now at a premium. Iaccino said at last week’s meeting that Lakeport Unified isn’t the only district in dire straights, noting that California is short 21,000 credentialed teachers.
Clear Lake High School Principal Jill Falconer recounted going to job fairs and having a table next to districts that were handing out $5,000 signing bonuses to new teachers.
Iaccino agreed with Falconer that it’s hard to compete with big districts for teachers. That’s why he said the district needs to sit down with county leaders to find ways to entice teachers to come to Lake County.
Board Chair Dan Buffalo said they need to be aggressive with recruitment, especially in this year’s tight labor market. He suggested borrowing the city of Lakeport’s recruitment flier as a model.
Buffalo said at Wednesday’s meeting that he wanted placed on a future agenda a proposal for an ad hoc committee to address the loss of teachers. It was an idea he and fellow board members Carly Alvord and Jen Hanson discussed during their run in the fall election.
Iaccino told Lake County News this week that he hopes to get to 10 recruitment fairs ahead of the new school year.
Other priorities for Iaccino include addressing and turning around declining enrollment.
Twenty six students have left Lakeport Unified since the start of the year. That equates to lost revenue for the district totaling between $7,000 and $9,000 per student, a number that Iaccino said he won’t be able to refine until he sits down with a chief business officer to understand how the district structures its financing.
“It’s critical that kids go to school,” he said, adding that the district doesn’t receive any funding if children are absent for any reason. Previously, they had been paid if students were sick.
On Wednesday, Clear Lake High School Assistant Principal Jennifer Scheel said they needed to heal the community, and Iaccino agreed that the healing process needed to start.
Iaccino said this week that he is planning to put together a “state of the district” report for an upcoming meeting.
The board next meets on Feb. 13.
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