When the Coronado Unified School District fired Coronado High School’s head basketball coach following an incident in which team supporters threw tortillas at an opposing team, it retained him in another capacity: as a teacher at Silver Strand Elementary School.
Coronado isn’t alone in how it handles “fired” coaches, though, writes VOSD’s Kayla Jimenez.
Across the region, school administrators have fired coaches after finding they acted inappropriately or abused their roles as student mentors only to keep them on as teachers and leave them with access to students.
Firing a coach is easier than firing a teacher because employee union-negotiated collective bargaining agreements afford teachers due process rights that don’t extend to coaches.
Experts told Jimenez that school districts leave themselves vulnerable to legal action when they continue to employ staff who commit misconduct in any role on campus.
No One Will Say Why a Fallbrook School Board President Was Ousted
It’s been more than six months since an employee of the Fallbrook Union Elementary School District filed a complaint against board president Caron Lieber.
The details of that complaint remain unknown, as officials have declined to share any information about what it alleges. But earlier this year, the complaint led to a dispute among the board over who should handle the investigation against one of their — the district’s counsel or an outside attorney.
VOSD contributor Will Fritz wrote about it in March. He now reports that three of Lieber’s colleagues ousted her from the board president role last month behind closed doors. Again, the reasons for the decision are a mystery.
At least this much is known publicly: Before rising to the role of president, Lieber had been an outspoken critic of the board.
Issa Still Has Faulconer’s Back
Rob Pyers over at the non-partisan California Target Playbook got his hands on a letter that Rep. Darrell Issa is sending fellow Republicans, and it is, as Pyers said in a tweet, “brutal.”
Issa is encouraging Republicans not to support John Cox, who led the GOP “to its most disastrous statewide election result in California history” in the 2018 gubernatorial race. Issa accused Cox of dragging down other conservative contenders for congress in that same year, ran through Cox’s failed bids for office going back decades and argued that Cox is the challenger Newsom wants to face in the recall.
Instead, Issa is campaigning for former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer — which isn’t surprising. The two have long stood by each other.
Cox’s press team didn’t return a request for comment.
In Other News
- The Poway synagogue shooter, who killed one person and injured three others in 2019, pleaded guilty to murder and all the other charges he faced. (Union-Tribune)
- The region’s Hispanic population is continuing to show the largest growth in homeownership. (NBC 7)
- Carlsbad City Councilwoman Priya Bhat-Patel announced that she’s suspending her campaign for the California Senate to remain focused on the city. She cited the recent resignation of Councilwoman Cori Schumacher as one of the reasons.
- The San Diego city attorney’s office has decided not to hire an outside law firm to defend the city’s utility franchise agreements with SDG&E after learning the law firm had failed to disclose its past relationship with Sempra. (Times of San Diego)
- U-T columnist Charles Clark considers a lawsuit filed over the changing of a high school name and writes, “Instead of seeking to better understand each other’s perspective and having a more complex conversation about history … we are just going in circles, because there are people who prey on political animosity and who want to turn this into part of some culture war.”
The Morning Report was written by Maya Srikrishnan and Jesse Marx, and edited by Sara Libby.