Superintendent's Role in Emery's Rolling Teacher Retention Crisis Revealed

John Rubio On The Defense

Problem Worse Than Initially Reported

37% of Teaching Staff Leaves

Rubio Fiddles

Emery Unified School District's Superintendent John Rubio is facing charges of gross incompetency after it has been revealed he made an executive decision to spend just 1% of parcel tax proceeds out of $2.5 million on retaining teachers that has exacerbated a rolling crisis; teachers quitting Emery en masse. That and the fact he has made work life intolerable for many of the 53 teachers hired by Emery according to teachers themselves.

The regularly scheduled Emery School Board April 12th meeting brought a dramatic public showdown as Emeryville's Mayor led parents and teachers in demanding account from district Superintendent John Rubio for an ongoing and unprecedented exodus of teachers over the last year regardless of the glut of cash received from the taxpayers to stop it.  Mayor Scott Donahue, responding to a Tattler story March 18th and a follow up story March 22nd, requested the Superintendent account for public tax proceeds spent specifically to retain teachers at the troubled district and to get to the bottom of a culture that has manifest a leadership vacuum resulting in 20 teachers leaving in the last year alone (the number may actually be 21, we're still waiting for confirmation from an uncooperative School District).

Candid or truthful answers were not forthcoming from the Superintendent, leading the Board to call for revisiting the issue at a later meeting.  This despite Mr Rubio’s attempt to put the brakes on citizens such as the Mayor (who had made the request for the issue to be on the Board meeting agenda for the April 12th meeting) from making agenda item requests in the future in a proposed bylaws amendment.  The bylaw amendment idea was also shelved by the Board but not before Board member Barbara Inch quoted from Sacramento mandated education code that specifically empowers private citizens the ability to place legitimate school related issues on school board agendas.

$20,000 out of $2.5 million 

spent on teacher retention 

net a loss of 37% of the 

entire teaching staff.

Despite Emery’s abysmal record on teacher retention, by far the worst of any school district in the entire Bay Area, Mr Rubio gave the Board a glowing presentation of his work retaining teachers that inextricably highlighted “improvements” in the number of teachers rushing for the exits this year over last year.  It was a claim refuted by current City Council member and former School Board Trustee Christian Patz, who attended the meeting and noted this year’s teacher retention will not be substantially known until late May, when school districts all over the State view teacher resumes for hiring in the fall.  Added to that and rounding out the final numbers would be Emery teachers vacating after that, up until the end of the year.
Mr Rubio noted “only seven" teachers had left since January 1st, a number he used to show an improvement over last year however Mr Patz told the Board that at this point last year, also about seven teachers had had separated from the District (and that number subsequently rose to 20 by year's end).  The Tattler checked Mr Patz's claim and based on Board minutes, found the number the same; seven teachers had left by this time last year (see chart at below).

When it comes to job satisfaction, Emery teachers are voting with their feet. The numbers are disturbing.  The 20 certified teachers who quit last year, including the five who left mid year, represents a loss of some 37%, far worse than Oakland Unified School District who lost 7% of their teaching staff during the same period.  The next worse district in the East Bay Area is Berkeley Unified who lost 2% of their teachers.  The other districts large and small around the Bay Area all hover around 1.5% teacher loss.

These numbers are likely attenuated by the money spent by the District on retention as determined by the Superintendent.  Of more than $2.5 million taken in last year from Measure K, the parcel tax Emeryville voters passed in 2014, records show only 2% was spent on teacher recruitment and retention, about $41,000.  Ostensibly, only about $20,000 was spent on retention exclusively, a number that dovetailed with the Superintendent’s testimony that teacher retention, feeble by any standards included, “dinners with the Superintendent” and free refreshments served during professional development seminars.  The "signing bonuses" the Superintendent claimed were paid by Measure K parcel taxes last year and count as teacher retention actually came from outside donations specifically earmarked for that purpose; another point corrected by Councilman Patz from the floor.

Notably, Board President Donn Merriam so far is sticking up for Mr Rubio; he voted YES to renew the Superintendent’s contract when it came up for review last December against the admonitions from then School Board member Patz.  It should be noted Mr Merriam, who refused to comment to the Tattler for this story, was aware of the rolling crisis of teacher retention at the time.  The Tattler endorsed Mr Merriam when he first sought election to the Board in 2014.
The Tattler noted in a story in 2014 about Measure K that promoters had refused to quantify how teacher retention would be supported by the ballot measure, but ultimately ended up endorsing it.

Teacher retention is commonly cited as one of the twin poles parents and educators use as a barometer to determine a school district’s function. The other most commonly used metric, test scores, continues to be a stubborn and intractable problem for Emery.

Teacher retention

A summary of departures:

All Certificated	24
Administrators	2
AYE	18
ESS	2
Total Teachers	20
Other Certificated	3
Mid Year	5

Below is a record of Certificated and Administrators staff that separated from Emery USD from Jan 2016 to Jan 2017.  This material is part of Emery USDs public record listed on each Agenda under 'closed session' with a link to actions taken.  AYE refers to Anna Yates Elementary School and ESS is Emery Secondary School (the High School).

Board Meeting Date	School	Effective
1-13-16	AYE	1/15/16
3-9-16	AYE	6/30/16
3-9-16	AYE	6/30/16
3-9-16	AYE	6/17/16
3-9-16	AYE	3/2/16
3-9-16	AYE	6/30/16
3-9-16	Admin	6/30/16
3-23-16	AYE	6/30/16
4-27-16	AYE	6/30/16
5-18-16	AYE	8/10/16
5-18-16	AYE	8/10/16
5-18-16	AYE	8/10/16
5-18-16	Counselor	6/17/16
5-25-16	Speech	8/10/16
5-25-16	Nurse	8/10/16
6-8-16	AYE	8/10/16
6-8-16	AYE	8/16/16
6-22-16	AYE	8/10/16
8-10-16	Admin	7/7/16
8-10-16	AYE	7/19/16
8-24-16	ESS	8/10/16
10-12-16	AYE	9/9/16
1-11-17	AYE	18/28/16
1-11-17	AYE	12/16/16
1-25-17	ESS	1-25-17

Taxpayer Funded Measure A (&K) Expenditures
Note: Measure A is slated to sunset and will be subsequently replaced with Measure K,
passed in 2014 and due to sunset after 20 years.  Both parcel tax measures tax at the
same rate. Emeryville residents are very supportive of their public schools.