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Union leader says community schools rollout skipped engagement, questions $50,000 contract and admin hires
Summary
MVTA president raised concerns that community schools were implemented without adequate site input, said the district is hiring administrators while teachers retire, and cited a $50,000 contract with UCI as evidence the vendor benefits from district studies.
At the June 11 Mountain View School Board meeting, MVTA president Latiso Diaz criticized the district's community schools rollout and pressed the board for clearer budgeting and staffing choices.
Diaz told the board she and association members had not seen the promised community engagement before money was allocated to sites, saying the steering committee's work on site-team membership had not finished before the board packet listed team makeup.
"How can this be done if the correct steps were not taken and now money will start being spent?" Diaz asked. She added that the union was preparing bargaining requests and urged earlier negotiation on the district calendar.
Diaz raised staffing and budget questions: she said the district informed MVTA that 13 teachers needed to retire and reported 17 retirements instead, while new administrative positions had been created. Diaz asked board members whether they preferred administrators or teachers directly serving students.
She also questioned a contract cited in board materials: "Then why is there a contract with UCI for $50,000 for next school year? Does that sound like it's free to you? So UCI is benefiting from the study," Diaz said, arguing the contract appeared to contradict earlier statements that UCI would provide free training.
Board members and staff later answered technical budget questions in the finance presentation about grant-funded positions and why restricted funds sometimes support salaries; there was no recorded direct rebuttal to Diaz's $50,000 contract assertion in the meeting transcript. The district's budget presenters later said some positions were shifted between restricted and unrestricted funding as grants ended and new allocations were made.
Diaz also emphasized classroom size and instructional impacts, urging the district to prioritize hiring teachers to keep class sizes lower rather than increasing administrative ranks.
The union's critique and the budget presentation together signaled an open question about whether and how community schools funding and new administrative roles will translate to classroom staffing in the year ahead. Trustees said they would continue reviewing budget details as audited figures and state funding outcomes become available.
The transcript shows Diaz's comments during the employee organizations and public comment portions of the agenda; the board did not take a separate, immediate action in response to the specific claims raised by the union at this meeting.
