Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Personnel Discipline topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
SBCUSD employee contests dismissal recommendation during public comment; offers documents to board
Summary
Maria J. Hernandez, an SBCUSD communications department employee, told the board she is being recommended for dismissal and disputed charges that she neglected dozens of translation assignments; she asked that her responses and supporting documents be placed in her personnel file.
At the board’s June 16 meeting Maria J. Hernandez addressed the board during the close-session public comment period and said she is an SBCUSD employee in the communications department who is the subject of a notice recommending dismissal.
"I am Maria J. Hernandez, an SBCUSD employee that is being recommended for dismissal," she said, summarizing more than two decades of public service across multiple school systems and listing degrees and professional credentials. Hernandez disputed the district’s account that she failed to complete translation work. According to her statement, SmartSheet records supplied by the district show a larger number of completed assignments than the charges allege.
Hernandez told the board that SmartSheet showed 229 assignments for the school year cited, including a mix of translation and interpretation tasks; she said the proposed disciplinary paperwork lists 79 incomplete translation assignments and that the underlying counts were inaccurate. She offered to supply the board with documentation and asked that her responses be placed in her personnel file. "If I was incompetent, why the district stop assigning me all the above mentioned assignments until the date of my administrative leave?" she asked.
The transcript records her public comment in detail but does not show a substantive response or rebuttal from district representatives during the public-comment period. Separately during the meeting the board accepted notices of recommendation for disciplinary action and statements of charges to dismiss classified employees; the public record in the transcript does not explicitly connect those docket items to the employee Hernandez named in her public comment.
Hernandez asked the board to accept and file her documentation and reiterated she could provide full records within a few days. The transcript shows staff inviting her to submit paper copies for the board and said minutes and posted records would be available later.
The board’s subsequent personnel actions reported from closed session include acceptance of disciplinary dockets and are recorded as motions carried; the meeting did not include a public adjudication of Hernandez’s claims during the session.
