The Hermosa Beach city school board took the first step toward eliminating the full-time position of special education director for the school district, and transferring those duties to the district superintendent, to save $138,000 a year.
The move, which will be placed before the board for a formal vote next month, comes after Jen Camacho, the current special education director, announced plans to resign her post to stay home with two young children.
The move would reduce from five to four the number of administrators for the 1,300-student, K-8 school district, which has seen repeated state budget cuts. The other administrative positions are filled by principals for each of the two schools, and a district-wide technology director.
The special education director oversees a program governed by various laws and regulations, providing a variety of services, creating individual student education plans with the help of a student’s family, and coordinating with a “Special Education Local Plan Area” that works with school districts and county officials to provide programs and services.
If the school board approves the merger of the positions, the special education director’s post would be folded into the superintendent’s post over the summer. This is when the board is expected to have chosen a new superintendent to replace Alan Rasmussen, who is serving in an interim capacity since Bruce Newlin retired last summer.
The school board also considered combining the superintendent’s job with that of one of the school principals, which would have saved $73,000.
Advantages of merging the superintendent with the special education director include greater cost savings, the existing administration’s “working knowledge of the district and schools,” and a continuation of “key leadership positions at [both school sites] and the district level,” Rasmussen stated in a report to the school board.
Disadvantages include “competing time between two assignments” while “the scope of both positions are increasing,” he wrote.
Inside hire?
The school board plans to look for its new superintendent from within, before deciding whether to look without. One or both of the district’s principals — Hermosa Valley School’s Patricia Escalante and Hermosa View School’s Sylvia Gluck — might be interested in the position, Rasmussen said.
School board members have said the small district has trouble keeping a superintendent for longer than four years or so, because they leave for larger districts and higher pay.
An inside hire might be more likely to stay anchored in Hermosa, and also would have a shorter learning curve than someone new to the district and its particular issues, Rasmussen said. ER
