School District Hiring Proposal Is Challenged : Moorpark: Plan to add more maintenance workers than teachers next year is criticized by three board members.

Saying that perfectly manicured school lawns are not critical to a good education, some Moorpark school board members are lining up against a proposal to hire more maintenance workers than teachers next school year.

Three members of the Moorpark Unified School District board criticized Supt. Thomas Duffy’s proposal at a budget workshop this week to hire 12 custodians, groundskeepers and other support staff compared to only four new teachers.

“I don’t think the budget proposed to us by staff has the same priorities that I have,” board member Tom Baldwin said. “What’s going on in the classroom is twice as important as support services.”

But the growing district is already short on the number of workers who maintain grounds and buildings, Duffy said.

“Studies show that there’s a direct correlation between the way people feel about schools and schooling and the way facilities look,” Duffy said.

In a draft of next school year’s budget, Duffy and his staff proposed hiring three new groundskeepers, three custodians and six office workers.

Adding the new positions would bring the number of custodial and other support staff up to the level where it should be for a district of Moorpark’s size, based on the number of students, employees and the size of district facilities, Duffy said.

The district has only 10 groundskeepers, for example, to maintain the yards at its eight school sites and at the district office, Duffy told the board at Thursday’s meeting.

Board member Clint Harper said some Moorpark schools are marred by peeling paint or lawns littered with weeds and trash.

“I know that’s because we don’t have adequate staff” for maintenance, Harper said. “But I’m much more concerned about maintaining a reasonable class size than I am about making sure the weeds are cut.”

With an average student-to-teacher ratio of 30 to 1, Moorpark already has smaller classes than surrounding districts, Moorpark school officials said.

In the Conejo Valley Unified School District, teacher contracts limit classes to 38 students, while in the Simi Valley Unified School District, class size is capped at 36 students.

The Moorpark district’s draft budget calls for adding four teachers in addition to one counselor and three other instructional staff to handle the new students expected to enroll in the 5,900-student district next year. Adding those would maintain the current average class size, officials said.

But Harper and other board members said the district should spend its money on books and supplies or on just reducing its deficit before it hires additional non-teaching staff.

School officials are projecting that the district will have to take more than $700,000 from reserves to cover $22.9 million in costs next year, which would mark the district’s third straight year of deficit spending, Harper said.

Harper said he will ask Duffy to justify each proposed new position before the board adopts the budget, which it is expected to do by the end of the month.

Board member Pamela Castro also questioned the district’s spending priorities, saying the board should consider boosting its budget for books and supplies.

Castro acknowledged the district is short of support staff but, she said, “In the classroom, we’re running behind too.”

Board member Gregory J. Barker said Friday that he has not made up his mind whether to back the proposal to hire more support staff.

Board President Sam K. Nainoa was out of town on business Thursday, and school officials said Friday that Nainoa is resigning from the board because of a heavy travel schedule for his job.