Anna Cearley
The San Diego Union - Tribune
Nov 15, 1997. pg. B.1
DEL MAR -- Attorneys for Superintendent Robert Harriman are continuing to demand that school trustees explain why they placed him on administrative paid leave nearly a month ago.
"The board has not provided any explanation," said a Harriman attorney, Julie Dubick. "The board only reiterated that the investigation involves matters related to Dr. Harriman's performance."
This week, in two closed sessions totaling about five hours, trustees met to discuss the superintendent's job performance, but board members reported no action.
"We are working very hard to get a resolution to the situation," said Del Mar Union School Board President Jeanne Waite.
Trustees placed Harriman on leave Oct. 18, a month after a school board meeting in which the superintendent angered critics who contend that the district isn't doing enough to ease overcrowding in the fourth and fifth grades.
Neither side will comment on whether the superintendent's behavior or his handling of the district's overcrowding is connected to Harriman's leave.
Dubick said the board had recently renewed Harriman's four-year contract, effective July 1997, and there was no hint of problems in previous job reviews.
"There are only complimentary, praiseworthy materials in the file," she said.
During the controversial September meeting, Del Mar Hills School Principal Gary Wilson said a parent made derogatory and demeaning comments about the district's efforts to deal with overcrowding.
"We have been called incompetent and many other different things that we highly resent and we aren't going to put up with it," Harriman said during the meeting, which was routinely tape- recorded.
"This may be the first time a school district sues a parent, or parents, as you will, for actual defamation of character and libel."
No such lawsuit has been filed, school district officials said. This week Harriman defended his actions, but said that his language was perhaps too strong.
In hindsight, "I would have brought the message across in another way," he said.
Harriman said that he does not know if that one incident prompted trustees to place him on administrative paid leave.
According to Del Mar Union enrollment numbers, as of September, the class sizes for the fourth and fifth grades at Carmel Del Mar, Del Mar Heights and Del Mar Hills schools range from an average of 26.3 to 29.33. The desired average for the 1,860-student district in fourth and fifth grades is 27.
"The class sizes are not where we would want them to be," Harriman conceded during the September meeting.
During the meeting, the superintendent for the past 13 years referred to a Sept. 4 letter that he had sent out to parents addressing class sizes.
In it, he suggested the possible creation of a combination fourth- and fifth-grade class at Del Mar Hills School, and providing additional teacher aides for the students in those grades.
Shortly after the September meeting, a half-time teacher was hired at Del Mar Hills to work with small groups of students. A teacher's aide has also been hired at Del Mar Heights.
Harriman was placed on administrative leave following a closed school-board meeting in October. Trustees then held a follow-up meeting soon after to discuss the superintendent's evaluation, according to Virginia Pearson, another Harriman attorney. During Harriman's absence, school board president Waite said, the district's three school principals and other administrators have assumed the superintendent's duties.
Credit: STAFF WRITER
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