February 13, 2024—Grandview Independent’s Soren Hemmila speaks with Public Advocates’ Law Fellow Karissa Provenza on the three Williams complaints Public Advocates recently filed with the West Contra Consta Unified School District. While the school district is facing budgetary restrictions and has recently approved cutting 122 positions, the district is also facing disproportionate teacher vacancies and is currently filling these vacancies illegally with long-term substitutes.
Karissa Provenza, Law Fellow at Public Advocates, said districts with the highest concentrations of students from low-income households have the most classes taught by misassigned or underprepared teachers.
“Although this is a statewide issue, WCCUSD is facing far more teacher vacancies than its surrounding districts,” Provenza said. “If no fully prepared teachers are available, the district needs to take advantage of the numerous lawful options for filling vacancies with emergency year-long teachers instead of subs.”
Provenza hopes the district successfully fills the vacancies with fully credentialed teachers or, at a minimum, lawful, emergency year-long teachers.
“There may be, for example, fully credentialed teachers in the district office who could go back to the classroom. If they are unsuccessful in filling the vacancies, we may consider legal action, but ideally, we’d like to see the district collaborate with us and the complainants to solve this issue together,” Provenza said.
