SCUSD Board Violates Own Policy to Give Supt. a Huge Pay Increase, Defies Governor’s on Paying Substitutes, and Lays Off 101 Classified Employees

President Jessie Ryan and the rest of the SCUSD school board violated their own board policy when they raised Superintendent Jorge Aguilar’s total compensation to $414,848, an increase of $34,126.

On March 7, 2019, the SCUSD school board passed a resolution, No. 3060 “On Fiscal Solvency Plan to Save Our Schools” which included the following:

“District Superintendent, Jorge Aguilar, has agreed to forgo any salary increase allowed under his Employment Agreement until the District receives either a qualified or positive certification as defined in Education Code section 42131, subdivision (a)(1).”

SCUSD Board Resolution No. 3060, passed unanimously March 7, 2019

You can watch Board President Jessie Ryan read the resolution below.

Five budgets later, the District still has not submitted a budget which has received “either a qualified or positive certification.” But that didn’t stop the Ryan and board from violating its own policy in giving him the hefty increase. The vote was unanimous.

Aguilar is drawing national attention for his profiteering over the recent pandemic at the expense of almost 600 SCUSD day-to-day substitutes. Aguilar’s profiteering defies new, clarifying directive from California Governor Gavin Newsom and endorsed by the California School Board Association, the Association of California School Administrators, California Association of School Business Officials which stipulates that school districts should continue to pay employees including “temporary, hourly, exempt and non-exempt, as well as probationary employees as [school districts] determine they otherwise have been paid during this period of closure.” Aguilar’s profiteering is netting SCUSD $55,000 dollars in pay diverted away from substitutes, or over $1 million per month.

And to add insult to injury, SCUSD now appears to be impeding the unemployment claims of the same day–to-day substitutes who they are refusing to pay.

Finally, the board’s decision to significantly increase the Superintendent’s total compensation occurred right before it voted last night (April 2) to layoff 101 classified staff and 19 certificated teachers. These recent layoffs follow the school board’s unanimous decision last year (at the same time it approved Resolution 3060) to eliminate over 200 classified and 175 certificated positions.