District website is panned

DOWNTOWN — The first major visual change to the Glendale Unified School District’s new website home page led to claims of “electioneering” from teachers union representatives Monday.

The district made the change last week, adding revolving “factoids” about its solvency as well as other blurbs of information that were responses to questions administrators had heard cropping up frequently, said Linda Junge, Glendale Unified’s public information officer.

But the changes, less than three weeks before the April 7 Board of Education elections, included statements about the district’s massive reserves that promote incumbents, said Allen Freemon, president of the Glendale Teachers Assn.

One factoid on the revamped website, which the district launched in November, claims that the district’s $21.3 million in reserves are triple the state’s required minimum and are enough to fund operations for more than one month. The messages follow other public statements by administrators that credit the board with the district’s progress and favor trustees, Freemon said.

“It would be as if the websites of the U.S. government suddenly put messages to electioneer for political incumbents at that level, and I think it’s shameful,” he said.

Freemon also criticized Supt. Michael Escalante for visiting a series of campuses early this month to discuss the district’s financial situation and the fact that officials did not plan on sending pink slips to employees. Freemon claimed the visits aimed to bolster support for incumbents, rather than assuring teachers of their job security, as administrators had claimed.

Trustee Nayiri Nahabedian has also questioned officials’ public support for board decisions during election season, including a letter from Escalante that was published in the Glendale News-Press and sent out to community members discussing the district’s strong financial position and its plans not to let any teachers go.

District officials should not be making statements that could be misconstrued as support for specific candidates, Nahabedian said during a recent board meeting.