Suit Accusing Official of Influencing Grades Settled

The West Covina school board has settled a teacher’s lawsuit accusing a board member of leaning on school administrators to change two grades for his son.

The settlement reinstates the C and the citizenship grade of U (unsatisfactory) given by the Edgewood Middle School teacher to board member George Fuller’s son. Those grades, for a computer course, had been upgraded to B and N (needs improvement).

Fuller, who is a Los Angeles high school teacher, has maintained that he did no more than any other father when he called his son’s counselor nearly two years ago to discuss how the boy’s transfer out of the class before the term ended would affect his grades.

He specifically has denied asking that the grade be changed.

But that discussion led to a highly unusual lawsuit filed in February by the California Teachers Assn., its local affiliate and teacher Monique Ramos. The suit contended that school officials raised the boy’s academic and citizenship grades “because of the considerable influence the parent has by virtue of the parent’s position as a member of the [school] board.”

It asked that the original grades be restored, because state law says that no marks can be changed without first consulting the classroom instructor.

“The teachers are gratified the integrity of the grading system has been upheld,” said Glenn Rothner, the teachers’ attorney.

“Grades shouldn’t be a function of parental manipulation or political influence.”

Fuller said the district settled because it was a procedural error not to consult the computer class teacher about the averaging of the grades. He plans to appeal the grades. School board member Mike Spence said the agreement is not an admission of error, and allows Fuller to appeal like any other parent in the 9,500-student district.

More important, Spence said, the timing of the settlement suggests that the real motivation for the lawsuit was to create a bargaining chip in labor negotiations.

“This settlement comes as the board and the teachers have agreed to a new three-year contract, and that may not be coincidence,” he said.