BREAKING NEWS

Orange Coast College is set to receive an instructor in the coming months to boost its understaffed respiratory care program, as the Coast Community College District board of trustees voted Tuesday morning to sign a contract with the MemorialCare hospital group.

At a special meeting in the district boardroom, the board voted 4-1 to approve the agreement, which had become a center of contention with the district’s teachers’ union. The trustees amended the language of the contract to clarify that while the union would represent the work done by the faculty member on loan, the instructor would not be obligated to join the union.

With the agreement set, OCC will likely receive a respiratory care specialist from MemorialCare by the end of the spring semester, which started Monday. The specialist will function as a typical faculty member while having salary and benefits covered by the hospital. Byron Schweigert, the chief education and government affairs officer for MemorialCare, called it a win-win situation for his hospital and the district.

“One of our difficulties in health care is to find new instructors, and this is a way for people who have worked for us for years to function as instructors without losing their seniority, salary and benefits,” he said.