Saddleback Valley Unified School District

The Saddleback Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees formally approved a new two-year contract Monday with the district's 1,200 teachers and guidance counselors. Under the new contract, teachers and counselors in the financially strapped district will accept a salary and benefits freeze retroactive to July, 1991, and extending to June 30, 1993.

The public is invited to attend a debate Thursday on Proposition 174, the school voucher initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot. Arguments in favor of the proposition will be made by David Jackson, executive director of Fairmont Private School; Frank L. Ury, Saddleback Valley Unified School District board member, and Michele Hoover of the Choice in Education League. Presenting the opposing view will James O.

Mission Viejo resident Bobbee Cline, a community volunteer, has been appointed an interim trustee of the Saddleback Valley Unified School District to fill the unexpired term of board president Kristine Kister Robinson. Cline, 45, served as the first director of Citizen Action to Save Education, or CASE, a parent volunteer group organized in 1983 to lobby state legislators for school reform. She is married and has four children.

More than $3.4 million in scholarships and grants were awarded to the June graduates of Saddleback Valley Unified School District's three high schools, according to a district report. The grants ranged from $100 to $150,000, and included full four-year scholarships to universities including Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Harvard and Yale, the report said. Tuition and board at these institutions range from $10,000 to $30,000 a year.

Short of land and locations for parks and sports facilities, the city approved an agreement last week to work with the Saddleback Valley Unified School District on improving recreational and cultural amenities for the city's residents. At their respective meetings last Tuesday, the City Council and the district's Board of Trustees approved a resolution pledging mutual cooperation.

Saddleback Valley Unified School District board members on Tuesday were able to restore about $80,000 worth of funds to several academic programs, including the district's top-rated academic decathlon teams. In June, the board adopted a $2.3-million reduction plan to balance its $109-million budget.

The Village Program at Cordillera Elementary School has won a state Golden Bell Award. Fifth- and sixth-grade teachers Katie Kelly, Carolyn Daly, Marji Jacobs and Beth Lee were honored by the Saddleback Valley Unified School District's trustees last week after being commended for developing an outstanding instructional program. "What makes this program special is the fact that all of us get to know all the children in all the classes," Daly said.

The Saddleback Valley Unified School District board tonight will consider subsidizing the salaries of employees who are military reservists and are called to active duty. For 180 days, the district would pay employees the difference between their military salary and their district salary if they are called up because of the Gulf War. The employees and their families would also keep their district medical insurance. Federal law requires an employer to pay the difference for 30 days. Deputy Supt.

A business relations specialist for the Saddleback Valley Unified School District has filed a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and a discriminatory and hostile working environment that led to her demotion from public information officer. In a suit filed in Superior Court this week, Susan Wilson alleges that William Manahan, then-assistant superintendent, began sexually harassing her in 1999.