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The positions, called Learning Supports Coordinator, will not be funded next school year. That means the teachers who hold the jobs will need to fill TUSD vacancies or leave the district.

Over the last five years, TUSD embedded the LSCs in its 80-plus schools. They were responsible for implementing and training staffs on alternative discipline practices and instructional methods. They were also to help identify student needs and support services with the expectation that discipline would decrease and attendance would increase among students the coordinators serve.

A 2015 audit, however, found the opposite to be true. It showed that the work LSCs actually do varied by school site and that there was insufficient training and a lack of structure that resulted in some administrators abusing the positions to meet unrelated campus needs.

Though TUSD has been aware of the audit findings for four months, it vowed to narrow the work duties for coordinators to better align with goals laid out in a unitary status plan.

On Thursday, TUSD Superintendent H.T. Sanchez told the coordinators that a desegregation expert tasked with overseeing the district’s efforts still does not support the job title. Rather than go through the court to fight it and leave the coordinators in limbo, Sanchez said, the district decided to abide by the recommendation.

An order of that nature, however, can only come from the court, not Willis Hawley, the special master assigned to oversee desegregation efforts at TUSD.

Further, TUSD has historically filed its opposition to Hawley’s recommendations in court.

Evidence of the recommendation Sanchez cited in eliminating the positions was not provided Thursday. TUSD said it came during a telephone call.

In the past Hawley has questioned if the nearly $3 million TUSD spends on the coordinators each year was making a difference in reaching court-ordered desegregation goals. Plaintiffs in the desegregation case have also raised the same question, saying students would be better served by having employees assigned to work as coordinators back in the classroom.

“A lot of time and desegregation funding has been wasted,� said Sylvia Campoy, a representative for the Latino plaintiffs in the district’s decades-old desegregation case.

“With the obvious shortage of teachers within TUSD, many, too many, of our students have nothing more than ongoing substitutes teaching them. Perhaps a better and more logical use of LSCs is to place those that are highly qualified directly in the classroom, especially in schools that have endured the largest number of unfilled teaching positions.�

In addition to certified teachers, certified counselors and administrators are working as coordinators.

Sanchez said on Thursday that the district values the employees working as coordinators as well as their educational expertise and hopes they stay with TUSD.

TUSD officials could not say Thursday how the $3 million in desegregation funds used on coordinators will be reallocated next school year, explaining that the budget process is happening now.