Micromanagement or reform? I don't know the correct answer to my own question, but I do know that many school districts are happily corrupt, and that the teachers union, the administrators and the board incumbants in those districts fight hard to prevent reforms.
I know that Capistrano was deeply corrupt a couple of years ago. But is the new board being reasonable in its demands? Maybe, maybe not.
I think it's interesting that the board says the superintendent doesn't "set up meetings as instructed." Why doesn't the board itself set up the meetings? How hard is that? Just name a time and a place and a subject for discussion. My suspicion is that the proposed meetings would not be open to parents and the public, and would simply be a tool for board members to increase their personal power.
On the other hand, it seems that the administration and teachers might also be trying to protect personal power. (PTAs aren't the same as the "parents and public." PTAs can be very narrow and clubby, and are usually closely aligned with administration or teachers or both.) Why doesn't the superintendent set up the meetings and invite the public?
I suspect that neither side in this battle is interested in including parents and the public in the decision-making process.
Was Capo superintendent supposed to be fired?
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
December 19, 2008
SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – A contentious, 4-1/2-hour Capistrano Unified school board meeting that focused solely on whether Superintendent A. Woodrow Carter was to be fired Thursday...
When board President Ellen Addonizio announced at the end of the meeting that no action had been taken behind closed doors regarding Carter's purported dismissal, an audience of hundreds of fervent Carter supporters clapped and cheered wildly...
Carter, a retired Army colonel, was hired as superintendent of the Capistrano Unified School District in September 2007 on an interim basis, the fifth person to fill the top administrative spot in 13 months' time. But during his short tenure, a politically popular parents group known as the CUSD Recall Committee was waging a successful campaign to reconstitute the school board with all "reform" trustees.
The 3-year-old "reform" movement pledged to clean house, ridding Capistrano of what's been characterized as mismanagement and corruption reaching into the highest levels of the district's administration...
...Carter, who has worked as a school district superintendent for 81/2 years, is enormously popular among many of the district's teachers, administrators and other staff. During his 15 months at Capistrano Unified, he has earned tremendous respect from the district's PTA council leaders as well as fierce support from employee union leaders...
Trustees also routinely get into verbal tiffs with Carter from the dais, accusing him of failing to gather information and set up meetings as instructed.
In Carter's speech Thursday, he suggested some trustees were trying to "micro-manage and usurp" his authority and turn him into "a pawn on the chessboard that has to be removed."
...Recall Committee leader Tony Beall, a Rancho Santa Margarita city councilman, reminded trustees Thursday that they would need to continue their "reform" effort, even if it wasn't the politically popular move.
"These entrenched interests don't want to reform our school district," Beall said. "With the removal of the last of the old guard (trustees), one battle is over, but no one should misunderstand: This fight is far from over."
[Blogger's note to Mr. Beall: I think you should open up your reform movement to the public, and be clear and open about the information and meetings you want to have.]
Earlier story from The Orange County Register:
Capistrano school district chief may face discipline, dismissal
By PETER SCHELDEN
The Orange County Register
December 18, 2008
Capistrano Unified School District trustees will meet in private today to discuss possibly disciplining or even dismissing Superintendent A. Woodrow Carter, hired just a year ago when the board was dominated by a different political faction.
During the meeting, Carter will face his second evaluation in five months and his first by a board on which all seven trustees were supported by the CUSD Recall Committee, the powerful community group that has battled to replace board members in regular and recall elections for three years...
Vicki Soderberg, president of the Capistrano Unified Education Association, said trustees would be making a mistake to remove Carter. Soderberg's group opposed the Recall Committee candidates in the November election...
Carter's tenure started amid some controversy. He initially rejected a $28,000 raise offered when he moved from interim superintendent to the permanent post – a time when the district faced major layoffs. He pledged not to sign the contract.
Later, however, he did sign the contract – still pledging not to take the raise – but the document included a new clause on termination pay that hadn't been approved by the trustees.
That contract was invalidated after trustees learned they violated the state's open-meeting law by adopting it in a Feb. 25 closed session.
"If you want to enter into a legally binding relationship with a school district, the contract and all of its terms need to be approved by a majority of the school board," Mark Bresee, the school board's attorney, said at the time. "In the case of a high-ranking district employee, that approval has to occur in open session."
The board adopted a new contract in June that included the raise, which Carter accepted since the layoff threat had largely passed. None of the current board trustees was a party to approving that contract.
Blogger's Timeline:
1. Carter refused to sign contract when he moved from "Interim" to "permanent" superintendent position because he didn't want pay raise;
2. Carter signed contract with termination clause that had not been approved by board;
3. Feb. 25, 2008 contract approved in closed session;
4. Contract invalidated because not done in open session;
5. June 2008 New contract approved with pay raise;
6. November 2008 Entirely new board elected.
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