Trustees should answer public’s questions
It was clear a year ago that Hope Elementary School would be right where they are today — searching for a new superintendent-principal after the resignation of Deborah Mccaskill in March that came after the board voted 2-1 to not renew her contract at a meeting the prior month in February — and the parents that have children enrolled at the school are left wondering why.
You always hope that the people making the decisions, in this instance elected board members, are able to step back and look at the bigger picture. By nearly all accounts, Hope School was flourishing and parents were happy with the education their children were receiving.
The board is made up of three men — Bob Nuckols, Tom Cemo and Tim Newby. Nuckols and Newby voted to not renew the contract after allowing a previous motion by Cemo to renew the contract with Mccaskill to die for lack of a second.
Hope is a small K-8 district nestled in orange groves roughly halfway between Porterville and Terra Bella. Enrollment at the school was 250 as of March with inter-district transfers totalling 153.
Mccaskill was employed by the district for a decade and each time her contract came up for renewal it was extended for the max, until now.
We don’t know exactly why the board voted to not renew her contract in February or to include an improvement plan during its mid-year evaluation of Mccaskill, considering she received a very favorable review — overall rating performance of 4.035 — and even had the backing of Tulare County Schools Superintendent Jim Vidak.
In fact, each of the board members stated they were not aware of the improvement plan being included until it was brought up at the meeting. How does this happen? How do three individuals elected to serve a school district not know?
These are three fairly well-educated men, two successful businessmen in Cemo and Nuckols and a respected high school teacher in Newby. Each has served on the board for more than a year now, decades in the case of Nuckols, and should by now know the ins and outs of this process. It’s no secret superintendents get evaluated.
An improvement plan may sound good, but it’s a flag that something is not going right and needs to be corrected.
When questioned, the board didn’t offer any solid reasons for the improvement plan. Nuckols and Newby said they had received complaints.
Cemo said he’d visited the campus and the feedback he received was very positive.
At the following board meeting, when trustees, specifically Nuckols and Newby, were pressed for details behind the improvement plan. None were offered, instead the district’s adviser Ken Caves spoke for them, but did not offer an insight. Following closed session Mccaskill’s resignation was made public at which time the board voted 2-1, again Nuckols and Newby siding together, to accept the resignation and rescind their previous vote to not renew her contract.
All of this prompted this week’s special board meeting. It was more of the same, members of the public searching for answers and being told very little outside of the process of finding a new superintendent-principal.
The board has the right to not renew a contract as happened at Hope. But they should also then articulate the reasons for their decisions, even if it may not sit well with the people they serve.