Thank you to Mo Muir
Temporary Appointment of John Addleman to ASI of Business Services
California State Standardized Test Scores
The November 17th Board Meeting appeared as if it would be a non-event. The primary item to discuss was a presentation to review the California state test scores. Because it was Board President Mo Muir’s final meeting after many years of public service, we had a nice presentation where she was recognized for her many contributions to the community. Congratulations to Mo, and a heart-felt thank you for her dedication to our students.
But as in the past, our District seems to be able to generate controversy out of thin air, and this meeting was no exception.
Since her appointment as Interim Superintendent, Tina Douglas has been doing two jobs, both the job of Interim Superintendent and much of her prior job of Associate Superintendent of Business Services. She is working her butt off and needs help. She asked the Board to approve the temporary appointment of John Addleman, one of her prior direct reports who has been informally helping her keep up with the work in her old job, so she could focus more fully on her Superintendent role.
This should have been an easy approval, and I’m sure Ms. Douglas expected it to be a perfunctory vote. She has been working 100 hours per week and has been doing a great job, but she needs help and cannot do two jobs, especially as the search for a new superintendent ramps up.
Unfortunately, Board Trustee Katrina Young did not agree. Young asked if there were other areas that needed help, and ISI Douglas said no, that all the other areas were good, but she needed help with the finance work. Nevertheless, when the vote was called, Trustee Young voted against providing that support. Because there were only three Board Members present (Mo Muir, Katrina Young, and me), all votes needed to be unanimous. As such, the motion failed, and the job of ASI Business Services remains empty.
As might be expected, ISI Douglas felt like she did not have the support of the Board. On Friday afternoon, November 18th, she emailed the Board a letter resigning her position as Interim Superintendent. So we are now, yet again, without a superintendent. I don’t know how this will play out, but Ms. Douglas’ last day as superintendent will not extend beyond the December Board Meeting.
The other item of note was the very last agenda item, the California State Standardized test scores.
Educational Services presented an overview of the test and the performance of our District’s students, and the results were disappointing to many. Test scores were very uneven across our District.
Board President Muir pointed out that the presentation did not cover the performance of individual schools, but instead presented the aggregate data for the District. When asked to comment on some of our specifically underperforming schools, Bryan Marcus, the head of educational services, refused and this caused an awkward situation to end the meeting. I would like to hear a further discussion of what we will do to improve student performance. Testing tells us how well we are doing – it doesn’t help our students improve. Our focus needs to be on actions – what do we do to improve student performance.