A number of letters have highlighted issues in the Centralia School District. The last, from Candace Richards, focused squarely on the superintendent. What a lot of people don’t know is the school district extended the superintendent’s contract so that if they do force him out, they have to pay him for the remaining two years on his contract. He’ll walk out with over $400,000.
In January, he’ll ask that they extend his contract again. The consultant for the superintendent job said never do a three-year contract again, but they did.
The real question is what has the board been doing? What are they doing? When the superintendent asked them to drop the reading program, did they even know that other districts using the program were getting great results? Does the board even look at data, including the costs?
Some time ago, I remember when Neal Kirby was on the school board, there was an argument over doing a reading review. He and Jami Lund got the board to pass the funds for a review, but then the superintendent picked people to do it who had a conflict and one who had written Kirby to say her job was dependent on good relations with the district.
How can a person do a review of something for people they depend on for doing their job? The superintendent chose people who would only say the district was doing well, so the board missed out on getting some good information.
The superintendent later wrote the newspaper and said he asked for the review, not Kirby and Lund. Kirby’s response said the superintendent sent 500 letters to staff calling him a liar. It didn’t matter the board minutes said Kirby and Lund asked for the review.
Kirby’s time on the board was nothing but nasty. He complained about not being able to get data or information. He one time tried to get a monitoring program in place, but couldn’t get even one other board member to second the motion. Kirby did a great job at Edison Elementary as a principal but couldn’t budge the board on anything. They didn’t care.
All this latest stuff on problems at the district are just more of the same. This school board just sits in the dark with their heads in the sand. The comments on reading scores and the reading materials is telling.
The district office wrote a report blaming the reading program for low scores, and the school board just rolls over and buys a new reading program. It doesn’t matter other schools used the same program and had great success.
There’s no accountability. It’s time for some board members to move on! They have cost the district plenty, the least being the kids’ ability to read.
Ami Johnson
Centralia
