School Board Calls Meeting About How to Select New Superintendent

The Emery School Board is announcing they will allow the public to weigh in on if the public should be allowed to help select the next School Superintendent by actually meeting the prospective candidates, one of whom will replace the vacating John Rubio.  The Board gave the minimum Brown Act dictated notice for the meeting to take place tomorrow evening.
If it is decided to not allow an advisory committee help in the search, then the current School Board will decide themselves.
This School Board has stood by Mr Rubio and renegotiated his contract and it could be fairly surmised anyone selected by them could have similar qualities as Mr Rubio.  Superintendent Rubio has been at the helm for four years during which time the District has faced a dramatic downturn in teacher retention and academic ranking and teachers en masse testified as to Mr Rubio's incompetence during his rancorous tenure.

If an advisory committee is not allowed, the community will not be permitted to meet the prospective candidates for Superintendent.

Special School Board Meeting:
Monday April 16th
6:00 pm
K-8 School Multi-Purpose Room
1125 53rd Street

Emery School Board: Citizens Want Some Accountability

"We're Moving On"

School Board Code for

"We're Not Accepting Accountability"

Opinion
The Emery School Board wants it both ways: They want our trust in their selection(s) of our school superintendents but when it all goes wrong they want to "move on"; they don't feel they need to answer to anyone for their bad decisions on the selection.
This is being revealed again as the Board starts up a campaign to derail citizen's requests for an explanation as to the recent disappearance of former Emery Unified School Superintendent Debbra Lindo.  Obviously, accountability isn't their strong suit.  That is clear now but also before when the same crew got hoodwinked by the false resume of former Superintendent Steven Wesley.  A quick look at the resume, riddled with falsehoods according to the San Francisco Chronicle, would have made anybody suspicious except the Emery School Board.  After the story hit the front pages, rather than accept accountability, the Board shifted the blame to the executive search company they had hired.  And don't even get us started on JL Handy, the former Emery Superintendent who  bankrupted the School District and fled town, law authorities in hot pursuit.
There's an M.O. pattern emerging here.

This time, School Board member John Affeldt would only comment, "we're moving on" when asked recently what happened to Ms Lindo.  His colleges refused to comment at all.  The refusal to accept accountability yet again is a mighty bold tactic for a group ready to make yet another superintendent pick.  Something tells us they're going to say the same things about the next superintendent they said about all the previous ones: it'll be a string of hyperbolic superlatives.  It'll be "wonderful" this and "fabulous" that.  But if Ms Lindo is so wonderful, why then is she not still the Superintendent?

School Board member John Affeldt
Speaks for his colleagues when he says
"we're moving on" after Debbra Lindo.
But before, the Board told us she was
 fabulous and not to listen to the teachers
about her.

This Board has chutzpah.
They stood by their superintendent choice in Debbra Lindo to the bitter end.  They stood by her when 93% of teachers wrote their Teachers Resolution explaining how they couldn't work with her shortly after she took office. They stood by her when they wrote a resolution of their own, backing Ms Lindo in response to and at the expense of the teachers.  They stood by her for a year and a half after the impasse by ignoring the teachers concerns as laid out in the Teachers Resolution.
Now Debbra Lindo is suddenly gone....made so by this School Board.  We want to know why.
We understand as an employee of the School District, the Board isn't free to reveal every detail regarding her termination but we also understand the Board can give us more information than they have done, which the totality essentially amounts to 'she's gone.'

This School Board has shown over and over transparency is anathema to them.  We say they can't be trusted with the selection of another superintendent until they tell us what happened to the wonderful woman that according to them, we all should have rallied behind, teachers be damned.

Barring any more information as to the "retirement" of the former Superintendent, we're going to have to assume this Board stands by Debbra Lindo's Declaration submitted to the plaintiffs in an anti-teacher lawsuit now taking place in Los Angeles.  In it, Ms Lindo expressed her desires to link student test scores to teacher pay and her desire to bust the teachers union by removing due process and tenure rights.  We have to assume these are the same sentiments of this School Board.  As they prepare to select yet another  $200,000+ School Superintendent we need to insist teacher's concerns are front and center.

So while "we're moving on" may help them escape an uncomfortable moment at a School Board meeting, it doesn't help us at all.  They may have moved on, but we want to fix what's wrong before endlessly and blindly lurching forward.  Let's start with some transparency and accountability.

Parents/Teachers Left in the Dark About Dismissal of School Superintendent Lindo

School Board Met Four Times in Closed Meetings to Discuss Employee Discipline/Dismissal/Release 

The Emery Unified School District refused to disclose the reason for the sudden dismissal of Superintendent Debbra Lindo at last night's School Board meeting stating only Ms Lindo is "on leave".  Attending teachers and parents attempted to get the Board to make some comment regarding Ms Lindo whom had recently promised to remain on as Superintendent until the close of the school year in June but the Board balked.  Board President Melodi Dice would only say the Board had "Nothing to share at this time".

John Quinn, the former State of California Department of Education Trustee and State mandated chief of Emeryville schools after the District went bankrupt in 2000 was at the Wednesday meeting and the Board voted to take him on as a temporary replacement for Ms Lindo.  Mr Quinn will serve as an "administrative advisor" until a permanent new superintendent can be found.

Records show the School Board met at least four times in late December and early January, with some Board members conferencing by phone from far flung vacation sites to discuss "public employee discipline, dismissal and release" in closed special executive sessions.

The loss of Superintendent Lindo comes on the heels of the loss of the Center of 'Community' Life project manager Roy Miller, also in January.  The Center of 'Community' Life, the schools rebuild project on San Pablo Avenue is just breaking ground for a two and a half year building project and the School District is now left with no staff institutional memory of the now ten year and more than one hundred million dollar project and none guiding it.

Mr Quinn told the Tattler the School District is not in financial duress as some had speculated after the sudden dismissal of Superintendent Lindo.

Vacating School Superintendent Leaves Emeryville Teachers Newfound Clout

Post Lindo:

Emeryville Teachers Get a Much needed Shot in the Arm

Opinion
For those wishing well of the Emery School District and the children under its care, last month's resignation announcement of embattled School Superintendent Debra Lindo is all for the good. Central to education of course, are teachers and Emeryville's public school teachers have seen their power and prestige increase tremendously as a result of Ms Lindo's departure this spring.  They stand a real chance now of being valued in this community.  They may finally be allowed into the "family" Emery Unified School District so proudly claims they're creating.

After a shameful season and a half of marginalizing and ignoring the teachers by the School Board as a result of the Teachers Resolution with its litany of abuses foisted upon the teachers by Ms Lindo, we can say the School Board would not dare to hire another imperious superintendent who would disrespect the teachers as Ms Lindo has.  That would be a bridge too far, even for this School Board.
We can see it clearly now; the teachers here at Emery are finally going to be deferred to as they should be.  We think the Board is primed to hire a replacement who will listen to the teacher's concerns.  The price to be paid by the Board if they hired another anti-teacher Superintendent are just too high, and they know it.
However, the teachers shouldn't just sit by idly waiting for it to transpire this way.  The Board may need a reminder.  They need to make it clear to this School Board they're not going to passively take the sidelines, hoping for the best.  They need to flex their new muscles now and demand a say in who gets hired as a replacement for Ms Lindo.

Imagine a school district long on action 
and short on platitudes.  Imagine a 
district that did appreciate the teachers.  
Teachers at Emery are now well 
positioned to make that happen here.  

We don't know what happened behind the scenes with Ms Lindo's resignation; was it because of the heat the Board has been taking by not standing by the teachers?  Is it somehow connected with the recently announced resignation of Center of 'Community' Life Project Director Roy Miller?  Is there something nefarious going on?   We don't know and we may never know.  One thing is for sure, it isn't tenable for an entire School District to so utterly ignore their teachers as Emery has.  We think the School Board, for all their obvious fawning enthrallment with authority, can't keep up their charade of phony pro-teacher platitudes much longer.  They can't be comfortable with the status quo.

We call on Emery teachers; capitalize on the Board's discomfort, make your concerns front and center as they seek a replacement and we'll have your back.  Let's start the work of selecting a new Superintendent of the Schools for Emery Unified under a new banner.  A banner that puts  public education power and respect where it belongs; decentralized, with those who do the actual work, those who are in the trenches, the teachers.

We hope the teachers in this district will continue to be strengthened moving forward in the wake of the dark time of the 'Lindo epoch'.  We'd like to see them parlay their imminent new found respect and empowerment.  They certainly deserve it.  And so do the kids.