Monday, July 5, 2010

Update on New Principal Hire in MDUSD

I just heard from Gary Eberhart, VP of MDUSD's School Board. I believe this to be excellent news, and I anxiously await the official statement from the District.

This is not an official statement from the district, but I wanted to let you know so that you can get this out via your blog. Dr. Nugent is not coming to our district to work at any school. Dr. Nugent submitted a letter of resignation. The Board was not aware of past accusations against Dr. Nugent. I will be calling for a full investigation of district hiring processes so that things like this do not happen in the future. Expect an official statement from the district in the near future.

We will begin the process of a new principal search soon and the MDE community will be informed and included.


If you have any follow up questions for Gary, please feel free to email him at gary@mdusd.net.

Thank you Gary for your responses this weekend.

14 comments:

  1. Thank you Gary!

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  2. Thank you Gary and Board. Please take this as the warning that it is that this Superintendent and this Personnel office can not be trusted to make sound decisions without oversight. Lawrence needs to stop trying to make a fool out of parents who spend their valuable time to provide input only to be ignored and then be told a a yahoo like this was hired. Please please tell us he's learned something from this.

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  3. Gary, I'm sorry to say it is time to can Lawrence. This has got to be a big wake up call for the board.

    Again, WHY THE F ARE WE PLAYING MUSICAL CHAIRS WITH OUR PRINCIPALS ANYWAY?

    If principals are underperforming fire them and replace them, don't just shift good ones to bad schools and bad ones to good schools.

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  4. The good to bad shift happened at Silverwood a few years ago. We lost Susan Peterson to a school in Pittsburg while we were assigned a completely useless one. She was replaced a year later with an acceptable principal, but now SHE'S retiring and we have no idea who or what we will receive. I'm just glad my daughter only has one more year there.

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  5. I'm just wondering how Dr. Lawrence, in his short time as superintendent, knows the personnel well enough to make these changes. Who is telling him who is a good principal or administrator and who is a bad one?

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  6. Thank you??? Really is this not the same board that raved about Dr. Lawrence??? Would someone please answer the parents question as to why the district is doing the principal shuffle at so many schools!!!!!!!! Is it just to make it look like they are doing something regarding the numerous failing schools??

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  7. Anon 11:15pm,

    Well from the lack of response by the board to that question. I can only conclude they are doing it to demonstrate their power over us. They hate us (the public) and think they always know better than us.

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  8. Anon 1:29

    I happen to know of one BOE member who answers a lot of questions is on vacation. So give it time, this is the time of summer when many do go away with their families.

    I know if I were a BOE member, I would take vacation where there is no internet or cell service :) Everyone needs complete dis-connect with all this instant world crud we live in. Sounds like heaven, peaceful, no internet, no cell service!

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  9. I do not believe the board is the entity to be angry with here. Dr. Nugent was recommended by Dr. Lawrence. The superintendent was hired to do this job. He has obviously had a major screw up at this point.

    Board, if you are reading this, now, more than ever, you must communicate with the public. Your reputation and any trust we had in this district is circling the toilet, ready to be flushed away!

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  10. The board has responded to me all weekend. THEY are responding.. even the ones on vacation. I'm not putting pressure on the board to respond right now.. Right now we need answers from the district. I know we need to be somewhat patient with holiday, weekend, furloughs, whatever, but it's almost end of business here today and I'm just surprised nothing has come out of the district office today (publicly).

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  11. Peg said...While some people have had answers from various board members, I only heard from one of the five that I emailed. That was to tell me that my question would be forwarded to personnel.

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  12. I spoke to Trustee Dick Allen this morning and he said he wasn't able to reach anyone at the district office to find out whether Nugent had resigned.
    I left messages for Dr. Lawrence, Julie Braun-Martin and all of the other board members today and didn't hear back from any of them. However, Trustee Sherry Whitmarsh told me yesterday that she's on vacation.
    So, I've written a story attributing the resignation to the MDUSD blog: http://www.contracostatimes.com/education/ci_15451000?nclick_check=1tracostatimes.com/education/ci_15451000?nclick_check=1
    Hopefully, an official announcement will be made soon.

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  13. Thank you Theresa for keeping us up to date.

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  14. What a mess. In under 4 minutes Nugent's past was easily found online in multiple reports.

    So here is a question: Has anyone considered handling the site principal job like they do at the local city council level? Rotate through (or vote) staff or staff/PTA so that the one at the helm of the site has a stake, an understanding and relationships that are in place? From what I have seen, the site support staff (office manager and secretary) handle much of the role anyway. It would seem to be more stable to hire from within (and please don;t give he speech about an Administrative Credential - it can be earned, adjusted, compensated etc). They used to take teachers from sites to act as teacher coaches - it can be done.

    In fairness, there are some outstanding principals such as Linda Schuler from Bancroft El who has the respect of staff and parents.

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