Since being named Rochester schools superintendent in April,
Bolgen Vargas has been extremely popular with most
school board members. But the honeymoon is over. In a special meeting last
night, the board went into executive session to discuss Vargas’s decision to
hire former deputy mayor Patricia Malgieri. And it
didn’t go well.
Malgieri has been a strong critic of the school district, and most
board members are furious that she was chosen for a key district position. In
an interview this morning, board member Van White said some board members are
considering defunding the position. They will be meeting with Malgieri to discuss some of their concerns, he said.
“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” White said. “But I have
some significant concerns about how this relationship can benefit the children
in the city school district.”
Even before board members went into executive
session, tempers flared – about the Malgieri
contract and about several other issues.
In a nearly 20-minute exchange, White and board member Mary
Adams complained angrily that Vargas had not followed
through on a board directive involving professional development of teachers.
In late March, Vargas had agreed to have the staff at the
Freedom School – a pilot program designed for very low-achieving students –
to provide teachers district-wide with professional training this summer.
Board members say the training was supposed to focus on building cultural
sensitivity and engaging parents. Vargas, they say, was also supposed to
restore the Freedom School program at East High, where it operated for two
school years before the district shut it down a year ago.
Freedom School, White said, has been successful in getting
parents to become more involved in their children’s education, something that
has eluded the district for years.
But Vargas didn’t pursue the program with any vigor, the
board members said, and now it’s too late, because school opens in about three
weeks. Vargas countered that his staff has been overloaded and stressed, and
that the person who was going to handle their request has just started working
with the district. He had expected some understanding and flexibility from the
board, he said, because of the “mess” he inherited in the district.
He also said he wanted to pursue a professional
development program that has “integrity.” That comment seemed to infuriate both
White and Adams.
White said this morning that the superintendent has
developed a pattern of deflecting the board’s directions on policy decisions.
And his decision to hire Malgieri, White says, was
not in the spirit of working as a team to solve the district’s problems.
Regardless of who is right in the controversy over Malgieri, though, Vargas has put the board in an awkward
position. Vargas has the right to hire whom he wants for his senior,
cabinet-level positions. But White says the Malgieri
contract and those of three other new administrators committed the district to
unprecedented demands. For instance, Malgieri is
guaranteed a job for two years unless she is guilty of outrageous behavior –
committing a crime, for instance. Most cabinet-level employees work at the will
of the superintendent, White says.
But if the board attempts to defund Malgieri’s
contract, it could open the district to potential legal action, and the public
relations fall-out would be a disaster.
This article appears in Aug 8-14, 2012.
