It’s been more than a month since Rochester schools
Superintendent Bolgen Vargas filed a notice of claim against the Rochester
school board — a precursor to potential litigation.
Though both sides are talking, it’s still unclear whether
Vargas and the board will recover from this dispute, or if Vargas will even
fulfill his contract with the school district, which expires in June 2016.
“We are taking steps to resolve it,” says Vargas’s attorney,
Steve Modica. “We haven’t reached a resolution, but we are talking.” The
resolution would have to be amicable to both sides, he says.
“What that would look like, whether he would stay, whether
he’d go — or anything in between — none of that has been decided,” Modica says.
Vargas filed the notice of claim in early March after the
board passed legislation which board members say is intended to bring the
superintendent’s authority into compliance with state education law. Over the
years and after a succession of superintendents, that authority ballooned, they
say.
The legislation also sought clarification over who can be in
the Superintendent’s Employee Group. The nonunion, senior-level management team
has about 31 members who report to the superintendent.
Vargas responded by threatening to sue the board, alleging
that his contract has been violated, and that it’s the board that is out of
step with state law.
Some board members say that they don’t want Vargas to leave
before his contract expires, and especially before the 2015-2016 budget is finalized. And they say that they still hold out
hope that the situation can be resolved, although that won’t be easy.
“He staked a claim that is very difficult to back away from,”
says longtime board member Willa Powell. “We took a very
researched position. The superintendent’s pushback on that presupposed that we
didn’t know what we were talking about.”
But Powell says that she doesn’t want to go through another
superintendent search. The situation is a bit like a family squabble, she says,
where emotions run high and feelings get hurt.
“All of us can get over that, as long as he recognizes the
board’s authority,” she says.
But that authority — specifically, the roles of the board and
superintendent — often becomes more about adults’ issues rather than concern for
children, says Rob Brown, an attorney and former member of the city school
board. He says that the board is trying to aggrandize its role.
“The board’s interfering in the SEG is not helping the children,”
Brown says. “It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of organizational management.”
Though Vargas declined to comment on the status of his notice
of claim, his attorney says that no deadlines have passed for taking legal
action, and that a suit isn’t off the table.
“If we don’t have a resolution relatively soon, then the only
option would be to litigate,” Modica says.
This article appears in Apr 15-21, 2015.
Oh Willa…apparently recognizing the board’s authority is a more important agenda item than, say, delivering educational outcomes for students. By nearly every measure, the district has slid back into last place among the big five school districts since this Superintendent took over, but the rationale for keeping him on is that it would be too hard to go through another search? That is the sort of logic employed by a board whose chief job requirements for the Superintendent position were “has a heartbeat” and “is from Rochester.”
This is clearly a problem of the Board’s creation and the Board’s sheer inability to understand how to set educational priorities. Of all the challenges that our schools face right now, Willa and her misguided colleagues choose this issue of Vargas’s staff as the must-do item on their agenda, even as they admit it has been a problem of many years. No Willa, we do not buy it. If it is a problem that has endured over the tenure of several superintendents, you and Board Members are most culpable. While cutting costs is an admirable effort, the way you are trying to accomplish this is detrimental to our district and to the children you claim to care about.
Mr. Champoux:
The Board of Education has many important “agenda” items – and our efforts to bring RCSD SEG regulations in compliance with state law is just one of our many “priorities”.
For example, as I’m sure you are aware, when confronted with the SED’s threatened closure of our largest high school (East), the Board of Education took the initiative and sought out a partnership with this region’s largest employer and most credible educational institution – the U.R. Preventing the closure of that once glorious high school and creating a safe and successful learning environment was another one of the Board’s priorities.
A year later (and a lot of planning and negotiating in between) that effort has led to one of the most promising educational initiatives this community has seen in decades. Once again, that was just one of the many areas that we focused on this last year. Others have not made the news but we are convinced that they will be equally impactful.
For example, two years ago the Board of Education articulated as one of its budgetary priorities the need to restore reading teachers to our District. (We noticed that suburban districts were hiring reading instructors but the RCSD – which had the lowest reading proficiency rates in our county – had not hired a single reading instructor in decades.)
That was a significant part of our budgetary priorities two years ago. That year we managed to get a modest four reading teachers into the budget that year. Fortunately, Dr. Vargas also saw the wisdom in this Board priority and he has helped our District get from behind the eight ball in this area. In fact, in accordance with the Board and Superintendent’s ongoing priority to increase reading proficiency, this year’s budget proposes the addition of 46 reading teachers! That all started two year ago as a Board priority.
I provide these two examples because I want you to know that our effort to rectify District practices in the area of the SEG is just one of many challenges that this Board of Education has taken on. Perhaps you are just aware of our efforts respecting the SEG because lawsuits or the threat of law involving public officials predictably get peoples’ attention.
I should also tell you that I am extremely proud that this Board did not walk away from this particular issue simply because no other Board has bothered to address the concern in the past. We are not called to this job to continue past practices simply because that’s what our predecessors did. Given the decades of abysmal outcomes, I would think that the last thing citizens would want us to do is continue the practices that have brought us nothing but failure.
And to the extent you or others may believe that existing Board members once personally supported what they now conclude is a bad practice, I can’t imagine any citizen not wanting their elected board member to own up to thier error and having the courage to do something different – particularly where that initiative amounts to a good faith effort to bring existing practice in compliance with state law. That’s what the Board has done here.
But, once again, we’ve done much more than bring our SEG regulations in compliance with the law. In fact, I would encourage you to go the RCSD website at http://www.rcsdk12.org; go to the Board’s page; and read the Board of Education’s year end report – entitled Getting the Job Done. After reading that report, you may not agree with everything we’ve done, but I’m convinced that you’ll see that the Board’s agenda was much broader than what you’ve read regarding a potential lawsuit involving the Superintendent.Thanks for your interest in our District.
This is about politics and whats worse, it is really openly poor politics. In no other successful organization in the world would a Board Chair spend so much time defending himself/herself and Mr. White can’t claim he is doing this in the name of transparency. It is all comical but the sad part is that the pitiful conditions in most schools goes on while those at the top spat. The board hired Vargas, they wanted him. They know that he needs help or he needs to go but they will never find anyone qualified to take such a thankless position so they are pretending to be the voice of the people and guide him in some way. Meanwhile the district’s floor generals-the principals have huge issues with the superintendent, there is a budget to be resolved, major school reorganization happening, declining enrollment, the worst scores in the state, low parent satisfaction, etc. etc. The students and families won’t be helped by semantics. They need serious change. They have needed it for thirty years.
So…. “Gotta Say It” I should not respond to people who express concerns or articulate facts which I disagree with? That’s not how representative democracy works. In my mind representation requires that you communicate with those that you represent. I do not consider it “defending” myself . I consider it part of the job of representing the people of this City. Accirdingly, I do an occasional radio show interview; respond to a reporters questions; or with social media or site like this I am able to bypass traditional media and interact directly with folks. When we communicate in this manner I actually beleive we are being proactive rather than “defensive”. Moreover, I beleive the people expect their representatives to communicate; share their thoughts; and debate respectfully when and where it is necessary. I do agree with you that, by and large, people want serious change. Our initiative at East and the changes to the SEG regulations are examples of “serious changes”. Now I grant you this not everyone thinks these changes are necessary. But perhaps the resistance to the Board changes to the SEG regulations reflects something else. Perhaps the resistance reflects “their” belief that the changes (whether “they”/you agree with them or not) amount to a “serious change” in the way we have done business for “the last thirty years” and they don’t want those changes – for whatever reason. Gotta Say It maybe…just maybe this isn’t “politics” that you were talking about… It’s the change that you are looking for.