TUSD Board asked to ignore voters
The Tucson Unified School District Governing Board is scheduled to consider approving the renewal of Superintendent John Pedicone’s contract tonight. The Superintendent’s current contract does not expire until June 30 of next year.
The agenda item came as a surprise to many for its timing. The Superintendent does not have wide-spread support throughout the community. It is unlikely the matter will have a majority of the Board’s support either.
TUSD Board members, Michael Hicks and Mark Stegeman have argued that the decision should be left to the new Board coming in after the November election. They argue that there is not an urgency to renewing the contract and the new Board should decide the matter.
According to district insiders, the move to put the matter on the agenda now was precisely to prevent an action by a new board and secure Pedicone’s employment. Pedicone’s tenure has been marred by an ever growing administration payroll, and school closures.
Recently the District held three town halls to discuss a projected shortfall of $17 million. TUSD administration attempted to claim that the shortfall was a result of cuts in state funding, but after questioning by current and hopeful board members, it admitted the shortfall was a result of declining enrollment and the end to federal stimulus funds.
According to district documents, Pedicone’s total compensation package is approximately $369,000.
At the time he was hired, Dr. Mark Stegeman opposed the amount offered to Pedicone based on Pedicone’s inexperience with large districts, and the brevity of his only top leadership position at Flowing Wells. According to district insiders, the rest of the Board was eager to hire Pedicone and expressed a willingness to meet his every demand. While he had less experience than his female predecessor, he was offered considerably more money.
“The new Board majority should have the right to hire a superintendent who will implement the Board’s vision for TUSD. That is the way public education is supposed to work,” said TU4SD co-founder and long time educator Rich Kronberg. The intent of this ill-timed action is to make firing the current superintendent (and buying out his contract) so financially onerous for TUSD that Pedicone would continue in his position despite his failure to keep families who live in TUSD in TUSD schools and his record of leading TUSD over a fiscal cliff by hiring more administrators at the expense of the classroom.”