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Laguna Beach Unified School District board members are still on the hunt for an interim superintendent after a former district principal declined the role last month as transparency concerns mounted over the process.
In the meantime, board members tapped Assistant Superintendent Jeffrey Dixon last Thursday to temporarily take over the responsibilities of the superintendent in one of the top performing school districts in Orange County until an interim is selected.
Dixon said at the board’s Jan. 9 meeting he was not expecting the board to make him the acting superintendent.
“Thank you for your confidence. I’m thankful for a great team. I’m thankful for our great families, and I am just honored to serve in this district in general so whatever position you need me in, I am happy to do,” he said.
District leaders are now expected to hold a special meeting on Jan. 16 to once again discuss hiring or appointing an interim superintendent after the departure of former Superintendent Jason Viloria at the end of last year as a new board majority took office.
That majority has faced criticism after their first meeting last month from their colleagues, two of their predecessors and some parents concerned that the new majority may have violated California’s open meeting law during a process to hire an interim superintendent.
The three member board majority has denied the allegations and argue that the previous board left them with a leadership vacuum that they urgently need to fill.
[Read: Transparency Concerns Swirl Around Laguna Beach School District]
Who Was in The Superintendent’s Office?
At the Jan. 9 meeting, the board was also set to consider allowing a board member limited authority to help administrators run the operations of the school district until an interim is hired – something Board President Dee Perry was doing without a board vote in a public meeting.
Ultimately, district officials opted not to continue in that direction after selecting Dixon and after pushback from some teachers, parents, two past board members and the board minority who said it was a conflict of interest.
Board majority member Howard Hills said at the meeting that Perry had been working out of the superintendent’s office under advice from the board’s legal counsel and in an effort to avoid liability for not having a superintendent.
“There’s certain functions that are by law, mandated to be performed by the superintendent,” said Tony De Marco, a lawyer for the district, at Thursday’s meeting.
“It was my recommendation that the Board President make herself available at the district office in a limited capacity. I think we talked about ‘you’re not superintendent,’ but somebody’s got to be there to answer questions, especially making sure that the agenda for the next meeting was put in place,” De Marco said.
Joan Malczewski, a board minority member, said that De Marco’s recommendation was not good governance.
“The recommendation, though, that Mrs. Perry sit in the superintendent’s office for a week is not necessarily a good one in terms of the optics,” she said.
Malczewski said the move should’ve been approved by the school board.
“I had no idea you were sitting in the superintendent’s office and there was some sort of decision that you were going to do your work in the superintendent’s office.”
Perry said she wanted to call a special meeting to temporarily fill the superintendent’s position before Viloria’s contract ended but the board minority was not available.
“It’s not my problem that you didn’t understand that you were putting the district at risk by not having someone in place,” she said. “I was told legally that somebody needed to be there.”
Perry later apologized for the “optics” of sitting in the superintendent’s office.
“I thought I was doing what was best for our students by keeping us from a risk of a lawsuit. I was not taking over superintendents duties. I was totally depending on our wonderful staff to do their jobs,” she said.
The Hunt For a Superintendent & A Demand For Transparency
Thursday wasn’t the board’s first attempt at finding an interim superintendent.
At the Dec. 16 meeting, board majority members voted behind closed doors to offer the interim role to Joanne Culverhouse, a former La Habra School District superintendent, despite protest from the rest of the board of a rushed, preordained and nontransparent selection process.
Shortly after that vote, a host of concerns began to surface surrounding the speed of the interim hiring process and an alleged lack of transparency.
It was also the first meeting after the November election results were certified, creating a new board majority.
Culverhouse, who is also a former Laguna Beach Unified principal, ultimately declined the offer after the December meeting.
District officials previously told Voice of OC that Culverhouse declined the offer and rescinded her interest in the role due in part to family obligations.
The superintendent spot opened up after the previous board voted unanimously at the Nov. 21 meeting to enter a separation agreement with Viloria effective Dec. 31, 2024.
At the time, district officials publicly said they made the decision to separate with Viloria not based on his performance but rather due to “anticipated changes in the governing board.”
At last week’s board meeting, a host of parents called for greater transparency and sounded off about the Dec. 16 meeting and what they described as an effort by the board majority to jam in an interim superintendent.
A few parents that spoke at the meeting like Newth Morris also made one thing clear to the board:
They are watching.
“We had a crazy election going on. I wasn’t focused on what was going on here. I’m paying attention now,” Morris said.
“We’re all paying attention now.”
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
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