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The Mountain View Whisman school board has appointed an interim superintendent to fill in while Superintendent Ayindé Rudolph is out on leave.
The board voted unanimously in a special closed session meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 22, to hire Kevin Skelly to be interim superintendent, effective Friday, Oct. 25.
“This action is necessary to ensure the performance of required duties under the education code, board policies and regulations, and other applicable laws – and to ensure continuity of district operations and educational services during the period of the superintendent’s leave of absence,” board President Devon Conley said when the board reconvened into open session.
Skelly isn’t a new face in Mountain View Whisman. He also served as interim superintendent before Rudolph was hired in 2015. Before that, Skelly was previously the superintendent of the Palo Alto Unified School District from 2007 to 2014. After serving as Mountain View Whisman’s interim superintendent in 2015, he was hired as the superintendent of the San Mateo Union High School District, a position he retired from in 2022.
Rudolph has been out on leave for the past couple of weeks. The district announced on Monday, Oct. 7, that Rudolph would be taking a “short-term leave of absence,” but did not give the reason for the leave, who decided that Rudolph would take it or how long it would last.
At a meeting last week, the board approved Rudolph taking a “statutory leave” from Oct. 7 through Oct. 31. The leave was approved as part of the personnel report, a routine item that the board typically votes on at each meeting, which lists changes in employment status for staff throughout the district.
After Tuesday’s meeting, Conley declined to give additional information about Rudolph’s status with the district, including why Skelly was being hired as interim superintendent when Rudolph’s current leave is scheduled to end next week.
Rudolph’s absence comes at a time of controversy in the district, with substantial public scrutiny over contracts the district previously approved for services including executive leadership coaching, meditation for district officials and the work of an external public relations firm. The district has since paused some of these contracts.
State officials are also weighing whether to conduct an “extraordinary audit” of the district, a type of oversight meant to investigate possible fraud, misappropriation of funds or other illegal fiscal practices. Santa Clara County’s superintendent of schools referred Mountain View Whisman for the audit. As of Monday, Oct. 21, the head of the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team told the Voice that the agency was still reviewing the scope of engagement for a potential audit.
Hiring an interim superintendent
The school board’s Tuesday closed session lasted for roughly 90 minutes. When the board came out, Conley announced Skelly’s hiring and said that the board was directing its legal counsel to work with board member Bill Lambert and Skelly to draft an employment agreement.
Lambert told the Voice that he expects the terms of Skelly’s contract will be completed in the next few days. That contract would be brought back to the board for approval at its next regular meeting, which is scheduled for Nov. 7, Conley said.
Asked if Skelly’s pay and other employment details had been decided yet, Conley told the Voice that she wouldn’t comment on items discussed in closed session.
Under California law, the board can only approve the interim superintendent’s contract at a regular meeting, not a special meeting, like the board held on Tuesday, Conley said.
Skelly will take over for Chief Academic Officer Cathy Baur, who has been filling in as acting superintendent so far. Conley told the Voice that hiring an interim superintendent was the right move because Baur and other district staff have other full-time jobs that they need to attend to.
“Trying to carry the load of this entire role by themselves, that’s not going to be of service to our community,” Conley said. “We really need to make sure that we can maintain high quality education every single day in our classrooms for our students – and that means having an interim superintendent to step in and really support our staff and our team.”
I’ll wait for the compliments from the typical whiners…..
If only they could compliment as much as they complain.
Relax, @Ramirez. Enjoy a slice of cheesepizza!