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Interim Mountain View Whisman School District Superintendent Kevin Skelly is taking the top post in the San Mateo Union High School District pending a site visit in Mountain View, the San Mateo district announced Thursday.
Skelly was superintendent of the Palo Alto Unified School District for many years before coming to Mountain View for his temporary job.
Skelly, who resigned early from his post in Palo Alto in June 2014, has been serving as interim superintendent in the Mountain View school district since Jan. 1.
Skelly still has plenty of things on his plate leading up to the end of his term with the Mountain View district. The district’s Boundary Advisory Task Force and District Facilities Committee, which will give recommendations to the board on potentially major changes, including opening and closing schools, are expected to continue to meet until the end of May.
Skelly said there’s also still plenty of work to be done on the budget for the 2015-16 school year.
“There’s lots of stuff to do and (district) staff is ambitious,” Skelly said. “I anticipate the next couple of months will be very productive.”
During his short stay with the district, Skelly said, it’s been a great experience working with staff and visiting classrooms. “Everybody here has been really dedicated to kids, and have just been very enjoyable people to be around,” he said.
Skelly was chosen as San Mateo’s superintendent from a national pool of candidates, the school board said in a press release, citing his “known success” in Palo Alto for addressing the achievement gap and increasing the number of students who meet the University of California and California State University’s “A-G” graduation requirements.
“Beyond needing someone with a track record of ensuring students of all backgrounds and abilities have what they need to be ready for college and career, we also needed someone with a record of working with all stakeholders on issues of high community interest,” San Mateo Union Board Vice President Stephen Rogers stated in the release. “Kevin has the experience, desire and community mindedness that will help guide the SMUHSD in listening to our stakeholders and gaining valuable perspectives on important issues.
Skelly is set to assume his new post on July 1, pending the Palo Alto site visit, scheduled for April 30, and finalization of an employment contract, according to the board. The board anticipates finalizing the appointment at its next regular meeting on May 12. Skelly is replacing Scott Laurence, also a former Palo Alto district administrator, who announced in November he would be resigning for “quality of life reasons,” namely, to end a 60-mile commute. Laurence worked in the Palo Alto school district first as a teacher and later as principal of both Palo Alto and Gunn high schools and assistant superintendent.
Skelly worked as Palo Alto’s superintendent for seven years, with the last few marred by the opening of several U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights investigations and criticism that his leadership lacked transparency. He was replaced by current Superintendent Max McGee last fall.
With current enrollment of 8,200, San Mateo Union comprises six comprehensive high schools, one continuation high school, an adult school and a middle college that operates on the campus of College of San Mateo.
Kevin has been an asset to our district. I’m sorry to see him go and wish him the best in San Mateo. They are lucky indeed.
As a Palo Alto teacher who worked under his reign for seven years I am absolutely dumbfounded as to how this man was able to wipe away the mistakes, the lies, the deceit, the covering up, the multiple office of civil rights complaints, etc etc. As a resident of San Mateo and a parent of a school aged child who will attend San Mateo high schools, I will fight this decision.
Kevin Skelly has done a great job as the Interim Superintendent of the MVWSD. Good Luck to him in his new district. I hope the MVWSD is able to find someone as capable as Mr. Skelly to lead the district.
I hope the PAUSD teacher who has issues with Kevin Skelly spoke up with her union president Triona Gogarty. Gogarty and Skelly were very close professionally and deserve credit or blame for his seven years.
Leadership Associates ran the superintendent search for San Mateo just like it did for Palo Alto. If you aspiring superintendents want in the club, it’s best to get clubby with them. The interview process is no longer about merit.
@Leadership Associates caution: what you state is not true. Granted there are a number of Superintendent Search Firms used in our area but those firms do not only focus on local candidates. Do these search firms get to know certain candidates – of course, but they don’t just focus on them. It’s an open application process and outstanding candidates from anywhere are screened and considered for each particular opening. These search firms operate very much like the “head hunters” that many business firms use – they look for candidates that ft the specific job opening.
This will go down as one of the most damaging decisions ever by a school board.
As superintendent of PAUSD, Skelly cuckolded the School Board, kept them in the dark about the OCR agreement, sabotaged their directive about Gunn counseling in private emails, and displayed some of the most egregious behavior ever shown by any executive in any organization. He took a principal dismissed for sexually suggestive remarks and put him in charge of special needs children!
He would be a horrible prison superintendent. As a school superintendent it’s hard to imagine a more pernicious choice.
As a MVWSD Trustee – I’m glad we hired Dr. Skelly. Was he perfect? No. Did he shake what needed to be shaken? Yes. Did that cause waves? Always does. Was the process open and public (and sometimes daring in its audacity of breath)? Certainly.
If you want to know how Dr. Skelly approached this, just read the very open set of Friday Memos that he sent to the Board – and the public, as he tried to clear out a lot of dead wood and missing strategic plans. http://mvwsd.org/district-info/superintendent
I wish him well.
SN is a Trustee of the MVWSD and these are his own opinions
RESIGN. NOW.
I agree w/ the Palo Alto Teacher here. How is this guy able to receive appointment after appointment and job after job given his past. The Civil Rights episode is just the tip of the Ice Berg for Dr. Skelly. He’s been denying “responsibility” for scandal/tragedy under his watch since his days at Saratoga High over a decade ago. I suppose “Suicide Epidemics” (Gunn) and “Cheating Scandals” (Saratoga) just aren’t his responsibility even when it happens at “his school”?