Parents grill Mountain View Whisman over coaching, mindfulness contracts for district admins

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Parents and community members spoke out at a Thursday, Aug. 22, Mountain View Whisman school board meeting opposing district contracts for leadership coaching, staff wellness and public relations work, decrying it as a poor use of taxpayer funds.

The board heard from public commenters across multiple items on the agenda, who raised strong objections to the district signing multiple six-figure contracts for specialized coaching and meditation sessions for top administrators. 

Superintendent Ayindé Rudolph defended the costs as important to retain staff and address heavy workloads, while also announcing plans to pause certain contracts, citing “shifting economic conditions” in a slide deck he presented to the board. 

In recent months, parents have compiled various contracts that they believe are evidence of irresponsible spending on the part of the district. These include contracts for district leaders to take part in guided meditation, paying multiple companies for executive coaching and hiring an external PR firm in addition to the district’s existing communications staff.

Parent Nancy Achter told the board at Thursday’s meeting that things had “gotten a little out of hand” and public trust had been lost. She urged the district to review its contracts.

“We spend all this money on leadership and administrative coaching, and have our schools gotten any better?” Achter asked. “We spend all this money on PR, and has the relationship between the district and community gotten better? Has our relationship with City Council gotten better?”

Multiple speakers at the school board meeting referenced a recent San Francisco Chronicle article, which highlighted certain district contracts, including an $189,000 contract that the school board approved in June for guided meditation with a “certified master energy healer.” Rudolph said that as far as he knows, the contractor’s work in the district has been focused on meditation and stress management, rather than energy healing. This contract was among those that Rudolph said would be paused, and that it would be scaled back to $90,000, Rudolph told the Voice. 

He said the reductions in contracts were happening for a variety of reasons, including one vendor planning to exit the education coaching field. The district also plans to put out a formal request for proposals to find vendors to fulfill some of these functions.

Chris Parry, one of the public commenters, told the board that he didn’t want to suggest intentional wrongdoing had taken place, but that he had concerns about the amount of spending and whether the right vendors were being chosen.

“Trying to insist that everything is hunky-dory and no mistakes were made, given the Blue Violet Energy situation, that’s just burning credibility,” Parry said, referring to the contract with the “energy healer.” “It would be better just to admit the mistakes and talk about how to fix them, rather than to insist that everything is okay.”

At Thursday’s meeting, Rudolph gave a presentation about the district’s efforts to address staff wellness and provide coaching. Supporting staff is necessary for students to thrive, Rudolph said.

“The wellbeing of our teachers and administrators is not a luxury,” he said. “It’s a necessity. Wellness and stress reduction are critical to maintaining the energy, passion and dedication … of our educators.”

Rudolph went through a history of leadership training and coaching in the district, noting that the board requires him personally to have a coach and take part in professional development. He added that the district provides coaching to teachers, as well as district officials.

If budget cuts become necessary, which the district has warned may happen this school year, Rudolph said that coaching would typically be one of the first things to go, though he added it wouldn’t be enough to cover a budget shortfall.

Rudolph told the Voice that contracts for research, stress management, executive coaching, marketing and organizational alignment to strategic goals made up 1.2% of the district’s budget and is more cost-effective than hiring full-time staff.

At Thursday’s meeting, Rudolph also spoke emotionally about the need to support staff during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the wake of a video going viral in 2022 about the district’s mask mandate, which Rudolph said led to him and the principal seen in the video receiving death threats.

“And yes, we do offer stress management and meditation, and it is offered to every employee,” Rudolph said. “I will be honest that even I was a skeptic of meditation when I first started – we started during the pandemic and we continued on through different providers – but it has helped.”

Community members at Thursday’s meeting called into question the amount of money being spent, how the district picked the firms it hired and the share of resources going to district leadership, versus teachers and students.

“Focusing large amounts of money and benefits solely on administrators, and leaving teachers without the support that they desperately need, is wrong,” Lillian Good said.

Ling Wang told the board that it was “not a good look” for the district to have these contracts at a time when it was asking taxpayers for more money. The district has placed a parcel tax on this November’s ballot, expected to raise $5.4 million annually.

“Our business is educating children, and I think with these contracts, it shows that maybe our district’s priority is not educating children,” Wang said.

At Thursday’s meeting, the board pulled two contracts off the consent agenda, which contains routine items intended to be approved in a single vote. While the board pulled the contracts for separate discussion, both were ultimately approved.

The first was a $180,000 contract to hire Woodberry Associates for “strategic communication consulting services.” According to Rudolph, Woodberry assists the district’s communications staff, which he said spends substantial time responding to public records requests. Woodberry’s work includes advertising the district’s subsidized staff housing project, which it expects to open later this year, Rudolph said. 

The contract also calls for work “related to the Shoreline tax district and school funding challenges.” The district is in the midst of a tense standoff with the city of Mountain View over millions of dollars in revenue from a special tax district in the north of Mountain View.

Members of the public questioned the need to hire an external firm, in addition to the two public relations staff members that the district already employs. The board ultimately approved the contract 4-0, with board President Devon Conley noting the importance of getting the word out about teacher housing to attract high quality employees.

“I do see a real need for the communications that we do – and how it benefits our whole community. That being said, we are just swamped with work,” Conley said. “I support this contract because without it, we’re not going to be able to communicate in the ways that we need.”

The board also voted 3-1, with Bill Lambert dissenting, to approve a $326,584 contract with ILO Group to offer executive coaching and group sessions for district officials and principals. The board stipulated that the district would reach out to more staff members, inviting them to participate in the group sessions.

Lambert had made a separate motion not to approve the contract, and said that district staff could come back with a more comprehensive overview of wellness spending to give him a better justification for approving it. However, the motion failed to get support from his fellow trustees.

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