|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Two school administrators in the Mountain View Whisman School District announced Thursday that they will resign at the end of the month, creating turnover during an uncertain time as schools seek to reopen in the fall.
Gloria Higgins, the principal at Monta Loma Elementary School, said she will be leaving the school district at the end of the month to lead a school in Redwood City. Mistral Elementary School Principal Tabitha Miller also announced her resignation effective next week, with plans to relocate to the East Coast in order to work closer to her family.
Higgins, who has deep roots in Mountain View schools as a former school board member — later becoming Monta Loma’s principal in 2016 — said she has mixed emotions about parting ways with the school district. She will be heading up the Peninsula to work at Sandpiper School, a K-8 school in Redwood City, which she described as an innovative campus with a project-based learning model.
“I am proud of all we have accomplished at Monta Loma, and I am confident staff will continue to serve our students and community well,” Higgins said. “Monta Loma is truly a special place.”
Higgins has been a Mountain View resident for decades and grew up in a military family, which district officials said made her a perfect fit for Monta Loma. The school has a history of serving students from military families serving at Moffett Field, and the majority still attend Monta Loma.
Miller joined Mistral Elementary — home to the district’s Dual Immersion language program — in 2018 during a major reshuffling of school administrators. Mistral underwent significant changes during her two-year stint at the school, adopting a new math curriculum and reconfiguring the dual-language program to prioritize early English language acquisition for Spanish-speaking students.
Miller said it has been a “great privilege” working with students, families and educators in Mountain View, and touted 2019 test scores as proof of the school’s performance growth. Of the students still learning English, 42% met state standards for English language arts — compared with 21% in the prior year — and more students reclassified as fluent in English during the same year. Overall scores at the school have been flat over the last three years.
“While I am proud of the work we have done, my family must come first, so I am pursuing another leadership opportunity on the East Coast,” Miller said in an email.
The two resignations add to what has already been high administrative turnover in the district over the last four years, with an ongoing churn of top district staff, principals and assistant principals that has affected nearly every campus in the district. Every school except for Bubb and Castro Elementary will now have at least one new principal since 2018, and Vargas Elementary School lost its principal before it even opened in fall 2019.
The most recent round of resignations comes during uncertain times, as schools have been closed since March due to the coronavirus pandemic. Heading into the summer, school officials are grappling with how to recover lost learning time during the rocky transition to distance learning during the final months of the school year, and it’s unclear what reopening will look like in the fall.
State and county officials have been quiet on when precisely public schools will be able to reopen their doors, but have been clear that social distancing and public health restrictions will be mandatory. The rollout could include a “hybrid” approach in which some instruction takes place on campus and at home.
District officials did not provide details on the hiring process for replacing the principals at Mistral and Monta Loma.
And the Graham principal resigned in February but effective 6/30. He was inexplicably replaced immediately. What happened to him? Did he change his mind and make it effective earlier or did they show him the door?
Every principal has unique reasons, but this falls 100% on the board for supporting the wholesale rotation of principals in 2018. The board speaks with confidence that each change improves the community, but they ignore those who cautioned them that each change creates new work on onboarding an entire community, which after years of work often leads to about the same performance as before. This is because they focus on using fear and removal; rather than trust and training, to develop leadership. What ideas do you have to make MVWSD a place where educators we invest in stay?
There has been an extremely big level of principal churn in this district over the past few years. We can all speculate as to why, but maybe someone should ask for a statement from the Superintendent (or the Board) for more explanation of why this might be!
With all due respect to the critiques… how about a glass-half-full view on this:
– Educators that work in MVWSD can be successful and move on to bigger opportunities without having to leave the Bay Area. Principal Higgins is one example & I hope people would agree that she’s gone way way above and beyond in terms of years of service on the Board, school staff, and as MLE principal. Having people we know in neighboring districts – some of whom might be doing pretty innovative things – is good for MVWSD’s connections. Especially if we want to see them return someday, perhaps in an even bigger role.
– Sometimes we need to take people at their word that they need to make changes for family reasons. Who knows how much different people are being affected by the current environment, and perhaps reassessing priorities. Saying we should somehow block people from doing what’s right for them and their families… well, that’s not exactly a priority I’d support.
All that said… heck of a time to have to replace staff. And how that’s executed will be a good test of current leadership.
In the Bay Area where people move to new companies constantly in search of a bigger paycheck, it always tickles me that people expect teachers and principles to hang out at one location for decades just for their own comfort. Teachers and administrators usually LOVE their work, but at the end of the day, they have bills to pay just like everyone else. And because our district is such a good district, it makes sense that other districts and organizations would be looking to woo them to other teams with more money. That’s life. Additionally, I have no problem with moving administrators around to new schools every few years because it decreases complacency. It stops people from doing things the same old way, parents from getting special treatment, and teachers from reducing their innovation. There are definitely positives and negatives but these I think the positives outweigh the negatives. It would be better if the teachers and administrators from our schools could live in our communities more often. It think that would make these moves less traumatic for parents but overall, I think they’re good for schools and their communities. I wish these folks all the best, now we’ll get to find two new fantastic hires (or maybe promote another deserving current member of our school community).
Principal Higgins will surely be missed by the Monta Loma community. Thank you for your leadership and compassion over the years, Gloria. Peace, Love, Leopards.
I’m happy that some of the principals that were let go for no reason other than not being subservient to Carmen and Ayinde have found jobs that value their talents. Hard for talents to show in an dysfunctional District and a Board who doesn’t understand how to look out for the children. Assistant sup is far from appropriate for the job.
By my count 21 administrative staff have left the district since Rudolph arrived. That high number can be laid at his feet because of the toxic culture of fear (and removal as Chris Chiang stated above) Rudolph has created in the district. The Board is insulated from talking with current staff by the superintendent so they don’t know the true culture in the district. Perhaps the Board should consider conducting exit interviews with the staff members who have recently left to gain some insight into that culture.
One correction to the article: It says that Gloria Higgins became principal of Monta Loma School in 2016 and later says that every school except Bubb and Castro have had new principals since 2018. Should that have been since 2016? Or should Monta Loma have been in the “exception” list?
Many thanks to Gloria for her leadership at Monta Loma. She’ll be missed. Sandpiper school is lucky to get her!
I agree, the district leadership is ruled by fear and intimidation. How can there be that many administrators leave in such a short time. The board should do exit interviews, I’m sure they would hear more than they ever imagined. Dr. Rudolph doesn’t like people to disagree with him. He punishes those who do.
It’s time for a change that starts at the top!
Based on the comments here and my experience with Rudolph, he is a classic bully ruling by fear and intimidation who refuses to consider he may not know it all. It’s time the Board required an anonymous 360 evaluation of him or did those exit interviews suggested by others above. What say you Board?
The board has been asked repeatedly to take a close look at the superintendent and the culture of fear and intimidation he has created for several years and yet year after year they give him a new contract and raise. He has with the help of his yes men destroyed the district.
When will the board wake up and consider the truth?
The principal that is leaving Mistral is the woman he brought in from his old district. The people he brought have left. We are back to a culture of rotating principals, which isn’t good for the students or community.
Board members you owe it to us to do something besides rewarding a bully.
These resignations are just proof of the low morale of both administrators and teachers in MVWSD. Nothing new here!
Morale of the employees of the district is the responsibility of the superintendent. He doesn’t seem to care and is a bully of a leader. It’s time for him to go. Come on board members wake up and check in with staff members who will tell you the truth about his abysmal leadership.
The Board in the past – set their own Board Policy and approves Administrative Regulations that intensely restrict their oversight to NOT ALLOW INDEPENDENT TRUSTEE visits to school sites. This means there are only administration/Superintendent supervised visits to classrooms or opportunities to have informal discussions with teachers (and certainly there is no Board Personnel Standing Committee to do “exit interviews”). This Board has chosen to be ‘uninformed’ in this way!
Board members Wilson and Blakely support this policy – and probably will be voting YES on a new Superintendent’s contract this Thursday (the terms are being hidden from the public until after their public Open Session vote!). Both these Trustees are UP FOR REPLACEMENT or re-election if they choose to run this November (with “incumbent’s” advantage).
“And in the end, the Love (government) you get is equal to the Love (government) you make”
This week the board vita on a new contract for the superintendent. It’s time to write the board and express your concerns if you have concerns. Stand up and have your voice heard
Ask them to postpone the Superintendent’s contract vote until the next meeting – AFTER THEY HAVE PUBLISHED THE PUBLIC CONTRACT that they are going to vote on. Please.
I urge you to look at the agenda for July 2 school board meeting. Not only is the superintendent’s contract up, they are voting on close to $66,000 For leadership coaching and consulting.
That money belongs to the students and teachers not in the hands of the disfunctional district leadership team.
Look into al the money that had been spent on leadership consulting or leadership coaching. What good has that money done? The district is ruled by fear and that isn’t leadership.
Encore!
Once again no quotes from Board Members. Two years ago they claimed they had all the answers getting rid of strong leaders. Now they can’t be found anywhere. The real resident talent has been driven away. The district has built a firm reputation of incompetence and poor leadership. The Ghysels legacy lives on to continue its destruction. The real problem are the sociopaths. Rudolph, Guiterrez, Wilson… get rid of them. They can’t even manage their personal affairs. Why are we entrusting them with our children. Wheeler please step down. Blakley, please don’t run again. The other one can barely articulate an argument to the point her name isn’t even recalled. Epic fails all around. It’s just too embarrassing to follow anymore.
The district up the Peninsula for Higgins is Belmont-Redwood Shores. The principal who resigned (Tamara Moore) had a Total Cost of Employment of $181K in the 2018 calendar year / Higgins had $199k in MVWSD. BTW – BRSSD is also the District where former Sup. Goldman went to be CBO. His TCE in 2018 was $228K.
data from Transparent California (if you want more recent – you need a PRA request to MVWSD and/or brssd.org)
The current Board members are not ‘psycho’! There are just mainly run-of-the-mill “what does the Superintendent suggest” type of Board. Occasionally I think Rudolph does a very reasonable administrator’s job – of trying to get/force them to provide ‘guidance’. But Wheeler in particular, seems to fall back to “Let me ask, what does the Superintendent suggest?”
Example – good administration – the Science Curriculum NGSS adoption Pilot Program was done according to the Board Policy (like the Math curriculum for Common Core was first adopted – Not Teach2One 6th Math)
Well now we know what kind of a sweetheart deal the board is offering Rudolph this year. His contract was just published. He is getting a $1.2 million loan for housing. Seems like a person who makes almost $300,000 a year should be able to afford Housing without the board getting into the mortgage business. Use that money for the students not for a bully.
How dare they give a 1.2 million loan to the superintendent to buy a house. The money belongs with students and staff not in the hand of a incompetent bully who leads through fear.
People have short memories of all the money this superintendent has lost the district, dare I mention teach to 1
The board this Thursday will vote on adding a $1.2 million home loan to the superintendent’s compensation package:
https://mvwsd.novusagenda.com/agendapublic/MeetingView.aspx?MeetingID=107&MinutesMeetingID=-1&doctype=Agenda
The superintendent’s first contract (2015) was drafted to be clean of fringe benefits, so that it not only mirrored other staff in spirit, it was easier for taxpayers to understand. Since then, teacher housing expands what benefits are now in the spirit of being similar, that said, I wish the board would decline making employment contracts unnecessarily complex if a superintendent was ever to choose to work elsewhere.
Taxpayer paid superintendent home loans have not always ended well for local schools upon their departure (especially in a down housing market):
https://www.mercurynews.com/2012/12/12/santa-clara-county-school-board-sues-ex-superintendent-over-condo-loan/
For the sake of the children fire Rudolph. Recall the Board. Enough said. This district has hit rock bottom under his so-called leadership and that of our dysfunctional and cowardly board. And get rid of his cronies Asst. Super Carmen Ghysels and Kathy Bauer as well. It’s time to wipe the slate clean once and for all.
So five years into this mess and we still have Superintendent Rudolph funneling money to his old boss from the Carolinas. These guys have really set up the gravy train nicely. One would think we would be seeing stellar results. Instead, we see principals and other administrative staff fleeing.
Leadership Associates Peter Gorman – Organizational Development to provide strategic advice to increase student achievement and close achievement gaps $38,000.00
As a teacher in MVWSD, I just wanted to say that I have benefited from Peter Gorman’s services. Coaching of teachers and leaders is considered a ‘best practice’ in education.
Chiang: “…teacher housing expands what benefits are now in the spirit of being similar…”
I almost… *almost* threw up in my mouth when I read that. You cannot spiritually equate a temporary rental housing project for teachers and staff to a jumbo loan for permanent housing for such a highly paid employee. They are materially different and only share a broad concept of shelter as a commonality.
Perhaps we should offer Rudolph (or future superintendent) a guaranteed suite in the staff housing alongside the teachers and staff that will be lucky enough to get in? If someone in the district making $300k can get a district loan for $1.2m, then why can’t teachers making $80k get a district loan for $320k? Those would be closer to the “spirit of being similar”.
Education isn’t a REIT, it’s a right! It’s time for district leaders to consider the students first, the teachers who support the students second, and give rewards to an administration only once it has shown that it can close the achievement gap and improve scores across the district while serving all students equitably. Students aren’t getting what’s due to them, the board isn’t holding Rudolph accountable, and he isn’t holding his senior admin team accountable.
Parents are tired of seeing principals come and go. We’d rather see different faces in the district office or sitting at the board’s table. If you’re consistently not hiring the right people or placing them in the correct positions, consider there could be a problem with the HR leadership. If you can’t get student outcomes up across the district, consider there could be a problem in the academics leadership. Maybe those are the cuts the team needs to be making.
Chiang and I were In the Room Where it Happened when Rudolph was considered with others for a Superintendent replacement 5 years ago. We both tried to grapple with how we could hire – perhaps out of State or even from within California when compensation would not cover an executive (CAO) housing situation.
Jeff Harding, former Superintendent (for 5 years) of MVLA high school district, thought that his compensation, with no housing adjustment, was keeping with his own – treat Me like you treat my Fellow administrators – philosophy. He, like Rudolph, had other property that he owned. But one owned in CA and the other not.
If you only want to limit your CAO search to In State and already Residential Property wealthy, you vastly limit your prospects. That is up to debate – but frankly – it is decided by the 5 publicly elected trustees in the room where it happens. So too this employment housing perk/benefit.
BY THE VOTE OF Blakely and Wilson, you will see extremely clearly where they stand! Even a 3:2 vote (with Blakely + Wilson in minority) will grant this housing perk/benefit.
WOW! After an unbelievable 14% raise ( what did the teachers and kids get?), the District is proposing a 1.2 million dollar housing “loan” to a Superintendent that “blows away” the districts cash on ……
What? Gold colored sunglasses, a conference unattended (well I guess it was a chance to visit his wife), an over the top raise, a request for an unfair loan for a house? What actual value has he brought to the district? A laugh? …because he “got rid of 2 out of three principals that saw through his gaslighting?
This Supe is only out for one person- HIMSELF. Beware MVSD….
More sad losses of Professionals who have fought so hard for the kids they serve!
Best Wishes for Tabitha and Gloria
Superintendent Rudolph has his $1.2 million dollar loan.
Don’t blame him blame the people writing the checks…get out there and vote else STFU.