District 5 school board member Bill Slayton says he has heard Keith Leonard isn’t sure he wants to be the interim school superintendent.
This morning, Inweekly reached out to Slayton about last night’s 3-2 vote to terminate Superintendent Tim Smith.
“A lot of people called me today and wanted to know why they didn’t know about it and couldn’t come to speak out in support of the superintendent,” Slayton said.
He continued, “I have been informed Keith has not said yes. It seems the chairman has put forth his name without consulting him. Keith Leonard did not know his name was going to be mentioned. According to a discussion I had with the attorney, we’re hanging on now and don’t know what’s going to happen next. We may have to call a special meeting.”
Why this matters: Fetsko chose to skip over Deputy Superintendent Shenna Payne and other assistant superintendents with more experience at that level: Steve Marcanio, Terry St. Cyr and Shawn Dennis. Fetsko explained that he picked Leonard because he was a finalist in 2020.
School Board member David Williams tried to nominate Dr. Michael Roberts, but he dropped the suggestion when he was told he needed to amend Fetsko’s motion.
Regardless what transpires, or comes of all this, Keith Leonard, is a good man and while I don’t know the ins and outs of every day operations of the School system, I think he is good for our students and our teachers. I hope he doesn’t somehow get turned into collateral damage.
Question: Did Leonard “know” Fetsko was going to make a motion to terminate Smith?
The Escambia County School District’s Policy Manual at the link below addresses “Appointed Superintendent” in Section 1.24. It provides that the School Board Attorney is the person who facilitates the annual evaluation of the Superintendent. The manual describes that the Superintendent’s evaluation shall be presented to the School Board for discussion at a regular meeting. That was done on May 16th. An old Florida Attorney General Advisory Opinion (AGO 97-23) advises that the actual evaluation is the “summative evaluation” voted upon by the school board as a body. Why would the individual board member evaluations be posted online and made public? The manual further provides, “The Superintendent has up to two (2) weeks to present a written response to the final evaluation.” That hasn’t been done. Fetsko’s motion to terminate Superintendent Smith seems to have been done to ensure that Smith could not refute the allegations made against him by Fetsko. Shouldn’t the Superintendent be given an opportunity to respond to the charges made by board members? Oddly, Section 1-24 does not address a scenario if a Superintendent resigns or is fired but does provide, “In the event the Superintendent is temporarily unable to perform the duties of office, the Deputy Superintendent will assume the duties as Acting Superintendent until the Board appoints an Acting Superintendent as set forth below.” Does the Superintendent’s employment contract describe the termination process? If it is true that Leonard did not know about the future vacancy, did not apply to be the Acting Superintendent and did not consent to serve in that capacity then was that action invalid? Can you appoint someone who does not consent to be appointed? Leonard would be crazy to apply to be the Superintendent. He too could then be fired in the middle of the night by a “Kangaroo Court” board.
https://go.boarddocs.com/fl/escambia/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=C7KP3X5EC33A#