An update and correction on the Paso Robles school district.
First, sixth graders may be able to return to the classroom on March 9th. That’s the plan being developed by the district. Students older than that may have to wait for the county to return to the red tier.
As for the school board’s response to the grand jury report, that response is now posted on the district website, so you can go on line and see all 14 pages of the response. It’s worth noting that when Dr. Kathy McNamara filed her report to the grand jury, it was 70 pages long, and there were fewer recommendations.
Board president Chris Arend hand carried the document to the judge overseeing the grand jury report. He also provided the district attorney with a copy, so I correct the report yesterday that they did not receive a copy. The district attorney did receive a copy of the school district’s response to the grand jury report titled, Paso Robles School District, A Cautionary Tale.
The DA did not receive, however, a letter that was requested explaining what issues stood out as needing criminal investigation. For instance,
The $250 thousand dollar pay out given to superintendent Chris Williams when he resigned. You may remember board president Chris Arend telling county superintendent James Brescia about that payout and the grand jury description of it.
The grand jury pointed out that there was nothing in the superintendents employment contract that said anything about a cash payout when he resigned. There are also issues pointed out by the grand jury related to favoritism, cronyism, alleged kickbacks and even Chris Arend used the term extortion.
The response crafted by Chris Arend did not provide the district attorney’s office with any enumeration of the potential criminal offenses committed by the previous board, and administrators, some of whom are still working for the school district.
Next Monday, KPRL will have trustee Chris Bausch on Sound Off to talk about the response to the grand jury report, and why he took issue with the way board president Chris Arend handled it.
