Saturday morning, the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District board of trustees held a special meeting to craft response to the county grand jury’s report castigating the previous school board. Point by point, the current school board discussed the draft response developed by board president Chris Arend. Before the discussion began Saturday morning, there was public input and some heated discussion. The first to call in was Joel Peterson, who was a member of the school board under Chris Williams. He said there was push-back against the superintendent. That previous board voted 6-1, however, to give Chris Williams $235 thousand dollars when he resigned. That decision was criticized by the grand jury. They wrote, and I quote: “The superintendent was not eligible for a severance package when he resigned. However, the board extended a negotiated settlement without obligation to do so.” End of quote. The only dissenting vote was cast by trustee Chris Bausch.
Another caller Saturday morning was former trustee and former school secretary Joan Summers. She said the grand jury did not interview enough school board members, and that they were seen speaking publicly with trustee Chris Bausch. Then an argument ensued over allowing another citizen to provide public input. Ultimately, the board allowed Berkely Baker to speak. He reminded the board the school board president Chris Arend had accused Chris Williams of extortion. He also questioned the integrity of senior administrators who witnessed Williams’ abuse of other school employees, but did nothing to stop or report it.
After the public comment, school board president Chris Arend made some comments about news coverage of the school board’s discussion of the grand jury report. He said that he felt the news coverage was not accurate, and he demanded retractions. Superintendent Curt Dubost wrote a similar letter. He wrote to the Paso Robles Press, and I quote: “The reporting today relative to tomorrow’s special board meeting to continue drafting the district and board response to the recent grand jury report contains factually inaccurate assertions that deputy superintendent Jennifer
Gaviola is the target of a criminal investigation. The publicly available grand jury report in no way implicates deputy superintendent Gaviola. There is no pending investigation of her. No allegations, with respect to any matter addressed in the grand jury report have been shown to implicate deputy superintendent Gaviola in any way. Both the board president, Mr. Arend, and I have publicly stated that any person possessing evidence of any wrongdoing by any current employee should come forward now. To my knowledge, nothing has been received to date.
Because these untrue statements are defamatory in nature and harm the district and its employee, deputy superintendent Jennifer Gaviola, we request that you immediately correct your story and retract the statement.”
End of letter.
Unfortunately, he wrote the letter to the wrong newspaper. The Paso Robles Press did not print any such story. He also sent a copy to KPRL. Thus, I retract anything I said about deputy superintendent Jennifer Gaviola.
However, the grand jury said repeatedly that the superintendent and his staff committed errors under school district leadership.
F2 reads, and I quote, “The superintendent and his staff provided financial information to trustees that was neither accurate nor conducive to making sound financial decisions.
F4 conflict of interest, nepotism, and cronyism, real or imagined, created distrust and suspicion. This also led to teacher morale issues as documented in two union sponsored surveys.”
As for Chris Arend recommending that the school board turn over their report to the grand jury, as Mr. Arend said, that is not a foregone conclusion. He says it may occur, but it may not. So, I retract that statement.
The school board will continue tomorrow afternoon to craft a response to the San Luis Obispo county grand jury report.
