What makes parents in the Bolinas-Stinson School District move away or send their children to school elsewhere? Steve O’Neal, a Stinson Beach resident who moved to the area a year ago and this fall unsuccessfully challenged three longstanding incumbents for a board seat, has publicized his belief that a host of inadequacies in the district originate with the superintendent of the past five years, John Carroll.
The criticism, which he expressed in a letter sent to the school community last week, has created division and upheaval among staff and parents.
Mr. Carroll himself aired the spar with Mr. O’Neal in an email to parents in which he presented a biting defense of his work. That, in turn, prompted Mr. O’Neal to send out his own alert to the community, clarifying his position.
The controversy drew nearly 40 parents and staff to the regular school board meeting on Tuesday, where they presented letters and passionate public testimony in favor of both camps, though many called foremost for a more professional conversation.
“Teachers and administrators who feel that they are under attack are not as able to show up for educating, for holding our kids, for decision-making, for hearing our ideas and needs,” stated a letter signed by nearly 30 staff and parents and read by four women on Tuesday night. “This is not a battle, it’s a community. Attempting to push out Superintendent John Carroll by extreme measures is a distraction that sets us back; we’ve got work to do.”
The majority of the staff had signed another statement, read on Tuesday by the second-and-third-grade teacher Rebecca Braun, that echoed similar sentiments.
The first letter also alluded to deep wounds in the district. “This past week has triggered so many of us in the community. Anger, shock, hurt, betrayal, cynicism, and righteousness are all easily available responses. If we hear ourselves starting to say, ‘This is what always happens,’ or ‘Here we go again,’ or ‘I knew I was right not to trust them,’ that is the voice of trauma speaking; it’s unlikely that listening to this voice will help resolve anything.”
Certainly, district parents, board members and staff, have expressed discontent to the school board, as reported in this newspaper during last school year and this fall.
Longtime middle school teacher Don Jolley reported to trustees last fall that he was “out of tools” to deal with escalating student misbehavior. This spring, an eighth-grade student told the board she felt “extremely unsafe” at school, and the same week the principal resigned. The unions for both classified and certified employees subsequently petitioned to limit the unilateral authority Mr. Carroll had in the process for hiring a replacement.
For his part, Mr. O’Neal’s grievances, which he detailed in a recent email to Mr. Carroll, include falling test scores, lackluster curricula, poor hiring decisions, a lack of transparency in the hiring process “and a wide variety of school norms [that] have not improved sufficiently (or to some have declined) in the last several years.”
He wrote, “these shortcomings are best placed on your shoulders,” and he advocated for a full-time administrator over Mr. Carroll’s split time with the Lagunitas School District.
To the Light, Mr. O’Neal said his concerns are “much broader.” He met with the five trustees during the closed-session portion of Tuesday’s board meeting—without Mr. Carroll—to discuss his concerns. “I shared things that were critical of John, but I was worried that if he was there, he would use them against me, or harass me, or cause trouble for me or my family,” said Mr. O’Neil, who has three children in the district. “The board now has that information, and they can share it if they see fit—they can deal with it in a more sensitive way.”
Mr. O’Neil said he asked Mr. Carroll to leave the school by the end of the calendar year—though his contract runs through 2020—because he was worried that a group of parents whom he described “as some of the most active in the school community” would pull out their students before the next semester.
A resignation from Mr. Carroll—even if he stayed through the school year—might have changed their minds, he said.
“I used to think that people were leaving the district because they couldn’t find housing, and I’m sure that’s the case in a few instances,” Mr. O’Neal said. “But in speaking with people, I think the majority have pulled their kids from the school because they weren’t happy with it. Many are not happy with the academics.”
At Tuesday’s board meeting, both Mr. Carroll and Mr. O’Neal were noticeably pale and tuckered out. Mr. O’Neal read a statement to the room, lamenting that he did not find a “more skillful and sensitive way forward,” but persisting in his assertion that Mr. Carroll was not the right person for his job.
In his Dec. 5 letter to parents, Mr. Carroll described what Mr. O’Neal told him during a meeting they had in late November.
“He has [given] me a deadline to submit my resignation today, Dec. 5, and has told me that an organized media campaign against me will begin today if I don’t resign. He added that the campaign would probably stretch into Lagunitas, my other school district, and damage my reputation there as well,” Mr. Carroll wrote. “I am writing this not to defend the work that the school has accomplished over the last four and a half years (though I am proud of it) but to ask you to bring your specific concerns, complaints and suggestions to me directly and in person if you have any.”
On the same day, Mr. Carroll sent a press release to the Light titled “Losing School Board Candidate in Stinson Beach Threatens School Superintendent’s Job: Outspoken advocate for transparency and openness held secret meetings to intimidate John Carroll into resigning.” The release included a depiction of the meeting, of what Mr. Carroll characterized as threats from Mr. O’Neal, and some details about his successes as superintendent of Bolinas-Stinson and Lagunitas Schools.
Per the terms of the Brown Act, trustees could not respond to the testimony expressed on Tuesday. A parent of two students, Temple Gunter, asked trustees if they could place some of the issues raised on an upcoming agenda, to which Mr. Carroll responded that it was best to send him an email and to be specific about the topic.
Though the board seemed to fear the worst—board chair Nate Siedman gave several advisories at the start of the meeting about behavior—the crowd that received them was primarily collected and civil.
Some spoke adamantly in favor of Mr. Carroll, such as Lagunitas trustee Steve Rebscher. “I came this way, over the hill, to support John and to say that we have had five different superintendents since I’ve been on the board and we have had the same things from time to time. But when our community gets together, we have been able to solve our problems, and no one has been better at facilitating that kind of conversation than John,” he said.
The letter that was signed by the vast majority of the staff stated, “There are many staff members, in two different districts, who were not consulted and whose voice was not heard when the decision to try to force John’s resignation was made. We do not believe that this is an appropriate way to deal with problems and work towards effective change. This incident has been a huge distraction of time and energy that diminishes our ability to focus on our job duties, which is to deliver instruction to our students.”
The letter urged, “Our students will flourish when there is an open and transparent dialogue and when the community and school work together. So please, come to a coffee or pizza connection, come to a B.S.U.S.D. board meeting, or set up an individual meeting with one of us. Let’s work together for our students.”
But others remained in favor of a sea change, such as Erica Lowry, who has pulled both of her daughters from the district primarily due to academic concerns.
“When you have someone like Steve O’Neal right now, who maybe really shook the tree, got everyone together, you know, make friends and make it work,” she told the board. “Otherwise, if you don’t want to get to that place, remove yourself. If you’re not up for this change, and you don’t see it and what needs to happen, you’re in denial. There’s no time for that.”