The Board of Trustees of Shoreline Unified School District on Tuesday formally accepted Superintendent Tom Stubbs’s resignation, which will take effect on June 30.
The board was required to hold a special meeting to accept the resignation, and they elected unanimously to do so after an hour-long deliberation in closed session that followed open comments from Shoreline’s parents and teachers. As dusk fell over Tomales Elementary School, the board reconvened to make the announcement.
“We appreciate his service to the district,” said Board President Jill Manning-Sartori, “and we wish him well for the next chapter of his career.”
The crowd of around 30 people remained quiet as board members—absent Tim Kehoe—discussed edits to a letter that served as their only comment on the resignation. The board did not give any indication as to how the district will move forward with the search to fill Mr. Stubbs’s vacated position.
“As a matter of law, the Board and any of its members as individuals are prohibited from commenting about personnel matters,” the letter read. “All the Board can legally provide to the public is a blank copy of the forms used in the Superintendent’s evaluation.”
In late April, Mr. Stubbs asked for a two-year extension to his contract, a request the board denied. Since that time, reaction from the Shoreline community has ranged from anger over how the board has handled one of the district’s most important employee contracts to gratitude toward the work Mr. Stubbs has done for Shoreline’s five schools over the past two years.
Before helming Shoreline’s administration, Mr. Stubbs worked as the principal of Horizons School, an alternative education program in Mt. Diablo Unified School District. He also taught at a high school in Sonoma County for 15 years. So far, he does not have plans for where he will work next, though he does believe he still has “a place in education.”
“I’m not quite sure where that is,” he said. “I’m very happy with leaving [Shoreline]. If I’m not here, I am a very happy camper.”
Others in the district are crestfallen over the loss of a superintendent. Among Shoreline’s parents and teachers, the resignation has become a kind of déjà vu, repeating last April’s end-of-the-year activity, when the board declined to offer Mr. Stubbs a new contract and accepted his resignation after closed-door sessions. Following mounting protests from the community last summer, Shoreline’s board relented and offered Mr. Stubbs a one-year extension.
This time around, it appears that Mr. Stubbs’s departure is a certainty.
“I’m deeply disappointed in the board’s decision and their transparency,” said Donna Faure, a former president of West Marin School’s Parent Teacher Student Association. “It leaves the district in a really difficult place when we need stability and we need to move forward.”
Ms. Faure worries that the leadership change could put the Shoreline community “in jeopardy,” and she criticized the board for failing to discuss Mr. Stubbs’s contract earlier in the year. For her, and for many in the district, the main point of division between Shoreline’s board and its community is a perceived lack of transparency.
Current P.T.S.A. President Avito Miranda opined that this perception has created a “disconnection” in the district. The separation between the board’s action and parents’ expressed desire for Shoreline’s future, he said, harms the district’s chances for solving its staffing and budget shortfalls.
“It’s like the board members are not listening to what people are telling them,” Mr. Miranda said. “These people are not paying attention to what the students, parents and teachers want.”
Shoreline’s board also faces a decision over the matter of solidifying the principal positions for two elementary schools in the district: Tomales Elementary School and Bodega Bay School. Jim Patterson and Nancy Wolf stepped in as interim principals of the two schools, and in doing so extended the timetable for filling the gap left after the former principal of both schools, Jane Realon, vacated the posts last year.
Mr. Stubbs confirmed that the district has been “discussing” contract options for Ms. Realon, though he declined to elaborate on what that discussion entails. The Light has reported that Ms. Realon agreed to a settlement with the district to work as an administrator on special assignment during the 2014-15 school year. The settlement stipulated that she has rights to a teaching position for 2015-16, after which her employment would be terminated.
“Have there been any decisions yet? No. But there has definitely been discussion on Jane Realon and her situation,” Mr. Stubbs said.
The resignation also arrives in the middle of the district’s efforts to correct its structural budget deficit, which is still $615,000. At next month’s board meeting, the board will vote to raise a developer fee for any private or commercial development in the district. The fee—$3.36 for each square foot for residential development and $0.54 for commercial—will only apply to new square footage added to properties.
The fee is not up for a public vote, and would go into effect mid-June. Anyone wishing to build additional square footage in the district will have to fill out a form at the district office in Tomales prior to filing paperwork with the county.
Shoreline’s next board meeting is scheduled for May 21 at Tomales High School.