Notion Iframe

A Fond (If Slightly Long) Farewell

To all Members of the PVHS Community.

I regret that I will not be on campus this week to say goodbye to you in person and to wish you all well. I had been looking forward to that. I have enjoyed each of my eleven years as your Principal and I truly believe that together we have forged a unique, better, and stronger community. I am deeply gratified by the extraordinary support and encouragement that you all have offered me.

You deserve to know why I am not present this week and will not be present at PVHS in the future. The short answer is that the District has locked me out. No job is forever, and the important thing is less that I have lost mine than how the District has handled this whole matter. For those who want the full story, read on.

Almost an hour and a half after Friday’s graduation ceremony I was off campus and noticed I no longer had access to my work emails. I texted Jose DeLeon, one of the District’s two Executive Directors, to ask if there was a problem. He responded with the following text which I am quoting exactly:

This was particularly shocking because the District had demanded I submit my graduation speech in writing in advance and they had edited it several times. For those of you who did not attend graduation, a video link to the speech is here

A link to the text I submitted (and actually delivered at graduation) is here. The message was unqualifiedly positive, upbeat, and congratulatory—I challenge you to find anything controversial.

Mr. DeLeon informed me Saturday morning that, as the person responsible for reviewing and approving my speech, he had failed to notice a phrase the District now found objectionable. Mr. DeLeon provided me with a copy of his written message to Superintendent of Schools (Kenneth Hurst) explaining that this had been Mr. DeLeon’s oversight. Rather than apologizing, the District doubled down.

At approximately noon Saturday, Camille Johnson (Interim Associate Superintendent, Human Resources) sent me an official Notice (backdated to the day before) that I had been placed on administrative leave, my access to all technology was cut off, I was to turn in my keys, and was not allowed to enter any “District property” (yes, the entire West Contra Costa Unified School District!). She stated that these steps were to “allow the District an opportunity to investigate allegations regarding [my] conduct in the workplace.”

I don’t believe for a minute that there are any such allegations or that there is any genuine investigation. Although I immediately requested in writing that Ms. Johnson, Mr. DeLeon and the union representatives she had copied on the Notice tell me what this was about, I have received no response. This is the same tactic the District used when it decided to remove me as Principal three months ago. Back then, I repeatedly asked the District why I was being removed but was never provided with any explanation. Indeed, I was told by Ms. Johnson in writing that I was not entitled to one.

To this day, I have no idea why the Board and the District soured on me or why they chose to make the last three months so difficult for all of us in the community. I do, however, have a pretty clear idea about why I am now banned from campus and from saying a proper farewell to all of you. The District’s highest priority is to keep me silent, just as they have for the last three months.

The Notice I received on Saturday says I am “directed not to have any contact with District students, parents or employees without prior authorization from the District’s Office of Human Resources” and “directed to keep the investigation confidential and not to discuss the details of the investigation with your peers, your students, or to the parents of the students of the District.” In other words, you folks are not supposed to know any of this. When I was given 1-day notice of the upcoming Board vote to remove me in early March, I was severely reprimanded for informing my Assistant Principals and Office Manager. Ms. Johnson emailed me: “it is not your decision to determine what employees should know about board decisions” and I was explicitly told that nothing should have been said to anyone until after the Board had voted.

However, the publicly-available Agenda and draft Board Resolution were full of errors and drafted in a manner that virtually guaranteed no one would ever know my removal was up for consideration unless they were told. This appears to be exactly what the District wanted. After the overwhelming show of public support at the Board meeting, for which I will forever be grateful, I was informed both orally and in writing by District officials that they and the Board were “pissed” and “angry” about this turnout. Indeed, as you probably know, the Board secretly voted to remove me before hearing most of the public comments. After that meeting, I was also told that ongoing demonstrations of support from our community made it difficult if not impossible to find any other position for me in the District. I was told that earlier discussions about maintaining my salary level for one more year were “stalled” and “off the table” as a result of these demonstrations. The clear threats to my professional future weren’t imaginary—they were reported in writing and in some cases involved witnesses. And, as it turns out, the threats were real.

The District hopelessly botched the legally required written notice that had to be provided to me on March 15, 2024, relying on a statute that even they now concede has no application to me and stating that I was being terminated from all employment while orally claiming that they were going to reassign to me a new position. Despite these facts, I offered on multiple occasions (including in writing) to sit down with the District to forge a transition plan that, by summer 2025, would have seen PVHS with a new Principal fully supported by the community whom I could help to introduce, orient and support. The District completely ignored these offers and refused to discuss the transition with me at all. I understand that many of you found the subsequent “Listening Sessions” scheduled by the District to be perfunctory and to display no real interest in what community members had to say.

I cannot in good conscience continue to work in a District that engages in this type of behavior. I will therefore not be returning to the West Contra Costa School District. You all work so hard to protect and nurture your children, to create a safe and supportive community, and to pave the way for a better future. In those efforts you deserve a School Board and District officials that really listen to you, not as a matter of show but because they genuinely value and will be guided by your input. You deserve honesty and forthrightness, not secrecy. You deserve professional commitment and not politics. Pinole is a very special place and it has been my honor to serve you for the last eleven years. The extraordinary PVHS faculty and staff whom we together supported, hired and sustained have done heroic work under these needlessly difficult circumstances. They deserve your support more than ever.

Fondly,