It wasn’t suppose to come out today. That was made obvious during this afternoon’s press conference at Tucson Unified School District in which Superintendent John Pedicone formally announced his resignation effective June 30th.
This morning, rumors began to creep forward that Pedicone was resigning, with one source close to the Weekly sharing that in part it was out of frustration over the recent decision by the current TUSD governing board to not approve outsourcing certain district operations in an effort to save money.
With Tucson Unified School District governing board president Adelita Grijalva sitting by his side, TUSD Superintendent John Pedicone read out loud the letter of resignation he submitted to the board yesterday. A press conference on the resignation wasn’t expected until tomorrow. Grijalva said the board reluctantly accepted his resignation.
TUSD board members Michael Hicks and Cam Juarez were sitting near by, as Grijalva described an administration under Pedicone that saw tremendous gains, despite the challenges of Mexican-American studies, the desegregation unitary status plan process and the struggles of dealing with negative PR that always seem to face the district.
“This was not something we wanted him to do. There was no motivation from any board member asking for his resignation,” Grijalva said.
“The plan that was tomorrow we would have a press conference and all the board members planned to attend, but because we wanted to get out in front of any misconceptions of anything that has been written, because it is inaccurate and we wanted to give him the opportunity to tell all his staff rather than hear it through the news. I am here to support the administration.”
Grijalva said there would be a national search process that would begin immediately. At the same time district is also undergoing a national search to replace outgoing assistant superintendent Maggie Shaffer, who resigned days earlier. Grijalva said she expects costs for both searches to be close to $25,000, noting that the cost of Pedicone’s search was about $10,000. The board also determined Pedicone faces no penalty for leaving before the end of his most recent two-year contract.
During the press conference Pedicone reflected on the past two years and said he was was disappointed by some of the things said by some people in the media “that proposed opinion” on Mexican-American studies. “What concerned me is that it created harm and fear in a part of the community that is so important to us. … We’re all kind of wounded by the last couple of things that have happened. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that.”
Pedicone said when he was first hired by the board he always made it clear he wasn’t there for the long term. What made resigning now feel right is the new board — the addition of Kristel Foster and Cam Juarez. It’s this new board, Pedicone said, that made him realize this was the best time to leave. “I really have a lot of respect for this board and they deserve to have a long-term superintendent that they can begin to work with and cultivate a relationship with.”
What will help a new superintendent stay longer than the two to three year stints of previous administrations is if there was a change in the community. “The community needs to get behind this district,” rather than was seems fashionable “to watch TUSD have trouble. … We have an obligation to lift this perception. Stop making it kind of cool to make TUSD fail.”
This article appears in Mar 14-20, 2013.
I must say these costs for replacements are under estimated unless they plan on advertising in Craigs List. Fees for headhunters range in the 30 percentile of the salary of the position being filled.
Pedicone and 1010 made the decision to close Sewell, and to misrepresent the *facts* during the school board hearing. Their administrator made, in essence, dishonest statements to the public in attendance when presenting Sewell as they stopped talking about Sewell ADE Grade of B and said that the receiving school, Kellond (would have been the receiving school) was at the same level of Sewell, (actually it is a C school and failing behind). They misrepresented other facts as well, hinting that the church across the street from Sewell might buy the property (a lie as I talked to people who talked to the Antiochian priest and he flatly denied this, they just saved up money to buy that church!)
So . . . basically Sewell (a grade B school) was saved due to parents who care about the school and neighborhood, even after presenting the pertinent facts to the board, Pedicone still voted with 1010 to close the school. Some C/D schools were closed, yet Pedicone also tried to close a B school, so I don’t think he deserves credit for raising the number of B schools as he was oblivious to this during the whole school closure process.
Recently, I heard that 1010 (appears to be out to get Sewell) was threatening Sewell with closure in the future if the scores drop! 1010 was really po’d that the Sewell principal dared to come to the closure meetings, even though he sat silently and respectfully. Let me tell you, he is always running around making sure that Sewell is running smoothly, my principal never did that!
I am eternally grateful that the school board voted to save Sewell, and we work hard to make Sewell as success, but the attitude from some of the board members was that they figured that the parents wouldn’t help to keep Sewell going now that the school was saved! Well, I am happy to still support Sewell in whatever way I can, and we will work hard to maintain the rating of the school. Obviously, Sewell wouldn’t have gotten to where it is without the help of parents and teachers who are dedicated to the school. One well-known teacher at Sewell was a student herself!
The word on the street before the “resignation” of Pedicone was that Adelita Grijalva wanted to get rid of Pedicone because he made changes without the board’s, or her, approval. We see the assistant superintendent (not a needed position) resign, then Pedicone. Usually what happens to save face is that the person who the board wants to fire will “resign” and everybody wins as it looks like nobody was forced out. These things don’t just happen out of the blue. I don’t believe Adelita’s assertion that there was no “motivation” from board members for Pedicone to quit, whatever that means. Obviously they had major disagreements.
As far as Pedicone’s statement about the community somehow being against TUSD . . . not parents of kids! We could have easily sent our kid to Catalina Foothills (open enrollment as far as I know), but we wanted to strengthen our local public school as I believe in public education. There is a fundamental difference between TUSD as a whole, and the administration of TUSD at 1010. Sure, folks are upset that 1010’s budget is out of whack with other school districts in that they want more for administration than anybody else!
Pedicone and 1010 both on some level *hate* the Tucson community, and the broader Arizonan community because they voted down the tax for education. I voted for this tax, didn’t even read it, but apparently some voters didn’t like it that 50% of the tax went to administration, a lot of folks would want to see a whole lot more money go to the classroom. Do they seriously think that parents of TUSD students would vote against such a tax?
I don’t like Pedione trashing the community who, in brief, he says is just eating popcorn as TUSD goes into flames (or receivership).
They hired (or were going to hire) a publicist at a cost of $500,000 to do a marketing scheme for TUSD, new logos on buses and to improve their image with the community. Too late, they closed tons of schools before cutting administration, and the MAS debacle proves that the the school board and 1010 have no creativity, or flexibility, when it comes to working with state laws to produce worthwhile educational programs.
I could do it in a week: hire professors of Native American studies, Mexican American studies, African American studies, etc, to submit course work. Remove whatever is “offensive”, or tell them the guidelines, and put together classes with field trips and guest speakers paid for by firing the assistant superintendent. Done, no more controversy and students win! They can’t do it!, or they just want this “story” to stay national for obscure reasons.
I would add that Pedicone wants Tucson to get behind 1010, TUSD’s administration, and perhaps the school board when he talks about community support—not the classroom. Obviously, parents love the teachers that TUSD has, the problem is the how the schools were closed and how the school board is dysfunctional. As Pedicone rants:
“I can’t change the person’s tendency to want to see the train wreck.There’s something alluring to watch when something crumbles and falls apart and everybody goes, ‘Oh. Let me stand on the sidelines and watch that.’ People should be saying, ‘No, that doesn’t give us pleasure,” said Pedicone.
Who exactly are these folks getting pleasure at the problems TUSD has? Was this guy seriously upset about the media? 1010 under Pedicone misrepresented Sewell to get it closed, (saying it wasn’t at capacity when it is over capacity, for example), so I think it is silly for him to be moralizing. And why is Pedicone complaining that he can’t change the public’s perception of TUSD? Wasn’t it his job to take the public criticism and do the best he could?
Why was he fired again? Rumors were that he sidestepped Adelita, and he basically hinted at this by discussing a magical “theoretical” school board, with a wink and an nod, which oversteps its authority (as per Arizona Daily Star):
Pedicone took pains to say he wasn’t speaking about the current TUSD board, or any particular board, but that no organization can function optimally when Governing Board members overstep their proper policy-setting role and interfere with district operations.
Was it because Pedicone wanted to outsource stuff like custodians? Then, almost bizarrely, Adelita talks about staying the course.
“It’s important for people who are interested in possibly applying for a position with this district understand the complexity of it, understand that we are moving forward and we expect another leader coming in–I don’t want somebody who’s going to come and tear apart everything that we’ve been working on for the last two-and-a-half years,” said Grijalva.
I think that what the TUSD school board has been “working on for the last two-and-a-half” years hasn’t amounted to much. They haven’t cut administrative overhead to bring it even close to what it is in other districts in the state, TUSD spends more on administration than any other district in Arizona, and yet it is so large . . . wouldn’t have a centralized administration for so many schools mean cost savings?!
If Adelita wants to run for City Council or state government, then that seems to be more up her alley as she really hates the state government and has gotten into this soap opera with them over MAS. The traditional Tucsonan way of dealing with the state and MAS would be to make changes (dare I say minimal or mostly superficial ones?), bring back something, and tell the state we are complying while thumbing our nose at them in private. It’s a trap that if the state mandates no “racial resentment” and then TUSD comes forward and says, “no, we want to teach that!” Makes TUSD school board/1010 look like fools, yeah, they fell for it.
1010 and MAS advocates haven’t addressed basic questions about MAS, there is just a lot of anger. Does MAS mostly base it curriculum on “critical race theory” which teaches people that everything can be blamed on racism? The world is so much bigger and more complex than critical race theory would have people believe, look up the majors at the University of Arizona and tell me how such a curriculum would help prepare kids for college? That is still the goal of high school, yes?
By and large the “good people” of Tucson aren’t racists and we are a peaceful community that mostly gets along well with each other. We all rout for Arizona Basketball, and we all love the U of A. This pounding of racism into kids heads changes the benign and welcoming character that the old Pueblo has always been. I AM a lifelong Tucson of almost four decades and MAS is not in the spirit of Tucson.
Time to end the soap opera and vote out Adelita as we need a more reasonable school board that can compromise and not one which is looking for the next fight. Adelita also made an error is saying that the school board will immediately begin looking for a new superintendent as the school board hasn’t voted on this yet, hasn’t met, and irregardless, such deliberations must be made public. So . . . let the superintendent spot go vacant for a couple years while TUSD appoints a temporary one at half the cost. Obviously, the position of assistant superintendent is not needed and is a waste of money.
John will be missed, TUSD should have done everything they could to retain him, maybe they did but failed again. Failure seems to tag along with TUSD it seems. I lived in Tucson since 1975; my Son went to TUSD K-12. With active parental participation TUSD like all our schools offers excellent education, Tucson has a non-participating parenting problem that is as big a problem as any faced by TUSD. However gasoline being thrown on that fire is a MAS program that got caught being political, teaching hate not educating, Republicans hate Latinos was taught, children who take over a TUSD board meeting being led by a local Pima County Public Defender who advocates for no border between AZ and Mexico were encouraged and trained by the MAS supporters, the MAS program from my perspective and the Courts, was running wild, doesn’t my perspective count, shouldn’t someone be sensitive to my feelings? The main premise educating Latino students and EXCLUDING White students was just found to be unconstitutional, think about that unconstitutional, now I know Democrats don’t think highly of our Constitution but by God it is our law, follow it or CHANGE it. Our current TUSD Board has a majority that without question or admitting that the MAS program was flawed attacked those opposed of such violations of our Constitution and divided the community with lies saying that we were only against MAS studies, a LIE! The TUSD Board divided our community for political gain and determent of education by racially dividing the Tucson community with their lies, Adelita Grijalva in my opinion should resign immediately to begin to heal the damage she has caused to TUSD and our community with her unquestioning support of a MAS program found to be unconstitutional at its most basic level. That lack of knowledge or leadership sense to not cheerlead something as divisive as the unconstitutional MAS program, to at least acknowledge its obvious flaws, instead calling anyone who questioned a racist is an unforgivable tact and as long as she remains involved with TUSD in my opinion it is poisoned with her bias. Goodbye John you were the best thing to happen to TUSD and a lot of Tucsonans know it! I believe the people of Tucson will get behind TUSD fully only after those who represent the face of the culture of corruption TUSD represents for so many of us are gone Adelita Grijalva should do the right thing and resign immediately for the sake of education in Tucson.
P.S. MAS is the political movement for socialism in South American countries, do these TUSD leaders think we are stupid? The idiocy of using such an acronym is as unthinkable as it is arrogant! Keep your political socialist movements away from my tax dollars and OUR children!
Whether or not you are in favor of MAS, it is issue number 1 for TUSD as they is where they are putting all of the focus. Some issues that have taken a backseat include:
1. Nutritional assistance for needy students. Why not have free fruit carts paid for by TUSD? Fire one administrator with a six figure salary and there is the money!
2. Science and Math, I’m thinking TUSD is near the bottom of the barrel.
3. Field trips/extracurriculars . . . once again I think that TUSD is at the bottom of the barrel.
4. Why are all of Catalina Foothills Schools rated “A”, and TUSD produces few, if any, A rated schools.
5. Increased disciplinary problems, if they exist, need to be addressed.
I think that as the poster above said, MAS studies may well make the learning environment hostile for white and even non-Latino students. Sadly, if MAS is teaching hate then I may have to pull my kid out of TUSD before high school if this is being done in the junior highs. She is smart enough to go to UHS, so if she gets in there I will have to look at the learning atmosphere there. If TUSD regains their sanity then I will stay. I had black, hispanic teachers in TUSD and for the most part they didn’t teach hatred, just the facts of World and American history. I don’t want my kid to feel different if they have these huge MAS happy hours for just Latino kids and with a wink and nod don’t enjoy having non-Latinos in the classes.
I have a vested interest so I have researched MAS and critical race theory and it doesn’t sound like your regular history classes which teach students to be objective, but uses rants written by Latino activists and is slanted, heavily, towards one viewpoint, and a lot of the material is fictitious. I don’t want to leave TUSD—ever—but MAS is making the atmosphere hostile to non-Latinos.
The Mexicans can have TUSD. Good luck with all of that.