Former Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, who was fired by the Seattle School Board last week after an independent investigation revealed that she failed to provide sufficient oversight over a district small business contractual program that resulted in a loss of $1.8 million, has released a statement apologizing that the fraudulent activity happened under her watch.
KING 5 and KIRO reported her statement, which has been posted in full on their website. The following is an excerpt:
In the case of the small business program, I am angry that any school district employee would abuse a program and taxpayer funds in this way. I had absolutely no involvement in this appalling abuse of the public’s trust. Neither the state auditor’s investigation nor the independent counsel investigation authorized by the school board found that I was in any way involved in these actions.
Regardless, this situation happened on my watch as superintendent. For that, I am deeply sorry, and I certainly accept and understand the school board’s decision to make a change in the leadership of the district.
I leave Seattle with tremendous respect for all those wonderful public servants I was privileged to work alongside of these past few years as we took strong action to improve our public schools and the lives of the children we served. Those exemplary teachers, administrators, staff members and other public servants remain at the school district today doing what they do every day – making the future brighter for our kids. I feel tremendously blessed and honored to have been their colleague.
Goodloe-Johnson gets a severance package of $264,000 and $9,800 in estimated benefits.
if she’s really sorry she can give back the severance package…..
“Goodloe-Johnson gets a severance package of $264,000 and $9,800 in estimated benefits.”
But she isn’t so sorry that she’ll leave some of this to buy textbooks for the kids.
Too little, too late. Accepting responsibility should have come last week.
It’s pretty disgraceful that she is taking her full buyout when she knows the district has a $34M budget deficit.
No support for her COO, Don Kennedy, that she herself brought out from Charleston.
I said it before, I’ll say it again; she never cared about this district. We were just a waystation on her journey to the next big thing.
While I would find an honest, “Ha ha, suckers!” quite refreshing, I’m hardly surprised that she gave out this pleasant-sounding pap.
MGJ had a difficult job to do in a district that has more public criticism than support. School closures and a new assignment plan were well in the works prior to her arrival in Seattle. These issues were polarizing to the community. Additionally, coming from a right to work state she experienced difficulty with the cantankerous teachers union (of which I was a member) who have not supported the policies of any superintendent over the last decade unless it equals more dollars or more union members for the SEA. School board members Carr, Sundquist and DeBell were asleep at the switch when Ron English presented information about the functions of this rogue department and failed to ask questions. They should be held just as accountable to the public instead of being praised for this witch hunt. There is another side of this story that the media has failed to cover- that MGJ had supporters and did good work for this community. Dr. Enfield does not have the experience needed to run this district and will be crushed by the significant reform efforts ahead of her. Bravo to
MGJ who was accountable and therefore deserves every penny of contract buyout! Thanks Maria for all you’ve done for Seattle.
BTW: Don Kennedy was the correct person fired for this issue.
She said servants!? Servants! WTH, servants! Much more like teacher-slaves! We need to hire a LOCAL leader, with LEADING EXPERIENCE and less of that professional “arrogant” stuff. We need something REAL!