- R.B.
- Maria Goodloe-Johnson at a community meeting last year
When asked whether the Seattle School Board was considering firing Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson or buying out her contract—as was reported in the Seattle Times after its editorial board met with school board members today—School Board President Steven Sundquist would only say that “the board has all these options—it involves top to bottom.”
The board is considering taking this action after a report released today by former prosecutor Patricia Eakes said that the superintendent could have done more to prevent $1.8 million in alleged financial fraud that is currently the subject of a secret criminal investigation by the King County Prosecutor’s Office. The state Auditor’s Office revealed the $1.8 million loss to the district in a special investigative report released this week.
As to whether the board was going to offer Goodloe-Johnson a buyout, Sundquist would simply say that the superintendent “has retained her own counsel.” Sundquist said that the superintendent had a lawyer to assist her when she first joined the district and that she was consulting the same lawyer right now. “We have two basic pieces of information before us—the audit report and the lawyer’s report—to make a final determination,” Sundquist said. The board had hired Eakes for an independent investigation.
Sundquist said that it was unlikely the board would announce its decision about the superintendent or any other district management named in the report before the next school board meeting Wednesday. The board will be meeting in executive closed session Tuesday to discuss the report in private. “It’s mid-winter break and a lot of board members are away right now,” Sundquist said. “So we will probably get together to discuss this when everyone gets back.”
The state Auditor’s Office has released working papers for their special investigation of the Seattle school district’s small business program whose manager Silas Potter awarded contracts to a number of vendors for services that didn’t benefit the district or benefited his own private company. In one of the documents, when auditors asked Potter’s direct supervisor, Fred Stephens, who left the district to work with the U.S. Department of Commerce, how much oversight he provided to ensure public funds were not used inappropriately, Stephens replied that Potter and his department should have been providing the oversight.
Buy out her contract? How about filing criminal charges against her and outright firing her?
Like rats off a sinking ship.
Dr. Goodloe-Johnson, depending on what story you hear, is either on vacation or tending an ailing mother. Come back and face the music early? Nah.
Members of the Board are facing their biggest crisis? Come back early from vacation? Nah.
Pass the buck? Not my fault, not my job. It even looks like Goodloe-Johnson has zero oversight on the construction of the district budget.
I hope Gary Locke fires Fred Stephens who completely allowed Silas Potter free rein.
I hope the Board fires Maria Goodloe-Johnson and Don Kennedy, the COO.
And I hope the voters fire all four of the Board members in the fall who are up for reelction (should they run).
Many of us sent up flares on this back in July. Over and over and yet the Board didn’t want to listen. And Silas Potter flew the coop.
It’s a mess but please, don’t give up on Seattle school children. The doors will open again on Monday and truly, there are good things happening in our schools (including a science experiment from Ballard High School that just went up on space shuttle Discovery).
Maria Goodloe-Johnson should be tarred and feathered and run out of town. She is a liar and a bully. She is no role model for our children. Please send her packing before she does even more damage. Look how Charleston is still trying to recover from her reign there.
Maybe the teachers should send her a pink slip like she sent them a letter last year trying to unilaterally change the terms of the union contract.
No doubt Goodloe will continue, with Gates and other “reformers”, to celebrate the top down model of school district governance when she returns to face the public.
I was done with her after she wrecked my kid’s school. I kept having flashbacks to the Bush regime: no matter what haughty, self-serving, stupid-ass move she made, it seemed nothing could touch her. And this $1.8m is just the beginning of the tax money she’s squandered.
Fire her ass. If she gets a payout, I’m going to be pissed.
That’s right, a good old fashioned, guilty-white, diversity programs runs amok and it’s NOT the fault of Seattle’s entrenched left!
Only good thing out of this is Seattle will finally get a real reformer, MGJ was useless, achieved nothing, changed nothing.
Even McGinn is onboard. That and the Supreme Court decision in 2007 ending discrimination is sps assignments and hopefully the old left in Seattle will continue to vanish!
Seattle seems to have a problem with smooth talking negroes?
It’s sad that this tomfoolery is what will take out M G-J, rather than terrible curriculum choices, rigid standardization of schools, or sundry other bad moves that directly damaged the education of our children. Oh, well, whatever it takes. Hope this clears out some school board deadwood, too. District oversight, my ass. More like Overlooking.
@#2 Yes, this has been publicly discussed for some time. Last fall this specific bit of mis-management was on the literature distributed by the anti-school-levy organization of teachers and parents, along with other examples of waste and mis-spending. You know, the levy the Stranger endorsed.
At the time, the School Board came out and said, “Failed another state audit? Give us more money. No worries, we promise to start paying attention to what’s happening. For reals this time.” Folks, start asking the incumbents just what the heck they are doing to supervise. And ask opponents what specifically they will do to supervise their new superintendent.