The contracts of Superintendent Carolyn McKennan and Assistant
Superintendent Claudette Beaty have not been renewed.
The contracts of Superintendent Carolyn McKennan and Assistant Superintendent Claudette Beaty have not been renewed.
The contract of McKennan, who has been superintendent since 1997, expires June 30, 2005.
Beaty’s contract ends June 30, 2004.
Two of the four upper-tier administrators in the Morgan Hill School District will be working in the district for an additional year, after trustees extended their contracts during the Jan. 12 School Board meeting.
The vote, which was 5-2 in favor of extending the contracts of Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini and Assistant Superintendent Denise Tate, was a reflection of the divided nature of the board. Trustees Amina Khemici and Shellé Thomas voted against extending the contracts because, they said, they believed the contracts should have been extended two years instead of only one. The contracts would have expired on June 30.
Beaty’s contract, which expires June 30, is worth $116,000 in salary, a $750 master’s advance degree stipend plus a cumulative longevity bonus of $2,000 per year.
“They terminate when they terminate,” McKennan said last week when asked about the status of her contract and Beaty’s.
Beaty said she did not wish to comment.
McKennan’s contract was last extended in September 2002, before the election of three new board members and re-election of one board member in November 2002.
At the time, the contract was extended two years and included a 2 percent raise and a doctoral stipend of $1,500, for an annual salary of $136,752, not including the annual cumulative longevity bonus of $5,000 per year she receives. This year, her salary included a longevity bonus of $35,000.
McKennan’s contract expires June 30, 2005.
When McKennan’s contract was last renewed, she said it was common, in the educational field, for contracts to be extended several years out.
“What could you accomplish if you worked on a year-to-year contract?” she said in 2002. “Unless you’re going to be retiring at the end of the year. If you’re going to get a job as a superintendent, it takes some time, probably several months. So, if a board does not to renew your contract, you know you need that time to find something else. It would be a signal. This (renewal) is a vote of confidence.”
Tognazzini, with a contract worth $116,000 in salary plus a cumulative longevity stipend of $3,500 per year, is second-in-command to McKennan. She also heads the business services department of the district, dealing with the financial transactions of the district.
Beaty’s job as the head of educational services involves curriculum planning, staff development and assessment. Tate is responsible for the human resource department, including negotiations with the teachers’ union and the classified employees’ union, as well as serving responsibilities for planning and research, communications and board policy and administrative regulations.
Both assistant superintendents and the deputy superintendent serve as a member of the superintendent’s cabinet and serve as a liaison and representative for the superintendent.
McKennan’s performance evaluation took place during many closed session meetings. It was on the agenda for trustees during their closed session meetings several times this fall, including a special closed session meeting in October.
Board President George Panos said in December that “no action was taken, so there is nothing to report out.”
Trustees cannot comment on the reasons why a contract is not renewed because that is a personnel matter, Panos said.
McKennan’s contract came under scrutiny several months ago, when Morgan Hill Federation of Teachers President Donna Foster began researching teacher pay and superintendent pay in other school districts, preparing to go into negotiations for teacher contracts. She pointed out that the longevity bonus is cumulative, and that McKennan and Tognazzini receive lifetime health benefits under their contracts.
McKennan fired back, citing the level of responsibility of a superintendent versus a teacher, the number of days worked, 260 versus 183, she said, and said that her longevity bonus was only a 3.9 increase, when teachers received, in 2000, and increase of between 10-17 percent.
