Garry Dudley’s last day as Jackson Elementary’s principal was Tuesday. He resigned following the Morgan Hill Unified school board of trustees’ unanimous approval in closed session Tuesday afternoon and will retire before the end of the calendar year. Dudley will be paid for the sick days he accrued since his hire by former Superintendent Alan Nishino in August 2007.
Morgan Hill – Garry Dudley’s last day as Jackson Elementary’s principal was Tuesday. He resigned following the Morgan Hill Unified school board of trustees’ unanimous approval in closed session Tuesday afternoon and will retire before the end of the calendar year. Dudley will be paid for the sick days he accrued since his hire by former Superintendent Alan Nishino in August 2007.
The news of his resignation came in front of a standing-room only crowd at the school board meeting, several of whom came to hear the decision that Jackson parents and teachers learned Tuesday morning on campus, according to reports earlier that day.
“He came to me and said ‘I’d like to take advantage of retiring,'” Superintendent Wes Smith said.
Smith said Dudley, 61, was eligible to take advantage of the early retirement incentive – $25,000 – that has been offered by the district to offset the layoffs of newer teachers and employees.
“The point of this is he won’t be at Jackson anymore,” Smith said.
The school board, per the California Education Code, must approve resignations in closed session and generally they are approved unanimously as Dudley’s was Tuesday, 7-0.
“If they are eligible to retire, we let them retire. (The board) doesn’t questions things,” Smith said about the board asking why a person chooses to retire, since it could be for personal reasons.
By Thursday, Smith hopes to introduce an interim principal to lead Jackson through the rest of the year before he hires a replacement. He said the district will not hire someone mid-year and rather wants to take time to find the right person for the job.
“We will get someone with experience in there … who has a really good track record of bringing people together,” Smith said.
The announcement of Dudley’s resignation comes on the heels of a Sept. 3 story in the Times that reported 18 complaints filed against Dudley in the past two years ranging from alleged sexual harassment to alleged verbal abuse of students. Eleven of those claims were found to have merit and to be true either in part or totally.
Smith said he did not know specifically why Dudley wanted to retire, but that he did mention he wanted to return to aviation instruction. Dudley served as a colonel in the United States Air Force and previous to entering education as an administrator 16 years ago, he was a flight instructor.
During the public comment portion of the meeting, Jackson parent Kathlyn Greubel said she has concerns for Jackson, the only school this year in Morgan Hill Unified School District whose Academic Performance Index scores fell.
“This school district has failed the students at Jackson,” Greubel said. “There is a lack of leadership … I am holding the school board accountable for big changes at Jackson and going into year six (of Program Improvement) is not an acceptable option.”
Greubel’s prepared statement was met with applause.
The school is struggling to pull itself out of Program Improvement after it entered year five officially Monday following a 24-point drop in the annual Academic Performance Index that measures every school’s progress based on standardized test scores.
The district has since hired a “Program Improvement specialist,” former Gilroy High School principal Ernie Zermeno, who will help guide Jackson out of PI and act as a liaison between the district, the school and parents, specifically the Hispanic community. Zermeno will have an office at Jackson and has been meeting with parents, teachers and staff in the past week.
Dudley has refused to comment and deferred all questions to MHUSD Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Jay Totter. Totter and Smith would not comment on the complaints because it is a personnel matter, they said, though Smith did say that the district takes the complaints seriously and “is dealing with them.” The school board of trustees has also heard and reviewed the complaints, and Smith said that “they value and are responsive to the concerns of the community.” Board president Bart Fisher declined to comment.
In the complaints, which were acquired through the California Public Records Act after the Times received dozens of phone calls, e-mails and visits by Jackson staff members and parents, Dudley is accused of sexually harassing staff members, verbally abusing students, including calling two Hispanic students “little banditos,” sharing confidential information, failing to address the needs of the Hispanic community, not complying with Jackson’s site plan and California Education codes, and making inappropriate comments to parents and employees.
The Times also requested complaints filed against Dudley at his previous employers through the California Public Records Act. No complaints were filed while Dudley worked as a principal at Turlock Unified School District and because St. Helens School District is located in Oregon, its Superintendent Patricia Adams responded that the district “declines to provide you with the information your requested.” Dudley was St. Helens director of curriculum and federal programs for one year beginning in 2004.
Dudley’s one-year contract with MHUSD was renewed June 30 for the 2010-11 school year, and in 2008-09 he earned $112,860. Because he chose to retire, his contract will not be paid out in full.
Dudley, who is married to a retired educator and the father of three grown children, has worked in education for 16 years, though never as a credentialed teacher.
The bulk of complaints against Dudley came this year, beginning in April around the same time some Jackson parents and teachers were most vocal about their dissatisfaction with Jackson leadership.
Besides complaints about the progress of Jackson in PI, two sexual harassment complaints were filed with the district against Dudley in early 2008, marking the beginning of when complaints came in against Dudley. In January 2008, according to the Jackson teacher who filed the complaint Dudley made her feel uncomfortable when he talked to her quietly from behind while she was sitting in a chair. According to the employee, he then laid his head sideways on her shoulder “so that his chin was angled next to my neck and his forehead was toward my shoulder. He looked up at me and batted his eyelids several time while still looking up at me.” The employee said her personal space was violated and she felt trapped and extremely embarrassed.
A second incident occurred between a teacher and Dudley in August 2008 in front of a classroom full of students. The teacher said she quietly told Dudley that only three of her students had given a correct an answer on a math problem. Dudley allegedly responded, “My training officer said to me on my wedding night, you’re going to do it tonight and then you’re going to keep on doing it until you get it right,” the complaint read.
Complaints in the form of e-mails and phone calls have poured into the Times for the last several months and have become more prevalent due to Jackson’s Program Improvement status, which is often referred to in conversation.
“He came in like a steamroller and turned the entire school upside down,” said Nola Martini, whose two oldest children, now students at Live Oak High School, attended Jackson Elementary. She was Home & School Club president for two years and was a substitute teacher who worked exclusively at Jackson for five years. Martini said the first year Dudley became principal was “the most disappointing, hellish year of school” and that “I never thought in my wildest dreams, I would pull (my child) out of their home school,” Martini said.
Dealing with Dudley was too much to handle for Martini and her family. Martini referred to his military background when she spoke about the decisive, controlling, toxic place that Jackson became. In 2007, at least five families Martini knows left the school because of Dudley, including her own daughter who attended San Martin/Gwinn the remainder of her elementary school years.
Martini said that some teachers at Jackson feel oppressed by Dudley. “They won’t speak up because they believe they will face retaliation,” she said.
“That’s wrong. Whether he does it or not, if that’s a feeling that people have that’s not a principal you want at any school, or a person you want to have any connection to a child.”
The height of public outcry over leadership at Jackson and the schools’ PI status came during two well-attended town hall meetings that were held last spring, where parents were visibly concerned and agitated at the lack of information Dudley and the school district were providing.
School board members Julia Hover-Smoot and Don Moody asked Smith to add Jackson’s plan for year five of PI to be placed on a future board agenda. Both felt the public and the board needed to hear what the school is planning to do and Moody said he wants updates on Jackson every few months to monitor their progress.
