As expected, the liberal majority on the West Bend School Board rammed this through.
August 15, 2017 – West Bend, WI – During Monday night’s West Bend School Board meeting the board voted 5-2 to approve the contracts for Darci VanAdestine as principal of West Bend East and Ralph Schlass as principal of West Bend West. No details on their contracts were released.
Board members Monte Schmiege and Ken Schmidt were the two dissenting votes.
Ken Schmidt – “I’ll be voting no on this. Not as a reflection upon the qualifications or anything in regard to the candidates but in regard to the process by which this happened and that’s why I will vote no.”
Schmidt’s comment dates to the July 25 school board meeting and questions others had, including school district staff, about how the principals were selected.
West Bend High School assistant principal Jenn Johannsen addressed the board asking about the hiring process for a second principal at the high school. During a special meeting Thursday, July 20 the board voted 4-1, with two members absent, to move forward and add a second principal to the high schools.
-“I was looking for clarification on the administrator hiring process for assistant and head principals that are appointed,” said Johannsen.
-“I also would like to know if it had been considered to open up the hiring process again before the second principal prior to appointing somebody? With a smaller school to head we may have had a larger pool of candidates to interview which would have been exciting. I am asking this as an assistant principal of the high school right now because I was not included or aware of an interview process for a second candidate and I was part of the first candidate’s interview process”
They also moved forward with forming a committee to lead the way to a referendum. Interestingly, they said that they had allocated $35,000 with Bray Architects for the process. I have asked the board president how Bray was selected, but I have not yet received a response. Was there an RFP process to pick the best company? Were local building and architectural firms considered? What was the selection criteria? That’s a lot of taxpayer money to go out the door without some sort of process.
From what I can tell, according to the Facilities Committee meeting on 6/12/17, four firms had submitted proposals and were set to be interviewed on 6/15/17. A recommendation was made to the Board on 6/26/17 to accept this company (Bray).
I wonder how much of the $35,000 budget will go towards facilitating the committee process.
Thanks, Mark. Do you see anything about the selection criteria?
Did not see anything about selection criteria in the minutes – Board Policy – Series 600 – Fiscal Management seems t0 provide some wiggle room for not necessarily taking the lowest bid. http://www.west-bend.k12.wi.us/files/user/6/file/ESC/Board%20Policies/600/620%20purchasing%20guides.pdf