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Where Will It End?
June 9, 2006
By Patric Hedlund and Gary Meyer
As stories echo across these mountains regarding former El Tejon Unified School District Superintendent John Wight’s past and the reasons for his sudden resignation last week, difficult questions have emerged.
“The school board wants to ‘just put this behind us,’” observed concerned parent Anita Anderson in an interview June 6, “but kids were coming home from school last Thursday [the day after Wight resigned] saying ‘the superintendent has been seen on videotape stealing gasoline from our schools.’ Can we just put something like this behind us and move on? Is this the right thing to do? What message does it send to the children? What about our duty and obligation?”
The ETUSD Board of Trustees has refused to comment on whether the rumors are true.
Anderson is concerned that no formal report had been filed, as of Friday, June 2, with the Kern County Sheriff’s Department, according to Frazier Park Substation’s Sergeant Dave Barker, despite the fact that such reports were made in late 2005 when it was suspected that others were stealing gas from the district’s tanks (which are located 100 yards from the Superintendent’s office). A video surveillance system was installed at that time. On Tuesday, June 6, Barker refused to “confirm or deny” whether any investigation is now underway.
Because board members apparently have avoided reporting Wight’s alleged illegal actions to the authorities, the public’s faith in the board’s willingness to be truthful is at risk, according to numerous teachers, district employees, parents and concerned taxpayers who have contacted The Mountain Enterprise since the resignation.
“The board needs to tell us the truth behind this situation. We just need to know the truth,” Mike Bugbee of Lebec said.
“Why did he resign?” Jeannie Parent of Pine Mountain asks. “What are the facts? I want openness from the board and for them to work together with the community on behalf of our children, openly, and to stop acting like they have something to hide.”
Three separate members of the community (who each asked not to be named at this time) said they plan to approach the Kern County District Attorney’s office. One said he had spoken to the office of the Grand Jury.
What About Bond Measure E and District Building Projects?
From February through May, the superintendent sped decisions regarding building contracts through the board of trustees, warning that speed was necessary to qualify for state matching funds.
On May 19, in the packet for a special meeting of the ETUSD board, Wight issued an estimate sheet projecting $3.3 million in state matching funds—less than 50% of what he promised before the election.
Board President Steve Newman said in an interview May 23, “those are just John’s conservative estimates, we’re not concerned.” But Wight refused to answer questions from The Mountain Enterprise regarding the current status of matching fund eligibility for this district. Newman told The Mountain Enterprise, “his schedule does not revolve around you,” then suggested in strongly worded emails that the newspaper should abandon efforts to report to the public about these issues until Wight might find it convenient. That day did not arrive. We updated the public with the facts about building activity and the estimate sheet. Ten calls and emails over two weeks to John Wight went unanswered. On May 31 Wight resigned.
Meanwhile, public concern about the lack of opportunity for teachers, parents and even school principals to influence building plans gained focus, particularly in regard to El Tejon School. We are aware of no assertions, however, of fiscal improprieties regarding contracting. But without a bid process, construction contracts have been “rubber-stamped” by the board, based on Wight’s recommendation of contractors. Contracts are already in place to spend a significant portion of the $7.2 million bond issue.
A member of the California School Employees Union, which represents maintenance workers and support staff, said CSEA has been watching the contracts closely and considers them to be ‘within expectations,’ including the $994,000 for architect, construction management and inspection services. It is quite likely that the bond is being handled in an excellent fashion. Appearances, however, are troubling.
“If the board were open about why the superintendent left, there would be no concern in the community about additional possible problems, real or imagined,” Glenn Calloway of Frazier Park said, “There are too many rumors floating around. The board should clear them up.”
“If this person has done something illegal or immoral then the board is responsible for reporting that to the sheriff. They don’t want to be in cahoots by not reporting that something illegal has taken place,” parent Abbe Gore said.
The Firebaugh-Las Deltas Connection
Chris Cardella is the kind of guy you’d probably be glad to have as a neighbor. He’s a family man. His children come first. He has a daughter in middle school and a son who is now a senior. His family likes the rural life. He supports extracurricular Future Farmers of America programs in the schools with his time and his donations.
But, he says, when John Wight came to the Firebaugh-Las Deltas Unified School District as the new superintendent in August 2002, things began to change rapidly.
“Just after he arrived he held a forum with the parents, and he started telling us all the programs he was going to cut. No board members were there. He was cocky. He started attacking the ag program,” Cardella said. “I’m a farmer. Corn. Beans. Cotton. I’m on the Ag Advisory Board. I back these kids financially. I do a lot of the fundraisers and cook for the school events. Wight started attacking them and telling us there would be teachers cut and stipends cut and the field trips would be cut. He said kids would have to pay large fees to go on field trips. He said our popular swimming program would be cut because he didn’t want to maintain the pool.”
Brian Maiorino, another Firebaugh farmer of cotton and alfalfa, had two daughters in school as juniors at the time. “Wight started right off saying he was going to cut down the ag department—then he started on the sports program,” said Maiorino, “he would not reason with us.”
Cardella didn’t like what he was hearing at the school district board of trustees meetings. “My wife and I went to every meeting of the school board and began to ask questions. Something wasn’t right. He refused to answer questions on finances. He had the board buffaloed...” Cardella said in an interview last week.
Maiorino remembers, “Wight called a special budget meeting and convinced the board that there would be no outside participation. He controlled the meeting so it was extremely difficult to have input,” Maiorino said in an interview with The Mountain Enterprise. Cardella says he saw good teachers leaving. Parents of special education students began making alarming reports. He said even janitors had disturbing concerns about treatment of special needs students.
“Our school district has always been in the black,” Cardella said, “but Wight came in and started telling us we were in the red. He thought this was a hick town and he could get away with what he wanted. But we are business people and we knew what to look for.” Maiorino gets angry when he remembers the frustration, “It’s been a constant fight to build and maintain this ag department and we were not going to let anyone come in and destroy what we had built.”
Cardella and Maiorino, with the help of other local citizens, launched their own investigation. They say they found that Wight had been systematically double-billing the district for travel expenses and reimbursements, allegedly using his own receipt pads to create and submit fraudulent expense vouchers for which the district would pay him, Cardella said in a series of interviews. They obtained cell phone and credit card records which showed that, when Wight was collecting money for being at a conference on school business, he was actually in a different county attending to personal matters, far from school business.
Cardella and others took their findings to the board of trustees, after which Wight was allowed to resign. The Mountain Enterprise has examined the records from the Firebaugh school district that support Cardella’s charges, obtained through public records requests.
Back On Frazier Mountain
Like many others in the Frazier Mountain Communities, Abbe Gore, whose children are in ETUSD schools, did a “google” on Wight when he was hired in May 2004. She discovered a brief notice in the Fresno Bee, published September 5, 2003 about Firebaugh-Las Deltas putting him on administrative leave. She asked then-board member Lorie Morse about that, and received a reassuring email: “Yes, the board is aware of what transpired at Firebaugh. John was totally upfront with us at his interview. Additionally, references from Firebaugh were pointedly asked for their interpretation as to what happened. Bottom line, John was in a no win situation. He and a majority of the board had philosophical differences, therefore decided to part company. The job of Superintendent is very political....I hope the above puts your mind and that of others in possession of this information at ease. I would hate for misinformation to cause people to think less of John than what he deserves....”
In September 2004, as The Mountain Enterprise changed ownership, this editor and publisher made a routine attempt to fill in details about the new ETUSD superintendent, but the local newspaper in Firebaugh had written nothing about Wight’s accomplishments or departure and Firebaugh’s trustees said, when queried, “We can’t talk about that.”
In the summer of 2005 our reporters noted that statements Wight made to the ETUSD board of trustees were frequently contradictory. We reported in May that he told the board in public session that “the state would provide a 14 to 1 match of funds” if voters passed a school bond. In the following month he told the trustees it would be 9 to 1, and later he said 7 to 1. We were alarmed that trustees were not asking more questions about the fuzzy math. By the time October rolled around, the matching fund projection was at 1 to 1. On that basis, Measure E was passed by voters, becoming, we were told, the first school bond assessment in thirty years for this district.
At the regular December 2005 meeting, our reporters were present when false information was passed to the board on a matter that resulted in a sensational lawsuit which cost the district money, polarized the community and took focus away from planning for the district’s building program. Despite the impact on students, faculty and the community, many observed that Wight seemed to relish the limelight from national media. He had a different response to local media which examined issues more closely however. He erected systematic blockades to our newspaper’s ability to report about his actions. He began openly retaliating against The Mountain Enterprise. In December 2005 we again opened inquiries in Northern California to learn why he had been placed on leave by his former employer.
Finally, in February of 2006 we were able to talk with parents in the Firebaugh district and other districts where Wight has served. We learned that his track record as a superintendent of schools has been troubled. Of his last three jobs in the past six years, he stayed at ETUSD the longest. He was driven out after one year in Firebaugh and he left left amidst controversy after 18 months in Sonoma County. Four years is the average for holding such positions, trustees told us.
The Mountain Enterprise first learned of Chris Cardella during our February inquiries. As a parent, he was sufficiently alarmed by Wight’s actions that he spoke with an attorney, hired a private investigator for a short time and did background checks to confirm that Wight had left his two prior districts under a cloud.
“Every other week for three and a half months I made public records requests of the school district. They’d call and say ‘come on in, your documents are ready,’” Cardella said June 5, as he transferred those records to The Mountain Enterprise.
“I talked with the district attorney. Deputies came to my house and looked over the material. It was a major threat to our school district; I wanted criminal charges against him.”
“We found that Wight was systematically double billing the district and we laid the information in front of the school board,” Cardella told The Mountain Enterprise in March. The school district called its attorney, he recalls, and then called a special meeting for personnel action, where they showed the evidence to Wight. They suggested he obtain an attorney to accompany him to their next board meeting. “I was outside, it was a closed session of the board,” Cardella says of that last encounter, “His attorney was meeting privately with them in the library. I saw him sitting alone on a bench outside the library door. An attorney from the Fresno Board of Education was there, along with our school district’s attorney. All the board members knew what I had. I heard that his attorney looked at the evidence and then spoke with Wight privately. He went back in and gave them his resignation. Board members said his attorney had negotiated a confidentiality agreement.”
Combined with the apparent decision by the ETUSD Board (thus far) not to report alleged wrongdoing to legal authorities, the practice of allowing such administrators to shield alleged bad behavior in this manner disturbs both parents and teachers who have contacted us. A report to the sheriff could create a public record and provide for more accurate reporting in the media. Without that, one school district employee said, “he can just move on to the next victim without leaving a track.”
Across California, volunteer citizen school boards are hiring executives for six figure salaries to oversee multimillion dollar school district budgets without conducting valid background checks. It appears superintendents such as Wight are able to skip from one district to another, without being held accountable. “What is really scary is that he is going to go apply at another district,” said parent Abbe Gore. “The general public has no information about why he resigned here.”
“Of equal concern to many is how the search for the next superintendent for this district will be conducted,” parent Anita Anderson said. She has asked that this question be placed on the board’s Wednesday, June 14 public meeting agenda (the public meeting is at 6:30 p.m. in the Frazier Mountain High School library; those who wish to speak must fill out a blue card before the meeting begins). Anderson, who is one of the few parents who attends board meetings regularly, said she will propose that the executive search committee be expanded to include district teachers, support staff and parents, in addition to the trustees.
Just prior to press time, the ETUSD board called a special meeting for 4:00 p.m. Wednesday, June 7. They will introduce the interim superintendent, Robert Harte, discuss the process for recruiting a new superintendent and give a status report on the bond and construction projects. It is likely they will also be asked at that time if they plan to reverse their stance and turn the outgoing superintendent’s case over to the district attorney’s office.
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