Return to School District stories index

As Dust Settles From Wight Resignation, Focus
Turns to School Construction Program

June 30, 2006

Commentary and report by Patric Hedlund

Good news and bad news may stalk this mountain in pairs for quite some time as we survey what has been left behind in the wake of the sudden departure of John Wight from his position as superintendent of El Tejon Unified School District.

Good news includes the immediate response by the Kern County Superinten-dent of Schools. They sent Robert Harte from their office of Administration and Finance to provide interim superintendent services. Bud Burrow from that office has also been helpful. ETUSD’s attorney, Pete Carton, advised the ETUSD Board of Trustees to roll back the veil of secrecy our trustees had instantly erected around Wight’s departure.

Under Harte, ETUSD responded to public records requests by The Mountain Enterprise. He gave the public the much-discussed surveillance video that led to Wight’s exit. He responded to requests for gas logs and other primary data.

Both Harte and Burrow candidly answered the question The Mountain Enterprise had been unable to get Wight to acknowledge for weeks before he left: ‘What happened to the dollar for dollar matching funds from the state which you, the board and members of your administrative cabinet promised to the voters if we passed the $7.2 million school bond measure?’

Kern County personnel did not mince words: “It would never have been possible,” Burrow said. “The most you are likely to see is a 30 to 40 percent match,” Harte replied.

Carton proposed that the board engage a private investigator and auditors to look into Wight’s current and past practices. What are the purposes of the corporations he has established? Is his tenuous link to JTS Construction through acquaintances Scott and Ralph Wilson a conflict of interest?

JTS is the company for which the ETUSD board approved a multimillion dollar construction contract without independent bids. On June 14, two weeks after Wight’s resignation from ETUSD, Mr. Dene Hurlbert of JTS Construction told the investigator that his firm has a marketing agreement with Ralph Wilson: “Mr. Hurlbert expressed concern that there may be something inappropriate in the relationship of John Wight, Ralph Wilson and the unusual ‘management contract’ with Scott Wilson.”

These are questions prompted by data points on an investigator’s preliminary report. But for a board which was elected by the public to safeguard our children, their education, and our precious public education dollars, these data points ought to be troubling.

Meanwhile, there are those, we are told, who are disappointed by Wight’s exit, who hoped that he might attempt to once again institute an intelligent design course at Frazier Mountain High School.

Others accurately point to the fact that, before his arrival in July 2004, and under three of the same trustees (Steve Newman, Kitty Jo Nelson and Paula Regan, who all helped hire Wight), ETUSD had slipped out of compliance on several key issues related to state law. The need to offer Continuation High School options to students was one and the lack of adequate pension plan reserves was another, John Wight told us.

School Board President Steve Newman credits Wight with addressing some of those issues. Newman has said he appreciates Wight’s efforts to lead the district, and for helping to pass the first school bond measure in what we are told is 30 years.

Cynics may say: “...but wasn’t that what we were paying him $205,000 in salary to do during his nearly two years on the job here?”

On May 31, the day Newman first announced Wight’s sudden resignation for unnamed reasons, board members said ‘our focus must now be on moving forward.’ Now that the secrecy has been lifted, that is true. The district has children to educate, and many hurdles yet to navigate.

Here is a list of questions that The Mountain Enterprise has compiled to help chart the path forward. It is based on our attendance at board meetings:

1) Where are we today on the matching fund projections? Is the $3.3 million still the most likely match to the $7.2 million bond? Could it be less?

2) What are the revised building schedules for:
• The continuation high school on the FMHS campus (will building begin on that this summer as earlier reported?);
• Frazier Park School classrooms (is “summer 2007” the likely start date for building, as reported?); 
•  Frazier Park School multipurpose room (will this be built? Is it true there will be no matching funds for this?);
• Replacement of portables at FMHS (When is building projected to begin?);
• Replacement of portables at El Tejon School (because of the delay, will there now be an opportunity for the teachers, principal and public to look more closely at the plan for the campus and to have their thoughts and concerns addressed?);

Questions still revolve around the middle school wing being surrendered for district office use and the loss of the middle school play areas (including basketball court). Is elimin-ating the sense of separation between the elementary and middle school wise?

3) Under the circumstances, will the $50,000 ETUSD recently paid to the state school architect’s office for plan review be a one-time fee, with a concession for our district’s possible need to make plan adjustments, considering the haste with which the plans were prepared and approved under Mr. Wight’s accelerated schedule?

4) What about the building of a permanent school for the Pine Mountain Learning Center: is this still a priority? This was a part of public presentations by Mr. Wight during his campaign for the school bond. What is the status of that plan? Will there be funds for this?
5) Mr. Burrow reports that “portable” classrooms and “relocatable” are essentially the same thing. Wight told the board and the public that we needed bond money to replace the portables with permanent classrooms. He said the state would not provide matching funds to replace portables with portables. Was this true? How does the purchase of “relocatables” from JTS Modular square with this statement by Mr. Wight?

5) Our board agreed to forego the typical bidding process by following Mr. Wight’s guidance to do a “piggy back” on another school district’s bidding process, which had selected JTS Modular. Which school district did that bidding process? When did their contract go to bid? For how many classrooms? Are their classrooms now erected and in use? 

7) The deadline for applications for the citizen oversight committee for the bond (mandated by Proposition 39) was mid-January. We received a list of who was on the committee in June. Why did it take so long to name the members? Have they already met? When will they meet next? When will their first report be issued?

Robert Harte and Bud Burrow were both away from the office this week, so this list of questions has no answers at this time.

It stands as a reminder of the challenges and decisions yet ahead.

Return to School District stories index