It was all coming together nicely for Sherry Richards. She would wrap up her education career June 30, having been an interim superintendent for a highly achieving school district that she loved, hand it over in good shape to a new permanent superintendent and the spend July in Spain with her daughter to launch her retirement.
It all unraveled overnight when the designated superintendent, Nate Carman, was put on administrative leave from his job as a superintendent in El Paso, Texas, March 25 because an external forensics audit identifying Carman as having a possible conflict of interest regarding district purchasing decisions.
By May 8, the Higley Unified School District Governing Board was rescinding Carman’s contract and appointing Richards as the superintendent with no “interim” label, though for one year only.
