The Higley Unified School District Governing Board listens to newly hired Superintendent Nate Carman's remarks after the board approved his contract Feb. 21.
The Higley Unified School District governing board discussed its incoming superintendent behind the closed doors of an executive session April 2.
However, the session came too late to put an item on the board's April 3 business meeting agenda, and it is uncertain if any item would have been put on had their been more than the 24 hours notice required by state open meetings law.
Nate Carman was put on administrative leave March 25 from his job as superintendent of Socorro Independent School District in El Paso, Texas, after an external forensics audit identified him as having a possible conflict of interest regarding district purchashing decisions.
Two schools in Queen Creek, Cortina Elementary School and Sossaman Middle School, are in the Higley Unified School District.
Items discussed in executive session are confidential, and board members are not allowed by law to share what happens in executive sessions.
Arizona's open meeting laws allow for such executive sessions for items such as contracts, certain personnel matters and legal advice.
The district's agenda for the executive session listed two items to be discussed: contract matters and pending litigation. But it does not list whose contract or what the pending litigation is about.
Outside the session, the board approved an action item directing the district's attorney to follow the board's direction from executive session, but did not specify what that action was to be.
The district's superintendency went vacant in June 2023 when Dawn Foley resigned. Associate Superintendent Sherry Richards has been acting superintendent since then.
The board hired a search firm, Ray & Associates, to lead a nationwide effort to find Foley's replacement.
Carman was one of two finalists from that search and was hired Feb. 16. The board approved his contract Feb. 21.
We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on X.
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
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