Higley school board divided over superintendent’s authority in contract policy change
Screen capture from YouTube
In a debate about a policy on employee contracts, the Higley Unified School District Governing Board bickered over language about staff members leaving the district.
A contentious debate erupted at the Higley Unified School District governing board meeting April 1 regarding a proposed policy that grants the superintendent authority to waive liquidated damages in professional staff contracts under certain circumstances.
The provision, included in the district’s proposed “Professional Staff Contracts and Compensation” policy, sparked division among board members who disagreed over whether such a power should rest with the superintendent.
The policy outlines the contractual terms for professional staff, including provisions regarding resignations and penalties for breaking contracts. The policy passed on a 3-2 vote with board members Anna Van Hoek and Sara Jarman voting in dissent.
A key point of contention was the section allowing the superintendent to waive liquidated damages in cases they deem appropriate. Liquidated damages serve as financial penalties for employees who break their contracts before the agreed-upon end date.
The specific language in the policy states: "The Board hereby delegates to the Superintendent authority to waive all or a portion of the liquidated damages if the employee's resignation is due to any of the following reasons:
Incapacitating medical condition or injury of the employee or a member of the employee's immediate family requiring employee's care;
A spouse's relocation due to employment to a distance beyond a reasonable commuting distance
To take a position within the education field that constitutes a promotion; or
An agreement to separate employment.”
Van Hoek called the policy “absolutely absurd” and argued granting the superintendent this discretion undermined the board’s authority.
"We are giving away our authority as a board to the superintendent," she said “We were elected to do a job that we continue to give part of what our responsibility is as a board member to the superintendent."
Van Hoek got into heated exchanges with President Amanda Wade and Board Member Scott Glover about the role of the board when it came to resignations. Wade noted that board members maintain the ability to vote as resignations come to the board but said some information was not needed by the board for every resignation.
“I personally wish to continue my life rather than learn the business of others,” Wade said. “My question to you is, is that not possible for you at this present moment in time?”
Replied Van Hoek: “Your job here is to learn the business of others and to protect the community.”
Glover said the policy allowed for employees to retain some privacy protections and eliminated a redundancy in the process, to which Van Hoek said Glover was a “union rep.”
Replied Glover, “I’m a board member, ma’am. I’m a board member, same as you.”
Van Hoek said staff members have been allowed to leave without paying liquidated damages when, in one case, the member had been reported to the state Board of Education. She suggested the situation was ripe for abuse from the superintendent if, for example, the superintendent was friends with an employee.
But Wade said she was looking at the policy under a scope that such a scenario was the only one that existed, and Vice President Tiffany Shultz said Van Hoek's scenario had happened under the existing policy.
Shultz said she initially was against a policy change but came to support it after understanding it more.
Van Hoek felt it more important to hold teachers accountable for resigning.
"These are grown adults who sign a contract, and they need to be held accountable to that contract,” she said. "But no, we're going to allow them, ‘oh, I'm not happy. Oh, whatever.’"
The disagreements continued into the voting when a frustrated Van Hoek moved to call the question.
When Wade then asked for the votes on the call for the question — essentially, a motion to end debate and move to the vote on the policy — Wade, Glover and Shultz voted in the affirmative and Van Hoek and Jarman did not respond.
Wade prodded them to reply, but Van Hoek argued her motion calling the question was a vote on the policy, even as a district attorney clarified it was to vote to move on to voting on the policy. Wade ended up recording Van Hoek and Jarman as abstentions on that vote before then making the motion to approve the policy.
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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