Pajaro Valley Unified School District hosted a meeting Monday night to garner community input on the qualities people would like to see in the next Aptos High School principal.
However, many who went expected to receive information on former principal Alison Hanks-Sloan’s controversial resignation.
“The meeting is a farce,” said Karell Reader, who said she went to the meeting on behalf of her friends who have children at Aptos High and PVUSD staff members she knows.
Reader said that it wasn’t fair to “make people give up their time” to attend a meeting where PVUSD “decision makers” were not present. This sentiment was echoed by others who said they had come to the meeting hoping to see board members or Superintendent Heather Contreras.
The meeting, which took place in the high school’s cafeteria, saw about 50 attendees, many of whom were concerned community members and parents of Aptos High students.
PVUSD Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Michael Berman was the main speaker.
After about 30 minutes of discussion, Berman passed out pieces of poster paper and multicolored markers for people to write down attributes they want the next administrator to have. The papers were collected at the end of the meeting to be shown to the faculty members who will interview candidates for that position.
Audience members said they were displeased with the meeting’s agenda. Many wanted to know why Hanks-Sloan resigned.
In a letter to the community, Hanks-Sloan shared that she will not return as Aptos High principal after the current academic year. She did not say why, nor did she specifically state that she resigned.
Several community members wanted to know whether there was any chance of her being reinstated as principal in the future. “Is there something we can do as a community to get Sloan back?” one audience member asked.
Berman said several times throughout the meeting that he could not discuss the details of Hanks-Sloan’s resignation, causing some to say they felt “frustrated” and that the meeting was a “disrespect to us as parents.”
When asked why he had been selected to host the meeting, Berman responded “I don’t know that I recall. I might’ve volunteered.”
According to PVUSD spokeswoman Alicia Jimenez, Berman was the person responsible for this meeting because he is a cabinet member who oversees different district sites.
“The board does not get involved in the hiring of staff other than the superintendent,” Jimenez said.
Berman said that since he is a member of the community, he found everyone’s concerns important.
Although the aim of the meeting was to focus on Aptos High’s next principal, he had expected people to raise concerns about Hanks-Sloan’s resignation. “We knew we were going to have this conversation,” he said.
The meeting did little to quell people’s concerns.
Kelly Allari, an Aptos High parent, said she left the meeting “feeling frustrated, because there isn’t a clear avenue to hear community concerns.” She also felt Berman had been placed in an “unfair position” as the meeting’s host. “He had a purpose to the meeting that wasn’t what the people here were wanting to discuss,” Allari said.
She added that she has contacted two members of the Board of Trustees to inquire about Hanks-Sloan’s resignation, but they didn’t divulge any information. She also reached out to. Contreras, but did not receive a response.
Allari said she will keep searching for information regarding Hanks-Sloan’s resignation and planned to attend the Board of Trustees meeting on Wednesday night.
Personnel issues cannot by law be discussed publicly by the school district else a lawsuit is shortly to come. Most frustrating to people who want to know every detail or not.
If the meeting agenda clearly stated the discussion would be about the qualities of a new principal, why did attendees try to discuss a matter the district couldn’t comment on? Furthermore, the fact that a principal is being replaced, despite community support, implies there were likely other factors related to their job performance.