By Bruce Lieberman
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Source: http://signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20080223-9999-1mc23supe.html
February 23, 2008
Tom Bishop, superintendent of the Del Mar School District since 1998, is poised to resign.
Late yesterday, the school board scheduled a meeting for 5 p.m. Tuesday to approve a resignation agreement between Bishop and the district. The meeting is scheduled at Del Mar Hills Academy, 14085 Mango Drive. A closed session is scheduled first, followed by a public session anticipated for 6 p.m.
The school district announced the meeting at about 5 p.m. yesterday.
Bishop has had a rocky relationship with the school board since late 2006, when trustees Katherine White and Steven McDowell joined Annette Easton to form a board majority.
The three trustees have been highly critical of Bishop's leadership on a number of issues. Their chief complaint after taking office in late 2006 was that the previous school board had handed Bishop too much power and wasn't aggressive enough in exercising its own responsibilities in governing the district.
White, who did not return telephone calls late yesterday, hinted from the get-go that the new board majority might force Bishop out.
“We want a return of power to the board,” she said in an interview for a Dec. 27, 2006 news story. If Bishop could make the transition, he would be “comfortable,” she said. “If he doesn't, we always have the option of buying out his contract.”
The terms of the resignation agreement were not made public, and none of the board members or Bishop returned telephone calls yesterday.
The past year has been a tumultuous one on the board. Several meetings were tense with discussions over the district's parent foundation, which had been criticized in the past for not being transparent enough and paying its former executive director too much money.
The board majority criticized Bishop's involvement in helping the foundation raise money, and last spring voted on measures to sever several ties between the district and the foundation. Its director has since left and hasn't been replaced.
White, Easton and McDowell have all said in the past that the district should have sought more community input on the sale of the Del Mar Shores school property, which is in escrow with the city of Del Mar. An agreement between the city and district would preserve open space for public use.
Despite the controversies, the eight-campus Del Mar School District is one of the highest performing public school districts in the state.
Home to about 3,800 students in kindergarten through sixth grade, Del Mar scored 947 last year on the state's Academic Performance Index, a measure of academic performance that includes scores on state standardized exams and several other measures. An API score ranges between 200 and 1,000, and the state encourages districts to shoot for a score of 800.
In 2001, the district's school board at that time nominated Bishop as the California superintendent of the year.
|