Source: Orange County Register
A. Woodrow Carter speaks to the Capistrano Unified school board Monday, just hours before they voted unanimously to fire him as superintendent.
SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO - Capistrano Unified Superintendent A. Woodrow Carter was fired Monday for "material breach of contract," the culmination of a rocky, 18-month tenure at the helm of Orange County's second-largest school district.
Capistrano's seven-member school board put Carter on paid leave two months ago, and it was widely believed that eventually he would be fired. No interim superintendent was appointed Monday.
School board President Ellen Addonizio announced the unanimous vote for termination about 11:45 p.m., following a closed-door meeting that lasted nearly an hour.
"The board voted for (dismissal based on) material breach of contract and requested that counsel prepare a statement consistent with its decision," Addonizio said.
She declined to elaborate further, and it wasn't immediately clear if he would be paid for any part of the 28 months remaining on his contract. The district will continue to be run without a superintendent, as has been the case since Carter was put on leave Jan. 6.
Carter, who attended Monday's meeting, said the board had presented him with more than 60 charges. He said he had submitted a written response refuting all of the charges, but declined to elaborate on them.
"It's still very much a personnel issue," he said.
However, in a 10-minute speech to the board - his first public appearance since trustees voted 6-1 to put him on leave - Carter talked in broad terms about his tenure at Capistrano, saying he had become a victim of "adult-centered" politics.
"In hindsight, I may have made some inadvertent mistakes, but the board's persistent, malicious actions would have tainted any staff member," he told trustees.
The school board's majority flipped in June 2008 in favor of those who ran on Capistrano's politically popular "reform" platform.
The "reform" movement, which grew out of a failed 2005 recall movement, had long promised to clean house, ridding the district of what it characterized as mismanagement and corruption. The "reformers" now occupy all seven school board seats.
Carter, who had led the 52,000-student district since September 2007, was working under a three-year, $974,850 employment contract approved by trustees in June 2008. Like other superintendents, he served at the pleasure of the school board and could be fired at will.
Standing before Capistrano's seven trustees and about 100 audience members, Carter said he was the victim of a smear campaign waged on blogs and in e-mails as the school board's composition changed over the past year.
"Get a life," Carter said as about 100 of his supporters in the audience applauded enthusiastically. "And I mean that in the most sincere and affirming way possible."
Carter came to the meeting accompanied by his lawyer but did not stay to hear the 11:45 p.m. decision announced.
He said he was given the list of more than 60 charges Feb. 27 detailing why he was put on paid administrative leave. He received documentation supporting the charges March 4, he said.
In an interview after his speech, he declined to elaborate on the nature of the charges, but said he had prepared a 22-page rebuttal to all of the charges.
"The only thing I can say is that we have refuted all these accusations," Carter said. "We have had very little time."
Rumors the board intended to fire Carter began swirling in August 2008. Board members held a closed-door discussion of his performance in that month and again in December.
More than 250 parents, teachers and community members attended the Dec. 18 meeting, speaking passionately about Carter for 3 1/2 hours. Carter himself gave an emotional, 10-minute speech, saying he felt his tenure would "almost assuredly" be over.
That night, trustees announced no action and Addonizio said the purported firing was a rumor spun wildly out of control.
"The board has confidence in the superintendent," she said at the time.
Then, at a Jan. 6 meeting, she said the lengthy comments in December had prevented the board from finishing their evaluation. At the end of the second meeting, he was put on paid leave.
After his speech on Monday, Carter received a standing ovation from an audience of about 100 supporters. He mingled briefly with some parents and staff members and hugged a few of them. Then he left.
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