By Logan Jenkins
Source: Union-Tribune
Before flying off to Hawaii, Sharon McClain swore she’d sue.
See you in court, the fired superintendent of Del Mar Union School District said to her old bosses.
Given the school district’s gold-plated history, you can understand why the 65-year-old educator would feel poorly treated.
In 1998, Del Mar Superintendent Robert Harriman got sideways with his school board. He was summarily placed on administrative leave, a dramatic and mysterious move. A couple of months later, he was let go and rewarded with a going-away package worth $166,000.
Tellingly, no one, neither Harriman nor the board, fully revealed why he had been relieved of his duties and then forced out.
Silence, as everyone knows, is golden. And it usually costs some gold to secure it from fired employees with scores to settle.
Ten years later, Tom Bishop, Harriman’s successor, lost his normally sure footing. After ushering in a period of intense growth, Bishop made some archenemies over boundary changes and the controversial sale of school land in downtown Del Mar.
In 2006, a new wave of trustees telegraphed that they were going to take the imperious Bishop down a notch.
After an emotionally charged 2008 meeting in which Bishop loyalists vented their grief, the board forked over $300,000 in walking-away hush money.
In the termination chess game, the Bishop had not been rooked. He was a rich king headed into deluxe exile.
But as in Harriman’s case, the gentleman’s agreement, typically codified as a “nondisparagement clause,” ensured that none of the principals would say anything nasty about the other.
Having performed its bloody — and costly — work, the new board was free to hire the ideal superintendent, a custom fit for Del Mar’s new direction.
Oh, happy days!
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After a professional head hunt, the board hired McClain in the summer of 2008, an Escondido music teacher who had worked her way up through the ranks to public education’s pinnacle — superintendent.
"She is a great match for this district because of her interests, because of her energy, because of her consensus building," board member Janet Lamborghini gushed. “I could go on and on.”
Sweet music to Del Mar’s freshly singed ears.
Fast forward to March 31, 2010. Eight days ago.
The board hurriedly called a daytime meeting to announce that McClain, as many had predicted for months, was getting the sack. The shocker was that McClain was being fired for cause, meaning that instead of a year’s salary, the amount she would receive if terminated without cause, she would get not one dime to hit the bricks.
The number of people who stood up to speak in opposition to the board and in favor of McClain? Roughly 30.
The number of people who stood up to speak in support of the board’s decision? A smooth zero.
By my unscientific polling, this board’s approval ratings have dropped below those enjoyed by Congress.
One of the witnesses at the packed auditorium at Del Mar Hills Academy was Peter Kaye, a seasoned journalist who lives in Del Mar.
“In 50 plus years as a reporter and editor,” Kaye e-mailed me, “I’ve covered everything from SDS to White Citizens’ Council meetings, but I’ve never seen such a sustained level of anger as I did last Wednesday. They made the Tea Party movement look like a tea party.”
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So what happens now?
After her sojourn in Hawaii, McClain will have to take stock of her position on the legal chessboard.
Compared to McClain, the district has bottomless pockets, thanks to taxpayers. The board can afford to drag out litigation long beyond November, when a new board will likely take control of a public school system with an incredibly rich academic gene pool.
Presumably, the newly constituted board will have a very different view of McClain’s deficiencies, real or alleged.
If McClain files a lawsuit, one that probably will claim chronic mistreatment from a board majority for whom many believe the word micromanagement was coined, she might have to devote a couple years of her life to the crusade. In the end, attorney fees could swallow up any judgment.
On the other hand, McClain may find in the next board (if not the current one) willing negotiators in a quiet, reasonable settlement, say a third of her annual salary and a statement that she served the district capably under unusually trying circumstances. She gets her good name back — and some green hush money.
If she chooses, McClain can go public and sing a compelling blues number about how her bosses, they done her wrong.
But it’s unlikely that song will go gold in a courtroom.
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