Salt Lake City school board members have put Superintendent Timothy Gadson on a leave of absence, a district spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.
The district declined to comment on why Gadson had been placed on leave or when the decision was made.
The board held a closed-door meeting on Thursday after having two closed sessions in June. The agenda for those meetings said they were held to address “character, professional competence, or physical or mental health of an individual; and/or deployment of security personnel, devices, or systems.” No other information was provided.
Gadson was hired in July 2021 after the previous superintendent, Lexi Cunningham, resigned. Former board member Michael Nemelka indicated at the time that Cunningham would have been forced out, after a heated closed meeting, had she not resigned.
Jeanetta Williams, president of the Utah chapter for the NAACP, asked the U.S. attorney’s office and the Department of Justice in June to investigate alleged discrimination and harassment by the board toward Gadson and other Black officials in the district.
Williams also asserted that the district has violated the rights of students with special educational needs by failing to conduct annual reviews of Individualized Education Plans — or IEPs — as required by law. In some instances, she said, plans have not been reviewed for nearly three years.
Gadson and the board released a statement acknowledging that some plans hadn’t been updated, and said that the district would develop “a plan to improve its compliance percentages through not only a system of checks and balances, but also through specific professional development.”
Gadson earlier this year decided to postpone any consideration of closures for schools in the district, despite declining enrollment. He had previously alerted the board that the district’s staffing formula called for shedding 76.5 full-time educator positions for the upcoming school year. The board voted in February to soften that cut and avoid laying off any teachers by approving a plan to cut the equivalent of 42 full-time educators instead.
The Salt Lake Tribune will update this developing story.
from The Salt Lake Tribune https://ift.tt/q8RTCyh
إرسال تعليق