Palo Alto Schools
Superintendent Kevin Skelly informed teachers, parents, and school district
personnel them that he will resign at the end of the school year from the Palo
Alto Unified School District.
Skelly,
53, who weathered successive controversies in the K-12 district, wrote that he
wants to spend more time with his family. He said Tuesday that he could again
work as superintendent for another district, but not for Palo Alto.
Both Skelly and board President Barb Mitchell said
the decision was his. He has two years remaining on his $300,000 annual salary.
Mitchell
said, "He's a very popular superintendent. We will miss him, and we all
have benefited from the contributions he made."
While
contentious debate is not unusual in Palo Alto, in recent years the district
was the target of investigations by the federal Department of Education's
Office for Civil Rights, over the handling of students' bullying complaints. That controversy continued as the
administration and board wrestled to create a policy to combat bullying; most
recently they angered teachers in dismissing a proposal to eliminate tracking
in freshman English classes at Palo Alto High.
Parent
Ken Dauber, a frequent critic of the district, credited Skelly for important
contributions, in particular shepherding through a plan to ensure that all
students graduate with credits required for admission to California's public universities, known as the A-to-G
requirements.
Dauber
said the he hoped Skelly's departure would offer an opportunity to reconsider
values. "Those should include a concern for academic achievement and also
for students' social-emotional well-being and making sure that all students in
the district get an equal opportunity to succeed."
Skelly
will step down June 30. He said that seven years is a good point to take a
break, just as the youngest of his four children is graduating from high
school. He said he'd like to take a cross-country trip -- his parents live back
East -- and spend more time with his wife Carrie.
The
furious debates of recent months did not prompt him to resign, Skelly said. In
Palo Alto's intensely involved and vocal community, "Predecessors told me
that this was one of the most demanding placed to be a superintendent," he
said. "It is."
Mitchell
agreed. "It's a tough community for a superintendent." The board set
64 goals in its strategic plan; in addition, parents, employees and various
interests place demands on schools.
She said that Palo Alto needs to do some soul searching, in its expectations of
its leaders.
There
is no indication that the board has been unhappy with Skelly. Mitchell noted
that the school board extended his contract to the four-year legal maximum term
every year during his superintendency, except when he requested otherwise. It
was not lengthened last spring.
The
board, Mitchell said, will seek community input into what qualities its next school
leader should have.
Dauber
said he hopes the board conducts the search for its next superintendent
"with full transparency and participation from the whole community."
