On October 26, I asked the question on this blog, "Why hasn't Joseph Hunter signed his contract?" Two days later, he did. I still don't know why the contract remained unsigned for four months. In the listening sessions at the board meeting, Paul Evans suggested that it was a kind of solidarity with the teachers - until they had a contract to sign, the superintendent's would not be signed either. That doesn't make much sense to me as his contract had already been negotiated and ratified by the board. I still think the most likely explanation is that he was hoping to still have the option of negotiating a nice settlement package as he leaves our district.
Interesting that the date of the signed contract is October 28, 2010 ... when at the November 1, 2010 it was clearly stated that he was choosing not to sign it until the teachers' contract was signed. Hmmm ... so what was the advantage of pre-dating his signature by at least 3 days? This appears to me as one more thing that isn't just straight-forward ... why wouldn't he date the contact on the actual date in which he signed it ... or if he actually did sign it on the Thursday prior to the School Board meeting, why didn't they just say that.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they didn't know. I think there is quite a bit that goes on behind the scenes with the chair and the supt that other board members don't know about. It happened when I was on the board and I have reason to believe it has gotten worse since then.
ReplyDeleteIt does sound fishy, however if you watch Part 4 of the video of the Nov 1 meeting, at 2:18 the chair says that the contract already has been signed.
ReplyDeleteListen carefully or you will miss it. No explanation was given for the change from waiting until the other negotiations were settled prior to signing.
Such an explanation would have been wise. As is, once again things seem suspicious. Failure to explain why the contract was signed despite statements that it would not be signed until the other negotiations were settled does not foster trust in the board or in the superintendent.
Maybe he realized that the teachers are going to give up more than he was willing to give up himself. I doubt that he will give up as much as the teachers have already offered to give up for the benefit of the students. He may have taken what he could while he could rather than gamble and ending up with a similar sacrifice as the teachers.
Or maybe he just got tired of working without a contract.
I still don't understand why he would wait until the negotiations with the teachers were settled as his contract was already ratified by the board. And if so, why not make that intent known?
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