Parents plan meeting Sunday to discuss administration shakeup.
Sue Gorton will take over as interim superintendent of the Jordan-Elbridge Central School District when Marilyn Dominick retires November 1. Gorton poses in the lobby of Ramsdell Middle School in August.
A group of parents in the Jordan-Elbridge school district want answers from school officials about the shake-up of district administrators over the past 15 months.
Mary Jo Wick, who has two children in the district, said that news that business manager William Hamilton is on paid leave and high school Principal David Zehner has been suspended with pay has re-energized parent interest in how the district is run.
Wick said parents will meet at 6 p.m. Sunday at the Elbridge Fire Station on Route 5 in the village of Elbridge.
Marilyn Dominick Wick said parents held similar meetings last year, when Elbridge Elementary School Principal Janice Schue was transferred to a newly created job as special projects administrator in the district office.
“My people are in,” Wick said. “They’re ready.”
Wick said she wants parents to know what school officials can and cannot tell them about the current shakeup among administrators. The school board meets Oct. 6, and Wick wants parents to submit a list a questions about the issue before the meeting so they can get answers that night from the board.
“I don’t know if we’re going to get anything accomplished Sunday night, but it’s a start,” she said.
In the past 15 months, the shakeup has resulted in Schue’s shift to a newly created job, Hamilton and Zehner ordered to stay home with pay and the district superintendent — according to Hamilton — being forced out two years before her contract expires. Also, district Treasurer Anthony Scro was fired Sept. 9.
Jordan-Elbridge school officials did not respond Thursday to calls about the shake-up. A phone message left for school Superintendent Marilyn Dominick went unanswered, and emails to board members asking for comments were not returned.
The turmoil has affected teacher morale, according to Paul Farfaglia, president of the teachers’ union.
“I’m concerned for my members,” he said. “This has been a distraction.”
He also wondered about the cost to the district caused by the shakeup: pay for administrators who are not working, the cost of interim appointments filling supervisory roles and potential legal costs.
“That’s got to come from somewhere,” he said.
A protracted legal battle to remove school administrators can be expensive for taxpayers.
The Liverpool school district spent more than $1 million over 35 months in an unsuccessful attempt to fire two administrators, George Mangicaro and Bonnie Ladd. Both eventually were returned to their jobs in 2009.
Hamilton and Zehner both are still collecting paychecks from the district. Hamilton is paid $105,069 annually, Zehner, $102,803, in 2009, according to See Through New York, a website of the Empire Center for New York State.
Schue, the former principal, had challenged whether the district could transfer her to a new job, but state education officials ruled the district can transfer administrators as long as the district doesn’t violate tenure.
Syracuse lawyer Mimi Satter, who represented Schue in her appeal, would not say Schue is in a “make-work” job, but, Satter did say that “at this point in time, there’s no formal job description” of Schue’s position, even though she has been doing the job for 15 months.
“By moving Janice out of principal and into this job, it caused the district to establish a new administrative position,” Satter said.
For the second straight day, Syracuse lawyer Daniel Mevec, [jst: cq: ]whose billings to the district had been questioned by Hamilton shortly before he was put on administrative leave in July, did not respond to phone calls.
“I gave him the message,” was the response from the person who answered the phone Thursday at Mevec’s office when asked whether the lawyer was working that day or when he was expected back in the office.
Reach John Stith at jstith@syracuse.com or at 251-5718.