BOE fills assistant superintendent appointment, only to rescind it?

WEBUTUCK — The Webutuck Central School District’s Board of Education returned from executive session at its April 20 meeting having created an assistant superintendent position for the district and appointing James Gratto to fill that seat.

However, in a somewhat confusing turn of events, the following Monday, board President Dale Culver said the board would “most likely rescind the appointment� at the next board meeting.

The creation of the position will stand, Culver explained, but he added that “the board may have gotten a little ahead of ourselves timeline-wise� in appointing Gratto at the April 20 meeting.

Gratto was one of the five finalists for the position of superintendent, which Steven Schoonmaker will fill starting July 1, the beginning of the 2010-11 school year.

Culver said the decision would be reversed because the current interim superintendent, Lee Bordick, is not behind the decision.

Bordick, reached earlier this week for comment, explained that he and the administration had presented a budget to the board that was adopted on April 12. Any additions to that budget, including the creation of a position and hiring someone to fill that position, were never brought to the table.

A school district’s superintendent is legally required to recommend the hiring of staff before a board of education can vote to fill a position. Bordick said that given a budget was already presented and adopted by the board, which includes reductions to 22 staff positions ranging from cutting hours to outright elimination, he could not recommend the change at the April 20 meeting and he will not be prepared to do so in the future.

“It’s not a question of need,� Bordick explained, “it’s a question of how we establish the budgetary process. There is a significant impact in the form of staff reductions. For that reason, basically we gave [the board] a representation of what the budget was, and what our needs were. [An assistant superintendent] just never was a part of the conversation.�

Culver said the board has been focused on deficiencies in Webutuck’s academic program, and he cited a “very frank and very thorough� discussion in executive session at the July 1, 2009, board meeting about “where the district was and where we were headed.�

Culver said that recently Webutuck was shown to have the largest decline in standardized test scores in Dutchess County.

“I can’t believe, in good conscience, that it’s all going to come together under the current configuration of administration,� he said.

Culver also said that the reductions in 22 positions proposed in the 2010-11 budget are numbers driven by declining student enrollment numbers and efficiency and not strictly for budgetary reasons, in response to any claims that the move was contradictory to the climate of cutting back on costs.

“We as a board see a need to get curriculum and instruction to the forefront,� he said. “This gives an opportunity to the new superintendent to push things forward. Change is never easy. Reconfiguration is never easy. But there are a number of things that don’t meet the standards we’ve set [at Webutuck] and [Schoonmaker] believes there is a deep need to focus on that.�

“As far as [test] scores and results, Webutuck does fairly well but we can improve,� Bordick said. “We need better coordination in the curriculum for K-12. Whether that takes the form of an assistant superintendent or takes the form of some full-time director of curriculum or some staff members pick up the responsibilities, the need is there. But how we fund it and how we staff it can be done in a myriad of ways.�

Culver said that he didn’t have an estimate as to when the board would readdress the issue, or whether Gratto would be the only candidate considered for the job when it was looked at again.

There has been a confusion in communication between the board and administration, Culver acknowledged, as far as what Webutuck should be doing now and what Webutuck should be doing for next year.

“I can see his point relative to ‘Let’s work on that next year,’� he said in response to the superintendent’s stance on the hiring. “But the board has said that there will be further reconfiguration, and this situation is part of the reconfiguration that the board has been very open about.�

The next Board of Education meeting is scheduled for May 3 at 7:30 p.m. at the high school library.