Wednesday night’s Danville District 118 School Board meeting ‘open session’ began nearly an hour late, due to a long ‘closed session.’ The meeting room was packed, and two major votes came well over two hours later. In both cases, four particular members of the board voted together, with the other three voting against them. The group of four were Dr. Randal Ashton, Shannon Schroeder, Pastor Thomas Miller, and Elder Tyson Parks. The three on the other side were Alice Payne, Kimberly Corley, and Darlene Halloran. Long story short, the financial separation agreement with now outgoing superintendent Dr. Alicia Geddis has been passed.
First, the team of Payne, Corley, and Halloran wanted the vote tabled until the first May meeting, when the new school board would be seated. One of those incoming members, the returning Christopher Easton, said during public comment that the outgoing board members, all of whom voted for the agreement, should end their legacies on the right note by tabling the agreement for further consideration.
Both Shannon Schroeder and Dr. Ashton said afterwards that too much legal litigation and possible cost was at stake. And therefore, even if there might be a TRS (Teachers Retirement System) penalty for approving this before final TRS approval, costs possible by delaying the vote could be worse. Schroeder called it the “best worst option.” And Ashton said they had to follow what was written financial settlement wise in the February agreement that had placed Geddis on leave.
Kimberly Corley shows displeasure for the proposed settlement; Darlene Halloran and Alice Payne listen as Pastor Thomas Miller defends Dr. Alicia Geddis’ legacy as District 118 superintendent; incoming board member Christopher Easton encourages a tabling of the settlement.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: (Schroeder) High, high possibility of litigation; of big litigation. It was a lot of risk. So for me, the situation was to mitigate the risk. (Ashton) What happened in that, in the previous agreement; was that we redid her contract as part of the agreement. But part of that contract was that there would be a penalty; if anything happened to employment during that time, it would incur a penalty.
Kimberly Corley said she has no idea what the final cost of this agreement is going to be, and that the district’s legal representatives had told them “don’t sign this agreement.” She also stated disagreement with Dr. Ashton when he said investigators into things such as Geddis’ emails had not found anything highly objectionable. Corley stated during the meeting, “you know what they found.” She did not expand on that afterwards, but was obviously angry at what had happened.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: I’m really not sure where we go from here if you want to know the truth. I’m extremely disappointed in this board.
We asked Christopher Easton what was learned from all this, especially going into choosing the next permanent superintendent.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: We need a community forum, and a community interaction with a superintendent candidate. And we need people to tell us what they really think about that candidate, honestly. The community has to have buy in for the next superintendent. Dr. Geddis may not have ever really had that.
In other action Wednesday night, interim superintendent John Hart assured two people complaining about dangerous conditions at North Ridge that action would be taken to make improvements. A mother of a student stated she was never contacted by the school after her son was physically assaulted, simply because he said he was fine. And a grandmother of possible future North Ridge students said she was appalled by social media video from recent North Ridge fighting incidents, and that her family is leaning towards paying for the students to go elsewhere if there is no guarantee kids can feel safe at North Ridge.
Finally, a vote on keeping First Student as the provider of bus transportation for District 118 was tabled. Owners of the two companies not selected, Robinson Transportation and Yellow Bus Group, both spoke during public comment and stated that the bidding process was rushed and lacked transparency.
