In an emotional culmination Tuesday night, Superintendent Carol Lark got the vote of confidence she was denied in June.
School board members voted 4-3, with members Sharla Hales, Tom Moore and Teri Jamin voting nay, to extend Lark's $123,000-a-year-contract until June 2011, including reinstating regular merit increases, as were added back to the budget for all administrators in July.
"I've been in the district for 31 years, and there's been problems like this for a long time; it's not just recently," board member Randy Green said of the internal conflict between Lark and her staff.
Green said the situation required an all-or-nothing response: either terminate the superintendent or give her a chance to mend relations. He said not extending her contract would virtually equate to firing her, and he was reluctant to do that. He said as a high school government teacher, his students often resented the hypocrisy of adults, that adults could be just as incapable as children of resolving conflict.
"Making people who disagree with you instant enemies is what society does," Green said. "What a horrible lesson for our young people if these issues can't be resolved.
"I always told superintendents they have the highest head-coaching job in the district," Green said. "But it takes everyone to make a contribution to an entity, not just one person."
Lark's extension was later amended by a 4-3 vote, with Green, Karen Chessell and Cindy Trigg voting nay, to include an additional condition, that the board adopt an improvement plan within the next three meetings geared at resolving the issues between Lark and her staff, including bringing in a professional mediator.
