School board president bypasses collaboration

After what was supposed to be a collaborative effort to hire a new superintendent between Trustee Linda Gilkerson and Douglas County School Board President Susan Jansen, ended up with Jansen taking on the entire task.

During the Nov. 14 school board meeting, Jansen and Gilkerson agreed to work together in the search for a new superintendent and were directed and approved by the board to meet and create a hiring process.

“Mrs. Gilkerson made a motion to approve opening up the position for District Superintendent and begin the process for finding potential candidates,” according to the meeting minutes. “President Jansen and Trustee Gilkerson will be a committee of two that will meet and discuss the process and how this is going to work. They will also meet with Human Resources Director, Mr. (Adam) Dedmon to advise him on how they want to move forward, and their findings will be brought before the Board in the December meeting to be voted on for discussion and possible action, seconded by Mrs. Dickerson.”

During Tuesday’s meeting, Gilkerson questioned why she was not included in the process as it was directed by the board.

“It’s very frustrating, that we had voted on this 7-0, and Ms. Jansen and I’m not trying to belittle you or put you down, but you chose to do this by yourself,” said Gilkerson.

Jansen stated she had instead worked on the process with Trustee David Burns.

Burns said according to policies and bylaws the president has the right to control any short-term committee.

“She can change it, she can eliminate somebody, and she can add somebody, that’s the president’s rights,” said Burns.

Jansen read a statement to Gilkerson explaining her reasons in replacing her.

“Linda, it was my committee that I suggested starting pursuant to the bylaws, and I had every intention of including you until you showed me during the last meeting when you called for my censure that you have no intention of working alongside me in a collaborative process,” Jansen said. “That was done with the intent of embarrassing me, humiliating me and it was out of line and out of order.”

Jansen said it was her sole prerogative as present to appoint a temporary committee.

“As president, I was authorized to appoint such temporary committee as deemed necessary from time to time and I did so, and it was in my power then to disband and bring this matter before the board,” she said. “I hope to never do anything to personally hurt you or embarrass you the way you made feel, and I would like to take an olive branch and say let’s start over let’s not zap each other and let’s try to work together. But I was very hurt.”

Gilkerson’s request to censure Jansen was made in the wake of Jansen’s hot mike incident in August. Gilkerson asked why that had been removed in November.

Jansen then presented her research and drafted hiring process to the board, including sites to post the position and the job description.

After some discussion and some minor changes, the board approved to begin the superintendent search process. The position is posted on the Douglas County School District website.  The posting does not include a salary range but lists length of the job as four years.

Lewis was making a base salary of $175,000 a year.