What’s happening here?

Public left hanging by school board’s quiet response

U“This district has only had nine superintendents since 1871. This community is not used to changing superintendents.” — Paul Hewitt superintendent, Fayetteville School District, 2014-2016

ntil 2009, the average term for a Fayetteville superintendent was more than 14.5 years. In the 7 years between 2009 and 2016, the district uncharacteristically had two superintendents. So when the Fayetteville School Board hired Matthew Wendt in 2016 as the chief executive for the 10,000-student district, there was plenty of hope and lots of reason to believe another new era of long-term leadership had begun.

Wendt seemed to be exactly the kind of leader the Fayetteville School District needed after an uncomfortable-but-well-disguised break-up with Vicki Thomas in 2014 and the short-termby-design tenure of Paul Hewitt, a University of Arkansas professor hired in the wake of Thomas’ unexpected departure.

Wendt came to the smaller Fayetteville district from the same post at the 18,300-student Community Unit School District 308 in Oswego, Ill. Wendt said he was driven by family considerations — a son at the University of Arkansas, a daughter at Pittsburgh State University in Kansas, aging parents just a few hours drive away — when he decided to come to Fayetteville. Wendt earned a doctorate from the UA and considered longtime superintendents like Fort Smith’s Benny Gooden and Springdale’s Jim Rollins as mentors.

Maybe, just maybe, the school board had found the long-term leader the district yearned for. It seems to have been going swimmingly. Just last January, the school board extended Wendt’s contract to 2021 and raised his salary from $218,000 to $231,080. The board’s unanimous vote reflected the enthusiasm with which its members viewed Wendt’s leadership and the direction of the school district.

We were right there with them. All indications pointed to a school district’s revived spirit and renewed sense of mission after a period of uncertainty.

Then came the allegations. On March 14, attorney Suzanne Clark informed Wendt and the district that her client, a district employee, alleged sexual harassment and creation of a hostile work environment by the superintendent.

Today, it’s been more than 11 weeks since Clark filed the complaint. It has been eight weeks since Wendt denied the allegations but, at the urging of school board President Justin Eichmann, took administrative leave. The district has paid him during his leave, a bill that comes to about $38,500. Two other district employees, whose connection to the situation might be presumed but hasn’t been confirmed, requested and were granted paid leave once the allegations came to light.

And, at least in public, nothing else has happened. Wendt is still superintendent, albeit in waiting, and the question lingers: Will he remain so? Can that possibly work? How long can the district go with its leadership in a holding pattern?

What the public has been told is that school board’s investigation of the allegations, conducted by Rogers attorney Susan Keller Kendall, was concluded on April 13. On April 18, the board met in a private session for two hours to discuss a personnel matter, the nature of which it would not reveal. Wendt, however, was asked into the meeting for about an hour. When that executive session concluded, board members voted to “further consider” the matter while revealing no details.

Kendall at the time explained that the board had “deemed it appropriate to proceed with further consideration of a personnel action. The board will not make any personnel decisions without ensuring that constitutional due process is afforded to its employees. The board has been diligent in its efforts to bring a fair and swift resolution while respecting the rights — constitutional, privacy, or otherwise — of all parties involved.”

Fair? Perhaps. But at this point, nobody earns any points for “swift.”

Kendall reported that the subject of the executive session had received a written notice after the meeting and had a right to request a hearing before the school board.

And, as the calendar turns over to June, the educators, administrators and staff of the school district and the people who send their kids to Fayetteville’s public school system wait. From the outside, it looks as though nothing is happening.

That may be deceptive, given the due process concerns. If the board’s decision was to part ways with a contracted employee, such as the superintendent, no doubt the lawyers are navigating through the clauses and conditions to create the best opportunity for a clean break and avoidance of litigation.

“Ongoing litigation could not only be expensive; it’s an emotional drain and very distracting,” said Kristen Garner, staff attorney for the Arkansas School Board Association. “They might ask themselves, ‘Are we going spend all this attention on something that happened in the past or are we going to focus on the future to benefit kids.’ If someone misbehaves, it might feel morally wrong for them not to be punished for it, but sometimes it’s more about business pragmatism than strictly getting justice in every case.”

Fair enough. But let’s be blunt about Fayetteville superintendent mess: It needs to be resolved, as in yesterday.

Maybe the school district is just waiting out some due process clock. Maybe this is about getting all the legal ducks in a row. Maybe there’s a negotiation over a departure agreeable to all parties. Maybe there are talks about restoring Wendt to his position and how to accomplish that.

From the public’s perspective, the serious nature of the allegations demands an accounting of Wendt and of the school board’s handling of the matter. One could certainly argue that it will all be resolved in due time, but two months and no conversation with district employees, school patrons and local taxpayers? If the ultimate outcome is Wendt’s removal, all this time is cutting into the considerable effort required to find a new leader for the school district.

It’s a mess, to be sure. While we respect the district’s adherence to due process, eventually the school board owes as much of a commitment to students, school district patrons, teachers and staff as it does to Wendt or others involved.

The public needs to know what school board is doing, if anything, to provide for the long-term leadership of a district that needs it and what its members will do to end this string of short superintendent tenures.

A superintendent every three years is no recipe for success.