MVSD won’t extend schools chief’s contract

GRANGEVILLE — Following a lengthy executive session Tuesday night, the trustees of the Mountain View School District voted not to extend Superintendent Marcus Scheibe’s contract for another year.

No explanation was given for the decision, but complaints surfaced during previous board meetings about Scheibe’s frequent absences and some of his management decisions.

Earlier in the meeting, board Chairman Lot Smith said he was breaking with eight months of silence to respond to slander and accusations of unfairness by members of the public.

“What’s going on with negotiations is ongoing,” Smith said, and the board refuses to address that issue publicly. But through social media and other public forums, he added, the board has been accused of “leapfrogging” and “not playing fair” with the teachers.

“We do have the greatest respect for our teachers,” Smith said, and the board entered into contract negotiations last year “with mutual respect and an open mind.

“We have been beat up and said we don’t play fair … and that is not the case.”

The board is facing two lawsuits against the district by the Idaho Education Association on behalf of the local teachers union for details relating to contract negotiations.

The lawsuits target the district’s bargaining practices during contract negotiations for the 2018-19 school year and allege public records violations. The district and the Central Idaho Education Association are in mediation on the contracts for this school year.

The district also is grappling with a way to bridge an estimated $1.6 million deficit expected next year, thanks in part to the uncertainty of Secure Rural Schools funding and a decrease in daily average attendance.

Options to bridge the gap may include furloughs, a cut of as many as 11 teaching positions, a decrease in extracurricular activities and fewer days in the school year. Discussions have resurfaced about possibly bringing the district to a four-day school week.

Smith announced at the beginning of Tuesday’s meeting that the board would not be discussing the budget and there are no plans to address that topic until the spring.

Public comment was tightly relegated to a few minutes at the beginning of the meeting. Despite that, a few angry people spoke out from the audience and contradicted some of Smith’s assertions.

Smith, reading from a copy of minutes from August 2017, recounted that the board at that time voted to give all teachers a one-time stipend of $1,944 — a move Smith said he later regretted.

It was the teachers union, Smith said, who requested the stipend be extended only to returning teachers.

“I was there and that’s not how it happened,” a woman in the audience said.

Smith pointed out that the minutes of that meeting have been on the website, but others said those minutes never appeared on the website until Tuesday night.

Smith also said the board has been criticized for bringing in a “big city” mediator to help with the negotiations. Except for one year, he added, the board has always had legal assistance in negotiations.

Teachers in the crowd said the board’s representative has not helped the situation and suggested the two groups would be better off meeting by themselves.

Smith continued, saying the board does not represent only teachers and administrators but loggers, farm workers, health care workers and other professionals in the community.

“We appreciate the hard work our teachers do,” Smith said. “But we’re responsible to everybody to have a balanced and sustainable budget.”

Smith also asked: When was the last time the teachers union ever proposed cutbacks the district could live with?

“We’d like to if you’d work with us,” one woman in the audience responded.

Hedberg may be contacted at kathyhedberg@gmail.com or (208) 983-2326.