Regarding the impending departure of Supt. Dr. Myrna Rivera Cote, whose final day in Culver City is June 30, two weeks from today:
Superintendent, Don’t Let Door Hit You
Of course, no employee should be forced to work out a contract for a district where she no longer wishes to work.
But if our Superintendent, Dr. Cote, gave our District a much shorter notice than what was contractually agreed upon — she emailed the School Board of her intentions on May 28 — then that is something completely different. In this case, the Board should demand something in return for the breach of the 60-day notice in her contract.
I don’t think anyone on this Board, or in the administration, even the Superintendent herself, would disagree that she is in clear breach of her contract.
The breach should not be overlooked by the Board. There should be consequences for her action, the lack of the agreed upon timely notice. Some type of District compensation should be demanded because our District has been injured.
Let Her Buy Her Way Out
If she wants out bad enough, and she already has made that pretty clear by agreeing upon another contract with the El Rancho Unified School District, she should be willing to bargain for her much desired early exit from our District. The District should ask for, in trade, a total of 22 days (one month of workdays) from her accumulated paid sick days and paid vacation time for breaching her contract and harming our District.
Everything Is Negotiable
Most lawyers will tell you everything is negotiable, even while the ink still is drying on the contract.
Her breach should not be overlooked. What is at stake here is not only the $16K to $20K that these 22 days would represent, but the validity of District contracts in general.
Why Do We Write Contracts?
If this contract is not enforced now, it brings into doubt why the District even writes contracts in the first place. If this is not enforced now, the Teachers Union may well begin to wonder what parts of the Union’s newly agreed-to contract might be treated in the same lax fashion later, if push came to shove.
I’m Outta Here
The signed contract clearly calls for a 60-day notice. If it calls for 60 days, why, then, is her 30-days’ notice being seen as okay? If 30 days is okay, what about 20 days? Or 20 hours? Or 20 minutes? Or 20 seconds? The contract called for a 60-day notice and 60 days it should be. Once Gone, It Is Gone
The larger El Rancho USD can afford to pay its superintendent 20 to 25 percent more than the much smaller Culver City USD can pay. Unlike the CCUSD, where once the money is gone, it’s gone, the new El Rancho Superintendent will be receiving compensation close to a quarter million dollars a year. Our departing Superintendent, Dr. Cote, would be able to recoup her 22 days, in trade with her new increase in salary, in about four months. Our Friend Myrna
Maybe our early-exiting Superintendent's tradeoff, could help pay for our District’s search for an interim Superintendent. According to another article in this publication, the 22 days tradeoff would just about cover our District’s cost of using a head-hunter to help it look for an interim Superintendent, about $20K. In these times of drastically severe state government cuts and broken budgetary promises, our District sure could use this money a lot more than some other district’s Superintendent who is going to get paid over $1,000 a day at her new job.
Mr. Laase may be contacted at GMlaase@aol.com
