Top 10 Reasons to Dismiss Carter

CUSD constituents have asked what Superintendent Woodrow Carter has done to deserve being placed on administrative leave.  Here are some of the well-documented reasons forwarded by CUSD parents.

Top 10 reasons why Superintendent Carter must go

1)   Carter secretly signed a three-year contract providing him with a large salary increase at the same time he issued layoff notices to district teachers and classified personnel; then he lied about signing the contract in the press.

2)   Carter requested and was awarded by the former board majority a large salary increase for himself and his Deputy Superintendent Sherine Smith while asking parents to raise $1 million to fund teachers.

3)   Records indicate Carter altered a Board-approved contract to insert a clause awarding himself $410,000 (18 months’ salary) in the event he is fired for any reason, without board approval.

4)   Carter has failed to deliver a zero-based budget, departmental budgets or organizational/personnel summaries – all basic requirements of his job and firm commitments he made when hired.

5)   Carter and his staff entered into a tentative agreement with the teachers union without board authority.

6)   Carter unilaterally cancelled a board-approved three-year boundary study contract without board authority. 

7)   Carter has failed to take any action after being notified nine months ago that CUSD was in violation of Title 5 setbacks and the improper use of public funds to improve and maintain private property at San Juan Hills High School (SJHHS).

8)   Carter has been negotiating with the developer/private property owner to purchase the SJHHS slope without the authorization or knowledge of the Board of Trustees.

9)   Carter has failed to take any action after being notified nine months ago that CUSD does not own the outfield portion of the ball field at SJHHS and has continued to use public monies to maintain it.

10)  Carter has failed to deliver the district-wide needs assessment, which is desperately needed to address problems with aging school facilities.

Following are details of these issues:

1-3. Documentation shows that Carter signed a three-year contract for just under a million dollars on Feb. 25, 2008; however, records indicate he altered the original Board-approved contract to insert a clause awarding himself $410,000 (18 months’ salary) in the event he is fired for any reason. The Board was unaware of the severance clause and never approved the version of the contract with the severance clause. Carter then stated publicly on Feb. 29, 2008, that he “refused” to sign the contract due to the hundreds of employee layoffs and budget cuts. The contract was signed and dated prior to this statement by Carter. Carter is now one of the highest-paid superintendents in the United States with the least amount of tenure in education.

4. Carter failed to deliver the zero-based budget and the departmental budgets he promised when first hired 14 months ago, despite having stated the obvious need for these budgets. Carter blames the entire deficit on the state cuts, but the fact is that CUSD had a $12-million deficit long before the state announced cuts were coming. Carter’s failure to resolve the previous deficit makes the state cuts hit CUSD even harder.

5. After the Board took no action on the Tentative Labor Agreement (TLA) with the teachers union (CUEA) at their Oct. 6, 2008, Board meeting, and despite the fact that the law requires the Superintendent and/or his staff to obtain Board approval before signing any labor agreements with the teachers union, Carter directed staff to sign a TLA with the teacher’s union, which was dated Oct. 15. The Board then reported that in Closed Session at the November meeting, they had voted the contract down, 4-3. A copy of the (illegally) signed TLA, dated Oct. 15, was then posted on the union’s Website along with the claim that the Board “reneged on their agreement after authorizing their district team to settle with CUEA” when no such authorization existed. At a time when Carter acknowledged he doesn’t know how they will fund classrooms, he and his staff illegally signed an agreement stating, “ ... any increased costs associated with [automatic raises] and health and benefits will be absorbed by the district.” 

6. One of Carter’s first actions upon being hired was to cancel the Board-approved contract awarded to an outside vendor to study demographics and school boundaries, yet Carter never received Board approval to cancel that contract. Carter then re-drew the boundaries himself, resulting in severe overcrowding at schools such as Truman Benedict in San Clemente where classes are now held in the library and the multipurpose room for lack of classroom space. Despite complaints from parents, Carter has taken no action to remediate the damage caused by his flawed boundary process.

7. Carter was notified nine months ago that CUSD was in violation of Title 5 setbacks and the improper use of public funds to improve and maintain private property at San Juan Hills High School (SJHHS), yet he has failed to take ANY action to resolve these issues.

8. CUSD spent $135,000 of public money to stabilize a privately owned slope adjacent to the football stadium at SJHHS. Carter has been negotiating with the developer/private property owner to purchase the slope without the authorization or knowledge of the Board of Trustees. Because Carter took it upon himself to do this, no one knows whether Carter has factored into the estimated $1-million purchase price the improvements made to that slope with our public monies. Carter has stated that he is doing this with the Board’s approval, yet NO such Board authorization exists.

9. Carter was notified nine months ago that CUSD does not own the outfield portion of the ball field at SJHHS and has continued to use public monies to maintain it, yet has failed to take ANY action to resolve this issue.

10. Carter stated a District-wide Needs Assessment would be completed in August. It’s now January, and he has failed to deliver the results he promised. In the meantime, older schools that would have been served by the Needs Assessment continue to deteriorate, a fact that Carter knows well through communications from concerned parents.  The board canceled the various Carter-created subcommittees as there were questions as to whether or not the committees complied with the Brown Act.  In addition, information was being presented to the Board members in pieces, thus when the item came before the full Board, the members of the public who were able to attend all subcommittee meetings had more information than the Board of Trustees. The committees caused confusion, and the information presented to the Trustees to enable them to make important decisions lacked continuity.