She’s “retiring.” But not really. Her name comes up for another Illinois job, but her new destination is Kentucky. She was supposed to leave the district at the end of the month. But now she’s leaving in the middle of the month.
And then there’s the question about her current contract and whether the school board could, or should, honor it.
This is the soap opera that has become the departure of St. Charles schools Superintendent Barbara Erwin, as the school board contemplates whether to ratify a two-year-old agreement that would credit Erwin with a mind-boggling 36 weeks of unused sick time.
The current board is grappling with the decision made by a former board that OK’d the contract, but did not do so with a public vote. In a debatable conclusion, former board President Mary Jo Knipp felt the decision didn’t require a public vote because it was employee-related.
Unanswered legal questions might make it difficult for the board to shelve the 2005 agreement, and it is getting more apparent with each passing day that the school district should sever ties with Erwin as soon as possible.
We find no value or need in keeping Erwin on board for two more weeks in July. Those two weeks are not going to serve as a significant transition period for new superintendent Donald Schlomann, who will have school principals and administrative support to make his first month on the job run more smoothly.
For her part, Erwin is saying this is a matter of integrity, challenging the board to stick by its word. The board, for its part, would be justified in questioning Erwin’s integrity for leaving the district before her contract was up in 2010.
Erwin may have opted for the sick day provision as a way to earn credit toward eventually qualifying for a pension in Illinois. The contract outlines 85 sick days credited to her each July 1 for up to four years. This stipulation has those who generally get only five “use them or lose them” sick days a year in the regular working world scratching their heads about why the school board would agree to such a measure.
This is Creative Contract Crafting 101, and it has created a mess. In a way, it would be refreshing to see the new board say that the contract is invalid because the original vote skirted Illinois’ Open Meetings Act law, and that because of the changes in the superintendent’s status in the district, the sick-days stipulation is unnecessary. Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that such a move would not put the district into a protracted legal tussle with Erwin.
As troubling as the excessive number of sick days and the board’s 2005 closed-door action are, the current board’s best course of action now may be to ratify the contract as the surest means of severing ties with Erwin now and sending her on her way as soon as possible.
Erwin, who will soon be the state superintendent of schools in Kentucky, does not now have enough time in Illinois to qualify for the pension. But the days earned by the St. Charles contract would go a long way toward securing that pension if Erwin did return to an Illinois job. She claims that will not happen. But she also claimed she was “retiring.”
The sooner this soap opera can end, the better for St. Charles schools.
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