The Facts About the Hiring of Assistant Superintendents Dr. Cindi Miller and Dr. Quinn Kellis

The information you are about to read is easily verified and effortlessly obtained. Quotes, dates, times and other information is taken directly from Governing Board meeting minutes, recordings and public records. The tax-paying public, stakeholders, parents and teachers should understand that the Governing Board has exhibited a consistent pattern of poor leadership decisions, questionable ethics and blatant disregard for the community and they should be held accountable for their actions.

Shortly after being selected as the new superintendent of Dysart, Dr. Pletnick began the process of hiring administrators to fill the two assistant superintendent positions vacated by herself and Dr. Birdwell. Dr. Pletnick followed district practice and created two separate interview committees with the objective of gathering input on the candidates. However, unlike previous interview committees, Dr. Pletnick apparently tried to avoid many of the same questionable concerns and controversy experienced during the superintendent hiring process by handpicking each of the two committees. By putting only one parent on the community committee along with various teachers, she was able to create the committee of her choosing (July 25, 2007). Even Dr. Pletnick's own secretary was put on the community interview committee. By contrast, the community committee used in the hiring of Dr. Pletnick consisted of students, parents, community members, City of Surprise officials and El Mirage city officials.

On Thursday, July 19, interviews were held throughout the day with potential candidates. Each committee member (17 of them) was given an input sheet to complete about each candidate and again, there would have been around 85 pages of input to be reviewed and evaluated. By 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, the two finalists were already chosen. Can those responsible for these decisions honestly explain and prove that all community input was considered prior to the decision of the two finalists or was this just another charade?

On the morning of Friday, July 20, board-meeting packets had already been delivered and the person responsible for compiling that board packet was on vacation July 20, suggesting that the board packets must have been completed, copied and assembled Thursday, July 19, the same day interviews were conducted. The Board packet contained an agenda item, a full typed page, asking the Governing Board for approval of the two chosen candidates. The meeting agenda for that upcoming July 25 Governing Board meeting was also posted online at www.Dysart.org. After examining that agenda item, one can look at the document properties (right click link and save file locally, open in Adobe Acrobat and view document properties) and see that the agenda item had actually been created on Thursday, July 19 at 6:42 p.m. The time-line just does not add up. Why waste the time and money to hold interviews when candidates were pre-selected. Not only is it not fair to those who participate on the committees, but it’s not fair to toy with the emotions of the candidates who apply for the job hoping they at least have a chance at the job.

When a Freedom on Information Act was submitted to the Dysart requesting copies of all community input sheets, the district denied that request. However, they did provide other information that was requested as part of that same request. What is this district afraid of exposing? Why are thoughts and opinions by this community not public record to the community? Another note of interest is the fact that the top three administrators now in charge of Dysart all worked in the Deer Valley Unified District within the past 3 years. In fact, if you take the number of years the top 3 administrators have worked in Dysart, you get 5 total years. The best qualified candidates for the jobs or friends helping friends?