Emails: CRCSD school board members never got opportunity to discuss interim superintendent position

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – A number of college board members from the Cedar Rapids Group Faculty District have been unnoticed of the method of discovering an interim superintendent for the districts, in keeping with emails our KCRG-TV9 i9 Investigative Group obtained from a public information request.

The district is paying Artwork Sathoff, who’s the previous superintendent for Indianola, round $167,000 to handle the district’s day-to-day operations for the rest of the college yr. He took over the job after former Superintendent Noreen Bush died after a greater than two-and-a-half-year battle with most cancers in October.

Sathoff has confronted criticism from a member of the board of training and workers inside the district for his spiritual beliefs. Our KCRG-TV9 i9 Investigative Group discovered movies in November the place he gave a sermon in opposition to the instructing of evolution and individuals who don’t imagine in God. In keeping with his LinkedIn, Sathoff labored on the Indianola Church of Christ for 5 months as an affiliate pastor, which believes the sanctity of marriage exists between one man and one lady.

Jennifer Borcherding, who’s elected to signify district three on the Cedar Rapids Group Faculty District’s Board of Training, stated she believed the method to rent Sathoff was flawed as a result of the board was by no means supplied a chance to satisfy as a governing physique and focus on the place. She implied college board management, like President David Tominsky and Vice President Cindy Garlock acted independently.

“I take my oath of workplace and public service very critically,” Borcherding voted to the board. “It’s unfair to the voting public to not have their legally elected stakeholder voices on the desk.”

She additionally talked about the board didn’t vote to delegate authority to board management to independently pursue candidates and pointed to board coverage, which stated board members shall not search individually to affect the official features of the District and shall have authority solely when performing as a board legally in session.

In keeping with earlier TV9 reporting, Faculty Board President David Tominsky highlighted Sathoff’s expertise passing a faculty bond in Indianola. The Cedar Rapids Group Faculty District is contemplating its personal $312 Million bond subject to tear down and construct new center colleges and renovate excessive colleges throughout the district.

Our KCRG-TV9 i9 Investigative Group reached out to Board President David Tominsky and Vice President Cindy Garlock to know why it didn’t focus on the place with the board, however we didn’t hear again by publication on Tuesday evening.

To obtain 4 pages of emails district officers charged our KCRG-TV9 i9 Group $225, of which $175 was for a lawyer to evaluate the paperwork. District officers stated it took the lawyer 1 hour to learn the 4 pages and redact data.

In keeping with emails, the district is utilizing authorized counsel to answer TV9′s media requests to members of the board of training. The district informed TV9 up to now it has to pay for legal professionals as a result of it doesn’t have its personal counsel. Board President David Tominsky and Vice President Cindy Garlock didn’t reply to questions on how a lot the district is spending on legal professionals to reply TV9′s questions.

TV9 used authorized recourse on a distinct public information request from the Cedar Rapids Group Faculty District in November. The e-mail from the fairness coach expressing issues over Sathoff’s private beliefs wasn’t turned over to our i9 Group as a result of the district stated it contained private data in confidential personnel information. TV9 can discover no private data within the electronic mail, which suggests we don’t know if there have been different emails the district ought to have given to TV9 in response to our information request.

The Cedar Rapids Group Faculty District has nonetheless declined to launch details about a ransomware assault earlier this yr, like how a lot it paid hackers, who hacked the district and if scholar knowledge was compromised.

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