“Beleaguered L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy is expected to step down after reaching a settlement with the school board, several sources familiar with the negotiations said late Wednesday,” Howard Blume reports for The Los Angeles Times. “The L.A. Unified school board could name an interim superintendent as early as 10 a.m. Thursday, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it involved a personnel matter and confidential negotiations.”
“As part of the departure agreement, Deasy is expected to receive about 60 days’ pay, or roughly $60,000, the sources said. His contract, which was to run through June 2016, requires a severance payment of only 30 days,” Blume reports. “During his 3 1/2 years at the helm, Deasy, 53, oversaw a continued rise in student performance during a period of financial cuts. But he could not overcome election day setbacks, poor relations with teachers and two back-to-back technology debacles.”
“Deasy has faced strong criticism over the troubled rollout of a $1.3-billion effort to provide iPads to every student, teacher and campus administrator. Amid growing questions about how the iPad program was run, Deasy announced in August that he was suspending new purchases under the iPad contract,” Blume reports. “Another technology project, a new student records system, malfunctioned this fall.”
“One source said the board was likely to select former Supt. Ramon Cortines to run the district on an interim basis,” Blume reports. “If Cortines takes the interim job, it would be his third stint as district leader. He retired as superintendent from L.A. Unified in April 2011. He has a long career as a respected educator, but his exit was marred by a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a current district employee. A proposed settlement of that litigation later fell apart. Cortines, 82, lives in the Pasadena area.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: LAUSD. Obviously packed to the gills with winners.
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Wow!
Didn’t their second tech rollout involve Microsoft? No wonder it didn’t go well!!
$30,000 a month? Wowsers!
I wish I made 1/10 of that.
I’d like to say there’s a lesson here about technological ignorance. But I don’t think the iPad, or any alternative, had a chance in that rat’s nest of stupid and ineptitude. Clearly, the district is the problem. Apple was just one of many casualties.
Having a grandchild in the LAUSD you took the words out of my mouth DC. The iPad wasn’t the problem, the leadership overseeing it’s execution (with a double meaning) is. A failure of vision, not technology.
As an article said:
“Apple does a lot of the legwork here by providing both the iPads and detailed guidelines for deployment. And other school districts around the world have documented their successes and failures. So when it comes to learning about best practices for deploying these devices in schools, it’s a simple matter of those in charge doing their homework.”
It gave the Windows IT doofuses their chance to jump in with their crap tech. There’s little excitement over this newer plan for adults or students as you might imagine. It’s like being promised a vacation in the beautiful Bahamas but you end up in desolate Chernobyl instead.
When I hear the word ‘Chernobyl’ I now immediately think of the bizarro desolation of ‘The Zone’ from the book ‘Roadside Picnic’, also seen in the film and game ‘Stalker’. DARE you enter ‘The Zone’? I feel sorry for the kids living there.