BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Superintendent Ayinde Rudolph has gone on short-term leave, days after announcing that the state would be doing an “extraordinary audit” of the Mountain View Whisman School District, which occurs when there’s suspicion of fraud.
Associate Superintendent Cathy Baur will be the acting superintendent, Chief Human Relations Officer Tara Vikjord said in an email to families on Monday (Oct. 7).
The school board met in a closed session on Monday night to talk about disciplining or firing a public employee but took no action, board member Devon Conley announced at the end of the meeting. Rudolph has led the district since 2015 and parents have increasingly called for his resignation throughout the year.
The state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team is looking into the district after parents scrutinized contracts with vendors, including an “energy healer” who was hired to do guided meditations with teachers.
“I don’t think there’s any organization in this world that can say that they handle every single practice correctly, so it’s possible they’ll have some findings,” Rudolph said at a meeting Oct. 3. “But the real issue here is that parents continue to assert that something nefarious or something illegal is taking place, and so I welcome an outside entity reviewing our processes and procedures so that the district the board and myself can have our names cleared.”
Vikjord didn’t give a reason for Rudolph going on leave nor a timeline for his return. “We appreciate your understanding that we will not be able to provide additional information,” she said.
The term short-term leave hasn’t been defined, so it’s unknown how long it will last.
Parents have gone through contracts, starting with the guided mediation sessions, to criticize Rudolph’s spending.
The district gave $121,150 to “master energy healer” Alycia Diggs-Chavis to do sessions with 159 employees, district spokeswoman Shelly Hausman said.
Parents have said that Rudolph overspent on executive coaching and public relations, and they’ve accused him of hiring his former boss and coworkers to train teachers.
Beyond finances, parents are upset at Rudolph for trying to reduce the number of periods in middle school, adding fences at Monta Loma Elementary School and “destroying the relationship with the city of Mountain View,” said a petition signed by more than 500 people.
The state audit is considered an “extraordinary audit … when there is a concern about material misleading, lying, deception of the board,” Westover said.
Get the energy healer out of the schools u r looking at occult stuff kids don t need teachers w that in the brain
This doesn’t pass the smell test. A superintendent hires his old buddies to do meaningless jobs in the district and rake-in big paydays. Rudolph has got to go, but how come the school board didn’t know about this? Or did they see it and look the other way?