BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The Mountain View Whisman School District is bringing back a superintendent who once told board members to fire him because they were difficult to work with.
The board last night (Oct. 22) appointed Kevin Skelly as interim superintendent last night while Superintendent Ayinde Rudolph is on leave.
Skelly, 63, of San Mateo, was superintendent of the Palo Alto Unified School District from 2007 to 2014.
Skelly was interim superintendent in Mountain View for five months before Rudolph was hired in 2015.
Rudolph went on leave on Oct. 7, days after announcing state auditors would be reviewing the district for potential fraud.
Parents have been digging through contracts since May when Rudolph proposed reducing the number of periods in middle school. Parents found the board hired Rudolph’s former boss from North Carolina as his personal coach and an “energy healer” who meditated with school employees for over $700 a session.
Rudolph is officially on leave through the end of the month.
Skelly was appointed on a 4-0 vote and will start on Friday, board member Devon Conley announced at a special meeting yesterday.
“This action is necessary to ensure the performance of required duties under the education code, board policies and regulations, and other applicable laws, and to ensure continuity of district operations and educational services during the period of the superintendent’s leave of absence,” Conley said.
The board asked attorney Jon Pearl to work with Skelly and board member Bill Lambert on an employment contract and then present it to the board in November, Conley said.
“We welcome Kevin Skelly and we all look forward to working with him,” Conley said.
Skelly’s previous stint
Skelly was superintendent during another period of dysfunction for the district in June 2015.
Board member Chris Chiang resigned at the time because he said his colleagues weren’t doing enough to stop “bullying” by board member Steve Nelson.
The district’s construction manager, Todd Lee of Greystone West Company, walked out of a meeting a week later after board members questioned his fees.
“This is ridiculous,” Skelly said. “You are a difficult, difficult board.”
Nelson called for a point of order.
“Then fire me!” Skelly said.
After that meeting, Skelly left for a permanent position at the San Mateo Union High School District and retired at the end of the 2021-22 school year.
Skelly’s background
Skelly has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard and a doctorate in education management and policy from U.C. Berkeley.
Skelly began his career in Washington D.C. serving students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and was also a high school math and Spanish teacher.
In 1993, he began an 11-year stretch as the principal at Saratoga High School, and then was associate superintendent at the Poway Unified School District before going to Palo Alto in 2007. He and his wife, Carrie, have four grown children, the youngest of which graduated from Gunn High School in 2014.
Board will change
The Mountain View board meets again on Nov. 7 and Nov. 21.
The board is down one member because Chiang, elected again after his first resignation, resigned again because he got married and moved out of Mountain View over the summer.
That leaves Conley, Lambert, Laura Blakely and Laura Ramirez Berman.
Lambert was on the board when Skelly was hired last time.
Conley is running for Mountain View City Council. Blakely and Ramirez Berman aren’t running for re-election.
New board members will take office on Dec. 13.
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