Read the separation agreement between the district and Bahadursingh.
BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The Palo Alto school board voted last night to part ways with its acting superintendent, less than a month after separating from its superintendent of eight years.
The district will pay one year’s salary to former acting Superintendent Trent Bahadursingh, who made about $330,000 according to pay records.
“We know that transitions are hard, and two in quick succession are very hard,” board president Shounak Dharap said after the board’s two-hour closed session yesterday.
Board members Shana Segal and Rowena Chiu voted no on the separation agreement, Dharap announced.
The payout to Bahadursingh is consistent with his contract and prevents him from suing the district, Dharap said.
Crowd members cheered and clapped when Dharap announced the separation.
“This is welcome progress toward the culture reset we desperately needed,” teacher’s union president Tom Culbertson said in a text message yesterday.
Later in the meeting, the board was scheduled to pick a search firm to help find a new superintendent.
The board will meet again in the next few days to pick another acting superintendent, Dharap said.
Bahadursingh, 60, of East Palo Alto, lasted 22 days after replacing former Superintendent Don Austin.
The board paid Austin $596,802 plus benefits in exchange for his resignation on Feb. 20.
Bahadursingh worked with Austin at his previous district in Southern California and is one of three employees at Austin’s leadership coaching business, called SimpleWins.
Days after Bahadursingh was appointed, the Post reported on a lawsuit alleging that he bullied Assistant to the Superintendent Victoria Maya.
Maya said she heard from a coworker that Bahadursingh called her “the ‘P’ word” because she went on medical leave, according to the suit.
Maya also said she frequently witnessed Bahadursingh refer to local female news reporters as “b*****” “stupid,” and similar derogatory terms, her suit said.
The district denied the allegations in a written statement.
Bahadursingh was also one of four administrators named in a lawsuit by teacher Peter Colombo, who said the district rushed to suspend him without investigating unsubstantiated rape allegations made by a former student.
The board agreed to pay Colombo $3.25 million on Feb. 10.
Bahadursingh grew up in Rio Linda, north of Sacramento, and graduated from Cal Poly Pomona, according to his district profile.
He was hired from the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District in December 2020 as deputy superintendent of human resources.
“Trent knows this district, its people, and its priorities from the inside, and the board has full confidence in his ability to provide the continuity our community deserves during this transition,” Dharap said in a Feb. 23 statement, after the board promoted him to the acting role.
Chiu voted against promoting Bahadursingh because she said she wants to see the same cultural reset that the teacher’s union has asked for. “There are sections of our community — parents, students and teachers — that do feel really disenfranchised, that have felt that their opinions have been written over, and that their voices have been ignored,” Chiu said at the Feb. 23 meeting.
The board will meet on Thursday morning to discuss appointing an acting superintendent.
The House of Cards keep folding and is great news for the community!
Let’s see: 3.25 million to Colombo, numerous lawsuits, reports of bullying teachers and corruption and also rumors floating that PAUSD absolutely broke federal law by not conducting a Title Nine Investigation in the Colombo case which is just ridiculous since PAUSD was just on probation with OCR for Title Nine shortcomings.
Don and Trent thought they could just do whatever they wanted until THEY COULDN’T! Just think, if Colombo did not have the courage to keep going it would have been business as usual for the next four years. As a tax paying parent, I cannot believe this is happening. Clean house and start over!
Like deep sea fishing, you may get sick and catch nothing but you still pay for the experience. I think high school students in this district could do a better job at managing our schools. I hope the next selection at least has journeyman level knowledge in the classroom (4 years) and not picks with just beginning or no k-12 experience. I wonder how many past history stored on hard drives was lost by this past administration?
Very positive sign that the BOE took action last night and let Trent go. Yes, it hurts with the payouts but imagine if the Don, Trent and the BOE were able to air all the PAUSD dirty laundry in public. How many millions in potential future lawsuits would it ultimately cost the tax payers in Palo Alto? Removing cancer of any kind is never without a cost. Like the PAEA President Mr. Tom Culbertson so eloquently stated at last night’s board meeting, there are 3 stages of in order to heal and move forward: Truth, Reconciliation and Forgiveness. Unfortunately, WE are still in stage 1 – TRUTH. The community deserves to know all of culprits (former and current) plus the depth and scope of the problems they created. They also deserve to know which ones were put into power with red flags that should have gotten their resumes thrown in the trash and burned rather than hired by PAUSD. When that information comes out, the community will very likely be screaming for resignations and possibly terminations. Let’s build on the momentum from last night and get through reconciliation and forgiveness so we can all move forward. Can the local media please grab the low hanging fruit still on the PAUSD tree before citizen journalists and whistleblowers find a way to get it out first? Asking for a friend…………
I sure hope the board reconsiders bringing back Lisa Hickey as a site principal if that is true.
Ms. Hickey, as former Director of Certificated Human Resources, was the spearhead Austin and Bahadursingh’s campaign to harass and intimidate staff they deemed “not team players” at the site level. She employed several dishonest tactics against honest folks who had solid track records and strong evaluations, none of which mattered once the “label” was applied. Ms. Hickey was part and parcel to the culture the board now wants to reset. Bringing her back would directly contradict that aim. There are better candidates for the job out there who do not have Ms. Hickey’s checkered PAUSD past.
the spearhead of
Dharap and most of the old guard School Board sound like a clearly corrupt and/or incompetent bunch. Chiu comes out of this episode looking like one of the only trustworthy voices.
“Bahadursingh worked with Austin at his previous district in Southern California and is one of three employees at Austin’s leadership coaching business, called SimpleWins.”
Guess he’ll just have to get by on his side hustle working with Austin which was reported as soon as Austin left. This raises the huge question of how our “leaders” thought they were making a fresh start with Austin’s acolyte.
We thank both of them for leaving us with the “close Churchill now to end teen suicide” which ignores the FACT that the average age of PA suicide is 44 with the vast majority in their 60s and 70s, a fact conveniently ignored in JLH’s “listening” session.
Perhaps she could address the factors causing seniors to commit suicide, too?
Throwing away money. Where does it stop???
This guy look likes the kind of guy who has never been punched in the face, repeatedly.
Super weird and inappropriate thing to comment. Just so we are all aware. Some people seem to forget that comments like this are not okay.
DAUBERS!!!! Dharap is their hatchet man on the board and the Daubers worked through him, Austin and Trent. What is so sad is they just get to walk away quietly without having to answer for all their backdoor, behind the scenes disgusting and horrible behavior. If the D.A. was afraid of the Daubers, that is why Colombo was charged over a ridiculous false claim, imagine how higher ups at 25 Churchill felt in dealing with the Daubers?
Are we really considering bringing Lisa Hickey Back? Like buying and selling metals of value, picking the right time to sell or buy is sometimes a lucky guess. I would think bringing Lisa Hickey back is buying high. She was named in the Pete Colombo suit and she followed the directions I would assume of her Patriots. She seemed like someone just doing her job. That said, why did it take so long to finish title 9s in more than one case? A middle school students notebook would be better organized (in my opinion). Can the Board reveal all the title 9 filings that exceeded the 60days without “good cause” under Lisa Hickeys employment?