Read the agreement here.
BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The Palo Alto Unified School District will pay former Superintendent Don Austin $596,802 in exchange for his resignation, according to a settlement agreement obtained by the Post today (Feb. 24).
The payments add up to 17 months of his salary. This includes his $35,106 monthly paycheck through June 30, a $331,272 payment on Aug. 1, and a $90,000 payment on Jan. 15.
Austin and his wife will get full health benefits from the district until June 30, 2027, the agreement said.
Austin will also get $500 per hour to cooperate with the district on any “claim, dispute, negotiation, investigation or proceeding” that he was directly involved with, the agreement said.
Both sides agreed not to sue nor talk negatively about each other.
The agreement was approved by the board in closed session on Friday and released by the district today in response to a California Public Records Act request.
In an interview, board member Rowena Chiu said she was surprised to hear Austin left, and her first time seeing the agreement was when she voted on it.
She said she wasn’t sure how the agreement came about and wasn’t a part of negotiations.
“I personally don’t think I could have influenced the settlement agreement in any way,” Chiu said.
Chiu said she wants more transparency at the district, both for herself and for the public.
“A lot of these things are opaque to me, and I am the board vice president. And I think that’s quite concerning,” she said.
Chiu said she doesn’t know why Austin left.
At his last board meeting on Feb. 10, teachers packed the room and booed at some of his comments, and Austin went back and forth with a student board representative over labor negotiations.
The meeting was particularly emotional following a student suicide at a Caltrain crossing the week before — the third student to die by suicide in the last year.
The board also approved a $3.25 million payment to Fletcher Middle School teacher Peter Colombo, who sued the district after he was falsely accused of rape, according to his attorney.
“I do think that was an unfortunate meeting, and I think we all made choices that were perhaps — reconsidered in the light of day — not the wisest of choices,” Chiu said.
Austin led the district for eight years, the longest in his position since 1975. He said he left because working in education for 30 years took a toll on him, and the timing felt right.
“There was no event. There’s no single thing to point to,” Austin said in an interview. “It’s just one day you wake up and think, ‘Maybe I’ve gone as far as I’m going to go here.'”
Austin will have to move out of his district-provided condo by April 30, the agreement said.
What a joke! Palo Alto residents are suckers.
If the following observations have been properly verified, it suggests that a standard job termination is in order, so the large payoff (plus continued housing for the period) is highly excessive.
Mismanaged a major personnel matter, failed to follow or enforce Title IX and California Education Code requirements, allowed or fostered a bullying or hostile management culture, presided over discrimination or harassment complaints involving district management, and did not adequately mitigate district legal risk, allegedly allowing costs to escalate unnecessarily.
Insanity – we are paying over a year in severace and health care benefits? When Superintendent Max McGee left – we only gave 6 months.
Guess Shounak Dharap is quite the “negotiator” – can’t wait to see how much more money we lose. Why isn’t Austin staying till the end of this academic year – why are we paying him $500 per hour for consulting?
Isn’t the 500 an hour only IF the board chooses to reach out for consulting? He could make 0 dollars an hour all the way until June 30th is they choose to leave him alone. I think that if they agreed to such a high number, they must assume they can get by without having to ask him for consultations. (Or they just don’t care about a budget, which after the last board meeting would not shock me. They think we can just pay for everything all of the time with no loss).
[Post removed — Terms of Use violation. No links.]
Don’t bet on it.
Note that the agreement needs to be ratified at the next board meeting on March 17th as shown in section 16.
[Portion removed — Terms of Use violation. No links.]
Contact your board members (Shounak Dharap, Rowena Chiu, Shana Segal, Alison Kamhi, Josh Salcman) to press them to vote no on accepting this crazy, potentially uncapped cost agreement. Also would be great if you can show up to protest at 6:30pm that day at 25 Churchill Ave when the open session where they will vote is held.
Wow. What a bomb thrower Ms. Chiu is. She might not have known about the settlement in advance and might find it “opaque” but she’s went to that meeting and voted for the settlement. She was literally elected to serve the people. This settlement seems reasonable to me but if it wasn’t reasonable to her, why the heck did she vote to approve it? Oh wait – it’s so much more fun to be a grown up in closed door when there is no audience but then go to the paper to rile the community up when there is an audience. Don’t fall for it Palo Alto. She has sown enough division here. (Maybe if the board just put all observers over zoom moving forward it would be easier for Ms. Chiu to actually govern instead of performing for a live audience)
I am curious. What do you want Chu to say instead, in the interview? Lie?
I’d like her to either say “I found it a reasonable settlement which is why I voted for it” or “I found it totally unreasonable but I voted for it anyway because …”. Her complaint is that she didn’t know all of the details. The Brown Act forbids the board from meeting separately (not in public) ahead of the meeting. So how would she have known what was in it. Implying that the entire board should have known what was in it prior to it being shared ahead of the meeting leaves the community with the implication that it COULD have been back and forth negotiated a whole bunch behind the scenes. Then this community would have cried foul that it was a Brown Act violation. The work of the board happens in meetings for a reason This was the meeting to ask questions, get clarity, make some counter proposals if they weren’t happy. She must have been happy with it because she voted for it. Over and over she comes to the paper to rile everyone up but if you follow through the logic it makes no sense.
[Portion Removed — Terms of Use violation. Inaccurate information. This agreement will not be returning to the board for a second vote. The agreement is final.]
This is a horrible deal and precedent for the district …
Also what is up with the districts website? I still don’t see minutes or documents like the settlement agreement posted from Feb 20. 8 days later… Seems like they are really trying to be opaque??
Thank you to the Daily Post for securing the settlement agreement so we can all read it before the final debate and vote.
[Post removed — Terms of Use violation. Incorrect information.]
Don Austin can add a new maxim to his Simple Wins website: “Crime Can Pay”.
Crime as in ignoring Title IX laws. Crime as in ignoring or regularly violating Education Code (ask teachers if they have been properly evaluated in recent years for instance). Crime as in denying staff due process in the face of trumped up or false accusations. Crime as in figuratively bilking taxpayers for a job poorly done. Crime as in placing himself well above and beyond those he was being generously paid to serve. Sure, not all of the above actions are literally illegal, but many are and it seems Austin spent most of his tenure figuring out how to skirt the law and the precepts of ethical behavior.
Mr. Austin has done a number on PAUSD. Staff, students, and parents alike. I hope other districts and Simple Wins clientele take note. Not so sure PAUSD leadership has done so. Just a whole lot of hand wringing it seems.
Dr. Austin* this community loves to preach higher education and then ignore it every chance they get. Man has a doctorate and we will make sure to ignore it in every single comment. Sounds like higher education is not as important to some of us as we want it to seem. Is that really what we should be teaching our kids? Yikes.
I don’t buy Chiu’s claim of ignorance about the settlement. I think the board had been advised of the Colombo lawsuit numerous times by the district’s lawyers. The lawyers would be guilty of legal malpractice if they had kept the board in the dark about liabilities that were growing by the day, as new examples of the district’s bad faith piled up.
For instance, how much did the missing report card cost the district? Who destroyed this evidence?
This settlement led to Don Austin’s firing (I know he wants to call it a voluntary resignation, but school superintendents don’t keep their jobs when a district has to pay out this kind of money).
The board could have settled this case sooner, when the cost would have been lower.
Colombo’s price to settle seemed to increase every day, as new evidence of Austin’s bad faith piled up.
Take the missing report card. It would have shown that another male teacher was the accuser’s PE teacher at the time of the alleged rape. That would have destroyed the accuser’s case. But when Colombo’s lawyers asked the district to find the report card, they were unable to locate it.
Maybe the report card disappeared. Or maybe somebody destroyed the report card.
What would a jury think?
If a prior school board had settled this case before the report card disappeared, the cost to taxpayers would have been far less than $3.25 million.
It appears to me that the school board did little or nothing to mitigate the district’s damages. Ms. Chiu, on her first day on the school board, should have been pushing to limit the district’s liability so that the settlement presented to the board last month would have been smaller than it was.
I don’t buy it when she claims ignorance. If she was ignorant, then she wasn’t doing her job.
She is claiming she didn’t know about the settlement with Don Austin, not Colombo. Which begs the question: who negotiated the settlement of Don’s exit?
Are we reading the same article? Chiu was saying she didn’t see Don’s separation agreement, not the Columbo settlement.
[Post removed — Terms of Use violation. You’re suggesting a person committed a federal crime, Obstruction of Justice, which carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. If this individual is charged, then re-post your comment. But it’s’ not fair to throw around accusations when no charges have been filed.]
First, you are either presenting speculation as definite fact (“the Colombo settlement led to Don Austin’s firing”), or are leaking insider information that the public is not privy to. Either way, it’s an issue.
Second, your comment implies that Ms. Chiu has all this unused power that she’s somehow holding back. It’s very easy to wag your finger when you are a mere observer, Observer. And an observer with a narrow aperture, I might add. If you actually attended board meetings on a regular basis, you would see how hard Rowena works to maximize her (limited) influence and ensure accountability. Often, she’s the only one.
As for your claim that she should be pushing “To limit the district’s liability so that the settlement presented to the board last month would have been smaller than it was” – how would you, me or anyone else know what she does or doesn’t say in closed door discussions, or what she is and isn’t able to control in those discussions?
If there’s one thing that unites Palo Altans it’s hating on the school superintendent. It’s a thankless job but at least it pays ok.
[Post removed — Terms of Use violation. Don’t accuse people of crimes if they haven’t been charged.]
Here we are, again. Can anyone point to a culture shift that will make things different next time?
Where can a concerned mandated reporter who works at pausd go? To the district attorneys? Anyone heard of retaliation? Where are the local checks & balances?
Elizabeth Holmes had Kissinger and George Schultz on her board. No less. And yet. Things seem to be set this way to maintain the status quo.
PAUSD’s board members cannot know the state of the trenches. Even if they work 24/7. Even if they care. Many did not care. Trust is a vague idea. Kids know not to trust. Back in 2013 I suggested forming a shadow board. Churchill led one after ww2. Mechanism of checks & balances. Silly idea. Anyone have a better one?
“Things” seemed awful back in 2013. All just got worse, basic physics. The cultural state of pausd enables all we see, and a lot more that goes under the rug. Many kids’ well being included.
A couple of past examples:
Back then the system enabled sending pah’s principal to teach in a special ed class. All were notified about a health scare. Sometime after it turned out that the principal was demoted due to “questionable” behavior. The principal vanished shortly after. Reportedly with extra $150k. Inflation?
The previous super left after a rape on PAH’s quad was covered up. An “independent investigation” was conducted by a law firm that was paid ~a million $. Surprisingly the investigation unveiled the system’s reluctance to paper trail etc. That is low caste reporting.
Any change since? All those nice quotes saying that the past must be known in order have a chance to change. Watergate being one example.
Here we are. again.
[Post removed — Terms of Use violation. The commenter has an incorrect understanding of state law. Please don’t use this forum to dispense information you think is factual. Instead, post your opinions here.]
Let’s get this straight. Austin blew $3.25 million by mismanaging a personnel matter, then he gets a $500,000 buyout of his contract, then he gets to advise the district for $500 an hour. Where can I get a deal like this? The problem is Palo Alto schools are woke — the board, the teachers and a lot of students and parents. So long as this is the case nothing is going to get better.
Woke? What does that even mean, and how is it relevant here? Can you explain in more detail please.
It means nothing. Just a signal that he doesn’t like it.
Some time ago the board seemed to stop pretending to mind pausd’s issues, the way pretentiousness were going on before. A few manifestations, sampling:
– PAUSD’s board used to meet twice regularly a month. Now, PAUSD’s board has regular meetings only once a month, occasionally two regular meetings in June, after the school year ends.
– Open forum used to be at the beginning of the meetings after a few, short announcements. Now, the open forum is pushed to the end.
– Consent items’ lists used to be by far shorter than these days.
– Limits on the number of public members allowed to talk.
– And, does anyone want to compare the recent seating arrangements of the board members? Recently a bigger gap between the chair and the rest. Board members used to sit very close to each other.