As usual in these sorts of situations, a lot of details are murky about last week’s sudden departure of Mike Merlino as superintendent of Evergreen Public Schools. But one thing is clear: the school board made the right decision to show him the door.
Merlino’s tenure in the top job was brief and rocky. He was appointed in April 2019 to replace John Steach, who had resigned abruptly. The circumstances were never fully explained due to a legal agreement between the parties, but somehow Steach collected a $300,000 payout.
The school board then turned to Merlino, who at the time was the district’s chief financial officer. Although Merlino had never been a teacher, he had worked for Evergreen for almost 20 years. “We’ve had a lot of unsettled situations, so we want stability,” explained Victoria Bradford, who was the vice president of the school board. “That’s weighing heavy on our minds.”
But they didn’t get it. By last spring the board had asked the Washington Association of School Administrators to investigate dysfunction and mistrust in the administrative offices. The association’s May 28 report found a “chilling effect on climate and culture” from a “lack of systemic trust” and recommended a host of changes, including professional development for Merlino, who was also to enroll in a superintendent’s certification program.
Merlino agreed and promised to relinquish his CFO role next year. In return, in July the board raised his pay by more than $10,000 annually.
If the investigation and subsequent actions provided any improvement, it didn’t last. By this fall the board had commissioned an investigation by an employment law attorney. The attorney found evidence that Merlino had attempted to commit multiple abuses of power and acts of retaliation against employees in the district office. Some of the complaints alleged Merlino had attempted to promote his girlfriend, who also worked in the district office, and had retaliated against a whistleblower. Through his attorney, Merlino denies the allegations.
Presented with the report, the school board suspended Merlino with pay on Dec. 8, and then cut ties with him last week. He’ll receive a payout of approximately $306,000, according to the district.
School board members disagreed among themselves about whether it would be faster and less expensive to just pay out a year’s salary and move ahead, or terminate Merlino for just cause, withhold severance pay, and risk litigation; in the end they voted 4-1 to terminate him without cause.
It’s worth noting that Evergreen isn’t the only local school board to have faced this problem; last year Vancouver Public Schools dumped its superintendent, and Battle Ground has had a couple of rough breakups with its leadership.
With so much turmoil in a little more than two years, Evergreen’s school board was right to end Merlino’s contract. The largest school district in Clark County and one of the largest in the state, Evergreen serves 23,600 students, employs more than 1,600 teachers and has an operating budget of $413 million. It needs innovative, fair and trustworthy leadership from a team that works together, and a superintendent who exemplifies those values.
We hope the school board will carefully review the failed administrations of Merlino and Steach, and the failures in other neighboring districts, and see what lessons can be learned as they search for yet another superintendent of schools. The third time needs to be the charm.
