Gilbert Public Schools’ Gut Check Promotions – Pass the Popcorn!

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.As we continue our Gut Check series, the emerging picture of top level management in Gilbert Public Schools over past years gets uglier and uglier. We’ll serve up some more details below, and end with a fortuitous result in one case…a guy that didn’t make the cut in GPS, but like a zombie, he won’t stay away.

Gut Check Losers: Women and High Scorers.  Women made up 50% of the Top 20 best scoring candidates, but none were selected as principal.  High scoring candidates lost out, overall. SK, a woman, was the highest scoring candidate of all.  Only one other candidate, TM, cracked the 300 barrier.  (He got the job.)  SK is a big gut check loser because she scored better than every single successful candidate, yet she wasn’t chosen. SK is currently working in the Higley School District.  Of the ten successful candidates, only 3 were the top scorers in their interview cycle. That means that 7 other top scorers lost out on jobs because of gut check or some other factor.

Positions 1 & 2: Pioneer Elementary School/Ashland Ranch Elementary School. Interview Team: Andrew Szczepaniak, Jason Martin, Nikki Blanchard, Shane McCord, Vicki Hester.

Almost rational, but no cigar. The Pioneer/Ashland Ranch interview team did give the job at Ashland Ranch to the highest scorer, BR (243 points.)  For some reason, TF, right behind him with 238 points, lost the post at Pioneer to MD, 227 points.  TF was a very young candidate, only 31 years old, but MD was not much older, 34 years old. This team was most biased in favor of young principals, rating the under-40 candidates 27% higher than candidates over 40.

Position 3: Houston Elementary School. Interview Team: Colin Kelly, Jeff Filloon, Missy Udall, Nonda Chomokos, Shane McCord, Tammy Callison.

Double Whammy: Gender and Age. The Houston interview team seems fairly functional on the surface.  They actually selected the highest scoring applicant, JL, as principal.   But JL was only 10.5 points, or 3.7% higher rated than the next best scoring applicant, BD (278.5). BD was 48 at the time of interview and JL was 35.   On average, the Houston interview team scored males 7% higher than women.   That edge of 7% is more than the 3.7% by which JL scored higher than BD.  The Houston team rated candidates under 40 18% higher than candidates over 40.  Maybe age bias coupled with gender bias was too much for BD to overcome.

Position 4: Gilbert Elementary School. Interview Team: Colin Kelly, Jeff Filloon, Lyndsey Heizer, Missy Udall, Nonda Chomokos, Shane McCord.

Middle of the pack wins: The Gilbert Elementary interview team chose RM, even though he was ranked 4^th of 7 applicants.  RM’s score was 262 and the highest score was 296, going to GF. This team was most biased against women, rating males 39% higher than females.  One woman, BD did manage to score high—she had the second highest score, 268.  Why was she or the other 3 candidates who scored higher than RM not chosen? Acid reflux?

Positions 5 & 6: Superstition Springs Elementary School/Val Vista Lakes Elementary School.  Interview Team: Geane Flournoy, Jeff Filloon, John Maas, Mike Davis, Shane McCord.

Inexplicable: TM was heads and shoulders above the others in his score from the Superstition Springs/Val Vista Lakes interview team: 318. The next next runner up, SV scored 287 points.  For some reason, SV did not survive the team’s “gut check.”  Nor did the next 4 candidates, who all scored higher than the other successful candidate, PM (247 pts).

Who can explain that team’s collective gut?  Why did they choose as principal of Superstition Springs a man who scored 71 points lower than the chosen candidate for Val Vista Lakes? Put it another way, candidate TM scored 28% higher than the other successful candidate, PM, but only 10%  higher than the second highest scoring candidate, SV.

Position 7: Highland Junior High School. Interview Team: Jeff Filloon, Lana Moore, Shane McCord, Shawn McIntosh.

Can you spot the difference? Yeah, Brian Yee’s sexcapades became public knowledge, so Good Old Dave (GOD?) Allison single-handedly transferred his boy to Greenfield Junior High School, opening this spot for a new principal. What were the chances a loose zipper guy could have been slipped in here with no one noticing? Yeah, the hot glare of publicity helped a woman in this case. The process still wasn’t fair, though.

The Highland Junior High School interview round was the ONLY one in which the female candidates were not, on average, older than the males.  This is also the ONLY team to choose a female candidate. DL scored higher, with 252 points. DL wins the prize for persistence, having interviewed 6 times.  We hear that princeling  Assistant Superintendent Shane McCord decreed that DL will NEVER be a GPS principal. There’s another persistent candidate who apparently is in the same boat,  __fill in the blank__. Yeah, business as usual in GPS.

Positions 8, 9, 10: Towne Meadows/Islands/Harris Elementary Schools. Gut Check Winners: Young Men. Two young men, CP (33, scored 275) and CB (39, scored 274) did get the job from the Town Meadows/Islands/Harris Elementary Schools.  These two men were outscored by 7 of the 8 women interviewed. The team interviewed 14 candidates.  In scoring, women did very well.  Of the top 8 candidates, only 1 was a man. That team didn’t hire ANY women.

GPS may have dodged a bullet by not making TF a principal. He moved on to the Washington Elementary School District, where he is now a principal of Manzanita Elementary School. He showed his stripes in an email exchange with the GPS board about his buddy, Brian Yee:

>>> Timothy Fountain 03/29/13 11:34 AM >>> What a fool you have made of yourself and the Gilbert School District.  Your actions on Tuesday night are laughable and an embarrassment to a once proud and honorable district. I do not argue with the idea that the district and Mr. Yee might both best be served by parting company.  However, the means in which you did this, particularly on the heels of the forced retirement of the superintendent is a shame.  Mr. Yee served the district well for many years and should have been treated in accordance with his service.  The public embarrassment was not necessary and only a means for this bully school board to flex their might and prove their power. … I am still a proud educator, but no longer in Gilbert.  The line of my former peers looking for work elsewhere grows daily.  You have succeeded in doing nothing more than running some of your best teachers out and it is the students you are supposed to protect who will pay the price.  This is not the first time the behavior of principal’s [sic] has gone the way of Mr. Yee’s. Yet the actions against them are different.  You should reconsider your course moving forward and refocus your efforts on what is important-the students.  Stop your grandstanding and bravado before more lives are hurt, more good people leave and a once proud district stands no more.

>>> Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2013 19:49:43 -0700 >>>
Dear Mr. Fountain,
I would suggest that a more respectful e-mail should be sent if you truly desire a dialogue.
Sincerely,
Julie Smith

>>> Timothy Fountain 4/1/2013 7:58 PM >>> You get respect when you show it.  You did not act in a respecful [sic] way and I do not respect your actions.  No dialogue necessary.

“This is not the first time the behavior of principal’s [sic] has gone the way of Mr. Yee’s. Yet the actions against them are different.” Yeah, little Timmy thinks sexcapades should continue as before. How dare the board treat Brian Yee differently than other members of the Loose Zipper Brigade have been treated in the past?  Promote Brian Yee so he can take his rightful place alongside those Loose Zipper Brigaders   other folks now sitting in cushy district offices!

Next up: how a teacher got a really cushy deal from a GPS princeling and his pals.