A retired Southern California school superintendent living in Idaho took the helm of Orange Unified this week following the abrupt firing of the district’s top administrator.
Edward Velasquez flew in Monday afternoon and went straight from the airport to the district office, although he doesn’t yet have a contract and his salary hasn’t been approved.
Velasquez, 67, came out of retirement at the request of the School Board majority, which fired Superintendent Gunn Marie Hansen during a hastily called meeting last week while families and staff — including Hansen — were still out during winter break. Board members voted 4-3 to fire Hansen and place an assistant superintendent, Cathleen Corella, on leave.
RELATED: Why did Orange Unified fire its superintendent?
In an interview with the Register, the interim superintendent talked about his background, philosophies on education and his goals for what he said will likely be about a two-month stint while the board looks for a long-term superintendent.
Velasquez had scheduled meetings this week with the board president, administrators, parents and teacher groups. Until he speaks with board members, he said he could not provide details on what changes could be forthcoming or what a board-requested pending audit of the districts’ contracts and programs will look like until he learns more.
“I need to understand what that means and try to get an understanding of what they’re trying to accomplish with the audit,” Velasquez said. “At this point, they must have some ideas.”
Velasquez has ties to several people in the district, including board member John Ortega and the fired superintendent. Both worked for him while he was superintendent of Montebello Unified; Ortega was one of the school board members who voted to fire Hansen.
But Velasquez appeared to be just as surprised as some in the community when he was appointed.
“I was shocked. They didn’t tell me they would release her,” he said. “They just asked, ‘Would you be available if we needed somebody?’”
The firing
School Board President Rick Ledesma called Velasquez on Wednesday, Jan. 4, according to both men. Ledesma asked Velasquez if he would be available to fill in as interim should the board “release” Hansen from her contract.
Velasquez said he didn’t believe they would release the superintendent and appoint him all in one night, thinking there’d be some time between the two actions.
Instead, shortly after board members voted during a closed session on Jan. 5 to fire Hansen, Velasquez started getting calls from former colleagues asking, “Are you going to Orange?” The next day, Ledesma called to tell him he was appointed.
Both Velasquez and Craig Abercrombie, principal of Canyon High School and Corella’s replacement, knew they could be asked to fill those spots a day before the full board learned they’d be voting on them to assume those roles. Ledesma called for a special meeting on Wednesday for Thursday. The public agenda did not include specific names of potential replacements.
In an email to his staff on Sunday, Jan. 8, Abercrombie said Ledesma contacted him late Wednesday evening ahead of the Thursday meeting.
“I know this news is probably the last thing you expected to see when you opened your email preparing to return to school. My head is still spinning trying to process everything that has transpired the last few days,” Abercrombie said.
The timing and who knew what and when have raised concerns with some community members about potential violations of California’s Brown Act law, which requires local government to conduct its business publicly, except in certain situations, and post information about those meetings with advance notice. The law also prohibits a majority of a board or council to meet, directly or indirectly, outside of a lawful meeting to discuss or take action on any item of business.
“They knew these people would accept those positions before they were nominated. I’m a little skeptical about that timeline,” said School Board member Kris Erickson, who along with members Ana Page and Andrea Yamasaki voted against firing Hansen and placing Corella on leave.
“They’re operating without a contract so they must feel very confident that on the 19th the jobs will be theirs,” Erickson said, referring to the next regularly scheduled board meeting when a contract for both acting administrators is expected to be on the agenda. “It’s obviously something they’re negotiating without the rest of the board.”
Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine, sent Ledesma a letter Wednesday, Jan. 11, requesting information on the board’s recent actions and expressing concern that the board’s moves will prove costly to the district and may potentially have violated the Brown Act.
Today, I sent a letter to the President of the Orange Unified School District Board requesting more information about the unusual circumstances surrounding last week’s emergency meeting to terminate OUSD’s Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent. 1/
— Senator Dave Min (@SenDaveMin) January 11, 2023
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“The suddenness of this decision, the lack of transparency, and the failure to even attempt to provide an explanation to the public, have raised serious questions about the Board majority’s motivations and whether they have breached their duties as Trustees,” Min said.
Ledesma, the board president, responded to similar concerns in earlier interviews with the Register and denied violating any provisions of the Brown Act.
“I’ve been a board member for a long time. I know about the Brown Act,” he said.
Ledesma has served on the OUSD board for 26 years, including 22 years consecutively, since 2001. In an earlier interview, Ledesma said the board majority, concerned that the district is “focusing too much on social politics,” wanted to go in a new direction.
Ledesma said he chose Velasquez because he knew him from his role as a former consultant with McPherson & Jacobson, an executive recruitment firm based in Nebraska. (Velasquez is still listed as a consultant on its website, but he said he’s no longer working for the firm.)
“I followed his career,” Ledesma said. “I heard he went down to San Diego County and helped down there.”
Ledesma said he asked fellow Trustee Ortega, “What is he doing now?” The board president said he did not speak with any other board member about Velasquez.
Ledesma defended the board majority’s appointments on the same night of the firing as good planning.
“You have an item on the agenda that may or may not pass. If it doesn’t pass, it’s a moot point. If it passes, what are you (going to) do? Leave the district without leadership?” Ledesma said Monday. “So I chose not to put the board in that kind of position.”
“From a management and administrative standpoint, how would it have looked if we didn’t have any acting (administrators) ready to take these positions?”
Ledesma also said Velasquez previously worked for Orange Unified through McPherson & Jacobson as a consultant in 2017 when the district was looking for a new superintendent — which ended with the hiring of Hansen. But Velasquez said the district “let go of McPherson” early on in the search after a board member realized that Velasquez and Ortega knew each other and objected to Velasquez being involved in the superintendent’s search.
Velasquez said he does not believe board members violated any laws with its process. And he wants to move forward.
“I don’t have control, and I can’t help what happened,” Velasquez said. “I’m a consensus builder. Let’s focus on our kids.”
Velasquez’s background
This isn’t the first time that Velasquez has been called to serve as an interim superintendent.
In the past decade, since he retired in 2013 from the Lynwood Unified School District in Los Angeles County, he has worked in the interim role for the Alpine and San Ysidro districts in San Diego County as well as the San Diego County Office of Education.
His resume includes three years with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as well as chief of school police at Montebello Unified School District, where he rose through the ranks from teacher to superintendent in 2004.
In 2010, a former Montebello Unified administrator sued the district, accusing Velasquez of sexual harassment. That case was settled in 2011, according to court documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Erickson, a trustee who abstained from voting for Velasquez’s appointment because she knew nothing about him, said the lawsuit was information that should have been available before the vote.
During the closed session, when she asked for more information about Velasquez, Erickson said Ledesma told her to “Google him.”
Velasquez declined to delve into the details of the lawsuit. But he said “there’s no truth to the allegations” of sexual harassment.
“It’s a personnel matter,” he said. “It was a disgruntled employee who was upset over some discipline.”
As for this latest interim job, Velasquez said he’s OK working without a contract until Jan. 19, when the School Board is expected to take up the matter.
Velasquez told the district this is a key point for his contract: He doesn’t want to make more than $49,000 so as to not come close to the nearly $50,000 cap in earnings state retirees can make before their California pensions are affected. Although he “unretired” once since 2013 to take the superintendent’s job in San Diego County, Velasquez said he doesn’t plan to apply for the permanent spot with Orange Unified.
Meanwhile, Velasquez said his goal is to learn what’s going on in the district and how he can “be of service” — a phrase he uses repeatedly.
“Everywhere I’ve gone, there (have) been different challenges put in front of me; could be politics, financial, criminal or getting people to just get along,” he said.
At Orange Unified, many parents and teachers outraged over the board’s actions said Hansen’s firing was uncalled for. Hansen, they noted, has received high praise in all her annual evaluations.
But with the election in November, the political tilt on the Orange Unified school board — which like other school boards is supposed to be a nonpartisan panel — pivoted to a 4-3 conservative majority.
Across California and the nation, many first-time Republican candidates ran in school board races, hoping to shake up what they say is a liberal agenda driven by teachers’ unions and progressive groups. Their platform refers repeatedly to “parents’ rights,” with many pushing for charter schools and against ethnic studies, sex education, self-esteem programs that fall under the “social-emotional learning” umbrella and critical race theory, the concept that racism has been historically embedded in American institutions and policies.
Velasquez said he was not very familiar with critical race theory and did not know that California will require an ethnic studies course for graduation for the Class of 2030.
As a Mexican American, however, he said he has experienced racist acts and believes in programs that offer support and empower students.
“I was raised Catholic, Democrat, to care and respect for one another,” Velasquez said, adding that at one point he registered as a Republican but now considers himself an independent. “I do my homework, and I look at both sides.”
“I believe in family values, if that’s conservative, and I believe in law and order, if that’s conservative,” he said. “But I also believe in equity, and if you saw my bio, I’ve done a lot to work with populations that need additional support.”
His philosophy of education includes this: “I believe in rigor. Our students are capable, with support. I operate from a standpoint that all kids are going to be college ready.” And more than once, he said this: “Seek first to understand before being understood.”
As for temporarily working without a contract, he said, “It’s not about the money.”
“My time here is short.”
Source: Orange County Register
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