Jacksonville.com

School Board fires superintendent

The Duval County School Board has scheduled a special Tuesday meeting to discuss Superintendent Joseph Wise's contract, which extends through Oct. 31, 2009. Four of seven votes are needed to terminate his employment. Wise has been superintendent since November 2005.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Drake statement

The following statement was read by Chairwoman Vicki Drake before the board voted to fire Wise.

"I have called today's meeting to allow the board members to discuss the superintendent's employment contract, and, if appropriate, to allow the General Counsel's Office to advise us of our rights under the superintendent's employment contract. In order to facilitate this board's mission today, I do not plan to recognize any speakers other than the board members and General Counsel's office."

"Given the events that have occurred since the board members' evaluations of Dr. Wise this past summer, there have been certain actions and escalating events that give me concern about the superintendent's management of the District, as well as his compliance with statutory and contract duties."

"Elements include actions I believe taken by Dr. Wise that may be injurious to the district and therefore impedes our most important goal of fostering student achievement. Other concerns are the proper management of the district's business and affairs, and Dr. Wise failing to appropriately recognize the role of the Board according to the requirements of the law. Accordingly, as chair, I have called this special meeting to review the superintendent's contract. the agenda today is limited to the narrow issue of the superintendent's contract and does not include any other side issues that have recently arisen — because today is not the appropriate time and this isn't the appropriate forum for discussing these other issues with the board."

After she read this statement, Tommy Hazouri made the motion that ultimately led to the 6-1 vote to terminate Wise.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

.."Given the events that have occurred since the Superintendent's evaluation..." oh, please, Ms. Drake, things did not "suddenly go sour." Escalate, sure, but the facts were there all along. Take some ownership, Board, for letting this get so out of hand, instead of carefully and thoughtfully, and with integrity, performing your duties all along.

Anonymous said...

The BOARD is the true root of the failures. It has all occured under their oversight.

Anonymous said...

A comment from Christiana School District resident in Delaware: Thank you Duval County for taking Joey "Notso" Wise off our hands! He totally destroyed our district with his special programs to help a few at the cost of many. It will take many years to correct his meddling. But the biggest mess he made was our finances. Make sure you check you books NOW to find out what programs now have no funding in their budgets because he robbed Peter to pay Paul... We are still struggling to recuperate financially.

Anonymous said...

OK, now the board can no longer hide. Who holds the board accountable.

Dean

antnyj said...

As a current Christina School District employee who was directly affected by Pal Joey and his cronies,I was glad to see them leave.Our district has not fully recovered yet, but we're on our way.I'm not sure how he persuaded our board here, but it seems that he attempted the same things down there.At best, I see him and his band of crooks, as people who will do anything in a gangster type nature,then move on.Check the cronies out too. They mostly came here with him,and left with him,jumping through any hoops that he provides them. In the long run, you guys will be better off without them in your district,like we are now.

Anonymous said...

Apparently Mr Wise was making changes to our atrocious edumacation system here in Duval County where students are taught an entire month of black history, and can't even locate the United States on a map. The board was getting a shake down and didn't like it. Sorry to see you go Mr. Wise.

Alan Abelon