The Mountain View Whisman School District said on Monday, Oct. 7, that Superintendent Ayindé Rudolph is taking a short-term leave of absence.
While Rudolph is away, Chief Human Relations Officer Tara Vikjord told everyone in an email that Chief Academic Officer Cathy Baur would be taking over.
The message sent Monday night didn’t say why the superintendent was taking the leave, how long it would last, or who decided that the superintendent would take the leave. It also said that more information could not be given. President of the school board Devon Conley did not answer a list of emails right away.
The meeting schedule said that the school board met in closed session earlier on Monday evening to talk about “public employee discipline, dismissal, or release.” The person who did it wasn’t named, and Conley said later that nothing was done about it.
Rudolph has been in charge of the area for almost ten years. Rudolph was first hired in 2015 to take over for temporary superintendent Kevin Skelly. His current contract runs until June 30, 2028.
Recently, the district has been in a lot of trouble because it spent a lot of money on things like executive leadership coaching, an outside public relations firm, and meditation for district administrators.
There were also tense talks with the city of Mountain View about how to split money from a special tax district, and a plan to cut back on middle school elective periods was eventually shelved.
Not long ago, the superintendent of schools in Santa Clara County asked a state body to do a “extraordinary audit” of Mountain View Whisman.
The purpose of this type of study is to look into possible fraud, theft of funds, or other illegal financial activities. The state office hadn’t decided yet on Friday, Oct. 4, whether it would do the audit or not.
In the past few months, some parents and community members have been very critical of Rudolph’s leadership. They have spoken out against him at board meetings, contacted the media, and started a petition to get rid of him.
Rudolph talked about the criticism he and the district have gotten from the public at a board meeting on Oct. 3 when they talked about the audit report. Rudolph talked about “constant hints that something bad or illegal is going on,” which he said were affecting a lot of people.
Rudolph said, “Look, I can disagree with what people say; it won’t really matter.”
In the end, he said that he and the county director both agreed that an extraordinary audit was the best thing to do. He also said that he couldn’t see any other option because parents kept making accusations.
When asked for comment after the district announced Rudolph’s leave on Monday night, he did not reply right away.
Monday at 5 p.m., the school board held an extra meeting in closed session to talk about the “discipline/dismissal/release” of an employee who was not named.
The four school board members, Baur, and Vikjord were in the closed session, which ran about an hour. Before the trustees went into closed session, Rudolph did not show up in person in the board room. When the board met again in open session, Conley said that nothing had been done in closed session.
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