Saying new leadership can stimulate progress, Orland School District 135 board members unexpectedly fired the superintendent and sent him packing from the area’s largest elementary school district.
Supt. Charles Palaces, who had two years remaining on his three-year contract, was let go during a late-night meeting Monday. Palaces–who had been with the district for 29 years, the last four at the helm–was placed on 90-day leave with pay. Board members told him not to bother finishing out the school year.
Neither Palaces nor board members would elaborate Tuesday on the reason behind the termination. Board President James Gallagher would only cite a “continuing dialogue” with Palaces over issues of leadership.
“While during these years progress has been made toward the educational goals of the district, the board felt even greater progress toward those goals can be made,” Gallagher said, reading from a prepared statement. “New leadership can stimulate and accelerate progress toward the district’s goals.”
The 7-0 vote came during Palaces’ annual performance evaluation. Gallagher said the board will honor Palaces’ contract, a move that will cost the district more than $250,000.
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The board appointed Orland Junior High School Principal Peter Yuska as interim superintendent. Gallagher said the board intends to hire Yuska, who also has been with the district for 29 years, as the permanent replacement.
Although Palaces said he did not know before Monday night’s meeting that he would be out of a job by the end of the session, he said he was not completely surprised.
“The relationship between a superintendent and board is like any other relationship, and I knew there were some problems,” he said, declining to elaborate.
When asked if the problems were personality conflicts or a difference in educational philosophies, Palaces cited Casey Stengel, former manager of the New York Yankees and the New York Mets.
“Casey Stengel said the secret to being a good manager is to keep them that don’t like you away from them that ain’t sure,” he said. “I guess managing a school district is like managing a baseball team.”
Again, he would not elaborate.
Gallagher said there had been discord in the past, but he said personality conflicts played no role in the board’s decision.
“As we told him (Monday) evening, we thought of him as a nice man,” Gallagher said. “We told him that no one bad-mouthed him or disliked him. If he thinks it’s a personality conflict, that’s totally out of the question.”
School District 135 serves nearly 5,500 pupils in the Orland Park area. During Palaces’ tenure, the district passed a $26.4 million bond issue, built two new schools and increased pupils’ test scores.
Though Palaces rarely engaged in public tangles with board members, there had been growing discontent between the two over the issue of grading. Palaces supported–and successfully pushed for–the more modern “assessment profiles,” in which teachers evaluate a pupil’s performance using a series of checklists and narrative evaluations.
But board members–backed by parents and teachers–preferred letter grades. Last year, they voted down Palaces’ suggestion to extend the new grading system to 5th graders. On Monday, they voted to jettison the new system and return to letter grading at the 3rd- and 4th-grade levels.