On Friday, April 4, signatures were turned in by Ulrich “Oly” Schockelt, the chief petitioner on a recall petition for Jewell School Board Members Ann Samuelson and Karl Meier. Samuelson also represents District 5 on the Clatsop County Board of County Commissioners.
55 valid signatures are needed to bring the issue to the voters of Jewell School District. Petitioners gathered 68 signatures to recall the Board’s Vice-Chair, Ann Samuelson and 63 for Board Chair Karl Meier.
“We’ve been treated paternalistically by this board,” stated Schockelt, a former school board member, “and we don’t deserve this kind of treatment. They were given a chance to correct the situation and they chose not to.” Schockelt is referring to a letter that many former board members wrote to the current board members, “We asked them to please reconsider what they were doing.” The Jewell School Board had recently decided to halt a search to hire a superintendent, deciding instead to continue with Gerald Jones who had been acting interim superintendent for the past year, offering him a two year contract extension, to the dismay of the letter writers.
The “situation” as Schockelt sees it, is that there has been a strained situation in Jewell since John Seeley’s position as principle/superintendent was left vacant when Seeley was put on administrative leave in October 2006. “I believe that they did this because we went through a period of time where we had to make certain actions on emergency basis. I believe the chair and the vice chair were led by the nose by ESD and the superintendent to leave things as they are [with the new superintendent in charge].”
However, Schockelt says, the moral at the school has never been lower. “I wasn’t going to get involved but teachers have come up to me and told me that they’re not happy. I think that Jones’ leadership style is not appreciated by many of the staff.” Gerald “Jerry” Jones is approximately the fourth interim superintendent that the Jewell School District has had in a three year period. Schockelt says that he thinks it’s because Jewell’s culture is different than Hillsboro and other big cities where Jones has had previous experience, and while Jones’ style might be fine for the large schools they don’t work in rural communities.
“He wants to make it look like Hillsboro. That’s not our culture. When he had a new “student handbook” made he had the dress code state that hats couldn’t be worn! Can you imagine that? We got that changed fast,” Schockelt went on to say, “I have nothing against Jerry, I think he’s a great person. But we need someone who comes from and understands rural communities.” Schockelt summed it up with, “He just doesn’t meet the criteria to be a superintendent here.”
According to Schockelt the Jewell School District’s criteria for a superintendent is that the person have at least three years teaching experience and live in the school district. Schockelt says that according to his resume, Jones has neither. “I think we might have been willing to overlook those things, but we need someone who comes from a rural culture, who is familiar with our way of doing things. We only protest this because of the way it was done. The word I would use to describe the Board’s actions is ‘arrogance’.”
Schockelt’s petition states that Samuelson and Meier are accused of violating the executive provisions of the Oregon Public Meetings Law. “These [closed door meetings] happened on an ongoing basis since last October,” Schockelt asserted, “it made one of the board members very angry with the whole thing. The other board members are new but the chair and vice chair [Meier and Samuelson] knew better, the others were just following their lead.” Schockelt said he couldn’t produce any actual evidence of the Board using executive sessions in an illegal manner, however, another person in the community was working on filing the proper papers on the issue. Calls have not yet been returned from the board member Schockelt named or the other person working on the ethics charges.
The letter from the former school board members gave the present school board members until Ferbruary 15th to void the resolution to extend the superintendent’s contract for two years and to open up an “Executive search process.” The conclusion of the letter stated: “For the good of the School, the Community, the Staff and, primarily, the students, we urge you to accept our recommendations and rescind your prior actions.” During the January 30th school board meeting, Karl Meier, Allen Foster and Cathy Rozinek voted in favor of extending the contract of Gerald Jones and Tania Skinner voted against. Ann Samuelson was not present.
In full the statement of reasons for demanding the recall Schockelt, as chief petitioner, states:
We, the undersigned, ask for the removal of [Ann Samuelson/Karl Meier] from [her/his] position on the Jewell School Board of Directors. We believe that [she/he] has violated the trust of the citizens, staff and students of the district by:
- Violating executive session provisions of the Oregon Public Meetings Law
- Violating the provisions of the Oregon Public Meetings Law that requires public participation in certain decisions involving the hiring of the district superintendent.
- Misleading the public about the Board’s intentions to conduct an open and Public superintendent search, involving the staff and community.
- Failing to adhere to school policies.
The Clatsop County interim elections clerk, Fred Neal, said that signatures had been turned in and that he had 10 days to ensure that enough signatures are valid for both Samuelson and Meier. Neal feels that the process should be completed by Wednesday or Thursday. With the correct number of valid signatures, the two being recalled would then have five days to determine whether or not they wanted to resign or challenge the recall effort. An election would then be held around the time of Oregon’s State-wide Election on May 20th, although Schockelt hoped the recall election would not interfere with the Oregon Primary.
Ethics Commission
Schockelt said that the Government Standards and Practice Committee had been contacted and that someone else was working on filing the necessary papers for that process. Oregon Government Ethics Commission (formerly known as Standards and Practices) staff reported to NCO on Friday, April 4, that no charges or complaints have been made against either Meier or Samuelson. If a complaint had been made, the executive director first reviews the complaint to determine if the alleged violation falls within the OGEC’s jurisdiction. When deciding to pursue an issue, the commission opens a case file and initiates a preliminary review. At this time no case file or record of a complaint exists and a preliminary review is not in process for either Jewell Board member.
Samuelson has pledged $1000 of her own money to help pay for the costs of the recall election. In a letter written to Superintendent Jones and the Jewell School Board Samuelson writes: “My support of the school improvement program, the skill set Mr. Jones brings to this district in many ways, and the hard work of staff and parents to benefit the children of this community are the reasons I am moved to do this. My service to Jewell School District will not cost the school district money as long as I am here.” Samuelson concludes, “I personally believe it is wrong for Jewell School District to pay for this, so I am offering in good faith to pay my part in the interest of moving forward.”
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