The Santa Fe Public Schools Board of Education is set to vote Monday, Feb. 27 on the contract of SFPS Superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez.---
The agenda for a study session scheduled for Monday at 6 pm and distributed today lists an action item on "Superintendent's Contract."
"They're going to take action on the Superintendent's contract," says SFPS Executive Secretary Lillian Letters.
"They can choose to either continue it as it is, or they can choose to—I believe they would have to buy her out. I'm not positive but I think that's what would happen, because her contract isn't [over] until the end of next year."
BoE member Steve Carrillo declines to comment, but BoE Vice President Glenn Wikle says that he will "vote on a modification to her contract."
Gutierrez' leadership has come under fire over the past year as
standardized test scores throughout the district, as well as graduation rates, have declined
. Numerous SFPS teachers and staff who have spoken to SFR on condition of anonymity, as well as through memos circulated around the BoE,
allege a culture of retaliation against staff.
There has been
tension between Gutierrez and two of the three new board members
, Wikle and Carrillo. Though BoE Secretary Linda Trujillo came onto the board a year ago, at the same time as Wikle and Carrillo, she has not been critical of Gutierrez.
Although the meeting itself begins at 6, the board will discuss Gutierrez' contract in a closed executive session at 8 pm. A separate press release distributed by SFPS announces that
the public meeting will resume after the executive session,
but Letters says there's no estimated time for that to begin.
