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Emails, letters, comments and board meetings – Oh my!
Posted On 25 Feb 2014
Corbett School District Special School Board Meeting
Monday, February 24, 2014 7:00 PM
There were many comments by the audience (both from the local Corbett community and charter community) asking the board to reconsider the one year lease offer. The reason for this meeting (the only item on the agenda) was to vote on sending a letter to Bob Dunton and the Board of the Charter School in regards to the many emails Mr. Dunton had been sending out since the board voted on February 11 to deny renting space to the Charter School next year.
Audio from this meeting
Why a special board meeting to send this letter?
The emails Mr. Dunton has been sending are actually full of a lot of dirty laundry about the Corbett School District’s administration and staff. Mr. Dunton sent out one email where he gave his recollection of the day Superintendent Trani told his staff about his affair with another married staff member, as one colorful example. Other emails point to issues with how the district and charter “negotiations” actually happened and describe deals made with the Charter Director, Board Chair and Superintendent and then how those promises were broken to appease complaints by core teaching staff who also felt that they had been made promises by the Superintendent. For emails in response to the below letter, select here.
The Vote was 5-2 to send the letter
Directors Purvine and Calcagno voted against sending the letter. In the above audio of this meeting you can hear Director Purvine explain her position that this type of letter should be sent by our attorney. Director Calcagno pointed out that not all board members were (again) involved with this process and letter being drafted. Both Director Purvine and Director Calcagno were not comfortable that this letter mentions (in the 3rd paragraph) a statement regarding a separate lease agreement.
The separate “lease” will most likely need to be decided in the courts
The minutes from May 2011 list the Charter Renewal as a single resolution. That resolution was approved and included a change to the agreement to expand the charter’s current scope to help us remedy a $725,000 shortfall that was discovered in the district budget after the first year the Charter was in operation. Select here to read about this “computer glitch” that lead to the Charter’s expansion.
You can also read the May 2011 board minutes with the single resolution to renew the Charter, by selecting here to download the pdf. More information, discussion, copies of the other emails and links to recent articles and opinion in the Gresham Outlook and Oregonian can be found here: http://corbettoregon.com/forum/index.php?topic=809.0
Begin forwarded message:
From: Bob Dunton <bdunton@corbettcharter.k12.or.us>
Date: February 24, 2014 at 9:25:06 PM PST
To: Bob Dunton <bdunton@corbettcharter.k12.or.us>
Cc: charlie-oneil@corbettschooldistrict.org, Victoria Purvine
Subject: Fwd: Charter Lease Negotiations
Hi, All,
When is a letter not a letter? When it’s an exercise in pure politics aimed at eroding support for the charter school. I suppose after a point one loses one’s capacity for shame.
A couple of quick things:
Below is the email setting up the meeting at which I allegedly ‘refused’ to negotiate the charter agreement. I thought that reading it would set your minds at ease. It raises three questions:
1. Why did they invite me to negotiate a lease agreement and expect me to be ready to negotiate a charter agreement?
2. Why would I negotiate a charter agreement while they were attempting to evict us?
3. When were these people authorized to negotiate the charter agreement? (Check the board minutes. They weren’t.)
This all happened two weeks ago, and they’ve completely rewritten history to suit their purposes. They did get one thing right: I showed up without a team, which was evidently trotted out tonight as yet another instance of me being a bad person. 😉
One more thing, this one regarding the ‘warning’ that I received from Corbett School District regarding their facilities review. I got an unsigned letter saying that CSD was reviewing property use to maximize benefit to the district. (They evidently didn’t think to take public comment on the occasion of sending that letter. Perhaps a special meeting would have made me take it more seriously!) It didn’t warn me that they were going to make an illegal attempt to evict us in violation of the charter agreement. Had they warned me that they were willing to take illegal action against the Charter School, we would have been in court a long time ago.
Oh, and they didn’t present a lease proposal. They rambled through a bizarre narrative vision of a world that somehow put Randy in charge of Corbett Charter School! Imagine that! Corbett Catan!
My apologies to those who sat through yet another round of ‘Assassinate the Charter Director’. It must be getting old for you. They seem to see slandering me as the only way to justify ‘bait and switch’ that they are playing at your expense. I don’t mind so much, but it must be hard to watch them play politics with your children’s education.
I want you to know that having an entire district school board and its administrators and union leadership repeatedly lie about my job performance and my character isn’t, so far as I am aware, affecting my teaching. I’m enjoying my work immensely and your kids are amazing.
I will be out most of the day tomorrow. I am meeting with a lawyer for the Charter School. I have a great sub coming in!
Warm Regards,
Bob
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Randy Trani <rtrani@corbett.k12.or.us>
Date: Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 10:44 AM
Subject: Charter Lease Negotiations
To: Robert Dunton
Bob, last night the Board voted to have two Board members and myself meet with you to negotiate a lease agreement. We will present a proposal. If you accepted the proposal then the Board would act on it at a special board meeting next Tuesday at 7:00. If not you could offer a counter proposal to the Board at the Tuesday meeting.
Can you meet with me, Todd, and Tori tomorrow at 3:00 in my office?
Thanks Randy
—
Randy Trani, Ed.D.
Superintendent Corbett Schools
35800 Historic Columbia River Highway
Corbett, OR 97019
503 261-4201
—
Regards,
Bob Dunton, Director
Corbett Charter School