UPDATE: District 60 superintendent resigns
Pueblo School District 60 announced at a meeting Wednesday that its superintendent resigned from her position.
The meeting in which the board approved Dr.Constance Jones’ resignation letter lasted less than 10 minutes. While it was open to the public, there was no public comment or questions answered by the board.
“If we were going to give letter grades on this, they would get an F for lack of transparency, that’s for sure. It’s not good enough for them to just do what they did here today, I think the people of this community, the taxpayers, the parents of the children, deserve to know whats going on with their educational system,” said meeting attendee Dennis Maes.
According to sources inside D60, several administrators have left recently, upset over micro-managing by the Pueblo City School Board of Education.
The Board of Education President Phyllis Sanchez, refused to answer KRDO NewsChannel 13’s questions about Jones’ departures. The spokesperson for District 60, Dalton Sprouse, delivered this written statement from Sanchez after the meeting:
“With the Board’s unanimous action this evening, we believe that we have reached a mutual and dignified end to our professional relationship with Dr. Jones.”
Jones’ resignation letter was also released. In the letter, she wrote “it is with deep sadness that I am submitting this letter of resignation. I have grown to love the Pueblo community, its children and the hard working and dedicated staff of the Pueblo City Schools.”
This month, the Assistant Superintendent resigned for medical reasons and the Chief Financial Officer retired. The state is demanding the D-60 improve or face a takeover. The district is in priority improvement status, which is the second lowest rating for a district in Colorado. The school year starts in a little over a month, leaving meeting attendees wondering what’s next.
“How are you going to find a very qualified superintendent now that that window passed? This action should have been taken months ago if they were going to do it. To hire somebody, we should have already been interviewing, that person should have been in their pocket or in their sights,” said Hector Arambulo. “I don’t know what joker they are going to pull out of that deck, I wouldn’t want the job that’s for sure.”
“We are on turn around status, we are coming up to very crucial times in this particular school year and all of a sudden we are left without the two top administrators of this particular district and it’s a sad day. It’s a sad day and I think we have taken about 20 steps backwards in terms of the educational process,” said Maes.
District 60 employees that attended the meeting said they knew nothing of Jones’ resignation until Wednesday’s meeting. Sprouse echoed the same sentiments. He said he was unaware of an interim superintendent that would be appointed or who will be D-60’s leader. When asked by KRDO NewsChannel 13 if there were issues between Jones and the board going on behind the scenes, Sprouse said he didn’t not know of any problems.
“I am prepared to give some answers on the action that just took place in this board meeting. Right now I think collectively as a district, we need to re-group and make sure that we are prepared to start off the year, which I know we will be, and we are going to make sure we do everything we can to keep these kids on track for improvement,” said Sprouse.
KRDO NewsChannel 13’s Emily Allen will have all the details at 10 p.m.
