Commentary: Few words in the English language are misused as often as “ironic.” Here is an example of its correct usage. It is ironic that Greg Ewing’s final days as superintendent of the Las Cruces school district will be spent on administrative leave.
Ewing thoroughly misused the administrative leave process during his reign as superintendent, ruining careers, disrupting the education process and ultimately bringing lawsuits raining down on the district from former employees.
The Sun-News reported Sunday that yet another lawsuit had been filed against the district on the same day that Ewing resigned. Jamie Vance, the former principal at Desert Hills Elementary and an employee of LCPS since 1991, is alleging age and sex discrimination in a lawsuit where the details sound troublingling familiar to cases previously filed.
I don’t know if that was a last straw, but school board members had been uniformly unconcerned about such straws before. With lawsuit threats mounting and a recall drive in process against board members, they chose to give Ewing first a contract extension, then a raise.
Ewing was hired in December 2016, replacing beleaguered former Superintendent Stan Rounds, who had completely lost the trust and support of the school board. Ewing was greeted with open arms, and his honeymoon period was long and passionate.
It wasn’t until the spring of 2018 that we started hearing the negative reports. That Ewing had bloated the central office with loyalists from previous jobs in other states. And, that he was abusing the administrative leave process to oust longtime LCPS employees, either to make room for the newcomers or because they didn’t comply with improper orders.
Former administrator Elizabeth Marrufo said she was fired for trying to prevent Ewing from placing employees on administrative leave without cause. Former communications director Jo Galvan said she was fired for insisting that the district comply with what was a proper open records request.
Responding to allegations that the administrative leave process was being abused, Chief Human Resources Officer Miguel Serrano assured the school board during a meeting in April, 2018 that was not the case, Only six employees were on administrative leave at that time, he said. He said that no employees had been fired after being placed on administrative leave, but some choose to leave the district during the process. Which, of course, was the intent.
After first rejecting open records requests, then claiming it would take up to 18 months to compile the data, school district officials reluctantly admitted in court that it wasn’t six, but rather 57 employees who had been placed on administrative leave in the 2017-2018 school year.
Also in April, 2018, reporter Ali Linan, relying on school district employment data provided to the Sun-News, reported that salaries and benefits for those in the central office at the assistant director level or above had grown by $2 million since the budget in the final year that Rounds was superintendent.
By 2018 there were twice as many employees at the assistant director level or above than there had been in 2016. Many of the new hires were from out of state, and not all had the correct level of licensure for the jobs they held.
Through it all, the school board never wavered in its defense of Ewing. Unfortunately, that meant turning a blind eye and giving a deaf ear to not only numerous complaints from parents and staff, but eventually legal actions as well. All dismissed as troublesome noise from disgruntled naysayers.
There’s a cautionary tale here about clinging to first impressions and the need for constant re-evaluation. I wonder how much that lesson will cost the taxpayers of the district in legal settlements by the time this is all done.
Walter Rubel can be reached at waltrubel@gmail.com