After an executive session lasting an hour and forty minutes, the Montezuma-Cortez Re-1 School Board on Tuesday unanimously chose Eddie Ramirez as the district’s new superintendent.
Ramirez is the current assistant superintendent under Superintendent Tom Burris, who is retiring. Ramirez worked for Burris when the latter was a superintendent in New Mexico.
The board opted to name a new superintendent rather than an interim one despite widespread public pleas to wait until after the Nov. 4 school-board election.
Burris announced his resignation on Sept. 16 and the board worked frantically to seek candidates, choose finalists, and hold a public session with the three finalists, one of whom pulled out after the public session.
During Tuesday’s meeting, board members Jason Hall and Paul Beckler said they thought waiting would be best.
“I was surprised with the amount of candidates we did get,” Hall said. “I think they’re very qualified. I think it’s irresponsible, though, to sign a very big contract with these candidates. I think that an interim position would be a fantastic job with one of these two candidates and I think it would be smarter with the district’s money….”
However, Beckler and Hall later voted with the rest to name Ramirez.
During public comments, seven people spoke in favor of waiting.
Helen West, a former teacher, said the community has lost confidence in the district and “I think we can start to rebuild that confidence by putting it off and letting the new board choose the superintendent.”
Torrey Palmer, a parent with children in the district, said the new board members will be the people working closely with the new superintendent “so it just makes sense to have them in that process.”
Palmer said she had posted a question on Facebook the previous day asking people whether the board should or shouldn’t wait on the hiring decision, and after 24 hours, she has 491 respondents, 452 of them (92 percent) saying the district should wait.
Such surveys of course are not scientific.
Emily Christenson said the hiring process has been rushed, telling the board they have crammed into 35 days what typically takes months.
She spoke about an article published Oct. 16 in the online Colorado Times Recorder. Titled “Bully: The Crisis of Leadership in Montezuma-Cortez Schools,” it paints a dark picture of Burris’s actions as superintendent.
It features audio recordings of conversations in which Burris allegedly curses about teachers and staff.
The article says “chaos and fear reign in the under-funded, under-staffed district.”
Christenson said, “How shameful for the district to continue to employ a man as the leader of our schools who is on record as stating ‘I will f-ing bury them’ when talking about staff members who might voice concerns at a board meeting regarding contract hours. That should be grounds for immediate dismissal under any reasonable scenario.”
Cayce Hamerschlag also urged the board to hire someone on an interim basis.
In addition, she criticized the board’s policy on public comments.
“It may seem like only a handful of people are here to give their opinion on this,” Hamerschlag said, “but you didn’t really make it accessible. At 6 when tickets [to speak] have to be turned in, many were at their child’s soccer game. Plus the agenda is long with a lot of waiting before this portion of the meeting. It sends a message that you prefer to not know what the community thinks.”
Sherri Wright, a former Re-1 board members who is now on the Colorado State Board of Education, then took the microphone and turned to face the audience instead of addressing the board.
“After listening to you guys, I’m embarrassed because you are attacking people and reading news articles that are mostly false,” Wright said. “I read the same article. I was on the inside of that. It was false. ... You cannot believe everything you read. I truly believe that social media has destroyed this school district. … I’m just saying that you embarrass me. You attack people for no reason. You do not allow the board to focus on education….”
Allen Maez of Lewis said the current board should go ahead and choose the new superintendent, but also said, “Whatever superintendent you do pick, it’s going to be an interim no matter what. They’re on probation.”
In an email, reporter Logan Davis of the Colorado Times Recorder, who wrote the article about Burris and Re-1, told KSJD:
“In the process of reporting my story, I reached out to Mr. Burris several times, including presenting him with a list of questions and a detailed set of allegations made by other sources. He chose not to respond, or to dispute any of those assertions prior to publication. Ms. Wright also chose not to respond to my outreach, or to provide her insights for the story. Contrary to their assertions, though, my story was not just based on witness testimony; it was also supported by a great many emails, text messages, legal invoices, and other documentary evidence. In many cases, the claims Mr. Burris, Ms. Wright, and their supporters have made about people involved in my article are directly contradicted by that documentary evidence. I cannot account for whether they were misled about those facts, or are simply attempting to put a favorable spin on the story now that it has been published, but we stand by our exhaustive reporting.”
