By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
After a heated debate Monday night, the Hays school board voted to hire the superintendent's wife as a teacher for the upcoming school year.
Superintendent Ron Wilson's wife, Andrea, has been working for the district as an at-risk classroom aide at Lincoln Elementary School.
O'Loughlin Elementary School Principal Rene Burns requested to hire her as a fourth- and fifth-grade loop teacher.
The school board does not interview candidates for positions other than the superintendent but has final approval over personnel transactions. These transactions are usually part of a consent agenda and their approval is considered routine.
However, board member Curt Vajnar asked the personnel transactions be taken out of the consent agenda and discussed separately.
The following video begins at the point where the board begins to discuss personnel transactions.
Usually, when a specific person's employment or performance is being discussed, school boards recess into executive sessions to protect that person's privacy.
On Monday, however, Vajanr began the discussion of the personnel transactions by addressing her by name.
"In 35 years since I have been here, we have not done that," Vajnar said. "As a professional teacher, it is just going to be awkward for that administrator and staff.
"It's like the coach's kid or the teacher's kid. The superintendent supervises the administrator and the administrator is supervising the staff member. I have a hard time feeling that's a good practice, and it doesn't feel good to me."
The district's nepotism policy reads:
The Superintendent shall make reasonable efforts to determine whether a candidate for employment is related to a board member or an administrator of the district. If a candidate is related to a board member or administrator, the Superintendent will make this fact known to the board.
No employee shall directly supervise or be responsible for any portion of the evaluation of his or her father, mother, brother, sister, spouse, son, daughter, stepson, stepdaughter, son-in-law, or daughter-in-law.
District policy does not specifically prohibit administrators' spouses from working in the district. It does prohibit sitting board members' relatives from being hired.
Except in an emergency, the board will not employ anyone who is the father, mother, brother, sister, spouse, son, daughter, stepson, stepdaughter, son-in-law, or daughter-in-law of any board member.
Wilson said Assistant Superintendent Shanna Dinkel will supervise Wilson's wife and her principal in an attempt to eliminate a conflict of interest.
Wilson said none of the most recent superintendents' wives lived in Hays.
Board member Tammy Wellbrock said the district is not getting the quantity or type of applications it had at one time because of a teacher shortage.
Vajnar said he did not think the district was breaking policy by hiring Andrea Wilson, but he said he thought it would be setting a bad precedent.
"I think is being questioned by the community," he said.
Board member Meagan Zampieri-Lillpopp said the policy states the superintendent is required to inform the district if any candidate is a relative, which Ron Wilson did.
She also said the superintendent is not involved in specific teacher evaluations.
Board member Lori Hertel said she thought the board was following the policy in the hiring.
Dinkel said the hiring request had nothing to do with lack of candidates, but Andrea Wilson was chosen because she was the best person to do the job.
"That's why you hire us is to present to you the personnel transactions with the best person to fill the vacancy," she said.
Andrea Wilson has more than 25 years of experience teaching fourth and fifth-grade students, according to her husband. Since the couple moved to Hays, she has worked in the Hays district as a substitute teacher and long-term substitute teacher of a fourth-grade classroom. For the last two years, she’s worked in the district as a kindergarten classroom aide at Lincoln Elementary.
The board then discussed whether it was appropriate to continue the discussion in an executive session.
Lillpopp asked the hiring principal to be included in the executive session to add input. Both Rene Burns, the principal where she would work as a teacher, and Principal Kerri Lacy, her current supervisor at Lincoln, volunteered to speak on Andrea Wilson's behalf in the executive session.
Ken Brooks moved the board into executive session to further discuss the issue.
Board members Allen Park, Wellbrock and Hertel said they thought the discussion was about policy and should be discussed in public.
Board president Craig Pallister said the district has had numerous administrators who had wives who taught in the district.
"I don't know why the exception is here," he said.
Park said the difference was their supervisors were not supervised by the spouse. He gave the example of Pallister's wife who Park supervised at Washington Elementary School while Palliser was the middle school principal.
In open session, Park asked if anyone on the board had a problem with Andrea Wilson being hired as a teacher.
Pallister said, "We are not going to discuss that right now."
"You are way out of order," Pallister said to Park.
The board members with the exception of Wellbrock voted to move into the executive session for 15 minutes.
Yelling could be heard from the board room during the executive session.
The board came back into public session and with no further discussion voted 5-2 to approve the personnel transactions with Andrea Wilson's hiring. Park and Vajnar voted against the personnel transactions.
Andrea Wilson's contract will begin Aug. 14.
Hays Post offered Ron and Andrea Wilson opportunities to comment after the board meeting and they declined to comment.