|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Pleasanton Unified School District Board of Trustees is set to vote Thursday on whether it should ask Interim Superintendent Maurice Ghysels to formally come out of retirement. If they do, the board will subsequently direct staff to draft a revised contract for Ghysels for future board approval.
The financial impact the new contract — which staff would begin to work on after the meeting — would have on the district’s budget is unknown at this time, according to the staff report.
During the Aug. 22 board meeting, Board President Mary Jo Carreon explained how because Ghysels is retired, he has a very limited amount of days that he can work for the district before he loses his pension benefits. Due to his financial cap — how much money he can make as a retiree — he would have to leave his position in PUSD by no later than Oct. 1.
Carreon said at that meeting the other two options would be hiring a new interim superintendent who isn’t a retiree or hiring a permanent superintendent, all of which would have had to happen very soon.
The overall feedback from the other trustees on Aug. 22 was to find a way to keep Ghysels at the district while PUSD works on surveying residents to find out what they want to see in a new superintendent before actually going out to seek candidates. However, one of the issues that several board members had was the financial impact a new contract with Ghysels would have on the district’s budget amid a time of fiscal uncertainty.
That’s why the board will be reviewing any additional information regarding the options for the interim superintendent at Thursday’s meeting before officially asking — or not asking — Ghysels to come out of retirement so that he could continue to serve in his position.
The board’s open-session meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Thursday (Sept. 12). Read the full agenda here.
In other business
* The board will be reviewing and possibly approving two important service contracts related to the new Educational Options Center that will replace Village High School.
One for the former high school’s demolition and the other to build the temporary facilities to house the high school’s current operations.
One of the main projects from the district’s $395 million Measure I bond program is the creation of an options center that will “replace Village High School and house the PUSD Virtual Academy as well as other educational programs.”
According to the staff report, the creation of the center has been broken up in three phases: constructing interim housing, demolition of the existing campus and building the new facility.
Portable classrooms have already been constructed and are now occupied but the district still needs to renovate two other buildings before it can move on from the interim housing phase to the demolition of Village phase.
On June 27, the board ratified a contract regarding one of the buildings and now staff will be recommending that the board approve an agreement with Rodan Builders, Inc. in the amount of $519,341 for the second building.
After voting on that contract, the board will vote on a separate $127,000 contract with Finney Architects for architectural services regarding the demolition of Village High School, which is the next phase following the completion of the renovation work at the two buildings.
According to the staff report, work on the interim housing at the two other buildings will begin shortly, which is why they want to get a head start on the demolition phase in order to stay on schedule.
“This phase includes demolishing all existing structures at Village High School and the safe-off of all utilities,” according to the staff report. “The demolition is crucial in clearing the site for the subsequent construction of the new Educational Options Center.”
Staff also said in the report that some of the structures at the site will remain intact and will be demolished at a later date.
* District staff will be asking the board to approve the 2023-24 unaudited actuals financial statements so that staff could submit them to the Alameda County Office of Education by its required deadline of Sept. 15.
According to the staff report, the statements are “the basis for school districts to annually report their actual revenues, expenditures, and fund balances to the Board of Education, County Office of Education, and California Department of Education.”
One notable portion of the next steps slide in staff’s presentation to the board mentions a reduction in force resolution and potential layoff notice possibly coming to the board between January and March of next year.
The board previously went through that same process earlier this year amid ongoing budget concerns.
LVJUSD to present 2025-26 budget reports showing ‘resilient financial position’September 14, 2026 3:15 pm
