Two administrators out in Joplin R-8 shakeup

The Joplin R-8 Board of Education is expected to accept the resignations of Executive Director of Student Services Mark Barlass and Early Childhood Director Amanda Boyer when it meets in closed session 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Memorial Education Building.

Sources close to Administration tell the Turner Report that the two had been given the option of resigning or being fired, though details on what brought out about the ultimatum are sketchy.

Barlass was originally hired by former Superintendent C. J. Huff, when it turned out the person Huff had placed in charge of special education, Lisa Orem, not only was not certified in special education, but had let her

administrator's license lapse. Orem retained her position at more than $100,000 a year, but Barlass was brought in at a slightly higher annual salary. Together, both of them did a job that had previously been done by one person who made $98,000 a year.

Boyer also came to the district in 2011.

With the departure of Barlass, the recent resignation of former Chief Operations Officer Tina Smith, the reassignment and subsequent resignation of Curriculum Director Sarah Stevens, and the retirement of Buildings Project Manager Mike Johnson, the only remaining links to the upper administration of Huff's days are CFO Paul Barr, Executive Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Jennifer Doshier, Communications Director Kelli Price, and former Executive Director of Secondary Instruction, now East Middle School Principal Jason Cravens.

The district still has a number of people who were promoted to top positions in the district or administrative positions as building principals or assistant principals through the positions of teaching/learning coaches, jobs that for the most part served as spies for the Huff Administration.