Saturday, November 19, 2016

Joplin R-8 Board continues draining the swamp: Boyer out the door

Another holdover from the C. J. Huff era is down for the count.

During a closed session Monday, the Joplin R-8 Board of Education approved the resignation of Director of Early Childhood Education Amanda Boyer.

The board also approved the separation agreement, which called for the following:

- Boyer will receive a total of $15,200.91. She will be paid $6,716.67 this month, covering the time she was on administrative leave and then receive $8,484.24 in December. According to the agreement, Boyer will not be able to count any of the money toward her retirement.

-The district will pay its share of Boyer's health insurance through December 31.

-The district will provide Boyer with a neutral verification of employment.

-Boyer waives the right to any future legal action against the district and cannot make disparaging comments about the district relating to her departure.

-The district will not seek to have her license revoked and will not "refer the matter to the attorney general's office or other agency for review or to commence revocation proceedings."

Boyer and former Executive Director of Student Services Mark Barlass were given the options of resigning or being fired in October after they were stripped of their duties following an internal investigation.

No details of that investigation have been released, but sources close to administration tell the Turner Report the dismissals were at least in part related to activities that were shared by Boyer and Barlass and which took place on the taxpayers' time.

Boyer had been in the district since 2011.

With the resignations of Boyer and 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.

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18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Barr might be salvageable. Might be.

Can the rest by the end of May 2017.

Yup. said...

I don't particularly care for Barr. Aside from his unpleasant disposition and arrogance, he not only wholeheartedly participated in the Huff regime, he appeared to have propagated and exacerbated the impact of the little devil. Still, I believe he was already in place prior to Huff.

Nonetheless, his departure would undoubtedly be a positive for a district that bore the brunt of his role as Franz Scwarz.

Anonymous said...

Paul Barr is a good guy. His only fault is his devotion to follow his superior no matter what. Yes he should of stood up to CJ but few could. Let's rehabilitate him!

Anonymous said...

Wow, all these firings and test scores still in the toilet. Hmm..

Anonymous said...

Barr couldn't even manage to see the concessions were balanced. His incompetence in approving "might as well" spending is reason enough to fire his subordinate posture to the Superintendent. As a C.P.A., the very definition of his position demanded he oppose such financial malpractices. His duty was not to C.J. Huff, his duty was to the taxpayers of the district. He failed miserably and should be terminated as soon as possible. The taxpayers do not need "yes men" that do not have the backbone to perform their duties. He is too old to rehabilitate, terminate his incompetent performance!

Anonymous said...

It sure is informative to see that there is no shortage of "swamp thangs" as teachers left in the R-8 swamp.

Speaking of "draining the swamp" it is like Turner is an addled possum wondering if that now most of the CJ Huffigators are gone if it is safe to take a quick swim across the swamp in order to rob a persimmon tree.

I notice that there is no hurry to rehire Turner as a teacher on the part of the new board.

Anonymous said...

Turner is caught in a Catch 22. The only chance he had of ever getting a teaching job was to take down the board that fired him and get rid of CJ. He did such a good job that no superintendent or board is ever going to take a chance that he might some day do the same thing to them.

Steve Holmes said...

9:28: Do you have evidence Randy has sought to be rehired?

Randy said...

Steve, I have never officially applied for reinstatement, but I did have a conversation several months ago about it with Norm Ridder. With everything else that has been going on with ridding the district of the leftover administrative team and hiring a superintendent, I have not made any efforts to take it any further at this point.

Anonymous said...

Wow, all these firings and test scores still in the toilet. Hmm..

No surprise, changes at the top have to propagate down to the classroom, and the district has so many fledgling teachers there's going to be a lag in quality as they come up to speed, there's no substitute for experience.

And I gather the district still has a retention problem, which has to in part be due to the necessarily slow rate of draining the swamp and those changes propagating down, and the financial difficulties the district is in, that will very possibly get much worse if FEMA refuses reimbursement of enough of the "might as well" spending. That is, the district has to more protect its financial reserves so it stays solvent than pay its teachers area market salaries.

This should all work out in a few years, but expecting immediate improvement is unrealistic. Huff had years to wreak havoc, it's going to be years to clean up his messes.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if Huff and the board were the ones teaching the students.

Anonymous said...

The "activities" that took place on taxpayers time would be a physical affair (caught on surveillance) between Barlass and Boyer. As well as Boyer enjoying shopping sprees and lunches out on several occasions.

Anonymous said...

The "activities" that took place on taxpayers time would be a physical affair (caught on surveillance) between Barlass and Boyer.

Isn't it nice when people you have to purge make it easy, and cheap?

Wayne Campbell said...

The "activities" that took place on taxpayers time would be a physical affair (caught on surveillance) between Barlass and Boyer.

Like I always say...SCHWING!

Anonymous said...

Youtube?

Anonymous said...

Liveleak!

Anonymous said...

EWWWWWW!!!

Anonymous said...

When is Jennifer Doshier going to be gone? She is a joke to education. We all know what she did at McKinley, her famous quote of "I have to go to San Diego so I can learn how to do my job", the other quote of "Data? I don't have that data, but I have badgered and fired teachers for not having data." She needs to be GONE. JEFF KOCH, SHE NEEDS TO BE GONE....JOPLIN BOE.....SHE NEEDS TO BE GONE!!!!! Lets go.