Carmel Unified looks for new superintendent amid fallout over the last one.

During the school day, Carmel Middle School is buzzing with students, teachers and staff. On one Wednesday evening a month, when the campus is mostly empty except for athletes wrapping up practice, the school library comes to life for a meeting of the Carmel Unified School District Board of Trustees, with dozens of adults filling chairs in audience formation.

These meetings follow a pattern: The board invites public comment, and a parade of parents and community members get up, called by numbers, to speak at the podium. There’s a mom who objects to books in the library that include sexual content. There is a retired attendance secretary who, having retired, is unafraid to tell the board they’re doing everything wrong (“I don’t understand why the board can’t follow their own board policy,” Ann Berry said in October). There’s a parade of parents expressing a mix of anger and confusion about the state of the school district’s governance.

Then most of the members of the public leave – there’s no subsequent invitation for them to make comments, even on specific discussion topics on the night’s agenda. The board hears from CUSD staff and student club members. Then the board members break, often for many hours, into a room for a closed-session discussion.

Under California’s public meetings laws, several things may be discussed in closed session including litigation and personnel matters. CUSD has plenty to talk about, with no fewer than three pending lawsuits filed by current or former employees alleging sexual harassment.

Meanwhile, personnel also continues to be a topic. The former superintendent, Ted Knight, resigned on Aug. 11 last year. Former deputy Sharon Ofek was appointed as acting then as interim superintendent and then, in September, became the sole candidate in contention for the job of superintendent – the board voted 4-1 to forgo a search process and instead negotiate with her.

Facing community outcry, the board backpedaled in November, and announced plans to solicit public input instead.

Meanwhile, CUSD is still embroiled in litigation over the terms under which Knight resigned. Christine Davi is a district parent (and also a professional in public agency law – she is city attorney for Monterey). After asking nicely a few times for CUSD to correct what she identifies as an illegal payout of $770,000 to make Knight go away quietly, Davi sued in October. She filed an amended complaint in December detailing alleged violations of that agreement, which she argues exceeded the allowable payment by at least $524,480, based on government code and Knight’s contract.

“With approximately 2,274 students enrolled in the district, CUSD, in its excessive overpayment to [Knight], deprived funding in the amount of $230.64 per student enrolled in the 2023/24 school year,” the lawsuit claims.

In a case management statement, Davi suggests that the three board members who voted to approve Knight’s separation agreement – Sara Hinds, Jason Remynse and Karl Pallastrini – be held personally liable to pay back the district.

In a statement filed on Jan. 12, CUSD’s attorneys indicate they may ask the court to toss out the lawsuit.

District officials refer questions about pending litigation to the court record. And when I asked 2023 board president Hinds for an interview about leadership transitions, she told me she was interested only in talking about positive things. Current president Remynse writes by email, "Unfortunately I can’t provide more insight on closed session items."

That all leaves a big, gaping hole where there could be information, but instead there is guesswork and distrust. Carmel Unified School District has hired three superintendents since 2015. Two of them resigned before the end of their contract term and agreed to drop claims against the district.

“The community needs to know who is going to be the new superintendent, and they haven’t had any input,” board member Anne-Marie Rosen said in September.

For a few months at least, it looked like the board intended to remedy that. But those plans may have been scuttled – the board’s agenda for a meeting on Jan. 24 (after the Weekly’s deadline) includes a closed-session superintendent appointment.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@mcweekly.com.

Editor's note: This story has been updated from the version in the Jan. 25 issue of the Weekly to reflect a comment from Board President Jason Remynse.