Battle Over Baseball Coach: Gossip, Name-Calling, Threats...Does High School Ever End?

If you missed Jim Brown's Sentinel article about the firing of baseball coach Jim Brown, you should read it here. Some of the back and forth between officials reads like something out of high school.

Here are some of the highlights.

+The Sentinel concluded that: "The coach violated district policies by using harsh language with players and parents, and officials undermined the district's personnel rules in handling complaints about his conduct."

+ Coach George Arnott, 36, who used profanity although it is forbidden by school policy, once called his players "passive vaginas" after a loss to Aptos High. He also wrote an email to parents who complained about the lack of a party and poor communication, saying, "this is my program and I will run it the way I want."

+The Santa Cruz district has lost 10 coaches over the past three years. It paid Arnott $2,600 to coach baseball and he poured the money and his time into fixing the baseball field. He was let go Aug. 9 without a warning.

+Rather than go through proper administrative procedures to fire Arnott, such as filing a complaint and asking him to change his behavior, the district simply terminated him, claiming it didn't need to do more since he wasn't a full time employee.

+According to Attorney Ed Chun, an Arnott supporter, whose son played for the team, Superintendent Gary Bloom threatened Arnott with releasing the vagina comment and the profanities, which he said could hurt the moving business Arnott owns. Coincidentally, Bloom hired Arnott before all of this, to move him from Aromas to Aptos.

+While Bloom claimed that the firing was initiated by school staff under him, an anonymous call to Chun was traced to the cell phone of Santa Cruz High principal Karen Edmonds' husband. The caller said Edmonds was "being thrown under the bus" and was scared not to take responsibility.

The school district has hired an investigator to look into the charges against Bloom. It approved a proposal from San Diego-based human resources consultant Rita Sierra Beyers to conduct the inquiry over 2-4 weeks at a cost of $4,500 to $5,200.

 Board President Deborah Tracy-Proulx told Santa Cruz Patch: 

"The board was presented with a pool of three highly qualified candidates and given the task to select one. Following discussion of their qualifications, five trustees ranked Rita Sierra Byers their top choice. Trustee Coonerty selected Andrea Smethhurst as her top choice and Trustee Trujillo selected Steve Badilla as his top choice. Following addition discussion and public comment, the board voted to select Rita Sierra Byers, who has extensive experience in ed code and employee law and policy, which are issues at the core of the complaint filed with the district.

 The rates between Steve Badilla and Rita Sierra Byers are comparable - both giving a high-end estimate at approximately $5,000. The rate for Ms. Smethhurst was estimated to be approximately $19K"

Trustees will get an update on her work at Wednesday's meeting.