‘Lack of trust’ among concerns about Tumwater School superintendent, documents show
Tumwater school district leaders, including principals and central office staff, have expressed numerous concerns about Superintendent Sean Dotson’s leadership abilities, citing lack of trust as a key issue.
According to letters and documents obtained by The Olympian, district leadership sent a letter to Dotson on Oct. 21 about his performance and culture concerns within the district. The letter states that his lack of leadership has “resulted in a toxic culture district-wide carrying negative consequences to the students and staff we serve.”
The letter says district leadership surveyed administrators and supervisors regarding Dotson’s performance and received 25 responses. The responses reveal concerns about lack of trust, mismanagement of district funds, lack of communication and follow-through on decision making, lack of relationship building and more.
Several respondents said Dotson lacks a vision for the district, is a poor communicator, resists change, is slow at decision making and is dictatorial.
In the Oct. 21 letter, district leadership asked Dotson to respond by Oct. 29. It was also requested that he not participate in individual meetings with principals and that a Washington Association of School Administrators district leadership audit be conducted.
Dotson sent a letter to district leadership by the requested date of Oct. 29. In the letter, Dotson thanked district leadership for bringing the issues to him and for their commitment to “improving the climate and culture as we also seek to improve the district’s financial condition.”
He said the survey results were concerning and that they did not reflect the relationship he wants to have with district leadership.
“For our district to successfully move through the challenges that lie ahead, we need to have a relationship based upon trust, open communication, and shared decision-making,” he said. “I am committed to improvement in the areas identified.”
He said if he were to share a planned solution to the issues, he said he doesn’t believe it would support the needed change without discussion with leadership.
He included general steps he plans to take, including re-prioritizing his calendar to increase presence in schools, identifying strategies to involve leaders in decision making, and establishing protocols for follow-through on decisions.
“The work ahead in Tumwater School District is challenging, complex, and will require close teamwork,” he said. “I am committed to making the changes necessary to create the conditions for us to meet these challenges together.”
In a Nov. 4 letter addressed to Tumwater School Board president Melissa Beard, district leadership said that despite their best efforts to “resolve conflict, offer solutions, and collectively work toward a united leadership effort in the district,” they don’t believe Dotson is able to make the necessary changes.
The letter said district leadership met the night before to discuss ongoing frustrations with Dotson’s response to their letter, saying it was a blatant disregard of the recommendations proposed. This led to a unanimous vote of no confidence against him, according to the letter.
During the Dec. 9 school board meeting, Beard said the board met in November and adopted a set of goals for Dotson to meet and agreed to evaluate him on the goals in May 2022, which is indicated in his contract. She said she understands staff want to move this process along, but the board has to stick to the process and system it agreed to when it hired Dotson.
Dotson speaks out
In an interview with The Olympian on Friday, Dotson said several factors are at play for why Tumwater’s budget looks the way it does, though it’s unclear just how much money the district is lacking. An independent investigation is being conducted to gauge the financial issues within the district and Dotson said those results should be shared with the school board in January.
Dotson said the COVID-19 pandemic threw a wrench in budget planning as the district moved from remote learning in the fall of 2020 to hybrid instruction in February. That then changed from two days of hybrid instruction to four. Over the summer, he said the district expected to be able to go back to in-person instruction with reduced mitigation measures that would save the district money. But then came another uptick in cases as the Delta variant swept through the county.
The district budget has to be finalized by August of the school year, and with new information coming out almost every day on the pandemic, Dotson said the district was unable to make predictions based on past patterns of spending. On top of this, with more staff needed to help with mitigation efforts and teachers working in person over the summer, the cost of staffing was much higher than expected.
Dotson said the district had to adjust and use COVID-19 relief funding to pay for the reopening of in-person schooling, which reduced the amount of relief funding available for future uses. Then in August 2021, Dotson said the state informed the district that their estimates on relief funding were off and they were unable to provide as much as was expected, causing the district to lose out on $500,000 of relief funding.
“All of those things put together have put us in a tough budget position this year, and it means we have to make harder adjustments this year and harder adjustments next year than what we expected,” Dotson said.
He said the budget is 85% payroll and staffing, with the other 15% for classroom materials, heating and maintenance, and everything else.
“If we have to make large budget cuts, there’s no way to do that without impacting staff,” he said.
Dotson said it hurts to have the issues targeted toward him, but he understands that as superintendent, the buck stops with him. He said he came into the district at a hard time, just after the district was coming out of a strike and budget challenges were already being projected. Now, dealing with the pandemic for 22 months, the district hasn’t caught a break.
“I think it’s been tremendously tiring for everyone, and I think people are stressed,” he said. “I wish I could take some of the pressure off people. Those pressures when you’re dealing with staff shortages and stresses that come with operating in these conditions, I just can’t do that right now.”
He said he’s taking the no-confidence vote as an opportunity to learn and to get better so he can support the rest of the district. The focus for the next month or so will be to figure out exactly how much the district has to cut to balance out the budget, and then making those cuts by April.
“What we all have in common, we’re all working hard to support the students and community,” he said. “We’re all working together on that, a common commitment. I just want us to be an effective team, and I think that’s what they’re saying, too.”
This story was originally published December 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
.jpg)