At a contentious meeting Wednesday night, the Santa Clara County Office of Education’s board delivered the results of a lengthy investigation into an alleged misuse of public funds by the county’s former superintendent of schools — but conflicting claims by county office of education leaders made it clear that many questions still swirl around the findings.
They come more than a year after former Superintendent Mary Ann Dewan was unexpectedly removed from her position in a 4-2 vote; the action was classified as “without cause.” The board declined to expand on the reasoning for Dewan’s mysterious removal for months, but says now the decision stemmed from her handling of several complaints regarding the county’s Head Start program, which helps low-income children under the age of five access critical resources.
The report did not cite specific examples of wrongdoing, or include the names of the two law firms that conducted the independent review. But it contained 14 findings, including that under Dewan’s leadership, the Santa Clara County Office of Education misused public funds and violated several board policies, that the county superintendent’s segregated account was used to redirect grant funding for unrelated purposes and that public dollars were used for legal expenses and investigations of the board of education.
A federal audit released earlier this year said the county office of education misused more than $135,370 in federal Head Start funds under Dewan, an error the board called a failed cover-up and an intentional effort to undermine the board’s authority — but which Dewan said was a communication error.
The county office of education said Wednesday that the board and staff were not aware of any charges being filed by law enforcement or the district attorney’s office.
The report’s summarized findings presented Wednesday were written by board counsel and the board’s governance committee — comprised of board president Maimona Afzal Berta, vice president Victoria Chon and trustee Jessica Speiser as well as current county superintendent David Toston — the board’s legal counsel said Wednesday and the findings stemmed from multiple investigations and reports conducted in the last two years.
The report’s findings also said several office of education contracts were awarded in a manner that suggested personal favoritism and that “ethical safeguards” were ignored, with several county office of education employees allegedly using “public resources” to show support for their superior.
In a statement Wednesday, Dewan condemned the board’s findings, calling them “meritless, malicious and baseless attacks unsupported by any evidence.”
“I have no knowledge of any wrongdoing and fulfilled all of my duties with integrity and within the statutory framework of my role,” Dewan said. “This pattern of public attacks, mischaracterizations and personal targeting is harmful to the institution and discourages talented educators from serving our students.”
Dewan also pointed out that whether appointed by the board — in the case of Santa Clara County — or elected by the community, a county superintendent has independent authority under the law to enter into agreements and contracts. She also said that employees, like all individuals, have First Amendment rights and the board’s effort to frame employee free speech as misconduct is troubling.
At Wednesday’s meeting, a handful of community members and head start staff expressed their gratitude to the board for investigating the misuse of funds and Dewan’s “unethical” requests.
“The findings are astonishing but not surprising given that I and Head Start staff have been saying this for the last two years,” said Mercedes Hill, a Head Start office specialist within the county office of education.
But Riju Krishna, the president of the Association of County Educators — a group of local teachers unions — pointed out that the amount of improperly misused funding alleged in the investigation’s findings “cannot possibly be the work of one single superintendent” in a system that requires multiple checks and balances, and called on the current county superintendent Toston to implement significant policy reform.
“What is your plan…to rebuild the school oversight, repair the damage and ensure that this never happens again?” Krishna asked. “How will you repair this harm?”
The board of education presented several suggested policy changes in response to the investigation’s findings Wednesday in an effort to prevent the misuse of funds from reoccurring.
But Tara Sreekrishnan, who said she was speaking as an individual member of the board and not on behalf of the board itself, expressed concerns about the proposed board policy changes, which she said centralizes authority in the board president, restricts speech, reduces transparency and moves the county office of education toward “punitive, politically motivated governance.”
She also expressed deep concerns about the investigation’s findings.
“The findings raise broad and serious concerns but they are presented without evidence or specific examples, which makes it difficult for the public trustees or any oversight agency to fully evaluate them,” Sreekrishnan said in a statement Wednesday.
The report’s findings come amid several other investigations into the county office of education and board over the last year, which have pointed to an alleged history of tension between the county office of education leadership and board members and found that the board failed to follow its own management policies.
Several other former county office of education leaders came to the defense of Dewan Wednesday, including former board president Claudia Rossi and former trustee Kathleen King.
“Countless public dollars have been poured into this two-year witch hunt and still not a shred of evidence of wrongdoing has been produced,” Rossi said in a statement Wednesday.
But current board member Don Rocha cautioned the community that in his more than 30 years of public service, he’s never seen an agency as unconcerned with serving community interests as the Santa Clara County Office of Education was under Dewan.
“The evidence speaks for itself unless you choose to look the other way,” Rocha said.