The executive director of the Arizona School Boards Association has resigned, effective at the end of next week. Devin Del Palacio took over the position this summer, but soon came under questioning over allegedly false information on his resume. The incident also led to other disputes within the organization.
Ray Stern of the Arizona Republic has been reporting on this and The Show spoke with him and asked what was the official reason given for Del Palacio’s resignation.
MARK BRODIE: What was the official reason given for Del Palacio's resignation?
RAY STERN: There wasn't one. In fact, part of this whole problem has been that the School Boards Association has not been forthcoming with information about what happened. They have not acknowledged that anything happened really, and they just kind of classified it as a parting of the ways.
BRODIE: Well, so there's been a fair bit of controversy within this organization and with this individual for several months now, since you did some reporting over the summer about some maybe misrepresentations on his resume, right?
STERN: That's, that's basically the the story that that really caused a lot of sort of angst and concern by some of the officials over at the Arizona School Boards Association back in June is kind of when this really started. That's when they hired Devin Del Palacio, and the current president at that time or the former President James Bryce, he had concerns after getting a whistleblower complaint, which is how he described it, that there was something wrong with Del Palacio's resume and that he had said he had a college degree when he did not. And so he was advised by the legal council there to have an investigation completed. They sent it out to an outside law firm, which determines that, yes, he did say that he had a a bachelor's degree. He put this on his resume from the what's the former Western International University, but he didn't really have a degree. And then when Bryce brought these findings to the to the school board's board, gets a little bit confusing there, they, the, the board, the majority of the board basically did not want to hear about it. They didn't want to see the investigation or they did, I guess they understood that there was an investigation and what the findings were, but they didn't acknowledge it. And they accused James of trying to drive this man out because he didn't like didn't like him.
BRODIE: Also, it sounds as though this is more than just an executive director with whom some people had problems or maybe with his background. It seems like it's really caused some internal strife at the school boards association as well.
STERN: Well, it really did. And what happened was the School Boards Association board decided that they would sign this contract with Mr. Del Palacio to be the executive director. And they told James Bryce, the president, that he needed to sign it too, And he said I'm not going to sign this, you know, I have a problem with this. And so he resigned and then to other people at the School Boards Association Association resigned if I can say that word correctly. And then the School Boards Association let go or fired its legal counsel and sort of took this position, that we, we're just not going to say anything about this. We like this guy and we're just going to forget that this ever happened, but they really couldn't do that.
BRODIE: Does the timing seem significant in any way given that the state Legislature comes back into session in a month? And, you know, given the state's fiscal situation, education issues and education funding will probably be a big issue this year or next year.
STERN: That could be part of what they're thinking. But I think that the real pressure came from past presidents of the School Boards Association that started a campaign of a letter writing campaign to school boards around the state saying, look what's going on at your school boards association, which most of the school boards are members of this is not accountability. This is not the way things should be done. And they asked the school boards to sign and pass a joint resolution demanding that that more accountability be done and that a really thorough investigation take place. And because the school boards association is partially funded by dues from school boards around the state. I think that they felt that pressure, and, you know, they, they, they're worried that maybe they'll lose some of their clients, these school boards and, and that's another factor there is that there's been a couple of other associations or companies that have taken on role of the school boards association and they're worried about losing some of their clients to those other companies.
BRODIE: Right. Well, so where does this leave the organization? I mean, as, as we discussed, they just hired a new executive director over the summer now they're looking for yet another one.
STERN: Right, they're still probably gonna be getting some criticism over this. And especially because they still haven't really talked about what's happening. And some of the past school boards, school board presidents or, excuse me, school board association presidents who include people like Ann O'Brien, who's a Phoenix City Council member. They're concerned about how this looks. They've been sort of fighting with the idea that, you know, especially from the sort of liberal end people are against the ESA vouchers that the legislature had passed and they want to support public schools. One of the big issues in that debate is the accountability factor because private schools don't have as much accountability to the public as public schools do. And so these past presidents are saying, you know, we, we must be better than, you know, than the others and this does not show that we're better. And so, you know, I, I'm kind of curious to see how they're going to handle it. Are they going to eventually come out and say, yeah, this, this was a mistake or not?
BRODIE: Well, does it seem as though folks are concerned, especially supporters of public education and maybe even supporters of the State School Boards Association, is there a concern that this episode has done permanent damage to the organization?
STERN: There's certainly concern on the part of people like James Bryce. He sent me a, you know, highly critical statement after the announcement on Del Palacio yesterday and he does think that that there is going to be continued ramifications for the School Board Association if they don't come clean and admit that, yes, you know, we were wrong on this, but who knows? It's a powerful organization with, with still, you know, a lot of school boards in the state needing them, they do things like train school board members and help provide conferences where school board members who are often members of the community. And you know, they're not, they're not steeped in the knowledge of how school boards operate, how school boards operate. Sometimes they, they need the school boards association to provide that training. And so, you know, it's probably not an organization that can be taken down overnight. It's a 75-year-old organization and these competitors that are, that I was mentioning they are, you know, not always a good replacement. One, for example, is, is basically backed by Republican activists that include, and it's run by the daughter of Kelli Ward, the former state party Republican state party director who received a lot of criticism for the way she ran the state party.
BRODIE: All right, plenty more to come on this, I'm sure. That is Ray Stern of the Arizona Republic. Ray, thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.
STERN: You bet. Thank you.
