(Sent to the Board and Superintendent Dr. Phillips on Feb. 10, 2024)
Dear Newberg-Dundee School Board Members,
After listening to last month’s Board meeting, I am writing to detail how the discussion, process, and the actual current Superintendent’s contract are completely out of sync with past history in Newberg, and with common practice throughout the state of Oregon. A big part of why you were elected in May of 2023 was to return the Newberg-Dundee School Board to proper and transparent process after the previous two years. I’m writing to ask you to vote to end the current contract of Superintendent Dr. Phillips, and open negotiations for a new contract after a proper evaluation process, for a future year beyond the current contract’s end on June 30, 2026.
I was Board Secretary for the Newberg-Dundee School District through four different years of Superintendent evaluations and contracts. Though I worked closely each day with the Superintendent, during my first time through the evaluation process a Board member with decades of experience came into my office and said: “It’s awkward, but during this process you don’t work for the Superintendent. You work for us. Your job is to help us protect the interests of the public.” The Board always worked for a good relationship with the Superintendent, and always remembered their primary responsibility was to serve the interests of the public.
Past Process versus Current
I attended OSBA training every year for Board Secretaries, and often made phone calls to OSBA to make sure that we were following proper process. Here’s how it used to go:
- In August or September, the Board and Superintendent in a public Board meeting would agree upon goals for the upcoming year. They would also identify the process for evaluation. This always included a written portfolio by the Superintendent detailing how she/he had met the agreed upon goals. It always included feedback from staff directly to the Board: sometime a few select staff members, sometimes a very broad level of input, like a 360 degree review.
- In January, I would distribute evaluation materials to all Board members. I would distribute any questionnaires to staff, or arrange meetings as needed for staff members to give feedback to the Board about the Superintendent.
- In January and February, there would be multiple executive sessions of the Board: first with the Board and Board Secretary without the Superintendent, to talk about the process. Then an executive session with the Superintendent, who gave a verbal report to the Board and answered questions. Then an executive session without the Superintendent to finalize the evaluation and assign someone to write the official evaluation on behalf of the entire Board (usually the Board Secretary and Board Chair.)
- In March in a public board meeting, the Superintendent evaluation would be delivered to the Superintendent. The Board would often discuss comparison Superintendent salaries of comparable districts. They would take action and direct the Board Chair to negotiate a contract extension with the Superintendent, often publicly giving a range for the salary that was in keeping with comparable Superintendent’s salaries. For example, directing the Board Chair to negotiate an extension with the Superintendent “in the $165,000 to $175,000 range.”
- The school district’s official legal counsel (attorney) would review the contract language.
- As Board Secretary, I would send the full negotiated contract to Board members before they voted to approve an extension in public meeting, with full discussion happening in public before the vote.
- While ORS 342.845 stipulates that administrator contracts must be renewed or extended by March 15, ORS 342.815 specifically exempts the Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent from that rule. Superintendents, by law, do NOT have to be renewed or extended by March 15. In the past, the Newberg School Board tried to follow the March 15 practice, but sometimes did not renew the Superintendent’s contract until late March.
- After an initial two year probationary contract, it was customary to give a three year contract that was extended by one year every year, so that the Superintendent always had a three year contract. However, the extension was never written into the contract; it was always at the Board’s discretion.
In summary: the Superintendent evaluation process was always public, and a contract renewal happened only after a thorough evaluation based on mutually agreed upon goals, all decided in public Board meetings.
The process for developing the current Superintendent contract was significantly different:
- There is no record of a public meeting to establish goals for Dr. Phillips.
- There is no record of the process used for evaluation of Dr. Phillips.
- There is no record of any staff giving input into the evaluation of Dr. Phillips.
- Dr. Phillips was given a two year probationary contract in May of 2022. One year before that contracted ended, without any public record of being directed by the Board, Chair Brown negotiated a new three year contact with Dr. Phillips. This contract was approved in June of 2023 without any discussion, by a school board that was in their last meeting, having already been voted out of office.
- On January 9, 2024, the current School Board had to discuss the contract, because as the contract is written, it will automatically be extended on Feb. 15 for another year (through 2026-2027), unless the Board takes action to end the contract on June 30, 2026.
- Official counsel for the School Board, Lisa Freiley, said in the January 2024 Board meeting that she did not see the current contract until after it was approved by the Board in June of 2023.
Concerns with the Current Contract
Here are just a few of the items in the current Superintendent contract which are drastically out of line with past history and current best practice among school districts in Oregon:
- The automatic extension of the contract if action by the Board is not taken by Feb. 15 is extremely unusual. There is no date required by law; Feb. 15 is a month earlier than all the other administrator and teacher contract deadlines for the district; and the extension should always be at the discretion of the Board, done after a thorough evaluation based on publicly available goals and process.
- There is an extravagant travel allowance in the contract: “The District agrees to pay the Superintendent 3% of the base yearly salary per month.” On his base yearly salary of $215,000, 3% is $6,450 per month for travel. Hopefully that is a mis-print, and what was intended was 3% of his monthly salary. Even that would be $537.50 per month for travel.
- Some might assume he must turn in receipts in order to receive that travel allowance. That is not the case; it is a straight allowance given every month.
- When I was Communications Coordinator for the district, I would travel to schools almost every day. My travel was higher than even the Superintendent at the time. We switched at one point to a travel allowance for me. We averaged up my travel reimbursements for the previous year, and came up with a travel allowance of $75 per month
- At the 2024 mileage reimbursement rate of 67 cents per mile, Dr. Phillips best-case-scenario travel allowance of $537.50 per month is equivalent to 802 miles per month. I just used Google maps, and traveling to every single school in the district from the district office is 20 miles. He would have to visit every school in the district 40 times every month to justify that best-case-scenario rate.
- There is a cell phone allowance of $4,300 per year in the contract. The most expensive annual cost for a cell phone plan I could find is $2,380.
- There is a $30,000 bonus given if the contract is ended for any reason before June 30, 2026. Dr. Phillips could get a bonus, even if he were to commit an infraction worthy of termination.
Please return the contract and process for the Superintendent of Newberg-Dundee School District to historical and statewide norms. Vote to end the current contract on June 30, 2026, and establish a process for a thorough evaluation on publicly agreed upon goals. A contract for the 2026-27 school year can be developed after that evaluation, with full review by the district’s attorney.
Thank you,
Gregg Koskela
Former Board Secretary and Communications Coordinator
Father of three Newberg High School grads: 2012, 2015, and 2020