The Menlo Park School Board on Tuesday unanimously approved a $205,000 contract for incoming superintendent Maurice Ghysels while only briefly touching on the controversial romantic relationship he had with a principal he supervised in a different district.
The three-year agreement, which includes $5,000 for relocation expenses, is good for three years, and the school board will consider extending it annually after evaluating Ghysels’ performance.
Ghysels, who currently works as chief schools officer for the Santa Clara County Office of Education, is slated to take the reins from Ken Ranella at the beginning of July.
“I am thrilled and excited that we get the benefit of his vision, because I’ve wanted it for a really long time,” Trustee Laura Rich said before the vote, noting she was familiar with Ghysels’ accomplishments in other school districts.
Ghysels is no stranger to the superintendent role. He held the same position at the Mountain View Whisman School District from 2005 to 2010. However, he announced in November 2009, just weeks after his romantic relationship with Edith Landels Elementary Principal Carmen Mizell came to light, that he would be looking for a new job.
Ghysels and Mizell were going through divorces from their respective spouses at the time.
Menlo Park City School District Board President Maria Hilton did not address Ghysels’ controversial exit from Mountain View, other than to say she believe news outlets and bloggers want the school board to have “public discourse about private lives.” The trustees will not do that, she said.
Instead, all five trustees offered praise for Ghysels, saying he has the management and leadership skills, enthusiasm for education, and commitment to students to move the district forward. The district received 27 applications and interviewed six finalists before landing on Ghysels.
“At the end of that process, we sat down and we did a blind ballot,” Hilton said. “In the first time in the history of our search advisers, there were five board members who all ranked the same candidate as No. 1.”
Ghysels’ contract includes a $250 monthly car allowance for district activities in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, as well as $250 a month to cover expenses related to events he attends as a representative of the district.
He will receive 25 vacation days each year and cannot accumulate more than 35 total.
Email Jesse Dungan at jdungan@dailynewsgroup.com.
