Tim Glover, picked last week to be the Sweetwater Union High School District’s interim superintendent, starts the job at the beleaguered district Monday.
School board President John McCann and Vice President Susan Hartley signed the employment contract with him on behalf of the district. Glover was chosen from a pool of applicants in a closed session meeting Wednesday.
District officials have not yet made the details of Glover’s contract available. His predecessor, Ed Brand, makes $252,000 a year, and will continue to be paid his salary through October. In a surprise move, the board placed him on paid leave a week ago.
Glover will start work 2 weeks before the public has a chance to review and comment on his contract at the board’s next meeting.
When asked if the board chose Glover to calm critics, Manuel Rubio, director of the Sweetwater school district's Grants and Communications Department, said Glover was not chosen to calm critics. The school board “just wanted something different," Rubio said. "Now it's someone new, someone different.”
Rubio said the board is expected to ratify Glover's contract with little or no opposition.
Glover is leaving his job as assistant superintendent of student services and programs for the San Diego County Office of Education to take the helm at Sweetwater.
In a statement from Office of Education, Glover said, "There are great things going on in the Sweetwater Union High School District, and my focus will be on how to enhance these accomplishments by our students and our staff, and usher the district into the future."
The Sweetwater district is coming out of years of controversy. Four of its board members pleaded guilty in a “pay-to-play” scandal that the District Attorney's Office began prosecuting in 2010. The superintendent at that time, Jesus Gandara, was also caught in the scandal and was recently sentenced to seven months in jail and three years' probation.
McCann said he has high hopes Glover will bring a new level of integrity to the district.
“We’ve had four board members be criminally convicted at the district, and it's created low moral for our students and our teachers and administration. I think Dr. Glover is going to meet with as many people as possible, bring up that moral and bring back the greatness that Sweetwater has the ability to do,” McCann said.
Glover's interim appointment continues until December, when a new school board take office and have the chance to pick a permanent leader for the district.
When the five-member school board lost four members because of their guilty pleas, temporary trustees from the county Board of Education, where Glover most recently worked, took their spots until an election could be held in November.
