It was a raw – or at best half-baked – deal in 2008 when a sharply divided school board extended Superintendent Jim Scales’ contract for four years though he was barely halfway through his first term.
The proposed renewal, kept secret from opposing board members and the public until the last possible moment, was as untimely as it was unjustified.
Now, sure enough, Hamilton County is paying a high price for that 5-4 decision. The current board plans to buy out Scales’ contract a year before it was to expire. Lament the cost of that move all you like, but the blame lies with the board members who voted to extend the contract, not with those who now propose to buy it out.
Scales’ leadership has been marked by a series of blunders, from the district’s lack of transparency about violence (read: guns and rioting) to Scales’ instant cave-in when some obscure atheist group pitched a fit over voluntary prayers at football games in Soddy-Daisy.
An equally bewildering miscue came early this year. In the midst of an economic crisis, with little doubt that the schools were going to be facing gargantuan budget shortfalls, Scales pushed for millions of dollars in locally and federally funded across-the-board bonuses for district employees. He was mysteriously flabbergasted when the board said no.