How to resolve AdBlock issue? Tim Gill, a veteran educator who the district board hired at the end of October, confirmed to Lake County News that he resigned effective Tuesday.
“At this time I don't have any comment regarding my reasons for resigning,” Gill said.
Board President Misha Grothe said Gill submitted the letter of resignation to the board on Monday.
“No reason was given in his letter of resignation and I don’t feel it is my place nor the community’s to speculate,” she said.
“It was my absolute honor to have been able to work with Tim Gill in his short tenure as Middletown USD’s superintendent. His passion for education and dedication to bettering the district while here was unparalleled and he will be sorely missed. I wish him all the best in his future endeavors,” Grothe said.
The Middletown Unified School Board held a special Tuesday night meeting to discuss the matter. It met in closed session and then held an open session, during which it took public comment before voting to accept Gill’s resignation.
While neither Gill nor the district gave reasons for his sudden departure, speakers at the Tuesday night meeting attributed his leaving directly to an escalating political divide that has formed in the district around COVID-19 mandates.
Over the past several months, the district board meetings have been filled with parents and community members arguing against masking and vaccinations.
In the fall, two board members — LaTrease Walker and Thad Owens — resigned their seats, with Walker opposing COVID-19 mandates and Owens giving no reason.
At the same time, Gill’s selection as the new superintendent had appeared to promise some stability to the district, which at that point had three superintendents in two years.
Then, in December, the board selected Annette Lee — a college professor with a doctorate in educational administration — and Allison Berlogar to fill the seats of Walker and Owens, respectively.
When, at her first board meeting two weeks later, Lee suggested alternate wording to a proposed resolution against mandates, she became the target of a petition — whose proponents included Walker — opposing her provisional appointment.
Enough signatures were gathered and Lee’s provisional appointment ended in January. At the same time, Lake County Superintendent of Schools Brock Falkenberg called a special election to fill Walker’s seat that is expected to cost the district tens of thousands of dollars and leave the board’s fifth seat vacant until the June election, which will be combined with the state primary.
District starting ‘to crack and now crumble’
Despite the deep differences that have developed in the district, the teachers and community members who spoke to the board on Tuesday universally praised Gill and expressed regret at his departure.
Coyote Valley Elementary Principal Matt Coit, wearing a t-shirt with the words “Be Kind” on it, referred to all of the district’s issues in speaking to the board on Tuesday night.
Himself a graduate of district schools, Coit said Middletown has always been an amazing district. However, over the past year, and especially in the past five months, “I’ve seen our district start to crack and now crumble.”
Coit said he’s sat through meetings watching teachers be called child abusers, and compared to Nazis and those who enforced apartheid in South Africa. “We’re in this business because we genuinely love students. So to be called these things is absolutely soul-crushing.”
He added, “This sustained hate-filled hyperbolic rhetoric is destroying our community and the district that we love with it.”
Coit said he’s seen teachers bullied online and in person, and qualified members pushed off the board. “I’ve now seen the best superintendent of my career pushed over the edge.”
He said he’s afraid for the district and its students. “If this hate and vitriol continue unchecked I fear that soon there may be no district left.”
Coit issued a plea to the silent majority in the middle of the political spectrum, asking them to help combat hate with love and say enough is enough.
He quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Middletown High teacher Jennifer Pyzer, a previous county educator of the year, thanked Gill and the board for finding him, and said she hopes they can find another good superintendent.
“These last few months have been the most productive months our school district has had in three years,” she said, adding they have more work to do.
She said people are willing to step up and help carry the workload. “We want to see our district succeed,” and not to lose its momentum.
“I really want to focus on how great we are,” said Pyzer. “We have some great things going on here.”
Allisun Moore, a fourth grade teacher at Coyote Valley Elementary, read the board a letter she had planned to present at its regular meeting later this month lauding Gill. She thanked them for hiring him and said they may never be able to find another Tim Gill.
Jeremy Rarick also lauded Gill, who he said he deeply respected. However, Rarick blamed “highly political teachers” for forcing their views on students and contributing to the tensions in the district.
“Tim Gill cannot stand to be in the middle of this COVID fight any longer,” said Rarick, who added that Gill is probably one of the best superintendents the district has ever had.
After hearing public comment, the board voted 4-0 to accept Gill’s resignation.
In a statement issued to Lake County News after the meeting, the Middletown Unified School Board thanked Gill for his extraordinary service and dedication to the district in his short tenure as superintendent.
“His vision and guidance will endure and continue to carry this district forward,” the statement said.
The board said it will fill the superintendent vacancy through the appointment of an interim superintendent as soon as possible.
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