In a split vote Wednesday evening, the Antioch Unified School Board failed to remove District Superintendent Stephanie Anello despite repeated complaints from employees that she and other district officials had turned a blind eye toward a supervisor’s continued bullying, including placing one employee’s desk on a district roof.
Board President Antonio Hernandez announced the 2-3 vote following a closed-door session Wednesday evening. Anello, who was named superintendent in 2016, was not at the meeting and reportedly has been out sick since a few days after news reports surfaced in mid-April about AUSD’s handling of hostile work environment complaints about the head of district maintenance, facilities and operations.
Hernandez had called for Anello’s resignation – and later her removal – after it came to light in recent weeks that employees had for months accused Ken Turnage II of bullying, harassment and intimidation them. Some workers quit or retired early, they said.
The employees, at least four who filed written complaints, accused Anello of protecting Turnage because her husband, former Antioch Police Chief Allan Cantando, is close friends with him. Only recently was Turnage put on paid administrative leave.
“I have one question for you tonight, who is running our district right now?” AUSD purchasing technician Kim Atkinson, who worked with Turnage, asked. “We are in crisis without a leader.”
In a standing-room only meeting on Wednesday, employees and others took turns at the podium, most frustrated that nothing was done early on to fix the mess. Turnage, meanwhile, has not returned calls seeking comment.
Kim Atkinson, an employee with the Antioch Unified School District, expresses her discontent with AUSD board members during a meeting at the AUSD Office Board Room in Antioch, Calif., on Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
Atkinson said that Liz Robbins, associate superintendent for business operations, on Saturday accompanied the maintenance manager to the district annex near where Atkinson works and both emerged with files.
“What files does he need when he’s on administrative leave?” she said.
After run-ins with the maintenance manager, Atkinson said she feared retribution and had told the district she was afraid for her safety, but no one warned her he would be at the office. He still had keys and used a code to disarm the alarms, she said.Atkinson has said Turnage had told her she could put her printer on the roof when she asked him what to do with it, in reference to a desk of another employee that he allegedly had others hoist up on the roof with a forklift, leaving a sign with his name propped up against the school building wall.
“They never saw it as a problem,” Brian Atkinson, president of the local Chapter 85 of the California School Employees Association, told Bay Area News Group shortly before Wednesday’s school board meeting. “They think he was trying to play a joke to build camaraderie in the yard.”
But following the incident, the longtime employee asked to file a grievance and go through the proper human resources channels, which is why they didn’t go to the school board sooner, the union leader said.
He also reported that the classified union’s executive board had taken a vote of no-confidence this week against the district’s upper cabinet, including Rob Martinez of human resources, Robbins of business operations and Christine Ibarra, associate superintendent of educational services.
“I’m angry, I’m very frustrated,” he said of the district’s inaction. “We have tried to keep this behind closed doors, we’ve tried for 18 months to go down the proper chain, file grievances … We come back and it’s ‘Nah, we didn’t see anything here, that was just a joke’ – that desk on the roof. Two people thought it was funny. That’s in the paperwork.”
The district has said little other than that there will be independent investigations, which Martinez will head.
Patricia Granados, meanwhile, said she would begin recall efforts for trustees Gary Hack, Mary Roch and Clyde Lewis, all of whom had said they could not attend two previous special closed-door board meetings when Anello’s evaluation and potential termination were on the agenda.
“You were all absent for the emergency meetings that were important, because leadership starts at the top,” she said. “And minimizing the experience of the victims here is just shameful.”
Devin Williams also said he was disappointed that the same three trustees could not make it to either of the two special meetings and that school cabinet members all walked out of the last meeting when a quorum wasn’t reached.
“I implore you guys to take this stuff seriously,” he said. “The fish does rot from the head and it has been shown that the fish is rotting from the head when it comes to the school district.”
Nicole Arrington said Anello “needs to go away” and everyone who is complicit with allowing bullying should do the same.
“It’s amazing how people don’t want children to be bullies, but adults are the biggest bullies there are,” she said. “It’s literal adult high school.”
Yadira Joy said the bullying issue should have been resolved “a long time ago.” She added that she was worried that school renovation projects that were supposed to be covered by the recently approved bond measure would be delayed as a result.
One resident, though, offered her support for Anello.
“I have known her as an administrator for 20 years and I have found her to be kind and listen to what people say. She is motivated by children and employees of the district,” Lori Rodriguez said. “I don’t understand what is going on. I would like to question your motives and why you have created this media circus. I can’t imagine that this is helping our district stay student-focused.”
During board comments, Trustee Rocha said she couldn’t go to the first special board meeting because it was her birthday weekend. Trustee Lewis said he wasn’t given enough notice.
Rocha also said the board must allow the human resources department to “go through the procedures and processes.”
“We should be patient and allow the process to work and plan to complete an evaluation of the superintendent, which is our responsibility as a board in closed session and not in public,” she said of Anello, who has not had an evaluation since 2020.
