VICTORVILLE— (March 11) The Excelsior Charter School Board and its interim top administrator have declined to clarify what form of a severance package was conferred upon former superintendent Bill Flynn and former assistant superintendent of student services Minda Stackelhouse when they made their departure from Excelsior last month.
The board was equally vague about what prompted it to put Flynn and Stackelhouse on administrative leave in early February, although unofficial statements emanating from faculty members indicated Stackelhouse had been overbearing and unduly insulting in dealing with employees and Flynn had indulged her in her management style. In the immediate aftermath of the board’s action, Flynn and Stackelhouse retained the services of attorney Diana Carloni-Nourse, who protested the administrative leave as a violation of Flynn’s $165,000 per year contract running through December 31, 2018 and Stackelhouse’s $127,727 per year contract running through June 30, 2017. At a February 10 board meeting Carloni Nourse indicated the pair would seek reinstatement or whatever was due them under the terms of their contracts.
On February 19, Flynn and Stackelhouse resigned, but no indication was given as to whether they were to be paid the money due them under their contracts, whether the contracts had been bought out at a percentage of their full worth or whether they were paid only through February 19.
Excelsior Charter Schools is a public entity, chartered under the authority of the Victor Valley Union High School District, serving students in grades seven to twelve. It consists of five schools, two in Victorville and one each in Phelan and Barstow as well as in Norco in Riverside County.
Excelsior Acting Superintendent Peter Wright did not return any of four phone calls, including one left with his secretary in which the Sentinel’s inquiry into the terms under which Flynn and Stackelhouse departed was explicitly stated. Neither did Victor Valley Union High School District Superintendent Ron Williams respond to questions about what monitoring the High School District is doing of money spent by the charter school organization it is sponsoring.