Interesting read here.
[h=1]Emails seemed to signal Johnson was on way out[/h]
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[h=3]Ron Johnson coaches the McKinley football team from the sidelines during a game last season.[/h]
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By Todd Porter
CantonRep.com staff writer
Posted Jan 29, 2012 @ 07:00 AM
Last update Jan 30, 2012 @ 10:17 AM
CANTON —
The superintendent of Canton City Schools and members of its board of education should not have been surprised the night Ron Johnson was fired as McKinley High School’s football coach.
Emails in the five weeks before the Jan. 9 vote show Superintendent Michele Evans and some board members discussing how to time a vote on renewing the coach’s contract to avoid controversy.
From the context of the emails, obtained by The Repository in response to a public records request, it is clear some board members were signaling their opposition to Johnson as early as a month before the vote.
Later emails, sent three days before the vote, indicated more strongly that Johnson could be fired.
And one incoming board member openly declared her opposition to Johnson a few hours before the vote.
Immediately after Johnson was fired, Evans said she had had no idea how the board would vote on her recommendation to renew Johnson’s contract. Presented with the emails on Friday, Evans continued to express her surprise at the outcome.
The Johnson vote, she said, was the first time in her five years as superintendent that a board did not take her recommendation on a personnel matter.
“We’ve had discussions on people in the past,” Evans said in an interview. “I have board meetings once a month for five years. That’s 60 board meetings, and this was a first for me.”
The emails in question were those sent by Evans and past and current board members from November through the Jan. 9 vote.
• • •
Johnson’s contract saga goes back to last spring, when Evans recommended him for a three-year continuing teaching contract. Officially, Johnson is employed as a teacher under one contract that pays him $62,397. He had a supplemental contract as coach paying an additional $8,079.
In April, his teaching contract came before the board of education — made up then of Wilbur Allen III, Jennifer Keaton, Richard Milligan, Nadine McIlwain and Eric Resnick. Evans recommended approval.
The board split 2-2 on the teaching contract, with McIlwain absent, which resulted in approving the contract. Ohio law requires a super majority (four of five votes) to overturn a superintendent’s recommendation for teaching contracts. A simple majority is needed for supplemental contracts, such as those given to coaches.
Even then, Johnson was not guaranteed to return as McKinley’s football coach. His supplemental contract for the 2011 season did not come before the board until June, to allow time for his supervisor, Canton City Schools Director of Physical Activities Lynn Wafler, to evaluate him. Johnson received generally high marks on his evaluation
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