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Central Unified School District is embarking on a search for a new superintendent. Based on the district’s recent history, the candidates who apply might want to know that it likely won’t be a long-term gig, but it could come with a fabulous parting gift.

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The severance costs haven’t been so fabulous for Central Unified taxpayers who have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars since 2018 to three departing superintendents, Mark Sutton, Andy Alvarado, and Ketti Davis. Sutton and Davis were terminated without cause (meaning that they hadn’t done anything wrong but the trustees just didn’t want them in the top job anymore), and Alvarado voluntarily resigned after his arrest on domestic violence charges.

How much has that turnover cost the district? Hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary, accrued vacation, and health benefits.

Sutton, who was fired in 2018 on a split board vote, got 3½ months of salary totaling about $59,000, plus health and benefit coverage through the end of his contract on June 30, 2018. Sutton had started as superintendent in July 2015 and was being paid $201,571 yearly when he was let go after the board voted against a contract extension. A community effort to have him reinstated failed but led to a recall effort against several trustees.

Related Story: Did Voters Oust Central Unified Trustees Over Sutton Firing?

Assistant Superintendent Kelly Porterfield filled in as interim superintendent until the board hired Andy Alvarado, formerly superintendent at Golden Valley Unified School District, in July 2018. Alvarado had been scheduled for a pay boost on July 1, 2021 to $220,757, providing he received a positive annual evaluation. It’s unclear whether that evaluation ever occurred, since the board put him on paid administrative leave in June after his arrest on a domestic violence charge.

Under the separation agreement signed in August 2021, in exchange for Alvarado’s voluntary resignation the district paid him six months of salary totaling $110,378.50 and “gross accrued vacation” totaling $10,559.30.

Related Story: Central Unified Pays $121K in Severance to Former Schools Chief

Positive Evaluations but Still Got Fired

Ketti Davis, then an assistant superintendent, was named acting superintendent until the board appointed her as superintendent in May 2022, with a starting salary of $215,373. She was scheduled to get pay raises every year if she got positive evaluations, and after three satisfactory evaluations her annual salary had been boosted to $226,276 and the contract term extended to June 30, 2028.

Under the terms of her contract, Davis was entitled to 12 months of pay as well as accrued vacation if she was terminated without cause. Under the terms of the separation agreement, Davis agreed to be available as needed to assist interim superintendent Eimear O’Brien, Clovis Unified’s retired superintendent who is running for Fresno County Superintendent of Schools in 2026.

Meanwhile, Central is gearing up to find Superintendent 4.0 and has hired Leadership Associates to help with the search. Leadership Associates is the same firm that Fresno Unified initially brought on last year for its superintendent search. But the Southern California-based company withdrew after then-Board President Susan Wittrup and community leaders successfully lobbied to have the search widened beyond internal candidates.

Tell Trustees What You Want in the New Superintendent

Central wants to hear from you: The district has scheduled community input meetings to gather “desired personal and professional qualities anticipated in the incoming superintendent.”

The meetings will be held next week at the following locations and times:

• Monday, May 12, 5:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m., Glacier Point Middle School library, 4055 N. Bryan Ave.; 7 p.m.-8 p.m., Rio Vista Middle School cafeteria, 6240 W. Palo Alto Ave.
• Tuesday, May 13: 6 p.m.-7 p.m., Houghton-Kearney K-8 cafeteria, 8905 W. Kearney Blvd.
• Wednesday, May 14: 5:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m., Teague Community Resource Center, 4718 N. Polk Ave.; 7 p.m.-8 p.m., Paaras Youth Center, 5470 W. Spruce Ave., Suite 103.
• Thursday, May 15: 5:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m., El Capitan Middle School Cafeteria, 4443 W. Weldon Ave.; 7 p.m.-8 p.m., Biola-Pershing Elementary School cafeteria, 4885 N. Biola Ave.

Spanish and Punjabi interpreters will be on hand.

What’s Your Favorite High School Mascot?

High school mascots can be a source of controversy over the name or logo (remember the Fresno High W’s?) but also a source of amusement. School Zone’s eye was drawn to a recent news release by a firm that apparently doesn’t do much more than schedule tournaments — this one was to attract votes for the best high school mascot.

Coalinga High’s Horned Toads made the West Region’s Sweet 16, vying against Las Vegas Equipo Academy’s Yeti, Hutto High’s Hutto Hippos (apparently the name was inspired on the Texas school’s gridiron when a visiting coach said his team would be hard-pressed to beat Hutto’s because the players were “as big as hippos”), and Marshall County Central High’s Northern Freeze. That seems like a logical mascot for a school in Newfolden, Minnesota that’s only a short drive from the Canada border.

Sadly, Coalinga’s mascot did not make the West Region’s final four, the tournament organizers announced this week.

School Zone has an affinity for unusual mascot names. While she was in college there was a vigorous debate about renaming the Northwestern Wildcats the “Purple Haze.” Apparently less purply heads prevailed, even though there was a strong case to be made in light of Alabama’s Crimson Tide. And in one of School Zone’s first reporting gigs, she was introduced to the Fightin’ Sandcrabs of Seabreeze High in Daytona Beach, Florida.

What are some of the more unusual mascots you’ve heard about, and what’s your favorite?

Congrats to the Valley’s State Spelling Champ!

The Valley is once again sending a champion speller to the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Sarvadnya Kadam, a 14-year-old Tulare resident, won the California State Spelling Bee junior high championship last month, beating out 43 other junior high students as he successfully spelled words such asdatiscaceae (which School Zone could not find a definition of while using Google’s search engine or in her Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary), lagniappe (a bonus gift), and walpurgite (a rare and radioactive mineral).

Sarvadnya, an eighth grader at Oak Grove Elementary, is making his third trip to the national spell-off. He tied for 23rd place in 2023 and 60th place in 2024.

Here are some fun facts about Sarvadnya, courtesy of the Scripps website:

• His name in Sanskrit means “the one who knows all.”
• His favorite food is pav bhaji (a tasty blend of vegetables with a buttered bun).
• He would love to have dinner with Harvard University professor and Egyptologist Peter Der Manuelian, who is known for his work in the Giza Necropolis. (Maybe someone in the Valley’s vast Armenian-American community has a connection to Der Manuelian and can help make that last wish come true? The Scripps National Spelling Bee will be in the Washington, D.C. area in late May, and Washington is but a short train ride away from the Hahvahd Yahd.)

Sarvadnya won’t be the only Valley kid vying at Nationals: Caroline Van Garsse, an eighth grader at Clovis Unified’s Alta Sierra Intermediate, is sponsored by the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools.